When the door closed behind him, Dylan turned to Ryker. The alpha was lying next to him, propped up on his elbow with his head resting on his fist, looking down at him.
“We should have stopped after round one, huh?” Ryker said, a rueful grin on his face. He reached over and pinched Dylan’s chin between his fingers.
“Probably,” Dylan agreed.
“I’m sorry,” Ryker said, stroking Dylan’s cheek.
“It’s fine,” Dylan said, grabbing Ryker’s hand and holding it over his chest. He loved how big it was. “I really, really liked it.”
“That’s good.” Ryker lifted his hand away and lay down on his back, getting comfortable. “I should get some rest. I don’t know how many times I’ll have to fight today and I want to be at my best.”
“Will you be okay?” Dylan asked, suddenly worried. He turned and looked at Ryker’s profile, admiring his handsome nose and the artful stubble coating his jaw.
“I’ll be fine,” Ryker said. He reached over and pulled Dylan into his side. “I got a little nap in, and once I get some food in me, I’ll be good as new.”
Dylan squirmed, his hole protesting as Ryker lifted him up and put him on his chest. Dylan nuzzled his face into Ryker’s pecs, pressing his ear down against the solid muscle and listening to the steady beating of his heart.
Ryker stroked his hair, and for a minute Dylan forgot how sore he was.
“You’re so comfortable,” he commented, comparing how Ryker liked to cuddle him to August’s preferred method. Ryker liked for Dylan to be on top, using him as a human blanket, while August was the complete opposite. August liked to smother Dylan under him, using the weight of his body to press him down into whatever surface they were lying on.
Both positions were nice, but Ryker’s was a lot more relaxing.
“I like being your pillow,” Ryker said, lifting his head so that he could press a kiss into Dylan’s hair. “You’re so light.”
Dylan wondered what kind of cuddler Steve was. It was weird to think that pretty soon, these moments between him, Ryker and August would include the younger alpha as well.
“Steve’s KinkMatch results were pretty intimidating,” Dylan said, his sore ass reminding him of the more sadistic slant of some of Steve’s answers on the questionnaire. It was easier to voice the concern when he was positioned like this, face pressed into Ryker’s pecs and unable to see his face.
“Do you think so?” Ryker asked. “What about them?”
Dylan reached up, absentmindedly stroking the contour of Ryker’s rounded pectoral next to his nose.
“All the whip and paddle stuff,” he said, shuddering as he remembered the implements hanging on the wall of the playroom back in Ryker and August’s apartment. “He crossed all of that stuff off as a strong yes.”
Dylan had only put down impact play as a maybe.
“So did I and August,” Ryker said. “Is that intimidating?”
Dylan shrugged. It was a little, but he felt like he could predict how a scene involving whips and paddles with August and Ryker would go. For all he knew, Steve would just grab a flogger off the wall and start hitting him the second they were in the playroom.
As soon as he’d thought it, Dylan realized how silly he was being. It wasn’t like August and Ryker were going to let Steve hurt him, and he didn’t really think that Steve wanted to hurt him either – not in ways he didn’t agree to.
The fact that Steve had marked yes to the branding and scarification questions was something he wasn’t even going to think about.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” Ryker assured him, which Dylan already knew. “Steve isn’t going to pull out the cattle prod before you’re ready for it.”
Dylan’s stomach clenched. He imagined himself on the floor, stomach pressed into the cold hardwood as Steve loomed over him. In the fantasy, Steve was decked out in his sinfully tight uniform, his booted foot planted casually on Dylan’s lower back, grinding him into the floor as he trailed the end of a cattle prod down along the length of his back, threatening to shock him.
“That’s good, I guess.”
Dylan wondered what a cattle prod felt like. All he had to compare it to in his mind was static shock, but he doubted they felt anything alike.
Dylan and Ryker kept cuddling for another few minutes, the silence broken when August burst into the room with several plastic bags dangling from his fingers and a twenty-four pack of water bottles tucked under his arm.
“I bought an antiseptic numbing cream,” August said, kicking off his shoes and putting the plastic bags down on the floor. He removed his jacket and tossed it over the chair next to the desk, grabbed a tube from one of the bags, and climbed up on the bed. “The antiseptic part isn’t really necessary, what with all of our come, but the numbing action should help you feel better.”
Dylan lifted his head and looked back just in time to see August smear two cream-coated fingers over his hole. At first it stung a little, but then a cool numbing feeling muted the pain and Dylan exhaled.
