Chapter 2: Morning Ritual
The morning light was a brutal, beautiful thing. It sliced through the slats of the blinds in sharp, hot lines, painting the black-and-white checkered floor of the kitchen in a stark geometry. Apollo padded across the cool tiles, his bare feet silent. Every muscle in his body ached with a deep, pleasant soreness. A constant, physical echo of the night. Of Jax’s hands, his mouth, his cock. The claim.
He could feel the faint, tender ache between his legs, a slick, stretched feeling that was both a memory and a promise. He smiled, a private, stupid smile, as he reached for the bag of whole-bean coffee. The kitchen was quiet, just the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, metallic sounds of the city waking up. Normalcy. It felt like a thin veil over something enormous that had shifted in the very air of their apartment.
He heard the soft pad of footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn. He knew the rhythm of that walk, the weight of that presence. A shiver, unrelated to the cool air, traced its way up his spine.
Jax came to a stop behind him, close enough that Apollo could feel the heat radiating from his body. He was naked, too. Apollo could sense it. Jax’s breath ghosted over the nape of his neck, stirring the fine, platinum hairs there. His hands came to rest on Apollo’s hips, not gripping, just settling. His thumbs stroked the bony crests through Apollo’s skin.
“Morning,” Jax murmured, his voice sleep-roughened and deep. He pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the junction of Apollo’s neck and shoulder. His lips were warm. His morning erection, thick and insistent, pressed against the small of Apollo’s back.
“Morning,” Apollo breathed, tilting his head to give him better access. He fumbled with the coffee grinder, his fingers suddenly clumsy.
Jax’s hands slid from his hips around to his stomach, pulling him back flush against his body. He was hard everywhere—the lean muscles of his chest against Apollo’s back, the rigid line of his cock nestled in the cleft of his ass. Apollo leaned into him, a soft sigh escaping him. The grinder whirred, loud in the quiet kitchen, drowning out the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.
Jax’s mouth traveled up the side of his neck, teeth grazing the tendon. “You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Apollo admitted, pouring the ground coffee into the French press. The rich, dark smell bloomed between them. “My mind was… busy.”
“Yeah?” Jax’s hands drifted lower, skimming over Apollo’s hip bones, down to the tops of his thighs. “Thinking about anything in particular?”
“You,” Apollo said simply. “Us. The deal.” He poured the boiling water, watching the grounds swirl and bloom. “The fact that my ass feels like you’ve been using it for batting practice.”
A low chuckle vibrated against Apollo’s back. “Just breaking it in.” Jax’s fingers traced the curve of one ass cheek, finding the still-sensitive skin. Apollo hissed, his body jolting. The touch was electric, a direct line to his already-stirring cock. “Still pink. I like it.”
“You would,” Apollo managed, his voice tight.
Jax turned him around, his movements deliberate. He backed Apollo against the edge of the cold, granite countertop. The hard line pressed into the small of his back. Jax’s dark eyes, almost black in the shadowed kitchen, searched his face. The intensity in them was different this morning. Less frantic. More settled. A deep, smoldering certainty.
“The deal,” Jax repeated, as if tasting the words. He leaned in, his lips a hair’s breadth from Apollo’s. “My heart for your ass.”
“Seemed fair last night,” Apollo whispered, his hands coming up to rest on Jax’s bare chest. The tattoos under his palms were familiar landscapes.
“It’s more than fair.” Jax closed the distance, kissing him. It wasn’t the desperate, consuming kiss from the night before. It was slow. Deep. A tasting. An exploration of a newly agreed-upon border. His tongue swept into Apollo’s mouth, claiming it with a lazy confidence that made Apollo’s knees weak.
When he pulled back, Apollo was breathless. Jax’s gaze dropped to Apollo’s lips, swollen and wet, then lower, to his throat, his chest, his stomach. “You poured the coffee,” Jax stated, his voice dropping into that low, commanding register that arrowed straight to Apollo’s groin.
“Yeah?”
“So it needs to steep.” Jax’s hands went back to Apollo’s hips, his grip firm. “Four minutes, right?”
“About that, yeah.”
“Good.” In one smooth, fluid motion, Jax turned Apollo back around to face the counter. He pressed him forward, bending him at the waist until his forearms were flat on the cool granite, the French press and the empty mug within reach. The position was achingly familiar, vulnerably exposed. The morning light highlighted the faint, rosy marks on Apollo’s ass from the night before—Jax’s handprints, a painter’s signature on pale canvas.
Jax stepped close, his body covering Apollo’s from behind. He leaned over, his chest against Apollo’s back, his mouth at his ear. “You’re still loose from me,” he breathed, the words a hot whisper. “I can smell me on you. In you.”
Apollo shuddered, pushing his hips back instinctively. He was already fully hard, his cock trapped against the cool stone of the countertop. “Jax…”
“Shhh.” Jax straightened up. His hands smoothed over Apollo’s ass, possessive, appreciative. One hand slid between his cheeks, fingers probing gently. Apollo gasped, his forehead dropping to his arms. Jax’s finger found his entrance, still soft and pliant from their earlier couplings. It slipped in easily, a slick, intimate intrusion. “So open,” Jax muttered, a note of awe in his gritty voice. “So fucking ready for me. Even first thing in the morning. You’re dripping with me.”
He added a second finger, scissoring them gently, stretching him just a fraction more. The sensation was overwhelming—a tender, probing reminder of the thorough use from the night. Apollo whimpered, pushing back against the fingers, craving more.
“You want it?” Jax asked, removing his fingers. He pressed the thick, blunt head of his cock against Apollo’s entrance. He was slick with his own pre-come, a hot, silky promise.
“Yes,” Apollo begged, the word torn from him. “God, yes, please.”
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me. Please, Jax. I need it.”
Jax didn’t tease. He didn’t push in slowly. He owned him. With a single, powerful thrust of his hips, he sheathed himself to the hilt in one smooth, burning stroke.
Apollo cried out, a sharp, ragged sound that bounced off the kitchen cabinets. The fullness was instant, shocking, exquisite. There was no resistance, just the incredible, deep stretch of being filled exactly where he needed it most. The slick remnants of Jax’s earlier release inside him made the glide easy, obscenely wet.
“Fuck,” Jax groaned, his voice strained with the effort of holding still. He was buried deep, his balls pressed tight against Apollo’s skin. “Christ, Apollo. You’re still so fucking tight. Like you’re made for me.”
He began to move. Not with the frantic, driving pace of the night, nor the slow, ceremonial depth of their last joining. This was something else. This was a steady, relentless possession. A claiming not of conquest, but of routine.
A claiming not of conquest, but of routine. Each deep, measured thrust was a reaffirmation, a physical stamp on the promise they’d sealed in the dark. The coffee mug rattled softly against the granite countertop with every forward drive of Jax’s hips. Apollo’s world narrowed to the heat of the body covering him, the hard line of the counter biting into his forearms, and the exquisite, stretching fullness that was becoming as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Jax’s right hand splayed across Apollo’s stomach, holding him in place. His left came up, fingers curling gently but insistently around the front of Apollo’s throat. It wasn’t a choke, not really. It was an anchor. A point of contact that sent a jolt of pure, electric submission straight to Apollo’s core.
“This,” Jax growled, his breath hot and ragged against Apollo’s ear. His hips snapped forward, a punctuating jab. “This is how you take your coffee now. Bent over for me. Full of me.”
Apollo could only moan, a broken, wet sound. The pressure on his throat, the relentless penetration, the coarse words—it was a symphony of ownership that played his nerves like strings. His cock, trapped and leaking against the cold stone, throbbed with each impact. He was hurtling toward the edge, untouched, just from this. From being used so perfectly.
“You gonna come like this?” Jax whispered, his lips brushing the shell of Apollo’s ear. His thrusts lost their steady rhythm, becoming sharper, more urgent. “Just from my cock splitting you open on the kitchen counter? You filthy, perfect thing.”
The words tipped him over. Apollo’s orgasm ripped through him without a hand on his cock, a silent, seizing wave that locked his muscles and tore a ragged gasp from his constricted throat. He came in hot, pulsing stripes across the dark granite and the base of the French press, his body clamping down viscously around Jax’s driving length.
The violent constriction pulled Jax under a second later. He buried himself to the root with a guttural shout, his fingers tightening momentarily on Apollo’s throat as he emptied himself deep inside, a hot, claiming flood that made Apollo shudder through the last waves of his own climax.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their heaving breaths and the distant hum of the city. Jax slowly loosened his grip on Apollo’s throat, his hand sliding up to cup his jaw instead. He stayed buried inside, leaning heavily over him, his forehead resting between Apollo’s shoulder blades.
“Fuck,” Jax breathed, the word puffing against Apollo’s sweat-damp skin.
“Yeah,” Apollo managed, his voice wrecked.
Jax pulled out slowly. The sensation was a slow, slick ache. Apollo winced, his legs trembling. He felt open, used, profoundly claimed. Jax’s hands were suddenly gentle, turning him, holding him up when his knees threatened to buckle. Jax looked into his face, his dark eyes scanning for any sign of distress, any hint of a limit breached.
He saw only dazed, satiated bliss.
A slow, real smile touched Jax’s lips. He leaned in and kissed Apollo, soft and deep. “Coffee’s probably steeped,” he murmured against his mouth.
Apollo laughed, a breathless, incredulous sound. “You’re insane.”
“And you’re mine.” Jax swatted his sore ass lightly, making him jump. “Now press the coffee. I need caffeine before I decide to fuck you against the refrigerator.”
They cleaned up with damp paper towels, a strangely domestic act following the raw sex. Apollo’s hands shook slightly as he pressed down the plunger on the French press. The rich, dark aroma filled the kitchen, mixing with the scent of their sweat and sex. He poured two mugs, adding a splash of cream to his, leaving Jax’s black.
They took their mugs to the small, sun-drenched breakfast nook. Apollo sat gingerly, the tender ache a constant, pleasant reminder. Jax sat across from him, his lean body draped in the morning light, completely at ease in his nudity. Apollo let his gaze wander, as it always did. He loved Jax’s ass, the perfect, sculpted curves he’d just been gripping, the pale skin interrupted by the stark black lines of a tattoo peeking from the crease. But now, he looked higher.
He looked at Jax’s face. At the intense, dark eyes watching him over the rim of the mug. Those eyes held universes. Brooding, creative galaxies and a protective ferocity that made Apollo’s chest tight. He saw the emotion Jax so rarely let surface—a deep, awed reverence that was usually reserved for the moments right after he came.
“What?” Jax asked, his voice softer now.
“Just looking,” Apollo said, smiling. He took a sip of coffee. It was perfect.
“You’re staring.”
“You have a face worth staring at.” Apollo reached a foot out under the table, running his toes along Jax’s calf. “Especially when it’s all… post-orgasm relaxed. The brooding artist façade cracks a little.”
Jax snorted, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s not a façade. It’s a professionally cultivated aesthetic. My boss pays me to brood for the gothic fashion masses.”
“You’re a fraud,” Apollo teased, his heart so full it felt like it might glow through his skin. “A big, soft, possessive fraud who fucks me over kitchen counters and then makes sure I drink my coffee.”
“I didn’t make you. You made it.”
“Semantics.” Apollo’s smile faded into something more tender. “Last night… and this morning. It wasn’t just sex, Jax.”
Jax held his gaze. The playfulness drained from his expression, replaced by that unnerving, deep sincerity. “I know.” He set his mug down. “It scared me. How much it wasn’t just sex.”
The confession hung between them, fragile and immense. Apollo understood. For Jax, words like that were landmines. He navigated the world through action, through touch, through the silent language of dominance and protection. Speaking the feeling made it real in a way that terrified him.
“It’s okay,” Apollo said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It scares me too. In the best way.”
Jax stood up abruptly, the chair scraping on the tiles. He came around the table. He didn’t pull Apollo up for a kiss. Instead, he sank to his knees on the floor between Apollo’s legs. He took Apollo’s free hand and pressed a kiss to his palm, then turned it over and pressed another to his wrist, over his pulse point. It was a gesture of such shocking devotion that Apollo’s breath caught.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Jax said, his voice muffled against Apollo’s skin. He looked up, his dark eyes blazing with vulnerability. “The monogamy. The… love. It feels like holding a live wire. But I want it. I want it so much it fucking hurts.”
Apollo slid out of his chair, joining Jax on the floor. He framed Jax’s face with his hands. “You are doing it. This is it. The fucking, the coffee, the fear, the kneeling on the kitchen floor. This is the deal.” He kissed him, pouring every ounce of his own certainty into it. “We’ll figure it out. One day at a time. One fuck at a time.”
Jax let out a shaky breath, a laugh that was almost a sob. “My pragmatic romantic.”
“Your pragmatic romantic,” Apollo affirmed. He leaned forward, nuzzling into Jax’s neck. “Now, I need a shower. And you need to shave. Your stubble is like sandpaper.”
They showered together under a spray almost too hot. It was less about cleaning and more about continuation. The steam filled the small bathroom, fogging the mirror, creating a private, liquid world. Apollo took the soap and lathered his hands. He started with Jax’s shoulders, working the muscles there, feeling the tension slowly melt under his fingers.
He washed Jax’s back, his touch reverent, tracing the lines of ink and bone. He soaped his chest, his stomach, avoiding for now the part of Jax that was already stirring again under the hot water. He knelt on the wet tiles, the water sluicing over them both.
He took Jax’s cock in his soapy hand, not to bring him off quickly, but to worship it. He loved this part of him. The weight of it in his hand, the silken feel of the skin, the way the veins stood out under his thumb. He loved the taste, the scent, the power of it. But more than that, he loved what it represented. It was Jax’s vulnerability and his strength, all in one.
He looked up, water streaming down his face. Jax was staring down at him, his black hair plastered to his forehead, his expression unguarded and raw. Apollo held that deep, mysterious gaze as he took the head into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the crown. Jax’s breath hitched, a sharp intake that was louder than the shower spray.
Apollo took him deeper, slowly, his mouth a hot, wet slide. He focused on the rhythm, on the feel of Jax thickening on his tongue, on the subtle twitches and pulses that signaled his pleasure. But his eyes never left Jax’s. He poured everything into that look—all his devotion, his trust, his own fierce brand of possession. He was serving him, yes, but he was also claiming him in this most intimate of ways.
Jax’s hand came up, not to guide or force, but to cradle the back of Apollo’s head, his fingers tangling in the wet platinum strands. His thumb stroked Apollo’s cheekbone. “God, look at you,” Jax murmured, his voice thick. “You’re… you’re not real sometimes.”
Apollo increased his suction, hollowing his cheeks, taking him to the back of his throat. He relaxed his jaw, letting the head nudge deeper, his eyes watering slightly. He loved this slight burn, this proof of his devotion. Jax’s hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk.
“Fuck, Apollo… your mouth…” Jax’s control was fraying. His gaze was locked on Apollo’s, seeing the tears, the blissful submission, the deep, knowing love shining through. It was too much. It was everything. “I’m gonna come.”
Apollo hummed in affirmation, the vibration making Jax swear. He doubled his efforts, bobbing his head with a skilled, relentless rhythm he knew Jax couldn’t resist. He’d had centuries, lifetimes maybe, to learn the architecture of pleasure. To learn how to play a body like a fine instrument. But this—this was the first time the music had a soul behind it that matched his own.
Jax came with a choked-off cry, his head thrown back against the shower tiles, his body bowing. Apollo swallowed every pulse, every hot, salty burst, his throat working, his eyes still fixed on Jax’s face, watching the ecstasy and the surrender transform his sharp features. He didn’t pull away until Jax was spent, sensitive, gently guiding him out of his mouth with a soft, final kiss to the tip.
He rested his forehead against Jax’s thigh, catching his breath. The water began to run cool.
Jax slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the shower floor, pulling Apollo into his lap. He kissed him, deep and searching, tasting himself on Apollo’s tongue. “No one,” he breathed between kisses, “no one has ever… Jesus Christ, Apollo. Where did you learn that?”
Apollo just smiled, a secret, luminous thing. He traced the line of Jax’s jaw. “I have hidden depths.”
“You’re a fucking prodigy,” Jax said, and it wasn’t just about the sex. He’d heard Apollo play the old guitar in the corner of the living room, fingers finding chords that seemed to speak of ancient, sun-drenched hills. He’d seen him arrange flowers in his shop, his movements a fluid, breathtaking dance of color and form, creating beauty from chaos. He’d watched him recite lines from plays with a conviction that made the air hum. “It’s not fair. You’re too good at everything.”
“Not everything,” Apollo said, snuggling into him. “I’m terrible at parallel parking. And I burn toast. Consistently.”
Jax laughed, the sound warm and genuine in the steamy enclosure. He held Apollo close. This was what he’d failed to find in a thousand casual encounters, in a lifetime of keeping the world at arm’s length. This laughter in the aftermath. This easy, comfortable silence that wasn’t empty, but full. This was the flesh-and-blood reality of the connection he’d only ever glimpsed in art, in music, in the tragic plays Apollo loved—a connection he’d thought was just a story.
For Apollo, pressed against the solid warmth of the man he adored, the shower’s spray felt like a baptism. This was the incarnation he’d craved through endless, lonely epochs. Not worship from a distance, but this: the smell of soap and sex, the ache in his muscles, the scratch of stubble on his cheek, the profound, mundane miracle of being known and desired in a single, mortal body. He had finally traded the sterile perfection of a god’s love for the messy, glorious, human truth of Jax’s.
They eventually climbed out, drying each other with rough towels. They dressed in silence, comfortable in the quiet. Apollo pulled on soft grey sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Jax wore black jeans, frayed at the hem, and no shirt, his tattoos on full display. They moved around each other in the small apartment with a synchronicity that felt both new and ancient.
Apollo stood at the sink, rinsing their coffee mugs. Jax came up behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his chin on Apollo’s shoulder. He looked at their reflection in the window over the sink—the golden boy and the brooding artist, wrapped together in the morning light.
“I have to go to the shop,” Apollo said softly, leaning back into the embrace. “Tuesday delivery. Lots of hydrangeas to wrangle.”
“And I have a client pitch at two,” Jax replied, his voice a low rumble against Apollo’s back. “For a line of funeral wear, of all things. Very cheery.”
Apollo turned in his arms. He reached up, brushing Jax’s damp black hair from his forehead. He saw it all there—the fear, the passion, the fierce, protective love, the artistic torment, the simple, human worry about a presentation. He saw his perfect complement. His other half, forged not in myth but in this messy, beautiful, mortal coil.
“We’ll be okay,” Apollo said, and it wasn’t a question.
Jax searched his eyes, those deep, mysterious pools that held not just emotion, but a timeless, knowing light. He saw the god in the man, the artist in the lover, the unshakable faith that had chosen him. He believed him.
“Yeah,” Jax said, finally. He kissed him, once, softly. “We will.”
He swatted Apollo on the ass as he walked away, heading for his sketchbook on the couch. “Now go wrangle your flowers. And try not to think about my cock all day.”
Apollo laughed, grabbing his keys from the hook by the door. He paused, his hand on the knob, and looked back. Jax was already absorbed, pencil flying across paper, his brow furrowed in concentration. The morning light caught the lines of his body, the elegant curve of his spine as he leaned forward.
He was beautiful. And he was his.
Apollo stepped out into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him. The echo of the night and the morning clung to his skin, a secret he carried into the mundane world. He walked down the stairs, and even in the dim stairwell, he seemed to carry his own light.