Chapter 14: Claiming What's His
The coffee was cold by the time they made it back to the bedroom. Ethan’s mug sat abandoned on the nightstand, a stale ring marking the wood. Mia walked into the stream of sunlight by the window, stretching her arms over her head with a feline grace that made his throat go dry. The hem of his t-shirt rode up, revealing the faint, purpling marks his hands had left on her hips hours before.
“You’re staring again,” she said without turning around.
“You keep giving me things to stare at,” he replied, his voice still rough.
She glanced over her shoulder, a slow smile spreading. She crawled onto the bed, the old springs groaning under her weight. The sheets were still tangled from the night, from the frantic, wordless coupling in the dark after they’d stumbled from the kitchen. She settled on her stomach, turning her head to look at him. The sunlight gilded the line of her spine, the curve of her ass barely covered by the shirt.
Ethan stood by the bed, drinking her in. This was Mia. His Mia. Her blonde hair fanned across his pillow, smelling of his shampoo. The reality of it was a physical ache in his chest, sweet and terrifying.
“Come here,” she murmured, her voice muffled by the pillow.
He didn’t need telling twice. He knelt on the mattress behind her, the dip of his weight rolling her gently towards him. He placed a hand on the small of her back, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin cotton. His thumb stroked a slow circle.
“You okay?” he asked, the caregiver in him, the friend, surfacing through the lust.
She pushed back against his hand. “I’m perfect. I’m sore in the best way.” She looked back, her blue eyes dark. “You?”
“I don’t have the words,” he admitted.
“Then don’t use them.”
Her hand reached back, groping for him, finding the waistband of his sweats. She tugged. He lifted his hips, letting her pull them down, kicking them off the rest of the way. His erection sprang free, already hard, flushed and eager. The morning air was cool on his skin.
She peeked under her own arm, a filthy, glorious glance. “Jesus, Ethan.”
He leaned over her, bracing one hand beside her head, his mouth near her ear. “Last night,” he whispered, “on the counter… that was me claiming you.” He kissed the shell of her ear, felt her shiver. “Now I want you to claim me.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His fingers hooked in the waistband of her—his—t-shirt and he peeled it up her body, over the swell of her ass, revealing the pale skin he’d marked. He tossed it aside. Then his hands were on her, spreading her open. She was still slick from their earlier frantic union, from him. The sight, the scent, went straight to his head like a drug.
He positioned himself at her entrance, the blunt head of his cock nudging against her. He pushed in slowly, an inch, two, savoring the tight, hot clasp of her body, the way her breath hitched and her fingers clenched in the sheets.
“Let me see you take me,” he breathed, his voice a thick rasp against her shoulder blade.
He seated himself to the hilt in one long, smooth stroke. She cried out, a sound of pure, overwhelmed pleasure, her face buried in the pillow. He held himself there, deep, letting her adjust, feeling her inner muscles flutter around him. Then he began to move.
It was a different rhythm from the kitchen. Deeper, more punishing in its precision. Each withdrawal was almost complete, each thrust a full, hard reclamation. The sound was obscenely wet, flesh meeting flesh with a solid, regular slap. He watched himself disappear into her, watched her body accept him, over and over.
One hand stayed anchored on her hip, holding her steady. The other slid forward, under her body, his fingers finding the swollen nub of her clit. He circled it, rough and direct.
“Yes, right there, fuck, right there,” she chanted into the pillow, her words dissolving into a moan as he pinched the sensitive bud gently, then resumed the circling.
His own control was a thin, fraying wire. Her body was a furnace around him, her noises a symphony of surrender. He leaned down, his chest pressed against her sweat-slick back, his mouth against her ear.
“Who do you belong to, Mia?” he growled, his thrusts gaining force, knocking her up the bed an inch with every drive.
“You!” she gasped.
“Say it.”
“I belong to you! Ethan, please—”
“And who do I belong to?” He slowed, grinding deep, making her feel every inch.
She sobbed, pushing back against him, trying to regain the rhythm. “Me. You’re mine. You’ve always been fucking mine.”
The truth of it, roared into a pillow in his sunlit bedroom, shattered him. His pace became frantic, brutal. His fingers worked her clit furiously, his own climax coiling at the base of his spine, a desperate, rising tide.
“Come for me,” he demanded, his breath coming in ragged pants. “Let me feel you come on my cock.”
It was the filthy command that did it. Her body convulsed, a sharp, violent clenching around him that ripped a scream from her throat. The intense, pulsing squeeze milked his own orgasm from him instantly. He drove into her one last, deep time, burying himself as far as he could go as he emptied into her with a broken shout, his vision whiting out at the edges.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight driving her deeper into the mattress. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their heaving breaths and the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs. He softened inside her, a slow, intimate retreat.
Finally, he rolled off, gathering her limp body against his side. She came willingly, her head on his chest, her leg thrown over his. They were a sticky, sweaty, breathless mess. The sunlight had moved, now painting a bright rectangle on the far wall.
Her finger traced idle patterns in the hair on his chest. “So,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Claiming, huh?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Seems that way.”
“Good.”
They lay in silence for a while, the enormity of the shift between them hovering in the air, palpable as the dust motes dancing in the light.
“What now?” he asked softly, the fear finally seeping in. The fear of mornings after, of changed routines, of lost friendships.
Mia propped herself up on an elbow, looking down at him. Her expression was serious, her blue eyes searching his green ones. She saw the worry there.
“Now,” she said slowly, “we make pancakes. And you burn them. And I steal all the crispy bacon. And we talk about that gallery submission you helped me with last month.” She leaned down and kissed him, slow and tender, a world away from the frenzied passion of minutes before. “Now, we just… are.”
His phone buzzed violently on the nightstand, rattling against the wood. The sound was jarring, an intrusion from a world that existed outside this room, this bed, this new, fragile truth.
Mia glanced at it. “Your mom’s calling.”
Ethan stared at the ceiling. The familiar comfort of his room felt different, charged. The chipped mug, the ticket stub from the concert they’d gone to together last year, the faded band poster—they were all silent witnesses to a line that had just been irrevocably crossed.
“Let it go to voicemail,” he said, pulling her back down against him, holding her close, as if he could stop the world from turning if he just held on tight enough.