🔥 The Anniversary Lesson 🔥

An Exclusive Bonus Scene from Drafting the Heat

Thank You for Reading! 💙

You made it to the bonus content—which means you’ve experienced Jules and Jax’s journey from best friends to forever. Thank you for giving their story a chance. This exclusive scene is our gift to dedicated readers like you.

It’s set two years after the proposal, on the anniversary of the night Jules asked Jax for “lessons.” Jax has planned something special—a recreation of that first lesson, but with some very significant upgrades. Blindfolds. Edging. And a surprise that will change everything…

The Anniversary Lesson

Two years after the proposal…

“You’re up to something.”

Jules stood in the doorway of their bedroom—their bedroom, in their apartment, the one they’d moved into together six months after the wedding—and narrowed his eyes at his husband.

Jax was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, wearing an expression of studied innocence that fooled absolutely no one.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You made me dinner. From scratch. There were candles.”

“It’s our anniversary.”

“Our anniversary was last week. We went to that restaurant where the waiter called you ‘sir’ and you made a face like you’d swallowed a lemon.”

“I don’t like being called sir. It makes me feel old.”

“You’re thirty-four.”

“Exactly. Ancient.” Jax patted the bed beside him. “Come here.”

Jules crossed his arms. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Jules.” Jax’s voice dropped into that register—the one that made Jules’s knees go weak and his brain go fuzzy. “Come. Here.”

Jules went there. He’d never been able to resist that voice.

He sat down on the bed, close enough that their thighs touched, and Jax immediately took his hand. Threaded their fingers together. Brought Jules’s knuckles to his lips.

“Two years ago today,” Jax said softly, “you asked me to teach you about desire.”

Jules’s breath caught. “You remember the exact date?”

“I remember everything about that night. The way you were shaking. The way you couldn’t look at me when you asked. The way my heart nearly exploded out of my chest because I’d been waiting seven years for you to see me, and suddenly you were asking me to touch you.”

“Jax…”

“I thought about saying no.” Jax’s thumb traced circles on Jules’s palm. “For about half a second. And then I thought, ‘This is it. This is my chance. And if it’s the only chance I ever get, I’m going to make it count.'”

Jules’s eyes were stinging. Two years of marriage, and Jax could still make him cry with a handful of sentences.

“So,” Jax continued, “I thought we might… recreate it.”

Jules blinked. “Recreate it?”

“The first lesson.” Jax’s smile was slow, wicked, full of promise. “With a few… upgrades.”

He reached behind him and pulled out a length of black silk.

Jules’s mouth went dry.

“The first time,” Jax said, “you were so nervous you could barely breathe. You kept your eyes closed because you were afraid of what you’d see in mine.” He held up the blindfold. “Tonight, I want to take that choice away. I want you to feel everything without being able to see it coming.”

“Oh god,” Jules whispered.

“Color?”

“Green. So green. The greenest green that has ever greened.”

Jax laughed—that warm, rich sound that Jules would never get tired of hearing—and leaned in to kiss him. Soft. Sweet. A preview of what was to come.

“Stand up,” Jax murmured against his lips. “Strip for me.”

Jules stood on shaking legs and pulled his sweater over his head. His fingers fumbled with his belt—two years, and Jax could still make him clumsy with want—but he managed to get his jeans off, his boxers, until he was standing naked in front of his husband.

Jax looked at him like he was a masterpiece. Like he was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“God, I love looking at you,” Jax said. “Two years, and I still can’t believe you’re mine.”

“Yours,” Jules agreed, because it was true. Because he’d been Jax’s long before he knew it.

Jax stood and circled behind him. Jules felt the silk brush against his face, and then everything went dark.

“Too tight?”

“No. It’s perfect.”

Jax’s hands settled on his shoulders. Warm. Steady. Grounding.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Jax said, his breath hot against Jules’s ear. “I’m going to touch you. Everywhere. And you’re going to tell me how it feels. Just like the first time—except this time, you don’t get to hide. You don’t get to close your eyes and pretend this isn’t happening. You’re going to feel every single thing I do to you, and you’re going to tell me about it. Out loud. With words.”

Jules whimpered.

“And if you’re very, very good…” Jax’s hands slid down his arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “I’ll let you come.”

“If?”

“If.” Jax’s laugh was dark, promising. “You didn’t think this was going to be easy, did you?”

It was not easy.

Jax started with his neck—that spot just below his ear that made Jules’s toes curl—and worked his way down with agonizing slowness. Lips and tongue and the occasional scrape of teeth, mapping Jules’s body like he was learning it for the first time.

“Tell me,” Jax murmured against his collarbone.

“It’s—” Jules’s voice cracked. “It’s like electricity. Every place you touch, I can feel it spreading. Like ripples in water.”

“Good.” Jax’s mouth moved lower. “What else?”

“I can’t—I can’t see where you’re going next. It’s driving me crazy. Every time you move, I tense up, waiting, and then when you finally touch me, it’s like—fuck—”

Jax had found his nipple. Was doing something with his tongue that should probably be illegal.

“Like what?” Jax asked, maddeningly calm.

“Like being struck by lightning,” Jules gasped. “Like every nerve ending in my body is connected to that one spot and you’re—oh god—you’re playing me like an instrument.”

“That’s because you are an instrument.” Jax’s hands were on his hips now, holding him steady. “The most beautiful instrument I’ve ever played. And I’ve had two years to learn exactly how to make you sing.”

He dropped to his knees.

Jules couldn’t see it, but he could feel the shift in the air, the warmth of Jax’s breath against his stomach, and then lower, and then—

“Please,” Jules whispered. “Jax, please—”

“Please what?”

“Touch me. I need—I need you to—”

“You need to use your words, baby.” Jax pressed a kiss to his hip bone, so close to where Jules needed him and yet impossibly far away. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

Jules took a shuddering breath. Even after two years, it was still hard. Still terrifying to voice his desires out loud, to admit what he wanted without the safety of ambiguity.

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? That’s what Jax had taught him, all those months ago. Desire wasn’t something to be ashamed of. It was something to be claimed.

“I want your mouth on me,” Jules said, and his voice only shook a little. “I want you to take me apart until I can’t remember my own name. I want you to make me beg for it.”

Jax made a sound—low and hungry—and then his mouth was exactly where Jules needed it, and Jules stopped being able to form coherent thoughts.

Jax was relentless.

He brought Jules to the edge three times—three times—and pulled back each time, leaving Jules gasping and shaking and half out of his mind with need.

“Jax—” Jules was beyond words now, beyond coherent thought. “Please, I can’t—I need—”

“You can.” Jax’s voice was rough, affected in a way that told Jules he wasn’t the only one suffering. “You’re doing so well, baby. So good for me. Just a little longer.”

The praise washed over Jules like warm water. He could feel himself settling into it, letting it carry him through the desperation.

“There you go,” Jax murmured. “That’s my good boy. My perfect, beautiful boy.”

Jules was crying now. Actual tears, soaking into the blindfold, and he couldn’t even be embarrassed about it because Jax had seen him like this before—had held him through every breakdown and celebrated every breakthrough—and there was nothing left to hide.

“I love you,” Jules gasped. “I love you so much. Please, Jax, please let me—”

“Okay.” Jax’s hands were gentle now, steadying. “Okay, sweetheart. You’ve been so good. You’ve earned it.”

He guided Jules backward until his knees hit the bed, then eased him down onto his back. The mattress dipped as Jax climbed over him, and then there was the sound of a cap opening, the slick slide of lubricated fingers.

“Still green?” Jax asked.

“Still green. Please. Please.”

Jax’s fingers pressed inside him, and Jules arched off the bed, seeing stars behind the blindfold. Two years of this, and it still felt like the first time—overwhelming, consuming, like his whole body was rewiring itself around the sensation.

“I’ve got you,” Jax said. “I’ve always got you.”

He worked Jules open with practiced ease, adding a second finger, then a third, until Jules was rocking back against his hand and making sounds he’d be embarrassed about later.

“Ready?”

“I’ve been ready for the last hour,” Jules gritted out. “If you don’t get inside me right now, I’m going to—”

Jax pushed inside him, and Jules forgot what he was going to say.

Forgot everything except the feeling of being full, being claimed, being exactly where he was supposed to be. Jax gave him a moment to adjust—always so careful, always so attentive—and then started to move.

Slow at first. Deep, grinding thrusts that hit every sensitive spot inside him. Jules wrapped his legs around Jax’s waist and pulled him closer, deeper, more.

“Harder,” he begged. “Please, I need—”

Jax gave him what he needed. Always did. Snapped his hips forward with enough force to drive the air from Jules’s lungs, setting a brutal pace that left no room for thought or doubt or fear.

There was only this: the two of them, moving together, connected in the most intimate way possible. Jax’s hands on his hips. Jax’s breath against his neck. Jax’s voice in his ear, murmuring praise and filth in equal measure.

“So perfect. So tight. Made for me. Mine.”

“Yours,” Jules agreed, because it was true, because he’d been Jax’s since that first lesson, maybe even before. “Always yours. Only yours.”

Jax’s hand found his cock—finally, finally—and stroked in time with his thrusts, and Jules felt the pressure building, the edge rushing toward him.

“Come for me,” Jax commanded. “Let me feel it. Let me see what I do to you.”

Jules came with a cry that was probably audible to the neighbors, pleasure crashing through him in waves so intense they bordered on painful. He felt Jax follow moments later, felt the warmth spreading inside him, felt Jax’s forehead drop to his shoulder as they both trembled through the aftershocks.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Just lay there, tangled together, breathing each other’s air.

Then Jax reached up and carefully removed the blindfold.

Jules blinked against the light, and the first thing he saw was Jax’s face—flushed, satisfied, looking at him with so much love that Jules’s heart ached.

“Hi,” Jax said softly.

“Hi yourself.” Jules reached up and traced the line of Jax’s jaw. “That was…”

“Yeah.” Jax turned his head to kiss Jules’s palm. “It really was.”

They cleaned up eventually. Took a shower together that devolved into round two against the tile wall. Made it back to bed with wet hair and stupid grins on their faces.

Jules was half-asleep, tucked under Jax’s arm with his head on Jax’s chest, when Jax spoke.

“I have something else for you.”

Jules groaned. “I don’t think I can handle anything else tonight. You’ve broken me. I’m just a puddle now. A very satisfied puddle.”

“Not that kind of something.” Jax was laughing, but there was an undercurrent of nervousness in his voice that made Jules lift his head.

“What is it?”

Jax reached over to the nightstand and pulled out an envelope. Plain white, unsealed. He handed it to Jules with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual and failing miserably.

Jules opened it and pulled out a piece of paper. Read it once. Read it again. Looked at Jax with eyes that were suddenly very, very wet.

“You… bought The Oar House?”

“Midge wanted to retire.” Jax’s voice was gruff. “She was going to sell to some corporation that was going to turn it into a gastropub. I couldn’t let that happen. That bar is… it’s where everything started. For us. For me falling in love with you. I couldn’t let some stranger tear it down and put in Edison bulbs and fifteen-dollar cocktails.”

Jules stared at the deed in his hands. At Jax’s name on it. At the reality of what his husband had just done.

“You bought a bar,” he said slowly, “because it’s where you fell in love with me.”

“I bought a bar because it’s where we fell in love. Because it’s where you asked me to teach you about desire and changed both our lives. Because it’s where I want to be sixty years from now, sitting in our booth, holding your hand, telling anyone who’ll listen about the neurotic romance novelist who didn’t know he was in love with his best friend.”

Jules was crying again. Really crying, the kind of tears that came from a place so deep he couldn’t name it.

“I love you,” he said, because it was the only thing that made sense. The only words big enough to hold what he was feeling.

“I love you too.” Jax pulled him close, pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Happy anniversary, Jules.”

Jules tucked himself back into Jax’s arms, the deed still clutched in his hand, and thought about all the lessons he’d learned over the past two years.

How to want. How to feel. How to love out loud without fear.

Jax had taught him all of that. And now they had forever to keep learning together.

It was, Jules decided, the best kind of education.

~ The End ~

Coming Next in the Writers in Love Series

Book 2: Plotting the Passion
Jules’s literary agent, a notorious cynic about love, gets stuck on a cross-country train with the one romance author whose books she actually hates. Three days. One sleeper car. And a bet that will change everything…

Enemies to Lovers • Forced Proximity • Only One Bed