Page 4 of Hearts of Fairlake (Men of Fairlake #8)

ISAIAH

I winced as something buzzed past my head and flitted against my ear. Swatting at it, my eyes went wide as I nearly teetered over the edge and tumbled down the roof. It was slick from the rain we'd had earlier, and if it hadn't been for my legs gripping the post at the roof's peak, I would have fallen right off. I quickly reminded myself that when perching up high, it was a damn good idea to pay attention to my surroundings...while also commending myself for always anchoring in case I flaked out.

Whatever offending insect had smacked into me was gone, and I adjusted my position, looking out on the town as it slept peacefully. Sure, people frequently referred to Fairlake as a sleepy little town, but it was even more so when it was well into the night, and all you could see were the occasional pricks of light from porches or other night owls. Otherwise, it was just the hazy shape of all the roofs stretched out, covered by a blanket of stars overhead.

Fairlake was the town I had known my entire life, if you didn't count the vacations I'd once taken with my family. Back then, I never would have imagined where I’d end up once I was an adult. I never would have predicted that my family would look at the fact that I was gay and decide that wouldn't work with the family image. I could force myself into a loveless, sexless, miserable marriage, dragging someone else down with me into that pit of misery, or I wouldn't have a family.

Well, the joke was on them. I didn't need them as a family anymore. I had the guys at the fire station, Bennett and now Adam, and people like Grant and his ever-charming husband, Sylas. I had the difficult Ethan and the taciturn Chief Price. I had the grumpy Chase and his equally sweet boyfriend, Devin. And yes, I also had my husband peacefully sleeping in the firehouse beneath me as we took the night shift together.

And I had my family's money. An unofficial, under-the-table agreement that I would live quietly so the family name wouldn't be sullied. Of course, all it would take for the house of cards to collapse would be one person to dig and realize that one of the founding families shared a surname with me. But now, there was a new weakness in the foundation, and it had come with such a carefree, genuinely well-meant offer.

To represent my family at the anniversary festival for Fairlake, the town I loved with all my heart. In the mayor's mind, my family might have abandoned the town, but I hadn't, and he wanted me to be the face to show that some of the Ender family still loved its original home.

I had laughed when he asked and then laughed again when I realized he was serious. It would end all agreements with my family, but that deal had been made out of pure spite in the first place. If my family wouldn't accept me, they would pay good money to keep me quiet. And now I was being asked to go up on stage, with my incredibly shy and private husband in tow, and shatter that agreement. My father's worst fears would be shown to the town, neighboring towns, anyone visiting, and probably the entire internet if Bennett's social media presence had anything to say about it.

Should I do it? I'd be lying if I claimed there wasn't a bitter pleasure at the idea of finally breaking a deal that had never been on paper, and so couldn't bite me in the ass. It wasn't like I was hurting for money. Over the years, my father had paid me a lot to keep quiet, and most of it had gone unspent because I didn't need much, and extravagance had never been my thing. Between what was saved and what I earned, along with Julian's income, I could survive quite comfortably and spit in my father's face in the worst 'betrayal' imaginable.

Should I make that kind of decision, which had been requested from a place of kindness and warmth, out of sheer spite and hate?

Just when I was starting to feel morose and sorry for myself, I heard something below me. Frowning, I leaned forward to gaze down at the street and the sidewalk in front of the fire station. All I could see was the light from the front of the building and the large moths flying around the bulbs in erratic, panicked circles. There wasn't another living thing around?—

THUNK.

I jumped as I felt the vibration of something hitting the building. For a moment, I was night blind from gazing down into the lights and couldn’t understand what I saw. Only as my eyes adjusted did I realize the two narrow things I was seeing starting to shake were the ends of a ladder.

A welcome face came slowly into view, followed by the broadest set of shoulders I'd ever laid eyes on. I could hear the soft clink of a wedding ring as it hit the metal rungs, and Julian finally stopped at the top.

"Gonna come join me?" I asked with a wicked grin, knowing full well what the answer would be. We were firefighters; we could and would put ourselves into danger to help other people, but that didn't mean he was much of a climber...or a fan of heights. It was amusing how people always assumed I knew everything about Julian there was to know when, in reality, even with me, he could be quite private. Only last year, I discovered he’d always been nervous about heights.

"Chief has been talking too much about needing to get the roof fixed for me to get my butt up there," he said, leaning forward to rest his arms on the top rung.

Julian definitely wasn't fat, but he was easily the biggest person I'd ever met, let alone in Fairlake. Not that you'd know it from how he moved and he was ever so careful around other people. He was a man who’d grown larger than the rest of the world, but to abuse it had never occurred to him, and he had always shown care to the smaller denizens of the world.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," I told him.

"So are you."

"Okay, but you were already sleeping. I never fell asleep."

At that, he smiled but didn't say anything else; he was just watching me carefully. Not that he needed to say a whole lot...nor would he. From the first day I'd met him, Julian struck me as a man who said very little, which had been true for the most part. He also struck me as someone who hated my guts, which wasn't so true if the smile on his face and the ring on my finger were any indication.

He had told me before that I’d been the first person, man or woman, friend or lover, who had tried to understand him without demanding that he always talk. Of course, that had come with the caveat that he did need to talk more, if only to tell me what he needed and what was bothering him. But otherwise? I liked to think I was pretty good at knowing what was going on in that head of his.

And right now? Right now, he was worried about me. Not because he thought I was overwhelmed or extremely pissed, but because he knew if I wasn't sleeping and had found a high place, it meant I wanted to think.

"I'm okay," I told him, holding onto the pipe to stretch my legs without falling off.

"Okay," he said, that small smile still on his face.

I looked sidelong at him. "I was just?—"

"I know."

"I love you."

His eyes crinkled at the corners. "And I love you."

That right there was enough to push the moroseness from my thoughts. My husband loved me, was worried about me, and though he hadn't outright said it, he was waiting for me to join him on solid ground. Whether or not he would get me to lay down and go to sleep was entirely different, but I was sure he knew that.

"I'm coming down," I said with a chuckle, waving him off. "Get your two feet on Ol' Mother Earth."

Once again, he only smiled, clambering down the ladder faster than he'd climbed up. Whether that was because he was relieved to have his feet on solid ground again or because he'd successfully made me feel better. I even laughed when I watched the ladder disappear, Julian knowing full well I wasn't going to take the easy way down.

Swinging my legs around the pipe, I tested the friction of the roof tiles before letting myself slide down to the next lower part of the roof. My feet hit, and I popped up carefully, staying upright but not letting my momentum fling me forward. I walked toward the back of the fire station and to the furthest corner. There, the brickwork allowed me to swing around and use it like a ladder, moving my way down to the ground, where I dropped the last few feet and groaned, pressing into my back.

"I think I'm getting old," I told Julian as he returned, watching me in amusement as I stretched and bent. "Used to be I could sit up there forever. I've only been up there an hour."

"I can massage it if you want," he said, putting his hand on my lower back and curling his fingers as if trying to grab me.

Between the offer and the touch, I could feel a familiar, different tingle dancing up my back. "Why, Mr. Ender! What sort of man do you think I am? That sounds like an indecent proposal."

"It is," he said, leaning forward to kiss my temple and then nibble the top of my ear for good measure. "We're the only ones on shift tonight, remember?"

"How inappropriate!" I gasped even as I curled around him to press my face against his chest. In many ways, his sheer bluntness was something that, once upon a time, I wouldn't have predicted I’d see. It used to be that I had to get him wound up before the more assertive side of him came out to play. But that had been years ago, and after meeting and getting to know my friends, trusting the guys at the station, and pushing away his horrible family, he had grown far more comfortable in his skin.

It was hard to believe that the man I was married to had once been emotionally chained by a controlling mother and a brother who...well, calling him a manipulative, self-serving, cruel prick would still not be enough to encompass who he was. Between them and an emotionally and physically abusive father who despised the slightest hint of homosexuality and well...Julian locked himself and his sexuality down tight .

Nowadays, though, the only thing getting locked up was one of us when we were in the mood.

"Let's go inside," I said with a chuckle as I drew away, gazing up into his eyes and smiling, "before the mosquitos decide they're hungry enough to carry both of us off."

We returned inside, closing the door behind us and walking toward the back of the building. The lights were kept low so we weren't wandering around like it was daytime, and I glanced into the call room. The machines were all working, and nothing seemed amiss, which was expected. It had been set up so we didn't have someone constantly sitting at the machine, waiting for a call that might not come. If the machine went down, or if a call came in, an alarm sounded, and every single one of us had trained ourselves to dive toward the machine to take it, usually reciting who was on call for the night in case we needed to call them in.

"Lay down," he said once we reached the bunks behind the lounge area.

"Yes, sir," I said with a chuckle as I lay on one of the bunks screwed into the wall. Once upon a time, they had been barely comfortable, and no amount of complaining ever convinced Chief Bolton to change them for something better. It wasn't until I got fed up and decided to use my own funds to have better, more comfortable ones installed that we saw a change. I'd also earned myself a week of punishment because it went against ordinances and required extra paperwork, but even Bolton hadn't complained much the first time he slept in one.

Sprawling on my stomach, Julian perched above me to rub my back. To his credit, the offer had been genuine and not just sexual, considering his touches were purposeful and gentle as he tried to feel for the tightest parts of my back. I could tell from the way he was moving that he was trying to make me comfortable and, more than likely, get me to talk.

Sneaky.

"What do you think I should do?" I asked after a few minutes of wincing in painful pleasure when he found a particularly tight knot.

"About the festival?"

"Yeah."

"I don't...know. Do you want to piss off your family?"

"I mean, yeah, I kinda do."

"Then do it."

I laughed. "Aren't you supposed to be encouraging me not to be petty? Like, tell me we're too old for that kind of thing, and we should be the bigger people."

There was a pause before he spoke. "I used to think giving my mom all that money and not talking about Tristan was best. To ruin that would be petty and make me the smaller person."

I glanced over my shoulder to frown at him. "But?"

"There's no but," he said with a shrug as he ran his fingers down my back. "I'm just not a person who's good at saying what's petty or not."

"You telling your mom and brother to fuck off and stop taking advantage of you isn't petty or makes you a bad person," I told him. "The pettiest thing you ever did was take my last name when we got married. Your mom looked like she was going to blow her top."

"I shouldn't have invited her," he said softly and I didn't have to look to know he was wincing.

"She would have thrown a fit about the name thing if you’d invited her or not. Hell, it probably would have been bigger if she hadn't been invited. It was bad enough that you didn't invite your brother. "

"He doesn't need to come within fifty miles of you and me," Julian growled in a rare moment of genuine anger. It was hard to tell if the anger came from a place of outrage over what his brother had put him through or because his brother had once been a threat to me. Julian wasn't a violent or angry man, but when it came to the few things in his life that he could safely cherish, he was as fiercely protective as a pissed-off mother grizzly bear.

"Mmm, I remember you saying that in the same way with those same words to your mom."

"I did."

"And I remember being just as turned on then as I am now."

He let out a little laugh as he began digging into my lower back. "If you want to make your family mad, do it. They don't deserve to have you be nice to them. They don't deserve anything from you."

"We'd lose the money," I reminded him.

"Fuck the money," he said without hesitation. "I live with you, I married you, I love you. Not because of money or anything else. I've been poor."

Poor he had been, but only because he'd been sending so much goddamn money to his mother, who had deemed herself above needing to get a job on top of her government assistance. Apparently, it was better to leech off her son while her other son ran his and other people's lives and let Julian suffer for everyone else's mistakes. The crummy apartment he’d lived in had been...depressing. Especially when I learned he was there because the weight of the world had been forced on his shoulders rather than eased by the very people who should have been there for him.

"Plus," he muttered. "I've seen your bank account. If we end up poor at some point in the near future, we've been screwing up. "

I let out a laugh. "True. Our incomes are enough to sustain us without having to dip into that money heavily. Just...vacations, some treats here and there."

"No treat should cost that much," he said, and I could hear the wryness in his voice. The first time he'd seen my savings account, I thought he was going to have a stroke. To be fair, I kept how much money I truly had a secret from everyone else. No one needed to know just how much money I had because money made people...weird. Well, and it would have led to a lot of awkward questions about why someone was sending me so much money a month and trying to explain that I'd made a deal with my father not to talk in exchange for hush money.

At least it wasn't outright blackmail, not in the legal sense, anyway.

"I don't know," I said with a sigh. "Honestly, I don't care about losing the money much either, and not even because we have more than enough. It would be the last tie I could finally cut to my family, and I'd no longer be bound to them."

Julian paused before he gave a soft, “Oh."

To the untrained ear, it sounded like my husband was understanding, or perhaps at worst, acknowledging that he heard me and was waiting for me to follow up with whatever else was on my mind. The thing was, I wasn't just anyone, and I’d become incredibly adept at reading between the lines, both what he said and what he didn't say. This wasn't just a simple 'Oh, I understand you.' This was an 'Oh, I just understood something that either you didn't say or didn't realize yourself.'

"Oh?" I asked, turning a little to stare at him. "What?"

My suspicions were confirmed when I watched a complicated mix of worry, embarrassment, and concern wash over his face. Whatever he was thinking was something he wasn't sure he should say. I had to admit that no matter how much progress someone made to get over their demons, some things stuck with the tenacity of burrs in thick, curly hair. Sometimes, it didn't matter that he’d learned he could be open and honest with me. The years of learning the hard way that he should keep most of his opinions to himself were deeply ingrained.

"Just say it," I told him softly, narrowing my eyes. "Because it sounds like whatever's in your head is a big deal."

"I mean...maybe."

"Julian, hey...it's me, remember?"

"I know, but when it comes to your family?—"

"I'm no happier talking about them than you are about yours. That doesn't mean we should avoid the topics altogether. We have to be willing to talk about this kind of shit, remember?"

I could still see the war on his face, but there were little tells that I was getting through to him. It was in the way his brow stopped furrowing and even eased a little; his jaw didn't tighten to the point that I could see the muscles working, and his fingers resumed their soothing motions into my muscles. The corner of his mouth curled upward. "You're so patient."

I scoffed, turning my head to plant it back into the pillow now I assumed we’d made it past that hurdle. "Have you met me? I'm impatient as hell."

"Not with me."

"I can be."

"Sometimes. But that's not how you are ."

I smiled into the pillow. "You know, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You might think you're bad with words, but you're better at them than you think. Use those skills to tell me what popped into your head a moment ago."

His fingers tensed for a moment before going back to the massage. "Maybe...you're afraid to cut that last tie? "

If anyone else had said it, I would have denied it immediately and angrily. Considering it was Julian, though, I kept my knee-jerk reaction contained and reminded myself that not only had I asked him to speak the truth, but it wasn't the kind of thing that was easy for him to say. Instead, I took a moment before asking softly. “What do you mean?"

"I mean...letting go of your family isn't easy. I would know. But you...you were forced to let go. You helped me choose to start letting mine go...your family found out about you and gave you a choice...that wasn't a choice."

"No," I admitted slowly. "It wasn't much of a choice. I'll give you that."

"And you probably didn't mean it that way, but the deal you made still gave you a connection...and you kept your last name."

"So?"

"It's like..." I could tell from his tone that he was struggling to convey what he meant, but I stayed quiet, letting him find the words on his own. Sometimes, I could fill in the blank, and other times, like now, I had to wait until he managed to paint the picture for me. "Do you remember...when I got hurt?"

I thought about it for a minute. "Wait, back when you got hurt because you followed me into the house?"

"Yeah."

"Well, sweetheart, it's ever so slightly difficult to forget I was saved by the man who would become my husband one day."

"When you went up there, even though it was against protocol and dangerous...did you do it because that was your job? Like...because that's what you felt you needed to do?"

I thought about it for a moment, mostly to figure out where he was trying to go with this. "No. I took this job because I wanted to help people and give back to the people of Fairlake like my family used to do, but in a 'boots on the ground' sort of way. And that night, I did it because there were kids trapped up there, and rules be damned, I was going to try to help them. Not because it was my job, but because I wanted to...and I guess you could say I almost felt like I needed to."

"Would it have felt the same if you had been ordered up there?"

"I...don't know, maybe?"

"What if you had been ordered up there when you didn't want to go? Or...maybe you did, but you were worried and scared about going, but Bolton or someone else forced you?"

"I would have done it because it was all I could do then, but I wouldn't have...oh."

He surprised me by bending down to kiss between my shoulder blades. "Your dad didn't give you a choice either...not a real one. Do what they want...or lose them. You've been mad at them, and you hate them, but...that doesn't mean you can't still miss things about them...or miss them at all."

The sudden wash of sorrow caught me off-guard as I felt my eyes prickle with tears threatening to surface. Sure, sometimes I remembered the good times, like my father taking time out of his day once to personally train me how to ski rather than pushing it off onto a skilled and expensive instructor. My mother had always taken at least an hour, if not more, to sit down with me to do...just about anything. All that had mattered to her was that we had time together, whether it was getting me to read aloud to her, play a game, paint...anything.

My childhood had been fairly strict. We were expected to act and speak in a way that took me years to unravel after I left. But there were still bright moments of light and laughter, and I had never wondered what it was like not to be loved or cared for. My father had high expectations for my future but never treated me as less or a simple extension of himself. Until he discovered I could neverfit into the mold he had created for me. It might have been a wider, more accepting mold than many of my peers at the time, but it was no less strict or unforgiving to those who tried to break out of it.

"I don't want to miss them," I said in a thick voice.

The cot shifted, and suddenly, Julian was beside me, squeezing his mass between my body and the wall. For someone smaller, it would have been effective but only pushed me aside. The result was that I was almost pushed off the bed, but he was quick, grabbing me and pulling me back. It also had the benefit of jerking a surprised laugh out of me before I took comfort in his arms, holding me close.

"Sorry," he mumbled, sounding embarrassed.

"Don't be," I said, burying my face in his neck and kissing it. "I'll just chalk it up to you wanting an excuse to get ahold of me."

"I don't need an excuse for that," he said in a rare moment of smugness that made me laugh.

"You really don't," I said, running my hand up and down his wide back appreciatively. "It's a free pass as far as I'm concerned."

"Same for you."

"Oh yeah? Good to know."

Which, of course, was the moment I decided to slip my hands between our bodies and find the front of his shorts. I cupped him, appreciating his soft feel just like I enjoyed him in any other shape. Of course, my touch completely changed things, and I could feel him growing hard. He buried his face into the top of my head to kiss gently, and I slid my hand into his shorts, sighing in contentment and pleasure as my fingers found the soft, growing shaft .

Julian grunted, and I wondered if he would try to stop me before it got too far to continue our conversation. I, however, was distracted from my misery. What was happening right now was far more interesting than what we had just been talking about. And if I was using it as a distraction for a moment to pour all my feelings into something 'productive,' something I knew what to do with, then...who could blame me?

Not either of us, that was for sure.

By the time we’d worked together to push his shorts off, he was already rock-hard. I wasn't surprised by his rapid response. The past week had seen us unable to have any intimate time together between long and conflicting shifts. Though the initial heat of our relationship had cooled to a far less consistently horny level, all I had to do was think about the man naked, his dick, or...well, honestly, just seeing him in a good pair of shorts, bent over as he did something completely benign could still do it for me.

Except now he knelt over me, gripping the base of his thick cock to aim it toward my mouth. There was zero hesitation as I opened my lips and felt the thick head slide past them, the weight of it on my tongue as he slid forward. The angle was bad for using my throat, but that was alright. Even years of practice didn't prevent me from the occasional sore throat whenever Julian got a little...enthusiastic during blow jobs. Not that I could rest the blame for that solely on his shoulders. I was just as enthused about it when he got his engine revved up.

Julian hovered over me, slowly shifting his hips as he stared down. Eye contact had always been a big thing for him, and if he could take the opportunity to watch intensely, he would. Not that I minded. The intensity of his stare before sex immediately made me ready, and during? Well, that was enough to make me squirm, enough that I had to find a way to remove my pants to make myself more comfortable from the straining of my dick.

That lasted only a moment before restlessness kicked in. As much as it was fun, I was already amped up from the slight dry spell and the desperate need to feel something more...vigorous. I patted the side of the bed, then tugged his leg so he understood what I wanted. Raising a brow, he did as I asked, sliding off the cot to stand beside the bed. That allowed me to turn around so my head hung off the side of the bed, mouth open.

Not one to waste the opportunity being offered, Julian immediately put his dick right back where it was. The difference was the new position allowed him to press forward until his cock slid into my throat. While I had gotten better at deep-throating him, this was the only position that allowed it to happen comfortably. It wasn't my fault that Julian had to be big all over, but that didn't mean I couldn't find ways to accommodate my shortcomings.

Julian was clearly enjoying himself, gently rocking back and forth. He used the upper bunk to hold onto while he crouched down to reach my mouth. It gave me a chance to breathe before he finally slid forward, wiry red hair tickling my nose as he bottomed out with a low moan. Another one was pulled from him when I swallowed as much as I could, which wasn’t actually swallowing, but my muscles did something that made his legs shake.

As there wasn't much I could do in this position, I flopped my hand over for the small overnight bag I'd brought. Julian pulled out slowly, savoring the sight as I got hold of the drawstring bag and opened it. After a moment, my hands closed around the familiar shape of a bottle and pulled it out. Spreading my legs, I opened it, letting any excess lube spill onto my shirt as I applied the liquid to my fingers.

I moaned as I pushed two fingers into myself, hiking up my legs and hooking my feet into the slats of the bunk above for easier access. Despite my vision being partially blocked by Julian's cock, I could still see how intensely he stared down at me as he took advantage of my throat and mouth, his eyes only leaving my face to watch what I was doing.

Completely trusting him if I started to fall, I reached up with my other hand and under his shirt to run my hands over his muscles. I could feel them shifting under his skin and the heat radiating off him. A shiver ran through me, and I pushed a third finger inside, feeling my body protest mildly before it relaxed as Julian once more bottomed out in my throat.

The moment was heated but slow, and I couldn't wait until it was his cock inside me rather than my fingers. The anticipation made me antsy, and I spread my fingers to ensure I was nicely stretched. I'd grown adept at taking him over the years, but that didn't mean some preparation from one of us didn't help.

"Baby," he said softly, stroking the side of my face as he slid out.

Ever a man of few words, but I knew exactly what he wanted as I pulled my fingers free and handed him the bottle. Julian's eyes darkened with lust as he backed away, freeing my mouth and letting me move. I twisted and turned over so I was kneeling, my body at an angle so I wasn't smashed against the wall, ass raised in the air.

As a little tease to myself, I didn't look behind me, even if the sight of him stroking himself to ensure complete coverage with the lube was a tempting sight. Instead, I knelt in anticipation, listening to the little sounds, feeling the bottle hit the cot beside me, and then feeling the warmth of his hand on my thigh. The other was probably gripping the base, and I shivered when I felt the slightly cool lube on his dick brush against me before the pressure began .

It lasted only a moment before I felt myself spread the last little bit that my fingers hadn't managed. Julian hesitated, an eternal gentleman, but I wasn't prepared to wait. Not caring about the dull ache, I pushed my hips back, taking the next few inches inside me to give the most obvious hint I could give. His fingers tightened on my thighs as he followed my lead, pulling me toward him.

"Oh God ," I moaned into the pillow as I felt him inch by inch slip into me. It was exactly what I needed after the week I'd had, and another shuddering moan came from my lips as I felt his hips press against my ass. I had always appreciated the sense of fullness whenever someone fucked me, but for obvious reasons, no one could give me that feeling quite like my husband.

With a low noise, he slowly pulled out, forcing both of us to endure the feeling of each inch leaving me before immediately pushing back in. I knew he was trying to ensure I was loose so he could move freely, but at least it was some form of movement beyond achingly slow. It served to take all the anticipation and lust and boil it away in my gut as I waited desperately for him to start the real show.

That came after a few more steady strokes as he pushed into me steadily and ground his hips against me. My breath left me in a whimper as he began to work up his rhythm, making sure to bottom out every time as his hands shifted their hold to my hips. My fingers curled into the blanket, holding on for dear life as the sharp jolts of pleasure steadily became blinding arcs of ecstasy.

I didn't know how long I knelt there, feeling myself steadily worked over by the love of my life, and I didn't care if it was three hours or three minutes. Julian was fucking me hard enough that the sounds of our bodies meeting were a beat of slapping skin. My cock bounced between my legs, hard as steel and aching for the release that I desperately craved. Yet I wanted to hold off, to savor the feeling, the moment we were achieving together, and bask in it for a while longer.

Yet, I later found I had no say in the matter. Julian somehow managed to get his hand under me and gripped my cock, even as he was still pumping deep into me. I gave a strangled gasp that might have been a protest, or it might have been pleasure. Whatever it was, all it took was a few strokes of my dick in time with his hips, and I found myself burying my face into the pillow as my orgasm exploded.

With a grunt, Julian gripped my hips and thrust forward so I was forced flat on my stomach. My cries of pleasure became staccato as his thrusts went wild before he shoved as deep as he could into me. As the last waves of my orgasm left me, I couldn't help but groan as I felt him twitch as his orgasm overtook him, spilling inside me as the weight of his body pinned me to the mattress. It was probably my imagination, but I liked to think I could feel each pulse as he came inside me, and the thought was as pleasant as the fucking only seconds before.

It felt like an eternity passed before he finally pushed up, reaching down to carefully grip the base of his dick to pull out gently. As usual, I felt a lingering sense of loss, but I didn't complain. There would be other times to enjoy the feel of him inside me, and now I was struck with the sudden urge to have the weight of his body back with me.

He returned a moment later with rags to clean me off, chuckling as he did so. "You're going to have to get up."

"I know," I muttered, knowing my front would have to be cleaned and the sheet thrown into the wash with the rags. "You're the one who pushed me into my cum."

"Sorry," he said, though he didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "Hard to control myself when that happens."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said with a snort, pushing up and taking one of the rags to clean myself. After pulling on our clothes again, we worked together to change the sheets while he took the soiled stuff to the washing machine at the back. He returned to find me staring up at the top bunk on my back. Without a word, he slid onto the edge of the bed, nudging me until I was forced to turn on my side facing him or the wall.

Of course, I chose to face him, allowing him to wrap his arms and legs around me as he cradled me against his chest. I breathed in the smell of him, a scent I was familiar with, the smell of his sweat and body when he'd exerted himself. Even though it wasn't a one-for-one comparison, it always reminded me of a pleasant fire, bringing rich smoke and cool air to mind as I sat around sipping good beer and enjoying the company. The first time I felt like I had found a replacement for the family I had left behind was when the police and firefighters had one of their group bonfires together, dragging me along in the first few months of working at the firehouse.

It was safety, it was comfort, it was home .

"Thank you," I said softly.

"For what?"

"For fucking my brains out?"

He chuckled, and I could hear its rumble in his chest. "I've gone harder than that before."

"Next time," I said with a yawn, closing my eyes. "But for taking care of me, for being with me...for loving me."

"You make all those things easy," he said, pressing his face against my forehead and stroking my hair. "You let me be me. And this is what I like to do."

If ever something brought back that mixed bag of emotions, it was hearing my normally reticent husband speak openly about how much he loved me and what I’d done to deserve that. This time, my eyes prickled not with bitterness but because of his sweetness, and I held onto him, wishing I could burrow further into him for the comfort he was already giving me.

"I want to do it," I said quietly. "My family doesn't want me, and I don't want them anymore. It's time I let go of the last thread and embrace my real family. With these people...with you."

There was a pause. “I'll go with you."

That surprised me, and I pulled back to look at him. "What? Up on the stage?"

He nodded solemnly. "No speech."

"Wh-what? You hate getting attention. You realize pretty much the whole town and a bunch of people from out of town will be there, right? Looking right at us, both of us, if you get up there."

He pulled me into his chest again with a low rumble. "We're married. If you're going to take a big step like that...well, we do things together, remember?"

I closed my eyes and nodded, torn between the love being shown to me and the instinct to want to keep him away from something I knew would be uncomfortable for him. At the same time, I had always told him that sometimes you had to get through your discomfort to find something better than what you had now. In many ways, he was offering something that meant as much to me, if not more, as our wedding.

"Okay," I said softly. "Then sometime over the next couple of days, I'll call the mayor and tell him I'll do it...and that you're going to join me."

"Do you think he'll let me?"

"You may not be by blood, but you're legally an Ender."

A low rumble came from his chest again. "Think your dad will hear?"

"Probably," I said, feeling a flicker of amusement at the idea. It died within moments, though, as I nuzzled him. "But really, having you up there is what I'm thinking about most. Thank you."

"Of course," he said softly, arms tightening around me as we grew quiet. I was left serenaded by the sound of his breathing and the comforting beat of his heart.