Chapter 10 Ash
Ash
I open my eyes slowly, which isn’t like me.
Usually my body snaps awake, already braced for whatever the day will demand.
Marcus was a light sleeper who hated being disturbed, so I taught myself to wake fast and quiet and to slip out of bed without rattling the mattress.
A handy skill when your very existence is an inconvenience before noon.
Today there’s no alarm, no rush. Boone’s arm is still resting across my ribs exactly where it landed when I fell asleep, his slow breath against the back of my neck. I stay still and savor it, the simple fact of waking up held by someone who didn’t slip away in the night.
If Marcus wasn’t sleeping, he’d migrate to the couch by three a.m., or to his phone, or anywhere as far from me as possible. So feeling another body curved around mine feels like a gift I haven’t earned, but I’m holding on with both hands until someone tells me to let go.
I lean back into him and feel him solid at the small of my back, a heat rushing through me so fast that my skin prickles. He’s still asleep, or nearly so, his breathing unchanged, and I lie there just feeling him and replaying last night in the kitchen.
But this isn’t the kitchen. This is his body wanting mine, and I’m here wanting him, and for the first time the wanting isn’t wrapped in obligation or fear. I’m simply hungry. I want to give him something because I want to and I need him to know what his body does to mine.
I turn in his arms carefully, sliding down his torso, and by the time I reach his waist his eyes are open, watching me with that steady expression that makes me feel seen in a way that should be terrifying but isn't, not anymore.
"Good morning," I say from somewhere around his navel.
"Morning." His voice is rough from sleep and deeper than usual, the vibration of it moving through his chest where my lips are resting against his stomach. "What are you doing down there?"
"Giving something back."
"You don't have to give anything back."
"I know I don't have to. You made that clear last night." I press a kiss below his navel and feel his stomach tighten under my mouth. "This is me wanting to. Is that okay?"
His hand finds my hair, settling there with a warmth that asks nothing. I breathe in the scent of sleep and skin and focus on what I want. I brace for him to tighten his grip but it stays loose, the fear that’s fighting its way forward is easier to push back this time.
Boone won’t hurt me.
None of the men in this house will.
I pull him free from his boxers, the gray morning light catching on every detail.
He's thick and hard against my palm, something wild unfurling inside me at the sight.
I want to earn those sounds from our first night again.
This has always been one of my favorite things, which is why it was the first thing I asked for with Teague.
Knowing that I can give them pleasure, watching a man fall apart beneath my touch the only way I know how... it makes me powerful. Not that I’d ever admit it to him.
I take him into my mouth slowly, and his exhale breaks the silence.
His fingers shift through my hair without tightening while I work him over, testing each angle until I find the rhythm that changes his breathing.
I go deeper then, encouraged by the slight lift of his hips, a movement he instantly restrains. His restraint only makes me hungrier.
Hollowing out my cheeks, I force myself to take more of him. He’s wider and longer than Teague, the girth not something I was ready for. My throat closes around him and I pull away gasping, my eyes watering as saliva trails from my chin.
Shame floods through me as memories surface of my ex boyfriend getting disappointed in me. The moment would have died there, and I would have spent hours trying to apologize with my body for the crime of being human.
Boone sits up a little and tilts my face toward his. His eyes remain focused, heated, with a softness at their edges I never expected to see. "Easy," he says, wiping my chin with his thumb. "You don't have to take all of me."
"I wanted to."
"I know you did. And that matters more than whether you managed it." His thumb traces my lower lip, slow, and his eyes follow the movement. "You're not performing for a grade, Ash. You're in my bed because I want you here, and I need you to enjoy this as much as I am."
"I was enjoying myself before I choked."
His laugh catches me off guard, transforming his usually stern face into something almost boyish. The sound vibrates through me, loosening something tight in my chest. Before doubt can creep in, I bend down and take him into my mouth again, this time much slower.
My hand wraps around what I can't swallow, creating a rhythm that feels natural rather than performative.
His breathing changes when I swirl my tongue just under the head, so I linger there, savoring the salt-sharp taste of him.
My free hand slides up his thigh, feeling the muscles tense beneath my fingertips.
When my teeth graze him ever so slightly, his breath catches in his throat.
I memorize this reaction, this power, and repeat the motion with greater pressure.
"Right there," he says, low, his head tipping back. "Fuck, Dove, just like that."
I do it again and his hand tightens in my hair, barely, just enough for me to feel, and the sound he makes is low and strained and I want to record it and play it on a loop for the rest of my natural life.
I keep going, reading him by sound and touch as his breathing gets rougher and his thigh tenses under my hand, his hips starting to move in small involuntary rolls.
"Ash." His voice is thicker now, rougher at the edges. "I'm close. Pull off."
I pull away and Boone wraps his hand around himself, finishing across my skin in hot pulses that mark my chest, my throat, my jaw, his eyes never leaving mine. One day, I’m going to take him fully and drink every last drop.
The honesty in his face burns through me. His beauty overwhelms me as I kneel between his legs, covered in him, wanting to preserve this moment forever.
He leans forward to cup my face, pressing one firm, warm kiss against my lips before his gaze drops to survey what he's done. His thumb drags slowly through the wetness on my skin, gathering it, before he brings it to my waiting mouth.
"Open," he says.
I obey immediately as he presses his thumb against my tongue and I close my lips around it, tasting him, salt and heat and something that's just Boone, his eyes darkening as he watches me.
He does it again, collecting every trace from my skin and feeding it to me until I'm clean.
By the time he's done I'm so hard it hurts, my fingers digging into his thighs and the sounds I'm making against his thumb have abandoned any pretense of dignity.
"Shower," he says.
"I don't think I can stand up." Mostly because any movement may have me coming untouched on his sheets and that would be more embarrassing than the sounds I just made.
Still, I awkwardly shift off the bed, folding my hands over the bulge between my thighs as I head for the bathroom.
Boone stalks behind me, stripping his clothes as he goes, and setting up the shower.
The silence continues as Boone walks me backward under the spray and my shoulders hit the tile.
The water runs over both of us as he pins me there with his hips and kisses me until I'm dizzy with it.
His hands move from my shoulders down my ribs, thumbs tracing the dip of my waist, finding the bruise of his touch on my hip and pressing into it just enough to make me gasp.
"Still sore here?" he asks against my mouth.
"Yes."
"Good." He presses harder and the sting sends heat straight through me. "I like seeing my marks on you."
Boone hums against my lips before flipping me around to face the tile, one of those delicious hands running down my back before parting my ass. Two fingers rim around my hole before one pushes in slightly, only accompanied by the water.
“Ungh, please.”
“I don’t have lube in here, Dove.”
“Don’t need it,” I push out, my face heating up.
Boone hesitates before his presence disappears. He returns a second later, his fingers now coated with lube pushing inside of me. “I will never deny one of your asks but I also won’t hurt you.” He crooks his fingers inside of me, my cock painfully hard as I start to push back against his touch.
"Don't hold back," he says against my ear. "This house has heard worse."
"Boone, please, I need—"
"Tell me."
"You. I need you inside me, please."
"There it is." He withdraws his fingers and I whimper as he flips me again before lifting me up the tile.
The blunt wide pressure of him pushes in slowly, the angle different from the bed, deeper with the wall in front of me and gravity pulling me down onto him.
My hands brace against his shoulders, my mouth falling open, though nothing comes out because the fullness of him has replaced every other sensation in my body.
He moves with the same unhurried precision he brings to everything, long slow strokes that hit the place inside me that makes my vision blur. "You feel so good, Dove," he says against my throat. "Every time is better than the last. You have any idea what you do to me?"
I dig my fingers into his skin, shaking at the thought that I’ve ruined Boone in just a few days. "Tell me,” I breathe out, a moan following as he hits the perfect spot.
"You make me want to take my time. You make me want to stay inside you all morning and just feel you." He rolls his hips deep and I moan as he groans against my neck. "That sound. Right there. Two years I thought about what you'd sound like and you're better than every single thing I imagined."