The thing about Simon Riley is he knows what dying sounds like.
Heâs heard it in twelve languages. Heard it gargled through blood and whispered through teeth and screamed into dirt. He knows the sounds a human body makes when itâs done pretending to be anything but an animal.
So he should know better.
He should⊠but youâre laughing, and itâs not the kind of laugh that belongs in a body that small. Itâs unhinged. Gutted open. The sound of a woman who has been pushed past the last clean line inside herself and found something feral on the other side, something with teeth, and itâsâŠ
Itâs the most deranged thing heâs heard in years.
âSay it again.â Youâre not yelling. Thatâs the part that gets him. Youâre smiling, and thereâs a nine inch blade in your hand- his knife, actually, swiped right off the counter- and youâre pointing it at is femoral artery. âGo on, Riley. One more fucking time. I dare you.â
Heâd called you dead weight.
The first time youâd gone quiet. Swallowed it. Walked out of the briefing room with your shoulders tight and your chin up and heâd thought good, sheâll be easier to manage now because thatâs what Simon does. He finds the seam. Pushes. Watches people fold along the lines he chose for them.
The second time- ten minutes ago, in front of Soap and Gaz, loud enough to carry- you hadnât folded.
And now youâre standing in the narrow kitchen of the safehouse with his blade in your fist and that laugh still caught between your teeth like you canât stop it, like itâs leaking, and the overhead fluorescent is buzzing and youâre advancing on him one slow step at a time and he-
Not because he canât. He could disarm you in two seconds. Wrist, twist, pin. Muscle memory. Heâs done it a hundred times to people twice your size.
He doesnât move because something low in his gut just dropped straight through the floor.
âYou think I wonât?â you say, and the knife dips, aimed right at his belt line, the sharp tip hovering dangerously close his crotch. âYou think Iâm scared of you?â
Thatâs the thing. Thatâs the whole goddamn thing. Youâre not scared of him. Youâre standing five-foot-nothing in front of a man who has killed people in rooms smaller than this one and you are not afraid. Your hand isnât shaking. Your pupils are blown but your breathingâs steady and youâre looking at him- not at the mask, not at the space above his shoulder, at him.
And Simonâs brain does something it has never done before
Because the laugh is still ringing in his skull and your eyes are bright and terrible and you smell like gunoil and the coffee you spilled when you grabbed the knife and there isâŠ
Absolutely no reason for his cock to be rock hard right now.
He is a grown man. A special forces operator. He has looked down the barrel of a gun and felt less throbbing in his pulse than he currently feels south of his waistband, and that is.. thatâs a problem. Thatâs a clinical, operational, catastrophic problem, because you are holding a blade at dick height and your eyes just flicked down and-
âRiley,â you say, and your voice is different now. Low. Velvet. âAre you fucking serious right now.â
His cock twitches under the fabric, straining, the thick outline unmistakable now. He can feel the wet bead of pre cum already soaking through.
He should say something. He should disarm you. He should leave the room and never speak of this moment for the rest of his natural life, which at this rate is going to be about thirty more seconds.
âYeah,â he says instead, because apparently the last thread of self preservation in his body just snapped clean through. His voice comes out like gravel. Wrecked. âYeah, I think I am.â
He watches your hand, the tendons shifting under skin, the white knuckle grip going loose, not dropping it, just⊠recalibration. Youâre recalibrating. Reading the room the same way he would, the same way an operator does, and some sick, broken part of him catalogs that too. Files it. Wants it.
âYouâre insane,â you whisper.
âI was going to stab you.â
âProbably,â he says again, and his hand are trembling at his sides. Because that fractured laugh is still ringing in his skull, and heâs never wanted to hear a sound again more than the way he wants to hear you make it while heâs buried inside you.
You laugh again, step closer. The knife lowers another inch until the flat of the cold blade rests lightly against the throbbing heat of his bulge and makes his hips jerk forward involuntarily, pressing himself against the steel like a desperate animal.
âYouâre a bastard,â you say. âYou know that?â
âAnd if you ever call me dead weight again I will finish what I started.â
âYeah,â he says, seemingly only able to say the one word, because his vocabulary has apparently been reduced to a single syllable by a woman with a stolen knife and a laugh like a house fire. âI know.â
His hands finally move, big, rough palms sliding to your waist, gripping hard enough to bruise, pulling your body flush against his so you can feel every thick, aching inch of what youâve done to him.
âI might just let you cut me,â he murmurs, voice low, âif you let me fuck that pretty rage out of you right here against the counter.â
He watches your pupils blow for an entirely different reason now.
The knife stays in your hands the whole time.