Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maia smooths her skirt down her thighs. “There’s a CVS down the street.”

Jace nods, eyes on his feet as he buttons his jeans. He can still taste her, her lips and tongue and the fierceness of their kisses through their encounter. He picks up his jacket off the ground and tugs it on, one sleeve at a time, and watches her disappear through the back door of the Hunter’s Moon.

Jace takes a shaky breath to steady himself. It’s been hardly thirty seconds since he came, shuddering and grunting, inside Maia. He doesn’t know how she managed to stride away from him so confidently when his own legs are still shaking. He leaves the alley anyway, and walks blocks in the dark to get Maia what she had asked for, without so many words.

Maia, Jace thinks, remembering the heat of her skin against his, the slick wetness of her around him, the tight power of her muscles where she pushed him away and held him close all at once. She was beautiful, there’s no doubt about that, and incredibly confident. For a moment he lets himself think about next time, when he could maybe get her into a bed instead of a dark alley behind the bar where everyone they know is listening to Clary’s boyfriend play his music.

Clary, Jace thinks, a stone sinking in his stomach. Jace swallows, shakes his head, forces those feelings back where they came. Clary is happy with Simon, and Jace is happy without Clary – Maia is supposed to help him prove that. Jace lifts his head and sees the CVS Maia mentioned, two blocks north.

The fluorescent light in the pharmacy is too bright, but Jace picks his way back towards the pharmacist’s counter with the ease of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing. The woman behind the counter looks tired, ready to be done with her shift, but she gives him a half-smile when he wanders up to her.

“I need some Plan B,” Jace says. Jace couldn’t count on one hand the number of times he’s been in pharmacies like this one, in situations like this one, and the phrase doesn’t fill him with anxiety now the way it used to. The pharmacist brings him a pack of pills in a small box and Jace pays – a small price for the experience, he has always thought.

When Jace returns to the Hunter’s Moon, Maia meets his eyes for only a moment as he walks up to the bar, ignoring the lingering glares he’s getting from the rest of the patrons. Jace slides her the little pack of pills under a 20 dollar bill – payment for a drink for himself and a sizeable tip for her.

~*~

Meet me after work.

Jace clutches his phone tightly in his pocket as he makes his way through the dark to the Hunter’s Moon, resisting the burning urge to read that message over and over again. He’d received Maia’s message at 12:30 in the morning, and now as 2 AM approaches, he wonders exactly what he’s doing. It’s late, and he needs some sleep. But Maia wants him, so he’ll show up right when her shift gets done and see what she wants. Jace hopes it’s the same thing he wants.

Jace arrives and slips around to the alley behind the bar, where they’d hooked up last time. It’s empty, and quiet – or as quiet as anywhere in the city ever really is. He pulls his phone from his pocket and replies to Maia’s message.

I’m out back

It takes ten minutes before Maia emerges, an unzipped hoodie pulled on over her outfit to keep off the night’s chill. The hoodie covers her shoulders, but Jace is busy staring at her legs, looking long and gorgeous in high-waisted shorts. Maia is looking at him without a smile, but her expression isn’t exactly a frown, either. There’s something in her eyes Jace can’t name.

“Walk me home,” she says.

It’s not a question. Jace nods and holds out a hand to her, which she doesn’t take, putting her hands into her pockets instead. They leave the alley and head out into the night.

Jace walks her to the subway, then onto the train and off it again, then twenty blocks down to the docks where the Jade Wolf sits. There’s a small house a few blocks away from the restaurant, one story and a little run down, with bars on the windows. Maia brings Jace to the front door of it.

“I want you to come in,” Maia says, turning to face Jace.

“I think I already did,” Jace jokes. She gives him a flat-palmed shove to the chest that sends him stumbling back a step.

“You know what I meant,” Maia says. “If you don’t want to come inside, then don’t.”

Jace looks over the house. “Do you live here by yourself?”

Maia shakes her head. “With roommates. Two of them – wolves. They’re not home right now.”

Jace catches Maia by the wrist and pulls her close, giving her a long kiss as they stand on the front steps of Maia’s house. He hopes it’s enough of an answer for her.

After a minute, Maia pulls away from the kiss and digs in her pocket for her keys. She unlocks the door and lets them into the dark house.

Maia kicks off her shoes in the entryway, and Jace does the same. He follows her towards the back of the house, watching her shrug off her hoodie in the semi-dark, the only light coming from the streetlights outside. She walks through a doorway and suddenly flips on a light, making Jace wince at the sudden brightness.

“It’s not much,” Maia says. “But it’s home – for now. Probably not as fancy as the Institute.”

“We live in dormitories at the Institute,” Jace says. “Single-person bedrooms, but communal bathrooms. The Institute just has more stained glass.”

Maia gives a low hum of acknowledgement, as if considering this fact. She moves forward, her steps silent in her bare feet, and kisses Jace again, this time deeper and more insistent than their kiss on the doorstep. Jace responds in kind. The two of them know where this is heading already, and Jace sees no point in beating around the bush.

Maia slips Jace’s shirt up and off over his head, and drops it in a heap on the floor next to his jacket. She traces her fingers over the silence rune over his right pectoral, and he pulls her close by her hips, the proximity making it easier for him to work open the button of her shorts. He wriggles them off over her hips and watches while she steps out of them and kicks them away. She kisses him again, open-mouthed and hot, their state of mismatched undress suddenly maddening. Jace slides his hands up from her hips under her shirt, rucking the fabric up until Maia has to lift her arms and pull away from Jace to allow him to pull the shirt off completely.

Jace takes a deep, steadying breath while he rakes his eyes over Maia’s body. He’s never seen this much of her before. The other night, in the alley, she had remained fully clothed.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Maia deadpans.

“You’d let me take a picture?”

“No.”

Jace grunts and steps closer again, wrapping his arms around her. One hand slides up her back to the band of her bra, expertly unhooking it and feeling it fall loose where her chest is pressed to his. She shrugs her shoulders and the bra falls down her arms and off to land at their feet.

“Gorgeous,” Jace says, cupping one of her breasts in his hand. They’re beautiful and full, bottom-heavy with small dark nipples. He rolls one nipple between his fingers and Maia gives a short groan of pleasure. Jace considers dipping his head down and sucking on that nipple instead, but before he gets the chance, Maia’s fingers are already working at the fly of his jeans.

“Fair’s fair,” Maia says, and shoves Jace’s jeans down to his knees. The release of pressure feels amazing – his pants had been getting tight as his cock fills. Jace steps back to pull them all the way off.

“Let’s see what you’re working with,” Maia says. She runs the tips of her fingers up the length of his cock, the fabric between her skin and his suddenly seeming oppressive, unfair, obnoxious.

Jace shudders at her frustratingly light touch. “You know what I’m working with.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen it.” Maia thumbs over the head of his cock slowly. “Just had it in me.”

Jace slips out of his boxer briefs quickly, letting his erection spring free. He discards the underwear with the rest of his clothes and stands, fully naked, in front of Maia. She is staring at his crotch with interest, almost hunger.

“Not the biggest I’ve ever seen,” Maia says. Her sarcasm is a direct counterpoint to the look in her eyes, to the way her fingers twitch along Jace’s hips, desiring to touch.

“You wouldn’t even want bigger,” Jace mutters, pulling her close again, seeking the warmth of her skin against his. His cock presses against her hip, and he resists the urge to just grind against her. “If my dick was bigger, I’d never fit into you, you’re so tight…”

Maia lifts her hands to wrap his arms around Jace’s neck. “Shut up.”

“How do you want it?” Jace asks. He turns his head and kisses her neck, just below her jaw, his breath warm on her earlobe. “Doggy style?”

Maia digs her nails hard into Jace’s neck, and Jace just barely catches himself before he winces. “I don’t think you’re funny.”

“That’s okay.” More kisses, trailed in a line down Maia’s neck, tracing her sternocleidomastoid. “As long as you think I’m sexy.”

“You’re pushing it,” Maia says.  “…But I do.”

Jace smiles against her skin at the softness of her second statement. She likes him, even though she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t. Jace nips at her collarbone, then laves his tongue over the spot to soothe it. One of his hands travels down, over the curve of her breast and the curve of her waist and her stomach, his fingers sliding easily under the elastic of her panties and into the thatch of hair there. He slips his fingers down even farther, between her lips, feeling how utterly wet she is already. Maia moans when his fingers slide over her clit and down towards her hole.

Jace gives a moment’s pause, a pair of fingers at her entrance, then slowly works them inside. Maia gives a soft moan and Jace curls his fingers, pressing at that spot inside her that Jace has learned, through careful trial and error, that girls like. Maia bites her lip to keep from crying out and she grips Jace hard by his biceps. Jace smiles and leans in to kiss her neck again.

When Jace has worked up a good rhythm that has Maia’s knees shaking under her, he maneuvers his hand so that his thumb is able to come up and press against her clit.

“Oh, God,” Maia says, and she rolls her hips, forcing Jace’s fingers in further and his thumb to rub hard over her clit. She repeats the motion, over and over again, fucking herself on Jace’s fingers, letting him kiss her all over while she brings herself closer and closer to climax. Jace savors it – the feeling of her hot, wet walls clenching around his fingers.

To Jace’s surprise, Maia’s hips begin to slow to a stop. She is breathing harder than normal, and it takes her a moment to look up at him, but Jace is certain she hasn’t finished yet – he would have felt it.

“I don’t want to get off yet,” Maia says. “Fuck me.”

Jace pulls his fingers out of her and lifts them to his mouth, sucking the wetness from them. Maia watches him for a moment, transfixed, but soon shakes herself out of it. She slips her panties off and kicks them away, then leans to her right to take something out of her top dresser drawer. Maia steps close to Jace once again, takes his hand and turns it palm-up.

“Put this on,” Maia demands, shoving a condom into Jace’s open palm. “Those pills made me crazy hormonal last time and I’m not doing it again.”

She is bossy and insistent – but then, Jace has always known that. He likes that about her, the abundance of fire in everything she does. He tears open the corner of the package with his canines and rolls the condom onto his dick. She pinches some space at the tip of it for him, and he pulls her in for another kiss.

Maia sucks Jace’s lower lip into her mouth, her teeth scraping lightly over the surface. Jace hums a noise of approval and backs Maia towards the bed, until her calves hit it and she tumbles backwards. Jace gracefully leans over and props himself up over her with his hands on either side of her chest.

“I’m not letting you do me on my back,” Maia says.

“Afraid I’ll dominate you? I can be your alpha, baby,” Jace says, shifting closer until his cock is pressed along the crease of her thigh. “Or maybe you just want it doggy style after all?”

“You fucking wish,” Maia spits, and in one smooth motion she wraps her legs around Jace’s waist and flips them, Jace suddenly finding himself on his back with Maia straddling him, the length of his cock against the crack of her ass.

“Okay,” Jace says, a smile spreading across his face. Jace grips his cock at the base and drags it down the crack of Maia’s ass, the head rubbing over her asshole. For a moment, Maia’s eyes droop closed and her mouth drops open. Then she appears to come to her senses and she sits up, Jace’s cock falling away from the warmth of her body.

“I don’t do anal,” Maia says.

Jace raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

Maia’s hand takes over for Jace’s where it’s wrapped around his cock, and she carefully guides the head of his cock to her pussy, rubbing it over her lips and clit for a moment before guiding it back to her hole. She sits down slowly, letting him slip inside inch by inch. Jace groans and grips tightly to her hips, savoring the slide until she’s fully seated.

“God, you’re hot,” Jace says.

“Mm,” Maia acknowledges, and begins to roll her hips. Jace sucks in a breath through his teeth and holds on for the ride.

Jace follows Maia’s lead, letting her set the pace with the smooth, fluid motion of her pelvis, her thighs flexing with each long grind of her hips. Jace thrust up slightly to meet her each time she pushes herself down on his cock.

“You’re so sexy,” Jace mutters, admiring the movements of her body.

“I know,” Maia says.

Jace watches for a while longer, letting her pleasure herself. His hands explore her body, tracing the curve of her waist and the swell of her ass and her perfect, bouncing breasts. After a minute or two, Jace is tired of sitting idly by. He lifts his torso from the bed, a perfect sit-up that he knows will make his abs look very attractive, and he presses kisses to Maia’s chest. He moves them lower until he fixes his mouth over one of her nipples, licking and sucking until she moans and tangles her fingers in his hair.

Maia rides him vigorously, and Jace can feel it when her legs begin to shake and her hips to stutter from fatigue. Jace smooths a hand over the small of her back, telling her wordlessly to relax. Jace’s hands travel around the curve of her ass to curl his fingers under her thighs. He takes the burden of supporting her weight from her, steadying her with a firm grip on her thighs, and begins to drive up into her, hard and fast, setting an even more punishing pace than Maia had been.

“Shit, Jace…” Maia gasps, her head thrown back. Jace’s eyes fix on the claw-mark scars on her neck, dark against her skin.

One of Maia’s hands slips down her body until her fingers reach her clit. She rubs in tight, fast circles, still rocking her hips to get Jace in deeper on every thrust. Her eyes have closed, and her mouth is open, soundless moans trying to escape her throat. Jace knows that look can only mean one thing, and he grins and redoubles his efforts.

“Oh God,” Maia gasps. Her free hand grabs Jace’s wrist where his hand is still gripping her thigh, and her fingers press in so hard Jace is certain he’ll lose circulation to his fingers if she keeps it up. “Oh God, Jace, Jace – Jace – ”

Jace sees and feels Maia tense everywhere, from her grip around Jace’s wrist to her tight core and shaking thighs. He can feel her pulsing around him, clenched so tight that it’s almost difficult to fuck her. She is silent, breathless, during her orgasm, a look of intense concentration twisting her features beautifully. Jace fucks her through it, several seconds of climax that leave her boneless when her orgasm finally subsides.

Maia does her best to continue moving her hips while she clings to Jace, exhausted from her orgasm, but she hardly needs to. Jace can feel himself getting close to the edge now, as well. He leans in and sucks a bruise on her neck over her scars and cums hard.

Maia’s house is shatteringly quiet once the two of them have finished. Without a word, Maia lifts herself on trembling thighs and dismounts, collapsing into her sheets. Jace looks at her for a long moment while she looks at the ceiling. Jace sits up, tugging off the full condom and standing to bring it to the wastepaper basket across the room.

“That’s a nice view.”

Jace turns his head to see Maia watching him, her eyes fixed on his bare ass. He shakes it a little, for her benefit, and hears her give a soft bark of laughter. Jace returns from throwing out the condom and slips back into bed with Maia, throwing an arm over her stomach and sidling up to give her another long, open-mouthed kiss.

“That was good,” Jace says when they pull away.

“I know it was,” Maia retorts. “You don’t have to comment.”

“You felt even better without the condom,” Jace says. He presses a kiss to the top of Maia’s breast.

“You’re a pig,” Maia says, jabbing her fingers into Jace’s side. He flinches away, then laughs. Jace turns onto his side, facing Maia with open arms. He beckons for her to come closer and she does, folding her arms to her chest and shimmying into Jace’s embrace.

“Who would have believed it,” Maia says. “Jace Herondale is a cuddler.”

I didn’t used to be, Jace thinks, but he doesn’t say anything. He just gives a neutral hum and squeezes Maia tighter.

The quiet is nice, Jace thinks. No Shadowhunters bustling in the halls at all hours, no alarms, no demons, just Maia’s soft breathing synced with his and her warm skin against his, the two of them slightly sticky with sweat and smelling of sex but relaxed – comfortable – anyway. Jace can’t remember the last time he was this comfortable with someone he’d just slept with. Maybe he’s never been.

“You should go home,” Maia says, her soft voice breaking the long silence.

“Yeah,” Jace replies, “I should.”

Despite this declaration, neither of them move for a long while.

“No, really,” Maia says. “Before my roommates come back.”

“Don’t want them knowing you’re fucking a Shadowhunter?”

“I don’t want them to know I’m fucking this Shadowhunter.”

“I get it.” Jace pauses. “Did I tell you? I’m not the Head of the Institute anymore.”

Maia’s eyebrows raise. “Did you get fired?”

“No. I just gave the position to someone who deserves it.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Yeah. You will.”

Jace gives Maia a last, lingering kiss and hauls himself off the bed. He gathers his clothes slowly, bending for each piece individually, knowing Maia is watching his ass again. He pulls on underwear, jeans, shirt, jacket, and then turns around to look at Maia, still in bed. She’s pulled the sheet over her naked body now, but he remembers too well what’s underneath it.

“See you around,” Jace says.

“Yeah,” Maia says. “See you.”

He leaves her house on quiet feet, and slips back out into the city night.

~*~

Jace can’t stop thinking about Maia.

He can’t stop thinking of the velvet softness of her skin, the texture of her hair tangled in his fingers, her smile – both when that smile is out in the open and when it’s against his mouth. They’ve had each other a few more times since he went to her place, some of them quick, furtive trysts during Maia’s breaks or the few nights where neither of them are on duty, and they part ways with nothing more than a kiss (or several). Other nights they spend hours in Maia’s bed, lying together in post-coital exhaustion, hardly touching, talking for hours about their families, the men who abused them, the hard things they’ve done and seen.

Jace has never felt more open and exposed in his life than he does in those moments, the quiet, intimate times when it feels like Maia is reaching into his chest for open heart surgery. Jace never talks about those things with anyone else, not with Clary, and not even with Alec; Alec already knew them, and how he felt about them, and there was nothing to discuss. Focused as she always is on her own problems, it seems to Jace that Clary never had a moment to really listen to him, not the way Maia does – patient, quiet, not minding the silence that stretches while Jace flounders in his mind for the words to describe what he’s feeling. Clary accused him of not feeling anything; Maia waits to let Jace show just how much he really feels.

Maia gets it. Maia gets him. She knows the trauma of being broken, then discarded, abandoned, alone. She knows the strength of a bond only breakable in death, her pack and his parabatai. She knows the Shadow World, knows his duties, the long hours and hard choices the job demands. And he understands her right back – the pain of having to be something you don’t want to be, the wish that your life was different, peaceful, mundane.

Jace is on his way to the Hunter’s Moon tonight to see her – not to fuck her, or at least, not solely for that. Jace had been watching Clary and Simon today, a self-flagellating behavior that he’d tried desperately to break himself of, only to discover that it doesn’t work anymore. When Jace looks at them now, he doesn’t feel the burning jealousy he felt before. Instead he thinks about Maia, and how it feels to have her lips against his, her body settled in his lap, her hands on his face. He wants to hold her hand the way Simon holds Clary’s.

He was lonely, Jace realizes now, and Clary was there with a gentle touch, and he felt like he needed her. But he doesn’t need Clary for that anymore – he needs Maia. He cares about Maia, the way he did for Clary once, before she had Simon to care for her like that, but maybe this is stronger than that. He wants Maia, the girl who tried to kill him once, and then served him drinks and talked to him about his feelings and punched him in the face and fucked him in an alley, then her home, then everywhere else. She understands him, knows him, and still wants him. And he wants her right back.

Jace strolls into the Hunter’s Moon with confidence, eager to see his girl. Well, maybe not ‘his girl’ yet, but he makes up his mind to ask her about that tonight.

She’s behind the bar and beautiful as always when Jace walks in. He makes a beeline for her and arrives before she sees him. When she does catch sight of him, she sets down the half-made drink in her hand and folds her arms, leaning forward and resting her forearms on the bar.

“Hi,” Jace says.

“I’m not doing anything with you until after my shift,” Maia says warily.

“That’s fine,” Jace says. “Can I just hang out at your bar?”

Maia shrugs.

“It’s not every place in the city that has a bartender as pretty as you, after all,” Jace tries. He watches Maia open her mouth, and sees her cheeks color a little, before she turns her face away and back to a vodka lemonade she’d been making for a girl at the other end of the bar.

She brings him a beer and he watches her work, talking to her regulars and mixing drinks and pouring beers with perfect, foamy heads. She doesn’t have much time to come over and talk to Jace, but when she does, Jace sits enraptured, listening to her whisper complaints about the couple in the back corner who have been making out all night and the greasy vampire biker at the other end of the bar. Jace stays until the very last minutes of her shift, after all the other patrons have been kicked out and Maia is wiping down tables and telling Jace to forget about his tab. He leaves the bar when she leaves, watching her lock the door behind her.

On the sidewalk in front of the Hunter’s Moon, Jace turns to face Maia. Her dark eyes look beautiful under the yellow-orange glow of the solitary streetlight on the block.

“Come with me to the Institute,” Jace says.

“For what?” Maia asks. Jace gives her a look – you know what for. “But I’m a Downworlder. I don’t belong there.”

“So?” Jace says. “The Head of the Institute is dating the High Warlock of Brooklyn and I can’t have one little werewolf in my bed?”

“I’m not little.”

“You’re kinda little.” A withering glare from Maia. “It’s not a bad thing!”

Maia studies Jace for a moment, trying to sniff out any trace of insincerity. “Are you sure?”

“’Course I’m sure,” Jace says. “Come on, you brought me to your werewolf den. I can bring you to Shadowhunter headquarters.”

“Fine,” Maia says. Jace smiles and offers her his arm, but she doesn’t take it. The night feels like home to them as they set off towards the Institute. The blocks disappear under their feet with a comfortable silence sitting between them.

When Maia finally does take his arm ten blocks later, Jace can’t help but grin.

The halls of the Institute are relatively empty as Jace leads her to his room. Jace pretends for Maia’ sake to not notice the curious and confused glances of the few Shadowhunters they pass along the way, and he leads Maia confidently to his quarters. Maia’s shoulders are tight, and he can tell she’s nervous. When they finally close the door to Jace’s quarters behind them, Maia immediately lets go of him and begins exploring the space.

“This is your room?” Maia says.

“I know, some of the stuff is dorky,” Jace says. “I’ve lived here since I was ten.”

Maia gives him a look, and Jace remembers where he is, inside a room in a cathedral where the sunlight filters in from stained glass windows during the day and the ceilings are so high that silence runes had to be drawn on the beams to minimize the echo.

“Well, like I said, bathroom’s down the hall,” Jace says awkwardly.

“I can’t believe you brought me here,” Maia says. Her voice echoes her words – disbelief, amusement.

Jace frowns. “Do you not want to be here?”

“No, it’s just – bringing me home to the Institute.” She waves a hand at the room in general. “Showing up at the bar, wanting to hang out – who are you?”

“I just wanted to see you,” Jace says. He takes a step towards her, closing the space between them to just a few inches. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“About fucking me, you mean.”

“No, I mean about you.”

Maia’s teeth worry at the inside of her lip while she examines Jace. He must pass the test, because soon enough she is licking her lips and leaning in for a kiss. It turns heated quickly, as it always does. Maia nips at his lips, never deep enough to draw blood, but hard enough to send arousal prickling over Jace’s skin. Jace works his hands under Maia’s shirt, rucking it up from where his hands had been resting on her hips. She pulls back gracefully to let him pull the shirt off over her head, then leans back in and gets started removing his pants.

Maia isn’t the first girl he’s fucked here in his childhood bedroom, but this time it feels different, more meaningful. They strip each other naked with a burning heat between them, clothes quickly discarded on the floor, strewn across the room one by one as they remove an article and then kiss and touch the skin below to make up for the loss of the fabric.

Maia backs Jace to the edge of his own bed, splays a hand over Jace’s chest and pushes him, softly, until his back hits the mattress. He repositions, then waits – she climbs on top of him, her legs straddling his torso. She’s always liked to be on top. Jace is only half-hard just yet, but he has other ideas anyway.

“Come here,” Jace says, and he scoops his hands around the backs of her thighs and pulls, urging her to scoot forward. She does, surprised, until her knees are on either side of Jace’s head. Jace looks up at her, eyes traveling over all the soft curves of her body – her hips, her waist, her breasts, the curve of her throat.

He could spend hours just admiring her body, but it’s time for him to do something with it. Jace slips two fingers between her lips, spreading the wetness over her folds, and then parts his fingers and her outer lips with them. He gives a hum of pleasure and cranes his neck forward to lave his tongue over her clit. Maia gasps and looks down at him.

“Move forward, baby,” Jace says, his free hand squeezing Maia’s ass.

Maia shuffles forward and drops her hips, her pussy centimeters from Jace’s nose. “Baby?” she asks, but her question is less scathing and more breathless. Jace just hums and leans in again, swiping his tongue wide and flat over her inner lips from top to bottom. She’s wet; Jace can taste it, the musky, salty-sweet tang of her, her clit hard under his tongue. His nose is pushed against her mons pubis, inhaling the scent of her, letting this – just Maia, just her pussy – be the sole object of his attention.

Above him, Maia swears, and her hips begin to buck, rolling forward and rubbing herself against Jace’s lips and tongue. He lets her, not caring about how messy this is making his face. Jace only stops licking long enough to swallow now and then, and to tell her just how sexy she is, and how delicious she tastes.

Jace eats her out until he can barely taste her anymore, just his own saliva, sucking on her lips and clit while she grinds against his face. He thinks for a brief moment about bringing his hands into this too, pressing some fingers into her and massaging that spot inside her that he knows she likes, but it will be more satisfying if he can do this for her with just his tongue. By his estimation, she’s already getting close.

“Jace – fuck, Jace!”

Jace continues working his tongue against her clit until he feels her hips cant forward and hears her gasp. He can feel the pulsing of her against his mouth as she cums, and he squeezes her thighs to ground her – or maybe to ground himself. Her orgasm lasts for several long, beautiful seconds, Jace’s tongue licking her through it, and then she sits back on her haunches, panting slightly, to escape the overstimulation.

“I didn’t take you for a – a guy who likes giving oral,” Maia says, catching her breath.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me yet,” Jace says. He licks his lips clean, but his chin is still wet from her pussy. Maia dismounts, then folds her legs and slides down to lie on her back next to Jace. Jace turns onto his side to face her, and Maia mirrors his movement.

“I guess you want me to return the favor now?”

Jace leans forward and catches her lips in a kiss, knowing his mouth will still taste like her, and he feels her tongue snake out to meet his. The moment is electric, knowing she’s tasting herself. Maia pulls away slowly after a few seconds, leaving Jace’s lips chasing after hers. Maia wipes her chin with the heel of her palm.

“Mm, did I have something on my face?” Jace asks, trying to keep a serious face and knowing he’s failing.

“Yeah,” Maia says, smirking at him. “Me.”

Jace laughs and wipes his own chin before leaning in to kiss her again.

“Seriously, are you wanting me to go down on you or what?”

“Can’t we just cuddle?”

“You’re hard.”

“Well, yes, I am.”

“I don’t think you want to ‘just cuddle’.”

Jace shrugs and kisses her, this time on the cheek and then the jaw, his hand slipping down between her thighs. He takes her left leg and pulls it over his hip, spreading her legs and slotting his hips against hers. She hooks an arm around his neck, pulling him in close so he can kiss her neck, her collarbone, her chest. Her other hand comes down between them, sliding over Jace’s chest, brushing a nipple and making him shiver in the process, then her fingers trail along his abs and scratch through his pubic hair. She wraps her hand around his cock and strokes, pushing his foreskin back then pulling it over the head, and Jace groans into her mouth. He fucks her hand with languid rolls of his hips.

“Are we gonna take this somewhere?” Maia asks after a minute, Jace panting to catch his breath while she talks. “Or am I just gonna jerk you off like a high school hookup?”

Jace fumbles behind him in his nightstand, digging out a condom from the drawer. She’ll be so pleased with him for putting one on without her having to remind him. He tears open the package and rolls it on as quickly as he can, then reaches his hand between her legs and slips a pair of fingers into her.

“That’s more like it,” Maia says. She gives a keening moan when Jace crooks his fingers against a sensitive spot inside her, and she takes his dick in hand again and gives it a firm stroke as revenge.

They kiss hard, mouths open and tongues sliding against one another. Jace scissors his fingers inside Maia, working her open, but she hardly needs it – she’s wet and relaxed already from her first orgasm.

“Fuck me,” Maia says after a minute, and Jace hops to it. He grips his dick at the base and rubs the head over her clit and then down, seeking her entrance. She is slick and he slides into her easily, her nails digging into his shoulders as he bottoms out.

“God,” Maia breathes.

“You’re so tight,” Jace says, because being inside her is so good it makes his brain short out, and he can’t think of anything witty to say with her on his cock. “You’re always so tight, shit…”

Jace holds her close to him, his thumbs pressed into her hipbones, and he feels her squirm impatiently, ready for him to start moving. Jace obliges, pulling out slowly and then pushing back in, languorous, the two of them savoring the slide of him in her. Maia dips her head down, sucking a bruise over Jace’s carotid artery. Her hand ghosts over his body until it finds his ass and squeezes, an anchor for them both while they lose themselves in each other.

Jace builds his pace but then pulls back. He doesn’t want this to be a quick, hard fuck like so many of their encounters have been. He wants to enjoy her, make this last, make it good for her. He traces his fingertips down her body to her pussy, the pads of his fingers stroking her lips and clit, still fucking into her slow and deep. He massages her clit with a pair of fingers in time with his thrusts, a half-moon stroke downwards on his thrust in and circling back up as he pulls out. Jace presses a kiss to each individual claw-mark scar on her neck, and Maia tips her head back to let him do it. He runs out of them soon enough and trails his kisses down along her sternum and fixes his lips over one of her nipples, sucking it into his mouth and giving the lightest scrape of teeth that sends her moaning, twisting slightly in his embrace with the force of her desire.

The moment is perfect, and Jace wishes, hazily, buried in layers of want and pleasure and Maia, that this could last forever. He shifts his mouth to her other breast and repeats his movements, mentally correcting himself. Not forever, maybe, but Jace wants this for as long as he can possibly have it. Forever seems like too much to hope just yet, but he can wish, ardently, desperately, that he’ll have her tomorrow and the next night and the nights after that until maybe, one day, forever finally comes.

She’s moaning, rocking her hips to meet his with every thrust, and he feels her begin to tighten around him. The extra pressure is good, too good, and Jace gives a broken groan and pulls her stomach flush with his own, desperate to have as much of her skin on his as he can get.

“Maia,” Jace breathes, each thrust into her sending a delicious jolt of arousal up his spine.

Maia scrapes her nails along his scalp and grips him by the hair, tugging just the way he likes, telling him with her hands that she wants something more from him. “Harder, Jace, please…”

Jace obeys, picking up his pace and fucking her deeper, harder, everything she begs for. He drives into her now with thoughts of making this last put behind him – now he just wants to get her off, make her feel good, make himself useful to her and make her happy. She’s close and Jace knows it by the way her fingers dig into his skin, stopping just short of scratches but the pads digging in hard enough to bruise.

This time Jace finishes before she does, but he focuses and stays hard for her, fucking her through his own orgasm until the oversensitivity is making his muscles spasm, until she comes again with a shuddering gasp and her hips tilted forward to bring Jace as far into her as he can go. When he feels her relax in his arms, he pulls out of her. Panting and sweating in each other’s embrace while they recover from their orgasm, Jace presses soft kisses to her cheek and chin until he finds her mouth. Maia hums and parts her lips to let Jace’s tongue taste hers.

It takes everything Jace has to disentangle himself from her to stand up and throw away the condom. When he returns to the bed, Maia is lying on her back with her limbs slightly splayed, letting the sweat dry and cool her skin. Jace does the same, claiming the other half of the bed.

“That was good,” she says as he settles back in.

“It always is.”

“You’re so fucking cocky.”

“No, I meant – it always is, with you.”

Maia gives a snort. Jace reaches his hand over to hers, crossing the too-wide expanse of bed space between them, his fingers brushing over her wrist and across her palm until they entwine with Maia’s fingers. It’s a perfect fit, her slim fingers between his. Maia seems to hesitate for a moment, as if she wants to yank her hand away, but in the end she just grips tighter.

Maia turns her head towards Jace, and Jace sees something in her face like pain, confusion, sadness. “What are we doing, Jace?”

“What do you mean?”

Maia huffs out a breath and fixes her gaze on the ceiling. The plaster molding there is starting to crack, Jace knows, high enough up in the vaulted ceilings of this old church building that the decay has gone unnoticed, or at least deprioritized.

“Us, what is this?” She says. “Talking all night and holding hands and cuddling… I know I said that this doesn’t mean anything, but it’s really starting to feel like it means something.”

Jace shifts, squeezes her hand. “Do you want it to be something?”

“Can you even handle ‘something’?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

Maia stares at him, a muscle in her jaw working as she rolls her answer around in her mouth. “I think I want to try.”

“I want to try, too,” Jace insists. He rubs his thumb over hers, then raises their hands together to his lips and kisses her knuckles.

“Don’t go getting any big ideas,” Maia says. “As far as you’re concerned, you’re still on relationship probation. One wrong move…”

“I get it. That’s fine.”

“Just one thing,” Maia says.

Jace nods.

“Promise me,” Maia says. “Promise me that if we do this, you won’t leave me for Clary.”

“I promise.”

“Do you?” Maia says, looking at him levelly. There’s something in her eyes that Jace can’t decipher, but it might be mistrust, or sorrow. “Do you still love her?”

“I don’t know if I ever really did,” Jace says, after a long pause. He scrubs his free hand over his face. “It’s been a confusing time in my life. All I know is, I want to be with you. Only you.”

Maia looks in his eyes for a long moment, looking for something she doesn’t seem to find, in the end. “That’s a start,” she says finally. Her hand tugs at his and she turns onto her side, facing him once again. Jace turns his head and watches her face until she drops her eyes and shuffles closer to him, resting her cheek on his chest and her free hand on his stomach.

“You’re not an asshole, Jace,” Maia says, her words a little distorted with her cheek pressed against Jace’s ribcage. “Even though you act like one.”

“Thanks,” Jace says. “I think.”

Maia sighs, not like impatience or anger or sadness, but more like resolution. “I like you,” she says. “I like talking to you and making jokes with you about whatever, and I like it when you stay and cuddle for a while and hold me.”

“I like that stuff too. And I like you.”

“Can I stay here?”

“However long you want.”

Jace presses a kiss to the crown of her head and feels her sigh and settle in against him. He holds her until she drifts off to sleep. She looks small when she sleeps, like something he needs to protect, and he resolves to. He’ll protect the entire Downworld for her, and for Magnus and Alec, and for Simon and Clary, too.

Jace looks at Maia and, for the first time, feels as if he knows his place in the world. He presses a kiss to her sleeping forehead and lets himself fall asleep as well, trusting that she’ll be there in the morning.