Page 131 of Stream Heat
He just shook his head. “I don’t fix broken. I build new. I make systems out of parts nobody else would use.”
That landed harder than any mattress metaphor. He wasn’t patching my cracks. He was building new circuitry around them. Adapting.
“Show me,” I said, the last of my armor peeling off.
He grinned, wolfish. Without warning, he lifted me onto the closest workbench, scattering microchips and tools.
“I made something for you,” he said, reaching around. He set a custom headset by my side. “Adaptive filters. Should help with the sensory spikes.”
I turned it over in my hands, nearly losing my words. “You started this for me?”
“Second you seized. I knew you’d need it.” He placed it aside, brought over specialized controllers. “These, too. Designed for your specific hand tremors and neural patterns.”
Every bit of it radiated time, commitment, intent. Not to erase my damage, but to give me a way forward.
“Why?” I needed to hear it.
He softened, just a fraction. “Because you’re not obsolete, Quinn. You’re just different.”
He was between my legs, body blocking out the rest of the world as he kissed me again, more hunger than tenderness now. “I want to know all your glitches. Every way you work now.”
I let him. Whatever this was, it wasn’t clinical. It was intimate. He studied what made me tense, what made me moan, committing every reaction to memory. It was nothing like Theo’s chaos or Jace’s steady pressure. Ash wasn’t improvising; he was running a program.
“Interesting,” he said, pressing at my side. “You’ve re-routed. Pain before, pleasure now.”
I laughed, breathless. “Only you would run diagnostics during sex.”
He smirked. “Applied engineering, not theory.” Then he proved it, targeting the spot again, this time with teeth.
I broke for him, nerves on fire. My clothes hit the floor one piece at a time. When he finally stepped back, I was spread out across his table, flushed and raw.
He examined the scene like he just finished a masterpiece. “Even better than I pictured.”
“You pictured this?”
“Since day one. Since you glared at me as I stepped across the threshold into your apartment.” Ash stripped with the same brutal efficiency he brought to everything else, the movements sharp, succinct, no wasted effort. Each article of clothing dropped away to reveal a body as uncompromising as his presence: shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the world, a chest that looked carved from stone, thighs built for stability and force. The same hands that built circuits and micro-welded processors? They could have torn me apart if he wanted to, and that knowledge shivered through me.
When he finally stood before me, every piece of fabric gone, I stared without shame. Reid’s body was about control, command. Theo’s carried wild voltage, unpredictable. Jace slipped through space with sinuous grace. Ash? If any of them could have been a machine, it was him. Every inch of him was engineered for strength and endurance, and all of it was unapologetically real.
He caught my gaze, the edge of a grin flickering at the corner of his mouth. “See something you like?”
“Everything,” I answered, refusing to give less than the full truth. It was his handshake, his rule of the game. “You’re not what I expected.”
He stepped closer. “How so?” His hands landed on my thighs, heavy, grounding.
“More,” I murmured, because no other word fit. “You’re a hell of a lot more than you let anyone see.”
Something burned behind his eyes, not quite a smile, not quite relief, but close. “Most people don’t bother looking.”
“I’m looking now.” I reached out and traced the planes of his chest, the hard lines beneath my fingertips proof of who he was beneath all that silence.
His hands tightened, a shot of real feeling that betrayed what my words did to him. “Lie back,” he said, his voice all Alpha command, cool and irrevocable.
I did as I was told. The workbench was cold under my back, scattered with bits of tech and half-built projects, a mess that screamed Ash, down to the last hex bolt. My skin prickled with the contrast.
“Perfect,” he said, voice gone softer, the word vibrating through my skin as he nudged my thighs wider and fit himself between them. “Now let me show you everything I’ve learned about your new system.”
Methodical wasn’t a strong enough word. Ash didn’t just touch me, he studied me. He moved like an architect workingfrom an original blueprint no one else could read, mapping me in exacting detail.
