Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Scottie
Operation: Shut the Door, Drop the Guard
Jason fumbles blindly for the deadbolt behind me, but my hands get there first. I grab the front of his shirt and drag him down into me like I’ve been holding my breath for eight miserable weeks and finally, finally get to exhale.
Even when we texted.
Even when we called.
Even during the late nights when the talking got dirty, and the words turned into breathy gasps and whispered moans—I still missed him.
Nothing we said, nothing we did while miles apart, ever came close to touching this.
Touching him.
He grunts low in his throat when I crash into him, one hand slamming to the door beside my head, the other catching my hip and yanking me up against him so hard I feel the heat of him punch through every layer of clothing.
It slides into my bones, leaves me shaking with it, and something wild snaps loose inside me.
“We have to talk,” I rasp, trying to scrape together a shred of clarity.
“Later.” His voice is rough and final, the word skimming across my skin. “We’ll talk later. Right now, I need your mouth.”
God, he’s right. I need his mouth, his hands, his body . . . and that cock I’ve been salivating over since the second I left.
His tie dangles, half-forgotten, around his neck. I grab it and yank him down, crashing my mouth into his without ceremony. Jason meets me halfway, teeth knocking, breaths tangling, the kiss rough and hot and so hungry it feels less like seduction and more like survival.
His hands slip under my jacket, bunching it awkwardly between us, but neither of us slows down enough to care. I shove it off my shoulders, hear it hit the floor behind me, and attack the buttons of his shirt like they personally insulted me.
He groans into my mouth when I pop the first one, a deep, guttural sound that vibrates through my whole body.
I scrape my nails down his chest, feeling the way his muscles jump beneath my touch.
His hands aren’t idle either—he drags them down my back, over my ribs, curving around my hips with a rough reverence that makes my knees wobble.
My head bumps the door as he kisses his way down my throat, open-mouthed and greedy. Every scrape of his teeth sends another bolt of heat straight between my legs. I gasp, threading my fingers into his damp curls and tugging just enough to make him growl low in his chest.
He retaliates by sliding one thigh between mine, lifting until I’m grinding against him without even realizing it.
“Fuck,” I pant, half-laughing at how fast I’m falling apart. “We have to?—”
“Later,” Jason mutters against my collarbone, fingers already tugging at the hem of my top. “We’ll talk later. I swear, babe.”
He peels my shirt up and over my head in one quick, rough motion, leaving me in nothing but my bra and jeans. The air hits my skin, and his gaze drops like he’s been starved for this, too. For a second, we just stare at each other, breathing hard, hanging by a thread.
Then he surges forward, mouth crashing back onto mine, hands everywhere, shameless and hungry. His fingers skim under the lace of my bra, thumb brushing over my nipple until I arch into him with a needy, broken sound.
I fumble with the buttons of his shirt, getting enough open to shove it down his arms. He shrugs it off blindly, too focused on dragging his mouth along my neck, finding the spot just below my ear that turns my bones into liquid.
The cool surface of the door barely registers when he presses me back harder, hands roaming, mapping every curve he can reach. I hook a leg around him, grinding down against the hard line of him until we’re both panting.
His hand finds the button of my jeans, popping it open with a roughness that has me gasping again. I shove at the denim, kicking it down my legs as he fumbles with his belt, both frantic and clumsy in our urgency.
His pants hit the floor with a heavy thud, and suddenly, there’s nothing between us but heat, skin, and the frantic slide of want.
Jason freezes. His forehead drops to mine, chest heaving.
“Fuck, condom,” he mutters, already reaching blindly for the back pocket of his pants.
Something hot and stupidly sweet rushes through me, the way he’s still trying to think straight even when we’re this far gone. I catch his wrist, stopping him.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, brushing my mouth against his. “Blood work’s done a couple of months ago, no STDs. I’m on the shot. How about you?”
I’m sure he goes still, eyes boring into mine like he’s double-checking. My heart stumbles in my chest at the naked want written all over his face.
“Are you sure?” His voice sounds wrecked. “I can show you my last physical, but I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
I nod, dragging my nails up the nape of his neck. “I want you. I want all of you.”
For a second, he just stares at me like I handed him the entire fucking world.
Then Jason lifts me off the ground with a rough growl, kicking the discarded denim and sneakers out of the way as he braces me against the door.
Talking could wait.
Talking can always wait.
This?
This couldn’t.
He pins me higher against the door. I lock my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, and his mouth crashes into mine again—desperate, open, messy—like he’s trying to drink me down all at once.
“You’re mine,” he rasps against my mouth, voice raw and wrecked and so goddamn full of everything I can’t say yet. “Always fucking mine, Crawford.”
I can’t answer. I can only nod, biting my lip to keep from saying too much, from falling too hard, too fast, when I’m already free-falling without a parachute.
His hands slip under my thighs, angling me just right, and then he’s there—thick, hot, sliding against me in a way that makes every nerve-ending spark to life.
I tilt my hips, shameless, chasing the friction, and he hisses through his teeth, pressing his forehead to mine like he’s barely holding it together.
“Please,” I whisper, the word breaking free without permission.
Jason doesn’t make me beg twice.
With one hard thrust, he pushes into me, filling me completely, stealing the air from my lungs and the ground from under my feet in a single, shattering second.
We move together in a rough, frantic rhythm, every snap of his hips slamming me against the door. Each desperate grind drags a broken sound from deep inside my chest. My nails dig into his shoulders, clutching him like he’s the only thing keeping me tethered, the only thing keeping me whole.
It’s not careful.
It’s not pretty.
It’s necessary.
It’s every kiss we didn’t have, every call that ended with more longing than relief, every filthy late-night text that didn’t come close to touching this. It’s everything we pretended we could live without—and failed.
Jason presses his mouth to the hollow of my throat, breathing me in like he’s trying to memorize me from the inside out. His breath skims hot across my skin, my name falling from his lips in a rasp that’s both a prayer and a curse.
I slide a hand up into his hair, tugging him closer, crashing my mouth to his with all the things I don’t know how to say yet. All the apologies, the promises, the brutal fears we’ll have to deal with later.
Later, we can have the words.
Right now, all I want is him.
Us.
Here.
His pace stutters when I clench around him, my body trembling on the edge, every nerve stretched thin and sparking. He drops his forehead to my shoulder, a low, guttural curse breaking against my skin as he thrusts harder, deeper, chasing the inevitable.
“Touch yourself,” Jason orders, voice rough and barely holding on.
My hand slides between us, fingers finding the slick, aching place where I need him most. I rub tight, desperate circles, hips rocking to meet each thrust as heat coils low and brutal inside me.
“Come for me, Scottie,” he growls, his voice cracking beautifully on my name. “Let go, baby. I’ve got you.”
And I do.
I shatter around him with a sob, body clenching tight, pleasure tearing through me so hard it leaves me gasping, mindless, wrecked in the best way. I don’t know where I end, and he begins—just that I never want it to stop.
Jason groans, driving into me once, twice more before he follows with a rough, broken sound, his body seizing, trembling, emptying into me like he’s been holding it back for years.
For a long moment, we stay there, crushed together against the door, panting and shaking, clinging like idiots who don’t know how to let go even if they tried.
Slowly, Jason shifts, his hands sliding down to cradle my thighs more gently as if remembering I’m something precious after how desperate we just were.
He presses a kiss to my shoulder, then another softer kiss to the corner of my mouth—quiet, reverent, like he’s apologizing for every second we lost.
“You good?” he whispers, brushing his nose against mine.
I nod, blinking up at him, throat too raw for real words. Everything in me feels stretched thin like I’m still caught between the aftershocks of what just happened and the dizzy wonder that he’s actually here.
Jason smiles—that lazy, crooked smile that wrecked me the first time I ever saw it and clearly hasn’t lost a single ounce of its power—and leans his forehead against mine.
“We’ll talk later,” he murmurs, voice warm and low, a teasing rasp threaded through the tenderness. “First, I’m feeding you, baby. You’re not walking after what we just did.”
“Later,” I whisper, smiling so hard it aches.
He presses a kiss to my forehead, another to the tip of my nose, and then he wraps me up in his arms like he has no plans to let go—like we finally stopped pretending we could live without this.
Without us.