Chapter 22: The Homecoming
The squeak was defeated with a wrench and a dishrag stuffed into the springs. The altar, Riley decided, was now serviceable. For a week, their world condensed to the dimensions of the apartment, the couch, the bed. It was a self-imposed quarantine, a baptism in sweat and come. But life, with its dull and persistent teeth, eventually bit through.
Riley came through the door like a storm front, the slam of it echoing in the small foyer. He threw his jacket over Sarah’s photo, obscuring her smile. He stood there, breathing hard, hands clenched at his sides.
The air shifted. Paul emerged from the bedroom, a silent apparition. He’d been experimenting, a shy, secretive smile playing on his lips for the past two days. Now he stood framed in the hallway, and Riley’s anger stuttered.
The lace was black, a fragile web against Paul’s pale skin. The nightgown ended high on his thighs, sheer enough to hint at the dark triangle beneath. The stockings were sheer black silk, held up by delicate lace garters that dug into the soft skin of his upper thighs. His feet were bare on the hardwood. His soft breasts were clearly outlined, the long, dark nipples hardening visibly under Riley’s gaze.
“You’re home,” Paul said, his voice a low melody.
Riley crossed the space in three strides. He didn’t speak. His mouth crashed down on Paul’s, a kiss that was all possession and pent-up fury. Paul gasped into it, his hands flying up to Riley’s shoulders, clutching at the rough fabric of his work shirt. Riley walked him backward until Paul’s back hit the wall beside the front door. The frame rattled.
He hiked Paul’s leg up, his hand sliding under the lace, gripping the bare flesh of his thigh. The silk of the stocking whispered against his calloused palm. He fumbled with his own belt and zipper, his movements rushed, clumsy.
“Riley,” Paul breathed against his lips, his own hips canting forward, seeking friction. “What’s wrong?”
Riley didn’t answer. He just pushed his jeans and briefs down just enough, freed his cock, already thick and heavy, and guided himself to Paul’s entrance. He was wet, soaked already, his body always ready for Riley. With a single, brutal thrust, he buried himself to the hilt.
Paul cried out, a sharp, ragged sound that echoed in the foyer. His head thumped back against the wall. Riley held there, deep, so deep, his own breath coming in hot gusts against Paul’s neck. He began to move, short, punishing strokes that slammed Paul against the plaster with each drive forward.
“Tell me,” Paul moaned, his fingers digging into Riley’s back. His other leg wrapped around Riley’s waist, the slick sole of his foot pressing against Riley’s ass, pulling him deeper. “What happened?”
“Guy at the supplier,” Riley grunted, his voice strained with the effort of his thrusts. “Jason. Fucking… Jason.” He punctuated each word with a slam of his hips. “Hitting on me. For a month. Smirks. Suggestions.”
Paul’s eyes were dark, wide. He rolled his hips, taking Riley even deeper, milking him on every inward stroke. “And today?”
“Today he got bold.” Riley’s pace became erratic, frantic. He was chasing something, trying to fuck the anger out of his own bloodstream. “Told me I was too good to be stuck with some stay-at-home spouse. Told me to… to dump my husband. That he’d show me a better time.”
A sound ripped from Paul’s throat—not a moan, but a low, possessive growl that Riley had never heard before. It was feral. Paul’s cunt clenched around him like a vice, his nails scraping down Riley’s spine. “What did you do?” he whispered, his lips against Riley’s stubbled jaw.
Riley drove into him one last time, a final, devastating plunge that lifted Paul off his one standing foot. He buried his face in the lace at Paul’s shoulder as his orgasm tore through him, a hot, endless flood of release that spilled deep into Paul’s gripping heat. He shook with it.
As the last pulses faded, he growled the answer into Paul’s skin, the words muffled but ferociously clear. “Told him my husband is the most beautiful, fuckable creature on this goddamn earth. That I’d never even look at anyone else. That he was a pathetic little man who couldn’t begin to comprehend what I have.”
Paul went utterly still. Then a giggle bubbled out of him, soft and incredulous. He pulled Riley’s face up and kissed him, sloppy and deep, tasting himself on Riley’s tongue. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m possessive,” Riley corrected, his cock still nestled inside Paul, softening but present. “There’s a difference.”
“Semantics.” Paul unwrapped his legs, wincing as his feet touched the floor. A slick trail of Riley’s cum was already leaking down his inner thigh, staining the silk. “Take me to bed. Properly.”
They stumbled to the bedroom, a tangle of limbs and half-removed clothing. The lace nightgown ended up ripped, torn from neck to hem by Riley’s impatient hands. He laid Paul back on the disheveled sheets, the silk stockings and garters still clinging to his legs, a contrast to his complete nakedness otherwise.
Riley worshiped him with his mouth. He started at Paul’s ankles, kissing up the silk, biting the tender skin behind his knee, licking a path up his inner thigh until he reached the wet, swollen heart of him. He ate Paul with a focused, relentless hunger, his tongue stabbing deep, then flattening to circle his clit. Paul writhed, his back arching, his cries dissolving into wordless pleas. He came against Riley’s tongue with a shattered sob, his fingers tangled in Riley’s dark hair.
But Riley wasn’t done. He crawled up Paul’s body, his own cock hard again, and nudged at his entrance. Paul was loose, dripping, oversensitive. He gasped as Riley pushed in, a slow, full re-possession.
“Again,” Riley murmured, his voice raw. “I need to feel you remember. I need you to feel me until you can’t think of anything else.”
He fucked him with a deep, rolling rhythm, not the punishing pace from the wall, but something more thorough, more claiming. He took Paul’s soft breast into his mouth, sucking the long nipple until it was a hard, aching peak. He switched to the other, lavishing it with the same attention.
Paul was babbling, a stream of consciousness that mixed filth and devotion. “Yours, all yours, only yours, please, Riley, fill me up, mark me, I want everyone to know I’m yours, that you fuck me this good, that you own this cunt—”
Riley’s control snapped. He flipped Paul onto his stomach, pulled his hips up, and drove into him from behind. This angle was deeper, harder. Paul’s face was pressed into the pillow, his cries muffled. Riley’s balls slapped against his soaked folds with every thrust. He gripped Paul’s hip with one hand, the other fisting in his hair, pulling his head back to expose the long line of his throat.
“Say it,” Riley demanded, his thrusts becoming brutal, perfect.
“You’re my god!” Paul screamed into the mattress, his body clenching in another sharp, violent climax. “You’re my god, you’re my god!”
Riley followed, roaring as he emptied himself inside Paul for the second time, his vision whiting out at the edges. He collapsed forward, covering Paul’s body with his own, both of them slick and shaking.
The room smelled of sex and sweat and them. Darkness had fallen. Riley eventually rolled off, gathering Paul against his chest. Paul’s stockings were torn, ruined. His body was a map of love bites and red marks.
They lay in silence for a long time, listening to each other’s hearts find a steady rhythm.
“You believe me?” Riley asked finally, his voice quiet in the dark. “What I told him?”
Paul traced the scars on Riley’s knuckles. “I believe you’re a terrible liar. And that you have a concerning capacity for violence when provoked.” He tilted his head up. “I also believe you meant it.”
“Every word.”
Paul smiled, a small, tired, radiant thing. “Then the altar is sufficient.”
But later, as Riley drifted into a heavy sleep, Paul lay awake. The ancient part of him, the part that remembered blood and wings and damnation, stirred. It was a quiet, cold whisper. Jealousy was a human emotion. Possession was something else entirely. It recognized its own kind. And it knew that Riley’s claim, while fierce, was still a fragile, human thing. It could be challenged.
Paul watched the steady rise and fall of Riley’s chest. He pressed closer, inhaling the scent of him—gasoline, soap, sex, life. The whisper faded, soothed for now. But it didn’t disappear. It just waited, curled deep in his immortal bones, alongside the love.