When Snow stepped into the shower stall, he didn’t expect to have sex. Right then, Jude needed tending and he was only too happy to do it. He reached for the shampoo and started on Jude’s hair. Glittering brown eyes stared up at him and he smiled. “Let me take care of you tonight.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been pushing you away. My head has been a mess.”
“It’s understandable,” Snow said, though he had to secretly admit that he was a little rattled. Jude was the steady one of them. The rock. Strong and unshakable. In the years they’d been together, he’d never seen his lover like this, and he was worried whether or not he could be enough to hold Jude together.
“Some vacation, huh?” Jude muttered.
“I wouldn’t know what a normal vacation looked like these days anyway. But I hate the way this one has gone. The worry over your brother.”
“Do you really think he’ll pull through? As a doctor. Not as my sweet lover trying to protect my heart.”
“I do,” Snow whispered as he soaped Jude’s hair slowly. “I hope.”
“That’s all we can do right now. God, I just feel so helpless.” His hands came to rest on Snow’s hips. “I had all sorts of wicked things planned for us this week.”
“Your family comes first.”
“Our family,” Jude corrected.
Snow paused and leaned down to kiss Jude’s mouth softly. “Yeah, our family.”
That was something Snow was still getting accustomed to when it came to being with Jude. After leaving Oklahoma with Lucas, Snow had clung to the small family he and Lucas had built with Rowe and Ian Pierce. He’d never expected to have more than that.
But all that changed when he met Jude. The bossy paramedic had essentially forced his way into Snow’s life, and Snow had never been happier that he had. Jude had also come with a loving mother, two younger brothers, and a massive extended family that loved to be a part of their lives. Add in the partners that Lucas, Rowe, and Ian had found, and Snow now had an enormous, loving family. He couldn’t imagine wanting more.
“I want to get married.”
Snow’s arms froze while his heart slammed painfully in his chest. “Is this a proposal?” he asked when he could get his brain working again.
A weak chuckle left Jude. “If it is, it’s a shitty one. I know we’ve said we don’t need the ceremony, that we’re basically married already, thanks to mounds of financial and legal documents, but I do want to marry you, Ashton. I love you.”
“I love you, too. If you want to be married, then we’ll get married.”
“Don’t you want that, too?”
He made sure all the suds were out of Jude’s hair and pulled him close. “I still don’t feel a ceremony is needed, but a part of me is ready to actually be married. License, rings, and all that. So if we do this, we’re eloping.”
Jude’s laugh bounced off the walls of the shower stall. It was the first real laugh he’d heard from Jude in over two days, and it lifted Snow’s spirits like nothing else could. “And risk the wrath of Ian? Not to mention my mana?”
“This is about you and me and nobody else. Yes, I want to marry you.” Snow stopped and smirked at Jude. “I never thought those words would pass my lips.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Jude wrapped his arms tight around Snow. “Let’s finish washing and go have sex. I need you in me tonight, General.”
Something deep inside of Snow centered and felt at peace with Jude’s words. This was back to a world he knew and understood well. Leaning forward, he brushed his mouth across Jude’s and breathed, “Then you’ll have me.”
They finished washing and dried off slowly, Snow watching the towel swipe over Jude’s muscular body with relish. God, he loved the man’s form. Jude was built thick and powerful—broader than Snow while he wasn’t as tall.
By the time they moved to their bed, Snow was breathing heavy, his cock hard and leaking. He loved Jude’s wide, hairy chest and his flat, hard stomach. Loved the dark hair that shadowed powerful thighs. He marveled over the desire that never seemed to dull when it came to this man, and he knew Jude felt the same about him.
Jude had been pushing him away the last few days, and Snow understood why. But now heat brewed between them, and Jude was looking at him with lust in his dark eyes.
They needed this.
When their lips met, that heat boiled over, and Snow took Jude down to the bed and flattened out on top of him. God, Jude felt good underneath him, and he rubbed himself on the raspy hair on Jude’s chest, his breaths already becoming choppy and ragged. Jude’s hands splayed over his back and he spread his legs, so their cocks were nestled beside each other. Snow opened Jude’s mouth wide for his tongue.