Chapter 24
Chase
It was late. So late that it had become early, no longer Friday night but Saturday morning.
And yet neither Chase nor Killian was any closer to closing his eyes. They lay on their sides, facing each other, in Killian’s bed, their legs tangled together.
Killian was petting Chase’s body, his fingers warm and rough against Chase’s naked skin. It was soothing, relaxing any bit of tension Chase still held, and yet Chase couldn’t let his eyes fall shut. Even with his body wrung out and hung to dry from multiple orgasms.
Chase wanted to keep looking at his alpha.
The week had been tough on Killian, Chase could tell, which made Chase feel a little better about what a fucking zombie he’d been himself.
Killian looked fucking edible as always—especially with his dark hair in disarray and his blue eyes all sleepy and satisfied—but there were dark circles under his eyes, and he’d let his facial hair grow longer than he usually did.
Chase brushed his fingertips against the stubble. “Scruffy,” he commented mildly.
“The better to terrify my undergrads with, my dear,” Killian said, baring his teeth in some dorky approximation of a wolf.
Chase arched a brow. “Like Spencer?”
Killian’s fierce expression shifted into a rueful smile. “He told you about my … visit?”
“Of course.” Honestly, if Killian had thought Spencer could keep that a secret, he hadn’t been listening closely enough about Chase’s friends. Or maybe he’d been giving in to wishful thinking. “But he also helped me process.”
Killian let out a sigh, though the smile stayed on his lips. “Then I suppose I owe him a beer.”
Chase owed Spencer way more than a beer. A six-pack at the very least. Or possibly a full weekend with all three roommates at the house, which they hadn’t had nearly enough of lately. At least not without Chase nearly catatonic from despair.
Killian would hate that, Chase leaving his side for so long after they’d just been reunited. But he wouldn’t stop him, not if it was something Chase really wanted..
Although, maybe Chase would get spanked again.
Speaking of …
“Am I going to be punished?” Chase asked.
Killian’s fingers paused the patterns they’d been tracing on Chase’s hip. He grasped him in a gentle grip instead. “No, sweet boy. Not for that. Not for needing time and space.”
Chase hadn’t thought so. But maybe he’d just needed to hear it out loud, that Killian wasn’t angry with him.
The alpha certainly didn’t look angry, and his pheromones weren’t heavy at all. They were light and cherry-stained, maybe from relief or lust or … affection.
The thing was, Chase had felt kind of ridiculous after his talk with Spencer, that he’d had such a hard time making things official when he and Killian had basically been seriously dating already, according to everyone but him.
But it did feel different, here and now in this bed with Killian, the two of them so soft and content. So maybe it was everyone else who’d been silly.
Chase had always felt safe with Killian; that much hadn’t changed.
He’d always known he could let his defenses down and trust his alpha to hold him up no matter what.
But with them lying here in bed, unable to stop touching each other, unable to keep these goofy little grins off their faces, it all felt …
open, in a way it hadn’t before. Like things were brighter and lighter and yet sturdier than before.
Like Chase was giddy but also grounded. Floating and rooted in the dirt at the same time.
Maybe that was the fatigue talking. Or maybe not. And either way, Chase still didn’t want to close his eyes. “I’m going to unblock my parents in the morning. This morning,” he corrected, stealing a look at the time.
Killian frowned but nodded, his fingers tracing their patterns again. Maybe he wasn’t surprised that Chase didn’t have it in himself to keep them out of his life forever. He seemed to know Chase better than Chase knew himself sometimes.
“I was thinking I should maybe … refuse their money?” The words came out as a question. Chase hadn’t had the heart to really come to any decision about it while he’d been missing Killian like a lost limb, so really he was spitballing here.
“To make a point?” Killian asked, his voice carefully neutral.
Chase shrugged as best he could in his awkward position.
“It’s your decision. And I’m here for whatever you need, financial or otherwise. But I’m also a practical man. I would say take every opportunity you can while you can. Let them fund the rest of your schooling, at least—you have plenty of time for independence later.”
Chase mentally skipped over the part where Killian had basically just offered to bankroll him if needed. He couldn’t process being a sugar baby this late—or early. “I could get a part-time job. Noah and Spencer both have them.”
Killian’s fingers paused again. “I could make you my TA.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Oh, I think it’s a great idea.” There was a dangerous gleam in Killian’s eyes now, and Chase could literally see the alpha’s cock stiffening as he spoke. “You’d work so hard to please me, wouldn’t you? And when you’d done a good job, I could just bend you right over the desk and—”
Someone had to be the voice of reason here, right? Chase interrupted the pervy vision Killian was painting. “It would make this thing between us a real issue to the university, in a way it’s not right now.”
Killian scoffed, pulling Chase closer on the bed, until his erection was brushing Chase’s stomach. “They won’t fire me,” he said, nuzzling Chase’s hairline. “And if they do, I’ll supplement with lecture appearances until I figure out my next steps.”
It was weird, the way it hit Chase just then.
He’d known Killian had been upset when Chase had suggested denying their relationship; that much had been obvious.
And he’d had an inkling that Killian parking outside his house like a creep had maybe meant the alpha wasn’t handling the separation all that well.
That he’d missed Chase possibly even more than Chase had missed him.
But it was this moment—Killian daydreaming in all seriousness about jeopardizing his career for a chance to have Chase on his knees for him at work—that really drove it home.
“You’re kind of obsessed with me, aren’t you?”
The dreamy look left Killian’s eyes, and for a moment, they widened with shock. And then he was vibrating, the bed shaking with the force of it, and it took Chase a minute to realize it wasn’t with anger.
It was with deep, belly-shaking laughter. The kind that took a moment to sound like anything at all, stuck in the person’s throat until it erupted in guffaws.
It lasted a really long time too.
Chase furrowed his brow as he watched Killian completely lose it.
Like, it wasn’t that funny, was it? Maybe Chase needed to put Killian to bed for real now.
“Oh, Christ.” Killian wiped at his eyes once when he’d calmed down. “Don’t tell me you’re just realizing this now?”
Chase stared at him in bemusement. “Should I have realized it sooner?”
The look Killian gave Chase was unbearably tender. “I guess I’d be in trouble if you had.” He rolled over, forcing Chase onto his back, laying his considerable weight on top of him. It was nice. Warm and secure. Chase wiggled underneath him, just to revel in how trapped he was.
Killian cupped Chase’s cheeks with his broad hands. There was no trace of mirth in his expression anymore. “Obsessed doesn’t begin to cover it. You have me by the balls, sweet boy.”
“How romantic.”
Killian only grinned, nuzzling Chase’s cheekbone with his nose. And then he was whispering in Chase’s ear, like it was a secret too precious for even the empty room to hear. “I’m going to claim you one day, Chase Adler. You’re going to have my ring on your finger and my mark on your neck.”
The words traveled through Chase’s body like liquid fire.
It turned out it was still painful, in its way, to be wanted this much. Like it was forcing muscles Chase had never used before to awaken after a lifetime of atrophy. But it was a welcome kind of pain. A growing pain, maybe.
Killian was somehow still hard, his cock resting heavily on Chase’s hip. Chase widened his legs in invitation. “You said you’d do it all again after taking me to bed,” he reminded Killian.
Even after what they’d done in the living room, Chase craved it. He craved the reassurance of it, his alpha’s cock and his alpha’s praise.
Killian hummed his pleasure, grabbing a pillow and tucking it under Chase’s hips without losing any of their skin-to-skin contact. “What a good fucking boy you are, Chase Adler.”
Chase sat at the kitchen table, his phone in front of him. Looming. Or as much as a small rectangle could loom while placed horizontal on a table.
A glass of orange juice appeared next to it, and Chase gave Killian a brief, tired smile. “Thank you.”
Killian remained standing behind him, his warm, possessive hand resting on the nape of Chase’s neck. “I’m going to start breakfast, but I’ll be right here.”
“I know.”
Chase had originally suggested making the call outside, but one look at Killian’s face and he’d recanted immediately. Apparently his alpha was feeling protective, and Chase was feeling vulnerable enough to allow it.
Neither of them had really slept long enough considering how late they’d been up the night before, and their fatigue was showing. Killian was already on his third cup of coffee in almost as many minutes, and no doubt he’d be bullying Chase into a nap later in the afternoon.
That sounded fucking perfect, actually. Chase’s eyelids were heavier than they should have been, and for the first time, he envied Killian his caffeine addiction.
But before breakfast or naps or any of the rest of it, Chase needed to take care of this. He didn’t want the mess with his parents lingering at the back of his mind, distracting him from getting resettled with the man he’d just decided to commit to a future with.