Jacob looked at him. He stood there with his jacket half off, sun still clinging to his skin. He looked rumpled from the day, cheeks faintly flushed, hair ruffled as though he’d been running around since morning. He looked like trouble Jacob would never stop choosing.
He closed the book and tossed it on the table. Their eyes met and the pulse between them stirred—the same strong current that never dimmed, not with time, not with reason, not even with the fact that Liam’s wife could go into labor any moment now.
He rose without hesitation. Words didn’t matter anymore. He crossed the distance, took Liam’s jaw in his hand and kissed him. The kiss was deep and greedy, a slow burn that broke almost instantly into heat. Liam’s answering sound rumbled low in his throat, pulling Jacob even closer.
Jacob spun them around before pressing forward, guiding Liam back step by step until his knees hit the edge of the couch. Liam let himself fall back, lips wet and chest rising fast. Jacob followed, crowding into his space, their mouths refusing to part until oxygen forced them to.
Jacob dragged his mouth lower—down Liam’s jaw, across his throat, biting at the place that always made him moan. He tugged his shirt up, baring skin, and kissed his way down theline of his chest. The heat kept building between them as Liam’s hands fumbled helplessly at his shoulders.
By the time Jacob had him stretched out across the couch, Liam was stripped bare—clothes discarded on the floor and skin flushed and trembling beneath Jacob’s hands. The contrast struck him for a fleeting second: Liam naked and undone, while he still wore every layer. It made the moment sharper, as though lust had torn them forward too fast to care.
“Jacob—” Liam pleaded, unable to hide the desperation in his voice.
“I know,” Jacob murmured, his mouth brushing across heated skin as he moved lower, deliberately bypassing Liam’s cock without pause. “I know what you need.”
His hands spread Liam wider, thumbs pressing into the tender insides of his thighs. Then Jacob’s tongue was on him—right against that needy hole. At the first wet stroke, Liam’s entire body jolted, a strangled cry breaking free as his hips bucked. He tried to twist away, to escape the intensity, but Jacob only held him firmer, keeping him open and refusing to let him close against the onslaught.
Jacob groaned into him and continued licking, pushing deeper, devouring him like a man starved. He couldn’t get enough of the way Liam clenched and shuddered with every drag of his tongue, and the wild sounds spilling from his throat.
“Jacob—please—” Liam’s voice cracked on the plea, his fingers clawing at the cushions, thighs trembling under the strain of holding still. Jacob didn’t slow. He ate him shamelessly, tongue driving deeper, lips sealing around him like he needed this as much as air. He wanted every broken sound Liam had in him, every twitch and tremor. He needed him wide open, ruined and begging for more.
He loved that no one else got to see him like this—no one else got to know how beautifully he shattered.
By the time Jacob finally pulled back, Liam was wrecked—eyes glassy with need. He looked at Jacob like a man lost to pleasure, too overwhelmed for words, his body quivering from the intensity.
Jacob kissed him hard, swallowing the broken noise that escaped. He was desperate to taste the mess he’d made. His own need was a live wire under his skin, impossible to ignore. He couldn’t wait another second. One hand fumbled at his belt, yanking his pants open just enough to free himself, the ache of it blinding. He dragged Liam closer, holding him wide, and pressed forward. The ragged groan that tore from his chest as he sank into Liam was pure hunger, matched only by the raw cry torn from Liam’s throat.
There was no stopping now.
***
They could never quite fit on the couch together. Liam lay half on top of him, head pressed to his chest, their legs tangled until Jacob couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Something dug into his back, but he wouldn’t have moved for the world.
Liam’s skin was still hot, damp in places where sweat had cooled. His breath ghosted unevenly across Jacob’s ribs, each exhale a reminder of how undone he’d been only minutes ago. Jacob’s hand rested against his spine, thumb stroking slowly, a quiet reassurance in the contact.
Liam shifted just enough to look up at him, his voice low and warm. “How are you, really?”
Jacob was quiet for a moment, then let out a breath. “Getting by.” He hesitated, eyes tracing the pattern of light on the ceiling. “Mostly I just feel lost… and guilty. For how it ended. For notbeing there.” His voice faltered. “I miss the kids. I hate what I’ve put them all through.”
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” Liam said quietly.
Jacob swallowed hard. “It hurts that I only see the kids twice a week now. Their lives are already shifting without me. Caroline filed for divorce this morning. I know it’s the next logical step, but it’s still…” He trailed off.
Liam’s eyes widened, sympathy flickering across his face. “She filed? Today?” He reached up, thumb tracing Jacob’s jaw. “That’s a lot. I’m here, okay?”
Jacob nodded, jaw tight. “On top of that, the tabloids are circling like vultures, casting me in the worst possible light. I won’t give them a statement. Let them burn my name. The sympathy should be Caroline’s. She deserves it.”
Liam traced a slow line across Jacob’s chest, grounding him. “I wish I could make it better.”
Jacob finally looked at him, a tired sort of smile ghosting across his lips. “You do. More than you know.”
He didn’t know what to call this anymore. Affair felt too small a word, too cheap. Affairs were reckless, disposable, built on lies and secrecy. This was not careless; it was deliberate, a choice they both kept making even when they knew the cost.
A slight shift against his chest pulled him back. Liam inhaled sharply, then settled again, his lips brushing Jacob’s skin with each exhale. This was the fragile quiet that always came after—a moment suspended between what had just happened and whatever would come next. When the world felt impossibly far and unbearably close all at once.
Jacob didn’t let himself sink into it fully. Any second now, Liam would push up on an elbow and murmur that he had to go. He was reluctant to be away from Emma for too long, knowing the baby was due any day now. So Liam would tuck himself backinto his clothes and slip out the door. Jacob would let him. He always let him go.
Each time, it carved deeper. Each time, it became harder to breathe once the emptiness swallowed the house whole. He never asked for more. Demanding more would turn their betrayal into something even more unforgivable—for Emma and for the baby not yet born.
