Page 11 of Riding the Reaper

“Of course I knew,” he says. “It’s why I’m here.”

“So you weren’t…” I’m struggling to put it together. This whole night has gone so far off the rails I can’t tell what’s real anymore. “You weren’t messing with me? Or trying to get in my pants?”

Gray shakes his head. “I told you, Sam. I’m a reaper. I guide souls. That branch was your exit.”

On top of everything else swirling through me, a wave of embarrassment hits. For everything I said tonight. Everything I did. Did I really just strip naked, beg a grim reaper to fuck me, and then drop to my knees and suck his cock in the middle of the woods? But… he let me. He got hard. He wanted me back.

“Why?” I look at him. That handsome, unearthly face. That perfect body. That massive cock still pressed against my thigh. “If that branch was my exit… why did you save me?”

His eyes search my face, and what I see in them doesn’t exactly reassure me. There’s conflict. Uncertainty. A first for a guy who’s had an answer for everything until now.

“I couldn’t let it happen,” he says quietly. “I couldn’t let it end there.”

“So what now?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Gray. What happens now?”

“I don’t know. I interfered. This was never supposed to happen.” He sits up, pulling away from me, and the sudden loss of his body against mine leaves me exposed. I tug my underwear up and pull the skeleton costume up over my waist. It’s the first time I feel how cold it actually is.

“Am I on borrowed time?”

“I think we should move.” He’s on his feet, pulling the robe closed, scanning the trees like he’s expecting company. “This spot is compromised.”

“Compromised? What does that⁠—”

“When a collection doesn’t happen on schedule, it gets flagged. If they send someone to check, this is where they’ll look.” He picks up the scythe and starts walking. “Stay close.”

I scramble after him, pulling the costume over my shoulders, tripping over roots in the dark. “Who’s they? Whoever gave you the job? Your boss?”

“Something like that.” He cuts through the dense woods at a pace that has me jogging to keep up.

“So you’re in trouble now? Because of me?”

“I’m in trouble because of a decision I made. I broke the rules, Sam. Not you.”

I want to grab him and tell him I’m sorry. I should be dead right now. Crushed under a rotting branch with my dick out. But all I can think about is that he broke the rules for me. This gorgeous, six-foot-seven reaper with a cock to die for chose to save my life.

We walk in silence for a while. Just twigs snapping under our feet and the distant hoot of an owl. The woods feel different now. Darker. I keep glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting to see a second reaper coming through the trees, and this one might not be so friendly.

But walking next to him, I don’t feel scared. Which makes zero sense. The guy literally came here to collect my soul, or guide it, or whatever the hell he was going to do with it. He’s the personification of death itself. Yet treading through these woods next to him, I feel safer than I have in my entire life.

The trees thin out, and then, just like that, there it is. The barn. Music still thumping, colored lights spilling out into the field. People standing around outside with drinks, laughing, enjoying their Halloween night, totally clueless about what just happened in those woods. I would’ve wandered in circles until morning. Gray got us here in minutes.

He stops at the edge of the clearing, in the deep shadow of a tall elm.

“You should go back inside,” he says. “Find your friends. Act like nothing happened. When you get home, go to sleep. Hopefully, by morning, all of this will feel like a weird dream.”

“And you?”

“I’ll deal with what comes.” He says it evenly, like he’s talking about a parking ticket instead of whatever cosmic punishment awaits a reaper who lets a soul walk away. “It’s my mess to clean up.”

I look at the barn. The costumes. The same people who watched me get dumped. Brianna’s probably in some dark corner with Luke by now. The thought of going back in there feels suffocating. That’s the old life. The one where I was miserable and pretending. Tonight changed everything.

“No.”

“Sam—”