The endless movement and constant chaos.
The barbed hits of adrenaline I used to chase like a regular fucking fool, when real life was right there all along.
Those rushes are dead to me. I don’t need them, I’ve found new ones, better ones, in the quiet warmth of Skylar in my arms in the middle of the night. In the way he times my pulse when he thinks I’m asleep. In the heart-healing moments when he smiles, and I remember how lucky I am to see it.
It’s not freefall over snow-capped mountains, but it feels like it. The danger of holding his heart in my hands. In him holding mine. Danger that ends in belonging instead of death, and this life…this bed, it’s the sweetest war I’ve ever fought.
Skylar moves down my body as though he has all the time in the world. As if he didn’t work a sixteen-hour shift todayand then boss an eight-mile run with me straight after—a compromise to keep him out of that hell pit gym downstairs now he’s back at work full-time.
As if he has every intention of sucking my dick when I know he won’t.
He doesn’t do that…
I prop myself on my elbows, the rogue organ in my chest already thumping a renegade rhythm. “What are you up to down there?”
Skylar looks up, gaze heavy-lidded from the lazy night we’ve already spent rolling around on this bed, taking advantage of Jack and Sol working the bar. Those grey eyes razor sharp with the kind of mischief that’ll put me in an early grave. Then he lowers his mouth and swallows me whole, and I’ve never been more grateful for the shanty riot going on downstairs right now.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’ve made peace with this not happening. Because it doesn’t fucking matter. Everything I already have with Skylar is fire and brimstone wrapped in love. I don’t need anything else.
I don’t.
Idon’t.
But, of course, I’m wrong, and as he takes me apart, I get to thinking how I ever lived without it. Because Skylar doesn’t just blow me. Fuck, no. He owns me while I watch, every muscle locked and trembling, dismantling me piece by piece with the same tough love he gives everything else he cares about, and I’m going to fucking die when I come?—
He pulls off. Slowly. Eyes dark with deeper intent. “How are you feeling today?”
There’s no air in my lungs. Somehow I find words. “You’re asking me now?”
Skylar grins—no, he smirks. “I’m double-checking.”
“Why?”
He plants his hands and hauls himself back up the bed, lean muscles popping in a torso that’s gained some timber in the past few months.
It brings us face-to-face and he nuzzles my jaw. “I was thinking I might fuck you tonight.”
My heart stalls out. Flatline. A split-second glitch that has me thinking I’ve misheard him. “Eh?”
Skylar laughs, my favourite thing. “You said you like both. Were you lying?”
“No. Fuck. No. I just haven’t thought about it.” Whichisa fucking lie. I’ve thought about it a lot—usually at night when he’s not here and I’m alone on the sofa, too wound up to sleep. But like him sucking my dick, it’s never felt important enough to want it.
Even though I do.
“You really want to fuck me, Sky?”
My voice is hoarse.
Skylar smirks even more, eyes still hot with arousal, hair mauled by my rough hands, everything about him screamingyes.
It’s why he doesn’t answer with words. Because that feral edge he gets sometimes, when it’s late and we’re alone, it’s all I need.
He leans down, kissing me, deep and rough, as if he’s already inside me, as my hands skim his heated skin, tracing the ink there, the muscle, anchoring myself in his flesh and bone.