take aim at me for once

Your mouth moves before your brain catches up. “Simon—”

He stops, buried balls deep inside you. His eyes lift to yours from beneath the black smear of his paint. Brown eyes gone flat and dangerous.

“What?”

Your fingers swipe at his throat, and then pull back to show him your now candied fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”

For a second, he just stares at you.

Then his mouth shifts beneath the mask. “S’not mine.”

The room seems to go airless around you. For a moment, your brain does not know what to do with the words.

Not mine.

They land somewhere distant - muffled by euphoria and the heat of him still seated inside you. They should mean something immediately - they should send you upright, sober you, sharpen you. But you’re too gone beneath him, too pliant and overheated and pinned, your thighs trembling around his waist while he stays buried deep enough that every breath you take has to move around him.

So you just stare at him.

At the dark paint around his eyes, at the blood smear, at the shape of his shoulders above you. You stare long enough that the unusual details begin arranging themselves in whatever clear space you’ve got left in your mind.

His gloves, first.

They’re clean. Fresh black tactical gloves, one of them still gripping your hip as he stares down at you in pause. You can’t shake the feeling that they’re different - you know his kit. You know the worn seams, the scuffs, the little frays on the knuckles from use. These aren’t the pair he wore earlier.

Your gaze flicks lower.

His shirt, too.

Not the one from briefing. Not the one with the faded shoulder seam and the dust at the collar. This one is clean, dark, newly pulled on in a hurry. You catch a faint whiff of barracks detergent and bathroom soap with every move he makes.

He cleaned up.

The thought comes through the haze in pieces.

Simon cleaned himself up before he came here but somehow, he missed this. One dark smear beneath his jaw.

You swallow. Your voice comes out thin. “What happened?”

Simon watches your mouth form the words.

Your breathing sounds too loud now, while his somehow stays perfectly even - like he isn’t pressed into you to the hilt - like he isn’t the reason your thighs are shaking around his waist. Like he didn’t come to your room with another persons blood still drying in the place he forgot to wash. He lowers himself closer and the mattress dips beneath the weight of him.

His masked mouth brushes the corner of yours, not quite kissing you but just hovering there - dragging the rough fabric against your skin as he speaks.

“What happened was,” he pauses. “Graves opened his fuckin’ mouth.”

A cold thread winds through the heat in your stomach.

You go still beneath him, even though your cunt is still fluttering helplessly around the thick of him. The name alone does something ugly to the room. Sours the air. Pulls the world back in around the two of you.

“What—” you have to stop to breathe. Your nails dig into his shoulder. “What did he say?”

Simon’s hand slides slowly from your hip.

His palm moves over your waist, up your ribs, dragging goosebumps in its wake. He maps you like he already knows every reaction he is about to get - like he can feel the exact second your pulse jumps. His gloved fingers skim the base of your throat and settle there.

Thumb resting over your pulse. Counting it.

“He said he’d wondered what you sounded like when you begged.”

Your breath locks. You blink at him, stupidly.

For a second, you can’t reconcile the sentence with the room you’re in. With Simon above you. With Graves’s name in Simon’s mouth and blood under Simon’s jaw and your own pulse hammering against his thumb like it wants to betray you.

But Simon says it like he has had the words sitting behind his teeth for hours. Like he has been waiting to put them somewhere. Like he needs you to understand exactly what happened to the man who said them.

“He said,” Simon continues, each word dragged low through his teeth, “that a mouth like yours would be wasted on 141.”

Your nails bite into his shoulder.

“I-I—“ you whimper. “Si—“

His hips move before you can say anything else.

A slow, devastating thrust that punches the air out of you and leaves the rest of his name caught uselessly in your throat. He watches you take it. Watches your face twist. Watches the thought you were trying to form scatter completely.

“That Price needs to put you in your place,” he hisses through his teeth. “That he’d have had you on your knees by now.”

Your stomach twists.

You shake your head, but you don’t even know what you’re denying. Graves. Simon. The heat blooming under your skin. The fact that the words should disgust you cleanly, but Simon’s voice saying them like a death sentence makes something dark and shameful coil inside you.

He pulls out just to thrust in again.

Harder this time - hard enough to break the breath right out of you. Enough to make the headboard creak traitorously behind you. Enough to make your thighs tighten around his waist before you can stop them.

Simon feels it.

“Then he looked at me,” he says, voice dropping into something ruined and vicious, “and asked if I’d taught you to take orders.”

Your heart slams so hard you feel it in your throat, pulsing viscously under his palm. The room narrows to three things - Simon’s eyes, the blood on his neck, and the place where he is still holding you down.

There is blood on him.

Someone else’s blood.

Graves’s blood.

The realization comes slowly at first, then all at once.

You see it too clearly: Simon standing there silent while Graves ran his mouth. Simon listening. The moment the Ghost stops being a man in a room and becomes a consequence. You see the gloves he must have taken off. The blood on the old pair. The careful cleanup after. The way he must have washed his hands, changed, checked himself in the mirror, decided he was clean enough to come to you.

Clean enough. Except for the one place he missed.

Simon watches the realization move across your face.

“Oh God.” You force the words out. “What did you do?”

Your voice is barely a whisper.

His answer is immediate. “I hit him.”

The answer is too simple, too small for the blood under his jaw and the hell in his eyes and that is only because you know Simon.

You know the careful economy of him - the terrifying restraint. The discipline carved into his bones so deep it has become part of his breathing. Simon does not hit men because he is angry. He does not waste movement. He does not lose control unless something in him has already decided the consequence is worth it.

He ends things because he has weighed the cost and found it acceptable.

Your fingers curl tighter in his shirt. “How bad?”

For the first time, something almost like satisfaction passes through his eyes.

His hips roll in one slow, merciless stroke and your back arches before you can stop it. You spread your legs and take him deeper; helplessly, embarrassingly, betraying every sensible thought trying to form in your head.

“How—“ you try to ask again, but the question fractures halfway through another thrust.

Simon lowers his mouth to your ear. “Bad enough Price had to pull me off him.”

Your stomach flips in something stupid. Fear should come first.

It doesn’t.

It should be horror. Concern. Anger. Maybe all three. You should shove at his chest. Demand to know if he’s lost his fucking mind. Tell him he can’t do that, can’t put his hands on Graves over his disgusting mouth and a half-formed threat. Can’t turn command into a blood sport. Can’t risk his place, his rank, Price’s trust, your trust, just because another man said something deserving yet ultimately meaningless.

But what blooms under your ribs is not sensible enough to be outrage - it is hot. It is fucking shameful.

It is dark and possessive and awful in the exact shape of him.

Because he heard another man talk about you. Heard Graves put his hands on you in theory. Heard him degrade you, heard him imagine you on your knees, your mouth, your begging, and decided violence was the only answer he trusted.

Your body betrays you before your pride can stop it - a tight little clench around him.

Simon feels it. Of course he does.

He stills above you, and somehow that is worse than movement. He’s pressed to the hilt again, the pressure of him so intense now it leaves your breath caught uselessly behind your teeth. His eyes narrow in something that sees the betrayal before you can hide it.

Your face burns.

“No,” you whisper, before he even says anything.

His mouth shifts beneath the mask. “Oh.”

The sound is low. Cruel in its understanding.

Your pulse kicks under his thumb. “Simon—”

“There she is.”

Your breath stutters, caught somewhere between a moan and a denial, and you hate that he hears both. Hate that he can read you so easily. Hate that your body has already answered him before your pride can even get its feet under it.

Simon looks down at the place where your legs have tightened, then slowly back up to your face. It’s a deliberate act; he is taking inventory of every betrayal.

“You liked that.” He croons.

You shake your head, but it’s weak. Useless. Barely more than the brush of your hair against the pillow.

“N-no.”

His thumb presses against your throat, not hard, just enough to feel the wild little flutter of your pulse.

“Liar.”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You can’t find a single defence, a single outrage. No clever thing you can throw between you and the truth and it is all because he is still inside you. Still wearing fresh gloves like he thought that would be enough to keep you from knowing. Still carrying that one missed smear of Graves’s blood under his jaw like a secret he failed to bury properly.

And now he has caught you reacting to it.

Caught the hitch in your breath. The clench of your cunt. The heat climbing up your neck. The way your whole body went soft and greedy around him the second you understood what he had done.

Simon’s eyes go darker. Hungry in a way that feels worse than anger.

“You should be pissed at me,” he murmurs.

His hips pull back an inch - just enough to make you feel the loss before he sinks back in, slow and devastating, until your hands shift to grab at his shoulders because there is no dignity left in you. No clean line of thought. No clever answer.

“You should be callin’ me reckless.”

Another thrust. Your eyes squeeze shut.

His hand leaves your throat and for half a second, you think he is letting you breathe. That is until both of his hands find your own wrists and pin them firmly above your head.

Your eyes snap open to meet his, expecting full satisfaction, but what you see is worse.

It’s all of him - the width of his shoulders blotting out the dim light, the black of his mask, the hard set of his jaw beneath it, the blood under his neck, those steady eyes watching you like he has already decided exactly how much of you he is going to take apart before he is finished.

“You should be asking what the fuck I was thinkin’,” he says, and you can almost hear the grin in it.

You swallow. “You can’t—”

He moves again, and the words break apart in your mouth.

Your back arches and your fingers curl helplessly against his grip. Your knees shift higher around his ribs, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away, because apparently your body has no interest in helping you survive this with any pride intact.

Simon’s eyes drop to your mouth, then back up to the glass in yours.

“I can’t what?” He murmurs.

You try.

You really do.

You drag the sentence up through the wreckage of yourself, but he is too deep, too thick, too much. The stretch of him keeps interrupting every thought before it can become language.

“You can’t just—” your breath catches on a thrust. “You can’t hit him because he—”

“Because he talked about fucking you?” Your whole body jolts. His eyes burn into yours. “If that’s what you mean, say it proper. Like you fuckin’ believe it.”

You can’t.

Your mouth parts, but all that comes out is a broken little sound when he grinds deeper, cockhead bullying your walls slow enough to make you feel every inch of him, cruel enough to leave you trembling closer to the edge. Any sensible thought is drowned out by the wave of bliss washing over you.

Simon makes a low sound. A rough breath leaves him.

“Too far gone to scold me now?”

You glare at him, or try to. It doesn’t land.

And it didn’t stand a chance, either. Not like this - not with your lips parted and your eyes glassy and cunt stretched pathetically around him. Not with your wrists trapped above your head and your hips still trying to meet him every time he gives you another devastating inch.

“I’m, mmff—serious,” you whisper.

“So am I.”

“Simon—”

“No.” His voice cuts low through the room. “You don’t get to say my name like that while you’re grippin’ me tighter for it.”

Your breath leaves you in a gasp.

He feels the way you clench again, and you see it hit him. See the slight flare of his nostrils beneath the mask. The way his eyes flutter for just a second. The way something brutal and possessive moves through him before he can smooth it down.

“Mhm. Yeah.” His voice drops into something rougher. “Fuckin’ problem, you are.”

Your face burns hotter.

You want to deny it - you want to shove at his chest and tell him he’s wrong. Tell him it’s just your body. Just the position. Just the fact that he has you pinned and overstimulated and too cockdrunk to think straight.

But it’s useless because Simon would know it’s a lie.

He moves again, slow and deep, and the denial dies somewhere behind your teeth.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Nothing clever now?”

“Mmff.” Your nails dig into your own palms where he holds your wrists down. “Shut up.”

His eyes flash. “There she is.”

“I mean it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

He gives you another measured thrust, and your voice breaks around a gasp. Simon watches it happen with only the most intent focus.

“Try that again.”

You hate him a little. You want him too much for it to matter.

“You’re—” you inhale sharply when he pulls out almost all the way and then back presses in hard enough to make the mattress shift beneath you. “You’re going to get yourself benched.”

“Probably.”

“Price is going to—”

“Already did.”

You blink up at him, breathless and stupid. “What?”

His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist.

“Read me the riot act.”

Your nerves jump at that. “And you came here?”

“Yes.”

Something in your chest tightens. “Why?”

Simon looks at you for a long second and the room almost seems to shrink around his silence. Your head swims with all of it; the blood under his jaw, the fresh gloves, the heat of him still locked between your thighs.

When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter. “Because I had to see you.”

God. You think he’s lost his mind.

“Simon—“ your back arches and his mouth falls to your neck. “That’s not—this isn’t—“

He lowers himself closer to you, folding you deeper into the mattress.

“You think I lost it because he insulted you?” You don’t answer. His thumb strokes once over the pulse flying at your wrist. “No, sweet’eart.”

His hips move again, slow enough to be cruel, deep enough to make your eyes flutter.

“I lost it because he thought about touching what’s mine.”

The words hit you low and you make a sound you do not mean to make. Your cunt pulses at the word. Mine. A catastrophic vulnerability to a word you will never ever tire of hearing him say.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s what you like, yeah?”

You squirm under him, helpless. “Simon—”

“He said your name like he had a right to it.” His voice roughens. “Like he’d survive putting his hands on you.” The next thrust punches a feral moan out of you, and the pace turns to something almost vicious. “I had to let him know what mine felt like first.”

You moan, eyes shut. Helpless and needy as a whore.

He pauses again. One hand leaves your wrists and grips your jaw. “Look at me.”

You do.

“Another man touches you like this,” he whispers, a lethal rasp through his teeth, “and I’ll break every finger he owns.”

You shiver. His eyes flick down over your face, your mouth, the wrecked shape of you beneath him.

“And if he talks about you like that again?”

You barely manage the whisper. “What?”

Simon presses his forehead to yours. “I won’t stop at his face.”

For a long second, neither of you moves. Then he rolls his hips, and the whole world narrows back down to him - his body over yours, his hand at your jaw, Graves’s blood drying on his neck, and the awful, devastating tenderness in the way Simon kisses you like he is still trying not to become the worst version of himself.

One of your hands slip out from under his to touch the smear of blood again. Simon catches it and pins it back beside your head.

“Leave it.”

Your breath trembles. “Why?”

His eyes darken. “Because I want you to remember what happens when a man forgets who you belong to.”

And in the back of your mind, you think maybe you should argue. Maybe you should tell him you don’t belong to anyone or that this is crazy or that he’s going to get you both transferred - but then he does what he always does and starts fucking you deep and hard and mean - and your body reacts before your pride can save you.

Simon huffs a quiet, humorless breath. “That’s what I thought.”

Then he kisses you - filthy, possessive, furious, and fucks you like Graves is still in the room and Simon needs the whole world to understand it.

Your mouth moves before your brain catches up. “Simon—”

He stops, buried balls deep inside you. His eyes lift to yours from beneath the black smear of his paint. Brown eyes gone flat and dangerous.

“What?”

Your fingers swipe at his throat, and then pull back to show him your now candied fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”

For a second, he just stares at you.

Then his mouth shifts beneath the mask. “S’not mine.”

The room seems to go airless around you. For a moment, your brain does not know what to do with the words.

Not mine.

They land somewhere distant - muffled by euphoria and the heat of him still seated inside you. They should mean something immediately - they should send you upright, sober you, sharpen you. But you’re too gone beneath him, too pliant and overheated and pinned, your thighs trembling around his waist while he stays buried deep enough that every breath you take has to move around him.

So you just stare at him.

At the dark paint around his eyes, at the blood smear, at the shape of his shoulders above you. You stare long enough that the unusual details begin arranging themselves in whatever clear space you’ve got left in your mind.

His gloves, first.

They’re clean. Fresh black tactical gloves, one of them still gripping your hip as he stares down at you in pause. You can’t shake the feeling that they’re different - you know his kit. You know the worn seams, the scuffs, the little frays on the knuckles from use. These aren’t the pair he wore earlier.

Your gaze flicks lower.

His shirt, too.

Not the one from briefing. Not the one with the faded shoulder seam and the dust at the collar. This one is clean, dark, newly pulled on in a hurry. You catch a faint whiff of barracks detergent and bathroom soap with every move he makes.

He cleaned up.

The thought comes through the haze in pieces.

Simon cleaned himself up before he came here but somehow, he missed this. One dark smear beneath his jaw.

You swallow. Your voice comes out thin. “What happened?”

Simon watches your mouth form the words.

Your breathing sounds too loud now, while his somehow stays perfectly even - like he isn’t pressed into you to the hilt - like he isn’t the reason your thighs are shaking around his waist. Like he didn’t come to your room with another persons blood still drying in the place he forgot to wash. He lowers himself closer and the mattress dips beneath the weight of him.

His masked mouth brushes the corner of yours, not quite kissing you but just hovering there - dragging the rough fabric against your skin as he speaks.

“What happened was,” he pauses. “Graves opened his fuckin’ mouth.”

A cold thread winds through the heat in your stomach.

You go still beneath him, even though your cunt is still fluttering helplessly around the thick of him. The name alone does something ugly to the room. Sours the air. Pulls the world back in around the two of you.

“What—” you have to stop to breathe. Your nails dig into his shoulder. “What did he say?”

Simon’s hand slides slowly from your hip.

His palm moves over your waist, up your ribs, dragging goosebumps in its wake. He maps you like he already knows every reaction he is about to get - like he can feel the exact second your pulse jumps. His gloved fingers skim the base of your throat and settle there.

Thumb resting over your pulse. Counting it.

“He said he’d wondered what you sounded like when you begged.”

Your breath locks. You blink at him, stupidly.

For a second, you can’t reconcile the sentence with the room you’re in. With Simon above you. With Graves’s name in Simon’s mouth and blood under Simon’s jaw and your own pulse hammering against his thumb like it wants to betray you.

But Simon says it like he has had the words sitting behind his teeth for hours. Like he has been waiting to put them somewhere. Like he needs you to understand exactly what happened to the man who said them.

“He said,” Simon continues, each word dragged low through his teeth, “that a mouth like yours would be wasted on 141.”

Your nails bite into his shoulder.

“I-I—“ you whimper. “Si—“

His hips move before you can say anything else.

A slow, devastating thrust that punches the air out of you and leaves the rest of his name caught uselessly in your throat. He watches you take it. Watches your face twist. Watches the thought you were trying to form scatter completely.

“That Price needs to put you in your place,” he hisses through his teeth. “That he’d have had you on your knees by now.”

Your stomach twists.

You shake your head, but you don’t even know what you’re denying. Graves. Simon. The heat blooming under your skin. The fact that the words should disgust you cleanly, but Simon’s voice saying them like a death sentence makes something dark and shameful coil inside you.

He pulls out just to thrust in again.

Harder this time - hard enough to break the breath right out of you. Enough to make the headboard creak traitorously behind you. Enough to make your thighs tighten around his waist before you can stop them.

Simon feels it.

“Then he looked at me,” he says, voice dropping into something ruined and vicious, “and asked if I’d taught you to take orders.”

Your heart slams so hard you feel it in your throat, pulsing viscously under his palm. The room narrows to three things - Simon’s eyes, the blood on his neck, and the place where he is still holding you down.

There is blood on him.

Someone else’s blood.

Graves’s blood.

The realization comes slowly at first, then all at once.

You see it too clearly: Simon standing there silent while Graves ran his mouth. Simon listening. The moment the Ghost stops being a man in a room and becomes a consequence. You see the gloves he must have taken off. The blood on the old pair. The careful cleanup after. The way he must have washed his hands, changed, checked himself in the mirror, decided he was clean enough to come to you.

Clean enough. Except for the one place he missed.

Simon watches the realization move across your face.

“Oh God.” You force the words out. “What did you do?”

Your voice is barely a whisper.

His answer is immediate. “I hit him.”

The answer is too simple, too small for the blood under his jaw and the hell in his eyes and that is only because you know Simon.

You know the careful economy of him - the terrifying restraint. The discipline carved into his bones so deep it has become part of his breathing. Simon does not hit men because he is angry. He does not waste movement. He does not lose control unless something in him has already decided the consequence is worth it.

He ends things because he has weighed the cost and found it acceptable.

Your fingers curl tighter in his shirt. “How bad?”

For the first time, something almost like satisfaction passes through his eyes.

His hips roll in one slow, merciless stroke and your back arches before you can stop it. You spread your legs and take him deeper; helplessly, embarrassingly, betraying every sensible thought trying to form in your head.

“How—“ you try to ask again, but the question fractures halfway through another thrust.

Simon lowers his mouth to your ear. “Bad enough Price had to pull me off him.”

Your stomach flips in something stupid. Fear should come first.

It doesn’t.

It should be horror. Concern. Anger. Maybe all three. You should shove at his chest. Demand to know if he’s lost his fucking mind. Tell him he can’t do that, can’t put his hands on Graves over his disgusting mouth and a half-formed threat. Can’t turn command into a blood sport. Can’t risk his place, his rank, Price’s trust, your trust, just because another man said something deserving yet ultimately meaningless.

But what blooms under your ribs is not sensible enough to be outrage - it is hot. It is fucking shameful.

It is dark and possessive and awful in the exact shape of him.

Because he heard another man talk about you. Heard Graves put his hands on you in theory. Heard him degrade you, heard him imagine you on your knees, your mouth, your begging, and decided violence was the only answer he trusted.

Your body betrays you before your pride can stop it - a tight little clench around him.

Simon feels it. Of course he does.

He stills above you, and somehow that is worse than movement. He’s pressed to the hilt again, the pressure of him so intense now it leaves your breath caught uselessly behind your teeth. His eyes narrow in something that sees the betrayal before you can hide it.

Your face burns.

“No,” you whisper, before he even says anything.

His mouth shifts beneath the mask. “Oh.”

The sound is low. Cruel in its understanding.

Your pulse kicks under his thumb. “Simon—”

“There she is.”

Your breath stutters, caught somewhere between a moan and a denial, and you hate that he hears both. Hate that he can read you so easily. Hate that your body has already answered him before your pride can even get its feet under it.

Simon looks down at the place where your legs have tightened, then slowly back up to your face. It’s a deliberate act; he is taking inventory of every betrayal.

“You liked that.” He croons.

You shake your head, but it’s weak. Useless. Barely more than the brush of your hair against the pillow.

“N-no.”

His thumb presses against your throat, not hard, just enough to feel the wild little flutter of your pulse.

“Liar.”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You can’t find a single defence, a single outrage. No clever thing you can throw between you and the truth and it is all because he is still inside you. Still wearing fresh gloves like he thought that would be enough to keep you from knowing. Still carrying that one missed smear of Graves’s blood under his jaw like a secret he failed to bury properly.

And now he has caught you reacting to it.

Caught the hitch in your breath. The clench of your cunt. The heat climbing up your neck. The way your whole body went soft and greedy around him the second you understood what he had done.

Simon’s eyes go darker. Hungry in a way that feels worse than anger.

“You should be pissed at me,” he murmurs.

His hips pull back an inch - just enough to make you feel the loss before he sinks back in, slow and devastating, until your hands shift to grab at his shoulders because there is no dignity left in you. No clean line of thought. No clever answer.

“You should be callin’ me reckless.”

Another thrust. Your eyes squeeze shut.

His hand leaves your throat and for half a second, you think he is letting you breathe. That is until both of his hands find your own wrists and pin them firmly above your head.

Your eyes snap open to meet his, expecting full satisfaction, but what you see is worse.

It’s all of him - the width of his shoulders blotting out the dim light, the black of his mask, the hard set of his jaw beneath it, the blood under his neck, those steady eyes watching you like he has already decided exactly how much of you he is going to take apart before he is finished.

“You should be asking what the fuck I was thinkin’,” he says, and you can almost hear the grin in it.

You swallow. “You can’t—”

He moves again, and the words break apart in your mouth.

Your back arches and your fingers curl helplessly against his grip. Your knees shift higher around his ribs, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away, because apparently your body has no interest in helping you survive this with any pride intact.

Simon’s eyes drop to your mouth, then back up to the glass in yours.

“I can’t what?” He murmurs.

You try.

You really do.

You drag the sentence up through the wreckage of yourself, but he is too deep, too thick, too much. The stretch of him keeps interrupting every thought before it can become language.

“You can’t just—” your breath catches on a thrust. “You can’t hit him because he—”

“Because he talked about fucking you?” Your whole body jolts. His eyes burn into yours. “If that’s what you mean, say it proper. Like you fuckin’ believe it.”

You can’t.

Your mouth parts, but all that comes out is a broken little sound when he grinds deeper, cockhead bullying your walls slow enough to make you feel every inch of him, cruel enough to leave you trembling closer to the edge. Any sensible thought is drowned out by the wave of bliss washing over you.

Simon makes a low sound. A rough breath leaves him.

“Too far gone to scold me now?”

You glare at him, or try to. It doesn’t land.

And it didn’t stand a chance, either. Not like this - not with your lips parted and your eyes glassy and cunt stretched pathetically around him. Not with your wrists trapped above your head and your hips still trying to meet him every time he gives you another devastating inch.

“I’m, mmff—serious,” you whisper.

“So am I.”

“Simon—”

“No.” His voice cuts low through the room. “You don’t get to say my name like that while you’re grippin’ me tighter for it.”

Your breath leaves you in a gasp.

He feels the way you clench again, and you see it hit him. See the slight flare of his nostrils beneath the mask. The way his eyes flutter for just a second. The way something brutal and possessive moves through him before he can smooth it down.

“Mhm. Yeah.” His voice drops into something rougher. “Fuckin’ problem, you are.”

Your face burns hotter.

You want to deny it - you want to shove at his chest and tell him he’s wrong. Tell him it’s just your body. Just the position. Just the fact that he has you pinned and overstimulated and too cockdrunk to think straight.

But it’s useless because Simon would know it’s a lie.

He moves again, slow and deep, and the denial dies somewhere behind your teeth.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Nothing clever now?”

“Mmff.” Your nails dig into your own palms where he holds your wrists down. “Shut up.”

His eyes flash. “There she is.”

“I mean it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

He gives you another measured thrust, and your voice breaks around a gasp. Simon watches it happen with only the most intent focus.

“Try that again.”

You hate him a little. You want him too much for it to matter.

“You’re—” you inhale sharply when he pulls out almost all the way and then back presses in hard enough to make the mattress shift beneath you. “You’re going to get yourself benched.”

“Probably.”

“Price is going to—”

“Already did.”

You blink up at him, breathless and stupid. “What?”

His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist.

“Read me the riot act.”

Your nerves jump at that. “And you came here?”

“Yes.”

Something in your chest tightens. “Why?”

Simon looks at you for a long second and the room almost seems to shrink around his silence. Your head swims with all of it; the blood under his jaw, the fresh gloves, the heat of him still locked between your thighs.

When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter. “Because I had to see you.”

God. You think he’s lost his mind.

“Simon—“ your back arches and his mouth falls to your neck. “That’s not—this isn’t—“

He lowers himself closer to you, folding you deeper into the mattress.

“You think I lost it because he insulted you?” You don’t answer. His thumb strokes once over the pulse flying at your wrist. “No, sweet’eart.”

His hips move again, slow enough to be cruel, deep enough to make your eyes flutter.

“I lost it because he thought about touching what’s mine.”

The words hit you low and you make a sound you do not mean to make. Your cunt pulses at the word. Mine. A catastrophic vulnerability to a word you will never ever tire of hearing him say.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s what you like, yeah?”

You squirm under him, helpless. “Simon—”

“He said your name like he had a right to it.” His voice roughens. “Like he’d survive putting his hands on you.” The next thrust punches a feral moan out of you, and the pace turns to something almost vicious. “I had to let him know what mine felt like first.”

You moan, eyes shut. Helpless and needy as a whore.

He pauses again. One hand leaves your wrists and grips your jaw. “Look at me.”

You do.

“Another man touches you like this,” he whispers, a lethal rasp through his teeth, “and I’ll break every finger he owns.”

You shiver. His eyes flick down over your face, your mouth, the wrecked shape of you beneath him.

“And if he talks about you like that again?”

You barely manage the whisper. “What?”

Simon presses his forehead to yours. “I won’t stop at his face.”

For a long second, neither of you moves. Then he rolls his hips, and the whole world narrows back down to him - his body over yours, his hand at your jaw, Graves’s blood drying on his neck, and the awful, devastating tenderness in the way Simon kisses you like he is still trying not to become the worst version of himself.

One of your hands slip out from under his to touch the smear of blood again. Simon catches it and pins it back beside your head.

“Leave it.”

Your breath trembles. “Why?”

His eyes darken. “Because I want you to remember what happens when a man forgets who you belong to.”

And in the back of your mind, you think maybe you should argue. Maybe you should tell him you don’t belong to anyone or that this is crazy or that he’s going to get you both transferred - but then he does what he always does and starts fucking you deep and hard and mean - and your body reacts before your pride can save you.

Simon huffs a quiet, humorless breath. “That’s what I thought.”

Then he kisses you - filthy, possessive, furious, and fucks you like Graves is still in the room and Simon needs the whole world to understand it.

You don’t turn around, but you can feel his stare digging into your spine. “Dangerous way to start a sentence.”

Soap ignores you. “Ye disappeared Thursday night.”

Gaz hums thoughtfully, then chimes in. “Yeah. She did disappear.”

You lift the mug and take a slow, deliberate sip, then begrudgingly turn to face them. “People are allowed to leave rooms, Johnny.”

“Aye,” Soap says, leaning forward now, elbows braced on his knees. “But ye didnae leave just the room. Ye left the party.”

Price looks up, now, interest sparking as he peers at you over the rim of his mug. “Did she?”

“Oh, she did,” Gaz says with a little too much enthusiasm. “One minute she was arguing with Soap about whether die hard is a Christmas movie—”

“It is,” Soap cuts in.

“—and the next,” Gaz continues, “she’s gone. Took her coat and everything. I finished her drinks.”

Your gaze flicks between them but you school your expression carefully, even as warmth creeps up your neck, settles hot and undeniable behind your knees. It’s hard to keep secrets from men who’re built to break them apart, tenfold when the dissection is taking place in unison.

Being the object of their ire is not something you’d expected when waking up this morning.

“Wow,” you say lightly. “You lot ever consider careers in surveillance?”

Soap’s mouth curls into a grin - you already knew he’d dismiss that.

“So. Who was it?”

You choke, just a little, on your coffee. “Who was what?”

His grin sharpens. “Donnae play dumb.”

Price studies you now. He’s standing a mere arms length away so it isn’t hard to notice the way his eyes track up and down the length of you, the kind of look that sees more than it should.

God help you. Of course your Captain has to be involved in this.

“Mm.” Price quips, taking a sip of tea. “You aren’t exactly subtle, Sarg.”

You still. “I’m not?”

“No,” Gaz says, squinting up to the ceiling as if recalling the last few days. “You’ve been…glowy.”

“Kyle.” You stare at him. “That’s not a real word.”

“It absolutely is,” Gaz says, unbothered. “Next morning you were smiling. During breakfast.”

You huff. “I smile all the time.”

Soap snorts. “No, ye don’t.”

You shoot him a look. “Excuse me?”

“Ye smile politely,” he corrects. “Customer-service smile. This was different.”

“Johnny.” You pause, slowly lower the mug. “What does that even mean?”

Soap rocks back in his chair, eyes alight with vindication. “It means you had that look. The one that says you know something we don’t.”

“And you’re much more patient.” Price hums thoughtfully. “Less attitude too.”

“Okay.” You grimace. “This is wildly invasive for a Sunday morning.”

“And yet,” Gaz nods with a shrug, “accurate.”

You glance, briefly, instinctively, across the room.

Simon hasn’t moved.

He’s still on the couch, one boot hooked over the other, coffee cradled loosely in his hand. His hood shadows his eyes and the mask hides everything else yet he looks exactly like he always does; detached, only half-present, like this conversation is happening three rooms away.

Which is why it doesn’t register as suspicious.

Soap shakes his finger at you. “Ye left with someone. And since I personally struck out with the blonde from logistics—”

“You were never in the running, mate.” Gaz mutters.

“—we’re tryin’ tae work out who beat me tae it.”

The room falls silent, after that.

You stare at him for a long second, which you’re sure isn’t helping the situation at all- then let out a short, incredulous laugh. “That’s…really where we’re going with this?”

Soap shrugs, unapologetic. “It’s a valid question.”

Gaz snorts into his mug. “It’s haunting him.”

“It’s not haunting me,” Soap says immediately, then scowls when both you and Gaz look at him. “Alrigh’ fine. It’s a bit haunting me.”

You drag a hand down your face, and try to turn away toward the door in hopes he’ll just drop it. “This is ridiculous.”

He doesn’t.

“Is it?” Soap asks. He’s fully upright now, elbows on his knees again, all sharp attention. “Because from where I’m sittin’, ye vanished mid-argument, came back the next mornin’ looken like you’d slept better than ye have in weeks, and now you’re actin’ like this is none of our business.”

“It is none of your business.”

“That’s never stopped us before,” Gaz points out.

Price’s gaze stays on you, thoughtful, quiet. He doesn’t pile on. Doesn’t need to. He’s always been the one who waits, lets people talk themselves into corners.

“You weren’t sneaky about it,” he says instead. “That’s what’s got them stuck.”

Your pulse gives a small, traitorous jump. You think he knows. If anyone would know, it’d be him.

Soap snaps his fingers. “Exactly. Ye didn’t look guilty. Ye looked…comfortable.”

Heat intensifies on the back on your knees again. It crawls up your back and reaches for your neck, where the Ghost of Ghost’s fingers are still dancing. He’s getting close.

“You’re reaching.” You manage.

“Maybe,” Soap says. “But humour me.”

He starts ticking names off on his fingers—

“Not Gaz.”

“Tragically,” Gaz says, lifting his mug in salute.

“Not Price.”

Price snorts. “I’d remember.”

“And not me,” Soap finishes, nodding decisively to himself.

You don’t bother hiding the look you give him. “How devastating.”

“So that leaves…” he trails off, eyes sweeping the room.

You feel it then—the stillness.

Simon hasn’t moved. Not since this started. Same posture. Same loose grip on his coffee. Same unreadable calm, like he’s carved from the furniture instead of sitting on it. You can feel your awareness tug toward him, but you force yourself not to stare.

Professional to the bone.

“Could’ve been someone outside the team,” Gaz offers, tilting his head.

Soap shakes his head immediately. “Nah. She wouldn’t risk that.”

You lift a brow. “You say that like you know me.”

“I do,” Soap says. “That’s the whole problem, lass.”

Gaz cuts in again. “Whoever it was, you trusted them.”

Your breath catches for half a second. You take another sip of coffee you don’t need.

Soap’s eyes light up. “See? That. That pause right there.”

You glare at him. “I paused because you’re annoying.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Someone you’ve worked with a while,” Gaz adds, nodding like the theory is solidifying.

Your eyes flick to Simon again, who remains silent.

Which is, infuriatingly, normal. He never chimes in on this kind of thing. Never speculates. Half the time he looks like he’s not listening at all—like his mind’s already somewhere else entirely. So no one notices that he hasn’t shifted, hasn’t reacted, hasn’t given them a single thing to latch onto.

Soap squints at you harder. “Was it someone senior?”

You wrinkle your nose. “Ew.”

“Junior?”

“Absolutely not.”

Gaz tilts his head, studying you again. “Then who?”

You shrug, aiming for careless. “Maybe it was a ghost.”

The room groans in unison.

“Don’t,” Soap says.

“That was painful,” Gaz adds.

Price rubs at his temple. “Christ.”

Across the room, Simon exhales—slow, controlled—through his nose. It’s barely audible. Barely there. But you hear it anyway. You always do.

Soap throws his hands up. “This is doen’ my head in.”

You straighten, setting your now-empty mug down with a soft clink. “Maybe you should all focus on your own lives.”

Soap watches you, suspicion etched into every line of his face. “One day we’re gonna’ figure ye out.”

You smile over your shoulder as you turn toward the door. “I look forward to it.”

On your way out, you pass the couch. Simon doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word until you’re just past him; close enough that your leg nearly brushes his knee—and then he whispers, lowly grumble meant only for you.

“Shoulda stayed quiet.”

Your step falters for half a heartbeat until you collect yourself and keep walking.

Behind you, Soap’s already winding himself up again. “I’m tellen’ ye, it’s someone we’re not even considerin’—”

You don’t turn around.

You don’t turn around, but you can feel his stare digging into your spine. “Dangerous way to start a sentence.”

Soap ignores you. “Ye disappeared Thursday night.”

Gaz hums thoughtfully, then chimes in. “Yeah. She did disappear.”

You lift the mug and take a slow, deliberate sip, then begrudgingly turn to face them. “People are allowed to leave rooms, Johnny.”

“Aye,” Soap says, leaning forward now, elbows braced on his knees. “But ye didnae leave just the room. Ye left the party.”

Price looks up, now, interest sparking as he peers at you over the rim of his mug. “Did she?”

“Oh, she did,” Gaz says with a little too much enthusiasm. “One minute she was arguing with Soap about whether die hard is a Christmas movie—”

“It is,” Soap cuts in.

“—and the next,” Gaz continues, “she’s gone. Took her coat and everything. I finished her drinks.”

Your gaze flicks between them but you school your expression carefully, even as warmth creeps up your neck, settles hot and undeniable behind your knees. It’s hard to keep secrets from men who’re built to break them apart, tenfold when the dissection is taking place in unison.

Being the object of their ire is not something you’d expected when waking up this morning.

“Wow,” you say lightly. “You lot ever consider careers in surveillance?”

Soap’s mouth curls into a grin - you already knew he’d dismiss that.

“So. Who was it?”

You choke, just a little, on your coffee. “Who was what?”

His grin sharpens. “Donnae play dumb.”

Price studies you now. He’s standing a mere arms length away so it isn’t hard to notice the way his eyes track up and down the length of you, the kind of look that sees more than it should.

God help you. Of course your Captain has to be involved in this.

“Mm.” Price quips, taking a sip of tea. “You aren’t exactly subtle, Sarg.”

You still. “I’m not?”

“No,” Gaz says, squinting up to the ceiling as if recalling the last few days. “You’ve been…glowy.”

“Kyle.” You stare at him. “That’s not a real word.”

“It absolutely is,” Gaz says, unbothered. “Next morning you were smiling. During breakfast.”

You huff. “I smile all the time.”

Soap snorts. “No, ye don’t.”

You shoot him a look. “Excuse me?”

“Ye smile politely,” he corrects. “Customer-service smile. This was different.”

“Johnny.” You pause, slowly lower the mug. “What does that even mean?”

Soap rocks back in his chair, eyes alight with vindication. “It means you had that look. The one that says you know something we don’t.”

“And you’re much more patient.” Price hums thoughtfully. “Less attitude too.”

“Okay.” You grimace. “This is wildly invasive for a Sunday morning.”

“And yet,” Gaz nods with a shrug, “accurate.”

You glance, briefly, instinctively, across the room.

Simon hasn’t moved.

He’s still on the couch, one boot hooked over the other, coffee cradled loosely in his hand. His hood shadows his eyes and the mask hides everything else yet he looks exactly like he always does; detached, only half-present, like this conversation is happening three rooms away.

Which is why it doesn’t register as suspicious.

Soap shakes his finger at you. “Ye left with someone. And since I personally struck out with the blonde from logistics—”

“You were never in the running, mate.” Gaz mutters.

“—we’re tryin’ tae work out who beat me tae it.”

The room falls silent, after that.

You stare at him for a long second, which you’re sure isn’t helping the situation at all- then let out a short, incredulous laugh. “That’s…really where we’re going with this?”

Soap shrugs, unapologetic. “It’s a valid question.”

Gaz snorts into his mug. “It’s haunting him.”

“It’s not haunting me,” Soap says immediately, then scowls when both you and Gaz look at him. “Alrigh’ fine. It’s a bit haunting me.”

You drag a hand down your face, and try to turn away toward the door in hopes he’ll just drop it. “This is ridiculous.”

He doesn’t.

“Is it?” Soap asks. He’s fully upright now, elbows on his knees again, all sharp attention. “Because from where I’m sittin’, ye vanished mid-argument, came back the next mornin’ looken like you’d slept better than ye have in weeks, and now you’re actin’ like this is none of our business.”

“It is none of your business.”

“That’s never stopped us before,” Gaz points out.

Price’s gaze stays on you, thoughtful, quiet. He doesn’t pile on. Doesn’t need to. He’s always been the one who waits, lets people talk themselves into corners.

“You weren’t sneaky about it,” he says instead. “That’s what’s got them stuck.”

Your pulse gives a small, traitorous jump. You think he knows. If anyone would know, it’d be him.

Soap snaps his fingers. “Exactly. Ye didn’t look guilty. Ye looked…comfortable.”

Heat intensifies on the back on your knees again. It crawls up your back and reaches for your neck, where the Ghost of Ghost’s fingers are still dancing. He’s getting close.

“You’re reaching.” You manage.

“Maybe,” Soap says. “But humour me.”

He starts ticking names off on his fingers—

“Not Gaz.”

“Tragically,” Gaz says, lifting his mug in salute.

“Not Price.”

Price snorts. “I’d remember.”

“And not me,” Soap finishes, nodding decisively to himself.

You don’t bother hiding the look you give him. “How devastating.”

“So that leaves…” he trails off, eyes sweeping the room.

You feel it then—the stillness.

Simon hasn’t moved. Not since this started. Same posture. Same loose grip on his coffee. Same unreadable calm, like he’s carved from the furniture instead of sitting on it. You can feel your awareness tug toward him, but you force yourself not to stare.

Professional to the bone.

“Could’ve been someone outside the team,” Gaz offers, tilting his head.

Soap shakes his head immediately. “Nah. She wouldn’t risk that.”

You lift a brow. “You say that like you know me.”

“I do,” Soap says. “That’s the whole problem, lass.”

Gaz cuts in again. “Whoever it was, you trusted them.”

Your breath catches for half a second. You take another sip of coffee you don’t need.

Soap’s eyes light up. “See? That. That pause right there.”

You glare at him. “I paused because you’re annoying.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Someone you’ve worked with a while,” Gaz adds, nodding like the theory is solidifying.

Your eyes flick to Simon again, who remains silent.

Which is, infuriatingly, normal. He never chimes in on this kind of thing. Never speculates. Half the time he looks like he’s not listening at all—like his mind’s already somewhere else entirely. So no one notices that he hasn’t shifted, hasn’t reacted, hasn’t given them a single thing to latch onto.

Soap squints at you harder. “Was it someone senior?”

You wrinkle your nose. “Ew.”

“Junior?”

“Absolutely not.”

Gaz tilts his head, studying you again. “Then who?”

You shrug, aiming for careless. “Maybe it was a ghost.”

The room groans in unison.

“Don’t,” Soap says.

“That was painful,” Gaz adds.

Price rubs at his temple. “Christ.”

Across the room, Simon exhales—slow, controlled—through his nose. It’s barely audible. Barely there. But you hear it anyway. You always do.

Soap throws his hands up. “This is doen’ my head in.”

You straighten, setting your now-empty mug down with a soft clink. “Maybe you should all focus on your own lives.”

Soap watches you, suspicion etched into every line of his face. “One day we’re gonna’ figure ye out.”

You smile over your shoulder as you turn toward the door. “I look forward to it.”

On your way out, you pass the couch. Simon doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word until you’re just past him; close enough that your leg nearly brushes his knee—and then he whispers, lowly grumble meant only for you.

“Shoulda stayed quiet.”

Your step falters for half a heartbeat until you collect yourself and keep walking.

Behind you, Soap’s already winding himself up again. “I’m tellen’ ye, it’s someone we’re not even considerin’—”

You don’t turn around.