“Mine,” Mac breathed into his hair.
“Yours,” Melvin agreed, voice muffled against Mac’s chest. He nuzzled closer, lips brushing a scar over Mac’s heart. “You feel that? How quiet it is inside me now? That’s you.”
Mac did feel it. His fingers found the bite on Melvin’s shoulder again, tracing the raised crescent of his teeth. Melvin shivered at the touch. “It’s gonna bruise pretty.”
“Good,” Mac said, and meant it. He bent and licked slowly over the mark. Melvin arched into the contact with a soft groan. The sound went straight through Mac. His cock stirred, half-hard against Melvin’s thigh, an echo of what had come before.
Melvin felt it. He shifted his leg, pressing gently. “Again?” he asked, sleepy amusement in his voice.
“No,” Mac said, kissing the mark once more before settling back. “Just feeling you.” His hand slid over the small of Melvin’s back and rested on the swell of his ass. “You’re sore.”
“A little,” Melvin admitted. “Worth it.”
Mac began to knead the muscle there, firm and steady. Melvin melted under his hands, a long sigh escaping him.
They drifted in the hazy calm that followed. The city’s noise faded into distance. Mac listened to Melvin’s breathing and felt the momentit deepened into true sleep. He didn’t follow. He stayed awake, holding the watch, guarding this new fragile country they had built between them.
The peace was quieter now, settling into the steady rhythm of their shared heartbeat.
Chapter 18 - Mac
The following days grew quieter.
Reynolds’s training moved into its final phase. The Council pushed him harder now that control was more than theory. Mac and Melvin stayed close through it, watching the last pieces fall into place before it was time to go back to Iraq.
The silence settled over the mat. Mac held Reynolds’s gaze, measuring the certainty in it against the sterile walls. He could feel Melvin’s attention from the side of the room, steady and quiet.
“Under my command means under my judgment,” Mac said. “No second-guessing. No freelance heroics. You step where I step. You stop when I say stop.”
“Understood.”
“And if the Council says no?”
Reynolds’s jaw tightened. “They brought me here to learn control. I’ve learned it. What’s the point of the lesson if there’s no field test?”
Mac almost smiled. Soldier logic. Clean and direct.
He looked at Melvin. A question passed between them without words. Melvin’s slight nod was enough.
“Wait here,” Mac said.
He left the training chamber, Melvin falling into step beside him in the corridor. A Steward waited at the junction ahead.
“We need to speak with the oversight panel,” Mac said.
The Steward turned and led them down the corridor. They were shown into a small windowless room with a polished table and three chairs. Two Council members sat waiting. An older woman with sharp eyes and a man with the bearing of a retired general.
“He’s ready,” Mac said, remaining standing. “More than ready. He’s aligned.”
The woman steepled her fingers. “Your definition of readiness, Lieutenant, is understandably tactical. Ours must be… holistic. The risk of exposure,”
“Is greater if you keep him in a box,” Melvin said quietly from the doorway. “A controlled environment teaches control. It doesn’t teach integration.”
The general studied him. “You’re confident in his stability.”
“I’m confident in Mac’s read of him,” Melvin said. “And my own. The animal isn’t separate anymore. It’s settled. Caging a settled thing makes it desperate.”
A long pause filled the room.
