Page 70 of Close Quarters

And I did, I very much did in that moment. I knelt before him, trying to give him at least a touch of what he’d given me as I let his cock slide, thick and heavy, over my tongue before settling into my throat. His body relaxed as his hand slid over my forehead and rested atop my head, clearly content not to take control this time.

Which left it up to me, something I was more than happy to contend with as I slid back and forth over him. As I’d assured myself earlier, I could tell he wasn’t far off his finish. It wasn’t just in the way his legs tensed. It was the sheer hardness of him in my mouth. The guy could get rock hard easily, but I noticed he always seemed to get a bit harder, to the point that I swore it had to be painful whenever he was close to the edge.

I felt him pulse against my tongue, and I knew it was time as he let out a hiss. I pulled back, gripping the base of his cock and aiming it toward my mouth. His eyes locked onto me with the same intensity that made me feel a chill every time. I felt his cock pulse again, harder, and the first jet of his cum splashed over my tongue and down my throat as he gave a low groan. Each pulse came with a slight jerk of his hips as if he had to fight the instinct to bury himself back in my throat.

When he was done, I stood up, carefully tucking his half-hard dick back into his pants while I kissed him. I couldn't tell if it was myself or him I could taste on my tongue, but I didn’t care. For the first time in days, I felt a sense of relief and calm. He probably had no idea what he’d just done, but it was a gift I would accept even if it went unnoticed.

I had a clever little comment to throw at him until he shut me up by asking. “Feeling better?”

I stared for a moment, only then realizing I had severely underestimated him. He had known precisely what he was doing when he’d taken things slow, pleasuring me without even the slightest expectation that I needed to return the favor.

How oblivious did I have to be not to notice that it was out of character for him to take the sensual instead of the sexual route? It would suit him perfectly to do something physical like this to try to bring me peace when he didn’t trust his words to do it. How very like him to choose gentle sex, aimed at my pleasure alone, to see if, perhaps in that way, he could comfort me.

It wasn’t the confession I had been looking for before, but it was certainly a lot more than I had.

“Yeah,” I told him, kissing him gently. “A lot better.”

“Good,” he said softly, closing his eyes, his shoulders relaxing. “Good.”

I couldn’t believe it. Riley was gone?

“What the fuck does that mean?” I called out from the crowd assembled in front of the Big House. “He’s okay, though, right?”

“Yes,” Mona said so quickly I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not.

“That’s reassuring,” Reno muttered beside me, clearly thinking along the same lines I was.

“Okay, but what does that mean? He gets fucking donkey kicked. You say he’s recovering in the hospital, and now he’s not coming back?” I demanded, earning a sharp look from her.

“Are you going to let me explain? Or would you like to keep demanding answers I plan on giving?” she asked, watching me like the snake she’d caught with her bare hands. “Better yet, you can look at who I called here and who I sent back to their cabins and evaluate that for a moment.”

That caught me off guard enough that I did as she said, shoving my anger down. It didn’t take me long to peer around and realize everyone standing here, save for Reno and myself, were Tier Ones. I’d thought it was a small crowd when Leon told us we were being ordered up to the Big House for an announcement, but once Mona announced Riley wasn’t coming back, it left my mind.

“Err, why are we the only Tier Threes here?” I asked aloud and winced when Reno sighed, clearly signifying that I should have already shut up. “Sorry.”

At least Mona was smirking at me this time. “Because the information I’m about to give is…significant. Considering you are the two I consider his friends, I thought it better you hear it from me rather than passed down through the mentors like the rest of the men will have to contend with.”

“Must be big,” Reno muttered. “Because that sounded a lot like ‘I don’t want to try corralling a whole crowd of angry people with this news’ to me.”

What could she possibly have to tell us that needed it to be carefully diluted? Sure, Riley had taken a brutal kick to the head from one of the more troublesome donkeys on the ranch, but…injuries, even ones that required the hospital, weren’t so unheard of that it required this kind of a mess. Plus, he’d been recovering for over a week as far as I knew, which was probably old news since no one told me much of anything, even when I pestered the crap out of them.

Come to think of it, that was probably why Mona wasn’t very patient with me today.

“As you all know, Riley came here only a handful of months ago and joined the program as a Tier Three,” Mona began, clasping her hands in front of her. “Some of you even commented on the abrupt arrival and the…peculiarity of his circumstances. What you didn’t know was that he was here with the express permission of Mr. Isaiah and me for his studies.”

“Studies?” Reno asked, snapping his head up. “What the fuck does that mean?”

There were times I remembered Riley scribbling away in a small notebook that he never let anyone else near. It had been a little strange since Riley had always been an open book…or had he? He didn’t talk a whole lot about his past, and I still hadn’t quite figured out what he’d been doing before he supposedly landed behind bars. Then there was the fact that even compared to me, who Reno griped about constantly, he was too perky, far more bright, warm, and understanding.

“He wasn’t a program member at all,” I said, trying to fit the pieces together.

“Correct,” Mona said, gesturing toward me. “He was a student here to do his dissertation based on his observations of this place.”

“Holy shit, he’s a shrink?” Reno asked, and I saw real anger flash over his face for the first time in weeks. “Are you shitting me? You turned us into lab rats without telling us?”

“First off, I’ll remind you that when you agreed to come into this program, there was extensive paperwork. Our decision to allow something like this to happen without your knowing was covered in that paperwork. Perhaps if you joined our workshops on how to deal with legal issues once you’re out of the program, you would have realized you didn’t read over the documents you signed…even when expressly told to do so,” Mona told him icily.

Reno opened his mouth and then closed it with a glare that told me she’d managed to get him good. Reno wasn’t one to let something go if he had any sort of argument, even if that argument was ‘fuck you.’ But since he hadn’t decided to throw that at Mona, I was guessing he was holding that one back. It seemed even if Reno wasn’t intimidated by her, he wasn’t exactly going to disrespect her.

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