Chapter 3
I’m frozen. Barefoot, damp curls clinging to my temples, wearing one of Damian’s shirts and a pair of shorts I barely managed to drag on before finding this mess waiting outside our door.
The breakfast tray’s fine. It’s stacked high with pastries, fruit, fresh juice—honestly enough to make me forget my name under normal circumstances.
But there’s a card on it. A tiny, glossy, folded hotel card wedged up next to the pineapple juice. White with gold print. A little too cheerful.
My whole face combusts. My spine stiffens, and I swear I feel the heat crawl all the way up from my chest to the roots of my curls. I’ve never wanted to vanish more in my life. Not when I got benched in juniors. Not when I accidentally sexted Cole that one time. This is a new level of humiliation.
Behind me, I hear the bathroom door creak open. Bare feet pad across the tile. I don’t even have to turn. I know that walk. That rhythm. That little limp that still shows up in the morning if he’s been… overexerting himself. “What's wrong, pup?”
Damian’s voice is low and scratchy from sleep, threaded with too much amusement already. I don't respond. I just step slightly to the side like I’m presenting a crime scene.
He stops beside me, still damp from his shower, towel riding low on his hips, water trailing down his chest. He looks like the fucking villain in a tropical romance novel—dangerous and smug and too damn satisfied with himself.
When he sees the card, he hums once. Then that smirk starts to spread. Not just his mouth—his whole face, like every muscle is committing to the bit. Like his soul just smiled. “Loud, were you?” he murmurs, brushing up behind me, mouth at my ear.
I make a sound that might be a squeak. “You were the one—”
“I was the one what, baby?” His hand slides around to my waist, dragging me back into the heat of his body. “The one who rocked the hammock until it begged for mercy? Or the one who made you scream my name into the trees so hard they had to file a fucking noise complaint?”
I smack his hand. “I hate you.”
He kisses the top of my head. “You love me.”
“I hate how smug you are.”
“You love that too.”
“I’m going to drown myself in this coffee.”
He slides his palm down to the waistband of my shorts, warm and slow and absolutely not helping. “You’re gonna sit your pretty ass down,” he murmurs, nipping lightly at my neck, “and let me feed you instead.”
My knees nearly give out.
I groan loud and dramatic, head tilted back like the universe just personally wronged me.
Then, with a huff, I turn away from the tray of public shame and flop down on the edge of the bed.
My thighs ache—just a little. My lower back twinges.
The rope burn from the hammock is faintly visible if I twist in the mirror just right.
I pout harder.
Across the suite, Damian is still fucking glowing with post-shower smugness.
His towel clings to his hips like it knows better than to slide off uninvited.
His wet hair drips onto his chest, and his limp is more visible now—but not enough to stop him from crossing the room with the same deliberate predator energy he always carries.
He picks up the tray like it’s sacred. Balances it effortlessly in one hand, closes the door behind him with the other, and walks toward me with that small, devastating smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“See? Now this is how you treat a husband,” I mutter, pretending not to watch his abs flex with every step. “Feed him before he has to eat his own shame.”
He just raises an eyebrow and sets the tray on the nightstand. Then he picks up a slice of peach—perfect, golden and sticky—and brings it to my mouth. “Open,” he says softly.
And fuck me, I do. The moment it hits my tongue, sweet and cold, I groan again—but for a very different reason. My eyes flutter shut. The juice drips slightly, and Damian catches it with his thumb, swiping it from my lower lip before I even have a chance to react.
“You’re so dramatic in the mornings,” he murmurs, sliding another piece between my lips. “But at least you’re edible.”
“That’s not how that saying goes,” I mumble around fruit, cheeks full.
He just shrugs. Reaches for a piece of mango next.
The movement’s slow. He leans in as he feeds it to me, gaze locked on mine.
I feel my breath hitch in my throat. The taste of the fruit melts into the taste of him—heat and comfort and unrelenting control—and the whole world shrinks down to his fingers, his voice, the slow rock of the bed beneath us.
The card on the tray? Forgotten.
The embarrassment? Distant.
Right now, all I can think about is how his fingers brush my lips like he’s savoring this more than I am—and how I’m already hard again and we haven’t even gotten to the croissants.
Damian keeps feeding me like I’m not two seconds from combusting.
Bite after bite—peach, mango, pineapple—slow and sticky, dragged across my bottom lip like he’s testing how much I’ll take before I melt into the mattress.
I’m already half-reclined, thighs spread, hands braced behind me on the bed, cock stirring under the soft fabric of my shorts while he just sits there like he isn’t actively seducing me with fucking fruit.
He leans in between bites. Kisses my mouth softly, then my jaw, then lower. “Elias,” he murmurs, lips brushing my neck. Another bite. Another kiss. “Nathaniel.” His voice dips, dragging the syllables out like he’s unwrapping something filthy and precious.
My breath catches. “Don’t—”
He smirks against my throat. “Kade.”
I whimper.
His mouth presses just beneath my ear, and I swear I can feel the shape of his smile as he repeats it, quieter this time. “Elias. Nathaniel. Kade.”
“Stop,” I gasp, flushing hot all over, every nerve in my body lighting up like I haven’t spent the last three nights screaming that name until my voice cracked.
“Why?” he asks, all fucking innocence, slipping another piece of fruit between my lips while his hand coasts across my thigh. “You married me. You branded yourself. I’m just reminding you what that makes you now.”
“I know what it makes me,” I mutter, trying to chew without moaning. “It makes me stupid.”
“Mmm,” he hums. “No. It makes you mine.”
His mouth is at my collarbone now, kissing slow, wet trails beneath the fabric of the shirt I stole from him.
His hand slides higher on my thigh, warm and possessive, fingers toying with the edge of my shorts while his other hand brings another bite of peach to my lips like I’m going to be able to focus on food when he’s saying my full fucking name like a kink.
And goddamn it—I can feel myself blushing.
“Baby,” he whispers, nipping just above my collar. “You’re burning up. You getting shy on me?”
I glare. “Shut up.”
“Why?” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “You weren’t shy screaming ‘Kade, fuck—’ two nights ago while the trees blushed for you.”
“Damian.”
“Elias.”
He kisses me again.
I’m going to kill him, or climb him. Probably both.
I groan and shove at his chest—not hard enough to move him, just enough to pretend I’ve got an ounce of control left.
His lips are still at my throat, still branding every syllable of my name into my skin like he invented it.
My body’s hot. My cheeks are flaming. And he’s smirking so hard I could slap him with the croissant and he’d thank me.
“Next time we get married,” I huff, “you’re taking my name.” It comes out sharp, petty, triumphant—except my voice cracks halfway through it, and I know, I know, the second the words leave my mouth that I’ve just lost the war.
Damian leans back, slow and smug, like a king granting his battlefield a moment to breathe before delivering the final, devastating blow. “That so, pup?”
His voice drops an octave and the smirk that curves across his mouth is wicked in that lazy, dangerous way that makes my stomach flip. He looks like he wants to frame the sentence, hang it over our bed, and remind me of it every morning for the rest of my life.
I cross my arms. “Yes. So enjoy it while it lasts, Kade. I’m reclaiming my brand.”
He raises an eyebrow, still holding a piece of mango between his fingers like he’s weighing his options—feeding it to me or sticking it somewhere I’ll absolutely regret later. “You’d rather be Elias Mercer again?” he asks, calm and deadly.
I blink, the air punching out of my lungs all at once. Fuck. Shit. No—that’s not what I meant, not even close. I don’t get the chance to fix it. He leans in again, slow and predatory, mouth grazing mine without quite kissing, hovering just close enough to burn.
“Thought so,” he murmurs, and the way he says it tells me he already owns the answer.
“I hate you.”
“You love my name.”
I glare. “You’re imagining things.”
He kisses me—just once, a promise more than an act—and when he pulls back his voice is low and steady as he murmurs, “Say it.”
“No.”
His fingers slide under the waistband of my shorts. “Say it, pup.”
“…I tolerate it.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I—fuck—Damian—”
“Wrong again.”
His mouth brushes my jaw, and I swear I’m going to die here, on this mattress, red to my ears and leaking precome into my ruined reputation, because I do love it.
I love hearing it. I love wearing it. I love that he said it at our wedding like it meant something, and now every time he whispers it into my skin I feel it brand deeper than before.
“Fine,” I breathe. “I love it.”
His smile is slow and absolutely feral. “That’s my boy.”