The shop was quiet but for the creak of the rafters and the distant caw of a crow out back. I reached for him, slow, and pulled him in, pressed his hand flat to my chest so he could feel the tattoo on my skin, the echo of his name under my ribs. Something I’d never told him about.
He stood there, close enough that our breaths mingled, and for a minute the whole world felt like it was holding still, waiting for us to move.
“Next time you want something permanent,” I said, voice low, “just ask me.”
He let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
I let myself smile, just a little. “Good.”
We stood like that for a long time, Levi’s hand against my chest, his heart hammering under my palm. The morning sun kept climbing, and in the gold wash of the shop, I didn’t feel like a monster anymore. Just a man, lucky enough to have someone who wanted him, even when it hurt.
The tattoo didn’t leave my thoughts for a second, even after the silence fell between us. Levi kept his hand pressed to my chest, like he wanted to memorize the feel of my heartbeat through the denim.
The light through the shop windows was sharper now, catching the edge of his cheekbone and the fine shiver in his jaw. I caught myself wanting to count every freckle, every mark, every place my name would someday be written on him.
He started to pull back, probably embarrassed at how long we’d stood locked together, but I didn’t let him. I wanted to savor the way he looked at me now—open, unguarded, like I was the only thing keeping him from unraveling.
Maybe I was.
He glanced down at the fresh ink. “It’s still kind of ugly,” he said, picking at the edge of the wrap. “Ransom said it’d look better after it peeled.”
“It’s perfect,” I said. My voice sounded off, too thick and raw. “Let me see it again.”
He smiled, a quick, private thing, then held out his arm. I took his hand and turned it palm-up, tracing the line of black letters. They were swollen and a little weepy, skin angry at the intrusion, but nothing had ever looked more right. The script was elegant, flourished, nothing like the work Ransom did for drunk tourists. I wanted to drag my tongue along the curve of each letter, to learn the taste of it.
I watched Levi watch me. He bit his lip, nervous, his eyes flickering up to my face and away, like he was checking to see if I’d changed my mind.
“You really like it?” he whispered.
I made a sound, low and guttural, and before I could think better of it, I brought his hand up and kissed the tattoo, careful at first, then with more pressure, letting him feel the heat of my mouth through the wrap. He gasped—actually gasped, like he hadn’t expected it to feel like anything at all. But I could tell he liked it.
I let the moment stretch, holding his gaze, then I pulled him in by the waistband of his jeans. He didn’t resist. He stepped right into the space between us, his whole body yielding, and pressed his head to my collarbone like it was the only place he ever wanted to be.
He was warm. So fucking warm. I ran my hand up his back, feeling the muscles there, the subtle tremble in his shoulders. I thought about all the times he’d slept under my roof, just a dozen yards away and untouchable, and how that boundary didn’t exist anymore.
I needed to have him, right then, with the urgency of a man who’d waited too long and didn’t trust the world not to rip this away.
I leaned down, caught his jaw in my hand, and kissed him hard. Not like yesterday, not the tentative kind. This was all tongue, all teeth, all the things I’d ever wanted to do to him pressed into a single, wordless promise. He tasted like sugar cookies and coffee and something wild, something I’d never found anywhere else.
He made a noise, muffled against my mouth, and clung to the front of my shirt with both hands. I could feel the scratch of the hoodie’s fabric, the band of gauze on his wrist pressing into my skin. Every inch of him was alive, hungry, and for the first time I let myself take as much as I wanted.
I bent and lifted him, just straight-up hauled him off the floor, and he went with it, his legs clamping my hips, his arms a vise around my neck. He was laughing, breathless, not from joy but from shock, maybe disbelief that I’d actually go this far. I carried him to the back stairs, slow on purpose so he’d know there was no hurry, no risk that I’d drop him or change my mind.
Up in the loft, the light was different—softer, filtered through old muslin curtains. My bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled from a night spent awake. I set him down on the mattress and stood above him, just looking, letting myself believe it was real.
He reached for me, and I let him pull me down, the weight of my body pressing him into the bed. We kissed again, slower this time, and I used my thumb to trace the tattoo, then the edge of his jaw, then the hollow of his throat.
He shivered under me, but didn’t look away. “You can do whatever you want,” he whispered, and I could hear the truth in it.
I smiled, letting the words settle in my chest. “Good,” I said. “Because I want everything.” I meant it. I wanted every piece of him, every scar, every inch of ink under his skin.
He smiled back, eyes gone glassy, and pulled me in for another kiss, his whole body arched up to meet mine.
The sunlight shifted, catching the tattoo and sending a shadow across his wrist. I looked at it and felt something settle in me—an anchor, a weight, a claim nobody could undo.
He was mine and I was never letting go.
The first time I fucked Levi, it felt like we were building a house from the inside out: all raw timber and wet mortar and the desperate need to leave a mark on every surface. There was nothing careful about it, nothing slow. It started with a kiss that should’ve been a collision and ended with both of us half-naked on the bed, the sheets already twisted and kicked down to the footboard.
