Epilogue
I’ve given up lying. I don’t need it anymore.
Our domestic bliss is a modest apartment with an oversized front window that looks out over Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge.
It opens onto a fire escape for fresh air and safety.
Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever climb out the window and down a three-story retractable ladder, Jake’s turned the little metal landing into a jungle of oregano, tomatoes, and the hottest peppers he can find.
He says spice is about patience, but it’s really the first step of surrender.
Once you take a bite, you belong to the burn.
My phone buzzes a message from Jake: omw.
Four weeks in our new place, and my dick still jumps thinking about him. How smart and funny and sweet he is. How he commands any room with a smile. How everyone wants him. And how no one else can have him.
It feels like what people describe as high school love, with an all-consuming lust firmly at the center, while we figure everything else out. If it is that, then I’m making up for lost time.
I still haven’t published my story.
It might be the property of Cable Car Chronicles, but that paper is out of business, and all my evidence is still in the cloud and on a flash drive buried where only I can find it.
I’m sure Alistair thinks I should thank him for exposing Evie, for “saving” me, and for leading me to Jake.
I wish manipulation were all I could see in what he did.
But I still haven’t solved how to expose him without turning the men he uses into collateral, and I’m not lighting that match until Jake and I agree on what it burns.
My laptop screen blinks to sleep. I wake it to the cursor still pulsing at the end of an unfinished sentence, then let it go dark again. With Jake on the way, I’m done for the day. The twisted world of the recycling scandal I’m chasing can wait.
A glass bowl of Skittles sits beside my laptop because Jake believes aftercare snacks count as home decor.
I check the time and text back: You’re late.
Then I change apps and send a quick punishment pulse by tapping and holding on my screen for one, two, three seconds.
Jake replies instantly: Sorry Sir
I shoot back and scroll through our text thread of photos, emojis, and immature sexts.
If a stranger read them, they’d say this lust will fade, that our relationship isn’t built on anything real. The thought of their imaginary judgment tests the rage still locked in my chest.
So I’m obsessed with my boyfriend, and he’s obsessed with me. People would call it unhealthy. They’d hear how we started and decide they understood us, because wanting someone this much must be a symptom instead of the root.
Fuck them.
We are who we are.
I reopen the app and press the pulse button longer this time—one, two, three, four, five seconds—imagining what it does to Jake to distract myself.
Something thumps against the door, followed by a muffled, “Jesus.”
The front door opens.
From my small desk in the living room, I catch Jake through the kitchen cutout as he slings his bag onto the counter.
He’s wearing a tight blue shirt, buttoned all the way up, with sleeves that hug his arms. The COO of Silicon Valley’s hottest health tech startup never wears eyeshadow to work, but he doesn’t need it to make me want to wreck that clean executive polish.
“Marky. I thought I told you—”
He stops when he sees me in the hall, ten steps away, wearing my best this-is-a-problem face.
“You told me seven thirty,” I say. “What time is it?”
His lips twitch before he checks the stove clock. “Seven thirty-five.”
I tip my chin and take two steps closer.
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Oh, you’re sorry?” I let the words drag, slow and sweet and as cruel as he’s taught me. “What do you think I should do about it?”
“Forgive me?” he says, and the corners of his mouth try faking innocence. “Start heating up the leftovers?”
I cut my laugh short and close another three steps. He needs a reminder that my body takes up much more space than his.
“I don’t think so.”
His eyes sharpen. “I told you not to buzz that thing while I’m at work.”
The first time he wore it to work, he made me promise I wouldn’t touch the button unless he started the game first. When I treated that rule like scripture, Jake told me I’d listened too well, and that this rule was more like a bendable guideline.
“Well, if you’d been here…”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze slides to my chest. “And what about twelve fifteen this afternoon?”
“You going to do something about it?”
He holds my stare, chin tipping up as if he’s daring me to prove I’m not all talk, and I pull my phone out where he can see it.
“I thought I convinced you,” he says. “Not at work.”
“You can take it out.” I lean in until my breath touches his mouth without giving him mine. “You want to stop feeling it? Just stop.”
He pretends he’s offended, but his false irritation cracks just enough to show the truth underneath.
“I lied,” he admits. “I liked it.” His voice drops into something rougher through a tiny, wicked smile. “It makes me ache for the real thing.”
“Does it?”
His nod is almost imperceptible. “And it makes presentations way more interesting.”
“Poor baby.”
He lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half plea, and that’s when I step fully into him, crowding him back against the counter. I open the app.
One. His reaction is instant, his eyes flashing before he can hide it.
Two. His eyelids flutter until he can’t keep them open.
Three. His breath hitches.
Four. I slide my hand to the back of his neck.
Five. And lean until we’re an inch apart, close enough that he can taste the kiss I’m not giving him.
Six. “Fuck,” he whispers. Seven. “I’m sorry.” Eight. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
I let the button go and watch him try to get himself back together. My gaze drops to the slacks hugging his ass and the zipper bulging his confession.
“Tell me you’re grateful,” I say, “that I thought about you at all.”
“Thank you.” He swallows hard. “You’re all I could think about all day, Marky.”
I grab his ass with both hands, squeeze, and haul him closer until he has to go up on his toes. I go on mine too, staying out of reach.
“Please,” he breathes. “Sir. I need you inside me.”
I grab my button-down and tear it open.
Jake makes a sound that is pure, delighted need, and forgets my lips to go where I’ve given my permission. His mouth lands hot on my chest, and he kisses me like he’s been starving all day. His tongue draws a slow line between my nipples, and I bite down on a groan.
“That’s it,” I murmur, fingers threading into his hair.
I pull his shirt up and over his head, toss it somewhere, and lift him.
He yelps, laughing, as he hooks his legs around me.
I carry him to the bedroom and toss him onto our bed.
Sex with my boyfriend on our bed is the most vanilla dream I’ve ever had.
We’ve done it in the shower, on the floor, on our couch, in our car, in public bathrooms, fitting rooms, and more. But our bed is still my favorite.
With Jake—it’s home.
He rolls onto his stomach and then onto his knees and into a crouched position that stretches his slacks skintight over his ass.
“Can we just—?”
I cut off his question by crawling onto the bed to oblige. I kiss his back, unbuckle his belt, and unbutton the pants he likes too much to rip apart. His underwear slides down with them so I can massage his bare cheeks.
With his pants down around his thighs, it’s just that ass, waiting to be claimed, again, except for a tiny black loop sticking out of his hole.
I wrap my finger around it, and he moans as I pull on the app-controlled plug he’s worn all day.
He can take it out whenever he needs, but my dick goes rock hard knowing he’s left it in all day.
I let my dick through my own fly, not bothering to take my pants off, because this will be quick. This will be rough, and this will fill our needs before we hear anything about each other’s day.
I lube up, tease him until he whimpers, then push inside.
Keeping secrets with Jake is more fun than I ever had keeping them alone, and our twist on domestic bliss is a thrill we can share.
With Jake lying on my chest, all is right with the world.
I love every angle of my boyfriend, but when I’m not inside him, this is probably my favorite.
He’s using me like a body pillow, a human kickstand, or a muscly rock, with one finger twirling through the little wisps of hair I haven’t shaved yet.
I’m using him too: to lust after how his perfect ass peeks out before our comforter conceals the rest of him, to tell him what to do, to talk to about my day, and, I think, to love.
My therapist and I are working on the part where I say that last bit out loud, even though I’m pretty sure Jake is only waiting because making me say it first has become part of our thing.
That’s what makes us work.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I grab it just to shut it up.
Jake shifts on my chest, fading, my movement rousing him just a little.
Unknown number: Is this Marcus Philips?
It’s probably spam, but my stomach still tightens as I text back: Who’s this?
Brad Kohen.
My breath stops, mind flashing to the not-so-gentle giant I left behind in Alistair’s orbit. Alistair said he’d tell Brad what I’d done. I never expected to hear it from Brad himself.
“You okay?” Jake murmurs. “I can feel your heartbeat.”
“I got a text.”
I text back: It’s me. What’s up?
Jake rolls over and stretches. “Yeah? Who’s it from?”
My life is still full of moments where a small lie can smooth over dangerous ground. Now that we’ve both escaped, anything related to Alistair’s inner circle is fucking treacherous. The last thing I want is for us to get dragged back in, and yet, somehow, Brad’s tracked me down.
“Um,” I say.
The thrill of lying is no longer the top of a very steep hill; it’s the top of a very slippery slope.
“It’s Brad,” I admit.
Jake pushes up against the headboard to watch the three dots appear, vanish, and appear again. The messages roll in one after another:
Real nice what you thought you did. Too nice.
Blackwood already had my mom handled. Before you ever asked.
That’s not why I’m texting.
Do you still have the story?
He asked me if you do.
I said I didn’t know.
Tell me what I should say next.
My eyes flick to Jake’s on instinct. Blue and beautiful, and now wide with fear.
I hesitate.
No. That’s a lie.
I text back as fast as my thumbs will move: Tell him I burned it.