“No,” he said again, bringing me as close to the edge as my body would allow.
He held me in the water until I had nothing left to give, and for the first time in my life, I believed it when someone told me, “You did so well, baby. That’s enough for now. That’s more than enough.”
CHAPTER 14
RIGGS
Smith spent the night.
He was a boneless pile of pleasure after the bath and there was no way I would have felt right about sending him home. He could barely focus his eyes on me, let alone the road. After a long soak, I gave him a pair of sweatpants that were far too long on him, then I tucked him into my bed. I debated if I wanted to crawl in with him, but I knew myself well enough to know that was a horrible idea. I curled up on the couch with a blanket instead, and when I woke up Sunday morning, Smith was there. Shoved onto the narrow couch, his back pressed against my chest and my arm slung over his waist. I groaned into the back of his neck and pulled him close, trying to ignore the way he thrust his ass back against my non-existent morning wood. If he noticed I wasn’t hard, he didn’t say anything. He only made a weak noise of protest when I gave up trying to get back to sleep and climbed over him to get up.
I padded into the kitchen, quiet and barefoot, to make some coffee and check my phone. On the screen, I found a slew of missed messages from Damon, most of which were him being hyped about his knee tattoo. The rest were a series of names andtimes with phone numbers attached. My piece of shit best friend had booked me interviews.
Sighing at his insistence, I rested against the counter and took a sip of my coffee. He’d booked me four for later in the morning, which was annoying but not horrible. It was just before nine and Smith didn’t strike me as the type to sleep in late. Hell, I wasn’t the type to sleep in late. I was up before seven most days, even though I didn’t open the shop until almost lunch. I liked having time to myself to wake up slowly, to read on the couch, to water my plants.
After another drink of coffee, I shifted my position so I could watch Smith sleep on my couch. With his eyes closed and his mouth relaxed, he looked like he was far too young to be half-naked in my apartment, but I knew he was more than grown enough to ask for what we’d done the night before. Smith was a conundrum of a man, so sure of himself while being so uncertain at the same time. I imagined that was a result of the way he’d been raised.
God, he was something else. Just knowing I’d left his backside striped and bruised was enough to propel me through the rest of the week. It had been so fucking long since I’d let myself play with someone like that. Smith was new to power exchange, that was obvious, and I wasn’t sure if he understood what it had costmeto do the things we’d done. I gave him the pain he was after because it was what he wanted, but I could have just as easily spread him out on my bed and feasted on him until the end result reached the same place.
My focus as a dominant was—and would always be—pleasure.
Not mine.
Ev used to tell me it was a caretaking gene, something that had been skipped for every generation before mine or maybe borne from it, but my driving need to take care of everyone inmy orbit was a very real thing. It made perfect sense to me it would expand into the bedroom, that it would take the shape of a boneless man on my couch with bruises shaped like my hands on the backs of his thighs. Fuck, it had felt so good to have his hand in mine, his cock in his, both of us working together to push him to places he’d never even dreamed about going before he’d walked into that bathroom stall with me.
I had to be exceedingly careful with Smith Covington, not just for his own benefit but also mine. It would be easier than breathing to fall into the trap of wanting him to feel that good every second of every day, and that was treacherously close to a relationship, which…
A knock on the door downstairs startled me out of that thought process, and I frowned at my apartment door. Smith didn’t even move at the sound, so I slipped my hoodie on and took my coffee down to see who couldn’t read the hand painted hours of operationsign on the door.
“Fuck.”
Of course it was Damon, his stupid head bobbling side to side as I came down the stairs. He had a crumpled brown bag in his hand and a cardboard tray with two white cups in the other. When he saw me, he knocked his elbow into the glass again, producing another louder than necessary rattle. Setting my own coffee down on the counter, I unlocked the door and let him in.
“Why are you here?” I asked, foregoing any sort of hello.
“Happy interview day!” he answered, spreading his shit out over the counter. Thankfully, he slid my portfolio out of the way before digging two over-schmeared bagels out of the bag and setting them down.
“Is it?”
“Didn’t you get my texts?”
“I woke up to them, yes.” I sighed, sniffing and hating how good the bagels smelled. My best friend absolutely knew how to butter me up.
“I knew if I didn’t do it, you wouldn’t.”
“I told you last time you were here I’d booked one,” I reminded him.
“You did that to get me off your back, not because you really wanted to hire anyone,” he countered, popping the black plastic top off of his tea and breathing in the steam.
“What makes you think I’ll want to hire any of the people you have coming in later today?”
I was a weak man, giving up and dragging my finger through some of the cream cheese overflow on an everything bagel and sucking it off my finger. My stomach immediately growled, reminding me how much I’d exerted myself the night before and how little I’d eaten before and after.
“They’re good artists, for one,” he said, wiggling a tattooed finger at me. “I vetted their work to make sure you wouldn’t hate it before I even talked to them.”
“A start,” I grumbled.
“They’re all good people.”
