Page 51 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

"My mom used to cook elaborate Sunday dinners," Hunter said finally, voice strained as I rewarded his sharing by wrapping my hand around his cock. "This impossible fusion that shouldn't have worked but did. She'd make us speak Mandarin at the table, said I needed to remember where I came from."

I stroked him slowly while he spoke, his hips jerking with each movement.

"My dad would tell terrible jokes in Korean while Mom cooked. Really awful puns that only worked if you understood both languages. They'd switch between English, Mandarin, and Korean mid-sentence when they didn't want me to understand something important."

"When did you stop speaking to them?" I asked, increasing my pace just enough to make him gasp.

"Four years ago. After I left rehab." His voice cracked.

I moved up his body, capturing his mouth in a kiss that tasted of regret and longing. "They still love you," I said against his lips. "Parents don't stop loving their children. They just stop knowing how to help."

"I hurt them so badly. I chose drugs over everything they'd taught me, everything they'd given me."

"Then choose differently now." My hand returned to stroking him. "Show me those languages aren't gone. Show me they're still part of who you are."

I moved down his body, settling between his spread legs. I looked up at him through my lashes, holding his gaze as I traced my tongue along the underside of his shaft. Hunter's entire body jerked, a curse tearing from his throat.

I pulled off him, enjoying the way he whimpered. "What language was that curse in?"

Hunter stared at me, chest heaving. "English."

"Try again." I settled back between his legs. "Tell me how good it feels in your mother's language."

I took him back in my mouth, deeper this time. Hunter's hands fisted in my hair as I worked him deliberately.

He gasped and cursed, and this time the word carried a different rhythm.

The desperation in his voice made it sound like a prayer. I pulled off him again. "What did you say?"

Hunter's face flushed deeper. "It means fuck. I said fuck in Korean."

"Good boy." The praise made him shudder. "But I want you to ask me for something in Mandarin too."

Hunter's breathing turned ragged, something desperate clawing up from his chest. The words fought him, buried under years of shame, but need dragged them to the surface anyway.

He whispered something in Mandarin, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

"Perfect." I rewarded him by taking him back in my mouth briefly before pulling away again.

Hunter was close, thighs trembling as he held back, but I wasn't done with him yet. I wanted to hear something that would unlock the deepest part of who he used to be.

"I want to hear something else," I said when he was trembling with need. "Something intimate."

"What?"

I moved up his body until we were face to face, my hand wrapping around his arousal. "Call me something. In Chinese. Something a lover would say."

Hunter's eyes widened, panic flickering across his features. "I don't... I can't..."

"You can." I stroked him slowly. "Something intimate. Something important to you."

Hunter's struggle was visible on his face. This went beyond just language. It was about reclaiming parts of himself, letting me into locked spaces.

Something shifted. His eyes met mine, desperate and completely surrendered.

"Lao gong," he gasped, the word torn from deep in his chest, from the place where language lived before thought. Raw and unfiltered, like his unconscious mind had bypassed every defense built since addiction stole his identity.

I stilled completely. The word hung between us, weighted with meaning I couldn't understand but could feel in my bones. It sounded like forever. Like home. Like the most important thing Hunter had ever said to me.

"What does that mean?" I asked, though my body already knew from the way he'd said it.

Hunter's face flushed deeper. "Husband," he whispered, the English word smaller somehow, inadequate for the weight of what had just passed between us.

"Say it again," I demanded, voice rough with emotion I hadn't expected. "In Chinese."

"Lao gong." This time deliberate, chosen. A gift instead of an accident. "My husband. Mine."

The possessiveness in his voice made something crack open in my chest. After Roche, I'd never imagined wanting to belong to anyone again. But this was Hunter, and everything about him was different.

"Husband," I repeated, tasting the English on my tongue.

I shifted on the bed, straddling his hips so my swollen cock rubbed against his shaft. The friction made us both groan.

"Does my husband want to come?" I continued grinding down against him. "Mon mari... you'll wake up in my bed every morning. I'll make you coffee and watch you drink it, knowing you're mine completely."

My rhythm was slow, torturous, as I painted the picture of our future. Hunter's hips bucked beneath me, trying to increase the friction, but I controlled the pace completely.

"We'll have a house, mon loup. Our house. You'll fuck me in every room until I can't walk anywhere without remembering how your cock felt inside me."

Hunter's breathing turned desperate, soft sounds escaping him as I built the fantasy and the pressure in equal measure.

"Please..." The word dissolved into Korean, then Mandarin, languages mixing as his control shattered.

I needed more. Needed him inside me. That raw, aching need buzzed beneath my skin as I shifted position, palms braced on his ribs while I slid up his body, the heat of him dragging along mine in a slow, deliberate climb.

His hands followed, gripping my thighs hard enough to bruise as I settled on his chest, straddling him.

Then I moved higher.

I could see his pulse racing when I planted my knees on either side of his head, thighs flexing for balance as I positioned myself over his face. Every nerve ending burned, trembling with anticipation and power and something possessive, primal.

"Lick me," I said, my voice rough with command. "Get me ready for your cock."

Hunter didn't hesitate. His tongue flicked out slowly, testing and teasing at first, before he licked me like he meant to ruin me.

Broad strokes gave way to sharp, focused pressure, each pass coaxing me open, dragging me higher.

My fingers tangled in his hair, anchoring myself as I rocked into him, chasing the rhythm he gave like it was the only thing tethering me to the earth.

He devoured me.

And I let him.

"Say it again," I commanded. "Call me husband in your mother's language while you make me come."

"Lao gong," Hunter groaned against my body, the vibration sending shockwaves through me. "My beautiful husband... so fucking perfect..."

The mix of languages and his mouth on me pushed me over the edge. I came with a broken cry, my entire body convulsing. Hunter held me steady, tongue working me through every pulse.

When I could finally move again, I shifted back, sliding down his body until I was positioned over his hips. I wrapped my hand around his cock, positioning myself over the head.

"I need you inside me," I said. "Need my husband to fill me up."

Hunter's eyes rolled back as I sank down on him slowly, taking him inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt. The stretch was perfect, just this side of too much.

"My husband feels so good," I purred, starting to move in slow circles. "So thick, so perfect inside me."

I started to move slowly at first, sinking down until the burn became stretch, until I could breathe through the pressure and claim the fullness of it.

My muscles clenched around him, drawing him deeper with every breath, every shift of my hips.

Hunter's hands locked onto me, fingers digging into my sides like he needed the grip to keep from flying apart. His gaze never left mine.

"Tell me you're mine." I began to ride him harder. "Tell me in every language you know."

His mouth parted, and the first vow fell from his lips in Mandarin. Then Korean, then English. Each one a brand, a prayer, a surrender.

And I took them all.

"I'm yours, Misha. Only yours, forever yours..."

Each declaration sent heat racing through my veins. I was close again already, the combination of his words and his cock inside me pushing me toward another peak.

"Touch me," I commanded, one of his hands leaving my hip to wrap around my cock. "Make your husband come on your cock."

Hunter's rhythm was perfect, matching my movements as he stroked me. "Come with me," I gasped. "Come inside me, lao gong. Fill me up."

Hunter's control snapped. His hips bucked up into me as his own orgasm hit, his cock pulsing inside me as he filled me with his cum. The feeling of him coming pushed me over the edge.

I came with a groan, my body clenching around his cock as waves of pleasure crashed through me. When the tremors finally subsided, I collapsed forward onto his chest.

"Holy shit," Hunter finally managed, voice wrecked and raw.

I settled against him, pressing my face to his neck. "You okay?"

"More than okay. I haven't spoken Chinese like that since I was a kid. It felt like remembering how to breathe."

"Languages come back when they're tied to strong emotion," I said softly. "Love. Pleasure. Pain. They bypass all the barriers we build."

We lay tangled together afterward, Hunter's breathing gradually slowing against my chest. The room felt different now, charged with possibility instead of just heat. We'd crossed an invisible line that couldn't be uncrossed.

"So are we engaged now?" he asked finally.

The question stopped my breath. After Roche, I'd convinced myself that permanence was impossible.

I was convinced that trust was too dangerous, that love was just another kind of cage.

But this was Hunter. Hunter, who'd watched me kill someone and called me husband in response.

Hunter, who'd chosen me over drugs, over safety, over sanity.

"I don't know. Do you want to be?" I asked, because I needed to hear him choose this with full knowledge of who I was. What I was capable of.

Hunter was quiet for a long moment. "You made me want to stay alive. Made me want to be the kind of person worth saving."

"You were always worth saving."

"Not to me. Not until you." His smile was soft, genuine, and completely certain. "Yeah, I want to be engaged. I want to marry you, to build something real with you. I want to call my parents and tell them I've found someone who loves me, and that I’m sober."

My throat tightened. "They're going to have opinions about me."

"They're going to love you," Hunter said firmly. "Because you brought me back to them. Because you gave them their son back." He paused. "Will you help me call them? When I'm ready?"

"Of course." I pressed a kiss to his forehead. "We'll face them together. Husband and husband."

The words felt right. Natural. Like they'd been waiting for us to grow into them.

"That's it? No dramatic proposal?"

"We're practical people who've been through hell and know what we want." I pulled him closer. "Besides, you already called me husband. In Chinese. I'd say that's binding enough."

Hunter's laugh vibrated against my chest. "My mom would have opinions about the order of operations."

"We'll get her a ring to make up for it," I said. "When you're ready to call them."

The silence was comfortable, weighted with possibility rather than fear. "I love you," Hunter said suddenly. "All of you. The parts that heal and the parts that kill."

My throat tightened with unexpected emotion. "I love you too."

Tomorrow we'd return to the Laskins and deal with Victoria Nash. But tonight, we existed in this stolen moment between violence.

Whatever came next, we'd face it together. Two monsters who'd chosen each other over everything.

Husband and husband, as Hunter's unconscious mind had already decided.