I start to move. Not fast, not desperate—just a slow roll of my hips, rising and falling in a rhythm that lets me feel everything. The drag of him inside me, the way he hits that spoton every upstroke, the way his breath catches each time I sink back down.
His hands stroke up my thighs, my sides, my stomach. Tender. Reverent. Then his fingers find my nipples and twist, and I cry out, clenching around him.
"That's it," he murmurs, doing it again. "Let me hear you. Love the sounds you make."
"Ash—" I'm grinding down on him now, chasing sensation, my cock hard and leaking between us. "Feels so good. You feel so good inside me."
"You're beautiful," he says, voice rough as gravel. "You know that? So fucking beautiful. Could look at you forever."
He sits up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me, changing the angle so we're pressed together. I gasp at the new depth, wrapping my legs around his waist to keep my balance. His forehead presses against mine, our breath mingling.
"Jason." His voice cracks on my name. "I need to tell you something."
"What?"
"I love you."
I go still.
The words hang in the air between us, fragile and enormous. He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are wet, vulnerable in a way I've never seen. The walls he keeps around himself, the distance he maintains—all of it is gone. There's just Ash, raw and open, offering me everything he has.
"I love you," he says again, like he needs to make sure I heard. "I've never said that to anyone. Not once, my whole life. Never meant it before. But I love you, Jason, and I need you to know that. Need you to know that this isn't just—that you're not just—" He swallows hard. "You're everything."
My throat closes up. I can feel tears burning in my own eyes, spilling over before I can stop them.
"I love you too." The words come out rough, barely a whisper. "Ash, I love you so much. Since that first week, I think. Since you let me feed you and looked at me like I was the answer to a question you didn't know you were asking."
He kisses me, deep and desperate, salt from both our tears mixing on our lips. I start moving again, and it's different now—slower, more intense, every movement saying what words can't quite capture. We're not just fucking. We're making promises with our bodies.
His hands are everywhere, holding me tight, like letting go would kill him.
"I want to claim you," I whisper against his mouth. "The way you claimed me. Want you to wear my mark."
"Yes." No hesitation, no uncertainty. "Do it."
"It's going to hurt. You don't heal like me. It'll scar."
"I know." He tilts his head, baring his neck—the same gesture of submission he's never shown anyone, offered to me without hesitation. "I want your mark. Want everyone to know I'm yours. Want to look in the mirror and see proof that someone chose me."
Someone chose me.
My heart seizes.
I kiss the spot first—the junction of his neck and shoulder, the same place his bite sits on my skin. I can feel his pulse hammering under my lips, can feel the way he's trembling, and I know it's not from fear.
"I love you," I say against his skin. "I choose you. I'll always choose you."
Then I bite down.
He cries out, his hips jerking up into me, burying himself impossibly deeper. I taste blood—copper and salt and Ash—and I hold the bite as he shudders beneath me, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise.
"Yours," he gasps, and his voice breaks on it. "I'm yours, Jason. Only yours. Forever."
I release the bite and lick the wound, soothing, feeling him tremble through the aftershocks. "Mine."
We move together after that, chasing release. It doesn't take long—we're both too wound up, too emotional, too raw from everything we've just given each other. He wraps his hand around my cock, stroking me in time with my movements, and I fall apart almost immediately.
"Come for me," he growls. "Want to feel you. Want to watch you fall apart on my cock."
