So I say nothing.
I load the guns, pack the blade, fold the tape, and then we get back in the car.
Misha drives like the road personally offended him, one hand on the wheel while the other flicks through radio stations that seem determined to alternate between static, death metal, and country—his own private version of torture, I assume. The sky hangs low andgray above us while the trees blur past the windows like they’re all watching and choosing not to say a word. I sit in the passenger seat with my legs stretched wide and one boot propped on the dash, trying to ignore the way Misha keeps muttering about Corso under his breath like the man might actually be in the trunk.
After a while I pull out my phone and check it, scrolling through the screen and finding exactly what I expected—no alerts from the compound, no texts, no calls.
Julian hasn’t checked in.
Not that he’s supposed to.
But still.
I open the surveillance feed and let the four camera windows fill the screen. The rink is empty except for Kai and Luca pacing around like they’re choreographing a ballet of poor decisions, and Julian isn’t there. He’s not in his container either—his bed is made, the lights are off. I check the med bay next. Empty. Finn’s container is loud, chaotic, and mercifully Julian-free.
I frown.
I switch to the feed from my own container, fully expecting nothing.
Instead I freeze.
There he is—sprawled across my bed like sin carved into flesh just to see how far my control can stretch. Shirtless, sweat-slick, hair wrecked, one thigh cocked out like a whore. One hand shoved under my hoodie—my fucking hoodie—pressed so hard to his face like he’s trying to drown in the scent. The other hand wrapped tight around his cock, jerking it like he’s punishing it for wanting me.
The feed’s black and white, but I don’t need color to read the shame rolling off him, the shaking need, the hunger tearing him open. He’s rutting against my sheets like they’re my body, grinding into the mattress like it might actually fuck him back, teeth sunk into the sleeve of my hoodie so deep I swear I see the fabric give. Then he drags it across his lips, tongue lapping at the cuff, mouth slack and desperate, trying to taste my skin through the thread.
Fucking hell.
He tongue-fucks the sleeve like he’s giving a slow, filthy blowjob to the memory of my wrist, hips stuttering as he moans—soft at first, then louder, slurring something hot and broken into the cotton, my name or worse, mouth hanging open, hoodie clutched tight, face buried so deep in it he’s praying, the only thing tethering him to sanity the smell of me soaked into the threads and the desperate taste of cloth on his tongue.
Then he fucks it—he actually drags the sleeve under his cock, wraps the fabric tight like a grip, and rocks his hips hard into it once, twice, over and over, like it’s my hand, my mouth, my throat closing around him, thighs trembling, panting ragged breaths straight into the cotton, fucking it like it’s the only thing that can save his goddamn life.
And I grip my phone so hard I might crush it in half.
Because this isn’t just desperate anymore, isn’t just filthy—it’s worship, the kind that breaks men open and leaves them bleeding.
He jerks harder, faster, tongue dragging up the soaked edge of the sleeve while his moans climb into something breathless and wrecked, wrapping the hoodie tighter around his face, humping into the cuff like he’s trying to erase me with nothing but fabric and failure and the ghost of my scent.
And then he says it—“Please…”—please what? please touch me, please ruin me, please come back—his hips jerk once more, he gasps choked and ruined, and then he comes all over my hoodie, moaning into it like he’s thanking me with every shuddering, spasming inch of his body, wrecked, mine, mine.
His mouth falls slack, hand trembling, and I don’t blink, don’t move—I just watch him collapse against my sheets, breathing hard, my name still smeared across his lips in spit and sound and shame.
That’s the crack, right there.
He didn’t fuck himself with the thought of Nathan—he fucked my hoodie like it was my cock shoved deep in his mouth, my hands bruising his hips, my voice low in his ear telling him to beg louder.
And I saw every fucking second of it.
“Jesus,” Misha mutters from the driver’s seat, glancing over with that shit-eating look he gets when he knows he’s onto something. “You watching porn?”
“Shut the fuck up and drive.”
He snorts, low and knowing. “Was that yours?”
I say nothing, jaw locked so tight my molars ache.
He whistles through his teeth anyway. “He looked loud.”
I grind my teeth harder, because he was—because he is—because right now all I can fucking hear is that broken moan spilling into the cotton, that ragged breath hitching against my hoodie, the wet drag of his tongue, the desperate grind of his hips, every filthy second burned into my skull like a brand.
