Riven (Riven 1)

“Oh, shit, shit, shit.”

I caught myself on the edge of the counter with my elbow before my knees could give out, and pulled out of Theo’s mouth. He whimpered, and stuck out his tongue as if he wanted to hold onto the taste of me as long as possible.

At the sight of him, eyes closed, tongue out, I grabbed him, and kissed him hard, tasting myself in his mouth, then bore him back to the floor, reaching for his dick. He cried out when I took him in hand, tumbling against the linoleum in a fall of hair and elbows and knees.

“Please, please, please, Caleb, please,” he chanted, and I jerked him hard. He clutched at my shoulders and scrabbled at my back, and then came on a soundless moan, head thrown back, swollen lips parted, hands clenched to fists, panting. His release spilled over my fist and I kept working him until he pushed at my hand, and dropped his head back on the floor with a dull thunk, limbs splayed, hair in his face, breathing heavily, a look of peace on his face.

“Mmmmmm,” he moaned, stretching. “Good work, team. Are you making hash for dinner?”

“Yeah.” I smiled, brushing his hair back.

“That’s kind of all you can make, huh?”

“Basically.”

We grinned at each other, and I collapsed on top of him, burying my head in his neck. His arms came around me as if they belonged there and he held on tight.

Chapter 11

Theo

Caleb and I were in his bed, sunlight spilling in through the window and lighting up the auburn in his dark hair and beard. He had his fingers in my hair and was still asleep, and I was watching him dozily, luxuriating in the feel of his skin, his smell, the weight of his leg on mine.

My phone buzzed and Caleb’s nose scrunched. I ignored it. Everything was perfect right now. My studio time yesterday had gone great, I’d surprised Caleb by driving here right from the studio, even though I’d just have to drive back into the city today, and we’d spent the night wrapped up together, finding one another in the darkness anytime we woke. The feeling of safety, in Caleb’s arms, Caleb’s bed, Caleb’s home, was starting to sink into me, making me crave his quiet strength whenever I was elsewhere.

My phone buzzed again, and Caleb reached out as if he could smack it away, narrowly missing hitting me in the face.

I saw it was my agent calling, and also saw that it was only 7:30 in the morning. But as I went to turn the phone off, Lewis called again and I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered quietly, sliding out of bed with a longing look at Caleb’s thick torso and muscular arms and soft mouth, and walking into the living room to talk.

“Have you seen the story?”

“Uhhh. No?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m…not at home right now.”

I wasn’t sure why I was reluctant to tell Lewis about Caleb. One of the first conversations we’d ever had had been me saying that I wasn’t going to play it straight, and Lewis saying some crap about how it was fine because music fans thought queers were edgy now.

“Let me guess. You’re at the address I got you of that man. In Stormville.”

“Oh.” Right, Lewis had been the one to find Caleb’s address in the first place. “Yeah, I’m here. I’ll be back in town this afternoon, though. We’ve got another studio session.”

I wandered into the kitchen and started to make coffee, half forgetting that Lewis was on the phone as my mind started drifting to our session today and all the ways I wanted to change the two tracks we’d recorded the week before I took a break from the studio.

“They must have followed you,” Lewis was saying.

“Sorry, what?”

“The story in Scoop NYC. Look, it’ll be fine, just wanted to make sure you knew so you don’t parade around naked on the porch or anything.”

Lewis kept talking, something about publicity and capitalizing on something or other, but my ears had filled with a loud buzzing that drowned out anything else. I grabbed Caleb’s laptop off the coffee table and googled myself and Scoop NYC. The story popped up immediately. The headline read “City Boy in the Country? Where Theo Decker Spends His Time.” Below it was a picture of me in profile, standing just outside the front door of Caleb’s house. It was from last night, and clearly taken from the road. I hadn’t even noticed. I was so eager to get inside to Caleb, so excited at how well the studio session had gone.

“Oh, fuck,” I said, and hung up the call. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is not good.”

My first instinct was to make sure that Caleb never saw this, because I knew it was the last thing he’d want. He’d said as much. Said that he wanted nothing to do with the fame side of my life. Said that the last thing he could handle was trying to keep on an even keel and stay clean if he had eyes on him, and I knew that for him, a big part of that was exemplified by the publicity machine.