Chapter 38 #3
“You’re mine, Reese,” I tell him between heavy, broken breaths, touching my forehead to his. “You always have been. Tell me I get to keep you.”
“I’m yours, Cason.”
His body goes taut beneath me, his hole clenching around my cock, and I think he’s close.
“I’m yours like you’re mine. We can ruin each other forever.”
Then my climax hits, and the world dissolves into color.
Reese’s ass throbs around my dick, and I flood him with my cum while static bursts behind my eyes in flashes of neon green and electric gold and ultraviolet, like someone overexposed the inside of my skull. For a few brutal, raw seconds, I stop being a person and become color.
If this is a sensation I picked up in the afterlife, one that will still come back to me in moments like this, I think it was worth dying just for that.
It’s too much, too bright, too intense.
And I still chase every second of it until it’s gone.
When it ends, colors still ghost across my vision like the afterimage of a camera flash. Reese shifts, and I move my arms to wrap around his stomach before he can move away, my body reacting before my brain can even process the possibility of space between us.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, but it’s long enough for both of us to mostly catch our breath.
My cock is soft inside him, his back warm against my chest, skin damp beneath my hands.
The shadows are still in my ass like they refuse to leave too.
I bury my face between his shoulder blades and close my eyes hard enough to hurt.
“Cason,” he murmurs gently.
I shake my head against his back.
No. Absolutely fucking not.
I’m comfortable right here pretending I’m not currently having the emotional equivalent of a dark web blackout.
His hand slides over mine where they’re locked around him. “You have to let go a little.”
“No,” I mumble into his skin.
A quiet huff of amusement leaves him. “So we’ll just stay like this then?”
“I’m never letting you go ever again.”
The words come out muffled and embarrassingly sincere and desperate. Which means I immediately want to die. Or maybe fake my own death. Either works.
Reese’s shoulders rise and fall with a low laugh, but there’s something tight beneath it, something emotional enough that it makes my chest ache even worse.
“Little menace,” he says softly.
I groan. “Don’t nickname me while I’m vulnerable.”
“You’re always vulnerable.”
“That’s rude.”
His hand squeezes mine. “Cason.”
I sigh dramatically against his back as though I’m being deeply inconvenienced by affection and basic emotional honesty.
“Can the shadows stay inside me?” I ask in a whisper.
“Of course.”
Finally, I allow him to pry me off enough for us to shift onto our sides facing each other. I hate the moment my cock slips out of him, but he makes up for it by staying inside of me. Or…his shadows do. I might start having a problem keeping those two separate.
The second we settle, trying our best to avoid both the messes we made, I move right back into him anyway, curling against his chest, burying my face there this time. The shadows stay inside me, and I’m grateful for it. I wouldn’t be able to stand being empty right now.
One of my legs tangles with his while his arm slides around my waist. His heartbeat is steady beneath my ear, in sync with mine, like maybe both of us dying and coming back put us on the same wavelength.
The most important thing is that it means he’s alive. Still here.
Mine.
The thought makes my throat tighten all over again.
God, I’m pathetic. What kind of loser cries after sex?
Fucking twice.
“I love you,” I mumble into his chest before I can stop myself.
Oh, sure. Let’s make it worse.
There’s a moment of terrifying silence before Reese says, “I know.”
I scoff and pull back just enough to glare at him. “Arrogant much? You’re lucky you’re attractive.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “You spent four years building something that would dismantle an entire digital empire in order to avenge my death. People don’t do that unless they’re in love.”
I swallow because…yeah, he’s not wrong.
His hand slides into my hair, fingers combing through it slowly. “You know what else people don’t do unless they’re in love?”
I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “What?”
“Kill anyone who hurts them.”
My breath catches in my throat and refuses to budge. His gaze holds mine hostage as his hold around my waist tightens until it almost hurts.
“Burn the whole fucking world down for them.”
Something in my chest caves in completely after that. My eyes sting again, and I immediately bury my face back into his chest before he can see it.
“In case that wasn’t obvious,” he whispers against the top of my head. “I love you too, Cason. And I would do all of those things for you.”
Curled up against him, I realize the frightening thing isn’t that I’d die for Reese Morgan. It’s how easily I’d kill for him too.
Maybe that’s what we are now—two ruined things wrapped up in shadows and holding each other so tightly that the rest of the world should probably be afraid.
Because our love doesn’t make us weak.
It makes us more dangerous.