21. Theo

Theo

I snap awake with a jerk, shoving at the heavy-weight pinning me down. Scrambling, still half caught in my dream, I manage to squirm my way out of the bed, hitting the hard floors with a loud oof . Above me on the bed, Roan mumbles something unintelligible and rolls over.

A quick glance at the thin light trailing through the crack in the blinds lets me know that he's only been asleep for a couple of hours, having stayed up drinking with his mage friends until Woodsy and Mauvy closed the tavern. He'd been mostly sober last night, but still smelt strongly of the spicy cherry liqueur the mages favoured.

Reassured that I haven't woken him, I sit up, resting my back against the bed, placing my elbows on my raised knees to cup my head in my hands. I massage my temples hard, trying to drive out the last of the adrenaline in my body. My breathing is still uneven, the panic of my dreams still flooding my system.

The dreams are getting worse, more realistic. Not only scarier, as the Marieth/Darius - though it is Darius more often than not now - hybrid hunts me through the dark Woods.

I can feel the exhaustion from running all night. The desperation to reach safety. The terror when the safety is within reach until the cold grasp of them reach out to grab me, like frozen tentacles.

He caught me this morning. I felt his hand touching my arm and dream-me had screamed. I think Roan must've knocked me or something; I don't know. But I woke up just as Darius's monstrous and dream-weird fingers, too long and blackened at the tip, had locked around my arm.

He'd cried out in triumph, and then I was on the floor. Only centimetres in front of me within touching distance, is the drawer with my phone. It's still off, and I haven't been brave enough to check it since the last time, but now in the aftermath of that dream, I'm morbidly curious and willing to poke at the bruise to see how much it hurts.

With jerky movements, I pull the phone from its hiding place, stopping only to check that I haven't woken Roan, and then I hold down the little button on the side to turn it back on. I chew on my finger and tap my toe on the wood while I wait for the screen to load, failing to unlock it three times before I finally get my fingers to cooperate and enter the pin.

It trembles violently in my hand as a barrage of new messages are delivered. But there is only one from Darius. Huh. I close my eyes when I click to open the message, like that will somehow help the vast stupidity of my decision.

Theo, my beloved. I am sorry. I was hurt and lashed out. Please, have it in your heart to forgive me. Are we not all flawed beings? I hope to see you soon, and then I can explain it all and we can be together again. For real. I love you, Darius.

Guilt once again gnaws at my insides that I've hurt him. I should have contacted him after I was rescued. Before that even. I never should have ignored him after he reached out after our fight. That was wrong.

I read over his words again and again, searching every part of me for how I feel.

Once, not too long ago, this message would have made me ecstatic. I mean, he'd made the same promises before, but I'd always had faith in us. Well, at least in him.

Now though, the promise leaves me cold and uncomfortable. More than a little scared. I don't think he'd actually do anything to me, and I'm so well protected here at the tavern. There's always a million beings floating about, not to mention Mauvy and Seldon and Roan .

I'm scared I won't be strong enough if I have to face him, that he'll resurrect that dead part of me that contorted himself into whatever he demanded.

I don't want Darius; he is very firmly in my past. My eyes land on the hulking, horned man in my bed. Roan snores loudly and throws himself over in the bed, one arm reaching out, searching for something. Me. Like he always is. Because he is my future.

Once I find the guts to actually have the conversation, that is, and make him listen and finally convince him he doesn't need to save me from whatever scary future he thinks he's trapping me into.

But maybe I do owe Darius some type of closure? A goodbye? The idea eases some of the guilt chewing at my insides, and I decide to bring it up with Dr Brordieu.

After my slight overreaction with Tor last weekend when we were all at the farm for a fire, I have a decent range of topics to bring up today when I have my appointment.

The other thing is whatever is going on between me and Roan and this whole friends with orgasms business. We're both done fooling ourselves, I think, if his repeated huffs and random aborted attempts at conversations mean anything. Unless he has something else he is avoiding getting off his chest.

I want to shove him to take the next step, but I don't know how to do it. I could ask one of our friends, but I don't want to put them in the middle. And I want healthy advice, not whatever buffoonery they will peddle.

I quickly check the other messages and, finding nothing important, I power the phone back off and slip it back into the drawer, tucking it under the blankets inside like that will protect me from everything the phone represents.

We have a big day today, and I am not in the mood to get started too early. It's going to be a late one with our trip to Slash tonight, so I slide back under the blankets and snuggle up to Roan. The moment I touch him he is wrapped around me like a barnacle, nuzzling his head into my neck, pressing soft sleepy kisses along my jawline.

I sink into the feeling and let him chase away the last of the memories from my nightmares. The cosy warmth eventually settles my racing heart, and my eyelids get heavy, drooping until before I know it, I'm back asleep.

***

Hot, wet open-mouthed kisses trail down my chest, detouring only to bite gently on my nipples before continuing their journey down my stomach. My cock was obviously awake well before I was because by the time his mouth has reached my belly, where it deviates again to nibble blindingly hot kisses over my pelvic bones, it smacks him in his cheek. Roan's beard tickles the sensitive head of my cock, and it jerks, whacking him again.

A soft chuckle tickles my skin, causing me to shiver and moan under his touch. My brain finally comes online, and I plunge my fingers into Roan's long, loose waves, fingers flexing hard against his scalp, making him hiss with pleasure as he trails his tongue up the length of my dick. Pure, unfiltered pleasure pulses through me.

"Gods, yes, " My voice is hoarse with sleep and lust, and when his big hand wraps around the base of my dick, I crack my closed eyes to watch him bring the leaking, reddened tip into his mouth, enveloping me in that intense heat.

My breaths come in short pants, my toes digging at the mattress to both gain purchase and also resist slamming my dick into his mouth. Roan seems to sense my need, winking at me sinfully with a mouthful of cock - my cock - then holds my eye contact while he slowly swallows me down to the root. When his nose is nestled in my pubes, he swallows around me, and I almost come undone.

My head throws backwards on a soundless cry, the tendons in my neck aching from tension. The hand that had been holding my cock steady, now slick with saliva, rolls my balls for a moment, pulling them away from my body and me back from the brink. Roan slides his mouth back up my cock, cheeks hollow, eyes never leaving me, then dips back down, teasingly slow, his tongue torturing my length. Obscene nonsense falls from my lips as I gasp and moan, white-hot pleasure licking my skin.

"Yes, more ." I am panting, whining, desperate, even more so when Roan chuckles around me and the sound vibrates down my dick. His hand releases my balls, and I almost complain but a solitary finger trails down over my taint, teasing down to flutter around the rim of my hole.

Impatience burns in me, but he acts like he has all the time in the world. I drive my hips down on his thick digit, but he deftly avoids my attempts to fill myself.

Instead, he pulls off my cock, kissing along my pelvis. His beard tickles me, drawing a pained laugh from me. I'm in no mood for the teasing. I want his mouth back on me. I want him to spear me on those thick fingers of his. I want him to work me open when I fuck myself into his mouth. Then I want him to paint my body with his come.

"Patience," he whispers against my hip, making me shiver again. Then he shimmies down further, wedging his big wide shoulders between my thighs, forcing them up to get out of his way. My breath seizes in my lungs when those big fingers dig into the flesh of my ass cheeks, spreading me for his feasting gaze.

He isn't going to- Oh, and he is.

If the whole tavern didn't know we were sleeping together, they definitely will now from how loud I shout his name when his tongue brushes my hole. I am dimly aware that I have been asleep and am probably not the freshest, but it's hard to be self-conscious about such mundane things when Roan is between my legs creating such wicked magic.

His tongue breaches my entrance, making my cock jump for joy on my stomach, a trail of pre-cum connecting the tip to the puddle beneath.

Roan diligently plunders my ass, spearing me again and again and then alternating his lascivious attentions to licking and nibbling around the rim.

Apparently not as mentally broken with lust as I am, he manages to put both hands to use to multitask, returning one hand to stroke my cock in firm, mind bending tugs. The other returns to toying with my ass, working in tandem with his tongue until he has two fingers deep inside me. The stretch of his wide fingers burns, adding to the assailing of my body. His fingers find my prostate, pounding against it with their deep, unrelenting thrusting.

It's too much, my skin is on fire, my hands tug hard at Roan's hair both to pull him away and also push him tighter against me. He growls, low and deep, the sensation vibrating directly against my balls and it is over for me.

I come completely undone as my world explodes—come shooting from my cock hits my chest, my chin, and even my eyebrow. But I don't move, I can't. I am boneless, utterly wrecked from my orgasm. I only whimper when Roan gently withdraws his fingers from me, leaving me hollow and sated.

The glint in his heavy-lidded eyes is feral as he climbs over me, straddles me, thick, heavily veined cock in his hand. He jerks himself with almost punishing ferocity, his hips arching into his hand as he moves. His eyes flicker all over my body, lingering on the patches of come already decorating my body.

My fingers find their way to the sexy patterns inked over his thighs, trailing over the geometric shapes and petals, to the crease of his ass cheeks. I dig my fingers in there, cupping his ass, moulding the meaty globes in my hands as they flex with his thrusts.

His eyes fall closed when he licks his lips, as if he can taste me still and cannot get enough of it, his head dropping back in pleasure. Watching him over me, fisting his leaking cock, bringing himself to the brink over me , has my cock stirring beneath where he's straddling me. He looks like a god.

"That's it, give it to me, Boss Daddy ." The teasing, seductive huskiness to my voice surprises me, almost as much as my ability to talk coherently at all. His head snaps back, his eyes locked on my face once again. The pure lust on his face is the hottest thing I've ever seen. Capturing my lip between my teeth, I nod, affirming my lustful demand, my hands stroking his fevered skin wherever they can reach.

It's enough for Roan, too much even. An absolutely wild groan, pained and hoarse, rips from him, and I see his cock jump in his hold. I can see the swelling of the base only moments before the first rope of come jets from the flared, red head of his cock. More spurts land on me, decorating my skin, mixing with my release, as he milks his cock over and over, rending every last drop of pleasure from himself.

At last it's too much, and he drops down on top of me, rolling to one side to stop from crushing me completely but still with one thick thigh resting across my softening cock and his arm pinning my chest. He draws absent-minded patterns across me with our cum, swirling it together over my skin, while we both recover our breath.

When his head burrows into my neck to press hot, biting kisses at the sensitive tendons there, I turn my head to kiss at the base of his horn, wriggling restlessly against him. "We're going to be late."

He just grunts. "How can you know that? Don't even know what the time is. We could have all the time in the world to do all kinds of things."

He kisses his way across my collarbone and neck, shifting his body over mine.

"Fun things. Like I could lick this all off you and we could do it all over again."

My hips arch up to grind into his stomach, but then I stop, grabbing both of his horns at the base, which, admittedly, is not the best thing to do if I want him to quit what he's doing, but whatever. I tug hard to pull him up so his face hovers over mine.

"As amazing as that sounds, and I really wanna come back to that later, I have an appointment at one. And we have to go furniture shopping. And meet up with Seldon. So, why don't we continue this in the shower at least?"

Seeing Roan, the perpetual adult, grumpy and pouty always makes my heart skip a little beat.

" Fine . If we have to."

He slides off me and out of the bed, and I linger a moment to admire the way his ass flexes as he walks to the bathroom. He stops at the doorway, looking back at me, waiting for me. "But you're making it up to me later."

Definitely not going to argue with that.

***

The sun is glorious on my skin as I step out of Dr Brordieu's office onto the busy sidewalk. A cyclist almost takes me out immediately, riding by way too fast on the footpath. But after righting myself and flinging them the finger when they abuse me, my good mood returns.

If said cyclist also happened to ride straight into a bin at their high speed, sending them flying, just as I was thinking about them having an accident, well, that is just a coincidence isn't it? For a brief moment I consider joining the beings rushing to assist him but think better of it, turning on my heel to walk in the opposite direction, hands stuffed in my pockets. I take a deep breath, letting the comforting sea air of Twin Heads fill my lungs, and continue down the street.

The doctor's office isn't too far from the hotel Roan and I had rented for the night. He booked us a nice, mid-rate room at the chain hotel on the main strip by the beach. I then called and upgraded our booking to one of their more luxurious suites on the upper levels with a balcony and a very pretty view of the sea.

When we checked in and had been given our room key, Roan was a teeny, tiny bit upset with my change in plans. I just told him to be grateful I had some self-restraint and hadn't booked us into the penthouse with the private rooftop spa. He was kind of disappointed after that.

The sunset will be perfect, so we arranged for Seff and Seldon to meet up with us here at the hotel for some drinks and snacks before we head out tonight. Seldon promised to help me get dressed for our night out, and I don't know whether to be excited for the opportunity or nervous about the wicked gleam in his eye when he'd made the promise.

The mutterings about glitter and chain mail didn't really help my misgivings.

But until they were set to turn up this evening, we had other things to do.

Shopping things .

Shopping had never really been something I cared about before—it had always been a chore really, but now I've found that I love it. Maybe it's because I know myself better now? Either way, it's time for an iced beverage and to find wherever Roan is lurking on these streets. He went to visit his parents while I was at my appointment but promised to be waiting for me afterwards. I just have to find him. There was a small awkward moment where he invited me to actually come with him to go see his parents but that had been a little too much for me just yet, while everything between us was still this big nebulous, nameless thing.

Plus, I don't exactly have a great running history with parents.

It takes me a little too long to find him—not that I start to panic or stress that I really need to get a replacement phone to avoid these kinds of things. Nope. Not at all.

Eventually, I find him stretched out, legs lazily crossed at the ankles, showing off his tattoos in his shorts, hands casually clasped in his lap, head tipped back to enjoy the sun on his face on a park bench, patiently waiting for me, completely oblivious to the humans and beings hurrying past him.

From across the road, I watch as an older woman takes a double glance back at him, no doubt admiring the way his worn soft blue tee shirt hugs and accentuates his impressive muscles, then blushes when he turns his head to her and winks. I kind of miss his harness when he dresses all casual like this, but he still manages to look like sex itself somehow.

I chuckle to myself and cross the road at a light jog, giddy excitement bubbling through me. Roan had been the main topic of conversation with Dr Brordieu today, specifically me sorting through all my feelings to figure out how I want to tell him that I am madly in love with him and want to get married and have his babies.

Ok, not that, because children scare me and also I can't have babies considering I don't have the right bits. But maybe him moving into the house with me might be a good start, eventually.

Or like, tomorrow. If he's into it.

I am trying to not get ahead of myself and break into his tiny little place and just move his stuff into the house. Though that does sound like an excellent plan, so I file it away for later. It's not like he seems too attached to his place, anyway. He hasn't even gone there to do anything other than get clothes since he started sleeping with me, like, actually sleeping. His toothbrush even made its way to the bathroom in my room at the tavern. But like I said, not getting ahead of myself.

The other thing we discussed was Darius. I finally explained about our relationship. Mostly. And the messages. Kind of. The good doctor had that look on his face that he was about to get all concerned about me or whatever when I'd trod a little too far into how bad things had gotten, and I just… I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

So I didn't.

He still expressed some caution about me contacting Darius, but he agreed that just sending a message would be safe. So, we mapped that out, and I have a plan to contact him next week. Hence the good mood when I left the office.

I try to keep my footsteps light as I reach the footpath near Roan, but he manages to sense my approach anyway. His big body tenses, and then his head snaps to my direction, the massive smile on his face making him the most handsome man I've ever seen.

My stomach does a swoopy, flip-floppy thing when he jumps to his feet to rush towards me, swinging me into his arms. Pure affection radiates from his being, the edge of his aura sizzling against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and lock my ankles behind his ass so he can't put me down just yet. He grunts when I shift my weight around but still moves his hands down my back to cup my ass.

Only to hold me up better. Obviously. We're in public after all.

A large, hairy being passes us, I'm not sure what he is, but he is massive, with long luscious midnight blue hair covering most of his body. As he passes, he manages to knock into me with his shoulder, sending Roan stumbling back.

"Oi, watch it!" Roan calls after him, nostrils flared. His berserker side has taken offence to the altercation, eyes turning a deep red black and the red veins under his skin becoming thicker and more prominent.

The hairy being, now only a couple of metres ahead, turns on his heel to face us, and roars . Loudly. Like, I feel a ripple of wind from the power of his high-pitched objection.

Thankfully, it was so loud that nobody—because several bodies had stopped to watch—would have been able to hear my super-manly squeak of terror.

I wrap myself tighter around Roan, both to get away from the hairy being and to also weigh down Roan, whose breathing is now coming in rapid fire pants, his body braced to charge.

"Hey babe, can we maybe not pick fights on a public street out in front of a children's park? I don't want to get arrested today."

The other being is staring down Roan, one hundred-percent ready to fight. Both of them have their eyes locked on each other, so I cup both of Roan's cheeks in my hands and, with great force, pull his face around so his eyes are locked on me instead.

"Hi. Did you hear me? Get it together. Nothing happened." Roan's nod is stiff and almost robotic, but he manages.

His eyes drift to my lips and, for a moment, I think he's going to funnel that rage into what would end up a really inappropriate kiss, but instead he seems to be watching my breathing, so I focus on making the breaths long and obvious until he gets into the rhythm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the hairy being flip the double bird at Roan and stalk off in the other direction. What a dick.

Eventually Roan calms and comes back to himself, the red veins receding, the warm slate grey returning to his eyes. When he no longer feels big and imposing under my arms, the swelling of his muscles gone, I give him a quick squeezing hug.

"Thanks." His voice is muffled in my neck, where he presses light feathery kisses, sending shivers down my spine.

"Ready to shop?" I drop my forehead forward to whisper conspiratorially. He drops his forehead forward too, pressing them together, making my eyes go blurry.

"No, but we'll do it anyway. Lead the way, babe."

Ugh, the way he has started to drop pet names for me never fails to make me want to giggle like an idiot. I manage to contain myself, instead disappointed when he removes his hands from my ass so I have no choice but to drop my legs and let go.

But then he slips his hand in mine and follows me down the street in the direction of the shopping district, and the overwhelming urge to simper and giggle comes right on back.