I was grateful to have met him the way I had, in my chair and later on that couch with his cock in his hand. Every version of Smith I’d met in our short acquaintance were the real partsof him, the pieces not judged by anyone, not found wanting. He was raw and he was honest, and he was a gift.
Every moment with him was a gift.
I pulled my hand away from his until I got my fingers around his wrist. His tattoo was practically healed, and I promised him an entirely different kind of play once that happened. Excitement unfurled down my spine at the prospect of it, but I bit it back down, wanting to save it for another time.
At this small table in this trendy little restaurant, Smith was more naked to me than he’d been when he was bound to my bed and covered in sweat. The duality of him, of me, of us, wasn’t lost on me. The gravity of the future on offer, for the first time in years, wasn’t terrifying.
In fact, I welcomed it.
CHAPTER 23
SMITH
After dinner, Riggs drove us back to his place. He parked around the corner, the same place I’d parked the first day I stumbled across his building. His headlights cast a glow over the sleek and shiny lines of his motorcycle, and he cut the engine.
“Did you really want to go for a ride?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His mouth made a quiet clicking sound and he shouldered open the driver’s side door. “You need a helmet. And a jacket.”
“I’m underprepared.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll run up and get us sorted. Do you want to come or wait?”
Part of me wanted to come up with him, but the other part of me somehow knew both of us needed a few minutes apart, a chance to breathe.
“I’ll wait,” I said, following him out of the car.
Relief rippled through the air between us, and I rested against the hood of his car and pulled out my phone. He hesitated before jogging toward the door of the shop, and I wondered if he wanted to kiss me. I was still trying to figure out the boundaries of what Riggs’s asexuality meant for physicalaffection between us. I didn’t want him to kiss me if it didn’t do anything for him, but I also didn’t want to lose out on the affection I saw between Lincoln and Hunter, between Silas and Marshall.
The bells on the shop door jingled softly, and I swiped my phone into the messages app and pulled up Asha’s name. I’d been a horrible friend to her since she introduced me to Rapture, and I owed her an apology.
I only have a few minutes, but I’m sorry for being a shit.
Asha
Who said you’re being a shit.
I haven’t been around.
I’ve been working so hard, I’ve hardly noticed.
That’s a lie, I have noticed.
But that’s life.
You’ve been good, though?
Very. You?
I met someone.
ofc you did. Do the other Covingtons approve?
I thought about dinner, about Marshall’s judgmental frown, the way the three of us had needed to talk him off a ledge he had no balance on any longer.
Not at all.
