“Say it again,” Reid growled, his voice gone guttural.
“I want you.” Cody dragged his palms up Reid's chest, feeling heat bleed through cotton. “I don't wanna wait. Claim me, Reid. Tonight.”
Reid's mouth crashed down on his, and it wasn't a kiss so much as a possession. Teeth scraped Cody's bottom lip, tongue sweeping inside, tasting every corner of him like he was starving. Cody whimpered into it, hips arching up, finding the thick, obscene ridge trapped behind Reid's jeans. Fuck. The man was hung like he'd been built to wreck him.
“Upstairs,” Reid rasped against his jaw. “Now. I won't have our first time on a damn couch.”
He hauled Cody up without effort, one arm banded beneath his ass, and Cody wrapped his legs around that massive waist, laughing breathlessly into Reid's neck as he was carried up the staircase like he weighed nothing. Country star or not, six-foot-one or not, in Reid's arms he felt small. Precious. Owned.
The bedroom door kicked shut behind them. Cody hit the mattress with a bounce, and then Reid was on him, stripping him with hands that shook—actually shook—as he tore Cody's flannel open, buttons scattering across the hardwood. His hot, wet mouth sealed over a nipple, sucking hard, and Cody cried out, fingers fisting in dark hair.
“Reid—god—please—”
“Easy, sweetheart.” Reid'sstubbleburned a path down his sternum, his stomach,andlower. He yanked Cody's jeans and briefs off in one brutal pull, and Cody's cock slapped up against his belly, flushed red and leaking at the tip. Reid made a soundthat wasn't human—half groan, half snarl. “Look at you. So damn pretty.”
Then his tongue was there, dragging hot and flat up the underside of Cody's shaft, and Cody's spine arched clean off the bed. Reid swallowed him down to the root in one longglide, throat working, nose pressed to the crease of his thigh. Cody's whole world narrowed to the wet, suction of that mouth, to the heavy palm splayed across his stomach holding him down when his hips tried to buck up into the heat.
“I'm gonna—Reid, I'm—”
Reid pulled off with a wet, dirty pop. “Not yet. Not till I'm buried inside you.”
Cody shivered.
Reidstripped in seconds, and holy hell—broad shoulders, a chest dusted dark with hair, a cock so thick and long Cody's mouth watered and his hole clenched in equal measure.
“You got any lube?” he asked.
Cody nodded, too turned on to be embarrassed. “It’s in the nightstand.”
Reid reachedand grabbed the bottle then got to workslickinghis fingers.Reid held his gaze asone blunt, calloused fingerbegancircling, pressing,and finallybreachingCody’s hole.
Cody keened. Reid opened him slowly, relentlessly, working him with two fingers, then three, curling against that spot that made Cody see stars and swear in three different keys. By the time Reid slicked himself and notched the fat head of his cock against Cody's rim, Cody was babbling, sweat-slick,andutterly gone.
“Breathe for me,baby,”Reid commanded.
Cody sucked in air asReid sank in, inch by unbearable inch, until he was seated to the hilt and Cody was split open around him—full, stretched,andpinned. A broken sob punched out of his chest, not pain, not close, just too much feeling at once. Thebond flared white-hot behind his ribs, and he knew, he knewwithout question thatReid felt it too.
“Mine,” Reid snarled, mouth against Cody's throat. His hips drew back andheslammed homeagain.The bed frame groaned in protest. “My mate. My Cody.”
“I’m yours.” Cody clawed at his back, nails dragging lines down heavy muscle. “Yours, yours, yours—”
Reid fucked him like he meant to brand him from the inside out, deep driving thrusts that rocked Cody up the sheets, each one hitting dead-on. When Reid's teeth scraped the tendon where neck met shoulder, Cody shuddered, already so close. “Do it,” he begged.“Claim me. Now—”
Reid bit down.
The world shattered. Cody came untouched, screaming, clenching around Reid's cock as the bond snapped into place like a steel cable between them—bright, blinding, permanent. Reid roared into the mark he'd made, hips stuttering, and spilled hot and endless inside him, pulse after pulse.
Tethered. Forever.
* * * *
That evening, Cody and Reid were sitting in the kitchen together, drinking coffee, when Diane called with an update. The happy and contented smile slid from Cody’s lips at once. Reid’s happy expression grew stoic.
Diane’s voice was tight with frustration. “Cody, it seems that the hotel footage was inconclusive,” she said. “They can see someone entering the corridor, but the camera angle doesn’t capture a clear face and he had his hood up. The police are saying without an ID, there’s not much they can do.”
“Did they take fingerprints?”
“Yes, but the security footage shows that he was wearing gloves to enter the room and we don’t know that he took them off.”
