Cason

One week after the battle at Bellrose Institute.

I may not have been with Reese for long, but I feel like I can already tell what he’s thinking by the way his shadows move.

Right now, he’s staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office. Just standing there with his hands in his pockets, peering down into the atrium like he’s not waiting. His shoulders are rigid, his jaw tight. But it’s not those that give him away.

His shadows have been slowly creeping farther across the floor for the last ten minutes.

Which means he’s thinking about murder.

Again.

“You know,” I say from behind my desk, “most people try to hide their homicidal tendencies a little better.”

“I’m hiding them perfectly fine.”

I snort. “Reese, your shadows are quite literally crawling up the walls.”

They immediately retreat back toward him, and I laugh out loud.

But he still doesn’t move, continuing to face the window. “I still don’t understand why they’re coming here.”

“Because they want to help. And they’re my friends.”

“That feels like a strong word.”

I roll my eyes and spin my chair to face him. “What are you mad about most? The fact I said Harrison’s name or that he—”

“Killed you?” His eyes snap over to me and narrow.

“He brought me back,” I say defensively.

“He killed you first.”

“Because I asked him to.”

“He didn’t have to fucking do it. There’s always a chance someone won’t come back.”

My gaze drops from his.

Like my dad.

“Shit,” Reese mutters.

His shadows reach me before he does, but he’s only a few steps behind them. They wrap around me tightly. Comfortingly. They haul me out of my chair the moment Reese is there, giving me a gentle shove into his outstretched arms that take their place.

“I’m okay,” I tell him even though the words are muffled because I’ve already buried my face in his chest.

“I know.” He rubs my back and kisses the top of my head. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.”

He’s right. It does. It’s only because it’s still so fresh, finding out my dad had a choice. And maybe I’d usually be trying to deflect with a joke, but it’s also nice to just accept his comfort right now.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not wrong though,” I say as I lift my head and meet his gaze again. “I’ll admit that wasn’t one of my most clever ideas.”

He hums and tilts his head. “Possibly more clever than saying another man’s name while you had your cock in your hand.”

I wince and look away once more.

Okay, so he’s definitely still pissed about that.

To be fair, if he ever moaned another person’s name while his cock was in his hand, I would probably electrocute him.

But that’s not important right now.

What’s important is that Harrison and Lane are about thirty seconds away from walking into Bellrose Institute, and Reese still has murder in his eyes.

Meeting his gaze again, I place my hands on his chest, wanting to try to make this at least a little better before he meets them for the first time.

“You know I was just doing it to make you jealous, right? It didn’t mean anything.”

His expression calms. “I know.”

“Please don’t say anything about it,” I add with a grimace, just thinking of how that would go. Lane would never want to be my friend, that’s for sure.

“And put ideas in his head?” Reese’s glare returns. “Not a fucking chance.”

I laugh and roll my eyes. “He and Lane are married. Very happily. Obsessively, actually.”

“Obsessively sounds familiar.”

I bite my lip, and just before I can attack his mouth with mine, a flash of light, reflection from the front doors of the Institute, catches my eye. I turn my head to peer down into the atrium where Lane and Harrison are checking in with security.

Reese’s body goes stiff again. Every muscle in him locks up to the point that if someone pushed him right now, he’d probably tip over like a very angry statue.

“You’re doing it again,” I mutter.

“Doing what?”

“That thing where you look like you’re planning a felony.”

“I’m not.”

“You look like you’d trade your shadows for the power of a death glare right about now.”

The shadows around our feet stir.

“Look, they’re jealous.”

His jaw ticks in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile.

At least he’s not too far gone.

Down below, Lane is pointing up at the kinetic installation that’s in the process of being rebuilt, talking animatedly while Harrison signs them in. Harrison looks less than impressed. CopeHart Labs is nice, like really nice. But Bellrose is nicer. At least, it is when it’s at its best. I’m sure Harrison hates that.

Wrapping my arms around Reese’s waist, I place a kiss to his jaw. “Don’t forget you promised.”

“Kind of wishing I didn’t,” he grumbles, still glaring down at them.

“But you love me, and you’ll do anything for me.”

He finally tears his gaze away from the window to look at me, and I give him my best puppy dog eyes. This time, he does smile.

“You know I will.”

Reese

My lips reach Cason’s just as the intercom on his desk crackles to life.

“Mr. Bellrose?”

Interruptions piss me the fuck off.

It’s a small comfort that it seems to do the same for him. We pull back, and while my top lip curls in frustration, his mouth pulls down in a frown.

At least there’s very little chance I’ll get shot this time.

“Yes, Janet?” Cason asks.

“Dr. Copeland and Dr. Hart are here.”

“Send them in.”

Before the door can open, Cason steals a quick kiss, his lips touching mine for half a second. It’s not nearly enough, but at least it’s something before my second and third least favorite people in the world enter the office.

And, yes, Malcolm is still my first.

Lane steps in first, and I immediately understand why my boyfriend likes him. He’s smiling before he’s even fully inside the room, almost as much sunshine radiating off him as Cason.

“Hey, Case!” Lane says excitedly as they meet in the middle of the office.

“Dr. Hart,” Cason replies with some attempt at professionalism as he extends his hand.

Lane takes it, and they shake hands for all of two seconds before they both burst into laughter and hug instead.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Lane says as they pull away. “Glad everything worked out and you didn’t die again.”

Cason grimaces.

Lane must guess why because he glances over to me and mutters, “Oops.”

Meanwhile, Harrison moves away from the door and approaches me, probably to put himself between his husband and my murder glare. Fortunately for him, I’m fine with that. Lane may have helped kill Cason, but it was Harrison’s name on his lips.

“Reese Morgan?” Harrison says as he stops in front of me, offering his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Dr. Harrison Copeland.”

Pretentious asshole.

I look down at his hand, then at him. Then back at the hand. Finally, I take it. Firmly. Very firmly. His expression doesn’t change, so I squeeze harder. Still nothing.

I could always use my shadows instead…

“Ah,” Harrison says, a faint smirk curling his lips. “I thought there might be a problem.”

I immediately dislike him more.

“What could you possibly mean?” I ask, my tone nothing less than pleasant.

Cason makes a strangled sound somewhere to my right.

Harrison’s smirk grows a little bigger. “The fact that I killed your boyfriend perhaps.”

Another noise comes out of said boyfriend, even more displeased. “You just had to bring it up.”

“Just addressing the elephant in the room,” Harrison says, still staring at me.

I continue staring right back.

Neither of us have let go of the handshake.

“The elephant was sleeping,” Cason argues.

“The elephant had a gun,” Harrison counters.

Now it’s my turn to smirk. I release his hand and take a step back. “I wouldn’t worry about the gun, Dr. Copeland.”

My shadows swirl around my feet.

Of course, I can control them when I need to, hide the fact that they’re alive in a way. I can make them vanish or appear like normal, everyday shadows. But Lane and Harrison already know what Ascension is, so I’d rather remind Harrison that while some people may find him intimidating, I sure as fuck don’t.

“If you haven’t noticed,” he says, “I brought him back.”

“After killing him.”

“It was his idea.”

“It was homicide.”

“A very successful homicide.”

Cason groans and buries his face in his hands. “This is somehow exactly as terrible as I imagined.”

Lane laughs, though it’s tense.

“I understand your concern,” Harrison says.

“No, you don’t.”

His brow lifts slightly. “You don’t think I understand wanting to protect Lane?”

That gives me pause. Briefly.

I look over and find Lane watching Harrison with an expression that’s so openly affectionate it’s almost embarrassing.

Okay, so maybe they’re both as insane as me and Cason.

“See?” Cason perks up and looks at his new friend. “They’re going to get along great.”

“They’re not,” Harrison and I say simultaneously.

Cason and Lane both laugh this time. That seems to only make us glare harder at each other until the tension starts building again. Lane must feel it because he steps forward and claps his hands once.

“Maybe,” he says carefully, “we should talk business now.”

Cason places his hand on his new best friend’s shoulder. Because they are absolutely going to be best friends, much to my dismay.

“That’s a great idea, Dr. Hart.”

I tear my gaze away from Harrison again to look at Cason. At the smug little smile he fails to hide. At the way he’s clearly enjoying every second of this disaster.

After spending an entire day keeping my shadows on a leash, I’m going to need to find a way to work some of these murderous feelings out of my system. And, well, Cason practically begged for me to take it out on him the moment Harrison’s name slipped past his lips.

Tonight, I’ll make him forget any other name exists but mine.

Cason

By the time we get back to the house that night, Reese is still annoyed. Not angry, not really. Just carrying around the kind of grudge only he could somehow nurture into a full-time hobby.

Which is how I ended up stripped, blindfolded, and tied up. All by his shadows.

They’re laced around my forearms, holding them above my head just enough that my toes brush the floor. They’re wrapped around my head and over my eyes, blinding me. I’m already panting and hard and desperate to come, and Reese hasn’t even touched me yet.

“I still think you’re overreacting,” I mutter breathlessly, twisting my body, not sure where he’s at with the shadows covering my eyes.

Then his voice comes from behind me, low and dangerous. “And I still think you said another man’s name.”

I groan. “I didn’t mean it.”

“And then let him murder you.”

Something brushes lightly down the curve of my spine, goosebumps rising in its wake as my back arches.

“Reese,” I whine.

“Wrong.”

His hand smacks my ass, fucking hard, leaving a sting.

I whine again. “What? What do you mean? What was that for?”

“We’re going to play a game, little menace.”

I groan and writhe against the shadow binds. “Fucking Jigsaw motherfucker.”

That earns me another slap to my ass.

“With each touch, you guess who it is—me or the shadows. If you get it wrong, you get punished. The one you just felt?”

It happens again, what feels like a gentle, caressing sweep of a fingertip in a line down my spine.

“Shadows.”

“That’s not fair,” I grumble. “You can make them feel however you want.”

Then another touch trails across my shoulder, tender and warm. Definitely a hand. Probably. Maybe.

“That one was you.”

Another smack to my ass.

“Ow!”

“Wrong again,” he says.

“That’s bullshit!”

“You sound very confident for someone who’s losing.”

“The game is rigged.”

“Of course it is.”

At least he’s honest.

Then a hand wraps around my throat. I moan, and my cock gives a twitch in the air as the hand squeezes. There’s another touch, something wet and soft and hot licking at my ear. Warm breath ghosting over my skin.

“Don’t fuck with me,” I groan. “I know that’s you.”

No punishment comes.

At least, I don’t think the little nip at my ear counts as one.

Another touch, this one a hand gliding across my stomach. I can feel Reese at my back, and it would make sense that it’s his other hand currently leaving a warm trail from one side to the next.

But I have a feeling he’s trying to trick me.

“Shadow.”

He gives me a soft kiss behind the ear. “Look at you evening the score. Such a good boy.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay.”

His hand leaves my throat, and the warmth of his body vanishes. I whine and struggle against the shadows again, turning my head left and right to try to figure out where he went.

“No, no! Come back.”

I don’t feel him close anymore, but a finger brushes from my balls up my cock. I think I must want it to be him badly enough that I blurt out an answer before thinking.

“Reese?”

Something cracks across my back like a fucking whip.

“Fuck!” My back bows, and I whimper and pant my way through the stinging pain. “Fuck all of you!”

Reese chuckles somewhere to my left.

Another touch comes, a tender brush of fingers down my cheek that I lean into as they clear away my tears. Like the shadows are apologizing to me.

My answer comes out as a whisper. “Shadows.”

Another one, fingers tracing my bottom lip.

“Reese.”

He smacks my ass, and my mouth falls open on a cry. Those shadow fingers slip past my lips, gliding across my tongue. They move a little deeper until I gag, then they slide out, leaving a trail of saliva dripping down my chin.

“Such a fucking mess,” Reese says from somewhere in the room that I can’t pinpoint. “Just the way I like you.”

More touches follow. A soothing sweep across my back, relieving the ache. Shadows. A hand brushing through my hair. Reese. Hands on my ass, parting my cheeks. Shadows. Something swirling around my rim, applying pressure against my hole. Shadows. A tongue tracing up the length of my shaft, then circling my head. Shadows. Teeth sinking into the side of my neck. Reese.

I get half of them wrong, receiving a smack to my ass from Reese or another whip to my back from the shadows. Nothing that breaks skin, but enough that I’m sure there will be marks.

The shadows blinding me heightens everything, making every touch feel more intimate. Like the entire world has narrowed down to Reese’s voice and his shadows and the occasional betrayal of my own confidence.

The truth is, I like this. The punishment. The game. But more than that, the easy way we exist together. The way his shadows reach for me automatically. The way he knows exactly how to pull me out of my own head. The way he somehow turned being jealous into a whole evening’s entertainment.

There are still shadows at my hole, pressing, teasing, but not penetrating. They’re still licking up and down my shaft. Reese’s teeth are still biting into my throat, sucking on the skin.

And then the tongue at my cock turns into a mouth, swallowing me whole.

I moan as the shadows start to suck me. A heat begins to build in my spine, settling low. My balls tighten, and even though I know it’s about to be ripped away, I can’t stop from wanting it. Wanting it so fucking badly.

“Please, Reese. Fuck. Please. Wanna come. Please, please, please.”

He licks up the column of my throat where he bit me, a deep hum vibrating in his chest.

One of these days, I’ll learn that begging doesn’t do any—

“Oh, fuck!”

My orgasm rushes through me, so fucking intense because I wasn’t actually prepared for it. My back arches, and a strangled noise tears out of me as every single color in existence flashes behind my eyelids.

Everything looks beautiful.

Everything feels beautiful.

Did he actually just let me fucking come?

Holy fuck.

As I come down the other side of my climax and try to catch my breath, something warm presses briefly against my forehead. His lips. A kiss. I don’t even have to guess.

“Reese,” I whisper, soft and desperate.

Then his lips are on mine, kissing me hard. The shadows release me, dropping me into his arms, and we fall onto the bed.

Reese

My shadows and I taking turns touching Cason everywhere got me so fucking hot. For once, I couldn’t deny him an orgasm when he begged so sweetly for it.

Now we’re rolling around on the bed, and I can’t stop touching him.

We’ve been kissing for two minutes straight, our naked bodies rubbing together and my achingly hard cock pressed against his thigh, smearing precum across his skin. His own cock is soft, but if he thinks I’m through with him, he’s wrong.

I take him in my hand, and he whimpers and shivers.

“Reese,” he whines against my lips. “Fuck. No. Too sensitive.”

“I guess we’ll find out what you hate more. Being edged or overstimulated.”

“No, no, no.”

But he doesn’t send shocks through me even as I give his cock a stroke, so I take that as permission to keep going.

As I continue moving my hand up and down his shaft that slowly starts to harden again, the shadows at his hole push past his rim. They work their way inside, stretching him open. Cason squirms and whimpers and whines more, but I hold him to me with an arm around his waist, not letting him escape. He definitely tries, panting and sobbing as I brush my lips and teeth down his throat.

“Need inside you right fucking now,” I growl in his ear before giving it a quick bite.

The shadows wrap around his arms again in those intricate patterns that I love to see against his skin. They raise them above his head, forcing him upright until he’s straddling my waist, his ass hovering above my cock while I lie on my back.

He peers down at me, eyes hooded, chest heaving and glistening with sweat. The shadows twist more around his arms, his throat, his chest. I reach up, pinching his nipples between my fingers. He groans and arches his back.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Something in his eyes softens.

Then the shadows start to lower him. They wrap around my cock, holding it until the head nudges at his hole. My hands move to his waist, and he starts panting heavier than before as his rim stretches around me. He’s fully hard again now, and his cock leaks while mine pushes inside him. His gaze holds mine as sweet noises pour from his lips. When my crown sinks past his rim, he lets out the most delicious moan.

As he’s slowly lowered further and further onto my cock, his head rolls back on his shoulders. I watch, completely fucking spellbound as the shadows create lacework across the column of his throat.

“Fuck,” I groan as he’s lowered the last inch so he’s fully seated. My fingers dig into the skin at his hips. “You and my shadows paint the prettiest fucking picture.”

The webbing of darkness still coiling around his upper body begins to spark, tiny little jolts of electric blue and neon green lighting the shadows up like circuitry. They don’t shock me, so I know it’s just him showing off.

Not that I’m complaining.

“Fucking stunning.”

The shadows lift him off me again by his arms, just a few inches as I plant my feet on the mattress. I slam my hips up, driving all the way inside him. He lets out a cry of pleasure, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

It’s all so fucking much. So fucking intense.

Pushing myself up, I wrap my arms around him, wanting to hold him as tightly as my shadows are. The shocks begin to fade, little more than static against my skin. My mouth collides with his, my tongue diving past his lips as he rolls his hips. I continue pistoning mine, rutting up into him, while the shadows lower him and raise him over and over. We all move together, building ourselves a cocoon of heat and pleasure one thrust, one kiss, one moan at a time.

His breaths come heavier, the noises he makes louder, as my mouth travels from his mouth to his jaw. The shadows part for me as my lips move lower, skimming down his throat.

“Reese,” he whimpers. “Deeper. I want it deeper.”

“As you wish, little menace.”

I pull back because of course I want to fucking see. Peering down, I watch as the shadows wind their way lower, weaving around his cock. They stroke, making him squirm. Then they start to dip their way into his slit, pouring inside like liquid smoke, going deeper and wider. He groans and whines as his eyes close and his head lolls, like he doesn’t even have the strength to hold it up.

“I think they want even more.”

His eyes crack open, barely. “Wh-what?”

His question is answered when the shadows swirl around the base of my cock, adding pressure against his rim.

“Oh, fuck,” he moans, his body giving a little jerk.

My mouth goes back to his throat, finding a spot to latch onto to suck a mark into his skin. The shadows continue to surround him and press inside him. They keep his arms held above his head as they slowly fuck in and out of his dick. Meanwhile, the ones at the base of my shaft start to roam their way up, twisting around a little higher until they’re pushing inside him alongside my cock. They stretch him wider, making him impossibly full.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, voice hoarse and breathy.

My fingers dig into his hips. My teeth sink further into his flesh.

Then he lets out the most delicious fucking cry when me and the shadows hit his prostate at the same time.

“Fuck! Reese!” He starts to writhe in my hold. “Let me go. Please, let me go.”

The shadows holding his arms above him immediately unravel, slipping off him like ribbons. His arms fall, his hands finding the sides of my face to bring my mouth to his before I can even ask if he’s okay. He kisses me hard and fast, then rests his forehead against mine.

“Just needed to touch you.”

It still does something to me that he wants that touch so badly, that he needs it. And I’ll always give it to him.

His hands move to my back, and his nails sink into my skin, scratching from side to side and up and down as we continue to fuck. He rolls his hips in a perfect, sensual rhythm that, combined with the stinging pain slashing across my back, has me about ready to combust.

“That’s it, menace,” I growl into the small, heated space between us. “Fuck yourself on my cock. On the shadows. How does it feel to be so full of us both?”

“So fucking good,” he moans.

He pants heavily, mouth open, breathing heat between us as his forehead rolls against mine. Sweat drips down both our temples as our slick bodies move and slap together, the shadows heightening both our pleasure. They’ve slipped their way inside my cock too, but I doubt he can tell.

My hands return to his hips in a bruising grip as the heat and the pleasure build. He tips his head back, and I lick a hot path up his throat.

“Tell me who you belong to,” I say with my teeth grazing his Adam’s apple.

“You,” he answers breathlessly.

“Say my name, Cason. Say it because there won’t ever fucking be another.”

“You, Reese. I belong to you.”

I’m so fucking close…

He takes my face between his hands again, never stopping the rolling of his hips. Our gazes lock, and I swear I see little electric sparks in his green eyes.

“You’re mine too, Reese. Fucking mine.”

“Yours.”

He slams his lips down on mine, his tongue moving wildly inside my mouth as his body rocks on top of me, rising and falling on my cock that’s surrounded and filled with shadows. They rub against my prostate as we hit that spot inside Cason together.

And then…

I swear something inside us both explodes.

Cason drives his hips down one last time, and it detonates beneath my skin, the shockwave racing through every nerve before I have time to brace for it. For one impossible second, I’m all impact—thought blown outward, breath stolen, every muscle caught in the aftermath.

Then the blast rolls past. My chest rises in uneven breaths as I continue holding tightly onto the man in my lap.

Mine.

I feel as though I’m standing in the ruins, trying to remember what existed before everything came apart.

Cason’s arms are around me again, holding me tighter than anyone has ever held onto something. Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, as though I might fade away into the darkness with my shadows.

If I do, I’m taking him with me.