Chapter 17: The Morning After Claim
The tires of the Mustang crunched on the gravel driveway, the sound final, shutting out the world. Lexi watched the outline of the cottage materialize from the darkness, its peaked roof against the star-dusted sky, the porch swing a silent pendulum. Her body still hummed from what happened in the car, a deep, pleasant ache between her thighs. A secret.
Ace killed the engine. The sudden quiet was immense. He didn’t move for a moment, just stared at the house, his profile sharp in the dashboard light. “Home,” he said, the word simple and weighted.
He got out, came around, opened her door. Instead of taking her hand, he bent and slid an arm under her knees, the other around her back. He lifted her effortlessly against his chest.
“Ace, I can walk,” she protested, but it was weak, her arms already looping around his neck.
“I know.” He kicked the car door shut with his foot. “I want to carry you.” He walked towards the front door, his steps sure on the flagstone path. “I wanna carry you over the threshold of this place. Make it ours for a minute.”
Ours. The word sent a tremor through her.
He shouldered the front door open—it was unlocked, a fact that said more about this part of town than any lock ever could—and stepped into the dark. He didn’t put her down. The interior smelled of old wood, lemon polish, and him—leather and something clean like soap. He nudged the door shut with his hip, plunging them into near-total darkness.
His mouth found hers in the black. It wasn’t a kiss of passion, but of possession, of arrival. A sealing of a pact. He walked them through the short hallway, his lips never leaving hers, past silent doorways until his foot connected with a doorframe.
His bedroom.
He shouldered the door open, and the space was just as he’d described: cluttered but not dirty. Moonlight spilled through a single window, illuminating a rumpled bed, a desk covered in sketchpads and mechanical parts, a record player on a crate, an overstuffed armchair drowning in clothes. It was utterly, completely him.
He set her on her feet but immediately pressed her back against the nearest wall, his body pinning hers. His hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. In the faint light, his eyes were dark pools, unreadable.
“I need to feel all of you on my sheets,” he growled, his voice low and rough. “Now. Not in the back of a car. Here. In my room. In my bed.”
His words were a catalyst. The careful restraint from the cliffs was gone, burned away by a need that was impatient, raw. His mouth crashed down on hers, and this kiss was all teeth and desperate tongue. His hands dropped from her face and ripped at the buttons of her cardigan, sending them pinging into the shadows. He pushed the garment off her shoulders. It fell to the floor without a sound.
His lips trailed down her throat, sucking a mark into the soft skin above her collarbone as his hands tugged her dress up. She helped him, raising her arms, and the fabric slid over her head, leaving her in just her bra and panties. The night air in the room was cool, but his gaze was scalding.
He looked at her, his chest heaving. “Fuck, Lexi.” He said her name like a prayer and a curse all at once.
He shrugged out of his own jacket, let it fall. His t-shirt followed, muscles shifting in the moonlight. He was a statue cut from shadow and silver. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding free with a sharp hiss, then popped the button of his jeans. He shoved them and his boxers down in one frustrated motion, kicking them aside.
He stood before her, gloriously, brutally naked. Fully, thickly erect. Lexi’s breath caught. Even in the dim light, the size of him was daunting, a blunt, heavy promise.
He closed the distance, his body flush against hers again. The heat of his skin seeped into her. His hands slid down her back, over the curve of her ass, gripping hard as he ground himself against her. She could feel him, hot and solid, against her stomach. A moan escaped her.
He unfastened her bra with a deft twist, and her breasts spilled into his waiting hands. He kneaded them, his thumbs sweeping over her nipples, pinching them until she gasped. Then his mouth was there, hot and wet, sucking one deep into his mouth while his hand worked the other.
The dual sensation, rough and tender, sent shards of pleasure straight to her core. She was dripping, aching, her head thumping back against the wall.
“Please,” she heard herself whimper. It was all she could manage.
He released her breast with a wet pop, his eyes locking onto hers. “Please what?”
“Ace… please.”
A dark, satisfied smile touched his lips. He hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and dragged them down her legs. She stepped out of them, feeling utterly exposed, utterly his. He took her hand and led her the few steps to the bed. The sheets were cool and smelled faintly of his detergent.
He pushed her down onto her back. She watched, her heart hammering, as he climbed over her, bracing himself on his arms. He didn’t enter her immediately. He lowered himself, kissing her stomach, her hip bone, the inside of her thigh. He nudged her legs apart with his knees, opening her to the moonlight and his gaze.
He looked his fill, his breath hot on her sensitive skin. “So fucking perfect,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Then he lowered his head.
His tongue touched her, a flat, wet stripe from her entrance to her clit. She cried out, her hands flying to his hair. He didn’t tease. He feasted. His mouth sealed over her, his tongue lapping at her, circling, thrusting. He sucked her clit into his mouth, applying a steady, devastating pressure that had her back arching off the bed.
“Oh god, Ace… I can’t…” Her words dissolved into incoherent gasps. The climb was too fast, too intense. The coil snapped, and she came with a shattered scream, her body convulsing under his relentless mouth. He held her there, drinking her in, until the last tremor subsided.
Before she could even catch her breath, he was moving up her body. He kissed her stomach, her sternum, between her breasts. His weight settled on her, the hard length of him pressing against her soaked cleft. He lined himself up, the broad head nudging at her entrance.
He caught her gaze, his own blown black with need. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice shredded.
She did. She held his stormy eyes as he pushed inside.
It was easier this time, but no less overwhelming. Her body, still fluttering from her climax, stretched to accommodate him, a delicious, full burn. He sank deep, inch by brutal inch, until he was fully seated, their hips flush. He paused, letting her adjust, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort of holding still.
“Christ, you’re tight,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to hers. “So fucking perfect around me.”
Then he began to move.
He set a slow, deep rhythm, each thrust a deliberate, penetrating claim. The angle was different here, on the soft mattress. He hit a spot inside her that made her see stars. Her cries grew louder, filling the small room. He captured her mouth, swallowing her sounds, his tongue mimicking the motion of his hips.
“That’s it,” he rasped against her lips. “Take it. Take all of me.”
His pace quickened, became less controlled, more urgent. The bedsprings squeaked in a frantic tempo. He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing her legs back towards her shoulders, opening her up even more, sinking into her even deeper. The new angle was dizzying, unbearably good.
“You feel that?” he gritted out, his thrusts becoming punishing. “You feel how deep I am? This is where you belong. Filled with my cock.”
She was spiraling again, a second, sharper peak rushing towards her. “Ace, I’m gonna… I’m…”
“Come,” he ordered, his voice a harsh whip-crack. “Come on my dick. Now.”
It was the command that undid her. Her orgasm tore through her, violent and all-consuming, her internal muscles clenching around him in rhythmic waves. The intensity of it ripped a scream from her throat.
The sensation of her tightening around him broke his last shred of control. With a ragged, broken shout, he plunged into her one last, final time and held there, his body rigid. She felt him pulsing deep inside her, a hot, endless flood as he emptied himself with groans that sounded almost pained.
He collapsed on top of her, his full weight a welcome, grounding pressure. Their sweat-slicked skin slid together. He was breathing like he’d run a marathon, his face buried in the curve of her neck. She could feel his heart hammering against her own.
Minutes passed, measured only by their slowing breaths. The reality of the room seeped back in: the faint smell of their sex, the dusty moonbeam on the floor, the distant hum of the refrigerator down the hall.
Finally, he shifted, rolling onto his side and pulling her with him. He kept one leg thrown over hers, an arm possessively around her waist. He nuzzled her hair. “Okay?”
She nodded, her voice still somewhere lost. “Yeah.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “More than okay.”
They lay in silence for a long time. Lexi traced the scars on his arm, the one he’d said was from a bike chain when he was fifteen. She studied the room—the skateboard leaning in the corner, the stack of records by the player, a framed, faded photo of a smiling woman with Ace’s eyes on the nightstand. His grandmother.
“It feels like you here,” she said softly.
“Good,” he murmured, his fingers drawing lazy circles on her hip. “It’s the only place that ever has.”
She propped herself up on an elbow, looking down at him. The harsh lines of his face were softened in the moonlight, in the aftermath. “What happens tomorrow?”
Ace’s eyes opened. He looked up at her, his gaze clear and unwavering. “Tomorrow, I drive you home. You go inside. You deal with your dad and Dede and whatever that’s gonna be.” He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “And Monday at school, you walk in with me. You let me hold your hand. You let everyone see.”
“And if they talk?”
A faint, dangerous smile touched his lips. “Let ‘em talk. They’ve been talking about me for years. Now they’ll talk about us. Makes no difference to me.” The smile faded. “Does it to you?”
She thought of the whispers that had followed her since she arrived. The new girl. The quiet one. The girl with the divorced parents. None of it had ever really fit. But being ‘Ace Ryder’s girl’… that was a label she could feel settling on her shoulders, not as a weight, but as armor.
“No,” she said firmly. “It doesn’t.”
He pulled her down for a kiss, slow and deep and full of a quiet promise. “Then we’re good.” He tucked her against him, her back to his chest. “Go to sleep, mouse. You’re in my bed. You’re safe."
She nestled herself into him, her back fitting against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. His arm tightened around her, his hand splayed on her stomach. The quiet was a living thing in the room, filled with the slowing beat of their hearts and the faint trace of their sweat on the sheets.
After a long moment, Ace’s fingers traced a slow circle on her skin. “Lexi.” His voice was low, a rough vibration against her ear.
“Hmm?”
He was quiet again, but his body had stiffened almost imperceptibly. She felt the shift, the subtle retreat of his muscles. “You’re on something, right?” he asked. His tone was careful, neutral. “Birth control.”
Lexi froze. The warmth of the moment evaporated, replaced by a cold, sharp vacuum in her chest. The condom. The clinic pamphlet buried in her junk drawer at home. The entire concept of consequences. It had all dissolved in the heat of wanting him, in the foreign territory of his bed.
She’d completely forgotten.
Her silence was answer enough. Ace went very still behind her, then propped himself up on one elbow, turning her to face him. The moonlight carved the concern on his face into something sharper. “Lexi.” He said her name again, but the careful neutrality was gone, replaced by a hard urgency. “Answer me. Are you on contraception?”
“I…” The word caught in her dry throat. She saw the exact moment he understood, his blue eyes widening then darkening with a swift, terrifying dread.
“Fuck.” He pushed himself upright, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, Lexi, tell me you’re not…” He looked at her, really looked at her, at the naked panic she knew was plain on her face. He swore again, louder this time, the word cracking through the quiet room. “You’re not. Are you?”
She could only shake her head, a tiny, frantic movement. The immensity of it, of what they’d done, what they’d done twice, crashed over her. She pulled the sheet to her chin, a useless shield.
He threw the covers back and got out of bed, a stark, tense silhouette pacing the narrow space beside the bed. The corded muscle of his back was rigid. “How could you…? Fuck.” He stopped, bracing his hands on his knees, his head hung low. “We didn’t use anything. Not in the car. Not just now. Nothing.”
“I know,” she whispered, her own voice barely there. “I wasn’t thinking. I just… I wanted you.”
“I wanted you, too!” he exploded, whirling to face her. The raw fear in his voice was worse than anger. “That’s why I should’ve been thinking! Christ, I’m supposed to…” He trailed off, his rage collapsing into something hollow. He looked at her, really saw her—small and frightened in his bed—and the fight left him.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning. He didn’t touch her. “My mom had me at seventeen,” he said, the words quiet and flat. “It fucked her whole life up. It fucked my whole life up.” He looked at his hands, the scarred knuckles. “I swore I’d never…” He shook his head.
The cold in Lexi’s chest spread, icing her veins. “You think I would trap you?” The question came out as a wounded breath.
“No.” He finally looked at her, and his eyes were devastated. “No, mouse. That’s not it. It’s the opposite.” He reached out, his hand hovering near her cheek before dropping back to his thigh. “If something happens… if you’re pregnant… that’s on me. I did this. I got carried away. I was inside you and I didn’t stop to think.”
“We both did it,” she said, finding a sliver of strength.
“Yeah, but I’m the one who knows better.” He let out a long, shaky breath. “My sister’s on the pill. I’ve bought condoms since I was sixteen. I have a fucking box in the bathroom cabinet right now.” The admission was furious, directed at himself. “It didn’t even cross my mind. All I could think about was being in you.”
The crude truth of it hung in the air between them, equal parts thrilling and horrifying. The memory of him, thick and deep, pulsed between her legs—a visceral, physical echo of their carelessness.
“What do we do?” Her voice was small.
Ace was silent for a full minute. The hum of the refrigerator seemed to grow louder. “First thing Monday,” he finally said, his voice firming with a decision. “You’re seeing a doctor. There’s a morning-after pill. It might…” He swallowed. “It might still work.”
The clinical term made it real. A pill. A doctor. A potential child. Lexi felt a wave of nausea. “Okay.”
“And after that…” He turned, fully facing her now. His gaze was intense, unforgiving. “No more of this. No more… recklessness. Not with this.” He took her hand, his grip almost too tight. “If you want to be with me, it comes with this. Protection. Every time. No excuses, no heat-of-the-moment bullshit. My responsibility. Yours, too. Agreed?”
It wasn’t a romantic plea. It was a stark, unvarnished rule born from fear and a brutal kind of care. She saw the ghost of his own childhood in his eyes, the shadow of a struggle she could only imagine. He was drawing a line, not to push her away, but to hold onto something stable, something safe, for both of them.
She nodded, tightening her fingers around his. “Agreed.”
Some of the terrible tension bled from his shoulders. He nodded once, a sharp, satisfied motion. “Good.” He lay back down, pulling her with him, but the easy intimacy was gone, replaced by a sober vigilance. He held her close, his chin resting on top of her head. “Now we wait,” he murmured into her hair, the words a solemn vow to the dark room.