His Innocent Angel (Heaven's Ballroom Book 1)

by Aiden Bates

  My entire body shook. Shook so hard that Max’s arms around me had to be the only thing still holding it together as he buried his length in me.

  “Max…Oh, God. Max, please…”

  “Riley…fuck, Riley!”

  Baring his teeth, Max released a ragged groan from his throat. He stirred his hips, grinding somehow even deeper into me.

  “Please, come for me,” I urged him. “I need to feel you come.”

  When his cheek pressed against mine, it was slick with sweat. He roared as he came, stuffing himself as deep inside me as he could. Every muscle of his body twitched against mine as his cum poured into me, coating the heat of my inner walls and flooding me full.

  “I love you,” I found myself saying. Maybe it was just the orgasm, the fractured fragments of which were still clouding my judgment and making the room spin. Or maybe, I meant it.

  Maybe it was real.

  “I love you too,” he exhaled, pressing a palm to the wall. His shoulders heaved. A bead of sweat rolled down his nose, only inches away from my lips. “Riley…fuck. I love you too.”

  I found my feet gingerly, balancing on my tiptoes as he exited me. His cock slipped against my thighs, wet with cum and softening, but still somehow impossibly huge. A grower and a shower. Fuck—he was perfect. He was impossible.

  He was everything.

  We guided each other to bed, neither of us seeming to have full control of our legs. Mine felt like jelly, quivering and weak. Max lumbered, collapsing onto the mattress and pulling me down on top of him.

  “I love you, Max,” I said again softly. Just to hear the words. Just to get them out of my chest and into the air between us.

  “I know. I know,” he sighed, pulling my head down to rest on his hot, damp chest. “And I love you, sweetheart…I mean it. I do.” His arms folded around me as he pressed a kiss against my jaw. “Once I regain strength in my legs, I’ll get you some water or something.”

  “And some food,” I said with a little giggle. “We’ve still forgotten to eat tonight.”

  “And some food,” he agreed. Max buried his nose in my hair, kissing my scalp. “I’m so sorry, Riley.”

  I laughed. “About Hayward? Or about dinner?”

  “About everything. About tonight.”

  I smiled against his chest. “You must have fucked the sense right out of me, Max. I forgive you. It wasn’t even your fault.”

  “Still. I shouldn’t have left you alone. Should have protected you…”

  I nipped at his chest. “You protected me just fine. And this…well, plus some food will more than make up for it.”

  “Chinese or Indian?”

  “How about pizza?”

  He smiled against my forehead. “That can be arranged.” Then— “Did you like it, Riley?”

  I blushed. “I did. I…I liked being at your mercy.”

  Max drew back a bit, looking down at me. “Is that so? Hmm…interesting.”

  “You were really hot,” I admitted with a laugh. “All in control…I never felt uncomfortable. Just…just good.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to do it again sometime, then,” he said, a hint of pride in his voice.

  “Get some pizza in me and we’ll talk.” I moved up his body, finding his lips and kissing them with a hunger that went beyond my penchant for Italian food. “Or maybe our mouths will be too busy to talk.”

  12

  Max

  Waking up wasn’t the same after that.

  After him.

  The next morning, I urged myself to untangle myself from our sheets. But Riley’s body, so warm and heavy with sleep, was like a drug to me. Every time I pulled myself away, I saw the way he was resting beside me. Couldn’t bring myself to do it. My normal morning routine was suddenly shot. All I wanted to do was be close to him, sunrise and push-ups be damned.

  We spent the weekend in bed together, eating pizza and watching movies. He liked romantic comedies and Hallmark Christmas movies; I liked films where Liam Neeson issued death threats then went around shooting the people who’d wronged him. We found a happy medium in Die Hard, but an even happier medium when we weren’t watching the movie at all. Whatever was on the screen was only background noise; the important thing was Riley’s lips on mine. The way he moaned when I entered him. The soft flutter of his eyelashes as he came for me and the sweat between our bodies as we lay together in the hours after, enjoying each other’s warmth.

  “Don’t go to work today,” he begged playfully as I finally forced myself out of bed on Monday morning.

  The floor felt too cold beneath my feet as I cast a glance back at the way he was still sprawled out across the mattress, bathed in white blankets and soft linen.

  “Don’t tease me like that,” I said back to him. “You know I wish I could.”

  “What will I do all day without you?”

  I gave him a wolfish grin and dove back into bed, throwing the blankets away from him to reveal his naked form. My mouth dipped to his hips, the soft brown curls of his pubic hair, the hardening cock that I’d spent the weekend devouring over and over again. I licked it from base to tip, relishing the way it twitched beneath my tongue.

  “Miss me,” I suggested.

  He hit me with a pillow, producing a soft whoompf! as the downy plushness collided with the side of my head.

  “I always miss you, idiot.”

  “Take a shower, then. Or a warm bath. There are Epsom salts in the cabinet.” I ran my fingertips over his stomach, imagining it a few months from now. It would be rounder there beneath the muscle then. Being with Riley felt like the comfortable, homey kind of dream I never wanted to wake up from. Maybe when he started showing, it would seem a little more real. “Pamper yourself, darling.”

  “You pamper me enough, hot stuff.” He tugged at my jawline, pulling me up toward his lips.

  Kissing Riley—that could have kept me in bed with him for weeks if I let it. His tongue slipped into my mouth, dancing against mine.

  I groaned when I finally forced myself to pull away. No time for push-ups now—I barely made it in and out of the shower in time to get to work at a reasonable hour.

  Not that I minded.

  With Riley in my bed, everything else felt like it could wait.

  At work, it was the same flurry of bullshit as always. My phone was already ringing when I sat down at my desk. I spent the morning the same way I always did: reassuring our clients who watched the stock market all too carefully with no real understanding of what all those numbers meant that no, we hadn’t lost them a fortune overnight, and yes, they would be much happier with the state of things by the time trading stopped at the end of the day.

  By lunch, I was already craving Riley again. When I called him a drug, I meant it. My cock twitched in my slacks with every little memory of him—the faintest breath of his scent when I caught it lingering on my collar. A bar of that Frank Sinatra song that we’d danced to that had lodged itself into my head.

  I whistled along as I grabbed my coat and fished my phone out of my pocket at lunchtime. My apartment wasn’t far away. Maybe I’d see what he was up to. Meet him for lunch—or better yet, bring lunch to him and let it go cold while I took him to bed again.

  But before I could make it out the door, Hayward emerged from his office. Dark bags under his eyes told me that he hadn’t had anything near the relaxing weekend I had. He’d been drinking at his desk again to boot—I could smell it on his breath.

  “Griffin,” he called me over. “How’s shit today?”

  “Peachy,” I answered. “Same as always.”

  “Yeah? That little tart of yours must be keeping you happy, you old hound dog.” Hayward stroked a five o’clock shadow that must have been more than forty-eight hours old. “What’s he fuck like?”

  My jaw clenched. This was typical Hayward. He’d asked the same about Ethan when we’d first gotten together—and I hadn’t told him then, either. “Off to lunch, Hayward. Want me to pick you up anything on m
y way back?”

  Hayward’s eyes narrowed as a villainous smile emerged on his lips. “Why don’t you bring Riley instead? I don’t think he warmed up to me very well at the gala the other night. Maybe he’d like me a little better by daylight.”

  I glanced around, shoulders stiff. The finance men still at their desks on the floor didn’t even raise their heads from their desks, even though Hayward was talking more than loud enough for them to overhear. That didn’t surprise me—the only kind of people who found themselves able to work for a man like Hayward were the kind who knew how to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.

  “I would, but he’s busy,” I lied. “Doctor’s appointment. You know how pregnancies go.”

  Or you would if you stuck by the one-night stands you’re always knocking up for long enough to see them through labor, I thought to myself.

  Hayward only laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Griffin. You’re so damn trusting. It’s gonna put you through a world of hurt one of these days, though. Just you wait. It’s all fine and dandy until that little bastard of yours comes out with the mailman’s bright red hair.”

  I gripped my phone a little tighter. “Funny, Hayward.”

  “Might be.” He shrugged. “If I was joking, anyway.”

  I ground another layer of enamel off my back teeth. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

  “I’m not implying anything.” Hayward held his hands up, the picture of innocence when I knew he was anything but. “I care about you, Griffin—so let me just give you this little warning outright.” He approached me, drawing nearer than he needed to. Now, the stink of rum on his breath was amplified to a level that turned my stomach over. Reminded me of the way a bar smelled in the hours after last call—sticky and unclean. “Hot little pieces of ass like that never have just one poker in the fire, if you catch my drift. You watch yourself with that Omega of yours, Griffin—and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get yourself a paternity test.”

  My eyes locked on his, tracing every little bloodshot vein in his whites. He was a drunk, I reminded myself. A blowhard. He said shit because he was the boss. Because he knew he could get away with it. I had no education to speak of, no real experience beyond what I’d gained from working at his company. He’d hired me because I could put up with his bullshit and kept me around because I’d turned out to be good at the actual work on top of it. Another man might not be willing to do the same if I left.

  Didn’t stop me from envisioning the million-and-one ways I’d like to beat his head in. But it stopped me from following through with them.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I told him. What I really meant was, Go eat shit, you drunken, washed-up pervert.

  I pulled myself away from the encounter before he could spew more nonsense. Riley’d been a virgin when I met him. He’d only been with me since. When he told me he loved me, the look in his eyes made me believe him.

  But that didn’t change the fact that, as I headed past reception, I was holding my breath. Imagining the worst—what I might come home to if I popped in unannounced. Ethan hadn’t had any problem inviting his own shady hookups into my apartment while I’d been at work. Who was to say that Riley wasn’t doing the same damn thing behind my back?

  It was ridiculous, I knew, worrying about Riley like this. But I tucked my phone into my pocket anyway, deciding to surprise him instead of giving him the few minutes of warning. If I wanted to be sure, I’d pop in unannounced.

  “I’ll be out for a few hours,” I told Joan, our receptionist. “Any messages?”

  “Not really. But…” She cast a glance to the door that led to the elevators in the hall. “There was a guy here for you just a few seconds ago. Turned him away when I saw you and Mr. Hayward…chatting.” Her pale cheeks flushed gently. “He might’ve picked up the last bit of your conversation. Mr. Hayward can be a little…”

  “Thanks.” There were a thousand different words that could’ve finished Joan’s sentence. None of them polite ones.

  “If you hurry, you might catch him?” Joan suggested as I headed out the door.

  She was right. There was a man at the elevators, pushing the down button over and over again with a nervous energy about him.

  “You know that won’t make it come any faster,” I said, coming up behind him.

  When he turned, there was a look of wistful pleasure on his evil, cheating face.

  “Max,” Ethan said softly, pulling off his mittens and tucking them into the pocket of his coat. “I thought maybe it was a bad time…”

  I took a step back, gritting my teeth again. At this rate, I was going to need fucking dentures—or maybe just a new coping mechanism.

  “It is,” I said abruptly. “I’ll take the stairs.”

  “Max—wait, no!” His hand shot out toward me, fingers curling around my elbow. He trotted along after me as I made my way toward the stairwell. When I got to the door, he pressed me against it with his hips, desperation in his eyes.

  “We’re not doing this, Ethan.” I pulled my shoulders back and put my hand to his chest, pushing him away.

  “That Omega you were with at the gala the other night—he’s really pregnant?”

  I took a breath. “He is.”

  “I…I didn’t realize that’s what you wanted.” Ethan fluttered his eyelashes up at me. A few months ago, that might have worked on me. It didn’t anymore. “Max, if you would’ve just told me you wanted to become a father…”

  The elevator dinged behind us, the doors finally opening. I wished to God they would’ve come a minute earlier. Might have spared me this bullshit with my cheating ex.

  “I didn’t,” I found myself spitting at him. How could he possibly understand? Things with Riley hadn’t been planned. They hadn’t been some scheme on Riley’s part to entrap me—or on mine to draw him in. It had all been happenstance. Fate.

  Someone like Ethan never would’ve gotten that. He saw fate in every man with a bulge in his pocket—and whether it was a hard cock or a fat wallet waiting for him there, he didn’t seem to mind.

  “In that case…leave him, Max. Come back to me. I missed you. I want you. If you never wanted to be a father, why not—”

  “Your elevator’s leaving.” I nodded to the doors, hoping that Ethan would catch my drift. Get the fuck out of my office building. Out of my life. For good, this time.

  But as the doors closed, I saw a glimpse of a face between them. It was twisted in heartache, like someone had just killed its dreams before their tear-filled eyes.

  Eyes the color of scotch—the expensive kind, pooled in a crystal decanter and held up to the sunlight.

  Riley.

  Fuck.

  “Get the fuck off of me.” I shoved Ethan away, ignoring the hurt in his own eyes as I did it. That wasn’t a hurt I cared about anymore. It was fake—fucking bologna. Any tears he cried were only the crocodile kind.

  I took the stairs two at a time on the way down, then three at a time, then jumping from the fifth step all the way down to the landing. Anything to beat Riley to the lobby. To pull him into my arms before the elevator hit the ground floor.

  But I was on the eighth, and the elevator in our building was faster than any feats of speed on my part. When I got to ground, the elevator was already filling up with men wielding briefcases and wearing suits. The lobby was empty.

  Riley was already gone.

  13

  Riley

  My heart had lodged itself into my windpipe. It was beating against the back of my tongue like a drummer who’d just traded his sticks for rubber mallets.

  “Max, if you would’ve just told me you wanted to become a father…”

  “I didn’t.”

  I clutched the paper bag I’d carried from Max’s apartment all the way to his office so tight in my fist that I could feel the paper begin to tear as I trudged through the sea of business suits and overcoats out on the street.

  “Spare a dollar?” a homeless man ask
ed me from his place on the sidewalk.

  I stopped, patting my pockets down for spare change that I didn’t have, then placed the bag into his lap. I hoped he liked turkey and Swiss on rye. I’d even used the fancy mustard that Max liked, fat load of good it did me now.

  It was a half hour walk back to my place, but at the pace I was going, I’d make it in twenty minutes. Ten if I ran—and I wanted to run. The streets went by in sidewalk cracks and dress shoes. I kept my eyes to the ground as I walked. I didn’t look back.

  Max and I had never given a name to what we had. Not “boyfriends”. Not even “lovers”. But he’d taken me into his home. He’d told me that he’d keep me safe. Just three nights ago, he’d told me that he loved me—and naturally, my naive ass had gone and believed him.

  “…you wanted to become a father…”

  “I didn’t.”

  I couldn’t decide what hurt worse. Seeing him with that other Omega, their bodies so close they might as well have been fucking, or hearing those words from Max’s mouth. This was the situation with Kevin all over again—but this time, I’d dragged a baby into the drama.

  This time, I had all the evidence I needed to know what was going on behind my back.

  Thankfully, there was no Kevin outside my apartment. Damon and Anders had boarded up the window that Kevin had broken, and someone—I had a strong suspicion of who—had spray painted prude across the front steps—but at least I felt safe as I came through the door.

  “Riley?” Damon’s eyes rose to me the moment I walked in. The whole place smelled like garlic, basil and onions. He placed the lid back on a pot on the stove as I stood in the doorway, blinking away tears.

  “That…that smells good,” I said, sniffing.

  “Bolognese sauce,” he said dismissively. “What’s wrong?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration as I closed the door behind me. “How do you know when someone’s cheating?”

  Damon blinked. “Ry…god, please don’t tell me you’re trying to get back with Kevin again. What happened to Max?”