Chapter 16 Sol
Jack slips back into the room like he never left. I’m on the edge of his bed. Reeling from what’s been. Bracing for what’s to come.
There has to be something.
There’s no way he tells me he wants my dick in his mouth and the world just keeps turning.
Jack shuts the door. Feels loud, but I reckon that’s because it’s my turn to spin and spin and spin until someone catches my hands and ties me down to this world. And that someone—whether he remembers or not—it’s always been Jack.
He waits a beat. Watches me. His green eyes sharpen with every breath, like he’s lining up a shot. An action—a contact—he won’t get a chance to second guess.
Then he closes the distance between us in two strides and plants that possessive hand on my jaw again. As if he knows it cranks my blood to a temperature that blasts all rational thought clean out of my skull.
“I meant what I said.”
My lips part, but nothing coherent comes out. My heart is too loud. My skin too tight. Jack has this sorcerous thumb—I’ve learned since we crossed this line. It presses deep in random places, like the hinge of my jaw, and draws a live-wire current to the surface.
I swallow hard. “I know you meant it. Doesn’t mean you have to do it.”
“I want to.” He speaks with no hesitation. No doubt. Just eviscerating certainty that should feel too good to be true. “Tell me if you don’t.”
I search his face for cracks. For breaks.
Confusion. Flickers of retreat he’s not aware of yet.
But like his deep and steady voice, I find nothing but the focus he embraces when he really wants something—when he wants to do it, and nothing, not even a life-changing brain injury, is going to stop him.
So I give him the truth. Let it spill through the storm-wrecked barricade around my stupid heart. “I want it too.”
Something eases in Jack. He lets his hand slide from my jaw to my bare shoulder, rough fingers tracing the muscles in my upper arm, before he grips my bicep, as if he’s making sure I’m solid and real, before he steps closer, and lowers his broad frame to the floor.
And gods, I’m not ready for the sight of him on his knees in front of me.
All that strength and presence. All the poise and grace he thinks he’s lost. It’s all right there, at my feet, channelled into the care and attention he’s blazing at me through the sage-green eyes I’ve been lost in since I was a boy.
“Still okay, Sol?”
Beyond words, I nod. Then I find some. “I’ll tell you if I’m not, I promise.”
The only promise I can keep right now. But in this sacred and stolen moment, it’s the one he needs, and if I thought Jack’s expression was open and wanting before, I had no idea.
I need to kiss him.
To connect with this—with him—before the sands beneath us shift again.
I lean forward and claim his mouth, caution-laced urgency fuelling my lips as I fuse them to his. As I chase the oxygen he’s already siphoned from my lungs, my fingers digging into his shoulders, every cell in my body resenting the clothes he’s wearing. “Take this off?”
Jack’s always been good at the one-armed man strip. He does it now and the t-shirt ends up somewhere behind me on the bed.
I swallow an aroused knot in my throat. I’m not going to survive this. Of all the things about him and me that might’ve killed me, it’s going to be this.
I’m so hard. And Jack’s about to find out, and it’s okay—it’s okay—he’s seen my dick before. He’s touched it, worked it, made me come. But nerves hit me like a train anyway and I snatch a sharp inhale.
Jack hears.
Jack sees.
He moves closer again and this time the kiss we share is sweet, almost tender. “Breathe properly.”
I try.
I do.
But the side of me that likes his rough hands, unyielding grip, and his wider frame pinning me down rides the dizziness of this moment too.
Give me his mouth over air in my lungs.
Give me him.
Jack kisses me for another hot second. Then he pushes me back on the bed and reaches for my waistband.
It happens in slow motion.
And yet in the blink of an eye.
He tugs and I flex my hips.
And then I’m naked, propped up on my elbows, watching him contemplate my dick with a gaze beyond hunger.
He really wants this.
And it shouldn’t shock me.
He wanted it before, and I gave it to him. Taught him to take it. But thoughts of the past elude me right now. My breath comes in laboured waves, anticipation searing my nerves, and it takes the last scrap of brain power I have left to say it one more time. “You don’t have to—”
“Shh.”
Jack braces a forearm on my trembling thigh and wraps his hand around my length, gifting me instant, eye-rolling pleasure. And honestly, it wouldn’t take much for me to detonate from this alone, but knowing he wants so much more has me amped to a higher plane.
His free hand moves to clamp my other thigh, and he guides me into his mouth. His tongue snakes over my tip and the world narrows to sensation.
Heat.
Slick friction.
Devastating gentleness that fast morphs into something else—a rough intimacy that lights me up, and a groan from the pit of my soul rumbles through me, until I catch it, snapping my lips shut. Until I remember I don’t have to. Mal’s been out all day and Skylar should’ve left for work by now.
We don’t have to be quiet.
A reality that settles in my bones as Jack takes me deeper. As he takes his time bringing me to the edge of something apocalyptic.
My eyes are heavy.
I force them open and find Jack’s gaze molten with affection. With a love as old as the earth but in this moment feels shiny and new.
Aching breath ravages my chest.
Jack releases me to claim some air of his own.
I reach down and stroke his cheek with my thumb. “Okay?”
Jack smiles, and gods, it’s the best moment of my life. “I’m good, Sol. Are you?”
“Can I hold your head?”
“You can do whatever you want to me.”
My dick reacts before I can, jerking with enough animation Jack laughs—a sound that almost sends me careening back in time.
But then his mouth is on me again and I’m lost once more to the heavenly slide of his mouth and tongue.
To the testing scrape of his teeth, the grazing shock of divine pain that has my pelvis bowing from the mattress, my hands flying to cradle his skull.
I’m flat on my back.
I can’t see him anymore. But it doesn’t matter, my vision is too hazed. I’m nothing but full body shivers and shakes as he brings me to the edge of a cliff. “Jackie, I’m going to come.”
A warning he doesn’t heed. If anything, he takes me deeper, and I can’t hold on. My fingers curl on the back of his head, my hips thrust up of their own accord, and I release with a cry to the gods.
I come in shuddering waves, shooting down Jack’s tight throat. He takes it all, then he pulls off as I sit up, wiping his lips with a swipe of his thumb. A slow swipe, like a wave breaking before the water decides where it wants to go, air charged and crackling.
Jack’s pupils are blown wide, breath as uneven as mine, shoulders tight with restraint, want still coiled tight within him, sharp and unspent. He grits down on it, as if he’s holding something back, and my heart kicks against my ribs.
Because I know what it is.
What he needs.
I sit up a little more and hold out my hand. “Get up here.”
I end up blowing Jack twice. Once in the aftermath of the sorcery he committed to my dick first, and again when he wakes up from sleeping it off.
It’s utter madness.
But I can’t stop.
We can’t stop.
And it’s a cycle we fall into every moment we’re not caught up in real life. Every moment I should be opening my fat mouth and telling him the first time he blew me was years before he thinks it was. Every moment we’re alone and he wants something I can’t refuse.
Which, though it feels the opposite, isn’t all that often.
Life is busy. And Jack knowing about my dad’s latest disaster doesn’t change anything.
The bank still needs paying, so do the Kings, whether they want my money or not, and so does the loan shark who catches up with me the day after construction on the lifeguard base comes to an end and Cam’s soldiers leave Porth Luck.
“I’m a reasonable man,” he tells me with enough caution I know his timing isn’t a coincidence. “But I’ve got bosses too.”
Bosses. Amazing. He thinks I’m a Kings’ grunt. But seeing as he hasn’t brought knuckledusters to this conversation, I give him the benefit of the doubt. “What happens to you if they don’t get paid?”
The bloke spreads his hands. “Let’s not go there yet. For your sake and mine. I’ll come back next week. See how much this old gal is worth—must be something, eh? If your dad put her up as collateral?”
He pats the Sirona and melts away, leaving me to jump from the boat alone, and as my boots hit dry land, I feel different eyes on me.
Eyes I can’t find in the frigid dark of the harbour, and if it’s my dad, I might kill him.
I told him I would the next time he used the Sirona to shore up the kind of loan that has no rules, and I’m beginning to think I might’ve meant it, an echo of a sentiment that’s been haunting me for months now.
I hate him.
Wishful thinking.
I need to sleep.
True story. It’s late. Porth Luck is dark and quiet, even the Joker is sleeping as I let myself in and reset the alarm behind me.
Skylar isn’t here.
I half expect to find Mal lurking in the living room, but for the first time in a while he’s asleep in an actual bed.
Mine, as it happens, with the dog curled up on the same pillow.
Can’t say why, or that I mind all that much.
Mal’s disordered sleep gives me an excuse to do what I’ve been craving all week and crawl into Jack’s bed.
He’s sprawled on his stomach, covers bunched at his waist, one arm pillowed beneath his head.
Like Mal, his breath is so quiet I have to listen hard for it.
Unlike Mal, who was restless enough to send me packing pretty quick, Jack doesn’t stir.
Doesn’t sense my presence. So I prop myself in the doorway and watch him awhile.
Drink in his muscled back, rugged features, and the softness in his face that isn’t there when he’s awake.
Love swells in my heart, vast and familiar.
Sadness follows close behind, and the two trade places like a tide that won’t settle.
I’ve loved Jack so long I don’t remember a time when I didn’t.
But tonight, after all we’ve done over the past few weeks, every encounter both snatched and drawn out, it’s different—we’re different—and we’re more vulnerable than we’ve ever been.
If this lands wrong…
I shiver and force myself into motion, as if removing myself from Jack’s doorway will make him any safer. Foolishness that has me snorting as I retrace my steps to the living room and raid an abandoned laundry basket for dry clothes.
Mal’s. But he stole most of them from Jack, so I don’t feel bad about it. Maybe because my guilt meter is maxed out. Either way, I fall onto the couch with both Gallagher brothers on my mind. With Sev on my mind as I scroll the missed calls and messages on my phone.
One stands out.
Little Bro: Fine. Ignore me. Just don’t let me find you crying over the mess he leaves you this time
Fair. I am a crier. But tonight I don’t feel like I have enough left in me to bother.
I tell Sev I love him, then discard my phone on the table, sinking into the couch and tipping my head back.
My tired bones cry out for the comfort of Jack’s arms, but it’s not mine to take when he’s not conscious enough to offer it.
It used to be. And I’m suddenly sixteen again, and the answer he asked of me a few weeks ago hits me like a wrecking ball. Did we lie like this? Or were you on top of me?
Didn’t answer him then. I answer him now, in my head, as I curl up on the couch and screw my eyes shut.
On top of you, Jackie. You were my favourite pillow. My crash pad. My safe place to fall. It’s the honour of my life to be yours now.
An honour that cleaves me apart.
So I force it from my mind and go back to thinking about all the things I shouldn’t be thinking about. All the versions of Jack that aren’t mine to keep.
The way his voice drops deeper when he wants something. His solid weight pinning me down, hand over my mouth to stop me talking when all he wants is to feel. The heat in his eyes when he sees I’m undone—when he knows he did that to me. When he comes and he’s loud, and I want to be too.
I need to be.
Gods, it’s only a matter of time before Mal hears us.
If he hasn’t already. If he hasn’t noticed Jack standing a fraction too close to me at any given moment, my emotional regulation dropping through the floor, or the charged silence where easy noise used to be.
If he hasn’t clocked sex like the bloodhound he is.
That’s going to be a fun conversation—an inevitable conversation. Mal doesn’t do diplomacy and even thinking about it has me smothering my face with a couch cushion.
I fall asleep like that, curled in on myself and bracing for impact. A soul-sucking void, until a hand on my shoulder, strong and urgent, shakes me awake sometime later.
“Sol.”
I come to with a gasp, almost tumbling from the couch.
In the dark, Mal catches me, and even this sleep-addled, I see the grim stress lining his face.
Jack.
I make a clumsy attempt to surge to my feet.
Mal’s grip stays me. “Are you awake?”
“Jack—”
“He’s fine. But I need you to wake him up for me.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
Mal swallows hard, muted fear building in his gaze. “Orion and the others—they lost contact. I need to go, do you understand?”
“Go where?”
“Don’t worry about that. I just need you to help me tell Jack, and Sol, I need you to do it now.”
Mal shakes me for good measure. And it works. What he’s saying finds purchase and I nod, letting him know I understand all the things a civilian isn’t supposed to understand. That I can be what he needs in this moment—a solid wall of safety for him and for Jack as they weather this storm.
He lets me go.
I roll to my feet and pad barefoot to Jack’s open door. He’s still sleeping soundly. Peacefully. Waking him up feels like a sin against the gods, but it has to be me, and I’m grateful Mal woke me first.
There’s a red lamp by Jack’s bed. He hasn’t needed it much since Mal came home and his world began to make more sense. But waking him from a deep sleep is always dangerous. So I flick it on, sink to a crouch, and lay my hands on my best friend.
“Jack? Wake up, love. We need you.”