Chapter 13 They Shine Brighter （now that I Found You）
They Shine Brighter (now that I found you)
The idea struck like lightning in that moment between awake and asleep. Alone in the nest, he’d suddenly been missing Jamie’s smile, and his brain—and okay, maybe his dick, just a little—and that had led to memories of happier times.
Trips to the beach, rigged arcade games, rainy afternoons in Nix’s family room, buried under blankets and teenage hormones he had no idea how to soothe but relished just the same.
Small things now, given how far they’d come, especially considering he was currently less human and significantly more pregnant.
Not better times. Just different. Good in their own way.
Nix had been working hard on adding new memories to help outshine the bad ones—the kind of memories that rooted you right where you were. But loving seven other people with full lives meant alone time with each of his mates was rare.
The pack made it work—lunch dates, early runs, midnight snacks, standing at the counter eating leftovers or pickles straight from the jar—but today, by some miracle, everyone had been pulled in a different direction, and Nix was grateful.
It meant he could have Jamie all to himself.
Just them. One-on-one for the first time in ages.
His flash of inspiration was hokey and cringey, and Jamie was going to love it.
Dressed in black leggings and a long t-shirt, Nix hauled every blanket in the nest out of the room and chucked them over the balcony and to the living room below.
He’d followed with every pillow he could find and four or five sheets from the linen closet.
By the time he’d made it down the stairs with his new laptop (a gift from Leo), there was a monumental mess, and Nix couldn’t have been happier about it.
The hardest part of his surprise was finding the rest of what he needed without triggering the front door security monitors—and thus security-conscious Gideon, who deserved this uninterrupted playtime with Luca.
That meant the garage was off-limits. As if sensing his conundrum, Tsuki had sat smartly in front of the door to the lower levels (maybe it was because the treat cupboard was nearby, but Nix couldn’t be sure).
He made a mental note to acknowledge her accidental genius when he discovered a storage room full of treasure.
Thanks to Gideon, Nix found a case of sparkling, alcohol-free wine in the well-stocked wine cellar. It’s just what he needs to elevate his plan when he can’t enjoy the real thing for another thirty weeks.
With a bottle tucked under his arm, he located the next item on his list in a case nearby marked Nawaya.
Coil after coil of thin rope, dyed in a rainbow of colors and smelling of hay.
It’s much prettier than any he’s seen before and will make his feat of engineering come together easily without stinky garage smells.
Seriously, though—who knew the Rhodes pack needed so much pretty rope, and why is it in the temperature-controlled wine room?
After placing the wine in the fridge, Nix moved the dining room chairs in front of the couch and dragged the sex-ottoman-coffee-table out of the way, then began putting his mental design into action.
Ropes formed a lattice from one chair to the next, creating a sort of roof.
He covered them with bed sheets in every color until it was a cozy fort facing the fireplace, and wide enough for two people to hide away inside.
Once he added the pillows and blankets in the perfect nest shape, Nix grabbed some snacks and opened the wine.
He lit a fire in the grate before queuing up the movie on the laptop.
The last thing on his mental list is finding something to wear, and ten minutes later, Nix finds what he’s looking for at the top of Jamie’s closet. He takes a page out of Luca’s book and drops his pants, too, because being pants-free is arguably the epitome of comfort.
Now for the last thing on his list: one sweet, sentimental, and smokin’ hot first love.
12:50 PM Nix
Need you in the living room
12:50 PM Jamie
You ok?
Nix doesn’t even need to answer because he can hear the door to the studio open, then slam shut, followed by Jamie’s quick but light tread in the hall.
“Nix? You okay?” he calls, and stops when he sees Nix standing in the living room in front of the blanket fort, wearing Jamie’s old football jersey. It says Rhodes on the back, and after just seeing the look on his face, Nix wishes he’d been able to wear it back then.
“Holy shit. Turn around. Please,” he groans. “Wanna see my name on you.”
The jersey isn’t very long; maybe he’d shrunk it in the wash, because it barely covers Nix’s bare ass.
“Fuck.”
“You like?” Nix looks over his shoulder with his sexiest smirk. Jamie’s attention is intoxicating, and Goddess did it make him feel sexy.
“Like? You look like you walked straight out of my fantasy. I have dreamed of you like this so often.”
“Even back then?”
Jamie’s cheeks flush, and he rubs the back of his neck. “Even back then. It’s not like I played for long, but yeah, letting everyone know you were mine? That would have been everything teenage me would have wanted. Even now, seeing my name on you makes me so fucking hard.”
A bolt of heat in his belly makes Nix groan. It burns so sweetly, making his slick slip between his cheeks. He’s torn between tackling Jamie to the couch, pulling his shorts down, and just sliding that huge dick home, or sticking with the plan and dragging it out a bit.
It’s then that Jamie notices the blanket fort. “Hey, did you do all this for me?” he asks with awe and his softest, dimpled smile. “For real?”
Jamie goes around to the opening so he can see inside the fort, see where Nix has set up the laptop, and where he’s left their snacks and drinks.
Dragging it out sounds just right.
Taking the decision out of Nix’s hands, Jamie throws off his shirt and gets down on his hands and knees, and disappears into the blanket fort.
Nix doesn’t want to waste a minute, crawling after him only to find Jamie already lounging like a king on the mountain of pillows and bedding that still smells like family. It’s intimate and close, and everything Nix had imagined.
“Do you want to watch a movie? Like old times?” He wakes the laptop up, and a familiar image fills the screen.
“Need for Speed? Holy shit, Nix,” Jamie murmurs as Nix lies beside him and props the laptop on his alpha’s belly. “We saw that at the drive-in on one of our not-dates, yeah?”
“Mmhmm, and then we watched it at my parents’ place that winter, too. Remember? Under all those blankets?” Nix hopes Jamie remembers, because Nix had been as horny as he’d ever been in his whole teenage life. He had smelled so good—a rich, woody pine that Nix was sure had been Jamie’s new cologne.
A scent he now knows as his aroused-alpha-Were scent. Nix’s eyebrows hit his hairline before narrowing in accusation. “Hey! You were horny that day!”
“What? No,” Jamie denies, but his face is red. Eighteen-year-old Jamie had been so careful of Nix, more than three years younger. So eager to be honorable, but it had been the sweetest torture for two teenage boys in love.
Nix dumps the laptop off to the side and slides on top of his beet-red mate. “You were! And here I thought it was just me.” He runs both hands over Jamie’s pecs, giving his nipple a teasing pinch. “Did you want me that bad, James Rhodes?”
Groaning, Jamie runs his hands down Nix’s back and slips one over his hip, bucking up. “You were so pretty, Baby Boy. Gold from the sun, and with freckles on your shoulders and thighs. I wanted to lick them, and bite you—so bad.”
Yes. Nix would have let bleached-blond Jamie Rhodes do all of that, even back then.
Nix sits up, careful of the low-hanging roof on the fort.
It puts his already wet ass over Jamie’s pelvis, seeking that hardening cock through his shorts.
It’s lying on Jamie’s thigh, still not quite hard—just interested.
He’s reminded suddenly of how he’d wanted to put his hands under those blankets in his parents’ basement, just to feel them pressing along his (boy)friend’s thigh.
Illicit and taboo, it had only made Jamie’s restraint hotter.
“We weren’t allowed, remember? You were so hot, Jamie. I wanted to touch you so bad then. You already had such a big dick. Thought about you all the time. In my hand, in my mouth…in me.”
“Jesus, baby. Yes. Anything you want,” Jamie groans.
Nix would have let him do anything back then. He’d fantasized about it so many times, teenage hormones adding fuel to the fire of their attraction. So many fantasies he’d missed out on over the years.
Huh. Nothing is stopping him from living that entire fantasy out right here. It hadn’t been the reason he’d started this, but maybe this is where his mind has been leading him with the entire afternoon’s plan. Arousal burns hot in his belly, shooting down into his toes at the thought.
Nix slides to the side abruptly and pulls a quilt over them both, positioning the laptop back on Jamie’s belly.
“Nix?” Jamie looks confused and a little disappointed; maybe even a bit worried. His little frown is so cute.
“Just play along, okay?” He whispers and presses play on the movie.
It takes him a second, but Jamie Rhodes ain’t no dummy. “Oh, okay.” He smiles eagerly and nods.
The movie starts, and Michael Keaton is talking about the Day Leone race, but Nix isn’t paying attention now, just like he hadn’t then.
This time, he slides a hand under the covers and places it lightly on Jamie’s warm, muscular thigh.
His alpha catches his breath at the teasing touch, especially when Nix gets to the bottom edge of his sweat shorts.
The skin on the inside of Jamie’s thigh is like velvet, and Nix discovers that he hasn’t bothered wearing boxers.
Oh, goody.
Shivering at the idea of easy access, Nix lets the tip of his finger trail through the prickly hair and graze the soft head of his cock.