Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gregor had been a warrior for three hundred and fifty years, and in all that time, he had never been as defenseless as he was right now.
Fergal’s fingers were inside him—three of them, slick and gentle—and every instinct Gregor possessed was at war with itself.
The fighter wanted to take control, to flip their positions, to reassert the dominance that had defined every intimate encounter he’d ever had.
The commander wanted to assess the tactical situation, map the variables, and maintain situational awareness.
The man who had just heard the words “I love you” returned with a certainty that had rewritten the architecture of his soul wanted to surrender.
The man won.
He let go. Decades of control didn’t evaporate in a single breath, but he managed in stages, like a fist slowly uncurling.
Fergal’s free hand rested on his thigh, warm and steady, and through the bond, a constant stream of love and reassurance and desire poured into Gregor like sunlight through an open window.
“There you are,” Fergal murmured, and the echo of the words made something behind Gregor’s sternum dissolve.
His body opened. The tension that had been fighting the intrusion eased, muscles relaxing around Fergal’s fingers, and the sensation shifted from uncomfortable to something warmer, deeper, a pleasure that built from the inside out.
When Fergal curled his fingers and found the spot Gregor had only ever touched in others, the sound that tore from his throat was something he would’ve been embarrassed about under any other circumstances.
“Oh god,” Fergal breathed, and through the bond, Gregor felt a bolt of pure want so intense it nearly bucked his hips off the bed. “The sound you just made. Make it again.”
“I don’t… I can’t just…” Fergal’s fingers curled again, and Gregor made the sound again, louder, his back arching, his hands twisting in the sheets. “Fuck.”
“There it is.” The smile in Fergal’s voice was audible.
His Fergal. Sharp-tongued and brilliant and impossibly brave, and he was smiling while taking Gregor apart with three fingers.
Fergal withdrew his fingers slowly, and the absence left Gregor feeling hollow in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
He heard the slick sound of more lubricant being applied, felt the mattress shift as Fergal positioned himself, and then the blunt, warm pressure of Fergal’s cock against him, and every thought in his head went quiet.
“Look at me,” Fergal said.
Gregor opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed.
Fergal was above him, braced on one arm, his dark hair falling around his face, his brown eyes holding an expression that was equal parts love and concentration and a wonder so naked it made Gregor’s chest ache.
He looked young and ancient simultaneously—the twenty-six-year-old king and the boy who’d cited the Code to his father and the man who’d walked into a trap to save Gregor’s life, all of them present in this single, suspended moment.
“I love you,” Fergal said. “And I’ve got you.”
He pushed in.
Slowly. So slowly that Gregor could feel every fraction of an inch, the stretch and the burn and the fullness of being entered by the man he loved.
It was overwhelming—not just the physical sensation, though that alone was staggering, but the emotional reality of what was happening.
He was letting someone inside him. Inside his body, yes, but also inside his defenses, his armor, the carefully maintained perimeter that had kept the world at a safe distance for three and a half centuries.
It hurt. He’d expected that—he’d been on the other side often enough to understand the mechanics.
But the hurt was temporary, a sharp edge that softened as his body adjusted, as the muscles that had spent decades in a state of metaphorical clenching learned to relax around something that wasn’t a threat.
Fergal held still once he was fully seated, his arm trembling with the effort of restraint, his breathing ragged.
“You can move,” Gregor said. His voice was rougher than he’d ever heard it, scraped down to something essential and unvarnished.
“Are you—”
“Move, baby boy.”
Fergal moved. The first stroke was careful—a slow withdrawal and return that tested the angle, the depth, the response. The sensation rippled through Gregor in a wave that started at the base of his spine and radiated outward, pleasure blooming in places he hadn’t known could feel like this.
The second stroke was deeper, more confident, and it found the spot Fergal’s fingers had discovered, and Gregor’s vision whited out for a fraction of a second.
His hands flew to Fergal’s shoulders, gripping hard enough to leave bruises, and the cry that left him was nothing like any sound he’d made in three hundred and fifty years of living.
“There,” Fergal breathed, his hips finding the angle and committing to it with fierce precision. “Right there.”
Gregor couldn’t respond with words. His body was doing the talking now—hips rising to meet each thrust, legs wrapping around Fergal’s waist to pull him deeper, back arching off the mattress as the pleasure built in waves that grew higher and closer together.
Every stroke sent a cascade of sensation through the bond, and Fergal was feeling it too—Gregor could sense his mate’s pleasure layered over his own, the doubled feedback creating an almost unbearable intensity.
Fergal shifted his weight and reached for Gregor’s hand. Their fingers laced together against the pillow, and the contact grounded Gregor even as the rest of him flew apart.
“I love you,” Fergal said again, and each word was punctuated by a thrust that drove Gregor closer to an edge he’d never approached from this side. “I love you, Gregor.”
“I love you.” The words came out broken, shattered by sensation, but they came out freely.
No locks. No deadbolts. No careful calculation about whether speaking them would constitute a lie.
Just the truth, raw and simple and repeated like a heartbeat.
“I love you. I love you. Gods, baby boy, I love you…”
Fergal’s rhythm faltered, his composure cracking as the pleasure overwhelmed his control.
His thrusts became harder, deeper, less measured, and Gregor met every one with a responsiveness that astonished him.
This body, the weapon he’d maintained for centuries, was capable of this.
Of softness. Of surrender. Of pleasure so intense it was rewriting his understanding of what intimacy could be.
The climax built like a tide, rolling in from a distance with the inexorable force of something that could not be stopped or managed or contained.
Fergal’s body was so connected to his that he could feel his mate’s pleasure reaching that same edge.
Their pleasure was syncing the way their heartbeats had synced on the first night they’d shared a bed.
“Together,” Fergal gasped, his hand crushing Gregor’s. “I want… Gregor, I want us to—”
“Yes.”
Fergal’s hand wrapped around Gregor’s cock—hard, aching, neglected until now—and stroked in time with his thrusts, and the dual sensation shattered the last of Gregor’s resistance.
The orgasm crashed through him with a force that bent his spine and tore a sound from deep in his chest, the sound of a man being broken open and finding, at the center of himself, not the darkness he’d always feared but light.
He felt Fergal follow, his hips stuttering, followed by a warm flooding inside him unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
Their pleasure cascaded back and forth between them in waves that amplified with each pass until the boundary between them dissolved entirely and Gregor couldn’t tell where his sensation ended and Fergal’s began.
Fergal collapsed against him, breathing hard, his face pressed into Gregor’s neck. The weight of him was warm and real and grounding. His cock softened inside Gregor, the intimate connection lingering, and neither of them moved to separate.
“Stay,” Gregor murmured, his arms wrapping around Fergal’s back, holding him close. “Don’t move yet.”
“Wasn’t planning to.” Fergal’s words were muffled against his skin. “Pretty sure my legs don’t work anymore.”
The laugh that rumbled through Gregor’s chest surprised them both. It was the second real laugh Fergal had pulled from him today, and it felt like another door opening, one that led somewhere bright and unexplored.
“Are you okay?” Fergal lifted his head, searching Gregor’s face with those sharp brown eyes that missed nothing.
“That was everything.” Gregor brushed a strand of dark hair from Fergal’s forehead, tucking it behind his ear. The gesture was tender in a way that would’ve terrified him a week ago. Now it felt as natural as breathing. “You were everything.”
Fergal’s smile—wet-eyed, radiant, trembling at the edges—was worth every wall Gregor had ever built and every wall he’d torn down.
Eventually, Fergal slid free and rolled to the side. The loss of connection drew a sad sigh from Gregor. Fergal disappeared to the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth and an expression of tender practicality that Gregor recognized as his own aftercare routine reflected back at him.
“My turn,” Fergal said, cleaning Gregor with the same careful attention Gregor had always shown him. Thorough. Gentle. Unhurried. “You’ve taken care of me for months. Tonight, I take care of you.”
Gregor let himself be tended to. Let Fergal clean him and pull the covers up and tuck himself against Gregor’s side in their familiar position—head on shoulder, arm across waist, legs intertwined. The mate bond hummed between them, clear and open, carrying nothing but warmth.
“No more locked doors?” Fergal murmured against his collarbone.
“No more locked doors.”
“No more deadbolts?”
“Demolished.”
“No more ‘you are everything’ when what you mean is ‘I love you?’”
Gregor pressed his lips to Fergal’s hair and breathed him in—woodsmoke and warmth and home. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Mmm.” Fergal’s arm tightened around his waist, his body softening into the boneless relaxation of a man who was thoroughly, comprehensively satisfied. “Keep saying it.”
“I love you, baby boy. I love you. I will say it every day, multiple times a day, until you’re so sick of hearing it that you threaten me with legal action.”
“I’m a lawyer. I’d win.”
“You always win.”
“Damn right I do.”
Fergal’s breathing slowed, deepened, his body growing heavier against Gregor’s side as sleep pulled him under. Gregor held him and listened to the breathing, to the heartbeat, to the quiet sounds of the cabin settling around them.
There were no ghosts in this room tonight.
No memories of a body carried through a dark corridor.
No echo of a wet crack against a nightstand.
No phantom weight of a secret held too long.
The ghosts had been released—spoken aloud, examined in the light, and found to be shadows rather than monsters.
They would return, probably. Grief and guilt didn’t vanish overnight.
But they would never again have the power to lock a door between Gregor and the man sleeping in his arms.
The doors were open. The deadbolts were demolished. And in a small cabin, the most disciplined man alive slept peacefully in the arms of the man he loved, and the mate bond between them sang a song that had been waiting over a hundred years to be heard.