Stop the World, Cause I Want (to Get Off With) You for Everyone (2)

[artistalks]

ii.

There is a point in every story where things just have to screw up, and about two weeks later, Oh boy, thought Baekhyun, was I wrong.

Working as a pizza delivery boy wasn’t the most high-paying, sophisticated or, like, Not Crap job in the world, but it was good enough for Baekhyun as a part-time job so he could earn money to pay for the rent and the massive amount of alcohol he and Chanyeol stashed in their fridge. It was mind-numbingly dull but it was easy because all he had to do was drive around and get pizzas, and really, he was paid too much to do this shit.

He worked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and the occasional weekend, and this evening, it wasn’t too busy, which meant business was slow and mostly, he hung out in the back with Jongdae, another driver. His shift had nearly ended and he only had a few more orders left, one of which was in a quite affluent area where people had corgis and ate brunch. Jongdae begged him to swap orders because Chanyeol had ordered a portion of garlic bread and Fuck, he’s gonna make me play CoD with him all night and you know how much I hate CoD! Baek, please! and Baekhyun had just flipped him off.

The address he was supposed to deliver to was close by, around five minutes by his company-rented motorcycle, and the streets were lined with fancy cars and fancy security systems. His destination was the third floor of a high-rise apartment block and he whistled, impressed, as he passed by a black Mercedes parked out front with the pizza box in hand.

There were three types of people in the world who ate anchovy pizza-the brave, who could stand the disgusting taste of fish on tomato sauce; the stupid, who didn’t realise that literally every other pizza in the world was better than anchovy pizza; and Chanyeol, who Baekhyun supposed was both brave and stupid. So it was understandable that he was expecting a dumb college boy who wore his pants too low and his snapback the wrong way around to appear at the door when he finally reached apartment 3B and knocked.

The door opened after two knocks. It wasn’t enough time for Baekhyun to prepare himself for what he was about to see.

“Hi, your pizza delive-oh my god, Kris!?”

“Yeah, I ordered a pizza-oh my god, Baekhyun!?”

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT, Baekhyun thought, hoping his legs would move so he could run away and bury himself underneath some dirt and never come out again. Instead, his mouth opened, closed, and opened again, making him look like a surprised goldfish, and he stared at Kris in mild horrification. Oh god. Oh god. Did Kris have-oh god, was that stubble? Oh god. He’d always prayed for a short and quick death, but now, he was willing to bang his head on the wall until he got concussion if it meant he wouldn’t be conscious for the greatest embarrassment of his life.

“I-uh, hey, I guess,” said Baekhyun, forcing himself to speak. “Here’s your pizza. Don’t worry about paying. It’s on me. Bye. See you,” never, he added silently as he thrust the box into Kris’s hands and turned around, wondering if two broken legs and a fractured arm would be worth it for a quick getaway via Jumping Out the Window.

“Baekhyun, wait!” Kris called, reaching out to grab his hand.

There it was again, that warmth and familiarity of Kris’s hands, and Baekhyun’s body reacted involuntarily, stopping him in his tracks because it knew what he wanted. His body wanted, craved, for Kris again, and Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he should’ve kept fighting it. Baekhyun didn’t have relationships with one-night stands; he didn’t become friends with the people he hooked up with because that was what had happened with Jongdae and look how that turned out. Jongdae came over every weekend and freeloaded off him and ate his food and sprayed popcorn crumbs all over the couch because he couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut when he ate and talked about his boyfriend’s dick in more detail that Baekhyun ever needed to know.

“Yeah?” said Baekhyun, reluctantly turning back.

Kris’s eyes were wide and sincere and a smile crept up onto his face, that same dumb puppy smile, and he pulled Baekhyun back, setting the pizza box on a tabletop. “I had faith that we’d meet again,” he said. “I just knew it.”

“Um,” said Baekhyun.

“Do you maybe want to come in or something?” Kris asked. He kept tugging Baekhyun closer and Baekhyun let him as if Kris had his own gravitational pull. Kris was the lost dog, and once again, Baekhyun had found him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to eat this pizza all by myself. Maybe you can help me eat it. If you want, of course. I’m not-I’m not forcing you or anything. I just thought it’d be nice.”

This was Baekhyun’s chance to get the hell out of here and never look back. Kris was literally telling him he could say no if he wanted and like hell was he going to sit here and eat pizza with the guy who fucked him two weeks ago and told him that he loved him. Bullshit.

“Uh, well, I guess I could drop in after work. My shift’s ending soon anyway,” said Baekhyun.

Dammit.

Kris looked intimidating and scary, like the type of guy who could crush your neck with his bare hands, but he smiled a lot and fuck, Baekhyun liked his smile a lot too. “Oh!” he said excitedly (not cute, not cute, not cute, Baekhyun mentally chanted) and then, gruffer, “I mean, oh. Cool. I mean, it’s not like I-never mind. Cool. Whatever. Just drop by if you want. I’ll be waiting for you, but not in like a weird, desperate loner type way, I mean, just, like, in a normal cool guy way-“

“Kris,” said Baekhyun.

“Yeah?” said Kris. Lost puppy had turned into hopeful puppy, and god, Kris was incorrigible.

“I’ll see if I can come by later,” Baekhyun said.

Kris beamed at him and pressed a wad of bills into his palm. “Keep the change,” he said. “See you in a bit!”

Baekhyun delivered the rest of his orders with a thumping heart, too quick to be normal, too violent to be just nothing, and he told himself that it wasn’t because he was looking forward to seeing Kris again because that was the worst thing that could happen. He clocked out of his shift back at the pizza restaurant, laughing when Joonmyun, the guy who answered the phone for the orders because he was polite and sounded nice, told him that Jongdae was still with Chanyeol, and scowled when Joonmyun asked him why he looked so happy because it wasn’t that funny.

He quickly debated if he had time to go home for a shower because he stank of fries and pepperoni, and then decided against it because it wasn’t like he cared about what Kris thought he smelt like. Kris would have to put up with his greasy, childhood obesity smell, and if he didn’t like it, then that was a point in Baekhyun’s favour because he didn’t really want to eat pizza with Kris anyway; it was just that he felt kind of sorry for Kris because Kris was a sad dog and he looked lonely. Not that Baekhyun cared if he was lonely or anything because it wasn’t like Baekhyun cared about Kris.

Kris opened the door after the first knock this time, and in the hour that Baekhyun had been gone, he’d changed from his old T-shirt and shorts into an expensive-looking shirt and jeans and smoothed down his hair. He’d shaved, and what the hell, thought Baekhyun as he scuffed his trainers on the floor nervously, Kris was a total nutcase. They were just going to eat pizza and Kris had dressed up all nicely, which made him feel underdressed, even though they weren’t going anywhere and pizza was meant to be eaten on lonely Saturday nights with Game of Thrones queued on Netflix.

Kris invited him in and opened a litre bottle of Diet Coke, and oh great, thought Baekhyun, they were both going to be sober and what were they supposed to talk about now? Maybe what a complete weirdo Kris was and how it was socially inappropriate to confess your love to someone after knowing them for, like, two hours? No thanks. Instead, Baekhyun preoccupied himself with eating the pizza, holding his breath when he swallowed and immediately taking a swig of Coke to get rid of the aftertaste, and he’d realised that Kris hadn’t eaten any of it apart from a tiny piece he’d picked off and left. Kris had been waiting for him. Kris wasn’t even eating any now; whilst Baekhyun was busy eating away his troubles, Kris was busy watching Baekhyun eat, his face cupped in his hands and a small smile on his lips. It made Baekhyun’s cheeks burn, the way Kris was looking at him, like they’d been married for fifty years or something, and he turned his gaze to Kris’s apartment, taking in his surroundings.

It confirmed Baekhyun’s suspicions that Kris was indeed rich. The apartment was so modern that it hurt, a minimalistic style that Baekhyun could appreciate, and various paintings hanging from the walls. There was a pair of doors that led to the balcony where there were two deck chairs and a washing line with a lone pair of Spongebob boxers, probably Gucci, and by the window was a cosy little cactus for that eco-friendly aesthetic. Kris must’ve had a really good job to afford an apartment this nice or maybe his family owned a huge corporate business. There was also talk of underground gangs and the Mafia-the city was, in general, a safe metropolis, but Baekhyun knew there were shady dealings and stuff going on that he preferred not to get involved with because he, y’know, valued his life-but there was no way that Kris was part of that. He wasn’t a badass with massive bulging muscles and a nose piercing and a motorbike and a bandana tied around his head; he was endearing and Baekhyun…liked him.

Dammit.

“How’s the pizza?” asked Kris abruptly, and Baekhyun stopped halfway through his third chew.

“’S okay,” he said, when he really meant, It tastes like shit but I’m eating it anyway! “Aren’t you gonna eat?”

“I don’t really like anchovies,” Kris said, “but I thought I’d give them another chance ‘cause you liked them. Turns out, I still don’t like anchovies.”

Baekhyun felt slightly bad for lying to Kris about his love for anchovies, but Kris deserved it for inviting him over and ruining his entire Single Bachelor Life. And Kris was still staring at him like he was a Van Gogh painting, as if he was the most interesting thing in the world, and Baekhyun scrunched his face up, trying to make himself look gross so Kris would just quit it already. “What?” he said.

“Nothing,” said Kris. “Just thinking about how much I think I’d like to eat you up instead.”

The trouble with Kris was that Baekhyun didn’t think Kris actually thought about what he said when he said it because that sentence was riddled with sexual innuendo. Baekhyun didn’t think his face had turned this red so many times in five minutes in his entire life and Kris was either really dumb or he just chose not to show that he knew he’d just offered to do extremely inappropriate things to Baekhyun’s butt. And then, thirty minutes later, Baekhyun knew Kris definitely wasn’t dumb because he had Baekhyun naked on his bed, on his back with his legs spread apart invitingly and his hands clutching at the pillow as he wondered how the hell Kris had gotten him here so easily.

At least Kris was half-naked too, stripped down to his underwear, which made Baekhyun feel a little better until he remembered that Kris was also, like, ten billion times hotter than he was, which made him feel a little bad because living with Chanyeol meant that he was used to be the Hot One. And when Kris ran his palms over the smooth skin of his ass, it made Baekhyun feel much, much, much better because Kris’s hands were big and firm and he kind of wanted Kris to just get on with it already.

In this position, knees stretched apart with Kris between them so he was open and exposed, his thighs burned a little, but that was the least of his worries when Kris was busy coaxing his lips open with his mouth, kissing his upper lip and then biting on his lower lip with his teeth, playfully nipping at the thick pout of Baekhyun’s mouth. Last time, it’d been Baekhyun who had been in control. This time, it was Kris’s turn.

Kissing Kris was quickly becoming one of Baekhyun’s favourite things to do. It was a little bit sloppy, a little bit messy with too much teeth as Kris’s front teeth, too fucking big for his own mouth but still kind of endearing when he smiled that gummy smile of his, knocked into Baekhyun’s lips. What Kris lacked in finesse, though, he ade up for with his enthusiasm. His mouth was hot and his hands were curiously stroking the back of Baekhyun’s neck, large and warm. Baekhyun really liked his hands, and with startling clarity, realised that he really liked Kris too.

“Hey, let’s do what we did last time,” said Baekhyun, breathless when he pulled away. “Tell me something else about you. I want-I want to know more about you.”

Kris looked more amused than anything, which probably wasn’t too weird for him considering that he liked to proclaim his love to his random hook-ups, and kissed Baekhyun, strangely tenderly. Baekhyun’s chest squeezed again, like his ribcage was a few sizes too small for his heart, and he hoped Kris couldn’t feel how his heartbeat was thumping and beating a little bit too fast.

“Okay,” said Kris, “I’m up for it. Just one thing, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Baekhyun. It came out as a stutter; his chest felt too tight to speak, to breathe. “Just one thing.”

“I am,” Kris began, moving down Baekhyun’s body to suck marks between his clavicles, red bruises blooming between sharp bones, “in love”-he thumbed over Baekhyun’s nipples and took one between his lips, flicking it with his tongue, and Baekhyun arched his body towards Kris’s mouth, letting out a whine as he clenched his hands into the pillow-“with a boy”-Kris fluttered kisses down Baekhyun’s stomach to his hips, pressing one next to his navel-“with pretty fingers and pretty eyes and pretty lips.”

Baekhyun couldn’t help himself from asking, “Is that boy me?”

Maybe there was a part of him that wanted it to be him, but there was another part of him that knew that wanting Kris’s feelings to be real was just wishful thinking. This was why Baekhyun hated relationships. There were too many things he didn’t know, didn’t understand, and was too unsure of, and he hated feeling so uncertain, so insecure.

“No, it’s another boy who’s small and cute and sexy,” said Kris, and Baekhyun’s heart stopped for a moment before he noticed the mischievous twinkle in Kris’s eyes, peering up at Baekhyun beneath his soft puppy-hair, and he flicked Kris on the forehead gently, letting out a huff of breath. Kris pressed his mouth to the inside of Baekhyun’s thigh and laughed, sending shudders of electricity up Baekhyun’s spine, and Baekhyun wanted to hear it more. He wanted to hear Kris’s laugh and see Kris’s smile and that meant nothing good at all.

Fortunately, Kris was gracious enough to hoist Baekhyun’s legs over his shoulders and put his mouth to good use, clearing Baekhyun’s mind of any thoughts he had. Kris’s tongue was hot as he trailed a stripe up Baekhyun’s cock, licking at the precome that had leaked from the slit, and he sucked one of Baekhyun’s balls into his mouth, moving lower and lower. Baekhyun grasped Kris’s hair and moaned, tilting his head back and closing his eyes in pleasure as Kris moaned, creating vibrations that made Baekhyun’s cock twitch and throb against his stomach, and urged Kris to keep going, nudging his head with his hands.

Kris really was not lying when he’d said he wanted to eat Baekhyun up. The first wet lick against Baekhyun’s hole made Baekhyun’s breath stutter at the unexpected contact, Kris’s tongue tracing the pucker of his rim teasingly and slicking it up with saliva, and the second lick had Baekhyun moaning and gasping out Kris’s name, his hips rocking towards Kris for more.

“Good?” said Kris, lifting his head so he could grin at Baekhyun.

“Don’t stop,” Baekhyun said, the back of his head rubbing against the pillow when his back arched and he bucked his hips as Kris lapped at his hole feverishly, his tongue insistent.

He ate Baekhyun in the same way that he kissed; his lips and tongue were eager, tracing circles around the rim of Baekhyun’s entrance before his tongue tensed and pushed in, eliciting a strangled sound of pleasure from Baekhyun as he jerked his hips up, clenching his hands so tightly that he was sure his nails would tattoo crescents on his palms. Kris’s tongue thrust in and out steadily, occasionally pulling out to lick at Baekhyun’s rim like Baekhyun was a delicacy and he couldn’t get enough. His tongue was wet with spit and Baekhyun could feel it trickling down the cleft of his ass and to his thighs, and oh god, this was so dirty and filthy that it made him even harder, wishing that he could see Kris eating him out between his legs right now.

His toes curled into the air when Kris gave a particularly deep thrust of his tongue and pulled out slowly, letting it drag against Baekhyun’s walls, and moved away to wipe at his swollen mouth with the back of his hand. Baekhyun whined, pawing at Kris’s head, and Kris chuckled deeply.

“Touch yourself,” he growled lowly, reaching over for the bottle of lube he had stashed near his bed. He squeezed some onto his fingers and rubbed them together to warm them up, pressing one to Baekhyun’s hole. Baekhyun moaned and let out a shuddering breath, his hole fluttering and trying to suck it into his body greedily. “I’m gonna finger you and eat you out and make you come that you won’t be able to think about anything else but me for days. I’m gonna make you come so hard.”

Baekhyun just moaned, urging Kris to hurry up by jerking his hips into his fist as his slim fingers curled around his leaking cock, sensitive and hard, and Kris dipped back down to lick at his rim as he pushed the first finger in, wriggling it past one knuckle, and then two, and then down to the hilt. Kris’s fingers were longer and bigger than his and they felt amazing inside his ass, long enough to press against that spot inside him with ease, making stars burst behind his eyelids. He panted Kris’s name as Kris thrust his finger in leisurely and added another one as he licked around them with his tongue, tracing Baekhyun’s stretched rim, and Baekhyun was so hard that his body seized up and his cock jerked in his fist as he came, his spine bowing prettily and his lips parted with Kris’s name on them. The position that he was in and the angle of his body caused his come to spurt over his chest, sticky threads of white over his skin, and only when his breathing started to even out and he could see somewhat straight did Kris pull his fingers out and wipe them on his sheets, gently letting down Baekhyun’s legs and coming back up to press a kiss to Baekhyun’s lips.

Baekhyun could taste himself on Kris’s tongue, and though he’d already come, he still wanted Kris. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted, and he didn’t know if he could ever get enough, and the thought of that scared him a little bit. Wanting someone so much that it bordered on need wasn’t new, but feeling it so intensely for someone and that someone being Kris as well made it feel as if it was.

Kris’s hand curled around his jaw and his fingers rubbed that sensitive spot beneath Baekhyun’s ear, and Baekhyun could feel Kris’s cock still hard against his own, clad in the confines of his underwear. “What do you want me to do,” Baekhyun whispered against his lips, running a thumb over Kris’s cheek.

“I want to fuck your thighs,” said Kris without hesitation, and Baekhyun kissed him again, giving him a silent confirmation.

Kris’s hands were comforting and warm on his thighs as Kris slicked them up with lube, making them slippery enough for him to slip his cock between them, pulsing between Baekhyun’s legs. His thighs were still tense and Kris massaged them with his fingers before he moved his hands to Baekhyun’s hips, holding them for leverage as he started to rock his own hips, thrusting his cock in.

“Squeeze your legs together-ah, fuck, yes,” he moaned as Baekhyun pressed his thighs together, his hands clasped around the back of Kris’s neck to pull him into a kiss.

Baekhyun was still kissing him when he came over Baekhyun’s thighs, his come spurting over Baekhyun’s skin filthily, and Baekhyun didn’t think he ever wanted to stop. What that meant-he was too scared to try to find out.

Upon waking up in the morning, all Baekhyun had done was lie on Kris’s massive king-sized bed, sinking into the plush cushions and the silk sheets and trying to regain feeling in his limbs. He was absolutely boneless and didn’t feel like moving, but in a good way, and Kris’s bed was warm and great for snuggling in. Not that he wanted to snuggle though. It was simply a minor observation that he’d happened to make.

Once again, Kris was playing on his phone, messaging someone, and Baekhyun felt a tightness in his chest, almost like jealousy. He reprimanded himself for being such a sap because of course Kris could text whoever he wanted. It wasn’t like Kris belonged to him. Kris seemed like the playboy type, so nice that it could be manipulative, saying what people wanted to hear, and Baekhyun wouldn’t have been surprised if Kris had a few other boyfriends on the side too. Then again, thinking about it more deeply, Kris was a genuinely nice puppy-boy and Baekhyun couldn’t quite see him having sex with Baekhyun and then fucking around with other people behind his back.

“Who’re you texting?” asked Baekhyun, and then immediately regretted it because his voice was hoarse from moaning Kris’s name.

“Just my, um, friend,” said Kris. He shuffled a little closer in the bed so Baekhyun could feel the heat from his body and smell the scent of cologne and sex and addiction. Bad. This was bad. “He was with me at the club but I think he was just sulking somewhere in the corner. He’s telling me about some weird guy he had sex with and he’s all like, Ugh, this guy is so dumb and he keeps calling me, but I only pick up ‘cause I feel sorry for him, which is typical Kyungsoo for you. I think Kyungsoo likes him really but he doesn’t like it when people realise he’s an Actual Human Being with Real Emotions.”

Kyungsoo? Baekhyun was sure he’d heard that name somewhere…from Chanyeol? He never really listened when Chanyeol talked, but he vaguely remembered hearing a Kyungsoo from one of Chanyeol’s psychotic sex rants. He couldn’t be the guy Chanyeol was porking and the guy who Kris was friends with, could he?

“Does this Kyungsoo happen to be dating someone called Chanyeol?” asked Baekhyun slowly.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Kris, “but Kyungsoo just calls him Freaky Friday because apparently, he looks young but he sounds like an eighty year old man. Kyungsoo’s a bit weird like that.”

“This is weird,” said Baekhyun. “Chanyeol’s my roommate. I don’t know if you saw them that night but he was the tall one groping Kyungsoo’s ass. Big eyes, bowl-hair cut. It’s hard not to miss him.”

Baekhyun didn’t really want to get up, didn’t think he had enough energy left in him to get up, but ugh, college, and he had to go home to yell at Chanyeol for sleeping with his-what was Kris?-his Kris’s friend, which was all kinds of fucked up. Although, if Chanyeol knew, he would want to double date and Baekhyun did not want to put up with Chanyeol’s countless spam emails and PowerPoint attachments telling him about the benefits of playing doubles in table tennis tournaments.

And what was exactly was Kris to him? They’d only met twice and yet it felt like they’d known each other for longer. There was attraction, that much was undeniable, and the pull was strong, enticing and Baekhyun couldn’t resist it. Sure, he could tell himself that this was nothing, but the fact was, this was something. Something intense, something that Baekhyun couldn’t understand because it was beyond human comprehension, and he just… He liked being with Kris, he realised. He liked having sex with Kris; he liked it when Kris trailed his hands over his skin as if he was mapping it out under his fingers, and he’d liked that one morning when Kris had taken him out for coffee and they’d just talked and Kris had cracked bad jokes which Baekhyun had laughed at because they were awful and he liked Kris’s smile when he saw Baekhyun laughing.

Some people thought that love happened over time, that it developed, but for Baekhyun, it had already begun manifesting. In his chest, there was a tight warmth and a bloom of heat that made his entire body shiver when he looked at Kris, despite the cosiness of the bed, and he didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t because of college. It was because of Kris.

His breath hitched in his throat-this was moving too fast; this was getting too intense too quickly, and Baekhyun wasn’t ready, not yet. Maybe one day, he would be, if they’d last that long, but not yet. He sat up and the crinkle of the sheets made Kris look over, tilting his head to the side like a dog begging him to stay.

“You’re leaving already? It’s only, like, eight,” he said. “You can’t stay a little longer? I thought we could maybe get brunch or-“

“Sorry,” said Baekhyun, and then he winced at how clipped and curt he sounded. “I mean, I’ve got college so… I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Oh,” said Kris. He stood up in his underwear and padded over to the windows, spanning half the wall, and pulled open the curtains, a stream of sunlight pouring in. Baekhyun stared at the way the light reflected off Kris’s skin, highlighting the muscles of his bare back and the long scratches down his skin Baekhyun had left there yesterday.

Gorgeous.

“…raining outside,” said Kris, and Baekhyun snapped out of his thoughts.

“Uh, sorry, what?” Baekhyun said. “Just zoned out there for a few seconds.”

“I said, it’s raining outside. Are you sure you don’t want a lift or anything? I can drive you. My Mercedes is out front. We can stop for coffee if you want.”

Baekhyun shook his head. It had already manifested; the electricity was in the air and he was breathing it in and he couldn’t let this fester. It was already intense enough, the hum and the throb of desire that thudded between them. He could feel it, and he was sure Kris could feel it too, only that Kris wanted to act upon it and he didn’t. Kris was a one-night stand. Baekhyun didn’t have relationships with one-night stands. Period.

“I’ll walk,” he said. “It’s not too far and I need to exercise anyway. I’ve just been sitting on my ass and stuffing myself with pizza”-amongst other things, he thought-“all night. So I probably need it.”

Kris frowned. “Alright…” he said, sounding unconvinced, but he let it go anyway. “If you’re sure. But here, take this anyway. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

He opened the doors to his wardrobe and started searching through the racks of clothes and loose shoes. Stussy, Givenchy and Gucci, Baekhyun noticed, and one particular abomination of fashion-a skull-printed top and horrible polka-dot harem pants-which burned Baekhyun’s eyes. Bending over to trawl through the very back, Kris’s position gave Baekhyun the perfect view of his butt, all round and perky and clad in the ugliest pair of Naruto boxers he’d ever seen, and suddenly, Baekhyun felt much more awake.

“Found it,” said Kris triumphantly, emerging from the depths of his closet and brandishing a red umbrella in his hands. Baekhyun was still gawking at where Kris’s butt had been and he tried (unsuccessfully) to tear the image from his mind because walking to college with morning wood didn’t sound particularly appealing. Kris frowned at him. “Hey, my face is up here!”

“Sorry,” said Baekhyun meekly. “Thanks for the umbrella.”

Well, that would be another thing Kris wouldn’t be getting back, Baekhyun thought, mostly because he had awful memory and he’d probably leave it in the library or something. So it made him really surprised when he got back home and the umbrella was still in his grasp, clutched so hard in his fingers that they’d begun to ache.

The touch of Kris’s hands ghosted against his skin and he wondered what fresh hell was this.

PART THREE