Chapter 18
Ash
I wake up to an empty bed and the smell of coffee.
For a second, the old panic hits—sharp and bright, a spike of adrenaline that has me reaching for the gun I don't keep under my pillow anymore. He left. He's gone. I fucked it up somehow. Said the wrong thing, pushed too hard, and now—
Then I hear humming from the kitchen—some pop song I don't recognize, slightly off-key—and my whole body relaxes so fast it almost hurts.
Jason's still here. He's just making coffee.
This is going to take some getting used to. The panic response, the assumption that good things don't last. Years of losing people have trained my brain to expect the worst, and weeks of happiness isn't enough to undo that programming.
But maybe, with time, it will be.
I pull on sweats and follow the sound. He's standing at the counter in his boxers and one of my t-shirts—a faded Army Ranger shirt that hangs halfway to his knees on him.
His hair's a disaster, sticking up in every direction, and there's a hickey on his collarbone that I don't remember making.
Must have happened last night, somewhere between the second and third round.
He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Morning," he says without turning around. "Coffee's almost ready."
"How'd you know I was there?"
"Heard you." He taps his ear. "Shifter hearing, remember? I can hear your heartbeat from across the room. It's very loud when you first wake up." He glances over his shoulder, eyes warm. "Calmed down now, though."
Right. He probably heard the panic spike too. He doesn't mention it, doesn't make it weird—just lets me know he noticed, lets me know he understands.
I come up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my lips to the mark on his neck. My mark. Still dark, still healing, still the most satisfying thing I've ever put on another person.
"Morning," I murmur against his skin.
He leans back into me with a happy sigh, his whole body going soft and pliant. "Mmm. I have to go back to the bar soon. Promised Vaughn I'd help with a brake job."
"How soon?"
"Hour, maybe." He turns in my arms and loops his hands behind my neck, looking up at me with mischief in his eyes. "Why? You have plans for me?"
"Always."
I turn him and lift him onto the counter before he can react. He laughs against my mouth as I step between his legs, wrapping them around my waist.
"The coffee's going to get cold," he says, but he's already pulling at my shirt, trying to get it over my head.
"I'll make more."
"You don't know how to make coffee. You put way too many grounds in last time."
"I'll figure it out." I pull back long enough to yank my shirt off, then go back to kissing down his neck, his collarbone, pushing his—my—shirt up to get at more skin. "Or you can make more after."
"After what?"
I drop to my knees on the kitchen floor.
"Oh," he breathes, looking down at me with dark eyes. "After that."
I hook my fingers in his boxers and pull them down, freeing his cock. He's already half-hard—morning arousal, proximity to me, the anticipation of what's coming—and when I wrap my hand around him and stroke slowly, he sucks in a sharp breath.
"God, your hands," he manages. "I love your hands."
"Noted." I lean in and lick a stripe up the underside, base to tip, and he shudders. "What else do you love?"
"Your mouth. Your—fuck—"
I take him deep, cutting off whatever he was going to say. His hands find my hair, gripping tight as I work him over—slow, deliberate, learning the rhythm that makes him gasp. He's fully hard now, thick and heavy on my tongue, and I hollow my cheeks and suck.
"Ash, fuck, that's—"
I pull off just long enough to say, "Quiet. Just feel it."
He whimpers but obeys, biting his lip hard enough to leave marks as I take him deep again.
I love this—love having him at my mercy, love the sounds he makes when he's trying not to make sounds.
Love knowing I'm the one who gets to do this to him, the one who gets to take him apart and put him back together.
I can feel him getting close—the trembling in his thighs, the way his grip tightens in my hair, the soft desperate sounds he can't quite swallow. I pull off completely.
"No, what—" He reaches for me, trying to guide me back. "Ash, please, I was so close—"
"I know." I stand up and kiss him, letting him taste himself on my tongue. He moans into my mouth, hands grabbing at my shoulders, my back, anywhere he can reach. "Turn around."
His breath catches. "Here? On the counter?"
"Right here." I help him down, spin him around, bend him forward over the granite. He goes willingly, eagerly, bracing himself on his forearms. "Been thinking about this since the first time I saw you in this kitchen."
I grab the lube from the nearby drawer, we've started keeping it handy.
"Hurry up," he says.
"Bossy."
"You like it."
I do. I really do.
I slick my fingers and press one inside him. He's still a little loose from last night, body remembering me, and he opens up easily with a low moan.
"More," he demands, pushing back against my hand.
Two fingers, then three, stretching him open while he gasps and moans against the countertop. I curl them to hit that spot inside him and he cries out, hands scrabbling for purchase on the smooth granite.
I pull my fingers out and slick myself up, then press inside him in one slow thrust. We both groan. He's so hot and tight around me, perfect, and the angle is incredible—letting me sink in deep, feel every inch of him.
I move slowly at first, savoring the drag of him around me, the sounds he makes every time I bottom out. But he's pushing back against me, demanding more, and I've never been able to deny him anything.
I grip his hips and start fucking him harder, driving into him with enough force to make the coffee cups rattle in the cabinet.
"Yes, like that, don't stop—"
I lean over him, pressing against his back, and bite down on his shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin—I don't want to re-mark him when the first one is still healing—but hard enough to make him gasp, hard enough to remind him who he belongs to.
"Mine," I growl against his skin.
"Yours, always yours—"
I reach around and wrap my hand around his cock, stroking in time with my thrusts. He's leaking all over my fingers, so close I can feel it in the way he's clenching around me.
"Come for me," I tell him. "Come on my cock, let me feel it."
He does—spilling over my hand with a shout, his whole body shaking as he clenches down hard around me. The pressure tips me over the edge and I follow him, burying myself deep and coming with his name on my lips.
We stay like that for a long moment, both of us panting, my forehead pressed between his shoulder blades.
"Jesus Christ," he finally says.
"Yeah."
"We just had sex on your kitchen counter."
"Yeah."
"That's so unsanitary." But he's laughing, breathless and satisfied.
"I'll bleach it later."
I pull out carefully and we clean up with paper towels—not elegant, but functional. He leans against me while I hold him, both of us catching our breath, the coffee maker gurgling forgotten in the background.
"I really do have to go," he says eventually.
"I know."
"Vaughn's going to ask why I'm late."
"Tell him the truth."
"That my boyfriend fucked me on his kitchen counter?"
"That you were busy." I kiss his temple. "He doesn't need details."
Jason laughs and pulls away to find his clothes, scattered somewhere between the bedroom and the kitchen.
I watch him dress—jeans, his shirt from yesterday, my jacket because he can't find his.
It swallows him, too big in the shoulders, and a possessive thrill runs through me at the sight of him wearing my things.
"I'll bring it back," he says, catching me looking.
"Keep it. Looks better on you anyway."
He grins and kisses me one more time at the door, soft and sweet.
"Come back with me?" he asks. "You can hang out while I work. Watch me get all greasy and sweaty."
"Tempting." I cup his face, stroke my thumb across his cheekbone. "But not right now."
Uncertainty flickers across his face, there and gone. The fear that I'm pulling back.
"I'm going to call Robin," I say. "Catch up with him for a bit. Haven't had much brother time lately. Been too wrapped up in you."
The worry disappears, replaced by a soft smile. "That's good. He'd like that. He misses you, I think. Even though he'd never admit it."
"I'll come by later. For dinner?"
"I'll make something good." He kisses me one more time. "Love you."
"Love you too." I grab my keys from the hook by the door and press them into his hand. "Take the Kawasaki. Robin can give me a ride later to pick it up."
He stares at the keys like I've just handed him something precious. "You're letting me ride your bike?"
"You're wearing my jacket, my mark, my come—" He flushes and I grin. "Might as well add my bike to the list."
"You're impossible."
"You love it."
"Yeah." He pockets the keys, still looking a little dazed. "I really do."
I watch him from the doorway as he swings onto the Kawasaki, my jacket swallowing his shoulders, my mark visible above the collar. He revs the engine once—showing off, the brat—and takes off down the street.
Mine. All of it. All of him.
I pull out my phone and text Robin.
Coffee? Got something I want to talk about.
His response comes back in seconds: ominous. be there in 20.
---
An hour later, Robin shows up with a container of croissants.
"You said coffee," he says, shoving the container at me as he walks through the door. "Coffee needs carbs. It's a rule."
"You baked these?"
"I always have pastries. You know this. Jason's not the only one who bakes—I just do it less annoyingly.
" He pushes past me into the kitchen and starts opening cabinets.
"Where do you keep your plates? Never mind, found them.
These are very sad plates, Ash. Very bachelor. Very 'I've given up on joy.'"
"They're white. They're functional."