I pulled free when I was satisfied, stripped off my clothes, and reached for the lube again to lather myself up.
Jackson watched me with careful attention, his eyes tracking each movement.
I lined up and pushed in slow, giving Jackson every inch in long deliberate increments, my forehead dropped to his temple, my breathing controlled where his was not.
Jackson exhaled hard through his nose, one hand gripping my arm and the other fisting in the sheets, taking the stretch and the fullness with the same focused endurance he brought to everything.
I held still once I was fully seated, feeling Jackson’s body adjust around me, and pressed my mouth to the side of his head.
“Jackson,” I said, just his name, low and rough.
He turned his face and found my mouth and kissed me hard. His hand came to the back of my neck, holding me exactly where he wanted me, and the honesty of that choice—Jackson wanting me exactly where I was—landed somewhere behind my sternum like something with an edge.
The pace built steadily from there—my full weight behind every thrust, one hand braced on the headboard and the other gripping Jackson’s hip to hold him exactly where I wanted him.
Jackson took all of it, met me, his nails dragging lines down my back, making sounds that belonged to a man who had stopped managing his reactions, which was the thing I wanted most and got rarely.
I got a hand around his cock and stroked him in time with my own rhythm, and Jackson swore at me and did not ask me to stop. His hand came to my face, thumb brushing across mylower lip, eyes tracking the movement in a way that meant he was filing it away for later.
What broke me open was not the physical heat of it, though that was considerable—it was the way Jackson looked at me, once, in the middle of it, with his guard fully down and nothing managed and nothing held back, the specific look of a man who had stopped protecting himself from wanting something.
I drove in deep and held there, watching Jackson’s face, and he reached up and pulled me down by the back of the neck and kissed me with an openness that I felt in my sternum.
His legs wrapped around my waist, holding me exactly where he wanted me, and the truth that had been growing between us for four months suddenly too present to ignore.
“I’ve got you,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Jackson nodded once, his eyes on my face, and pulled me down for another kiss. I finished with my face pressed into the curve of his throat, teeth grazing the skin there, Jackson still shaking through the aftershocks beneath me. His hand was warm against the back of my neck, his breath coming in controlled measures against my temple.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the low lamplight, my hand moving in slow absent patterns across Jackson’s side, careful of his stomach. Jackson’s eyes were half-closed, his breathing gradually evening out, one hand resting on my chest directly over my heart.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about the morning, about the bag by the door, about three weeks that would feel like three months. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called—a sound that meant full dark had finally arrived.
The baby moved against my palm—a small, insistent pressure that meant growth rather than trouble—and I pressed back gently, the way Jackson had shown me.
“I’ll be back,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. “Whatever happens with this mission. Whatever comes through that door. I’m coming home to you.”
Jackson nodded once, his eyes still closed. “I know,” he said, his voice level. “Coffee’s on the counter if you want more.”
It wasn’t “I’ll wait for you” or “this is permanent” or any of the clean statements that would have made the next conversation simpler, just “coffee’s on the counter”.
It was enough. More than enough, from a man who’d spent thirty years building his life around the absolute certainty that no one would be there to catch him if he fell.
Jackson’s breathing evened out slowly, his hand gradually going slack against my chest. I lay beside him in the low lamplight and watched his face—the careful way he was holding himself together even in sleep, the methodical attention he brought to everything—and tried to make sense of what was happening.
The promise I’d given him sat between my shoulder blades like something with an edge—not quite physical, but present enough that I had to look down at Jackson’s sleeping face to hide whatever had just happened to mine.
I didn’t sleep for a long time. Lay beside him in the low lamplight and watched his face and turned over the truth that had been growing between us for months.
When Jackson woke, I was already gone—and on the nightstand, where the lube had been the night before, there was a folded note in my handwriting:“I’ll be home soon.”
Chapter Eighteen
~ Jackson ~
I woke to a cold bed and silence. The other side of the mattress was empty, sheets barely disturbed, as if Cruz had been careful not to leave evidence of his leaving. Only the slight indentation of his body remained, along with the faint trace of his scent fading from the pillow.
The folded note sat on the nightstand in the spot where the lube had been two nights ago—Cruz’s handwriting, four words: “I’ll be home soon.”
