Chapter 5
Five
NOW | JAX
“Fucking door,” I curse, shouldering it open because keys are for people with patience. The wood groans, the frame rattles, the deadbolt sticks like it’s considering whether to fight me—but it finally jerks open.
I don't let people see this apartment. Because if they did, they’d ask why I live like this. Simple solution: I don’t let them up here. The truth would send them running anyway: nice things are a waste around me.
I live above the bar for two reasons. One: the walls are thick enough to swallow the sound of things breaking. And I break a lot. Two: it keeps me close enough to smell the trouble downstairs.
I flick my keys at the counter, and they clatter to the floor, skidding across the tile like they’re trying to make a break for it.
Downstairs, I keep the power on a leash, but up here, it breathes.
This is the only place I stop pretending I’m the one in control.
I should pick the keys up, but why bother?
My shoulders ache. My jaw aches. My goddamn teeth ache, which is how I know the moon’s almost full again. It’s a pressure under the bone—an itch behind the ribs whispering: Look up. Let it go. Give in. Not tonight.
I rake a hand through my hair and hit the tiny bathroom, cranking the shower on.
Steam fills the room, the cheap water heater struggling.
Sleep. That’s all I need. Except I can’t remember the last time I actually slept, not the half-conscious passing out, I mean real sleep.
The kind where you shut down completely, instead of lying there feeling like you’re about to jump out of your own skin.
Working until after three doesn’t help, but it’s not the bar keeping me awake.
It’s the fucking moon. The fucking tar. It’s been getting worse and I’m losing my grip instead of finding it.
Years of this shit, and somehow I’m weaker now than when it started.
It’s a fucking hunger that claws at my insides, a thirst for blood that sits in the back of my throat.
A need to feel something break, to hear a scream, to watch the light go out of someone’s eyes.
It’s a snarling thing inside me, and it’s starting to forget who’s in charge.
From the bathroom, I hear a glass rattling in the kitchen, followed by the scrape of an empty bottle rolling toward the counter’s edge. I don’t need to see it. I flick my fingers and the sound stops, the sudden silence telling me it’s frozen mid-roll.
“Not tonight,” I warn the magic, but the power doesn’t give a shit.
I exhale, a countdown ticking in my head. Two more nights and—
I hear a heavy thump coming from my bedroom. Of course he’s on it again. The mirror fogs over, blurring my reflection as I peel off my clothes. Probably for the best. It’s easier to fight the call of the Tar Pit when you can’t see your own eyes staring back, telling you you’re already losing.
I step under the water and the heat slides down my spine.
My muscles twitch with memories I don’t want—her leg sliding between mine, her mouth warm at my neck, those breathy sounds she makes when she’s about to come for me.
I’m craving her which means I can’t have her.
And the hardest part is, I know I could.
She’s never been afraid of what I am. She leans into it, every damn time.
I shouldn’t think about her, not when I’m like this, but my hand is already sliding lower, the other braced against the tile.
Water pounds the back of my neck and my grip tightens.
I picture her stretching in that window—the kind of silhouette only she can make look natural.
The memory hits too fast, and my cock jerks in my hand—too eager, too ready.
I lean my forehead against the cold tile and the fantasy shifts.
She’s dancing, but she’s naked. Nothing but those fucking pointe shoes.
My hand starts moving, a slow, tight stroke as the image forms. She spins, one leg extended high in the air, giving me a perfect, fleeting display of both holes.
I grip myself harder. She spins again, faster this time, until she stops abruptly, staring right at me through the mirror. I’m behind her in a second.
My hand pumps faster. My palm glides over her skin in my mind, tracing the lines of her legs, testing the tight heat of her ass with my thumb before I slide a finger into her cunt, feeling how wet she already is.
Then two. I want to feel every inch of her, to claim every entrance with my fingers before I replace them with my cock, shoving into her ass first, making her scream, then her cunt, fucking her against the cold mirror until she’s a mess of sweat and cum and we’re both stuck to the glass.
My strokes become frantic, my thumb smearing precum over the head, the fantasy so vivid I can almost feel her heat clamping around me.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
The whole apartment starts to hum. Not metaphorically. Not in my head. It fucking hums. A bottle shakes somewhere. The pipes vibrate. The shower head sputters like the water’s reacting to me, not the other way around.
“Not now,” I breathe, squeezing my eyes shut. “Just—let me—”
I grab my dick and give it another hard stroke. The lights flicker and I stop mid-breath, mid-movement. The hum gets louder, crawling up the walls, vibrating through the cracked tile. A thin, perfect line splits down the mirror with a soft, chilling tick.
“Goddammit.”
My heart’s a jackhammer against my ribs. I try to breathe, to get a fucking grip, but the tile is literally vibrating under my hand. The magic’s been getting worse with every moon, and now it’s trying to tear the place apart just because I got a fucking hard-on. I can’t even jerk off in peace.
The need is still there, a hot, frustrated ache in my gut, but the shower head is groaning like it’s about to rip itself out of the wall. I can’t risk it, or I’ll end up bringing the whole damn building down. I slam the water off.
For one second, there’s only my heartbeat, my ragged breath, and the faint rumble of the city outside.
Then from the bedroom comes a thump, followed by a low, worried whine.
Of course, the dog felt it. Felt the power spike.
Felt me losing my shit. “Great,” I groan, running a hand through my wet hair.
“Scared the shit out of the only thing in this world that likes me.”
The St. Bernard whines again—a wounded, offended sound, like he can’t believe I’d risk bringing the ceiling down instead of simply taking him for a walk like a normal person.
I walk out of the bathroom, naked, dripping water on the floor. The dog sits upright on my bed like a furry mountain that grew eyes. His giant head tilts, and I swear the judgment is palpable.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I warn him.
He thumps his tail once, and I can't tell if it's mockery or pity.
I hear the crack in the mirror continue to crawl wider behind me.
Scotch sprawls across the mattress. A massive heap of fur and drool, stretched diagonally so there isn’t a single inch left for me.
“Move,” I say.
He blinks at me.
“Seriously. I’m not in the mood.”
He sighs and shifts exactly one inch to the right.
One. Fucking. Inch.
“Wow,” I mutter. “Generous.”
He drops his heavy head right onto my pillow, claiming it with a finality that says he won this round. I wedge myself onto the sliver of mattress the bastard left me. He immediately presses his bulk against me, trying to knock me off the bed. “Should’ve gotten a cat,” I groan.
I settle on my back, staring at the ceiling. The ache in my balls hasn’t faded; if anything, it’s settled deeper. I glance at the window and my whole body locks up.
Scotch senses it, because the damn dog senses everything. He lifts his head and whines.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I lie.
He stares at me like I’m an idiot. I let out a breath and drop a hand on his fur, the movement more for me than for him. “Don't make a thing out of it,” I grumble.
He nudges my ribs with a wet nose, a slobbery demand for comfort. “Yeah, yeah.”
Moonlight comes through the curtains and my fingers twitch, and before I can even think about closing my eyes, Scotch launches himself off the bed in a floor-shaking thud and runs to the door—panting, pacing, his nails clicking fast against the wood.
“What now?”
The hum returns beneath the floorboards and Scotch barks anxiously.
“How about a walk?”
He starts pacing harder.
“Alright, alright,” I say, pulling on jeans and jamming my feet into my boots. “Calm your ass down.”
Winter in Tar City doesn’t fuck around, and that’s fine by me. It keeps the dipshits indoors.
“Stay close,” I tell him, snapping the leash into place. “Not chasing you all over the ice tonight.”
Scotch yanks the leash, then plants his giant paws, nose to the ground, sniffing like he’s trying to read the whole damn city from a single patch of frozen dirt.
I tug back. “Come on, let’s go. Walk. That’s the deal, remember?
” I start walking but he’s a hundred and fifty pounds of pure stubbornness.
He digs his paws in, refusing to budge. I stop and look back at him.
He’s still got his nose buried in the snow, completely oblivious.
The whole point of this was to move, to burn off this energy, not stand here and freeze my ass off while he investigates one square foot of sidewalk.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter, giving the leash another sharp tug. “You’re the one who wanted out here. Now you’re gonna just stand there? Move your ass.”
He lifts his head, tongue lolling out, covered in snow, and gives me a look that says, You don’t appreciate the finer things.
“Come on,” I grunt. “Either piss or move.”
He drags me halfway across the street and I plant my feet. I feel her before I look up, before she steps into the streetlight, before her eyes meet mine across the empty street.