He comes easy. Knees on either side of my thighs. His chest against mine. The borrowed shirt rides up an inch when he moves, exposing the strip of skin at the small of his back, and I splay my hand over it, possessive, warm. He shivers. Makes a small noise into my mouth that goes straight down my spine and lands between my legs.
"Bane—"
"Mm?"
"Nothing. I just—"
"Just?"
"Justyou."
He kisses me again. Sloppier. Breathier. His hands have moved to my chest, then up under the collar of my shirt, finding the bare skin of my throat, and his thumb rests in the hollow there like he's counting my pulse. I let my own hand drag up under the back of his shirt, slow, palm flat to the warm skin ofhis lower back, and he arches into the touch—body unguarded, finally figuring out it is allowed to be.
He grinds down into my lap.
Not on purpose. I'd put money on him not even knowing he's doing it. Just a small unconscious roll of his hips because I have my hand under his shirt and my mouth on his and his pulse under my thumb. I feel him hard against my stomach through the thin sweats. I'm hard against the inside of his thigh.
I drag my mouth off his and down, finding the bond mark at the side of his throat. The newest one.Mine. I press my lips to it. The bond between us sparks bright at the contact and he shudders against me, his hands fisting harder in my shirt, his breath catching at my ear.
"There," I murmur. Into the mark. "There you are."
"Bane—"
"I'm not going anywhere, baby. I've got you."
He makes a noise that is half a laugh and half something more wrecked, and his fingers slide into my hair, and he tilts his head to give me more of his throat, and I take more.
I let him.
I let him because what is happening in my chest right now is a thing I've been trying to find the language for all day, all week, since the cell, since before the cell, since—and the language is not going to be found. There is no clean word. There is his weight on my thighs. His cock pressed warm against my stomach through two layers of cotton. His pulse going under my mouth. And the small fact that he found me, he always finds me, when I need him most.
The words slam into my head.
Protective.
Interested.
Patient.
In love.
It lands inside me like a stone dropped into still water. Quiet. Total. Spreading.
I have not let myself say those two words about him before. Not to Zero in the car two months ago when he asked me what I wanted out of all this. Not to Atlas at any point ever. Not even to myself, in this exact phrasing, in this exact order, with this exact certainty—until just now.
I am in love with Max Carter.
I have probably been in love with Max Carter for longer than I am about to admit.
The mouth on the side of my throat. The pulse under my thumb. The slow grind in my lap that he doesn't know he's doing. My chest doing the thing it has been doing for an hour now, the heart-too-small thing, the full thing, except now I have a word for it and the word is so simple it's embarrassing.
His hand slides down off my throat. Past my collarbone. Down my chest. Past the waistband of my jeans.
He palms me through the cotton.
"Maxie—"
"Mm?"
