Page 83 of Shaped to Be Yours

“And we have something to do right now,” Jason added—which was news to me. “But meet up later?”

“Sounds great,” Ursino agreed.

On our way out of the bar, I whispered to Jason, “We have something to do?”

“Yep. At least for a few hours.” He grinned at me. “I want you all to myself.”

While it was amazing that Jason’s father was back in his life, I was eternally grateful that he was not at home right now, and Sandy was at work.

We could barely keep our hands off each other until we stumbled down the basement steps and into Jason’s room. Only then did he back away from me and say, “Close your eyes for a second.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I did. The first thing I heard was the Shawn Mendes album starting to play. Then I heard… shuffling? Not shuffling feet, more like rustling paper.

“Okay. Open them.”

Right in front of my face was a note, and written on it twenty-five times was:

I LOVE YOU

“I figure this counts as my final to one hundred,” Jason said, peeking over the top of the paper.

I snatched it from him and pulled him in for a kiss by the back of his neck.

We kissed and kissed andkissed, until we were both panting.

“I love you, too,” I said.

“I meant to give that to you forever ago, but I kept getting distracted. And, well, I never believed you’d beat me to saying it, when I’ve felt it for years. I never thought I’d hear you say it at all. But I mean it. I mean it so much, Ricky. I will not be a dick.”

I laughed. “You probably will be once in a while, but I love you anyway. Also, I am so putting all four notes in a frame.”

“You go right ahead. I’m keeping yours too. I am keeping you for as long as you’ll have me.”

Jason backed me up to the bed and pushed me down on top of it. He carefully took this newest—and final, at least for now—note from me to set it on the nightstand. When he returned to settle on top of me, he ran his hands up under my shirt, teasing my nipples with his thumbs, before he finally tore the shirt off over my head.

“There’s something I figured out,” he said, bending to tongue my nipples next. “About my leshy form. About what I can do with it.”

“Y-yeah?” I shivered.

“Want me to show you?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes! But you’re, um, comfortable with it?” We hadn’t been together with him in his leshy form yet. He’d seemed hesitant, more so than he’d been with the chimera mix or single forms he’d had.

“I’ve been doing some solo practicing,” he said.

I laughed again.

“I had to! That first time I transformed into a leshy, the shock of that form messed with my head. I hated what my subconscious made me think I’d done to you. But I’m not afraid anymore.” Jason took his shirt off and kicked away his jeans and socks and underwear, totally nude as that form blossomed out of him, which was how I thought of it now—blossoming. “I know I can use this form to make you feel good.”

He technically didn’t need to remove his clothes anymore when he changed, but he preferred to actually get naked if it wasnaked time—his words. It was a seamless shift now and didn’t cause him any pain. He could just succumb to it, like I planned to succumb to him.

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