Page 10 of Riding the Reaper

And I realize I want that too. The feeling is so foreign, so dangerous, that it takes me a moment to even identify it. A reaper does not want. A reaper does not feel. We’re not supposed to have a stake in the outcome. But I do. I want him. This stubborn, reckless, beautiful mortal. Not for a minute. Not for an hour. For as long as I can keep him.

I look up at the oak. The split in the bark is visible, a dark seam widening with every gust of wind.

Thirty seconds.

His lips are back on my cock, eager, frantic. He’s moaning around me like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, and the vibration runs through me like a current. His soul is blazing now, so bright it almost hurts to look at. Fierce and full and so, so alive. How could fate be so cruel as to extinguish a light like this?

The branch groans.

Sam doesn’t hear it. He’s too far gone, lost in the taste of me, his fingers digging into my thighs.

I hear it. Every splinter. Every fiber giving way.

Twenty seconds.

There’s no way to stop what’s coming. That branch is falling. But maybe...

Sam is looking up at me, lips swollen, cheeks wet, spit on his chin, eyes shining with hunger. No one has ever given me that. This beautiful boy, seconds from death, staring at me like I’m the answer to every question he’s ever had.

Deep-brown irises. Dark lashes. A small mole by his left temple.

Ten seconds.

This is a betrayal of everything I am. Everything the system is built on. I don’t know what the consequences will be. I only know they will be severe.

The wind picks up, a final angry howl through the trees.

Five.

“Sam,” I say, pulling him up by the arms. “Hold on to me. Tight.”

He scrambles to his feet, confused, but wraps his arms around my waist, burying his face against my chest. His body is so warm against mine.

The branch cracks. The sound echoes through the woods.

I lock my arms around him and throw us both sideways. Sam yelps as we hit the ground, rolling, my robe tangling around us. The limb crashes down where he was kneeling, hitting the ground with a thud that shakes the earth beneath us. Dirt and bark rain down on us, and the echo takes a long time to fade.

Then there is only silence.

8

SAM

Holy fuck.

I’m on the ground, flat on my back, Gray’s weight on top of me, his robe covering us both like a shroud. Dirt in my hair. Bark on my skin. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my teeth. His cock is pressed against my thigh, still hard, and mine isn’t much better, trapped between our stomachs.

The branch is right there. Three feet from my head. A massive, rotted limb as thick as my torso, half-buried in the earth from the force of the impact. Right where I was kneeling. Right where I was begging him to fuck me.

If he hadn’t moved us…

“Jesus Christ,” I breathe. “That thing would have crushed me.”

Gray pushes himself up on his arms. His face is above mine, and the hood has fallen back completely. I can see all of him now. No hair. Just a smooth, perfectly shaped skull, pale as the rest of him. The sharp jaw, those dark eyes. Up close like this, he doesn’t look quite human. Too perfect. Too symmetrical. Like a CGI character with the render settings maxed out.

“Are you all right?” he asks. There’s worry in that deep baritone.

“I… I think so.” My body’s still buzzing, adrenaline and fear and arousal all mixed together. And then it dawns on me. The timing. The way he threw us aside at the exact right second. That certainty he’s had since the moment he appeared. “You knew that was gonna happen.”