CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN JAX #2
She rises on her toes, kisses me with desperate gratitude and something that feels like relief. When she pulls back, her voice is steady despite the emotion. "Then we call Agent Reeves tomorrow. Give her everything. And we do whatever it takes to tear The Glasshouse down completely."
"Tomorrow," I agree. "But tonight, I just want to be here. In your space. Building something that's yours."
"Ours," she corrects, and the word sounds like a promise. "If you want it to be."
"Yes." The word comes easier than expected.
"Ours. I want that more than I've wanted anything in a long time.
" I move closer, eliminating the distance between us.
"I want to unpack these boxes with you. I want to know where you keep coffee mugs and which side of the bed you prefer.
I want to build something with you that isn't about crisis management or surviving threats. Just us. Choosing this."
Her eyes are bright with tears she's not trying to hide. "We haven't—since Tuesday. Before the Ezra meeting. I thought maybe you were waiting for me to be ready, or maybe you'd changed your mind about wanting—"
"I haven't changed my mind about anything.
" I cross the space between us because standing apart while having this conversation feels wrong.
"I've been waiting because I wanted our next time to be about choice, not crisis.
Not because you're scared or I'm protecting you or we're surviving something.
Because we both want it. Because we're building a future, not just getting through today. "
Her hands come up to my chest, fingers spreading over my heartbeat through my shirt. "I want it. I want you. Not because I'm scared or you saved my life or any of that. Because I love you."
The words hit me like physical impact. We haven't said them before. And this is Lana in her new apartment, safe and healing, choosing to love me anyway.
"I love you too." My hands frame her face, my thumbs brushing away tears that are spilling over now.
"I've loved you since before I had any right to feel it.
And I'll keep loving you even when it's hard, even when I have to choose vulnerability over control, even when my impulses make me want to monitor and manage instead of trust."
"I know you will." She brings her mouth close to mine but doesn't close the distance yet. "And I'll keep loving you even when I'm scared. Even when trusting feels dangerous. Even when my past makes me want to run instead of stay."
I claim her mouth, kissing her with all the tenderness I've been holding back for a week. "Build this with me. Let me love you in your actual home, not a borrowed space or safe house. Let this be real."
Her mouth opens like she’s been starving for this exact moment, tongue sliding hot and slow against mine, tasting me like she’s memorizing every second.
The sound she makes (low, hungry, almost a sob) vibrates straight into my chest. I walk her backward, step by deliberate step, until her spine meets the doorframe of the bedroom.
Boxes are still stacked in the corners, but the late golden light pouring through the windows bathes everything in honey, and the bare mattress on the floor looks like a promise.
She claws at my shirt, dragging it up my torso with impatient fingers.
I rip it over my head and let it fall. Her palms land on my skin instantly—warm, greedy—tracing the ridges of muscle like she’s reading braille, like she’s claiming every inch she’s only ever stolen glances of before.
I hook my fingers under the hem of her sweater and peel it off slowly, savoring the way the fabric drags over her ribs, over the swell of her breasts, until she’s in nothing but a plain black bra and goosebumps.
I unhook it with one hand; the straps slip down her arms and the cups fall away, revealing flushed, tight nipples that beg for my mouth.
I don’t make her wait.
I lower myself, mouth closing over one stiff peak, tongue flicking hard while my hand cups and kneads the other.
She gasps my name, fingers spearing into my hair, hips rolling forward in a silent plea.
I suck harder, teeth grazing just enough to make her cry out, then switch sides, licking and biting until she’s trembling and the scent of her arousal is thick in the air.
When I stand back up, her hands are frantic at my belt.
Leather whispers free; zipper rasps down.
I shove jeans and boxer-briefs off in one motion and my cock springs heavy and aching between us, already slick at the tip.
Her eyes drop to it and her breath stutters—she reaches, wraps her fingers around me, strokes once, slow and firm, thumb smearing the bead of pre-cum over the head.
The groan that tears out of me is raw, almost feral.
I lift her, palms sliding under the soft backs of her thighs, and she locks her ankles at the small of my back, pulling me in tight as I carry her the last few steps.
We drop together onto the bare mattress in a tangle of limbs and heat, her slick folds gliding along the length of my cock until I’m throbbing against her.
I brace above her on one forearm, reach down with my free hand, and fist myself, thick and aching.
I drag the swollen head through her wetness once, twice, parting her, coating myself in the glossy evidence of how badly she wants this.
She whimpers into my mouth when I notch right at her entrance, the blunt crown pressing, stretching that first tight ring of muscle, teasing her open.
“Jax,” she breathes, hips rolling up greedily, trying to take more. “I need you inside me. Need to feel every inch of you.”
I hold her gaze, let her see everything I feel, and sink forward, slow, relentless, watching her eyes flutter and her lips part on a shattered gasp as I breach her, inch by scorching inch.
She’s molten, velvet-tight, fluttering around every ridge of my cock until I’m seated to the hilt and we’re both shaking.
Her head falls back, throat exposed, and I can’t resist—I drag my tongue up the column of her neck, tasting salt and want, then bite down on the spot that makes her clench hard around me.
I start to move.
Slow, deep strokes at first, dragging almost all the way out until only the head kisses her entrance, then sinking back in until my pelvis grinds against her clit.
Every thrust draws a broken sound from her throat—soft at first, then louder, filthier, until she’s moaning my name like a chant.
The mattress squeaks beneath us, raw and honest, the sound of two people finally claiming the life they fought for.
Her nails rake down my back, scoring skin, and I hiss, snapping my hips harder. The new angle drags the head of my cock over that spot inside her and she screams—short, sharp, desperate—legs locking tighter around my waist.
“Look at me,” I growl, because I need to see it when she falls apart in the place she chose, the place we’re making ours.
Her eyes flutter open, glassy and dark with pleasure, and lock on mine.
I drive into her with everything I have—slow, filthy rolls of my hips that grind her clit on every downstroke, then hard, punishing thrusts that punch the air from her lungs.
Sweat beads between her breasts; I lick it off, tasting us both.
“Jax—I’m—” The words fracture as her body goes rigid beneath me, pussy clamping down in long, milking waves.
She comes with my name torn from her lips, back arched so high only her shoulders and hips touch the mattress, and the sight of her—head pressed into the mattress, mouth open in a silent scream, golden light painting every trembling curve—rips my own orgasm from me like a riptide.
I bury myself deep and let go, pulsing inside her in thick, endless jets, groaning her name against her throat as pleasure whites out everything else.
We stay locked together, shaking, hearts hammering against each other, until the aftershocks fade and the only sound is our ragged breathing and the soft creak of the mattress beneath us.
I press my forehead to hers, still inside her, still home.
“I love you, Lana” I whisper against her swollen lips.
She smiles—slow, sated, radiant—and kisses me soft and deep.
“Love you back. Now let’s break this mattress in properly… all night long.”
For a long moment we just exist together—hearts pounding in matched time, bodies still joined, the world narrowed down to skin and sweat and shared breathing. Then I roll us onto our sides, keep her close, and she curls into me like she belongs there.
"Welcome home," I whisper against her hair.
She laughs, the sound carrying relief and joy and something that feels like hope. "Our home."
"Our home," I agree.
Outside, the sun is setting over Miramont, painting her windows in shades of amber and rose. Inside, we're building something that's entirely ours—messy and complicated and worth every risk we took to get here.
We lie there until the light fades, until the room fills with the purple-blue of dusk, until our breathing returns to normal and the sweat cools on our skin. Eventually she shifts against me, runs her fingers through my hair with lazy affection.
"We should probably unpack at some point," she says, voice still rough from exertion. "Or at least find the box with the sheets."
"Sheets are overrated." I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. "This works fine."
"Says the man who isn't going to wake up with mattress imprints on his face." But she's smiling, I can hear it in her voice. "Though I suppose we could just stay here forever. Order takeout, ignore the boxes, pretend the outside world doesn't exist."
"Tempting." I trace patterns on her bare shoulder, feeling her relax further into my touch. "But tomorrow we have to call Agent Reeves. Start the process of actually eliminating The Glasshouse instead of just surviving their attempts."
Her body tenses slightly at the reminder. "I know. I want to. But right now, I just want to be here with you. In this apartment. Building something meaningful."
"Then that's what we do." I shift so I can see her face. "Tonight is ours. Tomorrow we deal with federal investigations and protective custody and dismantling criminal organizations. But tonight, we're just two people unpacking boxes in an empty apartment."
She kisses me, soft and lingering.
We eventually drag ourselves out of bed when hunger becomes impossible to ignore. I find my jeans while she pulls on my discarded shirt, and we navigate through boxes to the kitchen where we discover we have exactly zero food and no dishes to eat it on anyway.
"Pizza?" she suggests, already pulling out her phone.
"Pizza works."
We order from a place that delivers to her new building, then spend the next forty minutes locating the box with plates and silverware while wearing minimal clothing and stealing kisses between unpacking attempts.
It's domestic in ways I've never experienced—this comfortable chaos of building a home together, this easy intimacy that comes from choosing each other without crisis forcing our hand.
When the pizza arrives, we eat sitting on the floor of her living room surrounded by half-unpacked boxes, sharing slices and planning where furniture should go and discussing whether she wants art on the walls or prefers the industrial aesthetic of exposed brick.
This is what I was trying to protect when I first started watching her.
Not just her physical safety, but her ability to have moments like this—mundane and perfect, ordinary and precious.
The difference is now I'm part of the moment instead of watching from the outside.
Now I get to help build the life she deserves instead of just monitoring it from a distance.
"What are you thinking?" she asks, catching me staring at her with what must be an obvious expression.
"That I'm exactly where I want to be." I reach for her hand, lace our fingers together. "With you. In your home. Building something real."
She squeezes my hand, her eyes bright with emotion. "Our home."
"Our home," I agree.
And it feels entirely true.