Then I rise up and sink down in one merciless drop.
We both shout. He stretches me open, thick and burning, filling me so perfectly my vision whites out for a second. His hands bruise my hips, but he lets me set the pace—slow, grinding circles at first, then hard, punishing drops that slap skin on skin. Every time I bottom out, his cockhead drags over that spot inside me that makes my clit throb and my spine arch.
“Move,” I pant. “I want to feel you lose control.”
That’s all it takes. His hips snap up, slamming into me, relentless. The bedframe rattles. Sweat slicks our skin. I lean forward, nails digging into his chest, riding him harder, chasing the edge.
“Look at me,” he growls.
I do. Eyes locked, I let him see everything—every filthy gasp, every shudder as I fall apart. His thumb finds my clit, circles once, twice—
I come with a scream, my pussy clamping down on him in vicious pulses, milking his cock as pleasure rips through me likea blade. He watches every second, memorizing me the way he’s always done, only this time I’m totally naked, going wild with pleasure, and I’m coming on his dick.
He flips us before I finish shaking. Suddenly I’m on my back, legs hooked around his waist, and he’s pounding into me—deep, punishing strokes that hit so hard my breath catches on every thrust. Teeth scrape my throat, marking me. I want the bruises. I want proof.
“Come again,” he snarls against my skin. “I need to feel you break one more time.”
He angles his hips just right and I do—harder than the first, a second orgasm tearing through me while he’s still buried balls-deep. My cunt spasms around him, and that’s it—he slams home one last time, groaning my name like a prayer and a curse as he comes, his cock pulsing hot inside the latex.
He collapses, crushing me into the mattress, his heart hammering against mine. After a moment he pulls out, ties off the condom, then drags me into his arms like he’ll never let go.
We’re both wrecked, breathing ragged, skin stuck together with sweat and sex.
He tucks me closer against his chest as our legs tangle, slick thighs and trembling calves, the air thick with the scent of us. His fingers drift in slow, reverent circles over the small of my back, tracing the faint bruises already blooming where he gripped me too hard, like he’s memorizing the proof that this was real.
Every few breaths, he presses a lazy, open-mouthed kiss to my damp temple, my hairline, the corner of my mouth, soft now, worshipful, as if he’s still tasting what just happened.
I feel his cock, spent and heavy, nestled against my belly, and the low, contented hum that rumbles from his chest vibratesstraight into my bones. Neither of us speaks; the only sounds are our slowing breaths and the quiet, possessive drag of his thumb across my skin, anchoring me to him like he’s terrified he might lose me again if he lets go.
Then I break the silence, "You've been watching me," I say, because post-sex seems like the right time for honesty that might be uncomfortable otherwise. "Even after you removed the cameras. Even after promising Elias you'd stop."
"Traffic cameras near your building," he admits. "Foundation office exterior feeds. Anything I could access that wasn't directly surveilling your apartment. I told myself it was threat monitoring. Really I just needed to see you."
The confession should probably bother me more than it does. Instead it just confirms what I already suspected—that he's as unable to stop watching me as I am unable to stop wanting to be watched by him specifically. Maybe that's unhealthy. Maybe that's exactly the kind of dynamic Solange warned me about. But right now, lying naked in his arms after the best sex I've had in years, it's hard to care about whether our attraction is sustainable long-term.
"Are you going to reinstall the cameras?" I ask.
"In the new apartment? Yes. With Blackwood's oversight and your explicit permission and probably some limitations we haven't negotiated yet." His fingers are still tracing patterns on my skin. "But it also depends on what you want. Whether you want me as a security system or whether you want me as something else."
"What if I want both?"
"Then we figure out how to do both without it destroying us." He shifts so he can see my face. "But Lana, if we do this—if we make this real beyond crisis management—I need youto understand something. I'm not good at relationships. I'm good at surveillance and threat assessment and maintaining professional distance. Intimate connection that isn't mediated by screens is outside my operational experience."
The vulnerability in his admission makes my chest tight. This is Jax without the professional language, without the tactical assessments, just admitting that he wants me but has no idea how to have me in ways that aren't surveillance.
"I'm not good at relationships either," I tell him. "I spent five years with someone who monitored my every move and six months trying to recover from that. My relationship skills are basically non-existent beyond knowing what I don't want."
"So we're both terrible at this."
"Spectacularly terrible." I curl closer to him, rest my head on his chest where I can hear his heartbeat. "But maybe that's okay. Maybe we figure it out together instead of pretending we know what we're doing."
His arms tighten around me, and for a while we just lie there in the comfortable silence of two people who've stopped overthinking long enough to just exist in the same space. The safe house feels less like temporary displacement and more like an accidental sanctuary—a place where the usual rules don't apply and we can just be two complicated people trying to figure out how we’re going to make this work..
Eventually I'm going to have to think about the logistics. About whether I'm actually moving to a new apartment or trying to reclaim the one Trask violated. About whether Jax's surveillance makes me feel safe or just reminds me of Gabriel's monitoring with better justification. About what Solange will say when I tell her I slept with him.
But right now, in this moment, I just want to feel his hands on my skin and know that someone is watching me in ways that feel like intimacy instead of control.
"Stay," I say, even though he already said he would. "Tonight. Tomorrow. However long it takes to figure out what this is."
