Chapter Six

Professional Dick Biting

Dan

My neighbour was about as threatening as a disgruntled kitten.

Honestly, it was damn cute the way he scowled and huffed and his nose scrunched up when he was pissed off, nostrils flaring.

The first time I'd seen him—three years ago now, when I'd just moved in next door—I'd known instantly that he was a ghoul, even though he'd been in his human form when I'd spotted him climbing into his car.

He was cute. On the shorter side, with a wiry build. Big, pale green eyes with long dark lashes. Lots of piercings on his narrow face—a ring in each nostril, a barbell in his right eyebrow, and a stud nestled above his cupid's bow. His long hair had been pale purple then. He dyed it different colours a lot. Right now it was fading from its recent blue, the ends turning a washed-out green and the roots his natural dark greyish black.

I'd been instantly intrigued. Living next door to another non-human was always a bonus—you didn't have to worry so much about what they might see through the side windows—but I hadn't anticipated my new neighbour being such a snack. A snack I very much wanted to sample.

Problem was, Rafe Hare despised me. And was seemingly straight.

Although…

He'd definitely seen me giving myself some neck the other night. Playing my own skin flute. Slobbing on my own knob. Polishing my dome. You get the idea.

My point was, it seemed to have affected him. He'd had a stiffie when he got up and stormed into his house in the middle of our conversation. Now, I wasn't ever one to presume, but I'd been mighty intrigued by that.

And turned on.

But then, Rafe Hare turned me on a lot. Especially when he got all snarly and pissy and glared at me. A tiny little kitten unsheathing its tiny, cute little claws.

I didn't think he'd appreciate the comparison all that much though, so I kept it to myself.

Shame he hated me, really. Although if I was being honest, that probably turned me on more. But I'd never seen any hint of him being interested in men, so I'd left it well alone.

I genuinely hadn't realised I was that bad of a neighbour, not until our conversation on his deck. I mean, sure, I knew I probably could've been a bit quieter at night, but I was a night owl. Sue me. And I liked having friends over. So sue me again.

Life was too short and flighty and full of unknowns to not enjoy it to its fullest, in my opinion. Intellectually, I knew not everyone enjoyed life the same way. Rafe seemed content with his small friend group and quiet lifestyle, and that was fine. But that didn't mean I had to change to suit him just because he lived next door, did it?

I should probably get that fence fixed though. It just kept slipping my mind. And I'd also been kinda hoping it would make him keep coming over and demand I fix it.

But he'd given up doing that after the first few weeks. That was Rafe. Not that I knew him very well at all, but still. I'd picked up enough as his neighbour for the last few years. He liked to quietly seethe. He liked having something to grumble about.

Cute little growly kitten.

I'd been surprised when he'd shown up at Goliaths as the new IT guy. I hadn't known what he did for work—he wasn't one to offer any details about himself—but that kind of job, one in the background, suited him. He was quiet and kept to himself, but he wasn't meek or shy. He seemed like the type to get shit done, and to do it well without expecting any fanfare.

Which I found hot as hell, even though I was the opposite. I loved the fanfare. I loved everyone knowing I'd done a good job, and I loved everyone telling me. I loved the fans who came to watch the shows and held up posters with my name on. I loved it when people recognised me on the street. I loved being a Goliath.

When I got into work Thursday morning, I saw Rafe's car in the parking lot. I'd considered asking him if he wanted to carpool—better for the environment and all that—but I knew he'd say no.

Besides, none of our colleagues knew we were neighbours. I'd had several of them over at my place multiple times, but they'd never seen Rafe. Wasn't like he left his house much. I'd pretended not to already know him on his first day for the hell of it, and because I'd found it funny to see if I could make him squirm a bit. I just liked making my prickly neighbour squirm sometimes.

He never came up in conversation with the other wrestlers, anyway. Not even now he was working here. After his first day, he'd pretty much vanished and I hadn't seen him at work again.

He must have been hiding in his office like a surly cat who didn't want to be disturbed. Cute.

I was wrestling tonight, so the first thing I did was go into my dressing room and get changed into some workout clothes to rehearse. When I pushed open the doors to the backstage area, I saw Mads and Heidi rehearsing for their match in the training ring. Vince was by the counters making himself a protein shake, so I moseyed over to join him.

"Mornin'."

"Morning. Hey." He turned to face me, leaning his hip on the counter and shaking the beaker in his hand to mix his drink. "I was thinking, when you throw your head at me in the match tonight and I pretend to fuck it for a second, you could bite my dick." He snickered.

My mouth quirked up. When Vince and I fought, the crowd went freaking wild if he grabbed my head and thrust his hips toward it. And my whole shtick was being the wildcard among the wrestlers—I was known for my dirty and illegal moves.

"Sounds fun." I smirked at him. "You gonna be wearing a cup?"

He made a face. "Nah, just a jock. Just make it look like you're biting harder than you really are."

I burst out laughing as I dumped protein powder into a blender cup. "You want me to actually bite it?"

He grinned at me. "Just a nibble. To make it look believable. Only if you're up for it."

I shrugged. "Sure. And then what?"

"Then we end the match as planned. Just figured it might be a fun, dramatic way to end it. I'll curl up into a ball and you can pin me while I'm pretending to whimper in pain."

"Sounds hot." I smirked and turned for the fridge, spotting Crossbody sweeping into the room with his standard ‘my shit don't stink' expression on his haughty face.

I jerked my chin at him in greeting to be polite. His response was a clipped nod back, coupled with a swift and disdainful glance down both mine and Vince's frames before he tossed back his long golden ponytail and continued striding over to the treadmills without sparing us a second look.

"Pompous jackass," Vince muttered into his protein shake.

I grunted in agreement, turning back to the counter to pour almond milk into my beaker. "Crowd loves him, though."

"Yeah, because he's a pompous jackass. I don't think he even realises he's a heel. He thinks the crowd worships him, not that they love to hate him." Vince cast Crossbody one last surly look before turning his back on the royal fae. "Anyway, you want to go practise in the main ring?"

"Sure." I glanced back to see Mads and Heidi still going strong in here. Crossbody had already taken up his usual spot on the treadmill, running gracefully at a fast clip with his long ponytail bouncing behind him and his ass bouncing in those tiny shorts. He was a pompous d-bag, but he had an admittedly fantastic ass.

He was also fully aware, hence his propensity for strutting around in the tiny shorts.

Kit, Goliaths' resident mothperson wrestler who went by The Night Light, was hanging upside down off the squat rack and chatting to Kenneth, the cyclops, who was doing lunges, his single heavy brow furrowed with concentration.

A few seconds after Vince and I pushed through the doors and into the dim hallway that led down to the arena, something small and mustard-coloured shot past us on the stairs.

"Don't try anything, you two," Vince called out to Frank and Beans in a flat voice. "We're not in the mood."

There was no answer except a muffled, creepy giggle that echoed around the space. I stiffened, my muscles tensing with apprehension. A split second later, something small and freakishly strong slammed into the side of my head. Skinny, sinewy arms snapped across my face and pulled.

"Fucking—Get the fuck off me!" I bellowed, shaking my head like a dog to try and dislodge him. "It's attached, you dick! You can't run off with it!"

"Piss," hissed whichever one of them was currently clinging to my head. "Abort the mission, Beans!"

Vince was too busy cracking up to help as Frank used my hair to hoist himself down. I winced, my lip peeling back from my teeth in an angry snarl.

Before jumping down, Frank paused and leaned in close.

"We'll get you next time, dullahan," he whispered in what was, quite frankly, a pants-shittingly terrifying voice, all soft and eerie and completely unhinged. Then he hopped down and sauntered off, whistling a merry tune. Beans slunk out from the shadows and joined him, but took the time to turn around and draw a bony yellow finger threateningly across his throat as he stared at me.

"Fuck," I breathed once they'd vanished around the corner, a shudder running down my spine. "Vince, don't tell anyone, but they scare the shit out of me."

"They scare me too, bro." Vince squeezed my shoulder in sympathy. "And they, uh, they're really gunning for your head again since giving you that bob the last time they ran off with it, huh?"

I shivered again. "Yeah. Makes me want to stay in my human skin whenever I'm down here."

I'd been asked throughout my life why I didn't just stay in my human skin with my head attached all the time, despite other supernaturals knowing that being in our human form too much was like… wearing a coat to bed. Bulky and uncomfortable and just wrong. But dullahans were rare, so even most other non-humans hadn't met or interacted with one. We were kind of a mystery even among supernatural circles.

Would my life have been a bit easier if my head was always firmly attached? Sure. But it would also be a lot less interesting, and besides, it was what I'd always known. I didn't struggle with it.

Well, except that time I got up to piss in the middle of the night, but I was so tired that I left my head on the pillow, and I fell down the stairs because I couldn't see where I was going.

"I told Holt I refuse to fight them," I added as we continued down the stairs. "He got all huffy and annoyed about it, but fuck that. I just know they wouldn't stick to the script. They'd do something weird with my head."

"Yeah," Vince agreed. "I don't like fighting them either. I don't want their weirdly long tentacle dicks touching my legs."

My nose scrunched up in disdain. Their signature move, the Double Docker Shocker, was a crowd favourite, but the same certainly couldn't be said among us Goliaths. Mainly because Frank and Beans had refused to answer our repeated questions about how often they actually washed their dicks.

I shuddered and glanced back down the corridor just as Vince pushed open the door to the arena. I was half expecting to see a pair of small mustard oblongs sprinting toward me with a murderous gleam in their eyes and their freakishly long dicks flopping around with malevolent intent.

"Hey, look, the new guy," Vince said as we stepped into the cold arena, immediately diverting my attention. My head whipped around, and I spotted Rafe standing by the camera set-up with some computer equipment strewn across the floor. "Almost forgot he worked here. Haven't seen him since his first day."

"Yeah," I replied absently, watching as my cute, surly neighbour said something to our camera guy, Paxton, with a slight frown marring his brows. Rafe pointed at the ring, holding a fistful of cables, then turned toward a laptop resting on a stool and froze at the sight of us.

As in, full-on froze in place for a few seconds, still clutching his cables, those pretty green eyes wide as if he'd never, ever expected to see two wrestlers in a wrestling arena.

He wasn't in his human skin, so when the blush bloomed over his cheeks, it turned his skin a murky purplish grey. It was pretty, but that wasn't the reason it grabbed my attention. He looked so caught off guard to see us—me, specifically, I was guessing—that I wondered if it had something to do with our new nightly routine.

He'd definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent seen me sucking my own dick on Monday night. I knew it without a doubt. And I got the sense that he'd liked it, but he didn't know what to do about that, so I'd decided to do the same thing the next night, just in case he wanted to watch then too.

And the night after that.

I'd also decided to go and chill on my back deck again afterward like I had Monday night, and lo and behold, my prickly neighbour always slunk outside a few minutes later, looking flushed and awkward but with a telling haze of soft satiation in his eyes.

I knew the look well. The expression of a man still basking in post-orgasmic relief.

Problem was, I had no idea what any of it meant. This seemed to be becoming our new unspoken routine—he sees me sucking myself off. He makes himself come. We meet on our back decks for a post-nut cooldown where neither of us actually addresses it, until he inevitably gets all cute and annoyed about something arbitrary and storms off to bed.

It was fun.

And hot.

I wondered what he'd do if he came out onto his back deck one night and found me sucking myself off then and there.

Kinda wanted to do it just to see how he'd react.

"Shit, bro," Vince muttered, nudging my arm as we wandered closer to the ring. "Look."

He jerked his chin toward a top section of seating. I peered over, then stiffened when I saw the tops of two small mustard heads peeking out from behind a seat, beady little eyes blinking down at me.

I raised a hand reflexively to clasp my throat, even though I was currently in my human form. "This is harassment, surely."

"Maybe we can rig something up." Vince's voice was laced with sympathy. "Like… Velcro straps."

"I feel like I should be offended." I knocked his shoulder with mine as we got closer to Rafe and Paxton. The latter was fiddling with his camera, while my surly neighbour bent his head over the cables in his hand and tried to look busy untangling them. I could tell he was paying attention to us, though.

"Then how about a dog collar and leash?" Vince smirked and nudged me back. "I've leashed a few men in my time. It's hot."

My brow quirked, and I suppressed a grin when the back of Rafe's neck darkened with a blush. He was definitely listening. "Yeah?"

"Oh yeah. Forcing a man to crawl toward you on his hands and knees as you tighten his leash? Nothing quite like that power rush, bro."

"I wouldn't be opposed to being collared and leashed in the right setting," I drawled, slyly watching Rafe. His throat bobbed with a swallow, the flush crawling up his neck as he pretended to be very busy with his cables. "But it's not all that hot if I'm the one holding the leash just so two weird little goblins don't run off with my head. Plus, they'd just slide the collar off."

"What about attaching the leash to a ball gag?" Vince snickered, then gave Rafe a friendly grin when he realised the quiet ghoul had finally given in and lifted his head to stare at us. "Hey. Uh… Rob, right?"

"Rafe," I supplied, shooting my neighbour a crooked smirk when his gaze darted to me.

He scowled back in reflex, then smoothed out his expression as he looked at Vince. "It's Rafe. And you're Vince. The, uh… the Rolling Rimmer."

Vince grinned. "That's right. You know what's up," he added jovially, nudging the other ghoul's shoulder with his protein shake. Rafe flinched slightly and gave him a tight-lipped smile as Vince flung his arm around my neck and yanked me closer.

A second later, his long grey tongue was waggling by my cheek. I squawked out a laugh and fought to get away, shoving at Vince's midsection.

"Rafe knows all about what a ghoul tongue can do, right, bro?" He snickered and waved his tongue in my face as I laughed and tried to squirm away. It would've been easier to just shift into my true form so I could pop my head free from his hold and escape, but no fucking way when Frank and Beans were lurking.

Though, Vince brought up a point I'd never considered. All ghouls had longer-than-average tongues—Vince's, I was pretty sure, was abnormally long, even for a ghoul—but I'd never made that connection when it came to my neighbour.

That was kind of hot.

I eyed Rafe furtively. He was blushing again and looking anywhere but at us.

I'd had a lot of sex in my life, and I liked to think I was pretty good at guessing how people would act in bed. Rafe was quiet and introverted and surly, but loyal and seemingly a hard worker. He also, from what I'd gathered living next door to him for several years, liked a routine and was good at following one.

I was pretty sure he'd be great in bed. Dedicated to making sure his partner had a good time. Stubborn enough to accept nothing less than perfection. Conscientious enough to put in the time and learn how best to make someone come.

And eager. Eager to be told what to do and how to do it. Eager to be used for pleasure. I could just tell.

Shame he despised me. We could've had some fun.

"You met Dan before, right?" Vince asked, turning to gesture at me.

That blush spread back over Rafe's narrow face.

"Yes," he said tightly, giving me a clipped nod before turning toward his laptop.

I didn't really know Rafe at all, but I could tell he was essentially dismissing us because he was feeling uncomfortable and awkward. It didn't bother me—not much did, to be honest—and I was about to direct Vince over to the ring when my fellow wrestler spoke up.

"We won't get in your way if we rehearse in here, right?" he asked Rafe cheerfully, not seeming to notice that the other ghoul's shoulders were suddenly hunched and his head was bent over his laptop.

"Uh, no," he muttered without looking up. "That'll be fine. We're just getting stuff ready for the online launch."

"That could actually work great." Paxton spoke up, lifting his head from the camera. "We can use you guys to make sure everything's running how it should."

"You're gonna film us?" Vince batted his eyelashes and tossed back his long, dark hair coquettishly, making me laugh. "Make sure you get my good side, Pax."

"Do you have a bad side, bud?" Paxton replied good-naturedly. He was used to our antics.

"Trust me," I said dryly, tilting my head toward Vince, "this one has a bad side."

Vince smirked as Paxton chuckled and asked, "Do I want to know?"

"Don't know if you'd be able to handle it, Pax," Vince teased.

Rafe had looked up and was watching us in silence, his expression telling me he was fascinated by the interaction and the conversation. But the moment our eyes met, he jerked his head back down.

A tiny rush of affection made me want to find a way to draw him into the conversation. He was a grumpy bastard who liked to complain, but I was starting to realise just how awkward and uncomfortable Rafe got in social situations.

It made me feel kind of bad for teasing him on his first day here.

And all those other times.

In my defence, he complained about everything . He called my having a couple of friends over for the evening a "party." He acted like I had a different hookup every night of the week when, yes, while I did have a varied sex life, it certainly wasn't that active. He made comments about my yard and unmown grass when it wasn't any of his business. It felt like he'd decided to dislike me the moment I moved in next door, before we'd even spoken.

I was a pretty laid-back guy, but he still rankled me some of the time. Which, yeah, probably made me act out a little more than I would've if I hadn't known how much it got to him. We just seemed to bring out the worst in each other.

Which was a shame. A real shame. In another universe, one where he wasn't such an uptight bastard and was open to it, I would've enjoyed finding out for certain what he was like in bed.