His hands were everywhere—one braced on my hip, fingers digging in with every thrust; the other roaming my chest, leaving floury fingerprints on my sternum and tweaking my nipples hard enough to make me arch up.
Jake bent down, mouth open on my neck, teeth scraping just enough to make it hurt, and then soothed the sting with kisses. He whispered something—probably another chirp, probably something about how good I looked getting railed in his bed—but my brain wasn't translating English anymore.
My body took over from my brain, hips moving up to meet every piston thrust of his.
Jake's voice was ragged. "Shit, you feel good."
He altered his angle, and stars burst behind my eyes. I moaned something, probably his name, maybe only a vowel. He picked up the pace, got rougher, and my brain shorted out.
When I finally lost it—when my body locked down and everything went white at the edges—I heard myself say his name, over and over. I came, striping my chest, and he kept fucking me through it, relentless.
Jake followed a few thrusts later, hips jerking, head thrown back. He let out a shout that I was pretty sure the neighborscould hear, and then collapsed on top of me, both of us a heap of sweat, flour, and still-smoldering nerves.
Jake mashed his face into my shoulder, arms caging me in, legs tangled around mine. I let him stay, too wrung out to care about the mess or the sour-sweet smell of lube and sweat and everything else.
"Still think I'm a liability?" he asked, his voice casual
I considered the question seriously. The Jake Riley who'd moved in a month ago had been all sharp edges and defensive charm, turning every conversation into performance art. This Jake—flour-dusted and relaxed, asking real questions—was still relatively new.
"Only to my sense of control," I said. "And my flour budget."
His grin was quick and bright, but then it shifted, softening around the edges until it looked almost shy.
"I love you." The words escaped my mouth before I could organize them into something safer or more strategic.
For three seconds that felt like three hours, I wondered whether I'd just blown everything apart with poor timing and worse impulse control. Then, Jake's grin came back, slower this time but wider, spreading across his face like sunrise over Lake Superior.
No performance. No deflection. Only Jake, looking at me like I'd handed him something precious.
"Yeah? Because I love you too."
We lay there, letting our words land.
Jake finally spoke. "So, that happened."
"That happened."
"Good timing. Very romantic. Really set the mood with the flour explosion."
I chuckled. "I thought it added ambiance."
"Nothing says I love you like being the victim of a pastry chef attack."
The thing about loving Jake Riley was that it came with a specific kind of chaos I'd quit trying to organize.
I'd spent most of my adult life building systems. Color-coded calendars, alphabetized spice racks, and labeled containers that kept the world neat, predictable, and safe.
Jake was the opposite of containment. He was flour fights at four in the afternoon and labels that made no functional sense. He was the laughter that started in your chest and worked its way out until your whole body shook with it. He was midnight conversations, stolen glances across locker rooms, and how he said my name like it meant something important.
He was beautiful, uncontainable chaos, and I was completely gone for him.
Jake shifted beside me, pushing to the edge of the bed with that loose-limbed grace that made everything about him appear effortless. "I'm getting pie," he announced, padding toward the kitchen barefoot. "You want pie?"
"It's your pie. The label was very clear about ownership."
"Our pie," he corrected.
I followed and watched him pull open the fridge door and carefully extract the dented store-bought pie, handling it like something precious instead of a four-dollar impulse purchase from the grocery store. The sticky note was still there, crooked and proud:Carter's Boyfriend's Pie - Hands Off.
