Chapter 17
Jason
We take our time getting back to Ash's place.
The night is cool and clear, stars scattered across a sky you can actually see out here, away from the city lights.
I'm on the back of Ash's bike again, arms wrapped around his waist, cheek pressed against his back.
The vibration of the engine hums through both of us, and I let myself just exist in this moment—full of good food, settled from pack, content in a way I haven't felt in years.
There's no rush tonight. No desperate need clawing at us, no urgency making us tear at each other's clothes. Just the quiet buzz of belonging, and the certainty that we have all night.
Ash pulls into his driveway and kills the engine. The silence that follows feels sacred somehow, like we're the only two people in the world.
He unlocks the door and I follow him inside, kicking off my shoes while he does the same.
The house doesn't feel empty anymore. There's a blanket on the couch that I left here three days ago, soft gray fleece that smells like both of us now.
Coffee mugs in the sink from this morning, mine with the chip on the handle.
My jacket on the hook by the door, hanging next to his.
It's starting to feel like ours.
"Hey," Ash says, and when I turn, he's looking at me with soft eyes. Open and unguarded in a way he rarely lets himself be. "Thank you. For tonight. For including me."
"You cubed cheese. That's not exactly a hardship."
"You know what I mean." He crosses the distance between us, pulls me closer by the belt loops until our hips are flush. "The pack stuff. Making me part of it. Not just letting me watch but actually making me part of it."
"You're already part of it." I lean up and kiss him, slow and sweet, tasting the lingering hint of truffle mac and cheese on his tongue. "You have been for a while. You just didn't see it yet."
We drift toward the bedroom without really deciding to, shedding clothes along the way.
His shirt in the hallway—I toss it toward the bathroom door but miss.
My jeans by the bedroom doorframe, stepped out of mid-stride.
By the time we reach the bed, we're down to underwear, and Ash is looking at me like I'm something he can't quite believe he gets to have.
"Can I try something?" I ask.
"Anything." No hesitation. Complete trust.
"I want to take care of you tonight. The way you took care of me." I press my hand to his stomach, feel his breathing go unsteady. "Let me give back."
His breath catches. "Jason—"
"Let me." I press him back onto the bed, climbing over him, and he goes without resistance. Letting me guide him, letting me set the pace. "Please."
This man who controls everything, who's always the protector, who spent five years in combat zones where letting your guard down meant dying—he's letting me have this. Letting me take care of him. Trusting me with the soft underbelly he doesn't show anyone.
I kiss down his body slowly, mapping every inch of him. His jaw, rough with stubble. His throat, where I can feel his pulse jumping. The scar on his collarbone—shrapnel, he told me once, from a blast that killed two of his squad members and left him with ringing in his ears for a month.
He's got so many scars. A puckered circle on his shoulder that might be a bullet graze.
A thin white line across his ribs. Something jagged on his hip that looks like it must have bled a lot.
Stories written on his skin, a history of violence and survival that I want to learn, someday, when he's ready to tell them.
For now, I just kiss each one I find. Pressing my lips to the evidence of everything he's been through, everything he's survived to end up here with me.
"Jason." His voice is rough, wrecked. "You don't have to—"
"I want to." I kiss the scar on his hip, feel him shiver. "Every part of you. Even the parts that hurt."
I detour to his nipples, dragging my tongue across one flat disc until it hardens, then biting down gently. He hisses, his hand flying to my hair.
"Sensitive?" I ask against his skin.
"You know I am."
I do know. I file away his reactions like he files away mine—what makes him gasp, what makes him arch, what makes him forget to be in control. I bite down harder on the other nipple and he groans, his hips lifting off the bed.
"Jason, fuck—"
"I've got you."
When I reach his cock, hard and straining against his underwear, I take my time. Pull the fabric down slowly, freeing him. He's thick and flushed, a bead of precum already gathering at the tip, and my mouth waters.
I lick him slow, base to tip, tasting salt and musk and Ash.
Learning what makes him gasp—a twist of my tongue just under the head.
What makes him groan—taking him deep and swallowing around him.
What makes him curse and grip the sheets—pulling off to mouth at his balls before taking him down again.
"Look at me," I say, pulling off just enough to speak. "Watch me suck your cock."
His eyes snap to mine, dark and desperate, and I hold his gaze as I take him deep again. His whole body shudders.
"Fuck, your mouth." His hand tightens in my hair, not pushing, just holding on. "So good. So fucking good. You have any idea what you look like right now? Lips stretched around me, looking up at me like that—"
I hum around him and he breaks off with a curse, his head falling back against the pillow.
I work him harder, one hand wrapped around the base, the other reaching down to roll his balls, press behind them.
He's leaking steadily now, the taste of him flooding my mouth, and I swallow it down greedily.
"So good," he breathes, and his voice cracks on it. "You're so good to me. So perfect. Don't deserve you."
I pull off just long enough to say, "Yes, you do," and then take him deep again.
He makes a broken sound, hips stuttering up before he catches himself. "Stop. Jason, stop, I want—can you—"
I release him, looking up the length of his body. He's a mess—flushed and panting, one arm thrown over his eyes, heaving for breath.
"What do you want?"
"You." He moves his arm, meets my eyes, and there's desperation in his expression. "Want to be inside you. Want to feel you."
I grab the lube from the nightstand—it lives there now, easy to reach, because this has become routine in the best way—and settle back on my heels between his legs. He watches me slick my fingers, watches me reach back and press one inside myself, and his breath goes ragged.
"Let me—"
"No." I add a second finger, biting my lip at the stretch. "I want to do this. Want you to watch."
"Fuck." He props himself up on his elbows, eyes fixed on where my hand disappears behind me. "That's the hottest thing I've ever seen. You opening yourself up for me. Getting yourself ready for my cock."
I add a third finger and moan, rocking back onto my hand. The angle isn't as good as when he does it, but the way he's looking at me makes up for it—like he's memorizing every expression, every sound, like he wants to burn this image into his brain forever.
"Tell me how it feels," he says, voice rough.
"Full. But not enough." I fuck myself harder on my fingers, letting him see how desperate I am. "Need you. Need your cock inside me."
"Then take it." He wraps his hand around himself, stroking slow, slicking himself with the precum that's dripping steadily from the tip. "Come take what you need."
I pull my fingers free and straddle his hips, reaching back to guide him to my entrance.
I sink down slow.
So slow.
We both groan as he fills me, inch by inch, the stretch and burn melting into pleasure as my body opens for him. I take my time, letting myself adjust, until I'm fully seated with him buried deep inside me.
"God, you feel incredible," he grits out. "So tight. So hot inside. Could stay like this forever."
I stay there for a moment, just feeling him. The fullness, the intimacy of being connected like this, his heartbeat pulsing inside me.
"Okay?" he asks, hands gentle on my hips, thumbs rubbing small circles against my skin.
"Perfect."
I start to move. Not fast, not desperate—just a slow roll of my hips, rising and falling in a rhythm that lets me feel everything. The drag of him inside me, the way he hits that spot on every upstroke, the way his breath catches each time I sink back down.
His hands stroke up my thighs, my sides, my stomach. Tender. Reverent. Then his fingers find my nipples and twist, and I cry out, clenching around him.
"That's it," he murmurs, doing it again. "Let me hear you. Love the sounds you make."
"Ash—" I'm grinding down on him now, chasing sensation, my cock hard and leaking between us. "Feels so good. You feel so good inside me."
"You're beautiful," he says, voice rough as gravel. "You know that? So fucking beautiful. Could look at you forever."
He sits up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me, changing the angle so we're pressed together. I gasp at the new depth, wrapping my legs around his waist to keep my balance. His forehead presses against mine, our breath mingling.
"Jason." His voice cracks on my name. "I need to tell you something."
"What?"
"I love you."
I go still.
The words hang in the air between us, fragile and enormous.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are wet, vulnerable in a way I've never seen.
The walls he keeps around himself, the distance he maintains—all of it is gone.
There's just Ash, raw and open, offering me everything he has.
"I love you," he says again, like he needs to make sure I heard. "I've never said that to anyone. Not once, my whole life. Never meant it before. But I love you, Jason, and I need you to know that. Need you to know that this isn't just—that you're not just—" He swallows hard. "You're everything."
My throat closes up. I can feel tears burning in my own eyes, spilling over before I can stop them.
"I love you too." The words come out rough, barely a whisper. "Ash, I love you so much. Since that first week, I think. Since you let me feed you and looked at me like I was the answer to a question you didn't know you were asking."
He kisses me, deep and desperate, salt from both our tears mixing on our lips. I start moving again, and it's different now—slower, more intense, every movement saying what words can't quite capture. We're not just fucking. We're making promises with our bodies.
His hands are everywhere, holding me tight, like letting go would kill him.
"I want to claim you," I whisper against his mouth. "The way you claimed me. Want you to wear my mark."
"Yes." No hesitation, no uncertainty. "Do it."
"It's going to hurt. You don't heal like me. It'll scar."
"I know." He tilts his head, baring his neck—the same gesture of submission he's never shown anyone, offered to me without hesitation. "I want your mark. Want everyone to know I'm yours. Want to look in the mirror and see proof that someone chose me."
Someone chose me.
My heart seizes.
I kiss the spot first—the junction of his neck and shoulder, the same place his bite sits on my skin. I can feel his pulse hammering under my lips, can feel the way he's trembling, and I know it's not from fear.
"I love you," I say against his skin. "I choose you. I'll always choose you."
Then I bite down.
He cries out, his hips jerking up into me, burying himself impossibly deeper. I taste blood—copper and salt and Ash—and I hold the bite as he shudders beneath me, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise.
"Yours," he gasps, and his voice breaks on it. "I'm yours, Jason. Only yours. Forever."
I release the bite and lick the wound, soothing, feeling him tremble through the aftershocks. "Mine."
We move together after that, chasing release. It doesn't take long—we're both too wound up, too emotional, too raw from everything we've just given each other. He wraps his hand around my cock, stroking me in time with my movements, and I fall apart almost immediately.
"Come for me," he growls. "Want to feel you. Want to watch you fall apart on my cock."
I come with a sob, spilling over his fist, clenching around him. He follows seconds later, burying himself deep and groaning my name as he fills me up.
We collapse together, tangled and sweaty and crying and laughing all at once. He holds me so tight I can barely breathe, and I hold him back just as hard.
"I love you," he says again, mumbled against my hair.
"I love you too."
"I'm going to say it all the time now. You know that, right? I'm going to be insufferable."
"I'm counting on it."
We fall asleep like that, tangled together, both of us wearing each other's marks. His bite on my neck. My bite on his. Matching claims, matching promises.