30. Jackson
Jackson
I wake up to the weight of everything pressing on my chest. Not just grief or exhaustion—but the sheer, bone-deep ache of having to keep going. Of being the one holding it all together.
I stare up at the ceiling, the early gray of morning barely cutting through the room.
My joints feel too heavy to move. I’ve got winterizing to finish, animals to feed, fences to check, heaters to inspect before the next cold front rolls in.
I need to check in on Mama, talk to Theo about the generator.
I need to make sure Derek gets to the airport.
Make sure everyone’s okay. That they feel okay.
Even though I’m not.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, dragging a hand over my face. My throat’s raw. I probably cried in my sleep again. Or maybe I just kept it all clenched so tight it shredded on the inside.
“You alright?”
I nearly throw myself out of bed at the sound of her voice. “Jesus fuck!” I bark out, sitting upright like I’ve been shot.
Ozzy peeks her head around the corner of the couch. Her hair’s messy, eyes sleepy, lips pink from chewing on them. She grins like she didn’t just take ten years off my life. “You scream like a girl.”
“Fuck you,” I grumble, flopping back on the bed. “Heart’s already a ticking time bomb. Thanks for speeding it up.”
The mattress shifts. I feel her moving before I see her. And then she’s there—crawling up the bed like a goddamn fever dream. No makeup. No mask. Just her, soft and real and dangerously close. Her palm lands on my chest, right over my heart.
“You were talking in your sleep,” she says gently. “Then you cursed, and I didn’t know if you were?—”
“Tink.” Her name breaks out of me in a low rasp, my hands twitching at my sides. Her fingers graze through my chest hair, slow and unintentional, but fuck—every nerve in my body is screaming. “H-Baby, I’m gonna need you to back off. Please.”
She hesitates. Her brows pull together like I’ve just slapped her, and her hand lifts from my chest, leaving a cold void behind. “Oh. Sorry—I just thought…”
“No, it’s not you. It’s me. It’s this goddamn body. Morning wood plus grief equals a goddamn loaded weapon. I just—” I blow out a breath and try to redirect my brain. “I need to get dressed, get to work, make sure Mama doesn’t run herself into the ground.”
Ozzy nods, but she doesn’t move. She’s sitting cross-legged now, her eyes locked on mine, and I can see the gears turning in her head.
“Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“I think, I mean, should we talk about me sleeping on your couch last night?”
I scrub a hand over my face, not really excited over my girlfriend’s preference for my couch to my bed, but I try to remain patient with it. “I mean, is there something you want to say about it?” I watch her shake her head from side to side. “Well, then I guess there isn’t?—”
“Okay, I lied,” she groans, causing me to rest my head back and sigh.
“I don’t have the energy for you today, girl,” I whine but freeze when I see her face looking down at mine. “Can I help you?”
“I like kissing you,” she says, voice small. “And I like… other things too.”
She’s already climbing back on the bed, thighs parting around my hips, and I can feel the heat of her through her cotton shorts. My cock’s been hard from the second I opened my eyes, but now it aches—throbs with the kind of need that makes my stomach tight and my skin feel too small.
“Tink…” I grit out, but she presses her palm to my bare chest and slowly drags her fingers through the coarse trail of hair there like she’s memorizing it.
“Let me,” she says, already shifting back, sliding down my legs with her gaze locked on mine.
I forget how to breathe.
Her hands hook in the waistband of my sweats and pull.
My cock springs free—heavy, flushed, already slick at the tip and for a heartbeat, she just stares. Like she’s deciding something. Like she’s cataloging me before she leans in.
Her tongue is warm and wet and fucking lethal as she licks a slow strip from the base to the head. My hips twitch.
“Hands on the headboard,” she orders, and fuck, she ain’t gotta tell me twice. My hands shoot up to grip the headboard to keep from grabbing her hair and fucking her mouth.
“Fuck,” I choke out, already gasping. “Tink… baby…”
She flattens her tongue and does it again. Slower this time. Lingering at the crown, swirling around the tip, letting her piercing drag along the underside with just enough pressure to make my eyes roll back in my head.
She wraps her hand around the base and starts to stroke while she lowers her mouth around the tip, her lips hot and soft and tight around me. It’s not fast. It’s not rushed. She’s not trying to get me off.
She’s savoring me…and fuck if it ain’t my undoing.
Her mouth is heaven—wet heat and pressure, her pierced tongue dragging, her cheeks hollowing around me as she starts to take me deeper. I can feel her throat fluttering around the head, the squeeze of her hand perfectly synced with the rhythm of her mouth.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I groan, hips twitching again. “That’s it, baby. You’re so fucking good at this—fuck, your mouth was made for me.”
She hums around me, and I swear I black out for a second.
I bite down on a groan and arch slightly off the bed when her hand slides lower, cupping my balls with reverent pressure. It’s almost too much. Too good. Too fucking perfect.
“You don’t have to be careful with me,” I pant, voice shredded. “You can wreck me if you want, Ozzy. Fucking ruin me.”
She moans again, and her mouth starts working faster—lips tight, tongue teasing, swallowing me deeper with every stroke. My thighs are shaking. My grip on the headboard could break the goddamn frame. And then—her fingers slide even lower.
She pulls off just long enough to murmur, “You want more?”
“Yes,” I rasp, nodding frantically before she finishes her question because—yes. Yes, to anything and everything. Yes to whatever she wants, as long as she doesn’t fucking stop.
“You wouldn’t have any lube, would you?”
“I’m a grown man who up until now has been single.
Of course, I have lube.” I pant and motion to my nightstand drawer.
She reaches over and opens the drawer, grabbing the small bottle.
She smiles—mischief and confidence all over her flushed face—and reaches for the nightstand.
Grabs the lube without asking. Coats her fingers while I just lie there, panting like I ran a fucking marathon.
Her mouth finds its way back to my dick while her hand finds that spot behind my balls. She rubs it slowly, gentle, exploratory, and the feeling makes my whole body shudder.
“Holy fuck,” I breathe, and she doesn’t stop—just pushes a little more, just enough, as she keeps sucking me down, her hand stroking, her mouth wet and hot and greedy for me.
She presses in further. The tip of her finger slips inside me, slow and careful, and?—
“Fuck!” My whole body locks. Stars. Pressure. Fire.
It’s overwhelming and perfect, and her mouth is still on me, her tongue flicking over the most sensitive part of me while her finger finds a spot inside I didn’t even know existed.
“Ozzy! F-Fuck!” I sob. I fucking sob like a man broken open, because it’s too much and not enough and I’m coming, I’m fucking coming hard, the orgasm ripping through me like a freight train.
My whole body bows off the bed, my voice cracking as I shout her name again; as I empty into her mouth and feel her swallow every drop like it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted.
I don’t even realize I’ve let go of the headboard until I feel her hands on my thighs, grounding me, petting me down.
When I open my eyes, I’m wrecked. Boneless. Barely breathing. My chest is heaving and my eyes are stinging and I don’t have a single fucking thought left in my head except her.
Ozzy.
My girl.
My goddamn undoing.
She kisses my hip before raking her teeth over the bone and sucking.
“Harder,” I pant, hissing at the pleasurable pain. She obeys, biting and sucking as I release a low growl.
She rises with a shy smile, “That’s going to be a dark hickey, Superman.” She giggles and disappears into the bathroom.
I hear the water run. Hear her spit. Hear her rinse and return with a warm rag, wiping me clean with gentle care before climbing back onto the bed and settling beside me.
“You should get ready for work,” she says with a grin, biting her bottom lip. I pull her bottom lip from her mouth before kissing her softly.
“I’m about to call off and stay in bed with you all day.”
“So,” Nick starts, his voice already grating on my nerves as he leans over the fence rail like he’s earned the right to relax.
It’s one of the last warm mornings of the year—blue sky stretched over frost-bitten fields—and instead of doing the job I pay him for, he’s eyeing the house.
Or more accurately, the woman inside it.
“You fucking that pretty girl,” he says, like it’s casual talk, like we’re buddies tossing back beers, “or am I good to take a crack at her?”
I freeze mid-swing, hammer clutched in my fist, shoulders locked. For a second, I think I misheard him. There’s no way the kid just asked if he could go in on my woman like she’s some goddamn open-door policy.
“Come again?” I ask, and my voice is all gravel and quiet rage.
He grins— grins —and doubles down. “The tattooed one. With the pierced tits. If you’re not hitting it, I’d love a?—”
I’m already on him.
Fist in his collar. Forearm to his throat. He’s slammed against the post before he even gets the sentence out. Kid’s face goes red. His eyes go wide. His hands grab at my wrist like he thinks he can break my grip.
“You ever look at her again,” I growl, nose to nose with the trembling little shit, “I’ll feed you to my fucking pigs. You understand me?”
“I—Jackson, man—shit—I didn’t know she was yours! I didn’t know!”
“Doesn’t matter.” I shove him back hard enough that he falls on his ass in the dirt. “That’s not how you talk about any woman, but especially not mine.”