Shadows You Left Read online

  It wasn’t that he wanted to ruin whatever opportunity had presented itself tonight, but for the first time in months, Erik was nervous. He didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit.

  “So,” he said to cover the silence, “River…?”

  “Svoboda.”

  “Svo—what?”

  River laughed, sounding it out. Erik rolled the syllables slowly over his tongue.

  “Yes, River Dean Svoboda. Twenty-two, Pisces, and ambivalent about walks on the beach.”

  “Well, thank God you warned me,” Erik said. “I’m a Scorpio, and I personally enjoy walks on the beach.”

  “’Course you do, you’re from Southern California.” River’s smirk was quiet and sexy, a confident quirk to his mouth paired with narrowed eyes and a lifted brow. When Erik snorted, River continued. “So, rumor has it you’re a shitty bartender.” His smirk stretched into a teasing smile. “Is that true?”

  “It’s a part-time thing,” Erik said. They crossed the street and turned the corner. “I make most of my money on Friday nights. Desiree lets me make up the difference during the week. If I lose, she gives me more hours.”

  “You fight every Friday?” River’s gaze sharpened.

  “Almost, yeah. I made a name for myself back in Portland, so Pete, the guy who runs the show, asked me to come up here with Desiree when he expanded the business. I’ll take a week off if I need to, but…” He shrugged. The food trucks appeared a few yards away—a Chinese-Mexican fusion truck painted neon green, a red pizza truck, and a burger truck. He steered the conversation to food because he’d rather not scare River off before he’d had the chance to get another tattoo from him, or hear him laugh again, or kiss him, maybe. “Pie Haven’s really good,” he said, jutting his chin toward the pizza truck. “What’re you thinking?”

  “Anything that comes with fries,” River said. “I’ll figure it out. You getting pizza?”

  Erik tipped his head back and inhaled the smell of spices and marinara, lime and hot oil. “Maybe. I’m definitely stealing some fries.”

  “Fine, I’m stealing a bite of pizza,” River said, all curled lips and amused eyes. His confidence was alluring. There was something quiet about it—about him—that made Erik wonder. For one, how exactly was he single? Two, why the fuck was he wasting his time with Erik?

  They went to separate trucks and ordered their food. Erik thought about everything he’d said at the bar and as they walked. What he should’ve said instead. What he had the opportunity to say now.

  You’re stunning. Call me tough guy again. I like your laugh. Fair warning, I ruin everything.

  Erik dipped between customers and carried his slice of pizza to where River stood at the bottom of a cement porch outside a boutique shopfront. The nightclub behind the food trucks thrummed. Heavy bass leaked through the walls, and a few wobbly club-goers crawled into a taxi.

  The time after midnight was strange and upended. Its honesty crept in, and Erik had to remind himself to look away from River’s lips.

  “Pepperoni,” River purred. He snatched a piece off Erik’s pizza and popped it into his mouth.

  Erik grabbed a couple of fries and did the same. “They put sour cream on your hot dog?”

  “Cream cheese,” River corrected, laughing at Erik’s horror. “Don’t look at me like that, Hollywood. It’s good. You just haven’t been here long enough to know it.”

  “I’ve been on this planet long enough to know that cream cheese does not go on hot dogs. That is…” Erik followed in River’s footsteps and let laughter bubble over his lips. “Fucking gross, River.”

  “Not gross,” he assured. “Want a bite?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Come on,” River teased.

  “No way. I’ll eat your fries, though.” Erik stole another fry and grinned when River yanked his cardboard bowl away.

  They managed to stop playing for long enough to eat. Erik’s cheeks were hot. As soon as they threw away their trash and he didn’t have a plate to fidget with, he started picking at the sleeves of his coat. He glanced at his hands, exposed and ugly, marred by scars. The knuckles on his right hand were still healing, but they were far enough along to go without tape. Erik wished he would’ve covered them anyway.

  “What do you like about it?” River asked.

  When Erik looked up, River was studying his tattooed knuckles. “About what?”

  “Fighting.” River’s fingertips twitched toward Erik’s hand but stopped abruptly.

  Erik didn’t know. Maybe it was the power, the risk, the control. Maybe it was the money. Maybe it was none of those things or all those things. “The cage is a state of lawlessness,” Erik said. “I get to scream without screaming when I’m in it.”

  “There’s an actual cage… You’re not just…” River’s eyes swept to Erik’s face. “Like… Those underground fights people gossip about? You’re a cage fighter?”

  Erik leaned against the cement wall that connected the shopfront’s awning to the steps. “Yeah,” he bit out. “Does it matter?”

  “No, I just—”

  A crack of thunder split the sky. Mist hung heavy in the air as rain hit the buildings and sidewalk and them. Quarter-sized drops splattered windshields and windows, drove smokers back inside, and tore a breathy curse from Erik.

  “Shit. C’mon,” Erik said. He grabbed River’s jacket sleeve and yanked him up the steps, onto the porch. The rain kept coming down. Erik kept replaying the way River said cage fighter—with disbelief that might’ve been curiosity, curiosity that could’ve been aversion.

  Water clung to the top of River’s mouth. “I just assumed otherwise,” he blurted. “Do you wanna tell me how long you’ve been fighting?”

  “Do you really wanna know?” Erik turned toward him and realized they were much closer than he anticipated. River’s hand bumped against his. Erik’s boot touched the side of River’s shoe.

  River’s tongue darted over his lip. Erik tracked the movement. He stopped breathing when River’s breath hit his cheek. Bravery took shape in the shadows. He found the top of River’s hand and let his fingers stay there, tracing smooth bronze skin. They were in the place between night and morning, the tempered kind of awake that made this easy.

  This. Them.

  Erik couldn’t decide which was more attractive, River’s hesitation or his eagerness.

  “Not really,” River whispered. He tilted his head until their noses bumped, until their lips crossed paths, close enough to make Erik’s chest ache, to make blood run hot in his veins.

  Erik knew the protocol for a first kiss. He understood that it was supposed to be slow and careful, testing the boundaries between one person and the other. He’d done it before, and he appreciated it, but with River, he didn’t want slow. He didn’t want a test.

  He pressed his lips to River’s and kissed him hard. His breath stuttered and his hands trembled, but he didn’t pull back. Not when River gasped against his mouth. Not when River’s elegant hands landed on either side of Erik’s jaw and pulled.

  Erik pushed until River’s back hit the wall. A soft sound, winded and surprised, jumped in River’s throat, but he didn’t stop kissing Erik. Even when Erik couldn’t breathe, when his lungs burned and his head spun, he kept kissing River. They stayed in near stillness, sharing breath in the middle of a storm. River kissed like he spoke, like he did everything, quietly at first, with long interludes of lips and tongue, until he snuck in a bite to Erik’s bottom lip. His thumb traced the seam of their mouths, and Erik’s lashes fluttered when River’s hips pressed against his own.

  Erik touched the back of River’s hand, resting on his jaw and throat. River broke away to breathe but didn’t go far. Their lips touched. His eyelashes tickled Erik’s cheekbone.

  “I need to go home,” River said.

  Erik didn’t know how to respond, how to feel or not feel. His heart raced. His hands shook. He rested his forehead against River’s temple and said, “Yeah, okay.”

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nbsp; Sheets of rain chilled the already crisp air. He tried to breathe it in, the storm, the stillness, the way River lingered on his lips. Somehow, he knew the night would stay with him. This kiss. Those hands. That laugh.

  River’s palms slid to his waist. He thumbed at Erik’s hip bones and whispered, “You should come with me.”

  Chapter Six

  River managed to order an Uber with shaking fingers. Erik’s hands were still on his hips, his teeth and tongue behind River’s ear and on his pulse. Brick bit into his shoulders. River pushed against it, pressed into Erik’s palms and breathed him in. Rain hushed behind them. Erik’s scent was strong and clean.

  The promise of what was to come made the wait interminable; River wouldn’t remember it the next day. But Erik’s thumb, skirting under the edge of his jeans, below his belly button, he’d remember. Biting Erik’s lip harder, warming and sliding into that touch, would be clear.

  “You live downtown?” Erik asked. The backseat of the Corolla they’d crammed into made closeness a tease, easy and bright and hard. Erik’s thumb was on the seam of River’s pants, sliding up from his knee.

  “Yeah.” River didn’t have much else to say. Streetlights broke through the darkness in undulating patterns. Erik’s eyes glittered bright.

  How do you like it? How do you want me?

  River pressed his thumb against Erik’s, bruising into his thigh. If the dark stole his invitation, his touch would extend it. He had no voice because this was wanting River had no language for.

  River wasn’t shy of sex or his body. But he was careful and methodical and thoughtful—Erik was none of those things. River didn’t want him to be. He pushed his knees apart and watched Erik bite his lip. Wet hair stuck to his forehead. River slicked it back impatiently and cursed the length of the drive.

  Erik’s chest plastered to his spine as he tried to unlock the door was a promise. The inches Erik had on him magnified when Erik pushed him against the door and bit his neck, laughing into River’s gasps.

  “The neighbors,” River managed. The wood was cool under his fingers and cheek. River’s blood throbbed and hummed. Everything did.

  “Who gives a fuck?” Still, Erik released him long enough to get the door open. He tripped his way out of heavy boots. River kicked his off carelessly as well, hands searching for Erik’s skin before they were even off. Erik let him guide the kiss, let River pull him into the dark apartment. Erik was easy in his hands, against his lips. In his room, River hit the lights before backing up to the edge of his bed.

  He liked to push, but he liked to be pushed, too.

  “How do you—”

  “Shut up,” River said with a wicked smile, pushing the hem of Erik’s shirt up. There was something lawless in Erik’s body, in his speech. That’s what River wanted. “Tell me when, and I’ll stop.”

  Erik lifted his arms and allowed himself to be stripped. He watched River unbuckle his pants. His ratcheting breaths—theirs—were amplified in Erik’s silence and River’s perusal. Bruises haunted Erik’s ribs, the kind long in healing, the kind that lingered. River touched one. Erik shook his head, a boundary drawn. No softness with injury, then. River could do that. He hurt people for a living, after all. The good kind—even when clients cried, the pain was mostly cathartic and worth it.

  He wondered what pain was worth to Erik.

  “Now me.” River lifted his own arms. Erik’s thumbs skirted his pectorals on their way up, framed his collarbone once his shirt was off. River had never felt so small before. Push me.

  Erik’s index fingers on his nipples, down his belly, pulling him close by his belt loops, were careful. River put his hands over Erik’s shoulders and bit his nails in, hard. He gasped into a kiss that was clumsy, rushed. That was new and unpracticed. Push me.

  He scratched up the slope of Erik’s shoulders, red trails writing desire onto cream skin. Finally, finally Erik’s fingers lost their care. When he pushed River’s pants down, it was rough. River’s fingers framed Erik’s cheeks as he licked into his mouth, swallowed the smallest of groans. Only when his fingers felt the tiny, healing seam on Erik’s cheekbone did he stop.

  “Fuck, sorry,” River said. He dusted a touch along the slope of bone and skin. Erik’s eyebrow twitched. His head cocked, but only for a second, as if curiosity or wonder came and went.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Erik said. “Seriously. You can’t hurt me.”

  River was wise enough to hold back the amused breath that threatened in his throat.

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” River whispered into Erik’s skin. He bent, kissing his way across the base of Erik’s throat, hands at the elastic band of his boxer briefs. “Hurting me?”

  “Do you want to be hurt?” Erik’s hands covered River’s and pushed them down. They bruised River’s hips when he pulled them together so that everything that ached touched.

  “Not necessarily. But I’m not worried.”

  Be careless with me. River slid to his knees. With Erik’s thighs in his palms, his cock in River’s mouth, Erik became a live wire. He was sparks and danger, cutting pleasure that only lost its self-consciousness by degrees. Erik’s fingers in River’s hair pulled and knotted.

  “Get up,” Erik whispered, tugging him away. River’s lips tingled. He slid them along Erik’s abdomen. “Get on the bed.”

  River let himself be maneuvered up, then back. Let himself get lost in Erik’s callused fingers and failed to record how they burned a path from the insides of his knees to the hollows of his inner thighs. Everything Erik did was erased by the next touch—his mouth between River’s legs, sucking kisses on his thighs, or his hand wrapped around River’s cock, or the tip of his tongue tasting River carefully, his teeth sharp and rough on his belly. Each touch snowballed and brought River higher and higher until it took everything else away.

  Erik’s body swallowed River’s on the bed. It pressed against him and rocked against him, and River let himself be pushed until he was washed up against Erik, breaking over him. Until they were breaking together, moaning into messy kisses with swollen lips.

  …

  Christ, Erik was a sight. He came down with his eyes closed, the beautiful tight muscles of his stomach, the bars of his rib cage shifting with each heaving breath. River wanted to touch him again. Erik hadn’t slaked this thirst at all. He’d woken something up, something greedy. Erik twitched away with a smile when River ran a fingernail between his ribs.

  “Ticklish?” River asked.

  “Never.” Erik rolled over, trapping River’s fingers with his own. Amusement was in his eyes, River realized. With a face like that, so many angles and a serious mouth, one would have to be watchful for it.

  Erik touched River’s face, a gentle slide of his palm over stubble. He held Erik’s gaze and waited for the feeling—vulnerability that hit like something else, something he hadn’t signed up for—to fade. One night. No strings. River tensed briefly, and Erik’s hand slipped away. Right…? River caught his fingers. He leaned up on an elbow and held Erik’s arm out. The Imugi, his own art, was rich in the lamplight. He wanted to kiss it, if it wouldn’t seem self-absorbed.

  Erik didn’t move or breathe or blink.

  “It’s healing well, at least,” River said. The silence was brittle. River’s thumb caught the unmarked flesh bordering the lines of a dragon.

  What do dragons wish for?

  Erik had answered, but barely, and River doubted he’d tell him more, even now. River bit the flesh at the base of Erik’s thumb and then sucked. Turned Erik’s palm to kiss along the outer edge, set his teeth onto the small pad of his pinky finger. Erik’s stillness was uncanny—the watchfulness of a predator, tracking every movement, scenting the air. River soldiered on.

  It was a one-night stand. River wasn’t dumb. But he wasn’t done, either. “Stay a little longer?”

  Erik blinked and licked his lips. River took his finger, then another, into his mouth. Erik hooked them a little as they slid out, and
rubbed his thumb against River’s lips before threading his fingers around River’s skull and into his hair. River’s imagination hadn’t done justice to the green in his eyes when Erik drew him closer.

  This kiss wasn’t any sort of surrender. River could taste his doubt. He felt it, too, for a searing moment. It was gone in a flash when Erik pulled him closer, branding his hips when he clamped down too hard, rolling River onto him.

  “It’s late. I should go,” Erik said. It was a formality. An opening to an invitation.

  “You should fuck me again,” River said.

  “That’s really hot.” Erik’s hands were on River’s ass now, firm and sure and pulling him into a rougher rock.

  “Sex should be, shouldn’t it?” River teased—intensity was one thing, but he liked fun in bed, too. For a breathless moment, Erik was suspended, and River could see the uncertainty hanging between them before he broke, a small smile curling the edges of his lips.

  “I guess so,” Erik said. He leaned up to nip at River’s lips. His knees were open, bracketing River’s hips. “Condoms? Lube?”

  River fished around near the pillows without breaking away from him. “You going to tell me what you like this time?”

  “Did it seem like I was s-suffering be—” Erik gasped. River worked the cool lube over him, over them both. The incremental space between their bodies ratcheted with heat. The lube and their sweat and the grunting breaths his movements were punching out of Erik were intoxicating. River bit Erik’s neck and felt those calloused hands and rough fingers cupping his ass tight and hard. Erik was salt and musk River could get used to if this were a thing. If they made it one.

  Wishes were dangerous, especially with a man like Erik—a man of wolf bites, a man who fought in a cage, whose eyes were capable of cold. Even like this, open and gasping, Erik was a danger River knew better than to want.