“Fine, I’ll use the guest room shower,” Peter huffed, walking away. Chad snorted out a laugh and smiled to himself. He cleaned between his legs, flinching when he moved up to wash between his cheeks, and then rinsed off.
Warm and happy, he dried off and put on a robe and then walked out into the living room. He sat down on the sofa, wincing slightly and angling himself so that his weight was shifted away from his hole, and leaned back to get comfortable.
“What was that about?” Peter asked when he came into the room. He was wearing sweats and an old t-shirt, and when he sat down they were pressed together shoulder to shoulder. He smelled clean and fresh, and Chad leaned into him even though it meant aggravating the pain in his ass.
“I’m not letting you near my ass again for like a whole week,” Chad answered, looking down at the obvious bulge in Peter’s sweats.
“That’s fine,” Peter said, kissing his cheek.
Chad frowned. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Peter was supposed to object, get forceful, and then Chad would relent and fun times would be had.
“What?”
“We probably should ease off on the anal, anyway. I don’t need you to do that for me. We can have fun in other ways.”
Chad scrunched up his nose and looked up at Peter, wondering what the hell he was smoking. Peter looked right back at him, serious as hell, before bursting out laughing.
“I’m just kidding. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your ass nice and well fucked whenever you’re here with me.”
Chad’s lips pulled up and he shoved his elbow into Peter’s side. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for that.
“Good. I like getting fucked,” he said. “Just not tonight.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes, relaxing and thinking, and Chad closed his eyes and listened to Peter breathing. He could tell that Peter was still very affected by the kidnapping attempt, and he wondered if maybe the hunt and catch thing they’d spent the whole day doing had just been a way for Peter to reassure himself that he was capable of finding Chad whenever he was missing.
“Have you talked to Merchant today?” he asked, and Peter’s thigh tensed under his hand.
“No. He’ll update me if there are any developments.” Peter didn’t sound happy.
“I wonder what they wanted,” Chad mused, stroking his thumb over the fabric of Peter’s sweats.
“Who?” Peter asked.
“The people who hired the driver,” Chad said, looking up at Peter’s face. That had been obvious, hadn’t it?
“We’ll find out when we know who they are.”
“Not money,” Chad speculated, thinking it over. “You’re way too scary for anyone to even think about doing that. It must have something to do with your company, right? Maybe someone wanted information, or they—"
“Let’s not talk about this,” Peter interrupted. His tone left no room for argument and Chad snapped his mouth shut.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Peter sighed.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Peter said. “I just don’t want to speculate until we have more facts. It’s just going to make me crazy.”
He sounded frustrated.
“Okay,” Chad said. He was still intensely curious about the motives of the people who had tried to take him, but Peter obviously wasn’t ready to talk about it.
Peter didn’t like talking. He liked doing. Talking about something when there wasn’t anything he could do to fix what they were talking about was just a waste of time.
“I shouldn’t have taken you out today,” Peter said after another few minutes of silence. He sounded guilty. “We have no idea who we’re up against. I don’t know what I was thinking—taking you into the woods so that I could chase you like I’m some kind of hormonal teenager.”
Chad found Peter’s hand and squeezed it.
“We needed something to take our minds off things and relieve some stress,” he said. Peter’s look wasn’t impressed, and Chad continued. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the smartest move, but nothing happened. We were lucky. So from now on we don’t take risks like that.”
“You got that right,” Peter muttered. He looked at Chad’s face. “No more risks. You don’t go anywhere without a full team of bodyguards.”
