Page 33 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter seventeen

TREY

I have not technically said I love Walker, and yet in many ways I just did. I am feeling it, as much as I am capable of it, just as I have tried to explain to him.

No one has ever been what Walker is for me, and I never want anyone else to try.

The record fades into the next song, and Walker breaks from our kiss with a laugh he can barely keep muffled behind his hand. The reaction is warranted, considering we are listening to Foreigner and the song that just started is “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

I laugh too. I laugh so easily with Walker.

It is what I imagine being a teenager must have been like for someone normal.

Listening to music in a dim room with one’s parents asleep upstairs, trying to stifle any vocal moments of revelry—among other things.

I never did any of that growing up, at least not here or with the unabashed foolhardiness of a child.

It makes my next decision easy, and I set aside our wine to grab Walker by the waist and pull him back out onto the porch for a dance.

I have improved since our first debacle, maybe even a little since our fourth date sway, the leadup to finally undressing each other, touching each other, and claiming Walker as mine.

Neither of us really lead, but I hold him close, with my arms wrapped up around his neck for once, one hand cradling the back of it and scratching gently at his hairline.

He wraps his arms around my waist and up my back, clinging to my somewhat slighter form.

The tension he came home with earlier is a distant memory.

It will return, when he thinks on that poor boy again who died too young, or when the next patient doesn’t make it.

His care toward those he wants to save is part of what makes him so very special and precious to me.

We are the same in a way, but while I operate from the shadows, Walker lives in the light.

As the next song begins, I reconnect our kiss. He feels so good in my arms, beneath my fingers, pliant in response to the movements of my tongue. Unaware of how planned my shifting of us is until his back is against the side of the house.

I keep his mouth against mine with that hand on the back of his neck, boxing him in with my legs spreading to frame his hips, and lean into him. I might not be able to dance much better than a rhythmic sway, but swaying is not too different from rocking, and I can do that in time to the music too.

Walker gasps, head turning from the seal of our lips, and moves his hands to grip my arms. “ Trey …” he whispers in protest, but he isn’t exactly trying to push me away. I can feel the line of his thickening length in his jeans as I press mine into it. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

I take my hand from behind his head and tilt his chin back toward me. “And what gives you the impression I can’t finish?”

“I-I…” he trails off on an adorable, stuttering huff before collecting himself. “I don’t think I can have sex in your mother’s house.” He says the opportune word so inaudibly, it’s mostly just mouthed. “She’s right upstairs.”

True, and while Mother is far too sensible to come back down tonight, and I doubt Walker would be amenable to simply staying out on the porch to do it, I appreciate the decorum, much as I wish neither of us was being a gentleman right now.

“She is upstairs now, but she’ll be gone all morning, remember? ”

“Yeah…”

I hold Walker’s gaze with suggestive intent.

“Okay.” He chuckles. “Consider that a date, Daddy .”

I will never tire of hearing all the varied ways he says that. I kiss his cheek, right over his scar like a seal of my affections, and whisper, “That’s my good boy.”

Walker shudders, so very enticing and difficult to extract myself from, but I lure him from the wall and simply continue to hold him a while longer as we sway.

It’s early afternoon on Sunday when we arrive back at Walker’s apartment, giving him plenty of time to relax on his home turf, without quite as much of the baggage he had when we left.

Well, some of the baggage is on purpose. The matcha and owl plushies are too endearing for me to see them as anything but precious, just like Walker himself.

The rest of our time with Mother was wonderful. The early morning on Friday found us quite obviously in bed for an extra hour, and from there, the summer charms of smalltown comradery kept Walker in radiantly good spirits.

There was barbeque, drinks, and neighbors fussing over him—Mrs. Sheridan especially, of course—long before the concert began.

Saturday repeated Friday to some extent, only this time with Mother at home in the morning to make us a big breakfast. Both concert nights were enjoyable, but I think Walker preferred Foreigner, especially when we walked down the street to the corner to get a better listen within view of the park and right that moment, they broke into their classic “Cold as Ice.”

Sunday started as lazy as it could until our flight.

Lazy but not without celebration.

“Happy birthday!” Mother announced as soon as we got downstairs. I had picked up streamers and a birthday banner to hang in the kitchen, and mother had insisted on making birthday muffins since we would not be around long enough for cake.

“You… you remembered.” Walker had turned to look at me with such humbled awe. “I can’t believe you remembered. I barely remembered.”

“You told me on our first date that your birthday was the day before your fellowship started. How could I forget that?”

Walker’s face in response to that made him look more beautiful to me than ever.

I think Mother hugged him goodbye twice as long as she hugged me. She likes him. She likes him. She told me as much in a whisper at my ear before we got into our rideshare for the airport.

“He is wonderful, sweetheart. Don’t let this one get away.”

Oh, I have no intention of that.

“Part of me can’t believe I’ll be starting work again tomorrow,” Walker says to me now, unpacking by the closet that houses his washer and dryer so he can immediately start a load.

“I’m ready. I needed that time away, but I am ready.

And I am really happy to have you here.” He peeks back at me, where I am in the kitchen perusing his foodstuffs to debate on dinner options later.

I would prefer to cook for him for his birthday, since he would like to stay in, but without a grocery run, we may need to rely on takeout.

“You aren’t too dissuaded by me having to leave in a few days again for my next assignment?” I ask.

The sounds of the washer starting precedes his answer, and he joins me in the kitchen.

Seeing him finally fully relaxed again, like he was on our first several dates, is a gift I want to keep giving him.

“Honestly, I’m going to be so busy, I think it’ll be nice to miss you a little.

” He leans against the kitchen island, a picturesque specimen of ease.

“And even nicer when I get to see you again.”

I move to him swiftly and draw him in for a kiss. Even now, what he stirs in me isn’t fading, and I never want it to. Never. Walker is mine and will be forever.

“ Okay .” He chuckles, pushing at me playfully. “None of that until after dinner. There are a few things I have to do and organize before I’ll feel completely prepared for tomorrow. Plus, I’m a little groggy from the plane. I need to wake up.”

“Espresso?” I offer.

“That would be amazing. You are amazing,” Walker reiterates and kisses me again but softer than I kissed him. “You’re sure you don’t need any of your things tossed in with mine?” He indicates my suitcase beside the island.

“Most of my clothing is dry clean only.”

“Of course it is.”

“I’ll handle it tomorrow. I might change into something more comfortable in a bit, however.” I empty my pockets onto the island—wallet and a few receipts. Once the espresso has been made, I will change while I let it cool.

Walker continues to unpack and get himself settled. It’s only when he stops for a moment to check his phone that he looks distressed.

“What is it?” I am almost finished with the final frothing of our drinks.

“Um… nothing, just—”

“It’s that detective again, isn’t it?” I guess.

Walker looks at me with a surge of his old panic. “I haven’t been hiding it very well that he’s still trying to get me to talk to him, huh?”

“Not especially.” I had also been checking Walker’s phone periodically, but only for that purpose, never to pry into anything else.

“I never respond to him,” Walker says, coming over to the island again but now across from me in the living room, “other than to tell him to stop bothering me. I texted him that I wouldn’t even be in town again all weekend until tonight.

I’ll just give a listen to his last message.

As long as he doesn’t have anything real to go on, he is not a threat. Okay? He’ll give up eventually.”

I set the espresso cups on the island and promptly leave the kitchen to grab my bag. “I’ll put my suitcase in the bedroom.”

“Trey .”

“Tell me what he says.”

I bring my bag to where Walker’s is, already mostly unpacked beside the bed, since it is emptied of clothes.

I don’t move to change just yet, but I needed a moment to think.

I do not want to kill the detective. He is simply doing his job, but he is also harassing Walker and a risk to us both.

If he needs to be dealt with, I will handle it like I always do, but I hope Walker can understand why it may be necessary and not turn away from me if it comes to that.

Which it might sooner than expected, because when I return to the living room, Walker has his phone lowered and his complexion is pallid.

“What did he say?”

Walker looks close to a full-on panic attack, barely managing to answer, “H-he’s—”

A knock at the door whirls him around to face it.