Rend

by Roan Parrish

  Rhys kissed the top of my head.

  “Well, that’s that, then,” he said. “You stay with him, and I’ll go tell that lady. Hey.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “We have a dog.”

  * * *

  —

  We did have a dog, and he had the strangest walk I’d ever seen. He kind of slunk sideways, paws crossing diagonally as he sniffed at things. Rhys thought it was hilarious and suggested we call him Diagonal. I glared at him.

  “Well, he needs a name,” Rhys said. We’d kicked a few around on the drive home from the shelter the day before, but we couldn’t decide.

  “What if he already has a name and he just can’t tell us what it is?”

  “We could try calling him every known name in the universe and see if he responds to any. Shouldn’t take too long.” Rhys winked at me.

  “Ha ha.” I shoved him with the hand not holding the dog’s leash.

  He slung his arm over my shoulders. “Don’t you think we should give him a name so he knows he’s part of our family now?” Rhys’s voice was warm and family sent a shiver of longing and fear and hope up my spine. I nodded.

  Rhys started with names of dogs from old country songs, and I vetoed them all. “I’m not yelling racist shit at the park to call the dog. And he’s not blue. Or red.”

  “Sleepy? Hollow? Oh, SH? You could try to yell it all you wanted and it’d still come out a whisper.”

  I snorted. “Ichabod Crane? Never mind, I’m not setting our dog up to be murdered by a ghost.”

  “It’ll come to us,” Rhys said, unconcerned.

  When we got home, we let the dog play in the backyard for a while. Rhys threw sticks, and the dog watched them but didn’t care. Then a leaf fell from the tree, and he went bananas trying to snatch it out of the air, then stood under the tree waiting for more prey.

  When we went inside, he curled up in the dog bed we’d put in the corner of the living room. I crouched beside it while Rhys got dinner together.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, stroking his ears. “Not too scary here, right? I thought it was for a little while but it’s probably fine. Stuff’s okay? I know Rhys is really tall, but you get used to it. Hey, what’s up with your walk, man?”

  He snored in answer, right hind leg stretching out of the bed.

  After dinner, we took another walk, and I headed us toward the cemetery. We walked along the paths, and the dog pawed at fallen leaves and nosed acorns. When we got to the crypt at the northwest edge, I sat on the side of it and Rhys sat next to me.

  “Hey, I had this idea,” I said. “Or, I dunno.”

  “Tell me.”

  The dog sniffed at the ground, then collapsed on my feet.

  “It was so sad at the shelter. All those dogs just sitting there. And I was thinking how cool it would’ve been to get to hang out with some dogs at St. Jerome’s. It was so lonely there. People everywhere, but no one…” I shrugged. “I don’t know. No one touched. Except in bad ways. But I bet we would have hugged a dog. Cuz it wouldn’t have seemed weak like hugging each other.”

  Rhys pulled me closer to his side and stroked my hair, ran his hand up and down my back.

  “So, what if I could organize a thing where shelter dogs get brought to places like St. Jerome’s? I know they have them for prisons, so I could look up those programs. Maybe…maybe the kids could even take them for walks and stuff, so it’s a win-win for the shelter too. And the dogs. And maybe we could get cats? I don’t know. Maybe I could do it for my next project.”

  “Fuck, I love you so much,” Rhys said and pulled me into a hug. “That’s a great idea.” Satisfaction settled in my belly.

  After we locked up and got the dog settled in his dog bed, we went upstairs. Rhys grabbed my wrist and spun me so my back was against the wall, then he loomed over me, pushing into my space. His eyes were blazing as he looked at me.

  “Do you feel it? Do you feel how much we’re a family?” he asked. “We are, Matty. You and me and the dog. You belong here, with me, with us. Can you feel it?”

  His voice was so intense, so passionate, that I couldn’t tell if he was about to cry or fuck me into the wall. I caught his face in my hands.

  “I do. A lot. It’s just sometimes it…wears off. I don’t know how to explain it. I just think something, and then I spiral out into thinking that maybe it’ll all go away. Sorry,” I added. “It’s not anything you do. It’s just…me.”

  Rhys nodded. “You just need to be reminded,” he murmured.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I can do that.” Rhys’s voice went dark and possessive. “You’re mine, Matty. There’s nothing that will ever keep me from you. You belong with me.”

  I whimpered and sagged against the wall, trusting Rhys would hold me up.

  “If you run away from me again, I’ll find you. I’ll always find you and bring you home. This is your home.”

  He kept talking, and it fucking got to me. I’d thought I was over being embarrassed at how much it turned me on when he talked this way, but it just felt raw and scary. And the fact that I felt like I could trust him with raw and scary…turned me the fuck on.

  He walked us to the bed and laid me down. He kissed me until I was grabbing at his shirt and we were both moaning. Then he stripped me slowly and looked me over. I was breathing heavily, and his eyes on me were intense. His rough hands traced over my skin as he revealed it.

  “I’m looking at what’s mine. This is mine.” He squeezed my nipple. “And this.” He splayed his big hand over my stomach. “This is mine, too.” He stroked my hard cock very lightly and I shuddered. “This is definitely mine.” He squeezed my ass, hard, then bent over me to speak in my ear.

  “Does it feel like a relief to be mine, Matt? Does it feel good to know that no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of me? That you can fuck up, and we can fight, and I’ll still be here. That you’ll still belong to me?”

  “Oh God,” I choked.

  “Does it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No one gets to kiss you except me, do they?” He kissed me, deep and filthy.

  “No,” I gasped.

  “Good boy. They don’t. They don’t get to touch you like this, do they?” He slid his fingers between my ass cheeks and held me open.

  “Ungh, no, no.”

  “Nope. They don’t. But what can I do to you, baby?”

  My skin was on fire. My brain was mush. I fucking loved it.

  “Any-anything.”

  “Mmm,” Rhys groaned. “Yeah, anything. Because you know I’d never hurt you, right? You know I’ll always take care of you.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, please, Rhys, yes.”

  “I have this fantasy,” Rhys rumbled. “I think about it all the time and I never told you.”

  “Tell me,” I gasped.

  He looked uncharacteristically self-conscious for a moment and licked his lips, but then he pushed it aside and his eyelids fluttered with lust.

  “In the fantasy, I’m inside you all day. I go down to eat breakfast and you’re on my lap and I’m inside you.”

  He tapped my hole and I gasped.

  “I drive to the store and get groceries and I’m inside you. We talk about getting the carpet cleaned or fixing the radiator and I’m inside you. All day, inside you.”

  He rubbed his fingers around my hole and over it as he spoke.

  “Sometimes I’m fucking you, sometimes you clench around me. But all day I’m a part of you and you’re holding on to me. At work, I’m inside you so everyone knows your mine. On the way back home, the vibrations of the train make you gasp as you feel me inside you. Then after dinner, we go upstairs, and with each step I slide deeper inside, until we can go to bed. And then I fuck you for hours. We never come and I never go soft, it just builds and builds until fin
ally, only when we’re too exhausted to go on, we can finish.”

  “Holy fuck, Rhys,” I breathed.

  “Too much?” he asked.

  I shook my head quickly and took his hand. “When you’re inside me. Here?” I pressed his fingers to my hole and his breath caught. “Am I hard for you all day?”

  He nodded and wrapped his other hand around my cock. “Yeah. Sometimes I stroke you a little, make sure you stay that way. Or I pinch your nipples to feel you clench around me.” He did it, and the tiny points of pain made me tighten up around the finger he’d worked inside me. I fumbled for the lube and Rhys folded over me, kissing me so hot and deep I forgot about anything else.

  When he pulled away he had the lube and the red dildo. He slicked his fingers and pressed three inside me, leaning into it as my head fell back and my mouth fell open. He licked into my mouth and said, “I’m gonna pretend like it’s all day. I’m gonna fuck you and fuck you until you can’t take it anymore.”

  My hips jerked and lust shot through me. “Yes, fuck, yes.”

  “And at the end of it, you’ll know you belong to me. That every inch of you, inside and out, is mine.”

  I was saying Yes yes yes over and over and Rhys was fucking me with his fingers, slow and deep, stroking inside me every few thrusts until I was trembling, my thighs shaking, needing more.

  Rhys slid inside me, and it was the perfect more. He fucked me hard and fast, plowing into me until all I could do was grab at the sheets, his shoulder, my own hair, to keep from flying apart. Then he slowed down and eased off, and I said No no no because I wanted it to last forever. Rhys, still tremblingly hard, pulled out of me slowly and kissed away my cry of protest.

  He pressed the dildo inside me instead and kept kissing me. My cock lay on my stomach, swollen and leaking and untouched. Rhys licked up the underside of it, and my hips shot off the bed. But he pressed me down again and used the dildo wickedly. He angled the toy so he was hitting my prostate every time, pressing into the tender spot until bolts of pleasure crackled through me, so much pleasure it turned to pain.

  Then he changed the angle and fucked me with it so slowly I could hardly tell when he was pushing in and when he was pulling out. Could only feel the velvet clutch of my body and the maddening friction, and the way being full, with Rhys’s hands on my body, was the best thing I’d ever felt.

  It was almost relaxing, and I stretched my arms up, sinking into the mattress as Rhys filled me again and again, running his palms over my thighs and stomach and chest.

  Then there was that wicked angle again and he nailed my prostate so suddenly that I cried out, tensing up all over. Again and again he worked it until I was shaking and gasping. Then he drizzled more lube on his cock, pulled the dildo out, and sank into me in one deep thrust.

  He was bigger than the dildo—thicker and longer, and the stretch of his cock awoke every nerve ending inside me. We surged together hard and fast, both crying out into each other’s mouths as we fucked. I ground my dick into Rhys’s muscular stomach, the friction so delicious that every thrust felt like I was about to come. I threw my head back, waiting for orgasm to take me, but Rhys sat up, taking away that perfect heat and pressure.

  “No! Rhys, no, please, please,” I begged. My swollen cock leaked onto my stomach, jerking desperately. I could tell how close Rhys was from his flushed chest and neck and the way he was biting his lip. He thrust into me again and squeezed his eyes shut, then pulled out. I heard a desperate whimpering sound that it took a while to realize was coming from me. I breathed through my nose, waiting for what would come next.

  I was so exquisitely on edge that my whole body was shaking. I knew I could reach down and finish myself off anytime I wanted, and the choice not to—the choice to let Rhys own my body the way he owned my heart—made me light-headed with love and lust and something fizzy and almost joyful.

  Rhys slid the dildo back inside me and just held it there for a minute as we both stared at each other and panted. He put a soothing hand on my stomach and it burned like a brand. I reached for his other hand, and he brought my fingers to his lips and pressed a stubbly kiss to my knuckles. Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say.

  I closed my eyes as he began to move the dildo inside me. I was made of pleasure and yearning and each gentle touch to my prostate nearly made me scream. I was so overstimulated that when Rhys touched his finger to the tip of my cock, my whole body came off the bed.

  “Breathe, baby,” Rhys murmured and my breath was half moan. Rhys kissed me and moved the dildo in circles, stretching my rim. It was a hot, dark pleasure, and I squirmed away from it and into it, my body not able to decide what it wanted. I could feel the fiery heat of Rhys’s wet cock on my hip but I didn’t touch him. I knew I wasn’t supposed to.

  It might have been minutes or hours more that Rhys fucked me with the toy, but when he took it out and I felt myself close up, my eyes flew open, blurred with tears.

  “No!”

  “Shh,” Rhys said, and then he was back inside me and the panic that had struck me ebbed. I could feel how tired he was. Shaking and sweaty, he almost hissed as he pressed as far as he could go, shuddering when he was fully inside. We moved together for a minute, and I strained to get the right angle. Rhys put my legs over his shoulders and brought our mouths together.

  “Need you now,” Rhys said against my mouth. I tried to speak but could only nod and dig my fingers into his back. This time, when he reared back and pounded into me it was him striking my prostate, and I felt everything inside me unspool. I was sore and swollen and the friction was nearly painful, but it added just the right edge to the molten pleasure inside me and the sparks running from my balls to my cock.

  I felt like I was dissolving into a violent pleasure that would break me. I grabbed Rhys’s arms, rigid on the bed, holding him up as he fucked me, and I let him take me apart. My hips were loose and every muscle in my body was clenching and releasing around the inferno Rhys stoked inside me.

  My mouth was open on wordless cries, and when Rhys grabbed my dick and slammed inside me, the pleasure struck like a snakebite, bowing my back and squeezing everything so tight that when I exploded I lost track of where I was. I just knew I was coming in white-hot gouts that turned me inside out and wrung me dry.

  Rhys came with an oddly silent cry, and his release seared me, my body turned wholly to his.

  He dropped his forehead to my chest, breathing shakily.

  Suddenly I was shivering and so tired. I stuck myself to his side and his arms came around me warm and strong.

  He fell asleep almost immediately, with his fingers twisted in my hair, and I lay there for a while thinking that maybe it was true. Maybe I was finally home.

  Chapter 14

  On Halloween, I got home from work to find the dog lying on the floor in the kitchen near the stove, looking up at Rhys, hopeful for scraps.

  We’d decided we’d give out candy to trick-or-treaters and then watch scary movies afterward. Rhys had bought so much candy that we couldn’t have given it all out if the entire population of Sleepy Hollow had come calling. But that was Rhys: When he did something he really went all out.

  “Happy Halloween!” he crowed from the kitchen. “I have done a thorough sweep of the house and there are no ghosts to haunt us, so we can scare the bejesus out of ourselves watching movies to your heart’s content.”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and kissed his shoulder. “That’s very thoughtful. But you’re the one who’s scared of horror movies, remember?”

  We ate a quick dinner and turned the porch light on. I hung a cardboard skeleton on the door. Every time the bell rang, the dog jumped up and barked. He had settled in great, losing a lot of the shyness he’d first displayed. But he didn’t like people in the house, as we’d learned when Caleb and Theo came over and the dog had tracked their every move, even following
Theo to the bathroom.

  “I know,” Rhys said as a group of kids left. “We should name him Doorbell.”

  “I am not naming my dog after an inanimate object,” I sniffed.

  “Your dog, huh?”

  I just smiled.

  Rhys was pretty damn excited every time the doorbell rang too. He chatted with the kids, praising their costumes, or asking what they were when he couldn’t tell. He introduced himself to the parents who were with them, and over and over said, “This is my husband, Matt,” with a squeeze of my shoulder, and just enough emphasis on husband that I knew exactly what it did to him.

  When the time between doorbell rings began to increase, I decided I’d had my fill of being social for the night.

  “Okay, I’m ready to be done with this now,” I said.

  “You just want the leftover candy for yourself.”

  I nodded enthusiastically and crammed a mini Milky Way in my mouth. “I wanna watch scary movies now.”

  “Whatever you want, babe.” Rhys flicked out the porch light, and we decamped to the living room. There were dozens of horror movies to choose from and Rhys told me to pick, so I clicked to A Nightmare on Elm Street.

  Rhys kept getting up. To make popcorn, to use the bathroom, to get another blanket. When he’d sit down, he seemed very interested in kissing my neck and playing with the dog. Finally, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my hair.

  “Rhys, just let me change it. You’re too scared.”

  “ ’M not scared,” he said into my hair. I snorted.

  “Come on, I’ve seen the movie, I don’t care.”

  He sighed dramatically. “You wanted to watch scary movies.”

  “I wanna watch Halloween movies with you. I don’t want you to torture yourself.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I shook my head. Big, protective Rhys scared of horror movies was mad adorable.