Running Wild

and as Ri found the right rhythm, Seamus peaked.
A line of pleasure rode up his spine and his body arched back. He pulled away from Ri who continued his ministrations as Seamus came in his hand. He trembled, overstimulated, staring at Ri, whose lips parted, and Seamus wanted to kiss him when he wasn’t usually this big on kissing.
Ri began to shake. Seamus registered that he was jacking himself off too, just as Ri let loose his own cry, and Seamus roughly pulled Ri against him so they were together as Ri came.
He collapsed against Seamus, breathing noisily, the shuddering maybe just part of who Ri was and not fear and tension. Seamus was no longer sure as he came down from his own high. All he knew was he was going to hold Ri tight.
He rolled on to his back, bringing Ri on top of him, and he could sense Ri trying to quiet himself.
Seamus skimmed his fingertips up and down Ri’s narrow back in reassurance, and Ri gave up holding noise in. He went boneless on top of Seamus and let out a long, shuddery sigh.
They lay there in silence for a while, the tension having been leached out of both of them. In time, Seamus asked, “Can you sleep?”
His voice was muffled against Seamus’s shoulder, but Ri said, “I’m weighing you down.”
Seamus gave Ri a small shake. “You don’t weigh enough, tall though you are. Sleep.”
“Can’t stay awake,” Ri mumbled. Seamus could barely make out those words.
“I’m glad,” said Seamus, though Ri wouldn’t understand why. For it meant he would be here tomorrow, that their new relationship would not be over before it even started.
Chapter Ten
    Ri bolted upwards—or tried to—and someone held him down. An arm, wrapped around his waist. He coiled his body, ready to escape, when a familiar deep voice said, “Ri?”
    The sheets smelled of sex, and for one uncertain moment Ri thought he’d overstayed his welcome at some random hookup—not that he engaged in those often.
    Then Seamus’s scent, his voice, his body, brought Ri back to where he was. Seamus’s apartment. He turned towards the man he’d slept with and as he did so, Seamus slid his hand down his side to rest on Ri’s naked hip.
It felt unbearably intimate and Ri shivered.
     
Seamus’s smile faded at Ri’s reaction, and solemn-faced he stared down. “Okay?”
    It wasn’t in Ri to explain that he overreacted to touch, to skin, to sex, and always had. It made him shy away from encounters until the longing outweighed everything else, and then it made the encounters…difficult.
    Seamus hadn’t removed his hand. It rested there, comfortable, that blunt, large hand anchoring Ri, and it felt right and not too much.
He was going to mess this up, no question, but when he looked at Seamus in the morning light, he couldn’t help but smile. “Right now, I’m good.”
Seamus’s smile returned. Instead of backing away from the oddly behaved almost-stranger in his bed, his thumb stroked back and forth over Ri’s hipbone.
Ri’s breath hitched.
“I think we better get you some breakfast, shifter,” Seamus said, and with some apparent reluctance, removed that hand and slid off the bed. “I’m good at waffles. Give me fifteen minutes. If a shower appeals to you, go ahead.”
As Seamus padded out of the bedroom, Ri saw Seamus was already dressed and showered. Ri had slept through someone rising from the bed and moving around the apartment.
The thought alarmed him. He needed to be on alert, not dead to the world. He only ever used to sleep like this as a child, when he knew his grandfather was watching over him and Zach.
How unsettling to think his body somehow trusted Seamus the same way. He had to be careful not to get used to this. Seamus was a nice guy, a kind man, but Ri wasn’t an idiot. A human was not going to take on all the bizarre baggage of a horse shifter.
He hoped they could stay friends and maybe have the occasional fuck if Seamus wasn’t too put off by his eccentricities.
Ri’s entire body heated up, and he wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or sex. He would use the shower to cool off, though he managed to regret washing off Seamus’s scent.
    Ri emerged from the bedroom, his dark hair slicked back by the shower. He wore one of Seamus’s T-shirts—which Seamus found he liked. He didn’t know what he was going to do with Ri. He felt a sense of responsibility here that he was not quite comfortable with, and yet his heart seemed in this. How far, he didn’t know, and he had to watch that