Chapter Ten
~ Decker ~
I stood in the dark of Jasper’s bedroom, barely a foot between us, the weight of the porch conversation still hanging in the air.
Seven men HALO-dropping onto Black Butte by tomorrow.
Kneecaps. Bodies. All because of the man standing in front of me, whose eyes I could feel on my face even in the near-darkness.
I was still running the operational case against this—what it would mean for me, for Jasper, for all of us—when Jasper moved.
His hand came up, palm warm against my chest, and then he was leaning forward. His mouth found mine in the dark with none of the carefulness I’d come to expect from him. Just straightforward want, the kind you couldn’t fake even if you tried.
It stopped me cold for exactly one second—Jasper kissing me, Jasper choosing this—and then my hand was on the back of his skull, fingers pressing into his hair, and I was kissing him back hard. Not pretending desire, but actually feeling it, letting it rise up through my chest and into my throat.
Jasper made a sound against my mouth—low and involuntary—and it landed somewhere in my chest before it registered anywhere else. His lips parted under mine, his body leaning into the contact.
I could feel the slight tremor running through him—not fear, but something adjacent to it, the tension of a man who wasn’t used to getting what he wanted.
I eased us toward the bed, one hand still in Jasper’s hair, the other at the small of his back. The mattress hit the backs of his knees, and then we were sitting, then lying down, my body settling over his.
Jasper’s hands found my shoulders, my chest, the solid warmth of me beneath my shirt. His touch was careful at first, then less so—like he was remembering how to want something, how to ask for it without words.
I got his shirt off with quick, efficient movements, then took my own off.
I took my time working my way down. My mouth at his throat, feeling his pulse jump under my tongue.
The ridge of his collarbone, the slight hollow at its center.
His nipples—first one, then the other—tongue and teeth and the pressure of my palm that had him gripping the sheets and breathing in pieces.
I looked up at him from there, registering the flush across his cheekbones, the bruise still fading along his jaw, the set of his mouth—parted and wanting.
Something moved behind my ribs—not quite tenderness, but adjacent to it—and I kept going, tracing the line of his ribs, the jut of his hip, every place that had been handled badly and was now being touched with deliberate care.
I catalogued his responses—every place Jasper tensed, every place he relaxed, the rhythm of his breathing as it changed from careful to wanting. But this wasn’t clinical. This wasn’t a mission brief or a threat assessment.
This was Jasper, who’d asked me not to leave him alone, who’d kissed me without hesitation, who was looking at me now with the directness of a man who’d made a decision and was sticking with it.
By the time I got my hand around his cock, he’d stopped thinking about anything outside this room. I could see it on his face—the blankness that came with surrender, the way his eyes went unfocused when I stroked him slow and deliberate.
He was warm and heavy in my hand, already slick at the tip. His hips moved without permission, a small, unconscious motion that told me exactly what he needed.
I kept my strokes even, watching his face. Jasper’s eyes were half-closed now, his mouth open, breath coming in short pulls that didn’t reach the bottom of his lungs. He looked wrecked already, and I’d barely started.
He got his hand on me in return—one palm flat against my stomach, the other wrapped around my cock through my jeans—and the sound it pulled out of me was more honest than anything I’d said out loud in weeks.
I reached for the nightstand without being asked, one hand still working between us, and found the small bottle of lube Jasper had tucked there. A hope neither of us had named yet.
I held it up, meeting his eyes directly, not softening the question. Jasper didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, just nodded once—a short, definitive movement that carried more weight than its single syllable should have been able to.
I worked him open with the same focused patience I brought to everything—one finger, then two, slow and thorough, watching his face for every shift from tension to want. When I hit the spot that made his back arch off the mattress, his hand fisted in my hair, holding me exactly where he wanted me.
“Stop being careful,” he said, voice rough at the edges. They were the same words he had spoken before. They had the same effect.
I added a third finger and crooked them just so, and Jasper stopped talking entirely, one hand fisted in the sheets, the other braced against my shoulder.
As soon as he was ready, I scrambled out of my clothes, the sound of ripping clothe echoing through the bedroom air.
When I finally pushed inside, it was slow and full, and I had to breathe through the tightness of it, both hands on Jasper’s hips, holding him steady. He was hot around me, tight, his body giving way inch by careful inch.
I went completely still, giving him a moment, the muscles in my arms trembling with the effort of holding myself back. “You okay?” I asked, voice so rough I barely recognized it.
Jasper nodded, then rolled his hips to prove it, and I exhaled hard against his throat and started to move—the roughness coming back then, the weight of me, the grip of my hands on his hips, the pace building until the headboard was making noise against the wall.
I had stopped thinking about Gerald, about Sterling, about any of it. There was just this—Jasper beneath me, his eyes on my face, his body taking everything I gave him and asking for more.
I got my hand around his cock and stroked him in time with my thrusts, watching his face. His eyes had gone completely unfocused now, his mouth open, breath coming in short pulls.
I came with my hand wrapped around his cock and my mouth pressed against his temple, the rightness of it washing through me in waves that left me light-headed and gasping.
Jasper followed a few strokes later, his body going rigid beneath mine, then softening as the tension left him all at once.
We lay tangled and breathing in the dark, the farmhouse quiet around us. My weight was solid against Jasper’s chest, my breath evening out as my heart rate slowed.
I expected him to move—to extract himself, to put space between us, to treat what had just happened as the exception rather than a new normal.
He didn’t. Instead, he shifted slightly, his hand coming to rest at the base of my neck where it met my spine—not a gesture, just a presence. His eyes were still on my face, the directness of his gaze making something in my chest loosen.
“Stay,” he said, the single syllable carrying more weight than it should have been able to.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and rolled to my side, pulling him with me. His body settled against mine as if finding its natural state, his head coming to rest on my chest, ear pressed above my heart.
His breathing evened out gradually, his weight growing heavier against me as he drifted toward sleep. I kept my arm around him, hand resting at the small of his back, and didn’t move to leave.
We lay tangled in the dark, the farmhouse quiet around us, both of us breathing. Jasper’s weight had settled against my side, his head on my chest, one hand loose and open on my ribs.
The rightness of the moment settled into my chest like a physical thing—not the dramatic swelling of music or the flush of fiction, but something quieter and more certain: the simple fact of a man who’d decided I was worth trusting and wasn’t performing safety or obligation, just offering the thing itself.
I didn’t move to leave. I shifted slightly, adjusting my arm to make sure Jasper was comfortable, and stayed exactly where I was.
The room was cool around us, but Jasper was warm against my side—the heat of a body that had stopped guarding itself, that had decided, at least for tonight, that it was safe enough to rest.
I’d been awake for twenty-two hours straight by then—the alertness that happened when my body decided sleep was a luxury rather than a necessity—but I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes.
Not yet. Not with Jasper’s weight solid against me, his breathing even and deep, the occasional small shift of his hand against my ribs.
I’d watched him hold himself together through the porch conversation—through the mention of Sterling, through Burke’s casually offered nuclear option, through the shorthand that had passed between the men who’d served together and now lived on the same ranch.
He’d sat straight-backed and still, eyes on the porch boards between his feet, face set in lines that gave nothing away. But I’d seen his hands—the way his knuckles had gone white where they rested on his knees, the small, unconscious movement of his thumb across his palm.
He was still doing it now—even half-asleep, his body hadn’t fully surrendered.
His breathing was even, his weight solid against me, but his thumb moved in a small, unconscious circle against my ribs—the self-soothing gesture of someone who’d learned the hard way that comfort was something you provided yourself.
“Hey,” I said, voice low in the darkness. “You still awake?”
Jasper made a small sound against my chest—not quite a word, but adjacent to it. His weight shifted slightly as he tipped his head back, eyes finding mine in the thin light from the window.
“Yeah,” he said, the single syllable carrying more weight than it should have been able to.
I ran my hand up his back, feeling the warmth of him beneath my palm, the slight ridge of his spine under my fingers. “You ever think about staying in Montana?” I asked, the question coming out before I’d fully formed it.