Chapter 15 Jack
Sol trembles in my arms and I hate it.
But I love that he trusts me enough to do it, even though I know he’s given me a sanitised version of the truth tonight.
Not because he’s a liar—Sol’s honest to the bone—but because my stupid fucking brain has taught him he has to.
And he’s not wrong.
I hit overload and check out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in my bed to a different day, and it’s late.
And I’m on top of him, naturally, curled around him, my head on his chest, his fingers carding absently through my hair as he flips the pages in a battered paperback.
I need to know he’s okay.
That he’s slept while I’ve been gone. That he’s eaten something as wholesome and good as the meals he makes for the rest of us.
But for long minutes I don’t move. Don’t open my eyes or raise my head. Instead I lie helpless to his thudding heart and warm skin and contemplate if I’ll ever again wake up without a fucking boner.
Christ.
I shift a little.
Sol’s hand stills in my hair and I sense him lean closer. I want him closer, and honestly, I could stay like this forever with him.
But as ever, I want more.
I need more, and he’s right there as I open my eyes, concern, desire, and amusement dancing in his bronze-brown gaze.
At least, I think it’s desire. I’m still learning.
“Okay down there, love?”
I hum a response, testing my ability to use actual words.
Not yet.
So I nod and turn my head, pressing my lips to the first swathe of skin I find. My favourite part, apparently. It’s where I sank my teeth in yesterday, before—
Yeah. Okay. I remember. And it simmers me down a touch. Helps me gather a thought and voice it. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
Sol’s smile evaporates. “You don’t need to do that. It was gods-awful of me to ask that of you. If you need to talk to someone about anything ever, Jackie, you should always, always do it.”
“So should you.”
“I know.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I am.”
“Did you sleep?”
Sol nods. “Passed out next to you. Fully clothed. Anyone looking in probably thinks we came home bladdered.”
“We’ve done that before, haven’t we?”
“Not for a long time, but yeah.”
“Was it like this?”
“Like what, Jackie?”
I rub his forearm, the one attached to the hand he has in my hair. “Did we lie like this? Or were you on top of me?”
Sol takes a measured breath, wryness seeping into his melodic voice. “You held your beer better than me. And you know how cuddly I get when I’m drunk.”
“You’re not like that anymore.”
“No?”
“No. I miss it. Sometimes, you step away when I think you want to lean on me, and it makes me wonder if you used to lean on me before…and now you think I can’t hold you up.”
I don’t mean physically. Sol knows that. I think. But there’s so many blank spots in my life now, I can’t be sure what’s real, what’s missing, and what’s TBI anxiety wreaking havoc in the grey matter I have left.
Grey matter that abruptly shunts the conversation out of my head.
Sol says something.
I don’t immediately understand it. It’s just words with no meaning or structure, and he discards his book and holds my head still as he shifts down the bed, bringing us face to face.
“You should sleep more,” he murmurs.
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t.”
“Where’s Mal?”
“Around here somewhere. Want me to get him?”
“No.”
Sol’s lips twitch. “Are you annoyed with him about the Folk thing?”
Am I?
I picture my brother’s face. All sharp edges and belligerence, until I look deeper and see the scar of every war he’s fought and every friend he’s lost weighing him down. “I don’t want to be. You might need to kick me if you catch me being a moody cunt with him.”
“I’d eat my own foot first.”
Sol is so beautiful. Inside. Out. I want to stay in this bed with him forever. But I need other things too—things I can’t ignore.
I let him help me upright. Then I leave the room and pass through the bathroom. Look for Mal as I palm my meds in the kitchen and find Skylar instead. Let him ask me enough questions about my vision and balance that I’m annoyed by the time I get back to my room.
Sol has barely moved. He’s wearing different sweats from last night and nothing else, but he’s still bare-chested and it calls to me.
I shut the door and lean against it, tasting toothpaste as I run my tongue over my molars. “What happened to your shoulder?”
“Hmm?”
“Your shoulder.” I advance on the bed and graze my knuckles over the welt I haven’t noticed until now. The bruise is healing, purple bleeding into yellow, but even faded it’s nasty as hell. “You haven’t—”
I cut myself off, pursing my lips.
Sol sits up and holds out his hand. “Haven’t what?”
“This thing with your dad. I’m worried you’ll end up fighting to protect him and it’s you who’ll get hurt.”
“I’m not a fighter, Jackie.”
No. He’s a lover. And I want him to be mine. A thought that has me sliding back into bed as I remind myself Sol can hold his own in a punch-up. That he can even win against most men who aren’t Rebel Kings or SAS operators.
The bed swallows me up. I roll straight into Sol’s orbit and I’m kissing him before I make a conscious decision to do it. And I know it’s going to take us further than we’ve ever been with even less contemplation.
Instinct takes over.
Or maybe I’m just so fucking starved for everything Sol has always been. Everything that’s been right in front of me my whole life.
Either way, I have him on his back beneath me before either of us can take a breath. I pin him with my weight and he arches into me like he did when I had his cock in my fist…yesterday? I think.
Doesn’t matter.
Or if it does, I can’t think about it. I can only think about Sol right now, as he stares up at me, his chest rising and falling too fast, questions in his eyes that scare me.
What are we doing, love?
I blink, fighting the urge to shake my head like a dog. To dislodge the misfired déjà vu that sweeps through me when I kiss him again, melding my body tighter to him as he kisses me back, and Christ I love how this feels. How my heart races and my blood zips.
He’s still breathing hard. I pull back to look at him again and brace my arm above us, pressing my forehead to his.
I could do this forever. And I want to tell him that.
But I need to hear that gasp he makes when I touch him.
That tortured, strangled groan when he comes.
It blows my mind I’ve only heard those sounds once in my life. It makes no fucking sense.
Sol’s leg is hooked around my hip. He slowly lowers it and his lips part. “Jack—”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“Gods, no. I—”
I don’t let him finish. And I know it’s wrong. I know whatever he’s about to say matters. But a beat of panic flares in me, barbed and bright, a charged fear that if he speaks, this fragile momentum will fracture into something I don’t have the language for yet.
So I seal his mouth shut.
Again.
As if his voice isn’t the only sound I heard when I was so far from being alive only he could show me the way back.
“Tell me to stop.” I murmur the words into the back of my hand. That’s how close we are, breath tangled, bodies flush. “Tell me to stop. Or how to do this better.”
Sol doesn’t answer. But conflict rages in his shimmering gaze, emotion dancing on the battlefield, even as his hips shift and his hands slide up my back, fingers digging in, those ragged breaths still stacked and short, as if his body has already left whatever he’s thinking in the dust.
I try again, to put my own mental chaos into words. “Tell me to stop,” I repeat, third time’s a charm, eh? “I don’t want to talk about anything else—Sol, I just want to feel good. I want you to feel good. You gonna let yourself have that?”
A heavy pause expands, thick and dangerous.
A lifetime, but a brief one.
Sol nods, slow and deliberate, and this time, I let him speak.
“Yes.”
That’s it.
All I need to hear.
Everything accelerates. Propels forward. Clothes shift, heat builds, and the universe narrows until there’s nothing but a press and grind that has my head spinning clean off my shoulders.
I’m achingly aware of how right this feels. Of how certain my body is of every move I make.
My hands roam with intention.
I crowd Sol on the bed and he lets me, pupils blown wide, his gaze fixed on my face as if I’m the only solid mass left in his world.
I learn again how much he likes my rough touch, my bigger frame pinning him down, and my teeth bruising his flesh.
It makes me think of the bruise on his shoulder, but I know I didn’t cause that, if only because I find better places to bite him.
“Jackie—fuck.” Sol’s rare curse is barely audible. The way his body flexes, chasing friction, is so much fucking louder.
I have his sweatpants shoved down his thighs. His cock is free and hard, and I feel the heat of it before I touch it. Before I hold it in my hand and apply enough pressure that his whole body jerks, and he curses again, his hand flying to my wrist.
He’s shaking.
I simmer down, giving him a second. But that’s brief too. Sol hauls me back in and I grit down on a groan as he slides a hand below my waistband and finds my dick.
Our arms entwine, curving around each other. He tightens his fingers and I don’t know how I’m going to focus enough to bring him pleasure while he’s holding me like this. How I’ll ever think beyond the searing heat of him gripping my cock.
He hasn’t shaved in a few days.
I like it. I nuzzle his jaw as I contemplate a reality I can’t ignore. One I probably should’ve thought about before now, but my brain doesn’t work like that anymore.
I’m…not straight. Clearly. But it’s not a me thing—it’s a Sol thing. I’ve been around naked men my entire adult life. Apparently I spent six months in a ditch with Folk Whitlock. I live with Skylar, and I’ve only slept with women, right?
That’s the box for me.
Except Sol doesn’t fit in it.