Chapter 9 #2
He adjusted. The rhythm matched. His thumb dragged across the slick at my tip, and a sound came out of me I hadn’t given anyone in a long time. Not a stage sound. Not a sound I’d practiced. The real one.
“God. Jett.”
“You’re doing it.”
“I’m doing it.”
“You’re doing it perfect.”
His forehead pressed against mine. His breath came in shorter pieces.
I worked him at his own pace, slow, then a little less slow, watching his face for everything he wasn’t saying.
The way his mouth went open when I twisted my wrist a certain way.
The way his eyes squeezed shut and then opened again found me, like he was making sure I hadn’t gone anywhere.
I’d never spent this much time watching a face. I’d been the one doing things. The one pacing the room. The one in charge of the moment. This was different. This was sharing the room. Trading the power back and forth in the space between our hands.
“I’ve thought about this,” he breathed. “For weeks. Since the gym.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t do my Tuesday workouts. Kept losing the count.”
I laughed, and the sound broke into something else when he tightened his grip. My hips jerked forward into his hand without my permission.
“Tell me what you need.” His voice came against my ear.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“That.”
“Yes. God yes.”
We worked each other, slow building to faster and desperate, the bottle of lube tipped over somewhere on the duvet leaking onto the cotton, neither of us cared.
The barbells caught the amber light every time he breathed in.
His thumb dragged across my hip bone in a circle that stopped being conscious.
He came first. He was trying to hold off, the way he held off on everything until he had permission, but my mouth was at his throat and I was murmuring his name and his hand had locked over mine on his cock and his whole body went rigid against me.
“Jett. I can’t. I’m.”
“Yeah, you are. Let me have it.”
He shook apart in my hand, quiet, his face buried in my neck, his breath broken open. Hot wet spilled over my fingers. He gasped against my collarbone and then laughed. A small wrecked thing. Embarrassment and relief in the same exhale.
“God, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s been…”
“Don’t apologize for that. Ever.”
He nodded into my shoulder. His hand was still on me, slack now, his palm warm and slow.
“Give me a second.” His voice cracked. “Then I’m finishing what I started.”
“Take your time.”
He took his time. Caught his breath. Found my mouth and kissed me as if he was thanking me. His hand tightened around me again, and he went back to work.
He’d learned in the last few minutes more than most guys learned in a year.
The rhythm. The angle. The quiet, steady attention he brought to everything else now turned on me, and I’d underestimated how much that would matter.
The pressure of his palm. The way he watched my face for adjustments.
The way he kept pace when my hips lifted up off the mattress.
“Look at me.” His voice quiet, certain. “Stay here.”
I looked at him.
Hazel eyes gone gold in the amber light. Mouth pink and bitten. Hair a wreck. The careful Ellis from the restaurants and the gym was gone. The new one was someone I’d brought out in the last hour.
I came with his hand on me and his eyes on mine and his name in pieces in my mouth. The release rolled through me in a way I hadn’t expected, deeper than the choreography would have predicted, and a stupid thing happened in my chest I didn’t have a vocabulary for yet.
He pressed his forehead to mine while I caught my breath. Didn’t move his hand until I had to ease him off. He kissed me. Soft. The kiss of someone who had no plan to leave.
We lay there a while. Sticky and tangled and breathing hard. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and used it to clean up, methodical the way he was methodical about everything, even this. He tossed it onto the floor on his side of the bed.
His side.
The phrase landed in my head before I could stop it.
He pulled the blanket over us. His arm draped across my stomach. His head found the hollow of my shoulder.
“Can I stay?”
The words that usually sent me reaching for an excuse. Early morning. Work stuff. Better if you don’t.
“I was hoping you would.”
He lifted his head to look at me. Checking if I meant it. I met his gaze and held it, letting him search for whatever he needed to find.
“Okay.” A slow smile. The careful one cracking wide. “Okay.”
He settled back against my chest. I reached for my phone to set an alarm, then changed my mind and put it face down on the nightstand.
Tomorrow could wait.
His breathing evened out first. Deep and slow against my chest, his body going heavy and warm with sleep. I listened to it, this new sound in my apartment, and waited for the panic to start. The pull to put distance between us.
It didn’t come.
Something quieter settled in its place. Something I didn’t want to look at too closely, in case looking broke it.
The fairy lights flickered once, casting Ellis’ sleeping face in amber. I pressed my lips to his hair and breathed in cedar, sweat, and him.
My eyes closed.
For the first time in years, I fell asleep with someone in my bed and slept through the night.
Gray morning light crept through the curtains.
I opened my eyes and for a second, disorientation. Someone in my bed. Weight against my side, breath on my shoulder, an arm draped across my stomach.
The panic should have arrived then. Mornings always stripped the warmth off everything.
Ellis shifted in his sleep, pressing closer. His hair stood at three different angles. A crease from the pillowcase marked his cheek. The sheet had slipped to his waist, and in the morning light, his tattoo sleeve looked almost silver.
Not panic, though. No usual itch to check my phone or fake an early alarm or start building distance.
Warmth instead.
I wanted him here. Wanted to wake up like this again. Wanted the coffee I’d make him, the sleepy conversation, and the absurd domesticity of a shared morning.
A month ago, this would have unraveled me. I’d have texted Calliope, driven to the gym to sweat out the feeling until it burned off.
I stayed still. Let the moment exist. Let his weight against me be enough.
Ellis stirred. Eyes opening slow, unfocused, finding mine.
“Morning.” His voice was gravel and sleep.
“Morning.”
“What time is it?”
“Who cares.”
He smiled. Not the careful one. The real one, wide and unguarded, the one that crinkled his eyes and turned his whole face into something I wanted to keep.
“Who cares,” he repeated, settling back against my chest. “I like that.”
My hand found his hair, fingers sliding through it. He made a low sound, somewhere between a hum and a sigh, and my chest squeezed tight enough to bruise.
Trouble. The thing I’d spent years dodging. Someone close enough to leave a mark.
Ellis was already leaving marks. Had been since the gym.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I ignored it. Buzzed again. Ignored it again.
The third time, Ellis laughed against my chest. “Someone wants you.”
“They can wait.”
“What if it’s important?”
“Nothing’s more important than this.”
The words came out before I could catch them. Jett Reyes-Villanueva didn’t hand people that kind of ammunition.
Ellis went still. Then he lifted his head, those hazel eyes searching my face with an intensity that made me want to look away.
I didn’t look away.
“Jett Reyes-Villanueva.” My full name in his mouth. Soft and wondering. “Who are you?”
“Figuring it out.” I traced his jaw with my thumb. “Stick around, and maybe we’ll both find out.”
His hand covered mine on his face. “Deal.”
My phone buzzed a fourth time. I grabbed it, keeping one arm around Ellis. The Chaos Coven chat.
Calliope: GOOD MORNING! DID ANYONE HAVE A GOOD NIGHT LAST NIGHT? Asking for absolutely no reason.
Raven: She’s been staring at her phone since 7am waiting for updates.
Sierra: Leave him alone. He’ll tell us when he’s ready.
Calliope: I NEED TO KNOW IF GYM BOY STAYED OVER.
Raven: His name is Ellis.
Calliope: I NEED TO KNOW IF ELLIS STAYED OVER.
I grinned and typed back with one hand.
Jett: He’s still here.
The three dots appeared instantly. Then:
Calliope: AHHHHHHHHHHHH
Raven: Finally.
Sierra: I’m happy for you, Jett. Really.
I tilted the phone so Ellis could see the screen. He read it, and that wide smile came back.
“Your friends are terrifying.”
“You have no idea.” I locked the phone and tossed it aside. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“I make terrible eggs and decent coffee. Your call.”
“Both.” He stretched, long and unhurried, and something about watching him take up space in my bed, comfortable and unrushed, hit me somewhere between the ribs. “Both is good.”
I kissed him, morning breath and all, because I could. Because he was here and he wanted to be here, and so did I.
Then I rolled out of bed, pulled on sweats, and headed to the kitchen to make coffee for two.