"Home home or his home?" Benji asks.
"Same thing."
The walk to Rhys's apartment takes fifteen minutes and neither of us says much. He holds my hand the entire way, his thumb moving across my knuckles in that slow stroke that's become a habit, and when we pass two girls from his department on the sidewalk he doesn't let go. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't even hesitate.
I notice. I don't say anything. But I notice.
The apartment smells like us when we walk in. The nest is the way I left it, rumpled and messy from the night before, the sheets still carrying my scent from when I was lying in them alone. I stand in the bedroom doorway and look at it and something aches.
Rhys comes up behind me. His hands settle on my hips. His mouth presses against the back of my neck, right above the bite, and he just stays there. Breathing me in.
"Get in the nest," I say.
He doesn't hesitate. He pulls off his shoes, his jacket, his shirt. Climbs in and lies on his back, looking up at me, and waits.
I pull the flannel over my head. His flannel. Strip down to nothing and crawl into the nest and straddle his hips and his breath stutters under me, his hands coming up to my thighs, his eyes wide and dark and a little desperate.
"Jude—"
"Don't talk. Not yet."
I lean down and kiss him. Slow, deep, my hands braced on his chest. He kisses me back like he's drowning and I'm air and his hips press up against me and I can feel him already hard through his jeans. I grind down against him and he groans into my mouth, his fingers digging into my hips.
I undo his belt. Pull his jeans and briefs down and he lifts his hips to help and then he's bare underneath me, his cock hard and flushed against his stomach, and I wrap my hand around him and stroke slow and watch his face break apart.
"I want to— let me—" He reaches for me and I catch his wrists. Press them down against the pillow on either side of his head.
"Like this," I say. "I set the pace. You follow."
His pupils blow wide. His whole body goes slack under my hands, his wrists still where I pinned them even when I let go. He nods once, his throat working, and I've never seen him like this. Completely given over. No rules, no control, no composure. Just mine.
I rise up on my knees. I'm already slick, have been since I smelled him at the front door of the apartment, and when I reach back and guide him to my entrance I'm so wet he slides against me without resistance. I sink down on his cock in oneslow, deliberate drop and we both groan at the same time, his head falling back against the pillow, his hands fisting the sheets because I told him not to reach for me and he's listening.
"Oh fuck," he breathes. "Jude. God."
I don't move right away. I sit there, full of him, his cock buried deep, and I look down at his face and let him feel what he almost lost. The nest around us. Me, above him. The bond thrumming between us like a live wire, steady and whole and answered.
Then I move.
I keep it slow at first. Rolling my hips, lifting up and sinking back down, finding the angle that makes my eyes roll and his breath catch. His hands hover at my thighs like he's fighting not to grab me and I take them and put them on my hips. "Hold on," I tell him. "But I lead."
His fingers curl around my hip bones and he holds on. I ride him, setting the rhythm, speeding up when I want it harder, slowing down when the pressure builds too fast. His cock drags against the spot inside me that makes my vision blur and I chase it, grinding down, taking him deep, my thighs burning and my slick dripping down his shaft and pooling on his stomach.
"You feel so good," he says, and his voice is wrecked. "You're so beautiful like this. Riding me, taking what you want. I'm yours. I'm completely yours."
"Say that again."
"I'm yours. Everything I have is yours. The apartment, my career, all of it. You come first. Always."
I brace my hands on his chest and ride him harder. His knot is starting to swell and I can feel it catching at my rim with every stroke, thick and hot, stretching me wider each time I sink down. I could pull off. I could make him wait. I could punish him the way I punished him last night, deny him the thing his body needs most.
I don't want to. I want him locked inside me, knotted and mine and going nowhere. I want to feel the exact moment his body saysI'm not leaving.
I press down. Take the knot slow, letting it stretch me open inch by inch while Rhys makes a sound like he's dying. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise and I don't care. I want the marks. I sink all the way down and his knot catches, locking us together, and the fullness pushes me over the edge.
I come with my hands on his chest and his name in my throat. My cock pulses between us, untouched, streaking his stomach, and the clench of my body around his knot drags him over too. He comes inside me with a broken sound, his hips jerking up, his knot pulsing hot and thick, and I feel every wave of it through the bond like a heartbeat that belongs to both of us.
I collapse forward onto his chest. His arms wrap around me immediately, pulling me in tight, his mouth finding my hair, my temple, the top of the bite mark. He's shaking. Or I'm shaking. I can't tell where I stop and he starts.
