"You're not going to go back to Scotland," I growled into his salt-slick skin.
"Aleksi…"
"You're not going," I said and fucked into him harder. "You're not going anywhere ever, Fin. If you try, I'll fucking find you. I'll drag you back here kicking and screaming. I'll lock you up again, I swear to fucking God—"
"Ye don't have to!" he panted and moaned. "Ye don't have to. I'm not runnin' ye bastard. I'm right here with ye and I've no mind to be elsewhere."
I growled and wrapped my hand around his cock and started to stroke him. He was close. I could feel it in the way he was clenching around me, and I wasn't far behind.
"After this," I panted against the back of his neck. "After Mr. K is dead and in the fucking ground, you're going to stay with me. You're mine, Fin. And I'm not about to give you up. Not for some Italian prick. Not for Nikita. Not for anybody. I'd burn it all to get back here, you hear me? Every last fucking one of them."
"Aye, Christ, Aleksi—"
He came on the jacket. I felt it pulse in my hand and the rest of him went tight and that was it for me. I drove in once, twice, and stayed, my forehead down against the back of his neck, my hand flat on the hood next to his and our fingers half tangled there.
For a minute neither of us moved.
Everything had gone quiet around us. The Viper ticked under us as her metal cooled. Somewhere out in the dark a generatorhummed and the rain that had stopped before we left the city started up again, soft, on the asphalt at our feet.
He turned his head on the jacket.
"Aleksi Laskin."
"Yeah."
"Ye've ruined yer jacket."
"Fuck," I muttered. "That was a nice jacket."
"Ye gonna survive the loss?"
"Yeah, I think I'll manage."
He laughed into the wool. I felt it through my whole chest where I was still pressed against his back, and I closed my eyes and let myself have the laugh for one more second before I pulled out of him.
He hissed when I pulled out. I always hated that sound. The way he winced into it. He'd been sore from before and I'd fucked him hard on the hood of a car and there was a part of me that wanted to apologize for it, and a bigger part that wanted to do it again as soon as he'd let me.
I pulled my pants up. He stayed where he was on his forearms with the jacket bunched up under his chest. "Ye meant that, did ye?"
"Meant what?"
"Ye know what."
I didn't answer right away, because I didn't know how. Pop would've. He always knew the right thing to say at the right time to the right people. But I hadn't inherited his gift for words. I'd always just laid it out plain. It was the only thing I knew to do.
I helped Fin get his pants back up and he turned around, fixing those big eyes on me, waiting for his answer.
I put my hands on his chest and stared at my hands. "I don't want you to go back to Scotland. Or back to your da's shop or anywhere else, Fin. I want you here. With me."
He put his hands over mine. "And what would I do here with ye, Aleksi Laskin? Ye cannae keep me like a pet."
He was joking.
I wasn't.
I lifted my head and met his eyes finally. "Fin. I don't want you to be my pet. I don't want you to be…what you were before. But. If you left… If I woke up one day and you weren't beside me, I'd tear the whole fucking world apart to find you and bring you back." I swallowed. "I know what you want me to say. But I can't say it because it's not true. The word you want, it's a soft, fragile thing. I'm not that kind of man. I can't do candlelit dates and caviar on the river and moonlit walks and—"
His hand tightened on mine. "I don't want all that shite, Aleksi. Ye know that."
