Chapter 41
JACKSON
It took us only a few weeks to get everything sorted, but moving day's finally here.
It might seem fast to some people, but for us?
After everything we've been through, it feels like we've been waiting forever.
The apartment's not much—two bedrooms, one bath, third floor of an older building near the arena.
But it's ours, which makes it everything.
Chase helps me carry the last box up the stairs while Maya and Emma direct furniture placement with the authority of generals commanding troops.
Sofia's strapped to Emma's chest in a carrier, sleeping through the chaos like she's already mastered the art of tuning out family drama.
Ethan's "helping" by moving his toy trucks around the empty living room, making vrooming sounds that echo off the bare walls.
"Couch goes there," Maya says, pointing to the far wall. "No, wait. There. Actually..."
"Pick a spot before Chase's back gives out," I tell her, setting down my end of the couch.
She chews her lip, studying the space with narrowed eyes, then settles on the far wall under the window where afternoon light streams in. Chase and I maneuver it into place, grunting with the effort.
"Good?" Chase asks, breathing hard and wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Perfect."
We spend the next hour unpacking essentials.
Bed frame, kitchen stuff, clothes that somehow multiplied during the move.
Emma makes herself useful by organizing the bathroom, while Maya tackles the kitchen.
I assemble furniture with an Allen wrench and questionable instructions, trying not to break anything or lose essential screws.
By late afternoon, the place looks almost livable, boxes stacked everywhere, but the important furniture is in place, and the rooms are starting to feel less like empty shells.
"You two sure you don't want help unpacking the rest?" Emma asks, bouncing to keep Sofia asleep.
"We've got it," Maya says, closing a cabinet door. "You should get home before Sofia needs to eat again."
Emma looks around the apartment with wet eyes. "Look at you two with your own place."
"About time, right?"
"Definitely about time." She hugs me tight, Sofia squished between us. "I'm proud of you. Both of you."
"Thanks for letting us crash for so long."
"Anytime. Literally. If this doesn't work out, which it will, you're always welcome back."
"It's going to work out," Maya says firmly, like saying it out loud makes it true.
Emma hugs her next, whispering something I can't hear that makes Maya's eyes go bright. They've come so far from the day Emma found out about us, from the silence and hurt that followed.
Chase claps me on the shoulder with enough force to make me stumble. "Good luck, man. Call if you need anything."
"Will do."
Ethan demands goodbye hugs from his position on the floor, so I scoop him up, and he wraps sticky hands around my neck. "Be good for Mom and Dad, okay?"
"Okay, Uncle Jack." He pats my face with those chubby hands. "Bye bye."
I kiss Sofia's tiny head where she's still sleeping against Emma, breathing in that baby smell. "See you soon, baby girl."
They leave with promises to come back for dinner next week. The door closes behind them, and suddenly it's just Maya and me in our apartment, the silence almost shocking after hours of noise.
Our space. Our home.
Maya looks at me and grins, something wild and delighted in her expression. "We're alone."
"Completely alone."
"No, Emma. No, Chase. No baby monitors or toddlers or judgmental cats watching our every move."
"Just us."
She crosses to me and slides her arms around my neck, pressing close. "What should we do with all this privacy?"
"I have some ideas."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I kiss her, backing her toward the bedroom while my hands find the hem of her shirt.
We navigate around boxes, laughing when she trips over one, and I have to catch her before we both go down.
The bedroom's barely set up. There's a bed frame assembled, a mattress on top, and sheets somewhere in a box we haven't found yet.
"Good enough," Maya says, pulling her shirt over her head.
I help her with the rest. Jeans, bra, underwear. Until she's bare except for the pendant, she climbs onto the mattress and looks back at me over her shoulder.
"You're a bit overdressed, Ice Capades."
I strip fast, nearly falling over trying to get my jeans off, and join her on the bed.
It's different here. No thin walls, no risk of Emma walking in or Ethan asking innocent questions, no need to be quiet or quick or careful.
We can do whatever we want, take as long as we want, and be as loud as we want.
The freedom of it hits me hard.
"Wait," I say, remembering something. "Stay there."
I dig through a nearby box until I find what I'm looking for. My Wolves jersey, number twenty-five, the one I wore as captain before I lost the C. The fabric's worn soft from years of wear, familiar in my hands.
"Put this on," I tell Maya.
She raises an eyebrow but takes it, pulling it over her head. The jersey's still huge on her, the hem hitting mid-thigh, shoulders drooping off her frame. My number is across her back, my name above it in bold letters.
"Fuck," I breathe, arousal spiking hard.
"You really do like me in your jersey, don't you?"
"Get on the bed. Now."
She laughs, climbing back onto the mattress with exaggerated slowness. The jersey rides up as she moves, showing glimpses of skin.
I crawl over her and cage her in with my arms, drinking in the sight. "You're wearing my number."
"I am."
"In our apartment."
"Our apartment," she agrees, hands sliding up my chest.
"This is ours. Just ours."
"Just ours."
I kiss her hard, hands sliding under the jersey. She arches into me, making needy sounds that go straight to my cock, because there's no reason to hold back now. No need to be quiet. No need to muffle anything.
I explore her body like it's the first time. Mapping every curve, every scar that tells a story, every place that makes her gasp or moan or dig her nails into my shoulders. She's slick and ready when I slide two fingers inside her, working her open while my thumb circles her clit.
"Jackson..." Her voice is loud, uninhibited.
"So fucking perfect," I tell her, adding a third finger and feeling her stretch around me. "So wet for me."
"I need you inside me."
"Not yet. I want to make you come first, want to watch you fall apart."
I work her with my fingers, curling them to hit that spot inside that makes her back bow off the mattress.
The jersey's ridden up around her waist, my number visible every time I look down at where my hand disappears inside her.
She's spread wide, taking everything I give her, chasing the orgasm with rolling hips.
Her breathing gets ragged, thighs trembling on either side of my hand. I press my thumb harder against her clit, fingers pumping faster, and lean down to suck one of her nipples into my mouth through the jersey fabric.
When she comes, she screams my name, actually screams it loud enough that the neighbors definitely hear. I don't give a fuck. I work her through it, fingers gentling but not stopping, drawing out every aftershock until she's shaking and pushing at my hand.
"Too much," she gasps.
"Never too much."
Before she's fully recovered, I'm positioning myself between her legs, cock aching and desperate to be inside her. I stroke myself a few times, spreading the precum that's already leaking from the tip.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Always."
I push inside slowly, watching her face as I fill her inch by inch. She's tight and hot and perfect, still sensitive from the orgasm. The way she clenches around me makes my vision blur.
"Fuck," I groan when I'm buried to the hilt. "Maya..."
"Move. Please move."
I start with slow, deep thrusts, letting her adjust and savoring the drag of her walls against my cock. But she's having none of it, wrapping her legs around my waist and pulling me deeper, heels digging into my ass.
"Harder," she demands, nails scraping down my back.
I give her what she wants. Bracing my hands on either side of her head, I drive into her hard and fast, the bed frame creaking with every thrust. She's loud. Moaning and cursing and saying my name like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
I grab her hips, angle her exactly how I want her, and pound into her relentlessly. I glance at the jersey—my number shifting with every thrust—and something possessive and primal surges through me. She's mine. Completely, and utterly mine.
"Touch yourself," I tell her, my voice rough. "I want to feel you come on my cock."
She obeys, hand sliding between us to rub her clit while I keep fucking her. I watch her work herself, watch the pleasure build on her face, watch her get closer to the edge.
I change the angle, hitting deeper, and her eyes roll back. "Right there, don't stop, right there..."
"Not stopping," I promise, maintaining the exact angle and rhythm. "Never stopping."
She's close, I can feel it in the way she's tightening around me, in the way her breathing goes shallow and desperate. I lean down and capture her mouth in a bruising kiss, swallowing her moans.
"I love you," I say against her lips, fucking her deeper. "I love you so fucking much."
"I love you too," she gasps. "Jackson, I'm... I'm..."
She comes hard, clenching around me so tight I see stars.
Her whole body goes rigid, back arching off the bed, and the sounds she makes are pure pleasure.
I keep moving, chasing my own release, and when it hits, it's overwhelming.
I come inside her with a shout, hips jerking erratically, emptying everything I have while her body milks every last drop from me.
We collapse together, sweaty and breathing hard and boneless. Maya's still wearing the jersey, twisted around her waist now. I'm still inside her, not ready to pull out yet, not ready to lose the connection.
Eventually, I pull out, mourning the loss, and roll onto my back beside her. My arm goes around her shoulders automatically, pulling her close.
Maya turns her head and grins at me, flushed and satisfied. "Our apartment."
"Our apartment," I agree.
"We can be as loud as we want."
"Definitely doing that again. Multiple times."
"Good."
She curls against me, head on my chest, hand over my heart, where she can feel it still racing. She looks thoroughly fucked and happy, and something in my chest expands until it feels too big for my ribs.
This. This is what I wanted when I asked her to move in. Not just the sex, though that's incredible, but this moment after. The intimacy of lying together in our own space with no secrets, no shame, no fear of interruption or discovery.
"You okay?" Maya asks, tracing patterns on my chest.
"More than okay."
"What are you thinking about?"
I almost say it. Almost tell her I'm thinking about rings and proposals and forever, about how I want to spend the rest of my life doing exactly this. But I want to do it right. Plan it. Make it special.
"Just that I love you," I say instead.
"I love you too."
She yawns, snuggles closer. Within minutes, she's asleep, breathing deep and even against my chest, trusting and relaxed.
I stay awake, staring at the ceiling of our apartment, planning.
I'm going to propose. Soon. Not here at the apartment, somewhere meaningful. Somewhere that means something to both of us, somewhere that represents what we've survived and built together.
The ice rink in Emma's backyard, maybe, where I taught her to skate, where we had that moment before everything exploded. Or the hospital where she saved Sofia and found herself again.
I don't know yet. But I know it's happening.
Because Maya Rivera is it for me. The person I want to wake up to every morning, fall asleep with every night, and build a life with through good days and bad ones.
She survived hell and came out stronger, faced her rapist in court and won, went back to nursing and saved lives, loved me when I didn't deserve it, and stayed when things got hard and messy.
She's everything.
And I'm going to marry her.