Dear Reader,
It was pointed out to me that there was some POV drift, and continuity issues in what I have posted. So I have made corrections to chapters five, six, seven, nine, ten, twelve, and thirteen. I hope that this won’t be an issue going forward. If you see something, do let me know at [email protected].
Thank you
Chapter Fifteen
The drive back from the brewery was quiet, the familiar route a blur of dark woods and winding asphalt. The meeting with his brothers had been surprisingly successful, a small pocket of normalcy in a life that had become anything but. He felt a lightness he hadn't realized he was missing.
His phone buzzed in the cup holder. He glanced down, expecting it to be Duncan with a new demand or a cryptic command. It wasn't. It was Bobby.
Hey my friend, I need a friend about now. Cal had to go out of town for an emergency, could you come visit me, and bring Diet Coke!
Jake felt a knot of concern tighten in his stomach. Bobby was the unshakeable one, the anchor. For him to sound... sad was wrong. He pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, the engine idling as he quickly typed back.
How many gallons are we talking?
A twelve pack would be a small mercy, Bobby replied.
Jake's fingers flew across the screen. He sent a quick "On my way," and immediately opened his text thread with Duncan. He knew protocols were protocols.
Good evening Sir, Cal had to go out of town for an emergency, off to the cabin to bring Bobby his sanity nectar.
He hit send and waited, his thumb hovering over the screen. The reply came back almost instantly.
Buy three. Leave one on the porch as back up.
Jake read the message, a small smile touching his lips. It was so typically Duncan — practical, prepared, and always thinking three steps ahead. He put the truck in drive, already calculating the route to the nearest 24-hour grocery store. He had a mission.
The cabin was dark, save for a single lamp in the window. As Jake walked up the path, the screen door creaked open. Bobby's face appeared in the gap, pale in the porch light. He was standing at the very edge of the threshold, his toes nearly at the lip of the doorframe, the collar at his throat catching the light — leather, dark and worn soft with time, the small padlock glinting.
He didn't step out to help with the cartons.
"You are my hero," he said, his voice thick with relief.
Jake carried the two twelve packs inside, the plastic handles digging into his fingers. He followed Bobby into the kitchen, setting the cartons on the counter with a heavy thud.
"Oh, thank you, Jake," Bobby said, his shoulders slumping. "I feel even more ridiculous. I have a car, my license is valid, but I still can't bring myself to leave the house." He grabbed a can, popped the tab, and practically shot-gunned half of it in one go.
"Can I ask—" Jake began.
Bobby's hand went immediately to the padlock, a small involuntary gesture of self protection. "It's called agoraphobia," he said, already reaching for the explanation he'd given a hundred times.
"I was going to ask about the collar," Jake said.
Bobby stopped. Looked at him. Then laughed, genuine and slightly undone. "Oh," he said. "That."
He looked down at the padlock, his fingers curling around it lightly.
"Come sit down," Bobby said, already moving toward the sitting room with his Diet Coke. "This is a much better conversation."
Bobby settled into the corner of the sofa, tucking his feet up under him with the ease of a man in his own territory. He held the can in both hands, the padlock resting against his collarbone, catching the lamplight.
"Cal put this on me fourteen months ago," he said. "We'd been together eight months at that point. Which by some people's standards is too soon." He smiled, small and certain. "Cal had reservations about the timing. He told me so. He did it anyway."
Jake sat across from him, elbows on his knees, listening.
"A collar in a real dynamic isn't a costume," Bobby continued. "It's not a scene prop or a weekend thing. It's a declaration. Cal was saying — I see you completely, the whole of you, the hard parts and the easy parts, and I am formally, permanently, taking responsibility for your wellbeing." He touched the padlock. "And I was saying — I trust you with all of it. Here is the proof. You have the key."
He took a sip.
"For me specifically it meant something additional. The world outside that door—" he nodded toward the front of the cabin— "has a lot of edges. It always has. Cal's structure helped with that before the collar. The dynamic helped. But the collar made it—" he paused, searching for the right word— "permanent. Like there was a perimeter now. And inside the perimeter I was held."
Jake said nothing. Just listened.
"It changed how I moved through the day," Bobby said. "Even when Cal isn't here. Especially when Cal isn't here." He glanced briefly at the empty chair in the corner, then back at Jake. "I know he's coming back. I know exactly what I am to him and what he is to me and that doesn't stop because he had to drive somewhere. The collar is the proof of that when my brain tries to tell me otherwise."
He looked at Jake steadily.
"I'm not telling you this because I think you need one tomorrow," Bobby said. "You're twenty, Duncan's twenty, he's leaving Saturday, and you've known each other three weeks in a completely new way. I know that. Cal definitely knows that." Another small smile. "Cal has opinions about timing."
"But?" Jake said.
"But it exists," Bobby said simply. "And when the time is right, if the time is ever right, it isn't just a piece of leather with a lock on it. It's the whole thing made real." He finished his can, set it down. "It's something to build toward. If you want something to build toward."
Jake looked at the padlock for a long moment.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Okay."
They stayed like that for another hour, the lamp burning low and the Diet Coke supply diminishing at a steady rate. Jake told Bobby about the brewery — Ryan's textbook snapping shut, so Jake you bang boys now, Sean's that fagdom is really paying off for you delivered with the confidence of a man who thought he was being progressive. Bobby laughed until he had to set his can down, a full, genuine sound that filled the cabin and made the empty chair seem less present. Jake told him about the club — Celia appearing from Jayson's velvet sofa, the dry club revelation, the dance floor, Duncan coming down from the loft. Bobby listened to that part quietly, his expression warm and knowing, the way people look when a story confirms something they already believed.
Bobby told him about the last party he and Cal had hosted, right here in this cabin, six months ago. Thirty people, the fire pit going, the kind of night that went until four in the morning and left the kitchen a wreck for two days. Cal does the outside, I do the inside, Bobby said, gesturing at the cabin around them with obvious pride. It works. Jake drove home an hour later with three empty Diet Coke cans on Bobby's kitchen counter, one full twelve pack on the porch, and something quiet and certain settling in his chest that he didn't quite have words for yet.
When Jake pulled up to the caretaker's cottage, the lights were all on. The scene that greeted him inside was organized chaos. The living room was dominated by two massive suitcases, both open. One was neatly packed, clothes folded with military precision. The other lay empty, its mouth agape on the floor. Duncan was in the middle of it all, shirtless, a pair of tailored trousers hanging low on his hips. He was holding up two sweaters, a deep grey and a navy blue, squinting at them as if they were ancient artifacts.
"Tell me boy," Duncan said without looking up. "Does 'studious and brooding' lean more towards charcoal or navy?"
Jake leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest. "You're packing a week early," he stated, his voice flat.
"A process is a process," Duncan said dryly, tossing both sweaters into the neatly packed suitcase. "Alderton requires a certain aesthetic. I must be prepared." He finally turned to Jake, his eyes softening as they took him in. "How's Bobby?"
"He's Bobby," Jake said. "Tougher than he looks. He told me about the collar."
Duncan’s expression shifted instantly. The playful focus on his task vanished, replaced by a quiet intensity. He walked over to Jake, stopping just in front of him. "Did he now."
"Yeah," Jake said, meeting his gaze. "He said it's a comfort. Not a cause."
A slow, genuine smile touched Duncan's lips. "Bobby's a smart man," he murmured. He reached out, his fingers gently tracing the line of Jake's jaw. "He's right. It's about being held."
“I’m going to miss being held by you when you go back,” Jake said.
“I’m going to miss holding you too,” Duncan said, “but we’re going to work with what we’ve got.”
His hand slid from Jake's jaw to the back of his neck, his grip firm and possessive. The tender moment was over. His eyes darkened, the intensity returning, but this time it was sharp, focused, and entirely predatory.
"Enough talk," Duncan growled, his voice a low command. He turned, his hand still clamped on the back of Jake's neck, and guided him toward the stairs. "You need a new memory to hold you over. A reminder of who owns this body."
He pushed Jake ahead of him up the stairs, his steps heavy and purposeful. There was no hesitation, Jake’s own body already responding to the shift in power, pulled off his shirt before they’d reached the top step.
By the time they entered the bedroom, Jake was already kicking off his jeans, his movements eager and automatic. Duncan didn't have to say a word. He just pointed to the bed. Jake went, lying down on his back, his body open and waiting.
This wasn't about tenderness; it was about a need so raw it bordered on violence. Duncan crawled onto the bed, covering Jake's body with his own. He captured Jake's wrists in one hand, pinning them above his head against the mattress. It wasn't a restraint of leather, but of flesh and will, and it was just as effective.
Then Duncan was inside him, one deep, merciless stroke that stole the air from Jake’s lungs. It was a claiming, a brutal reminder of ownership. Jake cried out, his back arching off the bed as his body struggled to accommodate the sudden, overwhelming invasion.
Duncan set a punishing rhythm, his hips snapping forward with relentless force. Each thrust was a declaration, a brand. His free hand gripped Jake's hip, holding him in place, using his body for his own pleasure. The room was filled with the sounds of their exertion—the slap of skin on skin, Duncan’s ragged grunts, Jake's desperate, pleading moans.
But then the pace shifted. The brutal aggression softened into something deeper, more intense. Duncan released Jake's wrists, sliding his hands into his hair, tilting his head back. He slowed his thrusts, grinding into him with a deliberate, powerful rhythm that forced Jake to meet his gaze.
Jake stared up into Duncan's eyes, his own wide and unguarded. The world outside this room ceased to exist. There was no packing, no departure, no university waiting at the end of the week. There was only this. Duncan's eyes, dark and possessive, boring into his. The silent, unspoken promise passing between them with every stroke. It was an act of pure, primal connection, a promise etched into their bodies that no matter how far Duncan went, he would always, always come back to claim what was his.
Afterward they lay tangled in the wreckage of the bed, the room dark and warm, the sounds of the night settling around them. Duncan pulled Jake into him, his arm across his chest, his chin resting on the top of his head. The sequined bear watched from the bureau with its usual impartial dignity.
For a long time neither of them said anything. Downstairs the open suitcases waited. Alderton waited. The week waited. None of it was happening right now.
Duncan's arm tightened slightly, his thumb tracing an absent circle against Jake's skin.
"I never thought you'd fit so perfectly in my arms," he said quietly. Not to the room. Just to Jake.
Jake said nothing. He turned his face slightly into Duncan's chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against his cheek.
That was enough. That was everything.
