Chapter 8
The night wraps around us like a secret.
The air is thick with salt and the hum of waves lapping the sand beyond the pool deck.
The stars are out—so many it feels like they’re leaning in just to get a better look at the mess we’ve made of each other.
Elias is curled in my lap, dead asleep, head on my thigh, curls sticking to his forehead from the heat.
His mouth is parted, soft with exhaustion, and one hand is loosely fisted against my chest like even in sleep he doesn’t want to let go.
He smells like sun and sweat and me. And I’m not fucking moving.
I run my fingers gently through his hair, watching the way his lashes twitch when I brush too close to his temple.
The rest of him is deadweight, totally slack.
Wrecked in the best way. I think we broke three hammocks, got two spa warnings, and possibly traumatized a bartender.
And still, somehow, he’s here. Knocked out like a stray kitten who thinks my lap is home.
He’s always done that.
The first night I brought him home when he fainted at the gym—when he crashed in my bed, mouthy and wounded and desperate to earn every inch of my attention. The first time I snapped at him in practice and he pushed back harder, eyes shining. The first time he called me sir like it tasted good.
I didn’t believe in forever. Didn’t trust it. Didn’t want it. Never thought I’d live long enough to make it worth the trouble. You don’t survive what I’ve survived by hoping for things. You just take what you can get, when you can get it, and walk away when it stops being worth the damage.
But then this kid showed up—this wild, reckless, mouthy thing with too much speed and not enough caution—and he chose me.
Over and over. Even when I was cold. Even when I was cruel.
Even when I pushed and punished and tried to train the want out of him, he chose me.
He didn’t just say forever, he meant it.
And somewhere along the line… I started meaning it too.
I look down at him, and my chest fucking aches with it.
With the weight of how much I love this little shit.
With the clarity of it—how easy it is to imagine this every night, every morning, every goddamn day for the rest of our lives.
How natural it feels. How violent the regret still is for ever thinking I didn’t deserve something this good.
Elias shifts against me, groaning like the concept of waking up is a personal attack.
He burrows deeper into my thigh for a second, murmurs something that sounds like a curse and a compliment rolled into one, then lifts his head just enough to squint up at me—eyes bleary, curls smashed sideways like a drunk halo, voice thick with sleep as he huffs, “What are you looking at?”
I smirk. “Your sorry-ass face.”
He blinks once. Twice. Then groans like he’s in pain and flops back down into my lap, grumbling, “You’re the worst husband in the world.”
“I just said your face is sorry, pup. That’s high praise, considering the shit I usually call it.”
His hand smacks my thigh with all the force of a sleepy kitten. “You should be writing me poems.”
“I did. You moaned through the whole thing.”
“That was not a poem, Damian.”
“It rhymed.”
“‘You’re gonna take this cock and smile, pup’ is not Shakespeare.”
“Your ass smiled.”
He chokes on a laugh—tries not to, fails miserably—and I catch the curve of his mouth before he buries it in my lap again. “You’re such a menace,” he mutters, no heat in it.
I thread my fingers through his curls, slower this time, softer, letting the quiet settle around us like a second blanket. He breathes in deep. His fingers curl tighter into my shirt. And after a long moment, he hums, almost to himself.
“I like it here,” he says, voice barely audible. “Like… with you. Like this.”
I don’t answer right away. Just lean down and press a kiss to the crown of his head, letting my lips linger there as my chest cracks wide open under the weight of him. The weight of this.
“Yeah,” I murmur finally, tightening my hold around his waist, “me too.”
Elias shifts again, cheek sliding against my stomach like he’s trying to fuse us together at the seams. His voice, when it comes, is barely louder than the ocean behind us—soft enough to get lost in the hush of waves and breeze and everything he is. “Still can’t believe you picked me.”
I freeze for a second. Just long enough to feel that old ache bloom sharp and brutal beneath my ribs. Because he still doesn’t get it. Still doesn’t see what it did to me. What he is to me.
I stare down at him—at this wild, impossible thing curled in my lap like he doesn’t know he wrecked me from the inside out—and slide my hand into his curls again, dragging my fingers slow and steady through the mess of gold.
Then I bend low, press my mouth to the top of his head, and murmur—“I didn’t. ”
He blinks up, confusion flickering across his face, but I kiss his temple before he can ask. “I didn’t pick you, Elias,” I say, voice low. “I was fucked the second you looked at me like I hung the moon.”
His whole expression shifts—shatters. His face crumples like I punched the breath out of him, eyes going wide, mouth parted, the kind of look that carves itself into bone and stays there.
Then, slowly, that grin curves up—shy, entirely Elias. “You mean the first second I saw you?”
“All teeth and attitude,” I tease. “Wearing that ridiculous rookie hoodie. Trying to fight your own skates.”
He snorts. “You had a death glare.”
“And you grinned at me,” I say, voice quieter now, steadier, “like I was something worth bleeding for.”
Elias exhales—long and trembling—and tucks his face into my shirt. “I still would, you know.”
I close my eyes. “I know,” I whisper. “Me too.”
He slips under fast after that. His breath slows.
His body softens. That wild, filthy, feral boy melts into my lap like he belongs there—and he does.
Every inch of him. Every sound. Every scar.
He curls his hand in my shirt like he thinks I’ll disappear if he doesn’t anchor me, but—I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not ever.
I shift carefully, lifting him into my arms. He sighs in his sleep, nose brushing against my neck, legs dangling a little as I carry him across the patio. The cane’s still propped against the lounger. I don’t touch it. I don’t need it tonight. Not with him in my arms.
The suite is quiet. Moonlight through gauzy curtains. Sheets rumpled from the last time we ruined them. I set him down gently, pulling the covers up over his hips. He stirs, just a little, then settles again, one hand still seeking mine under the blanket.
I lean down, press my lips to his temple, and whisper it there—“I promise to keep you wild. To keep you safe and mine.”
He doesn’t stir, but he smiles. And I know he heard me.