sorry to keep you waiting on this. it might feel rushed because there ae a lot of scenes i'm skipping, and i might add them in the final book but this is it for now. in like a chapter or two, the whole thing will be completed. hope you like this :)
His head ponding woke him up first, and he wondered if he was in a hospital or dying. He whimpered at the pain and held still, muddling through his thoughts for what exactly had happened to him. Only…
He didn’t remember.
Corey frowned, even though that small twitch hurt his head, and tried harder. He could remember…being late to work. He was late and Dresden came to his place. He grimaced a little at that, and he wondered who had given him his address. After he had gone to work, had an encounter with Kirby and then Dresden…
He had gone to Dresden’s loft. His eyes snapped open when that thought hit him, and he found himself in an odd room. He had been drinking, which in hindsight explained why the inside of his mouth felt like something nasty had crawled in and died. Did Dresden give him a ride home or something…?
But even as he thought it, Corey realised it was impossible, because no room in his apartment was so black and white, with heavy emphasis on the black. And he never slept nude, and his bed sheets were never quite this soft and he didn’t normally have equally naked men lying in his bed in the morning…
Corey’s eyes widened as it occurred to him exactly whose bed he was in and who was in it with him. He jerked, trying to move, and it was a stupid idea because his head exploded, and it felt like something was trying to poke out his eye from the inside of his head. He forcefully bit back a curse, willing his headache to subside. He also realised he couldn’t move, and in the next second he realised why.
He was lying on his stomach with his head facing the side, a heavy forearm draped over his waist and an equally heavy thigh on both of his. He was good and pinned, with barely any wiggle room. He was still trying to fill in some blanks, and the memory loss made him slightly panicky.
It took some effort to manoeuvre out from under the heavy limbs holding him down and sit up, his eyes squeezed shut to quell the pain in his head. He was achy in a lot of places, and he felt his cheeks flush as he settled on his ass where most of it came from. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and they went wide again.
Dresden Weiss’ apartment may be all monochrome, but his bed certainly broke that. It was a large king size, at least twice his own bed, with the dark blue and blood red silk sheets that he definitely remembered from the previous night.
A memory broke into his thoughts of Dresden lying naked on his back, framed in all that red and the blue sneaking out underneath, with Corey in his lap whimpering and moaning as he rode-
Fuck! Which, really, was exactly what he’d been doing with Dresden, all night, and Corey really couldn’t believe he’d done that. No wonder his body felt sore. Had Dresden gotten him drunk on purpose?
Holding back the urge to curse, shooting a quick look over his shoulder that lasted a little longer than he’d planned when his eyes paused to map Dresden’s bared arm and muscled chest, his expression relaxed and so approachable in sleep, his red hair so artfully tousled around his face…Corey had to force himself to look away and look around. Clothes were strewn around the bed on the floor and there was a nightstand on his side of the bed.
There was a pill and a glass of what he thought was water on it, a thin, square piece of cardboard covering the top of the glass. He eyed it suspiciously, but the headache was a bitch and he couldn’t go anywhere with it, so he reached for the pill and the water. He swallowed it quickly, holding it down when the water tried to come back up his throat and just sat for a second to wait for the headache and the nausea to settle.
As soon as he thought he could handle it, he moved off the edge of the bed to set his feet down before he tried standing. The aches in his body eased only the slightest bit; he was grateful his head was okay so it didn’t matter much, but still. He was unsteady on his feet for a heartbeat before he was confident to stand without aid. Then he looked down at his body, and felt himself go weak again as his eyes went round.
He had to support himself against the nightstand, glad he hadn’t moved far yet, and cursed that it was light enough for him to see at all.
Dresden had marked him. Repeatedly. There was a mark on his left shoulder, around one nipple and just below the other, all over his chest, on his right hip and on the inside of his thighs. They looked like love bites, the teeth marks oddly clearly defined, but he knew once the bruising grew more pronounced it would look grotesque, like he’d been attacked by flesh eating bugs or something.
Sound from behind startled him, and he jumped, almost losing his footing and pitching to the floor face first. But Dresden had just moved so he was curled in on himself. Corey blinked, then suddenly wondered what the hell he was doing.
He moved, then, going for his clothes and putting them on as quickly as possible. He grimaced, feeling gritty, but he could take a shower once he was home and away from Dresden Weiss.
Corey felt it, then, just under the sleepy haze, the panic that wanted to claw through and swamp him. What the hell had he been thinking? What had Dresden? As if his life wasn’t complicated enough. It took longer than he liked to dress, with whatever he wasn’t putting back on in his hands, and he crept out the room, feeling ridiculous the entire time.
It should be more difficult than this to sneak out of a werewolf’s house. If the stories were true, it should have been damn near impossible, but as soon as he was clear of the bedroom Corey didn’t waste time debating on it.
He didn’t run, that would be undignified; though he wondered how low he could stoop coming out of someone’s house before dawn in a rumpled suit from the day before. At least the neighbours weren’t awake to see it, and he was idiotically grateful. After all, once he got home, it would be light enough for his neighbours to be awake to notice him in his current state.
Really, it should not be this difficult to navigate through adulthood.
Out on the street, he had no idea where he was going, but he followed the road until he was far enough away from Dresden Weiss and checked his location on his phone’s map before dialling for a cab to take him home.
Corey sat at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen area from the living area in his apartment, holding a mug of coffee between his palms. He watched Myra and Lora gathering the work he’d gone through so far, looking over it all so they could take it to the office for him. The files were moderately reduced in size, precise and efficient, and he let himself feel proud he’d accomplished so much on his own for a little bit. But then he thought of work, and the feeling died.
He hadn’t been to the office in a week, having taken the cowardly route after that disastrous day and called in sick. He was lucky he worked where he did and his perfect track record since joining the company was so good they allowed him to work from home. But now with the greater bulk of his load finished, he’d eventually have to work with Dresden to add to his load.
Dread pooled in his stomach just thinking about it, and he hated that he had no choice because he was just warming up to the avoidance game.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Hmm?” he absently looked up and his eyes met Lora’s dark brown ones.
She was eyeing him with suspicion, and he barely bit back the urge to fidget, but he probably deserved it. Playing the coward had necessitated both his girls detouring to his home three times in the week, and every time he had avoided them.
The long sleeved turtlenecks he’d worn the other times they’d come, including today, was bound to make them curious.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said innocently, even though he knew it would only amp up the suspicion.
“You haven’t been right since you went with Weiss to his place. I know it was for work, but something happened and don’t you dare deny it.” She put down the folder she was skimming and stood facing him with her hands fisted on her hips with a serious expression on her face he wasn’t used to seeing. “What the hell did that werewolf do to you?”
Corey sipped from his mug and grimaced, wondering again why he was taking his coffee black, and tried to think of a diversion. Though he wasn’t a prude, mentioning he’d had sex with Dresden Weiss seemed like a pretty bad idea, because he knew Lora would never let him live it down. Well, that, and he really was trying to forget. One would think that easy, considering his memories of that night were shifty at best, but he kept getting flashes at odd moments, especially while he slept, of both him and Dresden both naked and doing things in positions that made him blush and grow hard when he thought about it too much. It was, he remembered, why he was drinking mud in place of his usual creamy mocha; the flashes had kept him up at night in a state of arousal he refused to do anything about through sheer force of will.
Not that he had any intention of saying any of that out loud.
“You never did tell me how you knew what he was,” he said, offhand, as it occurred to him that he’d wondered at the time but hadn’t asked.
She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand at him but answered honestly, “Oh, I’m a sensitive. Turns out we’re scattered all over the place. I don’t spread it around because people tend to act weird around you when you can tell who is normal and who isn’t. I know all kinds of supernatural.”
“Really?”
Though he didn’t say it, his expression must have matched Myra’s surprised curiosity because she snorted, giving him a disgusted look like she knew what he’d done, petulantly folding her arms under her breasts.
“Yes, I am. We’re rare and we don’t like announcing ourselves any more than the supernaturals do.”
Corey had heard only the minimal on sensitives, that they were humans with the ability to tell who was either not human or abnormal. Supposedly normal people themselves, though society both normal and supernatural viewed them as weird.
Not that he saw Lora any differently; she had always been a little odd. And Corey prided himself on being smart enough not to let her know that.
“How did you know what kind of shifter he was then,” he challenged, intrigued in spite of himself.
“He just had that…flavour…strain? It felt like wolf and my instincts are never wrong,” she shrugged, dismissing it. “Now, tell us what happened with Weiss.”
Corey decided it was one of those times her tenacious nature annoyed him, no matter how useful it was when it came to work. He took another sip of his disgusting coffee, and the taste was improved somewhat because he expected it this time. He blinked innocently, staying silence as an act of defiance, no matter how juvenile.
“You slept with him, didn’t you,” she said shrewdly, nodding her head as if he’d already confirmed it.
Corey couldn’t help it, because he had no poker face whatsoever outside of work; his eyes widened and blood rushed to his face as he blushed. It was funny when Myra’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped, but he was too busy being embarrassed to make fun of her. He refused to say anything, though, and Lora’s eyes narrowed.
“Did he hurt you?” she demanded, and her tone was enough to make Myra snap her jaws shut and give him a concerned/horrified look.
“Hurt me how,” he muttered, slumping in his seat, because there was no way he could deny it convincingly.
“Hurt, Corey, I mean did he hurt you when you had sex.”
The answer was a no – because if he was being honest with himself, he’d admit he’d enjoyed what he remembered of it, all the bruises aside. It had been a week, but he was exhausted from lack of sleep because whenever he closed his eyes random images from that night kept flashing in his mind. It made him uncomfortable, and he’d jerked off in the past week probably more than he had throughout highschool as a horny teenager. But the way she said it confused him, because it was like she was asking something else.
When it occurred to him he wanted to do a face-palm. Of course it was what they’d assume, no matter how wrong it was.
“He didn’t rape me,” he assured them. “I was mostly wasted, but I’m sure it was a mutual thing. It just shouldn’t have happened.”
“Oh,” she relaxed her stance, her eyes assessing the turtleneck sweater he wore and she smirked. “So, the good kind of hurt then.”
He refused to rise to the bait, and made his eyes wide so she knew he was uncomfortable with the subject.
“So you wouldn’t want to talk about it?” she asked, checking, as she shoved files at a still flustered Myra and picked up the rest before turning back to him with an eyebrow raised.
“I don’t, but thanks,” he said firmly. And he gave her brownie points for her insight when she just dragged Myra behind her, headed for the door.
“But-”
“It’s okay, Myra. Give the guy some time, I’m sure he’ll come around.”
Corey watched them as they left, giving his best friend a smile that said he’d be okay when she shot him a worried glance over her shoulder. It was nice that she was worried about him, but some things a guy had to go through alone.
Like the regret from the colossal fuck up of sleeping with a guy who probably hated him that he knew he could get attached to way too easily.
He took the last mouthful of his coffee, leaving a little paste at the bottom of the mug he washed away with water. He went to put it and his other dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the bell rang.
Thinking it was probably the girls back for something they’d forgotten or whatever, he headed for the door and opened without checking who was on the other side first; then remembering the hundred and one reasons his mom and his best friend told him to always check.
One of them stood on his doorstep, and it was too late to pretend he wasn’t in.
“Hey, Corey,” Sean said cheerfully, smiling like he hadn’t cheated then left his apartment not too long ago. “How about breakfast?”