Kade runs his nose along Felix’s throat, filling his lungs with his omega’s scent. Felix’s skin is warm and soft against him, his pulse fluttering against Kade’s lips. So he licks it, and Felix gasps. The sound makes Kade’s cock strain against his clothes.
“You smell good too,” Felix whispers, shifting around on the couch to face him. His eyes are warm and forest-green, and Kade leans in, brushing their mouths together.
Felix’s lips are slightly chapped, but soft. Kade slides into his mouth, growling when Felix opens beneath him, his fingers coming up to curve against Kade’s nape. His tongue drags damply against Kade’s, slow and welcoming. Kade slips his hand under Felix’s thighs, squeezing his ass, pulling his legs open to stroke along his inner thigh, up the leg of his sleeping shorts. Felix’s breath puffs warm against his skin.
Kade rolls his soft balls between his fingers, teasing the base of his cock with his thumb. Felix groans, shoving his hips up, trying to push his cock into Kade’s palm.
“You like teasing, don’t you,” he gasps against Kade’s mouth. Kade thrusts between his lips, tasting him, sliding the flat of his fingers up against his omega’s cock, testing the heft of it.
“Should I come downstairs some other time?” Kade’s mom asks.
Kade tenses, breaking the kiss. This can’t be happening again. He pulls away from his bondmate, glowering up the stairs. “You have the worst timing.”
His mom waves down at them. “I hope the couch wasn’t uncomfortable, Felix.”
Felix groans, his cheeks scarlet. He covers his face with both his hands, and Kade wants to hug him. He’s adorable. “Good morning, Mrs. Brentwood. The couch was fine.”
“We’re going elsewhere,” Kade says, scooping his bondmate up into his arms. “Do whatever you like.”
His mom laughs. Felix hides his face in Kade’s chest, his fingers curling into the chain behind his shirt. Kade’s chest constricts. He forgot about the chain. And he can’t risk Felix fishing it out, because that ring hangs at the end of it.
Felix tightens his fingers on the chain. “When did you start wearing this?”
Five years ago. “Sometime back. It’s not important.”
“Oh.” But Felix picks at the chain, and Kade holds his breath. He can’t drop Felix to yank the chain out of his fingers.
Kade shoulders his way into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. Then he drops Felix gently onto his bed, rolling him onto his knees.
“Spread for me,” he growls, slapping Felix’s ass. Felix sucks in a sharp breath, his pupils dilating.
“Here?” Felix whispers. But he’s wriggling out of his sleeping shorts, curling his fingers into his cheeks, spreading them to expose his damp hole. Kade throbs, at the same time relief feathers through his chest. He’s got Felix distracted, now.
“Good,” he says, slipping his own cock out. Felix gulps. Kade grinds his tip against his hole, sliding over it, up between his smooth cheeks, then back down. Musk rolls off his omega in waves.
Felix gasps, pushing back, and Kade rolls his hips, dipping into his tight, hot hole, groaning when Felix’s warmth squeezes around him.
And as Kade sheaths his cock in his bondmate’s body, dragging a cry from his lips, they forget about the past for a while.
The moment the bathroom door clicks down the hallway, Kade fishes the sweat-slick chain out of his shirt, pulling it up over his head.
The chain whispers into a dollop of steel in his palm, gleaming in the sunlight. What snags his attention, though, is the ring at the end of it. It’s white-gold and smooth, its polish dulled after years against his skin, but it’s still the same ring he’d held up before, the ring that had carried all his hopes.
Five years ago, Kade had offered it to Felix, holding his breath. Felix’s face had crumpled, and he had slapped it from Kade’s fingers, turning to stalk out of the house they shared.
Why did you spend that money on me? Felix had cried. Kade still remembers the striped yellow wallpaper, the ugly second-hand couch they’d salvaged off a street corner. You know we can’t afford this.
He still remembers the breathless anticipation of getting the ring: exhausting Felix with hours of sex, and when he’d fallen asleep, tying a twist-tie around his finger to measure his ring size. Kade had expected him to wake the entire time. He remembers going to the shop, twist tie cradled carefully in his palm, picking out a ring that would fit Felix’s slim fingers. Then he’d collected the newly-forged ring a week later, engraved with their names, and it had sat heavy and important in his pocket for a day.
Kade swings his legs off the bed, tracing his thumb over the ring’s edge. Now that Felix has put on weight from the pregnancy, would it still fit his finger? Would he even want to be with Kade?
His heart squeezes, and he closes his fist around the ring, the metal pressing an indent into his palm.
The bathroom door unlocks with a click. Kade swears, looking around. He needs somewhere to hide the ring. When Felix moves in, he may catch Kade asleep. Kade can’t risk him looking at the chain then.
He can’t stash the ring at the uncluttered desk, and the display shelves are open, with no secret compartments. He can’t hide it on the bed.
So he tucks the ring and chain under the mattress, hoping that Felix won’t start looking too closely at the things in this room. In fact...
Kade hurries around his bedroom, pulling off the little photos of Felix behind his computer, the tiny plastic fire truck that Felix had given him on his fourteenth birthday, the yellowed picture of them that his dad had taken at a fair. These, Kade tucks into his desk drawer, under a pile of work folders.
When Felix pushes the door open, Kade exhales, looking up.
“I’ll help your
