Chapter 263: Every Corner

ARES’S POV

We didn't make it off the couch, and neither of us tried very hard to. Two phones stayed lit on the cushion between us, four unread messages about venues we hadn't opened. The lamp was on. The dog had gone back down, chin on somebody's shoe, done with the both of us.

An hour before that, there'd been a box in my hand and the floor under my knee. I'd seen this place for the first time that afternoon, at four. Nobody planned the rest of the evening.

Something happens to me on the nights when a big thing goes right, and it's not what anybody would guess. I go quiet. My father's the same, and I hate sharing that with him. Give me a disaster and I'll run the room. Give me a good outcome and I end up at a window. Ethan's known that about me since year two. He doesn't let me get there.

Ethan wasn't done.

He stayed inside me for another long minute, breathing against my neck, hands still gripping my hips like he wasn't ready to let go, the thick heat of him still filling me while the last pulses faded and I clenched down around him just to feel it.

When he finally eased out, the sudden emptiness made me shiver, slick and open and cooling in the air. I expected him to collapse back against the couch cushions. Instead he looked at me with that particular dark focus I'd learned to recognize years ago.

"I'm not finished with you," he said, voice low and rough.

I raised an eyebrow, still catching my breath. "You're not?"

Ethan leaned in, mouth brushing mine. "Not even close. I want to fuck you in every corner of this house before morning. Starting with our bed."

Heat went through me, sudden and low. I laughed under my breath, but it came out shaky. "Ambitious."

"You said yes," he murmured. "I'm taking that seriously."

He kissed me again — harder this time, deeper, the kind of kiss that promised exactly what he'd just said. I kissed him back just as fiercely, hands sliding up into his hair. We stayed like that for a moment on the couch, mouths moving, bodies still half-tangled and sticky. Then Ethan stood and pulled me up with him.

We didn't bother with clothes.

He walked me backward toward the stairs, never fully breaking the kiss. My shoulders hit the wall at the bottom of the staircase. Ethan pinned me there for a few long seconds, grinding against me, already half-hard again, the drag of his cock against mine sending a fresh jolt through me while his mouth trailed down my jaw to my throat. I tipped my head back and let him, fingers digging into his shoulders.

"Upstairs," he said against my skin.

We made it three steps before he stopped me again, pressed me into the wall, and kissed me like he had all night and no intention of rushing. His hand slid between my legs, fingers finding the slick mess he'd left inside me earlier.

He pushed two fingers back in without warning, thick and deep, curling against the sensitive spot until my hips jerked. I moaned into his mouth and clutched at him for balance as he worked them in and out, wet sounds filling the stairwell.

"Ethan — "

"I know," he said, voice wrecked and satisfied. "I can still feel how wet you are from me."

He fucked me with his fingers right there on the stairs until my knees threatened to give out, the stretch and pressure building fast while I pushed down onto his hand, then withdrew and kept guiding me upward.

We barely made it to the landing before he had me against the wall again, mouth on mine, hand stroking my cock with slow, deliberate pulls that dragged the foreskin down and over the head until I was leaking against his palm.

I shoved at his chest just enough to reverse our positions and drop to my knees on the hallway runner. Ethan's head fell back against the wall with a low curse when I took him into my mouth, still tasting myself on him from earlier, the salt and heat of him sliding over my tongue as I sucked him down and hollowed my cheeks.

I didn't get to stay there long.

He hauled me back up, kissed me filthy, and steered us the rest of the way into our bedroom. The door hadn't even fully closed before he was pushing me down onto the bed.

I went willingly, scrambling backward until my head hit the pillows. Ethan followed, crawling over me, eyes dark and intent.

"Every corner," he repeated, almost to himself, as he reached for the lube on the nightstand. "I'm going to make sure you feel me in every single one."

I pulled him down into another kiss, already hard again, already aching for it.

"Then stop talking," I said against his mouth, "and start."

Ethan fucked me — deep, relentless strokes that had the headboard knocking softly against the wall and my voice breaking on every other thrust, the thick length of him dragging over that spot inside me again and again while the wet sound of it filled the room.

He held my wrists pinned above my head with one hand and used the other to stroke me in time, fist tight and slick, until I came hard across both our stomachs, clenching around him so tightly he followed right after with a low, wrecked groan against my throat, hips stuttering as he spilled deep.

We stayed tangled for a few minutes, breathing hard, rings cool against each other's skin. Then Ethan kissed the corner of my mouth and murmured, "Shower."

I laughed, still catching my breath. "You're serious about the every-corner thing."

"Dead serious."

He pulled me up and led me into the en-suite. The bathroom was still new enough that the tiles felt cool under our feet. Ethan reached past me and turned the water on, waiting until steam began to fog the glass before he tugged me under the spray with him.

Hot water hit my shoulders and cascaded down. Ethan's hands followed it — soaping my chest, my stomach, lower, cleaning the mess he'd left on and inside me with slow, thorough strokes that quickly stopped being purely practical, fingers sliding over my cock and then behind to work the soap into the tender rim.

I leaned back against the tiled wall and let him. When his fingers slid between my cheeks again, slick with soap and residual come, I exhaled a shaky laugh.

"Already?"

Ethan kissed me under the spray, water running into our mouths. "I told you. Every corner."

He turned me to face the wall. I braced my forearms against the cool tile as he slicked himself with more soap, then pushed into me in one long, steady thrust.

The stretch was immediate and intense — my body still sensitive from the bed, the thick head forcing me open again until he bottomed out and stayed there for a second, letting me feel every thick inch of him.

Then he started moving.

The rhythm was slower than before but deeper, more deliberate. Water poured over us, making every slide of skin against skin louder, wetter. Ethan's hands gripped my hips hard enough to leave marks as he fucked into me with long, controlled strokes, the soap and water and come turning every thrust into a slick, filthy glide.

I pushed back to meet him, the wet slap of our bodies echoing off the tiles. One of his hands slid around to stroke my cock in time with his thrusts. I was already half-hard again; it didn't take long for me to be fully hard and leaking into his fist.

"Fuck — Ethan — "

"I've got you," he said against the back of my neck, voice rough. He bit down lightly on the muscle there and thrust harder. The angle changed just enough that every stroke dragged over the spot inside me that made my knees threaten to buckle. I braced harder against the wall and let him take what he wanted.

He fucked me until the water started to run cooler and my thighs were shaking. When I came it was with a choked sound, spilling over his fist and against the tiles while my body clamped down around him. Ethan followed a few strokes later, burying himself deep and coming with a low, guttural groan that vibrated against my skin as he filled me again.

We stayed locked together under the cooling spray for a long moment, breathing hard. Ethan's forehead rested between my shoulder blades. His hands gentled on my hips, thumbs stroking soothing circles.

Eventually he eased out of me carefully. I turned under the water and pulled him into a slow, lazy kiss that tasted like steam and salt.

Ethan smiled against my mouth.

"Living room next?" he asked, still a little breathless.

I laughed, water running into my eyes, and kissed him again.

"Give me ten minutes," I said. "Then yes."

Ten minutes turned into something like forty, and the living room never happened. By two in the morning we were back in bed, window open, the dog working a door somewhere below us.

Ethan was nearly gone. I know that breathing.

"Ask me tomorrow and I'll say yes to the living room."

"Wrong thing."

One eye came open. "Go on, then."

"When I ask my mother about walking in with me," I said, "I want you in that room."

He came up onto an elbow.

"No."

"Ethan."

"No. You know why. I said it to you once already, in a car outside a coffee shop."

"She was a stranger to me then. It's different."

"She's your mother and she is going to say yes," Ethan said. "Then you'll spend nine years wondering whether she said it because a second person was at the table."

Downstairs, the dog gave up on the door and settled. Both our names go on that paperwork in nine days. Lying there in the dark, I had nothing to put back to him.

"You'll drive me."

"I'll drive you. I'll be in a parking lot with the radio on and I'm staying in the car." He put his head back down on his arm. "Same as always."

Ninety seconds later, he was asleep. That's a thing he can do and I can't.

Lying there with a ring on, under a ceiling I'd never studied before, I counted backward. Twenty-six years and I have never asked that woman for a single thing — not a lift, not a birthday, not a phone call. Now I have to ask her to walk into a room beside me in front of ninety people.