Riley would be so good tonight too. He wouldn’t wake Seth at all, no matter how much he might want to roll him over and sink into him again.
We’re letting him sleep, he reminded his voice.
It didn’t answer. It—he’dbeen quiet, Riley’s voice, emanating a silent smugness ever since he’d taken over in Riley’s bed. Smug because he’d fucked Seth, and Seth had liked it. Or maybe because he’d bitten Seth again, and Seth had liked that too.
Whatever. As long as Seth was happy, the stupid voice could aid in Riley’s seduction attempts as much as he wanted. Riley had spent too many years battling him and losing. He wasn’t going to risk trying to subdue his vampire again only for the bastard to snap and do something all three of them would regret.
Seth made the turn into town, and instinct had Riley swiveling his head toward the coastline. There was a white van parked on the side of the road, near a spot on the cliffs where a little trail wound down to the water. And a group of humans in hazmat-looking suits making their way along it.
Seth slowed the car as they drove by. “What do you think they’re doing?”
Riley didn’t know, but he recognized one suited lawyer among the scattered humans. But why would Mr. Perkins be out with the scientists?
“They’re from that research institute,” Riley told Seth. “The one in the suit came by the house before you arrived, asking to study the forest on our land.”
Asking to study the wildlife, more specifically. Riley hadn’t forgotten that bit.
“Then what are they doing out in the water?” Seth asked. “You think they study both ecosystems? Forest and ocean?”
“I don’t know.” Riley cracked his window and tried to scent something—exactly what, he wasn’t sure—but the briny ocean air made it hard to smell anything but seaweed and salt.
Careful, his voice warned, breaking his previous silence.
Riley didn’t need the warning though. He might not have been able to scent something specific, but he could recognize danger when it was right in front of him.
“I don’t like them,” Riley said.
Seth patted Riley’s knee in a placating gesture, driving on past the van on the cliffside.
Maybe Seth thought it was Riley’s sheltered upbringing thatwas making him suspicious, but Riley didn’t think that was it. He was wary of humans but notsuspiciousof them. At least not usually.
And the lawyer had set Riley’s hackles up with a single conversation. Even his moms had been unsettled by Mr. Perkins’s visit. That wasn’t something Riley would be forgetting anytime soon.
Not now that Riley had a mate to protect.
20
SETH
Seth punched and rolled and kneaded and mixed, working the last dredges of his bad mood out in the kitchen.
Riley had been true to his word last night—he’d let Seth sleep wrapped up in his arms without so much as a stray nighttime boner brushing against Seth’s ass.
But with no bakery prep done, Seth had needed to wake up earlier than usual, and venturing into the frigid, dark morning had been even more unpleasant than usual when it had meant leaving the warmth of Riley’s hold.
Seth had set Riley up in the front with a tea and his book. Seth knew better now than to let the menace stay in the kitchen when there was so much work to be done. Those kisses of his were hazardous to Seth’s attention span.
But after the fifth instance of Riley poking his forlorn head in the door, asking if there was anything he could do to help, Seth finally caved.
He stopped arranging his unbaked pear-and-walnut Danisheswith a sigh. “C’mon, then. Scrub your hands and you can brush these with egg wash for me.”
Riley looked absurdly pleased, like Seth had offered him marriage and babies and not a bunch of raw pastry dough to cover with yolk.
And despite Riley’s tendency for distraction, it turned out having another set of hands was useful after all. After finishing his task, Riley took care of all the smaller annoyances that took time but no skill to manage. He removed trays out of the oven and set pastries on their cooling racks. He organized Seth’s dirty mixing bowls and set the worst of them to soak.
There was even time for five minutes of making out and heavy petting before Seth had to shove Riley away and set up his display case.
Violet was the first to show up, barely two minutes after Seth had flipped the “Open” sign.
