Chapter 26
Tate
Iwake up before the others, again.
It’s dark outside but I can feel the tension in my shoulders even before I sit up. Carter’s snoring softly, sprawled out on the air mattress at the foot of Haven’s bed. “Hey.” I nudge him with my foot. “Out.”
He groans. “What?”
“I want you out, get up.”
He blinks at me blearily, then glances at Haven still fast asleep in the bed, curled up under the covers in one of his shirts. He sighs. “God you’re such a dick sometimes.”
“And you’re in my way.”
“Fine,” he mutters, pushing himself up and grabbing his pillow and heading towards the door. “If she murders you for waking her up like a maniac, I’m not helping bury your body.”
“Noted.”
I wait until he’s out of the room before I give my full attention back to Haven. Her sleeping body is a goddamn invitation, and I plan on answering it with praise, punishment, and all.
She’s curled on her side with one bare leg kicked out from under the blanket and her underwear’s twisted low on her hips like she’s just waiting for someone to pull them off.
I wait for a few moments just staring at her before she stirs and lets out a soft sigh that says she’s almost awake.
I slide behind her and press a kiss to her neck. “Morning, pretty girl.”
She hums softly without opening her eyes, but her body shifts back against me.
Good, because I came prepared.
The blade I grabbed from my desk at home—the one she saw once during a video call and whispered “you wouldn’t” —is cool against my palm. She doesn’t flinch when I drag it up the inside of her thigh.
“Tate..?”
I lean in and let my tongue sliding along the curve of her jaw, my free hand slipping under her shirt, finding her nipple tight and begging. “You know what I want from you this morning?”
She shivers. “Everything?”
I grin. “Smart girl.” I trail the knife along her waist.
She sucks in a breath as it grazes the waistband of her panties and when she spreads her legs for me without being told, I damn near groan. “You trust me, right?”
“Yes.”
My cock throbs. Fuck, I love her like this.
Soft and pliant and starving for whatever darkness I want to drag her through.
“Good,” I breathe, pressing the flat of the blade against her inner thigh, watching her muscles twitch.
“Because I’m gonna ruin you right now, and I don’t want you holding back. ”
She nods.
“Words, angel.”
“Yes, Tate.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Her breath stutters. “Tate…”
“Yeah, that’s my name. Say it again.”
Her lashes flutter open briefly before she closes them tightly, her voice quieter this time. “Tate.”
I let the silence stretch a moment before I finally pull the knife away. I lean in closer against her ear. “See? Now you don’t know what I’m gonna do next.”
“And that’s exactly how I like you.”
“Careful,” I murmur. “You move too much, and this gets a lot less gentle.”
I move the knife slower pressing the blade enough to make her feel it, to make her chase it without ever quite catching up. Another sound leaves her, softer and needier. A whimper. My grip tightens. “Yeah, that’s what I want to hear.”
The blade finally presses against her clit through her soaked panties harder that it makes her suck in a sharp breath. She bucks her hips into it softly. I can imagine how wet she is, exactly how she tastes.
I hook my fingers in the hem of her panties and drag them down slow, baring her inch by inch.
The knife gets tossed to the floor and my hand replaces it.
I palm her clit, as a groan escapes her lips and press two fingers inside, slow and deep.
“Fuck, you’re dripping aren’t you pretty girl? Always so messy with me.”
“All f-for you.”
“I know.” I thrust my fingers deeper, curling them while letting my thumb find her clit in slow circles. “And I’m gonna make it worth the wait.”
The bed creaks under my weight as I shift behind her, curling my body around hers, my fingers working her open. “You gonna come for me like this? With my fingers choking your pussy while I tell you all the ways Carter can’t fuck you like I do?”
Her moan is high-pitched and desperate as her hips rock against my hand.
“Because he can’t, He won’t. He’ll hold you. Praise you.”
She whimpers.
“But me?” I shove deeper. “I’ll make you sob for it. I’ll keep you right here—“ I slow my fingers “—until you beg me like you mean it.”
“Tate —please—”
“That’s not begging, pretty girl.”
I bring her to the edge three times and pull her back every time. I let her fall into my rhythm, riding my fingers until she’s trembling in my arms, her nails digging into the sheets. By this point my cock is throbbing hard in my shorts, but right now is just for her.
When her voice finally cracks—“Please, Tate please just let me come, I need it, I’ll do anything”—do I give it to her.
I choke her softly with one hand while the other plunges inside her until she’s moaning into my hand that now covers her mouth.
“Tate, I’m g-going to cum.”
“I know pretty girl, soak my fingers and show me how much you’ve earned this.”
Then I kiss her temple like I just handed her a sunrise as she comes down from the high. No one will ever fuck her like this, and part of her knows it.
Her breathing is still uneven as she blinks up at the ceiling like she’s trying to remember where she is.
I ease my hand away from her mouth, my thumb brushing over her cheek instead.
“I… I’m gonna go shower.”
I huff out a small laugh, dragging my hand down her side before letting her go. “Yeah. You should.”
I lean back against the headboard, watching her as she stands, grabbing her clothes from her dresser.
The bathroom door clicks shut behind her a second later, and the sound of the shower turning on fills the quiet. I drag a hand down my face, exhaling slow.
Fuck.
One minute I’m coming off the best morning of my life, Haven limp and satisfied under my hand.
The next my fucking PC decides to perform its own exorcism. “No. Nope. No, no, no—you goddamn heat-bricked bastard.”
I slap the side of the tower, hard enough to rattle something loose or lodge it deeper into hell, who knows. The screen in front of me stays frozen on a mid-action frame of my masked face, mouth wide in what was probably a snarl or a smirk. Now it just looks like I’m possessed.
Which I might be, because this shit is cursed.
“Tate?” Haven calls from the kitchen. “Everything okay?”
Carter’s ducking into the room, probably sensing the drop in air pressure from my rising fury. “What the hell did you break this time?”
“My goddamn GPU,” I snap, crouching to rip the panel off the side. “Or the power supply. Or maybe my fucking soul, hard to tell.”
“You look like you’re about to fistfight it.”
I glare up at him. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Have you tried restarting it?”
“I am restarting it. With rage.”
Haven appears at my side within a few moments, her brows furrowed. “Want me to look at it?”
“Angel,” I say, breathing hard through my nose, “unless you can perform mechanical CPR, this thing’s about to get launched out the window.”
Carter sighs. “Okay, let’s just… back away. Take a breath. Your files are all cloud-backed, right?”
I mutter something that might be yes or might be I’ll die before I let Carter be right again.
Haven steps closer and brushes a hand through my hair with those slow fingers that turn me stupid. “Let’s not kill the PC. Finals are in a few days.”
I groan. “Finals. I know. This thing better resurrect itself with a vengeance, or I’m borrowing Carter’s PC and putting a sticker over his webcam so I don’t catch whatever wholesome malware is on it.”
Carter grins. “Joke’s on you, mine’s all set up for streaming soft-core domesticity.”
“That’s the worst, maybe stupidest sentence you’ve ever said.”
“Not true,” Haven giggles. “You’ve heard him talk to his plants.”
“I name them,” Carter argues.
“Exactly.”
My PC flickers. Then dies again. I stare at it, deadpan.
Carter takes the cup of coffee from Haven’s hand and holds it toward me. I take it, sip once and breathe. “Okay,” I say through gritted teeth. “We’re going to buy a new fan. And thermal paste, maybe a bat in case this fucker tries to reboot mid-tournament.”
Carter’s pulling up the nearest tech shop on his phone. Haven leans against the couch with arms crossed, smiling like she finds this whole thing way too endearing.
“I could stream with you on mine until you’re set up again,” she offers. “Co-op, corruption edition.”
I look up at her. That smile, that mouth. That problem I’m obsessed with. “Yeah, let’s give the internet another reason to lose their minds.”
SCENE brEAK
I don’t smoke often. Only when I feel like I’m about to come unglued, or already did.
The apartment’s back door creaks open behind me, letting in a wash of cooler air. Haven steps out, barefoot. She doesn’t say anything right away, just slides down onto the small step beside me and pulls her knees up to her chest. We sit like that for a moment, quiet.
I take another drag, exhale slow and watch the smoke curl upward like it might carry whatever the hell’s rattling inside me with it.
“Bad habit,” she says softly.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Add it to the list. It did help, back then.”
“Back when?”
I glance at her from the corner of my eye. “Back when I needed silence more than I needed air.”
She doesn’t prod.
“I didn’t grow up with softness,” I admit knowing damn well she’s not clueless. “Didn’t know what to do with it and still don’t. Carter always had this… way about him. He believed in people. I learned how to read the room and burn it down if I had to.”
“You don’t scare me.”
I snort. “You should.”
“You’ve never hurt me.”
My throat tightens. I look away, eyes trained on the flicker of my cigarette. “Yet.”
She shifts beside me, her shoulder brushing mine. “You never thought someone could want both sides of you, huh?”
The question stings. I don’t know if I believe I can be wanted fully.
“You ever going to let Carter see this side of you when we’re all together?” she asks.
I look down at the cigarette between my fingers. “Maybe.”
She shifts again, her knee brushing mine. “I like this side.”
“I don’t.”
“But I do.”
I drop the cigarette into the ashtray, let it burn out.
When we head back inside, the apartment smells like garlic and roasted veggies. Carter’s at the stove, humming away something off-key,
“You’re early,” he says, not looking up. “I wasn’t done plating your ego.”
Haven snorts beside me.
Carter continues. “You two were outside long enough for a whole therapy session, so I figured someone should make dinner.”
“Could’ve stuck your head out the door,” I grunt, kicking off my boots. “Or set something on fire.”
Haven leans around him, grabbing a carrot slice straight from the pan and popping it into her mouth with a smug little grin. “You’re both very pretty when you bicker,” she says, licking her finger.
Carter blushes. I roll my eyes.
We eat curled up in the living room, Haven’s legs are draped across both our laps. She steals bites from Carter’s plate, makes a face at mine, and tells us both that if she wins the finals she’s buying a real table.
“You mean we don’t get one already?” Carter asks, dramatically gasping.
“I thought this couch was the dining room,” I grin.
Haven snorts, her laugh half-choked on a sip of water. “Okay. Okay, you’re both banned from speaking until dessert.”
After we finish eating and Carter shoves us out of the kitchen so he can do his controlled chaos cleaning as he likes to refer to is as we’re sprawled back out on the couch together, a movie playing in the background, none of us really watching.
Carter’s head is tipped back against the armrest with his eyes half-closed.
Haven’s tucked against his side, her feet resting in my lap and her hand tangled loosely with mine.
I don’t know when the silence happened, but it’s nice, comfortable.
So comfortable, in fact, that I don’t even realize I’m drifting until my neck starts to ache and Haven’s hand tightens against mine. “Fuck,” I mumble. “What time is it?”
“Late,” Carter yawns.
We all look at each other, then at the clock then back to the couch. It’s a graveyard of limbs and pillows and warmth, and none of us want to move.
But eventually Carter groans, shifting first. “Alright, alright. Bed. I’ve got a spine to protect.”
I yawn. “Look at you, making grown-up decisions little brother.”
He gives me a look. “You taking the bed tonight or the mattress?”
I pause. “Couch for me. You two take the bed.”
“You sure?” Haven asks, sitting up, stretching.
I nod once. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Alright,” Carter says, pulling her up with him. “But if you keep choosing that thing, I’m buying you a chiropractor.”
I wave him off and watch as they disappear down the hall, soft laughter trailing behind them.
Even though I’m alone on the couch, in the quiet I don’t feel left out. This chaos almost feels like home.