Chapter 264 No Curtains Yet

Chapter 264 No Curtains Yet
ETHAN’S POV

There were no curtains on the front window. I noticed it four hours after I signed for the house, and neither of us did anything about it. By the time it mattered, nobody was going out for a bedsheet.
It's a quiet street. Two cars went by the whole night, headlights sliding over that bare glass, and I found I didn't mind. Sometime past one, my ring caught the lamp — my hand was on him — and I left it there a beat longer than I needed to.
Four years of hotel corridors. Four years of separate cars to the same building. A year we told no one. A month after someone wrote about him and he shrugged it off anyway. That's on his finger now, in daylight, past a window with no curtains on it.
Ares said ten minutes.
I didn't think I could give him that long.
We dried off in the bathroom with the kind of lazy, lingering touches that were already turning into something else. Water still beaded on his collarbones. My ring sat on his finger, catching the light every time he moved. Every time I looked at it something possessive and almost painful tightened in my chest.
He had said yes. He was mine in a way the world could finally see, and I was his, and I wanted to carve that truth into every surface of the house we'd chosen together.
I crowded him back against the bathroom counter before the ten minutes were anywhere near up. He laughed into the kiss, the sound low and knowing, but he didn't push me away. His hands slid into my damp hair as I kissed him deeper, harder, tasting steam and the residual salt of his skin.
"You're terrible at waiting," he murmured against my mouth.
"You said yes," I answered, already hard again against his hip. "I'm taking it seriously."
I walked him out of the bathroom and down the hall without letting him get dressed. The living room was still lit only by the single lamp we'd left on earlier. The couch still carried the faint imprint of what we'd done there after the proposal.
I steered Ares toward it, then past it, until his back met the large window that looked out over the quiet street. The glass was cool against his skin. I kissed him there, slow and deep, while my hands mapped every familiar line of his body like I was claiming it all over again.
"Living room," I said against his throat. "Then the balcony. Then the kitchen. I want you in every corner of this place before the sun comes up."
Ares exhaled a shaky laugh that turned into a soft moan when I dropped to my knees. I took him into my mouth right there against the glass, the weight of him sliding hot over my tongue as I sucked him deep while my hands gripped his thighs and held him open.
He was still sensitive from the shower; the first hard pull of my lips around the head made his head fall back against the window with a quiet thud.
I worked him slowly at first, tongue pressing along the underside as I took him deeper, then harder, letting him feel every inch of my mouth and every deliberate stroke of my tongue against the vein. His fingers tangled in my hair. The ring on his hand pressed cool against my scalp.
When he was fully hard and leaking against my tongue I pulled off, stood, and turned him to face the glass. I slicked myself quickly with the lube I'd carried from the bedroom, coating the length of my cock until it glistened, then pushed into him in one long, steady thrust as the tight heat of him opened around me.
Ares groaned, palms flattening against the window for balance as I bottomed out. The tight heat of him pulled a low sound from my chest. I stayed still for a second, forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, just feeling him around me.
Then I started moving.
Deep, deliberate strokes that made the window fog under his hands as I pulled almost out and drove back in. I kept one arm locked around his waist and used the other to stroke his cock in time with my thrusts, fist tight around the slick length of him.
The wet sound of me fucking him filled the quiet living room. Every time I drove in hard enough the ring on my own finger flashed in the low light. Mine. His. The words kept circling in my head with every thrust.
I fucked him against the glass until his thighs trembled and he came with a broken sound, spilling over my fist and onto the floor as his body clamped down hard around my cock. The rhythmic clench of his body dragged me over right after.
I buried myself deep and came with a guttural groan against the back of his neck, filling him while the aftershocks still fluttered around my cock.
We stayed locked together for a long moment, breathing hard. Outside, the street was quiet. Inside, the house felt like it belonged to us in a way it hadn't an hour ago.
I eased out of him carefully and turned him in my arms. Ares looked wrecked and beautiful and still a little dazed. I kissed him slow, tasting the residual pleasure on his tongue.
"Balcony next," I said against his mouth. "Then the kitchen. I'm not stopping until every room in this house knows you're mine."
Ares smiled, tired and wicked at the same time, and brushed his thumb across the ring on my finger.
"Then stop talking," he said, voice rough, "and take me there."
Ares didn't let me keep control for long.
The moment we stepped out onto the balcony the cool night air hit our still-damp skin and something in his expression shifted. He backed me against the railing before I could speak, kissed me hard enough to bruise, and dropped to his knees on the concrete.
I barely had time to grip the railing before his mouth was on me — hot, wet, relentless — the heat of it sliding down my length as he took me deep in one smooth motion, throat working around the head of my cock, one hand rolling my balls while the other held my hip in place. I cursed under my breath and tried not to thrust too hard into that perfect heat.
He pulled off with a filthy wet sound and looked up at me, eyes dark.
"My turn," he said, voice rough. "You've had me in half the house. Now I'm taking what's mine."
He stood, spun me around to face the quiet street below, and pressed me forward until my hands braced on the railing. Cool air kissed my bare back. Ares kicked my feet apart, slicked himself quickly with the lube he'd carried out, and pushed into me in one long, punishing thrust as the thick head of him forced me open.
The stretch burned in the best way. I groaned, forehead dropping between my arms as he bottomed out and stayed there, buried to the hilt, letting me feel every thick inch of him.
Then he started fucking me like he meant it.
Hard. Deep. Relentless. The wet slap of his hips against my ass carried into the night air as he pulled back and drove in again. One of his hands wrapped around my throat from behind — not choking, just holding — while the other reached around to stroke my cock in time with every brutal thrust, fist tight and slick over the head.
I was already sensitive from earlier; every stroke of his fist and every drive of his cock inside me felt magnified. The railing creaked under my grip. Somewhere below a car passed, headlights briefly washing the balcony, but neither of us stopped.
"You're mine," Ares growled against the back of my neck, thrusting harder. "This cock. This ass. This ring on your finger. All of it. Mine."
I could only moan in answer. He fucked me against the railing until my legs shook and I came hard over his fist, spilling onto the concrete with a broken sound I couldn't hold back. Ares didn't stop.
He kept driving into me through the aftershocks, using my clenching body, chasing his own pleasure with single-minded intensity. When he finally came it was with a low, guttural groan, burying himself deep and flooding me while his hips stuttered.
We stayed locked together for a moment, breathing hard in the cool air. Then Ares eased out, turned me around, and kissed me slow and deep, tasting like satisfaction and possession.
"Kitchen," he said against my mouth. "I'm not done."
He walked me inside without giving me time to recover. The kitchen was still half-lit from earlier. Ares lifted me onto the island counter like I weighed nothing, shoved my thighs apart, and stepped between them.
He was still hard — or hard again so quickly it made my head spin. He slicked himself once more, hooked my legs over his arms, and pushed back into me in one smooth, deep thrust as the heat of him slid home until he was buried.
I fell back onto my elbows on the cool countertop, watching the way his face tightened with pleasure every time he bottomed out. He fucked me harder here — short, powerful strokes that made the island rock slightly and forced broken sounds out of my throat. One of his hands pinned my wrist to the counter; the other stroked my oversensitive cock until I was fully hard again despite having just come.
"Look at you," he muttered, voice wrecked. "Taking me so fucking well. My fiancé. My everything."
The words and the relentless pace pushed me right to the edge again. Ares leaned down, bit the side of my neck, and thrust particularly deep. I came a second time with a choked cry, spilling across my own stomach while my body clamped down around him.
The tight rhythmic squeeze dragged him over the edge. He buried himself to the root and came with a low, animal sound, filling me until I could feel it leaking out around his cock with every small, involuntary twitch of his hips.
We stayed joined on the kitchen counter for a long time afterward, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. Ares's ring brushed my cheek when he lifted a hand to cup my face. I turned my head and kissed his palm.
Outside, the sky was starting to lighten at the edges.
Ares smiled against my mouth, still buried inside me, and murmured, "Still stuck with me?"
I laughed, exhausted and completely wrecked in the best way, and wrapped my legs tighter around his waist.
"Yeah," I said. "Still stuck with you. Forever"
The sky was already going gray at the edges by the time either of us could string a sentence together. We ended up on the kitchen floor, backs against the cupboards — no furniture yet, and neither of us could face the stairs.
An envelope sat on the counter, the closing paperwork still inside it. Ares reached up, took it down, and turned it over.
"Give me a pen."
"There's one in my coat."
"Your coat's upstairs."
"Then we're doing this from memory," Ares said.
We wrote the date on the back of that envelope at ten past five in the morning. Not this summer — his mother needs the season, and Asher has to be told in a way that lets him think it was his idea. The summer after, then. Early, before either of us reports back. He wrote it down and boxed it in, and neither of us has touched it since.
"There's one condition."
"You've already had a condition."
"I've had none. I've been an absolute saint all night."
Ares looked up from the envelope at me.
"The Drakes' back yard."
He stopped writing.
"Ethan."
"Their back yard. Where the grass floods."
"We talked them out of that. In person. For six weeks."
"I remember every minute of it."
"There is a shed in every single photograph."
"There is."
"Your mom will look at the sky for the entire day."
"She will," I said. "And she'll have somewhere to put it when it's over, and my sister will get to be right, and I'll hear about it for the rest of my life."
Ares set the pen down on the envelope and looked up at the bare kitchen ceiling.
"You're going to have to be the one who tells April."