Chapter 29
MAC
Being inside Arek was like nothing I had language for.
I’d had sex before. Plenty of it, with a woman I’d loved, and it had been good—sometimes great, sometimes hurried and mediocre.
But this was a whole new experience. The heat and the tightness and the jaw-dropping sensation of Arek’s body yielding to mine, of feeling him open and let me in, of watching his face as I moved was so far beyond anything in my experience that my brain simply stopped trying to categorize it and let my body take over.
He was under me, around me. His legs around my hips, his hands gripping my arms, his head tipped back with his throat exposed and his eyes closed.
The sounds he made were wrecked and uncontrolled and nothing like the composed, articulate man I’d fallen in love with.
Every single one of them went through me like electricity.
This was Arek without the performance. Arek with every wall down, every filter removed, and the trust of that—the sheer, staggering trust of a man who couldn’t let go of anything letting go of everything—made my eyes burn even as my body drove into him.
I could feel the moment he surrendered. I’d felt his physical surrender when he opened for me, when his body stopped resisting and started pulling me deeper.
But this was something else. A shift in the quality of his breathing, in the tension of his hands, in the way his body moved under mine.
He stopped trying. Stopped thinking, stopped calculating, stopped doing anything except feeling, and the change was so profound it was almost visible, like watching a held breath finally release.
I moved in him, and he let me, and the pleasure built in waves I could feel in both of us—his body tightening around me, my cock driving deeper inside him, the rhythm we found together that was somehow synced to our heartbeats, uniquely ours.
I reached between us and took his cock in my hand, hard and slick, and stroked in time with my thrusts. The sounds Arek made nearly ended me. They, too, were proof of how deep he’d allowed himself to sink, of the unfathomable reach of his trust in me.
“Arek,” I whispered hoarsely. “My love…”
He came. One moment, he was pumping into my hand, and the next, his body seized and shocked, shuddering as he unloaded all over my hand.
The clench of his body around my cock sent me over the edge as well.
I came with my face in his neck, buried deep inside him, his body still spasming around me, and for one suspended moment, the world was nothing but heat and pressure and the man underneath me shaking apart with my name in his mouth.
I held myself there. Inside him, over him, my arms trembling, my breath ragged. Arek’s hands moved from my arms to my back, stroking slowly, gentling me. I pressed my lips to his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth. He turned his head and kissed me, slow and deep and tasting like salt.
I pulled out carefully and lay beside him, my hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow from a gallop to a canter to something approaching normal. His eyes were closed, his face was slack, and there were tear tracks on his temples that he hadn’t wiped away and didn’t seem to care about.
“Hey,” I said.
He opened his eyes, which were green and wet and completely undefended. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
The smile that spread across his face was the most real thing I’d ever seen. It was joy, pure and unfiltered. “I’m so much better than okay.”
We lay there for a while, skin cooling, breathing settling, my hand tracing idle patterns on his chest. The lamp cast warm shadows across the ceiling, the mountain was quiet outside, and neither of us was in a hurry to be anywhere else.
“Shower?” I said eventually.
“God, yes.”
The shower in the main cabin was basic with room for two if you didn’t mind being close, which we didn’t.
The water pressure was decent, the water hot, and steam filled the small space as I stood under the spray with Arek pressed against my back.
His forehead was between my shoulder blades, his arms around my waist, and the simple act of being held while hot water ran over us both was its own form of intimacy.
He washed my back. His hands, soapy and warm, moving over my shoulders, my spine, the scar tissue he’d kissed and mapped and memorized.
He washed me the way I’d expect a doctor to—thorough, attentive, knowing the body—but with a tenderness that had nothing to do with medicine.
His fingers traced the shrapnel scars on my shoulder, and then his lips followed, brief and warm through the water.
I turned around and washed him. His chest, his arms, the lean muscles of his stomach.
I took my time. He let me, his eyes half-closed, his head tipped back under the water, and I washed his hair because I wanted to, my fingers working through the wet strands, and his low, quiet hum of pleasure was worth more than anything.
“Mac.”
“Yeah.”
“That was…” He opened his eyes. The water ran over his face, catching on his eyelashes, and he looked young, open, and stripped of everything. “I don’t have the words. Which is genuinely unprecedented.”
“Arek Jacobson, speechless. I should mark the date.”
“Enjoy it. It won’t last.” But the smile stayed, soft and real. He put his hand on my chest, over my heart. “Thank you for being so careful with me. You made me feel safe enough to let go. I don’t think you understand how rare that is.”
I covered his hand with mine. The water ran over our joined hands, warm and steady. “You trusted me. That’s not small.”
“No. It’s not.”
We stood in the water. His hand on my chest, mine over his. The steam curled around us, the pine scent of my shower gel sharp and clean.
“I want to do that for you,” I said. The words came out before I’d fully planned them, which was how my best words always came, bypassing the tactical brain, straight from wherever the truth lived. “What you did tonight. Letting go like that. I want to know what that feels like.”
Arek’s eyes widened slightly. “You mean…?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to. There’s no expectation of reciprocity here.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” I held his gaze. “Not tonight. But sometime. I want to trust you like that.”
His expression was pure wonder and tenderness. “Whenever you’re ready. No rush. No pressure.”
“I know.” I kissed him slowly, under the water, tasting nothing but clean skin and warmth. “I love you.”
“I love you.” His hand tightened on my chest. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes.”
“Good. The things worth having usually do.”
“I’m learning that.” He kissed me again, harder, his hands sliding into my wet hair, and the kiss went deep and warm and tasted like the beginning of something we’d have time to figure out. No rush. No pressure. Just the two of us, learning.
Morning came slowly, the light creeping across the bedroom floor and finding us tangled together under the quilt. Arek was on his stomach, one arm under the pillow, his face turned toward me, mouth slightly open, faintly snoring, which I would deny hearing if he ever asked.
I lay on my side and watched him sleep. A luxury I hadn’t known I wanted until I had it—the simple pleasure of watching someone you loved be unconscious, safe, and present.
The lines of his back, the moles I’d counted, the way his hair stuck up at angles that defied physics.
Mine. This man was mine, and I was his, and the certainty of that sat in my chest like something I’d built—solid, load-bearing, meant to last.
He stirred. One eye opened, focused blearily on me. “You’re staring.”
“I like looking at you.”
“That’s my line.”
“I stole it.” I brushed the hair off his forehead. “Boden gets here tomorrow.”
Both eyes open now. He rolled onto his side, facing me, his hand finding my hip under the quilt. “How are you feeling about it?”
“Terrified.”
“And?”
“Happy. Both at the same time.”
“Your default setting.” He smiled, sleep-soft and warm. “His bedroom is ready?”
“Bed’s solid. Desk is set up. Lamp works. Cas double-checked the wiring yesterday.” I paused. “I need bedding. Real bedding, not the military surplus stuff I’ve been using. And a rug. Maybe some… I don’t know. Things. For the walls.”
“Things for the walls.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you. I’m enjoying the image of Macallister Heald shopping for home décor.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “We could go into town today. Billy’s carries bedding, and there’s that home goods place on the highway past Monroe.”
“We,” I repeated.
“Unless you’d rather go alone.”
I considered it. Going into Forestville together, arriving in the same truck, walking into stores side by side.
The town would see. The town probably already knew, thanks to the general Forestville information network, but seeing was different from knowing.
We’d be making a statement, especially since it was a Saturday, and it would be busy.
And I was okay with that. More okay than I had expected.
“Together,” I said. “Let’s go together.”
We took my truck and drove down after a slow, lazy breakfast on the porch.
As I drove, I watched the forest give way to the valley floor, the river appearing through the gaps, Forestville materializing ahead of us—the cluster of buildings along Main Street, the bridge, the church steeple, the town that had taken me in despite my best efforts to refuse.
Billy’s General Store was quiet on a Saturday morning.
We walked in together, and the bell over the door rang.
The owner—Jeff, according to Fraser, was the son or grandson of the Billy who’d started the store way back when—looked up from the counter and said, “Morning, Doc. Mac,” with the easy familiarity of a man who’d seen everything small-town life could produce and found none of it remarkable.
“We need bedding,” I said. “For a teenager.”
“Teenager, huh?” Jeff pulled a catalog from under the counter. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. Sixteen.”
“Sports? Music? Anything specific?”
I opened my mouth and realized I didn’t know what pattern my son would want on his sheets. The gap of it—five years of not knowing what Boden liked, what colors he’d choose, what posters he’d put on walls—hit me with a force that compressed my chest.
Arek’s hand found the small of my back. “Something simple,” he said. “Solid colors. Blues or grays.”
“Smart,” Jeff said. “I’ve got a nice set in navy. Good quality, not too fussy.”
“That’ll work,” I said. The tightness in my chest eased.
We bought the bedding. Navy sheets, a gray comforter, and two pillows.
At Arek’s suggestion, we added a throw blanket—“Teenagers live under blankets, trust me”—and a bedside lamp that was better than the industrial one I’d installed.
At the home goods place on the highway, Arek steered me toward a rug, a set of towels, and a small bookshelf that would fit against the bedroom wall.
“He’ll need somewhere to put his stuff,” Arek said. “Books, guitar picks, whatever sixteen-year-olds collect. Give him surfaces, and he’ll fill them. That’s how they claim space.”
I stood in the aisle of a home goods store, looking at the man beside me, and I felt, with a sudden, piercing clarity, the full scope of what I had.
A partner who knew how teenagers worked because he’d built a home for two of them.
Who understood that a bookshelf was an invitation.
Who was helping me prepare for my son with the same care and competence he brought to everything, and who was doing it not because I’d asked, but because Boden mattered to him because Boden mattered to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what? Picking out a bookshelf?”
“For knowing what he needs.”
“I don’t know what he needs, Mac. I know what kids in general need. You’ll figure out what Boden specifically needs. That’s your job.”
“Our job,” I said. “If you want it to be.”
Arek went still. His hand on the bookshelf, his eyes on mine, his face open and unguarded. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I want it to be.”
We loaded the truck. The drive back through Forestville was slow due to Saturday traffic, such as it was, plus a stop at Collins for groceries. We did that together as well, Arek greeting literally everyone while I stuck to curt nods.
But my hands were steady, and my breathing was normal.
The fluorescent lights buzzed and someone’s kid cried in aisle three, but the sensory input registered as it was supposed to—as information, not as a threat.
I felt the old circuitry try to fire—the hypervigilance, the exit mapping, the tactical hum—and I felt it, noted it, and let it pass the way Sarah had taught me.
It turned out the brain could learn, through practice and patience and the stubborn refusal to stop trying, to tell the difference between danger and a grocery store.
I dropped Arek off at his house, saying goodbye with a lingering kiss, and then it was time to head back up my mountain.
Tomorrow, everything I’d been working toward—the therapy, the tools, the slow and terrifying process of becoming a person who could be relied on—would be tested by the one person whose opinion mattered most. My son, on my mountain, in my life.
Not a text or a phone call but a body in a room, a voice in the air, a sixteen-year-old who’d asked to spend his summer with a father he was still learning to trust.
I was fucking terrified, but I was ready.