What a goddamn fucking day.

I leave Kenzi and Jason and escape into my office. There are windows in here. Lots of them. Big windows, overlooking the lighthouse where the hospital got its namesake.

It used to be Jason’s dad’s old office. Now it’s mine, with the words DR. ADAM DONOVAN, CEO on a placard on my desk. My flag in the ground.

I close the door behind me and thumb open the top button on my shirt. I can breathe better now. Outside, the sunset rips claw marks of red and orange into the sky.

I’m not alone for long.

I hear my door open, then click shut again. I know him so annoyingly well—the way his footsteps have purpose, the way he overcompensates for his strong and long limbs by extra-gingerly closing doors—that I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is.

“What do you want?” I say, unable to keep the exasperation out of my tone.

“I want to apologize,” Jason says. “I lost my temper earlier. I didn’t mean to blow up at you.”

I turn around to face him and lean into my desk. I touch my fingertips to the wood, poised there.

Jason is an enormously tall man. Six five. Lean. His crisp blue shirt is popped open at the top, the V exposing a strong clavicle underneath a throat equipped with a protruding Adam’s apple and a sharp jawline. Age has only run its fingers through his hair, silvering the raven black from the edges in.

He looks so fucking heterosexual right now. I want to tell him that. I want to hurt him. I don’t know why.

“Bullshit,” I say evenly.

He blinks those big, dumb blues. “What’s bullshit?”

“Yes, you did lose your temper. And yes, you did mean to blow up at me.”

The divot at the corners of his mouth deepens. “It wasn’t fair to you.”

“Our son is killing himself with my kidney. Nothing about this is fair.”

Jason’s lips part. “I’m just saying—”

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s it?”

Again, he frowns. “Yeah. That’s it.”

“Great. What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. I just wanted you to hear it, I guess.”

“Read and received. You can sleep well tonight.”

The noise that leaves Jason’s throat isn’t quite a sigh, but it’s close. “You’re clearly not in the mood to talk,” he reasons. “So I’m going to go.”

“Probably a good idea.”

Jason is glass. Smooth and unrippled.

I’m thorns. I’m full of thorns. And if he doesn’t leave soon, I’ll skewer us both.

He turns to leave, but then my tongue betrays me.

“I miss when you were an asshole,” I tell him.

He stops in his tracks. Those frosted blue eyes stare. “No. You don’t.”

“Go ahead. I know you want to. Hit me. Push me against the wall. Call me a coward. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? You may have everyone else fooled, but I think your good-boy act is bullshit. Stop holding back.”

Jason’s blue eyes flash. For a second, there it is—that angry, poisonous boy he used to be. “You want me to stop holding back?”

My tongue momentarily sticks to the roof of my mouth. The logical part of my brain is already regretting this.

But the touch-starved masochist in me answers: “Yes.”

The word barely leaves my lips before Jason closes the distance between us and slams his mouth against mine.

I part my lips and taste him. The heady wood-earth scent of his cologne. Cool mint on his tongue. That pent-up longing that comes on too hard and leaves my lips feeling swollen and bruised.

I’m sure I taste like my umpteenth cup of coffee and desperation, but I don’t care. I grab at his shirt and rip at it. Buttons plink against my desk and fall to the floor. His shirt hangs open, and I run my hands over his hard body. His skin is burning hot. I lick his jaw. I bite his throat. The moan he makes is fucking animal, so I kiss him again just to feel it vibrate against my lips.

“Lock the door,” I tell him.

He smiles against my mouth. “No.”

No?”

“No. I want everyone to know you’re my bitch.”

That shouldn’t make all my blood rush to my cock, but it does. He cups my groin, and I lean against the desk, spreading to give him better access. His hands are huge, corded with veins, and he rubs my erection through my pants.

I’m swollen, needy, and those fingers know me too well. Even his fumbling caresses over the fabric make me leak. It’s the confidence for me—the way he grips and squeezes with just enough pressure to make my mouth go dry.

I paw at his belt. I want to tear his clothes from his body. As I pull at his clothes, my mouth devours his skin.

I lick and bite his chest. His tight nipples. His hairy armpits.

I’m fucking feral.

Jason is like me. His touches are rough and hungry. He grips me, his fingers tight, as though I’ll float away at any second if he doesn’t keep a firm hold on me.

We grab at each other so desperately that, eventually, we both lose our balance. I fall to the floor with a grunt. Jason is on top of me. He takes advantage of the position and closes his hands around my wrists. He pins them to the gray carpet above my head. Now, I’m panting, spread out and vulnerable underneath him.

Those blue eyes glitter down at me.

He says, “You’re an animal, you know that?”

“What kind of animal?”

He thinks about it. “A puppy.”

I growl. He grins.

“Show me your tongue, puppy.”

I do. I open my mouth wide and extend my tongue like I’m at the dentist’s.

Jason bows and licks his tongue across mine. The sensation is bizarre, erotic, and makes me whimper.

Then he reaches between us, and I feel him shift from side to side to shimmy his pants and briefs down his legs.

“Keep your tongue out,” he says, his voice low and controlled.

Knowing what’s coming next, it’s hard to keep myself from drooling.

Jason positions himself so he’s straddling my chest, his knees under my armpits. His stiff cock stands proudly before me, heavy balls hanging beneath it. Jason King is the dictionary definition of all man. With one hand, he fists my hair, and with the other, he fists his cock.

“Keep still.”

I don’t move—I barely blink. I lie there, frozen in place, tongue stretched out achingly far. He slides the head of his cock against my tongue. I taste the velvet of his skin. I taste the salt of his arousal. His breath hitches as he teases himself on my tongue, taking his sweet time.

I’m throbbing in my pants. It’s taking everything in me not to swallow him down, but I love this. I love the concentrated look on his face. I love the way he uses my mouth…exactly how he wants it.

“That’s it. Now suck.”

I unlock my mouth and wrap my lips around him.

He pushes it in deep. My eyes water. My nose stings. I swallow back my gag reflex. I want more.

“Good,” Jason says, because Jason loves praise. “Really good.”

He releases his grip on my hair and puts his hands on the carpet instead for balance. Now free to move around, I lean forward and greedily suck him, swallowing, licking, tightening my throat around him.

His hips thrust forward, jerkily humping my face, and I moan into it. I grab his tight ass, pulling him into me.

“Oh, fuck,” Jason moans, his eyebrows knitting, jaw clenched in agonizing pleasure.

And now he’s mine.

I pop him out of my mouth and gasp. I need to catch my breath. He’s glistening, beet red, veins plump and angry.

“You did miss me, didn’t you?” I ask and wet my lips. They feel raw and swollen.

He looks down at me in a daze, those blues half-lidded.

I shift, perching on my elbow. Then I suck my finger into my mouth to get it wet. I give him a few languid strokes, loving the way he pulses in my hand when I squeeze him tight. Then I slip my hand underneath him, fondling his balls before finding his tight hole. I ease my finger inside of him, loving his tight heat, and press small, teasing kisses from the base of his cock to the tip as I enter him.

Jesusfuck,” Jason moans. One word. His hips rut forward instinctively, hunting for more, but I keep him wanting.

“Quiet,” I remind him.

A nurse is going to think someone is dying in here.

But that doesn’t stop me from tormenting him further.

I trace the tip of my tongue over those veins, mapping him.

This is the game we play. He pins me to the ground. Degrades me. Makes me want.

And then I make him beg.

I swallow him down, finally, when I decide he’s had enough teasing. With my finger buried inside of him, caressing, it doesn’t take long to push him to his edge.

It’s that little noise he makes that tips me off. Mouth shut tight, eyebrows furrowed, he hums on a small mm. The sound of someone biting their tongue.

Before he blows in my mouth, I release him from my lips. I pant. I give his cock sweet kisses. Tiny licks. I wait until he stops twitching, until those blue eyes are looking back down at me expectantly. Only then do I swallow him again, sucking.

I repeat this three more times, bringing him right to the edge, only to pull back at the last second. Each time I start again, he gets there quicker. The last time I pull back, he curses, thrusts forward. His abdomen is clenched tight, and his thighs are shaking around me.

“Breathe,” I tell him.

He gulps in air. His face is bright pink.

His hands are fists, pressed against the carpeted floor like a runner about to take off. His knuckles have gone white.

“What’re you doing to me?” He groans.

I look him directly in the eyes and give him a slow, long lick that sends a full-body shudder through him. “I want you to explode the second you push inside of me.”

His eyes flicker. It’s his I’m done with your games look.

He puts his hand on my chest and forces me back down to the floor so quickly, it knocks the breath out of me. A breath that he swallows as his lips capture mine.

“Need you,” he mumbles. Not I need you, not I need to fuck you, just need you, because I’ve teased him so relentlessly that his brain has detached from his spinal cord and he’s doing the best he can.

He yanks my pants down and spits in his palm. The anticipation of what comes next sends a shiver through me. I try to swallow, but my arousal is like a dry pill in my throat. Then I feel him, his hand cupping my ass, a finger pressing inside of me, then a second finger. I’ve been so focused on his pleasure, I haven’t thought about mine, and the second he starts to fondle me, I feel like I’ve bitten into a live wire. Electric heat zips through me, and I gasp, pressing back into his hand, needing more.

Jason slots himself between my legs, and then I feel him, the thick head of him.

It doesn’t take one thrust. It takes three. Three before he moans, and I know he can’t hold back anymore. I push my hips upward and rut against him, my dripping cock rubbing against his hard stomach. We move as one, gripping each other, and I rip my nails into his back. I bite his shoulder, his neck. He fills me so completely, so fully, and the stretch aches so good.

Donovan,” he swears as he gives a final thrust and spills over inside of me.

His release unravels me. I moan into the crook of his neck and shudder underneath him. My pleasure explodes, spilling over my belly and splashing onto his. We’re wet with it, sticky.

I came so hard, my mouth tastes like metal. I’m panting, blinking at the ceiling. It takes me a long second to remember that I’m at the Lighthouse Medical Center, in my very own office, and I should probably put on some clothes.

“Fuck,” Jason says. He pulls out of me, and the absence of him makes my whole body buzz. He sits up and awkwardly works on pulling his pants over his hips. “I needed that.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Now, when we’re not grabbing each other and tearing at skin, it’s harder to talk to each other again. We’ve cleaved apart—literally and figuratively.

I sit up. My pants are around my ankles, and I pull them up over my hips.

“Come back home,” Jason says suddenly. Unprompted.

I look up at him and narrow my eyes. “What, and keep the two of you awake?”

“Are you still having nightmares of her?”

“Maria. You can say her name, can’t you?”

The edge of Jason’s mouth pushes downward.

“Or was she just a glorified nanny to you?”

“You don’t really think that.”

“I don’t know what to think. Because you won’t fucking talk about it.”

“I was afraid of losing you.”

I squint at him. “What? You thought I would…what, try to fuck my grief out with other people? I’d never be unfaithful to you two.”

“No. Not like that.” Jason has a tic, and he’s doing it now. He fiddles with the two wedding rings around his finger. When he’s uncomfortable or trying to distract himself, he twists them around and around in circles, like a fidget spinner. It’s like watching Linus suck on his comfort blanket. “I was afraid of losing you to your sadness. When you get depressed…it’s like a living thing. It swallows you whole.”

He’s not exactly wrong about that. I encircle my hand around my wrist and find myself unconsciously rubbing my thumb at the leather bracelet there.

I’ve let myself drown in my misery in the past. Self-harm. Self-hatred. Jason knows better than anyone how dangerous my grief can be.

As much as I don’t want it to, as much as I’d rather hold on to my anger, his words roll away some of the stones on my chest. Still— “I didn’t need you to save me,” I tell him. He needs to hear this if we’re ever going to find a way forward. “And I didn’t need you to dive into the depths with me. I just needed you to let me sink and be there for me when I was ready to swim back up.”

Those eyes meet mine. This is the most candid we’ve been with each other in months—hell, maybe years. I see a flicker of recognition finally settle into those blue orbs.

“I’m here,” he says firmly. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

I bite my lip. “Yeah. I know.”

“Are you ready now?”

“Ready for what?”

“To swim back up?”

I glance away. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” he says. Not disappointed. Not guilt-tripping me. Just…okay.

An awkward silence settles between us.

“Do you think I should talk to Otto?” I ask.

Change of topic. It’ll do us both good.

“He worships you.” And then those blue eyes meet mine. So goddamn earnest. “We all do.”

Words stick in the back of my throat.

Words like I miss waking up to your dumb face every morning.

But pride is a bitch.

Jason gets up off the floor. He finishes getting dressed. As he untucked his cuffs, he adds, “I need to go pick up some things for Otto. I should get going.”

“Hey.”

He goes to the door. He puts his hand on the handle but then stops. He turns and looks at me.

Those are the eyes of the boy who tormented me through our teenage years.

The man who claimed me in front of his parents, even though he knew they’d crucify him for it.

The surgeon who held my hand before cutting me open on his operating table.

My Jason. The same person who slipped a ring on my finger under a canopy of stars and promised to love me and care for me for the rest of our lives.

Isn’t that what he’s doing now? Just trying to love me.

Yet every time he reaches his hand out for me, I bite it.

Why am I like this?

I purse my lips.

“I have a favor to ask,” I tell him. Then I get to my feet and reach for the desk to grab Humphrey’s copy of Jason’s book.

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