Chapter 199: Jake
Last night I fell asleep like I haven’t in years—dead drop, warm weight, the kind of sleep that stitches a man back together. But it took me a minute to get there. I lay in the dark and realized I love Madeline so much I’d marry her, and then the stupid legal thought hit: only one of us could actually sign marriage papers. Me or Reid. Logistics tried to climb in bed with me. I pushed them back out. We found a girl we’d actually marry. The when and where and how can come later.
Now I wake to the sound of soft, breathy moans threading the motel quiet.
I blink, roll toward the other bed. Morning is thin and blue at the edges of the blackout curtains; the heater ticks. She’s on her side facing me, eyes closed, cheek sunk into the pillow. Reid is behind her, also on his side, close—his hand disappearing under her shirt, sheets shifting with a slow, sure rhythm that tells me everything. He looks over her shoulder at me and smirks, that private, infuriating, brother-smug thing, then leans to her ear and whispers something I can’t hear.
Her lashes lift. She finds me. That shy little smile steals whatever air the heater didn’t.
“Good morning,” I say, voice rough from sleep.
“Morning,” she breathes between Reid's thrusts in her, and it lands in my chest like a spark.
I take the hint before I drag us into an encore we’re not ready to be late for. Sink. Toothbrush. Cold water. The mint snaps me awake while, through the door, the sounds deepen—her breath stutters, the bedsprings give a quiet warning, Reid murmurs praise low enough to be a sin. It crests—soft, ruined—then goes still.
The bathroom door nudges open. Reid slides in with damp hair and a dumb, delighted grin that would get him arrested in six provinces.
I snort around my toothbrush. “Idiot.”
He steals my toothpaste like a thief. “Jealous.”
“Definitely,” I say, shoulder him aside, and slip back into the room.
She hasn’t moved much—still curled on her side, facing my empty bed, cheeks flushed from more than sleep, hair a soft riot on the pillow. The covers are bunched under her chin; the lamp, now on, throws a warm halo from the base like it remembers last night. I climb into the bed behind her and fit myself to her spine, chest to back, my arm carving a home at her waist.
I find the warm place below her ear and kiss it, slow. “Enough for one morning?” I murmur there, a smile in it, already knowing the answer.
She glances over her shoulder, bites her lip, shakes her head once. “No.”
That one word is a fuse.
“Do you want me then, Touble?” I whisper, because rules are how we keep the world ours.
“Yes,” she says—steady—and arches just enough to make me swear under my breath.
I move. Not fast. Possessive. My palm slides under the hem of her shirt, warm skin meeting warm hand; I learn this morning’s version of her with slow, patient passes, the kind that make breathing a decision. I enter her slowly, the feel of her around me in the morning too good to be real. She tilts her head and I take her mouth from the side—lazy, claiming—while my other arm tightens and brings her deeper into me. The duvet sighs. The room smells like vanilla and clean cotton and us.
“Good girl,” I murmur into her hair when she sets the pace with the smallest roll of her hips. “Just like that.”
She answers with a sound that lives straight down my spine. I let my teeth graze the hinge of her jaw, drag my mouth along the line of her throat, feel her pulse trip under my lips. Her fingers catch my forearm and hold on, not to move me—just to keep me.
The shower kicks on in the bathroom; Reid hums something smug under the water. I grin against her skin and press closer, finding the angle that turns her breath to broken little prayers. “Tell me,” I say. “What do you want?”
“You,” she whispers. “More.”
“Then take it,” I tell her, and I give it—inch by slow inch, reverent and mean at once, until the soft morning light feels like a secret we’re keeping between our teeth and the motel forgets there’s anyone in the world but the two of us and the way her voice sounds when she says my name.
We keep it brief because the clock on the nightstand is a goddamn tyrant and the institute is waiting for us today. When she goes soft and satisfied against me, I roll with her, breathe her in, and then do what I always do—take care.
I slide an arm under her thigh and another behind her back and stand. She wraps her legs around my waist without thinking, trusting me to hold all of her. Heated liquid slicks down my stomach—hers, Reid’s, mine—and I have a feral second of pride at the mess we make together.
“Come on,” I murmur, kissing her temple as I carry her. The bathroom fan rattles louder when my shoulder bumps the switch up a notch; steam grips the mirror; water runs.
Reid is already in the shower, hair plastered to his forehead, shoulders gleaming. He glances up when I shoulder the door wider and just… grins, that quiet, pleased thing that belongs only to us.
“It’s too small for three,” he says, voice warm.
“Lucky we’re efficient,” I answer, stepping in with her still clinging to me. The stall is a jigsaw of elbows and heat; we laugh once, breathless, and then it’s all hands and water.
We make it quick. He soaps his palms and I turn us so he can get to her—neck, shoulders, the elegant line of her back—then I take over, sliding my hands down to rinse, making sure no place we touched is left cold. She leans her forehead to my jaw and hums, spent and content, letting us do the work.
“Okay,” Reid says after a minute, and slips out, grabbing a towel. He opens it like a curtain and holds it wide. “Step in.”
She reaches for him, trusting, and I lower her into the thick cotton, steadying her as he wraps her up and pulls her close, pressing a kiss to damp hair. He turns, gives me a look that says I know exactly how you feel because I feel it too, and leads her gently out.
I finish fast—soap, rinse, a hand over my face and hair. The water runs hot over shoulders that still remember her nails. I realize I’m wearing the same dumb, satisfied smile Reid had earlier, and I don’t bother wiping it off.
We have somewhere to be. We also have something we’re building. For once, the clock can have its minute. The rest of the day belongs to us.