Personal Entanglement (Thorne and Dash 2)

Riley grinned. Thorne was truly all right if he was asking for more. “Eventually, but not today.”

“No, not today. I’ve not become that much of a masochist.”

“I’m really glad you enjoyed it because I did too. I’ve been wanting to try something harsher since you love being spanked.”

Thorne bristled. And then laughed. “I do love it. A lot.”

“Almost as much as you like pretending you don’t.”

“Ha. How about some sandwiches?”

Riley groaned. “I wish they’d make themselves.”

“Come on, I’ll—” Thorne gasped when he tried to get up. “Never mind. And we won’t be trying that tomorrow, or the next day either. I’m going to have to eat standing up.”

“If you can move your sore ass to the kitchen, I can at least make us something to eat.”

“Deal.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Thorne managed to find a way to sit in relative comfort on the squishy sofa cushions since standing up was making him dizzy. He really did need to eat.

Riley ordered him to drink a bottle of water while he made them some food. When Riley set a plate in front of him, Thorne didn’t speak until he’d wolfed down two ham sandwiches and finished half of a second bottle of water in record time.

“We’re good now, right?” he asked.

Riley studied him. “Do you seriously need to ask that?”

“I’ve been told I’m too self-absorbed to understand when someone else is angry with me.”

“I never said that.” Riley sounded offended.

“Kathryn did.”

Riley smiled. “Ah, that I can imagine. But do you really think I would do what we just did, something so intense, so raw, if I wasn’t sure how I felt?”

“So that means we’re okay?”

“Thorne. You’re an idiot,” Riley said, shaking his head.

“Kathryn said that too.”

“Someone has to make sure you know.”

Riley gave him a cheeky look before he polished off his own sandwich and reached for his water. Thorne picked up yet another sandwich for himself. Apparently getting completely wrecked by the man you love works up quite an appetite.

“Remember how I said I wanted to know more about you?” Riley asked.

Thorne nodded as he finished chewing.

“Can we try that?”

“Didn’t you learn something, just now?” He’d opened himself up to Riley in the most intimate way possible, but somehow the idea of talking about shit from his past was far more terrifying.

“I did,” Riley smiled. “It’s cute how nervous you are.”

Thorne glared at him. “What kind of secrets are you going to make me tell?”

“You pick. Tell me something I don’t know about you. Then I’ll go.”

What was there that Riley didn’t know? Lots, but little of it mattered.

“It doesn’t have to be anything heavy.”

A story came to mind that he hadn’t thought of in years, but he bet Riley would love it. “When Kathryn and I were kids, we were forbidden to go into the formal living room unless we were told to. I was around ten and she was eight when my mom started leaving us home while she ran errands. We would sneak into the living room and play games—pretend we were in a castle and having tea with the king and queen. Kathryn would pretend to pour from my mother’s silver tea service. My mom also hid chocolates in there, and we would sneak them whenever we could.”

“This isn’t going to end well, is it?” Riley asked.

Thorne laughed and shook his head. “One day, my mom came home much earlier than we expected her to. We knew she’d see us if we came out of the living room as she was walking to the front door and coming in, so we went out the window. We weren’t supposed to go outside while she was gone either. I don’t know why we thought it was better to be caught playing outside than in the living room, but we both were certain of it. Once we were out, I realized Kathryn was still holding a knife and fork we’d been using as guards in our game. I’d been digging a hole to bury pirate treasure at the edge of the woods, so we dropped them in there and covered them up the best we could. The next day I went back out and finished burying them.”

Riley laughed. “I can just see you. You’d have been so serious about your task.”

Thorne nodded. “I was.”

“So what happened?”

“We heard her calling us, and we ran to the door and tried to slip in, but she caught us. We both got spanked and sent to our rooms; it was at least two whole days before we had the nerve to go in the living room again while she was gone.”

“Did she figure out about the silver?” Riley asked.

“If she noticed it missing, she never said a word to us. As far as I know it’s still buried in the yard.”

Riley grinned and shook his head. “So you were just as stubborn then as you are now.”