Chapter 79
It had been a little over a month since Jay had returned my memories, and I was halfway into the chest freezer that had been stocked with flash-frozen meat when I’d first arrived.
I was so deep in there, trying to reach the last few chicken breasts, that my legs were kicking up in the air behind me.
“Almost…” I huffed as I inched my fingers closer to the elusive packets tucked away in the far corner. I’d almost managed to reach them when a strong hand curled into the back of my shirt and hauled me out of the freezer.
“Hey!” I complained, pouting up at Jay as he reached into the chest and easily scooped up the last pieces of chicken.
Wordlessly, he handed them to me and shut the lid before gesturing for me to lead the way back upstairs.
“I almost had them, you know,” I grumbled, and Jay’s lip twitched in amusement.
“Yeah, but I think your mother was hoping to eat today,” he replied dryly.
“Was that a dig?” I gasped in mock offense as we entered the main floor, and his eyes flashed with mild amusement.
“I would never dream of making a dig at you, sweet boy,” he hummed, leaning down and leaving a hot, wet kiss on the side of my neck.
He nipped me gently, and I shivered under the brief swipe of his tongue as he passed it over the love bite he’d just given me.
He gave me one of his small, reserved smiles before brushing past me to get back to the pile of vegetables he’d been washing in the sink before he’d come to find me.
Slowly, he’d been starting to become more accustomed to small displays of affection like that.
He didn’t just wait for me to touch him first anymore. Gradually, he’d started kissing me softly on the head in passing, or lacing his fingers through mine while we watched movies together on the couch.
Recently, I’d been pushing him to play Stardew with me again, and he’d taken to settling me between his legs while I played and just holding me, like I was something precious he never wanted to let go.
With each passing day, we were getting closer to what we’d been before his evil godfather had ripped us apart.
During the day, he was still somewhat reserved and unsure around me, despite the fact that I did my best to encourage him every time he clearly wanted or needed affection.
But at night… At night, he didn’t hold back.
As soon as we were alone together and the door was closed, he was like a starved animal, and I couldn’t honestly say I was any better.
My ass was almost constantly sore from how often we fucked, and despite knowing I should give my body a break at some point, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I wanted him inside me all the time.
It was like we both wanted desperately to make up for the two years we’d been unable to lose ourselves in each other.
Jay had fucked me every way a man could possibly get fucked, and I was still needy for more. It was more than just the physical need to rut against each other. Every time he filled me, I was overcome with this deep burning feeling of pure ecstasy that I’d only ever felt with him.
He filled up a part of me that felt like it might have been empty and waiting for him my whole life, and now that I finally had him, I never wanted to let him go.
Looking down at the two last pieces of chicken, I wondered what he planned to do now that we were more or less free, and his mind was finally beginning to heal.
“We should go into town and stock up on more protein,” Jay said absently as he twisted the greens off some juicy red radishes.
“And we should start pickling and canning some stuff to get us through the winter. It’s going to get too cold in a few weeks to keep up with the patch.
We’ll only be able to use what’s in the greenhouse. ”
I perked up at that, smiling at the fact that it was almost like he’d read my mind.
“So… you want to stay here a while longer, then?” I asked, setting the chicken breast down on the counter and leaning my hip on it to face him.
He glanced over at me, his brow furrowing in concern.
“That was my plan. Why? Do you not want to stay here?”
“I didn’t say that, I was just curious about what you wanted to do. Do you want to stay here indefinitely? Or do you ever see yourself going back?”
His expression darkened, and he dropped the radish, turning to face me more head-on.
“Go back where?”
“To Neurovance.”
“Why the fuck would I ever go back there?”
Because it’s yours.
It should have been yours and Seb’s.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you really just want to let Luke run rampant with your tech?”
He narrowed his eyes at me and pursed his lips.
“I’m not letting him run rampant. I blew it up. It’s gone.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
It wasn’t gone.
It was severely damaged, yes. But, despite the fact that we’d more or less gone dark while here to avoid Luke tracking us down, NOVA had been doing her best to safely keep us up to date with news from the outside world.
According to NOVA, Luke had survived the explosions, and he’d made several announcements reassuring the world that the Neurovance campus would be back up and running in a few years.
He was calling the event a terrorist attack, and though we suspected he’d wanted to have a tantrum about it and pin the entire thing on Jay, he had no proof.
Not only had Jay worn his mask the entire time he was on campus, minus those few minutes when he kissed me in my room, but NOVA had selectively scrubbed the surveillance footage, so that the only viable shots of Jay living on campus were the ones when he was being tortured.
Even more serendipitously, despite Luke’s claims that he would get Neurovance back up and running quickly, most of his investors had pulled their funding almost overnight, including DARPA.
According to NOVA, without Jay or me, investors like Doctor Caspian Grey no longer believed Luke had a viable product, even if he managed to get the campus repaired.
But still. The Neurovance name was worth billions of dollars, and at least half of that rightfully belonged to Jay. It felt cosmically unfair that he was being forced to walk away from his legacy like this.
Unwilling to just let it go without some sort of a fight, I pressed a little harder.
“You don’t have any desire to try to expose him at all? To take back your birthright? To make Neurovance into what it was supposed to be? A brand that helps people?” I asked softly, and Jay flinched.
His dad had always wanted memory tech to be used to help people heal. He’d never wanted it to be twisted into this awful thing that Luke had turned it into. It was why Luke had him killed.
We both knew it.
So staying here, hidden in the mountains… it was letting Luke win, and I just wanted to make sure Jay was really okay with that before I gave up on the idea of revenge.
Suddenly, Jay was in front of me. I tilted my head back to look at him, and he stared right back, his mouth a hard line.
Slowly, he raised his large hands to cup my face, running his thumbs reverently across my jawbone and making me shiver.
“The only desire I have, Milo, is to stay here with you.” He leaned down and pressed his forehead against mine. His minty breath tickled my lips as he closed his eyes and let out a shaky sigh.
“I don’t give a fuck about Neurovance. I don’t give a fuck about Seb, or Luke, or Doctor fucking Grey. All I care about is you. So no, Milo. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to do anything that might risk you. I just want to stay here and love you, forever.”
My heart was pounding, and I sucked in a sharp breath as he pressed his lips against mine, kissing me so slowly and deeply that my knees almost gave out.
“Is that okay, Milo? Will you let me? Will you let me stay here and just love you?” he breathed, and I found myself nodding, unable to deny him anything while he was holding me in his trembling hands and showing me his most vulnerable parts.
“Of course I will,” I replied shakily, “I just wanted to make sure that was actually what you wanted.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he made a sound so broken and full of yearning, I regretted ever bringing up Neurovance in the first place.
“Thank you…” he hummed, kissing me over and over again.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you…”