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He moved onto his knees, and his hard cock brushed over my stomach. It distracted me for a moment, but his expression was earnest and entirely serious, so I swallowed my grin and waved my hand for him to continue.

I folded my hands behind my head and watched him work his mouth down my body. For a while, I was able to contain myself. He traced the bruises on my torso with his tongue, and my whole body shuddered with just enough pleasure to distract me from the pain.

The slow torture drove me crazy. It wasn’t his usual style; teasing was
my
trick. In the beginning, I’d done it to show him that there was more to sex than just fucking, that it was okay to invest yourself in it. Now, as he brought me to the point of begging, I began to regret teaching him so well.

Ash took me in his mouth. I jerked violently and he placed his hands on my hips to restrain me. I struggled for a moment, but he held firm.

“Relax.”

Holding me down wasn’t something he’d enjoy for long, so I knew if I wanted him to continue I had to cooperate. With conscious effort, I relaxed, and he settled between my legs with one hand on my abdomen to still me if I moved again. He took my cock in his other hand, resuming the game he’d started.

Over and over, he brought me to the brink, but each time he pulled back just before I exploded. I was almost beside myself by the time I finally snapped.

I yanked on his shoulders, pulling him up the bed. He released me with a wet pop.

“Pete, no. Your ribs, I’ll hurt you.”

“No, you won’t.” Screw that. He was fucking me, end of story.

He visibly wavered, and I sensed victory, knowing he was as worked up as I was. After the briefest standoff in history, he reached behind me for our stash of supplies. He gripped the headboard for balance and rolled a condom onto himself, staring at me as his earnest expression returned. “Slow, okay?”

I nodded, briefly behaving myself until I got impatient, thrust my hips up and drove his cock deep inside me.

Ash cursed, slamming his fist into the mattress. “
Pete
.”

The inevitable burn faded to a warm, spine-tingling heat. I grinned. An involuntary flex ran through me in the same moment. We both shuddered. Ash smirked and rolled his hips in response. And just like that, my upper hand was officially over.

He slid his hands beneath my shoulders. I braced myself against the bedframe. His chest was against mine, and I felt every breath and heartbeat like they were my own.

I grazed his neck with my teeth, nipping lightly at his most sensitive spot. Ash groaned. “Fuck, yeah.”

His voice sent shivers through me, but he was holding back. I knew he was. I let go of the wood and reached between us with one hand while the other found purchase on the back of his head. Part of me was grateful for his consideration, but I was frustrated as I twisted his hair in my fingers. I wanted more. Stupidly, I thought I
needed
more.

He knew better, and forced me to accept his careful pace. I didn’t last long. A sudden, deliberate change in rhythm was all it took, and combined with my own hand on my dick, I was totally undone. I threw my head back and came in my hand.

“Fuck!”

He soothed me as my injured muscles clenched in a weird mix of pain and pleasure, and moments later he followed. I watched through hooded eyes as he arched his back and his whole body shuddered. I loved watching him come. He always seemed so surprised by how good it felt, like he’d never done it before. It was fascinating—the hottest thing I’d ever seen—and it never got old.

I caught him as his arms gave way and he collapsed on my chest. I grasped clumsily for any part of him I could reach and buried my face in his neck. For long moments, I could hear no sound but heavy breaths and my own heart pounding. Then Ash shifted and kissed every inch of skin in his path until he found my lips. He kissed me until the need for oxygen won out, and then he pulled away with a soft smile. It was nice to see, and I couldn’t help but grin back.

We cleaned up, and I crawled back into bed while Ash disappeared into the bathroom. He settled beside me when he came back and pulled the rumpled sheets over us both. I hummed as he brushed his hand over my chest until it came to rest on my belly. I bottomed a lot, so I rarely suffered aftereffects, but the warmth of his palm on my stomach was nice. I nestled my head against his chest and sleepily smirked at the sweat and heavy breaths I could still feel there.

“You’re so fucking hot,” I said, already half-asleep.

He said something in response to my incoherent mumble, but I didn’t catch it, because I was too far into the best sleep I’d had for weeks.

M
ONDAY
morning came around far too quickly, but I still woke up feeling more rested than I had in weeks. Ash went to work, and I spent most of my day cleaning up all the crap from the weekend. I wandered around the living room, picking up pizza boxes and discarded clothes. The only thing I left lying around was his personal sketchbook. For reasons I’d never quite understood, he liked to keep it under the couch. After nearly two years of living together, I knew better than to mess with it.

As I was finishing up, I caught sight of the newspaper I’d swiped from next door the previous day. I frowned and picked it up. It was dog-eared and lying open, and the photo of the bat-wielding wife-beater was staring back at me. His name was Daryl Hunter. Though I’d seen the picture before, the face was unfamiliar. At the time of the assault, my head had been shielded beneath my arms, and I’d only glanced at the paper the previous day. Without the headline and the smiling face of his wife beside him, I wouldn’t have known who he was.

Looking at the image of the man was unsettling. He was in his late thirties, well-built and strong. It was all too easy to see why his wife never stood a chance. Even in black and white, the expression in his eyes made my skin crawl, and thinking about his missing kid made me feel even worse. I shoved the damn paper in the trash with a repressed shudder. I didn’t want to think about that shit anymore.

Later that afternoon, I headed out to meet Ash after his last sitting at the tattoo shop. He wasn’t quite finished when I got there, but then again, I’d known he wouldn’t be. Time wasn’t something that concerned him. I gave him a quick grin and ambled over to the couch in the waiting area.

I picked up a catalogue of designs and flicked through it. Ash’s work was easy to spot. His signature mystical style was distinctive—the way he could take an everyday object and make it his own. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d done a double take at a piece he’d stuck up in the apartment. Who knew a light bulb inside a dragon’s mouth could be beautiful? It made me smile, actually, to see so much of his work on display in the catalogue. I remembered how pleased he’d been the first time his boss had put his designs in the books. It was the first time I ever saw him proud of himself.

Beside me, the couch dipped. I looked up to see an olive-skinned face I vaguely recognized. It took a moment to place him as Joe, Charlie’s friend from the weekend. Joe had restrained me when I’d gone for Sean, and prevented me from hitting him more than once. In hindsight, he’d done me a favor, and he’d hardly been defending Sean, but as he flopped onto the couch next to me and punched my shoulder like we were the best of friends, for some reason I felt wary.

Oblivious, he leaned closer to peer at the book in my hands. I handed it over. He grinned his thanks and flipped quickly through it until he came to a stop on a small sketch of a woman’s ass with “God Bless America” written across it. The piece was definitely
not
Ash’s work.

He chuckled loudly, shaking the couch. “Now,
that
I like.” He turned to me. “You got ink?”

I nodded. “A few.”

“Did Ash do them?”

“One,” I said, fighting the urge to trace the stars etched on my chest. I had good memories of the night Ash put his mark on me
. Really
good memories. It was the first time I’d ever seen him work, and it had led to one of the hottest fucks we’d ever had. Who knew needles, ink, and a studious frown could be so damn erotic?

Joe reached the end of the book and tossed it back onto the table. He drummed his fingers on his knee. It was obvious he had something to say, and I didn’t have to wait long for him to find the words.

“So… Saturday.” He paused for a moment, gauging my reaction. “That was heavy.”

“What do you care?”

Joe raised an eyebrow, but it took me a moment to realize I’d thrown the same words at him that I had at Sean. The hostile glare probably wasn’t too dissimilar either.

“Charlie’s a good friend of mine,” he said eventually. “And I like Ash a lot. Who he fucks means nothing to me. I wouldn’t have even noticed you were together if that asshat hadn’t opened his dirty mouth.”

I glanced around quickly. Ash kept his personal life to himself at work. I didn’t want Joe to inadvertently out him. “He was an asshat,” I agreed reluctantly.

“True that.”

Joe folded his arms across his chest and looked around the shop. I followed his gaze to Ash, who was hard at work with his bottom lip caught in his teeth. He hadn’t let Ellie cut his hair in months and it was flopping over his forehead, but I could still see the deep frown creased there as he concentrated on whatever he was drawing. He often lost himself when he drew, whether with ink or his pencil at home. I was surprised, actually, that he’d even seen me come in. Still,
that
frown….

“You know why I stopped you, don’t you?” Joe said suddenly.

Irritated, I tore my eyes away. “What?”

Joe held my gaze. “You were pissed enough to do some serious damage. A prick like that isn’t worth doing time for.”

He was right—it was nothing I hadn’t told myself—but in the same vein I was irked that he felt the need to lecture me. I knew who was in the wrong that night. I didn’t need him to tell me. What I needed was to steer the conversation away from myself before I was a jerk to Ash’s friend. “What happened after we left? Was Charlie okay?”

The couch shook again as Joe laughed. The dude wasn’t much bigger than me, but he had a chuckle like a damn earthquake.

“Yeah, man. He got a few little hits in before Meg slapped him silly. I think it was worth it for him, though. He’s been strutting around all weekend thinking he’s a gangster.”

I had to grin at that. Charlie was a rich preppy kid with a silver spoon up his ass; brawling wasn’t his style. “You live with him?”

Joe shook his head. “Nah, not now. We shared a dorm for a bit in college.”

I stretched my legs out in front of me and relaxed a little bit more. I vaguely recalled that Charlie and Ellie had attended the same college—their father’s alma mater, if I remembered correctly. “In Philly?”

“Yeah, freshman year.”

“Fair enough.” I wondered idly if he’d met Ash in Philadelphia through Charlie, before I remembered that Charlie hadn’t met Ash until Ellie moved back to Chicago. “So what brings you here?”

“I was just dropping some pictures off for Ash,” Joe said. “He’s got his panties in a twist about the tat he’s drawing for me.”

His grin waned slightly as he said the words. I thought back to recent conversations about Ash’s work. There was only one piece I could remember giving him trouble, but it wasn’t a sketch I knew much about. “The Romanian thing? That’s you? Damn, he’s been in a funk over that thing for months.”

“Romany,” Joe corrected. “And yeah, I know. That’s kinda my fault. I’ve been a bit flighty the past year or so—”

He cut off as Ash suddenly appeared in front of us. For some reason, he looked nervous as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Are you ready?”

I stood carefully, testing my bruised muscles. “Sure.”

Joe got up too and raised his fist to meet mine. “Good to see you, man. We’ll have to grab a beer soon, preferably without the bullshit.”

I watched with my eyebrow raised as he then leaned across me and wrapped his arms around Ash. The hug was a brief, platonic, back-slapping affair, but it was probably the most surprising thing I’d seen in a while. In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen Ash affectionately touch anyone besides Ellie or my mom. Man hugs weren’t his style at all, and it kept me puzzled as we left the studio and headed for the L.

We’d been on the train for a while when Ash kicked my legs from the seat opposite. “Joe’s all right, you know.”

“Hmm?”

“Joe,” he repeated. “He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, he seems cool,” I said absently.

“Then why were you looking at him like you wanted to kill him?”

“I wasn’t.”

Ash crossed his legs in front of him and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, you were. I know that look. What’s up with that?”

“We were just talking about Sean,” I said, as if that explained everything.

It didn’t, but Ash said nothing. The events at the party hadn’t been mentioned since that night, and he seemed hell-bent on pretending nothing had happened at all. I’d put it aside the day before, willingly distracted by just being with him, but back in the real world, it hung over us, festering away while we both ignored it.

The long journey up to my mom’s place in Edgewater left plenty of time for heavy silences. It was a while before Ash spoke again.

“What’s Maggie cooking?”

I looked up and he grinned at me, his eyes warm and all the tension from our previous discussion gone.

“She didn’t say, but she was pretty stoked you were coming. I’ll bet she’s done all your favorites.”

“Yeah, and yours. Saves us going grocery shopping, though, right?”

He was right about that. My mom was Italian—the source of my dark eyes and skin—and a little nutty, but she was one hell of a cook, and she loved feeding Ash. The mama bear in her couldn’t resist his boyish charms, and she always went all-out when she knew he was coming. I was pretty sure she was responsible for the weight he’d gained over the past year. He was a scrawny kid when I met him, all wild hair and wide eyes. These days, watching him rub his full belly after my mom had mothered him to death made my day.