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CHAPTER SIX 
RIVER
I debate going home. I shouldn’t continue my operation when the VRC are literally breathing down Huang’s neck. I should consider this one a loss and move on. But I’m already behind schedule. My plan to have this all done in a month is slowly becoming a joke. And what if something happens that keeps me from having that full month? I never know what’s going to happen.
I know that if I went to the VRC and told them what I know, they might look into it, but these monsters have protected themselves for years. They have so much in place to keep themselves from ever getting caught that I’m positive there’s someone on the inside protecting them. How else could they have gotten away with this for years? And as soon as they figured out I was behind it, I’d be dead.
Because I’m a human, they probably think this whole thing is nothing more than a joke. They’re not afraid of me, so I have to show them that they shouldn’t write off a human, and then I have to get them to confess. I have to show the world proof that these people are monsters who have ruined countless lives including my own.
Once Huang leaves the club, I realize the VRC don’t follow. Instead, they all head off in opposite directions, making me wonder if there was something about Huang at the club that they were looking into. Since he seems to be alone, I head toward his home, taking a different route than him and speeding to beat him there. It’s not what I had in mind, but I have to do this tonight.
I park not far from his house on the side of the road about twenty feet from his driveway and apply my heavy cologne. Once I’m in position, I pop the hood and wait.
It’s about an hour before he shows and I’d almost given up since I started to assume he went home with someone and wasn’t planning on coming back. Just when I’d almost headed for home, his car comes rumbling down the road in the dark of the night. I wave my arms this way and that, really hoping it’s him and not someone else in a vehicle that looks similar to his. He immediately slows and rolls the window down before getting a look at me, which instantly has him smiling.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?” he asks.
“My car’s broken down and my phone is out of battery. Can you help me?”
His smile widens. “Of course. Someone as delectable as you shouldn’t be out here all alone in the middle of the night.”
I return his smile while wondering who would actually like his disgusting comments. Delectable? I’m not a fucking piece of chocolate. “Well, then it’s great you were here to save me. Can I use your phone?”
“Of course, but I left it at home. See that house right there?” Huang waves to it even though I know he didn’t leave his phone at home. “That’s mine. You can use the landline.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. After shutting the hood of my car, I grab the door to his with my gloved hand and pull it open. I throw my hood up to help keep any stray hairs from falling or anything to give me away before I slip in the car, leaving the door open, because I need to have a quick out.
“It’s a little cool out tonight. Aren’t you cold?” he asks as he sets a hand on my leg. He doesn’t care if he creeps me out or not; he knows he’s strong enough to control me or hurt me if I try to run.
I lean into him and give him a flirtatious smile. “I am… are you going to warm me up or am I going to have to wait for the tow truck driver to do it?” I tease.
He chuckles as he leans into me. “I think I can help you out.”
I discreetly pull the needle out of my pocket and hold it in my hand as I reach for him and set my hand against his chest. “That’d be pretty kind of you,” I say as I draw my hand back a little and slam the needle into him. I push the plunger hard before lunging out of the car, knowing that I need to move before he understands what happened and reacts.
“You fucking asshole!” he growls as he fights against his seat belt, giving me time to get in my car and lock the doors. I start it and throw it into reverse as he comes staggering out of his vehicle. I need two minutes. Two minutes for the drug to spread throughout his body and paralyze him enough that I can deal with him.
He’s still moving fast since he’s quite old and I’m beginning to question if two minutes is far too much time for me to die. He’s running toward my car as I press down hard on the accelerator. Thankfully, he lives in the middle of fucking nowhere because he’s screaming and cussing at me as I reverse and realize just how long two minutes is. His fist slams down on the hood of my car, making the metal groan. Then he grabs onto the door as he begins to beat against the glass, and I wonder if I’m not going to get away fast enough. Then he trips forward, slamming down into the road where he wallows around for a few moments before coming to a rest.
Fuck. That could have gone smoother.
Once I’m positive he’s not getting back up, I drive my car off the road and into the grass. As I walk over to Huang, I get out with my gun ready, in case he’s not fully down, and nudge him with my foot. When I’m satisfied, I pull on a plastic raincoat and pants so I don’t leave hair or prints anywhere and get into his car. Maneuvering him into the car and back to his house takes me about ten minutes, much longer than I’d hoped. When I see the security alarm on the door, I realize we’ll have to do this outside, but he doesn’t have neighbors for miles so what’s it matter? I drag him into the backyard, not realizing that to get into it from this side, I’d have to cut through a row of rosebushes. They catch the plastic raincoat as I tug him through, not caring at all about his welfare as long as I don’t leave a single drop of my blood behind.
I chain him down, and just in time because he’s older and already starting to wake. When he comes to, he’s just in a wooden chair, but the way he’s strapped down will keep him from going far even if he breaks it.
When his eyes lock on to mine, the hatred in them is apparent. “I’m going to fucking kill you. I know your face now. How the fuck do you think you’re going to get out of this?”
“I actually don’t care,” I say. I kneel in front of him as he yanks against the vampire-proof chains. “Because I know you’re not going to tell anyone. I honestly don’t really mind if you do.”
“Fuck you.”
“Because if you give them my description and they do figure out who I am, they’ll find out that I’m dead. And I think they might get curious and start looking into why I’m listed as dead and who would have mistakenly jotted me down as deceased. You see it, don’t you? You see how all of this ties into fucking you over. So by all means, tell them what I look like. Just know that they’ll be coming for you next.”
His face twitches. “Oh, fuck you. You have nothing on me.”
“Where’s the girl you bought?” I ask.
He gives me a wicked grin. “Oh? Was she some lover of yours or something? Is this a vendetta thing?”
“No, I barely even knew her, but I know you bought her, and I want to know where she is.”
“Which one?” he asks, still seeming to be amused. The thing about vampires is that when they’re up against a human, they’re always so fucking confident that they’re going to win. That they’re going to come out on top.
“Where?”
“They’re all just sniffing the roses, ya know? They want to smell pretty.” He seems to think his joke is hilarious.
I glance over at the rosebushes I’d struggled through on my way in. When I look back, the way his face twitches tells me that he said something he’s now thinking he shouldn’t have. If I’m going to start digging, I’ll need something more than my hands, so when I notice a shed, I walk over to it. Right inside, leaning against a wheelbarrow, is a shovel which I grab.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growls as he starts thrashing harder.
“You told me they were with the roses.”
His panic is apparent as he fights as hard as he can. “I didn’t… fuck! I didn’t tell you they were with the roses! Fuck!”
I walk down the row of roses until I find a freshly planted one. I slip my shovel into the loose dirt and toss it out, digging the rose up with ease. The vampire is frantic as I dig, telling me that I’m closer than I thought. He was the idiot who gave it all away, all because I’m a weak human he thought he had no reason to fear.
I keep an eye on him as I dig deeper and deeper into the dirt. A part of me feels sick that what I might find is a woman I’d once talked to. Another part of me questions why I’m doing this. Can I even save any of them? I’m just one person. One weak human caught up in a whirlwind of bullshit.
Would Bentley help if I told him? Would he trust me or believe me, instead of these politicians, these celebrities, these old and influential vampires who would ruin me without lifting a finger? They have so much on their side and what do I have? A camera and some money?
The shovel catches on something and I look down into the hole lit by my flashlight. The smell hits me as my shovel disrupts what looks like a stained sheet.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” Huang growls.
With the head of my shovel, I try to clear away some of the dirt to find the edge of the sheet, and when I do, I pull it back enough to see a finger peeking through the dirt.
I reel back as nausea hits me, but I can’t throw up. I can’t let this affect me. I have to keep moving.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you,” he repeats.
Focus. I have to focus.
I go over to my bag and start to set things up as quickly as I can because I need to get out of here. I need to get away from the body, from the death, from this fucking vampire.
My hands are shaking as I set the camera up and zoom in on him. “You’re going to confess everything,” I tell him, even though I know he won’t. But he doesn’t have to this time. I have proof.
He’s lying on his side, chair too broken to lift him.
“I will tear you apart limb from limb,” he growls.
I switch the camera on and turn it to the live feed. The moment I do, the moment the camera goes live, his entire body changes.
“Help me! Please! Help me! This psychopath has me locked up at my house!” Huang cries.
Fuck. I’m such an idiot. I was going to gag him and keep him silent about that, but I was so distraught about the body I forgot how easily he could blurt out that we’re at his house. Why am I such an idiot?
New plan.
I grab the camera and carry it with me over to the roses. If he won’t confess anything, I’ll show the whole world his crimes.
“NO! NO!” Huang screams. “No! You FUCKING—”
The moment the hole is in sight, I hear the chain break and I freeze. I don’t know if I get the ghostly white hand in the shot or not, but I know I have different things to worry about.
I drop the camera and pull out my gun as I turn. He slams me into the ground, pain tearing into my side as I’m thrown onto my back. “Now I’m going to fucking kill you,” he growls.
I pull my arm free as he grabs my head and slams it into the ground just as I pull the trigger. He howls out, telling me I hit something. Then he falls back, giving me a closer view as I shoot him in the head again, thankful he’s close enough each bullet hits. The bullets are specialized to put a vampire down for good. I don’t have many of them left, and I just panicked and wasted four of them on him.
I know I don’t have time to do anything. I barely have time to clean up because the VRC will be here within minutes. I grab my stuff, shutting it all down to fuck up the connection and shoving it into my bag. My side aches, telling me I’m probably bleeding, so I grab the oxygenated bleach out of my bag and pour it onto his hand that clawed me. I scrub it hard and just keep pouring. I don’t know if it’ll disrupt my DNA enough for them to not get a reading on me, I don’t know if it’ll have enough time, but I just pray luck is with me as I run around the side of the house without the rosebushes and race to my car.
“Fuck, fuck,” I whisper as I toss the bag into the passenger seat and start the car, hoping I didn’t leave anything behind at the scene, especially blood. I have the car running ninety as I head away from the direction of the city, assuming they’ll come from that way. My side aches and I can feel blood, but I can’t waste time checking. I need to get home and just hope everything will be okay.
      
BENTLEY
When I walk onto the scene with Marcus and the others, Finn shakes his head.
“We were literally tailing this guy a couple of hours ago and now he’s dead,” he says as we walk over to the body lying in the grass.
Marcus breathes in. “I can smell bleach, so be careful. The killer was obviously trying to hide something. Maybe Huang managed to cut him. Karysn, can you and a team get on that?”
The smell of blood and bleach is overwhelming, but there’s another smell that’s trying to push through.
“So what was in the hole?” Finn asks as he makes a wide berth around the body to avoid ruining evidence and heads over to the hole we barely got a glimpse of before the killer was pummeled to the ground. The internet went wild with their guesses of bodies and other things that might be in it.
Finn squats down as I step up next to him and look into the hole where I see a pale and dirty hand, half hidden by dirt. “Well, so the killer knew Huang had a body in the backyard,” Finn says.
“Or bodies,” I say as I notice the rosebush tossed to the side. There are multiple other rosebushes of varying sizes, almost like every one was planted at a different time.
Finn looks up at what I noticed. “I’ll get a team out and we’ll start hunting.”
“So if this man has bodies… do the others?” I ask curiously.
Finn glances over at me with a raised eyebrow. “You think our governor has bodies and this guy is like some vendetta hero or something?”
I sigh because it sounds ridiculous. “Well… no, he just killed a man and is playing a twisted game when he could just come to the police… never mind.”
Finn pats my shoulder. “Nah, I understand. I’m just asking.”
As he calls forensics, I survey the yard. I can smell the person again, thick cologne masking their scent. If I follow it, it smells like he came from just a little way down the road. I can also smell it inside Huang’s car, which will be examined inch by inch in case there are any stray hairs or prints.
The first body they pull out is a young woman, recently buried. Probably within the past three or four days. Just from looking at her, she appears to have been bitten multiple times and drained. She’s wearing a dress that shows she’s been bitten on her neck and thigh, and the bruising around her wrists tells a story of how she’d been tied or restrained somehow. The autopsy will show us more, but sadly, hers isn’t the only body. They pull up four more bodies, each in different stages of decay.
While that happens, they get the cadaver dogs out to search the entire premises, since Huang was quite wealthy and owned a lot of land. Surprisingly, he didn’t have security cameras, but sometimes vampires tend to think they’re above everyone else and don’t need protection.
“So cause of death was three bullet shots to the head, telling me he had something in his bullets. We heard four bullets on the recording but one must have missed. I wonder if the bullets are similar to what Perry’s men were making and using?” Finn asks. Perry had been in charge of a group of humans who’d been hellbent on the eradication of vampires by causing turmoil between the vampires and humans. What made them particularly lethal was the weapons they used on them. Marcus, a true vampire, had been shot with one, which had severely wounded him and left him struggling to heal, so it’s no wonder three would kill a vampire if they were the same.
“Almost has to be,” Marcus says.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVEN 
BENTLEY
I knock on the door to River’s apartment. It’s Sunday afternoon and I hadn’t heard from him this morning, but we’d made plans days ago for me to pick him up on Sunday. My night at the VRC went late and I never did get any sleep. While everyone else was heading home to sleep, I found myself wanting to see River. So after a shower and a change of clothes, I headed straight over. I know he said he didn’t want anything to come of this, but I’ve been appreciating the companionship during this time when I feel like the world is nothing but a dark place. It gives me something to fixate on besides Dorothy.
The door opens and River looks up at me with pajamas on and wide eyes. “Shit.”
“I take it you forgot?” I ask.
“Not forgot. Lost track of time. After you left, my buddy finally arrived and then we stayed up stupid late. Do you want to come in and I can get ready if you want to go out, or if you just want to stay here, I can remain in my pajamas?”
“Staying in sounds amazing. I’m exhausted,” I say as I step into the small but cozy apartment.
“Did your work end up going late?”
I nod, finding myself oddly rejuvenated just from seeing him. “All night, actually. I’m sure you heard about the latest in this internet streamer case?” I ask, knowing I’m not allowed to give him too many details.
He shakes his head. “I actually haven’t gotten on social media today and my interest in the news is next to none, so I didn’t hear. I slept, watched TV, and was working on this project of mine.”
“Well, he went live again last night, attacked the guy we’d been following.”
His eyes get wide. “No shit? Were you there when it happened? Did you catch him?”
“No. Of course, we had stopped following Huang for the evening since he was leaving the club, and what we were interested in is what he was doing at the club. So yeah, we basically missed all of that. Bad timing on our part, I guess.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe he left something behind at the crime scene or maybe he’ll mess up or something. I really don’t know how this goes. I watch crime shows if that helps.”
I smile at him. “Hopefully, we’ll find something. He killed this time, and we need to get him to stop before he kills again.”
“Ooh, you telling me insider info?” River asks, wide-eyed and clearly curious.
“No, trust me. That info is already all over everything. Pretty much everyone but you has heard it.”
“I’m sure you’re tired of stuff involving work, so what if I introduce you to Banshee?” he says as he hurries off, leaving me in the front room which is a split between the living room and the kitchen. It’s small but clean and clearly well taken care of.
He returns with a yowling cat in his arms. She looks very displeased about being interrupted from her nap as he holds her. She has scraggly-looking long hair in patches that’s clearly trying to grow back from a bad clip job.
“She was really matted when I found her. I promise that I don’t actually enjoy having my cat look like I took a weed whacker to her,” River says.
“The coat is beautiful. Did you do it yourself?” I ask while trying not to grin.
“The neighbor and I did it. He smelled like weed so strongly that I was high by the end of the experience, and he was convinced we were so good at it that we should open our own pet grooming shop. I might have agreed at some point and thought the name We Whack Pets was a good idea.”
“It sounds like you murder them. Is it one where you have to pay the people instead of them paying you?” I tease.
He grins at me. “It might be worth it. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed so hard. It was therapeutic. She looks so much better than she did, too! Want to hold her?”
I eye the cat that is looking at me with hatred in her eyes. She looks displeased with my very presence. “She looks like she’s about ready to skin my face off. I’m positive she’s glaring at me.”
“Yeah, she pretty much hates everyone,” he says as he squeezes her to him, looking delighted as he does so. I’m not sure why I find it so ridiculously cute. “We could watch a movie or just awkwardly stare into each other’s eyes and talk about our deepest, darkest secrets.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s up to you.”
“The latter, please. I prefer awkwardness and creepily staring at people,” I joke.
He grins and heads over to the couch. “Alright. Perfect choice, my man.” He plops down on the worn couch and turns to face me. I’m surprised when the cat doesn’t run away but sits her butt down on his lap and begins kneading his pants. Maybe I was wrong and she just looks like she hates life all the time because that’s the only way her face can look.
I sit down beside him as the cat purrs merrily on his lap. “What’s her name again?” I ask as I reach to pet her.
“Banshee,” he says as the cat, quick as that, swipes my hand, digging her claws into it as she hisses at me.
River looks a bit horrified. “I’m so sorry. She’s really grumpy like ninety-nine percent of the time. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, since the scratch has already healed. “I think she only likes you.”
“She’s never really been around other people. She bit the neighbor, but I thought it was just because of us pinning her down to trim her. I didn’t know she’d hate everyone.”
“At least she’s cute,” I say.
He starts laughing as he squeezes her to him, which I still find so fucking adorable for some reason.
“Why the name Banshee?”
He rubs the top of her head for a moment. “She likes to yowl when she doesn’t get her way.”
“Makes sense.”
“Oh, shit, I forgot about the awkwardly staring you in the eyes part,” he says as he quickly looks up and catches my eyes with dramatically wide ones.
“You forgot the telling each other our deepest, darkest secrets part too,” I remind him.
“Right! So, I’ve already told you about my ice cream fetish. I usually wait until the fifth date to tell anyone about that, but it’s too late.”
“It’s a fetish now?”
“Yes… maybe. Does it turn you on or off?”
I grin at him. “Kind of indifferent, really.”
He looks amused. “Okay, I can handle that. What about you?”
“Well…” I try to think of something as ridiculous as the ice cream, but I really don’t have much going on in my life that isn’t horribly normal and boring. It’s like without Dorothy in it, do I even have a life? All of my good memories are with her. “Okay. I got it. This might… be a bit much for you to handle, but… I’m… I’m…” I take a deep breath. “A vampire.”
River gasps and pins Banshee to his chest like he has to protect her. “No!”
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.”
“I’ve been deceived. It’s no wonder why you’re in that vampire mob group or vampire mafia group, or whatever it is where you have to look sexy and terrifying at the same time.”
I start laughing at his extremely strange definition of the VRC. “I’m with law enforcement.”
He shakes his head. “You guys were terrifying. You were the only normal acting one. That one guy was like when you’re having a dream and this extremely sexy guy comes along and you’re like ‘oh man, I could climb that beast’ and then they’re actually like this horrifying monster with thousands of needle teeth that’s trying to suck you in to tear you apart. That’s what the tall one was like.”
Oh, how I wish Finn could hear this description of Marcus. He’d find it so entertaining.
“And the one with the accent? I felt like I was just breathing wrong every time he looked my way.”
“Alexei is actually kind of sweet when you get to know him!” I assure him. Although… from the outside, I can see how he’d give that impression. He’s only interested in showing certain people that gentle side of him.
“That little human has to be weird to just go along with it!”
“Finn? Finn’s like the nicest person ever. I feel bad for him, though.”
“Why?” River asks curiously.
“I guess he had a really bad childhood and ended up in a car accident with his mother. She died and he lost his arm and leg.”
“What? Really? I didn’t even notice.”
“He keeps it hidden quite well. I can’t help but wonder what all happened. Even what I told you is a secret. He hasn’t shared any of this. But a vampire ended up taking him.”
“Taking him?” River’s expression tightens a little and I question, not for the first time, if something happened between him and a vampire. The way he reacted when I touched his neck tipped me off. I’ve been around enough human victims to know that ones that have been bitten tend to get very anxious when someone is touching their neck. He wears his hair almost to his shoulders, so it’s hard to tell if he has any scars, but if he’s only been bitten once, the scar wouldn’t be extremely apparent.
“Adopting him. Not like forcefully taking him. But taking him in. He calls him his father and he’s really close to him from what I’ve heard.”
“Oh,” he says as he relaxes a little.
“You ever had any issues with vampires?” I ask.
He holds up one finger and nods. “Yes! This one time I was like in this place and I was slurping away on my smoothie and this vampire terrified the shit out of me and then sat down and started reading unicorn porn and I’ve been traumatized ever since.”
I grab for him. “Oh my god! I did not harass you with unicorn porn! I’m going to pin you down and read the entire book to you.”
He starts laughing as I give his hand a gentle shake. “Now he’s threatening me,” River says, as though any of this is actually happening. Banshee, having enough of River’s dramatics, jumps off his lap.
“Oh no, what will you ever do about that?” I ask as I grab his leg and pull him closer to me.
“Maybe if I fool the vampire into thinking I’m into unicorn porn it’ll help,” he says as he hooks his arms over my neck and pulls himself into me. “Neigh to me, vampire.”
I try not to snort as I lean into him. “Everyone knows unicorns don’t neigh, those are horses,” I joke.
“What do they say, then? Ravish me like the stud I am? Can I horn you? Touch my horn, you dirty boy? I’m feeling awfully horny today?”
“Is this my life now? Bad unicorn puns?”
He leans into me, lips merely an inch from mine. “Maybe. Do you like them?”
“Maybe,” I say, wanting to lean in and kiss him, but also afraid of scaring him like I did last time. “Are you okay? I smell blood.”
“Me?” River asks as he looks up at me.
“I guess.”
“I rammed my hip into the corner of the bathroom counter when Banshee pummeled my leg, but it’s just a scratch. Can you smell that well?”
I breathe him in. “Maybe my senses are heightened around you,” I say as I lean into him.
“This is just for fun, right?” River asks. “Nothing can come of this.”
“Sure,” I say, ready to agree with anything at the moment just so I can kiss him. Just so I can feel his lips on mine again because they make me feel things I haven’t felt in years.
“I just need that clear,” he says before leaning into me and kissing my lips gently, almost like he’s testing it out before he pulls himself onto my lap and presses into me.
I don’t know why I’m so drawn into this kiss. Why this man pulls me in unlike anyone else has in years. When I’m not with him, I think about him. When I’m with him, I’m infatuated by him. But he’s made it clear that he isn’t looking for a relationship, so I have to respect that. And it’s fine. I feel like part of my interest in him is my need to cling onto someone so I don’t constantly feel alone.
His mouth opens just enough that I can feel the brush of his tongue. He pulls back and I worry that I did something wrong, but he’s grinning at me. “I feel like I’m trying to stick my tongue somewhere it shouldn’t go.”
I grin back. “I won’t cut you, I promise.”
“A little added danger never hurt anyone, right?”
“Eh… I wouldn’t go that far. I once had someone get stuck in a tree butt-naked because she liked living ‘life on the edge.’”
He looks extremely amused by this. “Did you have to touch her?”
“I did. She was very naked and a little sweaty so she was kind of hard to hold on to.”
River laughs as his nose wrinkles. “Ew. At least there are no trees in sight. I should be good.”
“Perfect,” I say before kissing him again. His mouth opens against mine and I’m careful when I kiss him. I don’t want to nick him with my fangs then have to deal with having lied to him. I want to do more than kiss him, I want to touch him and feel him, but I also know he’s been very strict about not wanting this to go anywhere and maybe that’s too far. We barely know each other, after all.
He slides his hand down my stomach before he undoes the button on my pants. He pulls back and glances up at me, like he’s asking for permission, but he’d have to think I’m crazy for me not to want more. I respond by sliding my hand up his thigh and rubbing over his cock that I can feel very clearly through his thin pajamas. He guides his hand beneath my underwear and cups my cock before pulling it out. Then he leans off me and pulls open a drawer on the coffee table, revealing a bottle of lotion.
“Don’t look at me like that, it’s the cat’s. I feel like you’re trying to judge me,” he jokes as I grin at him.
“Me? Judging you? There is no judging going on. It’s just weird that a cat that wouldn’t use lotion would have lotion.” I hook him with my arm and pull his sweats down to his knees before guiding him back onto my lap. I grab the lotion from him and squeeze some onto my hand before pulling him close enough that our cocks touch. I stroke my hand down both our cocks as his mouth finds mine. He moans against my lips as my hand quickens and my cock rubs against his.
How such a sexy and charming man hasn’t already been snatched up, I’ll never know, but I just want to touch and caress and feel and bite him—no! No, no, no. I can’t bite him. Why’d I think about biting him?
River pulls back. “Are you good?” he asks, sounding a little concerned.
“Yes, sorry,” I say as I draw him back in while I rub my thumb over the head of his cock in an attempt to make him forget about my blunder. Thankfully, he can’t read my mind or he might have backtracked too fucking hard. I get pulled away from my thoughts and into the pleasure, especially when his finger snakes around the base of my cock.
His breathing becomes heavy as he makes soft hums of pleasure. I lean into him as my hand quickens against his reactions. He presses into me, his kiss becoming more hurried and his touch drawing tingling sensations through me.
His grip tightens on me as he moans, orgasm rushing through him as I keep stroking both of us, feeling my own release right on the edge. He tucks his head against me as he comes into my hand. The desire to bite him hits me again as my own release tears through me. I tuck my head away from him as I come. He draws me back in, kissing me as my hand slows down.
He pulls back a little and smiles at me. “We forgot the awkward staring,” he says.
I laugh as I lean into him. “You know what? I had just as much fun without it. But if you missed it that much, we could always do it again sometime.”
“I’m not sure I’d complain,” he says as he grabs a tissue.
“Oh, and we need to thank Banshee for that lotion right within reach. That was awfully thoughtful of her.”
River nods. “She’s a bit frisky like that.”
I snort because he says it so deadpan. After we clean up, he pulls me back down on the couch and we sit rather close for the “not going to be anything” between us mandate. But I don’t mind it and find myself leaning into his touch. Tomorrow’s going to be another long day and as I lean against him, I feel like I can just forget it all as we watch some random movie on TV.