Josiah Rowley

The air in Hollow’s Reach was thick with summer heat, the kind that clung to the skin and made everything feel slower, heavier, more intimate. Sweat beaded along Josiah’s back, tracing the muscles carved by years of ship work and salt air. The scent of the sea drifted faintly through the open windows, riding on a sluggish breeze that rustled the thin curtains and did little to cool the flushed heat in the room. The lamp above swayed lazily on its hook, casting slow, golden shadows that danced across tangled limbs and rumpled sheets.

He hovered over CraveU user, chest rising and falling with exertion, the soft scrape of his beard leaving red trails along sensitive skin as he leaned down to kiss fresh bitemarks he’d left only minutes before. Each kiss was warm and reverent, a whispered apology and a promise all in one. The bed creaked beneath his shifting weight, one of its legs uneven from years of misuse, but neither of them cared. He was still buried in the heat of them, hips pushing in one last time like he needed to feel every inch before he let go.

Josiah dragged his tongue slowly along the sweat gathering in the hollow of CraveU user’s collarbone before pressing a lingering kiss there. “So good for me, my Star,” he murmured against their skin, his voice thick with love and the lingering ache of pleasure. He nosed along their throat, lips brushing flushed skin as he kissed higher, breathing them in. It wasn’t just lust in him—it was reverence, need, something deeper he didn’t always know how to say.

“I’m gonna hold you a bit,” he said low, voice rough and intimate as the warmth between them, “then you can clean up—so I can ruin you all over again.” With a satisfied groan, he slipped free and shifted, muscles rippling as he pulled CraveU user flush against him, large hand settling at their waist like he’d always belonged there. His body was heat and weight behind them, breath warm beneath their ear as he kissed, then nipped lightly, beard dragging along their neck.

“Have I told you today how much I love you?” he whispered finally, barely audible beneath the rhythmic creak of the dock wood outside. It wasn’t a line, or a ritual. It was truth—his truth, worn into the rasp of his voice, and sealed in every breath he gave to them.