⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚𝐒𝐭✰𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚

He told himself he was protecting you. That was what he called it at first, because protection sounded more legal than obsession. He told himself the neighbourhood was unsafe, that you were too trusting, that someone had to watch you and your window and the dark corners of the street beneath your building because no one else would. He told himself a lot of things, and for a while, he almost believed them. 

Then there was the box under your bed.

That fucking box.

At first, Dex didn’t know what it was. It was small and tucked away like a dirty little secret. Maybe it was something you only pulled out when you were alone. Maybe it was something you kept hidden where no one else could see. Except Dex saw everything. He had a good view after all, a couple of stories up.

One night, he saw you come home exhausted, hair messy and shoulders slumped, still in your work clothes with your face drawn in a frown, making his hands flex in the dark because he hated anything that wore you down. He was by his window, watching you with the same dead-eyed patience he would with a target. You were safe. You were home. He should have left it there.

Then you reached under the bed, pulled out the box, and opened it.

Oh.

Dex went completely still.

It was… oh, no.

You pulled out a toy. The first one was a turquoise dildo, stupid and fake and smooth, curved like it had any fucking right to be shaped for you. Dex hated it immediately. He hated the colour, hated the size, hated the shine in your hand. He fucking hated the way you looked at it like it was familiar, like it belonged in your bed, like it had earned the right to be near you. It had known you before he did.

Because no. No, no, no. No, no, no! You didn’t need that!

You didn’t need that stupid silicone. You didn’t need some fake, lifeless object inside you like it could ever understand the divinity it was touching, like it could ever deserve the warmth of your body, like it could ever know what to do with the adorable little sounds that slipped out of your mouth when you started giving in. Dex had one too. It was real and throbbing so painfully against his zipper that his vision almost blurred, but that only made the humiliation worse, because he was standing there in the dark wanting you while some stupid thing got to be held by your hand and plunged into your body without earning any of it.

He couldn’t even bring himself to touch himself. His hand twitched once toward his belt, and then stopped, fingers curling into a fist so tight his knuckles ached. It felt too insulting to you, somehow. To stand there outside your life and get himself off like a stranger when what he wanted was to be chosen, to be invited in. Touching himself would have felt like admitting defeat to the fucking fake piece of silicone, and Dex would rather splinter his hand open against glass than give that thing the satisfaction.

Then, another night, you took out something smaller. It was sleeker, more curved. Dex watched it sit in your palm, watched your thumb brush over it, watched your body settle back against the sheets like you already knew exactly what it was going to do for you. A vibrator, he realized, and the hatred came back so fast it was almost clean. 

Of course. Of fucking course there was another one. Another stupid little object pretending it could take his place, not that he had a place at all.

Dex had hands. Dex had fingers that never missed. Dex had aim so perfect and patience like a sickness. He could hit a target without thinking; he could find the weak point in anything. If he had the right to touch you, if you let him get his hands on you properly, he would learn you so thoroughly there would be nowhere left for you to hide. He would make you understand that you had never needed anything from that box. You had only needed him to finally get close enough.

That toy was nothing. Plastic garbage. An object. And Dex was still jealous.

He hated, hated, hated it until the feeling sat under his skin like a fever. He hated that it touched you without wanting you. He hated that it got inside you without worshipping you. He hated that it could make your thighs part and your breathing change without even understanding what blessing had been given.

It had no mouth, no hands, no eyes, no mind. It couldn't watch the little twitch in your lips when you tried not to make noise. It couldn’t possibly hear the difference between a sigh and a groan. It couldn't know when to slow down, when to go harder, when to hold you still and make you take what you were pretending not to need. 

Dex could. Dex would. If he had you underneath him just once, he would make sure you forgot that stupid thing had ever worked at all.

His fist curled against the brick wall beside him until his knuckles ached. He was hard and furious and breathing too quickly.

You didn’t know it yet, but you didn’t need that to get off. You needed him. It was only rational.

You needed his focus, his precise attention. You needed to be laid out beneath him and taken apart piece by piece until you understood that pleasure didn’t have to come from a lifeless object. It could come from him. It should come from him.

Then your body arched. Your mouth fell open, your fingers tightened, and the thoughts inside Dex went black.

He punched the brick wall once, hard enough to split the skin over his knuckles and damage the paint. Pain flashed hot through his hand, bright enough to cut through the jealousy for half a second, but not enough to make him look away. Nothing was enough to make him look away. Not when the toy disappeared between your thighs again, not when your head tipped back, then when your chest rose and fell beneath the thin fabric of your shirt. Dex watched with his teeth clenched and blood sliding down his fingers, consumed by a jealousy so vile it should have disgusted him.

The next day, when he thought it couldn’t possibly get worse, he was proven wrong. 

The rose toy was worse.

The rose toy made him want to burn the whole world down, because what the fuck did you need that for when he had a mouth? Dex stared at it from his window with a hatred he usually reserved for threats, for guys who looked at you too long on the street, for anyone who stood too close to you in line. But this was not a person who he could threaten or scare away or hurt. It was stupid little thing that sat between your thighs and pretended to do what his tongue should have been doing.

His mouth watered. His eyes dragged over you through the window, over your parted legs and rumpled clothes and the rise and fall of your chest. He watched your chest shift with every uneven breath, watched the way your body trembled when the toy stayed right where you wanted it. 

But when did you ever stop to think about what he wanted?

He wanted to put his mouth there. He wanted to drag his tongue over every inch of you. He wanted to learn what made you gasp, what made you mewl, what made you grab his body and hold him exactly where you needed him.

He wanted to master you, and that was the only word for it. Not have. Not fuck. 

Dex wanted to know every weak spot, every angle, every sound, every ruined expression you made when pleasure got too big for your body and spilled out of you. He wanted to know how much you could take. He wanted to know how pretty you looked when you were overwhelmed. He wanted to know if you would say his name like a warning or a prayer. 

The toy didn’t deserve any of that. It had never protected you, never watched your door, never memorized your footsteps on the stairs, never wanted to crawl inside you. 

But it had touched you anyway.

By the time you were finished, the inside of Dex’s mouth was bleeding and his breathing had gone unnaturally calm. He watched you clean the toys and tuck them away, watched the box slide back beneath your bed like it hadn’t broken his heart into a million little pieces. 

After that, he hated the box like it was alive. 

By the time he actually got close to you, Dex had already hated that box for months. You never knew that when he carried your groceries upstairs, he already knew which cabinet you kept the mugs in. You never knew that when he asked if you slept well, he already knew which nights you had tossed and turned. You never knew that when he looked around your apartment for the first time,  polite and almost shy, he knew exactly what was hidden under your bed.

Then you kissed him one night outside your door, giggling because he had gone so still, because he looked like he might actually die if you didn’t kiss him right then and there. 

After that, he was yours. Or you were his. Dex didn’t really care which way you phrased it. It was the same thing.

By some miracle, he became your boyfriend. 

He hated that word, and loved it all the same, because it sounded too tame for what you had done to him. Boyfriend sounded casual, temporary. As if it was something that could end. 

Lover was a better title, he thought. It felt more whole and all-consuming. But then your friends had cringed the one time he said it, and Dex had gone so still afterward that you could almost hear him tearing himself apart over it. 

He hated the idea that he had embarrassed you, hated even more that someone else had been there to see it, until you had to cup his face and tell him no, baby, you didn’t embarrass me. I thought it was sweet. Maybe, though, we should just say boyfriend with my friends, okay? 

And because it was you asking, he said of course, baby. 

Still, nowadays, he slept in your bed more than he did his own. He stood in your kitchen in the mornings. He learned the smell of your shampoo, learned the shape of your body under his hands instead of through glass and his own sick imagination. And when you finally let him touch you properly, Dex nearly lost his mind, because he was good at it. 

Of course he was good at it. Dex had focus like a camera lens, and once that focus turned on you, there was no part of your body he didn’t want to understand.

His fingers pressed and curled and learned you with frightening speed, finding the places that made your mouth drop open, the places that made your hips lift, the places that made you grab his wrist like you wanted him to stop and keep going at the same time. His mouth was patient, devoted, mean when it needed to be. He held your thighs open like he had been waiting his whole life to prove a point, like every gasp he dragged out of you was a personal victory over the stupid little rose toy.

When your hands fisted in his hair, when your thighs shook around his head, when his name broke out of you, all breathless and helpless, Dex thought, yes. there. That was what you were supposed to sound like. 

The first time he filled you up because he’d convince you to go on the pill, your whole face changed. Dex saw your eyes go wide, saw your lips part, saw your breath catch in your throat like you hadn't expected him to feel like that. For one strange second, he looked almost startled by his own satisfaction. Then he bent over you, mouth brushing your ear, and fucked you because he could, and he was grateful for it, gasping thank you, thank you, thank you over and over again, while his face was buried in the crook of your neck.

After that, you stopped using the box.

Dex noticed the dust beginning to collect on the lid. He noticed the charger cords stayed tangled and unplugged. Now, when you were needy, you reached for him. 

And there was nothing he loved more than you pawing his shirt, his wrist, his belt, his mouth. You reached for him in the morning, half-asleep. You reached for him at night with that little impatient noise in your throat that made him coo before giving you exactly what you wanted.

Good.

That was how it should have always been.

Sometimes, when you were asleep, Dex would look at the bed frame and think about the box beneath it. He should have been satisfied, but he wasn’t, because it still existed. 

And maybe, much later, you started noticing things too. You’d see the way Dex could flick a bottle cap across the room and land it in the trash without looking. The way his hands looked natural around the knives in your kitchen. 

You knew something. You weren’t stupid.

By the time you realised he was Bullseye, it was too late. By then, you already loved him. By the time you realised there was something violently wrong with him, you didn’t care enough to leave.

And the box under your bed stayed untouched, even though Dex thought about it every day.

—

The day he finally did something about it, he came back home to your apartment after a good couple of hours of donning the Bullseye mask, being a good guy and killing at least half a dozen task force agents.

Usually, when Dex came home buzzing like that, you were there.

Usually, the second he stepped through your door with that electric stillness in his body, you would look up from the couch or the kitchen counter or the bed, take one look at his face, and your eyes would change from curious to knowing immediately. You wouldn’t ask what happened. You wouldn’t ask where he had been. You would just set down whatever was in your hands and say, “Come here, baby.”

And Dex would go to you like a starving little thing. You would let him bury his face in your neck, let him grip your hips too hard as you murmured sweet, filthy little things into his ear about how he could take it out on you, how you could handle him, how he didn’t have to hold it all in himself. 

Sometimes you made him wait. Other times, you made him ask. Most of the time you let him fuck you against the nearest wall before either of you even made it to the bedroom, because you liked him like that, wrecked and keyed up and desperate enough to turn all that focus on to you. 

But that day, you weren’t home. Earlier in the morning, you had kissed him on the cheek with your keys in your hand and said, far too sweetly, “Baby, I have overtime today.”

You’d said it like it was just a schedule change. As if you hadn’t just sentenced him to four or five extra hours all alone.

Dex had been fine then, and said okay, because a normal boyfriend would. He had watched you leave, watched the door shut behind you, watched the lock turn, and told himself he could wait. He had waited for worse things. He had discipline. He had control.

But now, control was suddenly a very stupid word.

He was still buzzing. His hands felt awake. Every little sound in the apartment was a little too overstimulating, and he needed something to distract him from it: the refrigerator humming, a pipe knocking behind the wall, traffic below, the faint settling creak of the floorboards under his boots.

He stood in the middle of your apartment and breathed.

For one insane second, Dex considered going to your workplace.

He could picture your startled little gasp when he appeared where he shouldn’t be. He’d drag you to a single-cubicle bathroom, crowd you against the sink and cover your mouth with his hand because you had laughed last time, whispering, “Dex, we shouldn’t,” while your fingers undid his belt. He remembered the first time he had done it, remembered your skirt shoved up, remembered you biting his shoulder to stay quiet, remembered how smug he had felt afterward when you had gone back to work with his handprint on your hips beneath your clothes.

He could do it again.

He almost did.

But then his eyes moved toward the bedroom. Toward the bed and the space underneath it.

That fucking box.

It was such a stupid thing to notice, such a small thing. A corner of it was barely visible in the shadow under the bed, tucked away like it had nothing to fear from him. Like it hadn’t sat there while you slept beside him, while you kissed him, while you reached for him, while you let him make you fall apart and then kept that little graveyard of old pleasures under the same bed.

Dex stared at it.

The focus in him that had been looking for you found the box instead.

Before he could think better about it, he went into your bedroom, dropped to one knee, shoved his hand under the bed, and dragged the box out hard enough that it scraped against the floor. The lid snapped open under his fingers, and the dildo was on top.

Smooth, curved, stupid, fake little thing, sitting there like a dare.

Dex picked it up, and the second it was in his hand, he felt disgusted. There. There was the problem. There was something he could actually put his hands on. This. This thing. This lifeless piece of silicone that had touched you and survived.

Not anymore.

Dex had gone to the kitchen without even realizing he’d moved, grabbed a knife he recently sharpened, and came back with his breathing shallow and even. He sat on the bedroom floor with the open box between his knees and cut into the dildo like he was gutting a fish. The silicone resisted for half a second before splitting, and that drag of the knife through something shaped to imitate what he had made heat crawl up the back of his neck.

It was satisfying, mutilating this stupidly lifeless object.

His hatred didn’t care about logic. His jealousy had never needed the thing to be alive. It had only needed the thing to have touched you. That was enough to make the destruction feel intimate, corrective, and necessary.

He cut it again. Then again. Then, the rampage took shape quickly after that.

The man who folded his shirts in your drawer and rinsed his mug after coffee and kissed your forehead when you slept in too late was gone. As far as these toys were concerned, he was Bullseye.

The blade dragged through silicone again. His hands twisted. The fake curve lost its shape. He ripped it open, ruined it, carved it into useless pieces while his breath came harder and harder through his nose and his thoughts went noisy and repetitive:

It touched you.

It touched you.

It touched you.

The smaller vibrator went next. He hated how sleek it was, how obviously designed to find something inside you that belonged to him now. He slammed it against the floor once, hard enough that the crack of plastic snapped through the room. The sound felt good, so he did it again. A piece broke off and skittered under the dresser. He grabbed the rest of it and brought it down until the casing split open and its mechanical guts spilled out like it had finally been exposed for what it was: A battery. A lie.

Dex’s hand was bleeding again by then. He didn’t know if it was from the agents, the knife, the plastic, or the way he kept hitting things too hard. He didn’t care, though.

He picked up the rose toy next.

He remembered seeing it between your thighs through the window. He remembered his mouth salivating like an animal. He remembered wanting to bite through his own hand because that stupid little thing had been sitting where his mouth should have been, making you shake, making you breathe like that, ruining you without considering worship.

Dex’s fingers closed around it.

“You didn’t need this,” he muttered.

His voice sounded strange in the empty apartment.

“You had me.”

Not then, some small sane part of him might have said. Not yet. You hadn’t had him then. You hadn’t even known he was watching.

Dex ignored that thought.

He drove the knife into the gummy outer piece and tore it open. The rose came apart under his hands, the casing cracked, the wired snapped, pieces dropping into the box with the others until the whole thing looked like a little crime scene made of plastic and his own deranged need to be the only thing you ever reached for again.

The rampage didn’t make him calm.

It made him worse.

Because once he started, he couldn’t stop at the toys. He snapped cords. He ripped the satin lining out of the old box because it had held them. He crushed a bottle of silicone cleaning liquid in his fist and watched it spill slick and useless across the floor, then cursed and cleaned that part immediately because it was your floor and he was desperately trying to convince himself that he was definitely not an animal. 

By the time the box was ruined, Dex was breathing hard. The buzzing under his skin hadn’t disappeared, but it had direction now. His knuckles stung and his eyes stayed fixed on the mess in front of him with a focus so total it almost looked peaceful.

Then he gathered every broken piece.

He took the box outside behind the building, to the old metal bin near the alley where no one ever looked. He arranged the pieces, added kindling, added flame, and stood there watching as the fire caught.

The silicone melted slowly.

The dildo warped first, losing its already tattered shape, collapsing as the heat ate through it. Dex watched with his hands at his sides and felt something in his chest loosen by degrees. The vibrator casing blackened. The rose toy pieces curled and shrank into un ugly, unrecognizable puddle.

The smell was awful, chemical and bitter, crawling into the back of his throat.

Dex watched anyway. He needed to suffer through it to know he did it.

He watched until the pieces were ruined beyond saving. He watched until nothing in the bin looked like something you could have held, could have wanted, could have used. 

Only then did he go back upstairs.

Dex laughed once under his breath, not because anything was funny, but because the sound had nowhere else to go. He washed his hands in your bathroom, scrubbing blood and soot from his knuckles, cleaning under his nails with the same discipline he used after a kill. Then he dried his hands on the towel you always insisted was decorative and stood in the bedroom again.

He stared at the empty space under the bed no. There was no taking all the damage back now, not that he wanted to. But… it just felt wrong. 

Well.

Now he needed to replace the box, didn’t he?

That was what a boyfriend did after destroying his girlfriend’s private sex toy collection in a jealous, post-murder fugue state. He should replace it with something better.

There was a shop around the corner. Dex had passed it before with you and you had squeezed his hand and laughed under your breath when he looked away too quickly from the window display. It wasn’t because he was shy. Dex wasn’t shy with you anymore. He could put his mouth between your thighs and stay there until you were crying lightning and his name into the pillow, but there was something different about seeing all of it displayed in public: rows and rows of things made for people who didn’t have him.

He went anyway.

The little bell over the door chimed when he stepped inside. A woman behind the counter looked up. “Hi, let me know if you need help finding anything.”

Dex stared at her for half a second too long. “I’m fine.”

Spoiler: he wasn’t.

He walked past the first display and immediately regretted having eyes. Dildos, vibrators, and suction toys. Things in pastel colours and matte black. Things with little labels that promised intimacy from something battery-powered and dead. No. Absolutely not. He wasn’t buying you anything phallic. He wasn’t buying you anything designed to replace a tongue. He wasn’t paying money for a thing that would sit in your drawer and pretend it could do what he did.

He ignored every masturbation item with the offended dignity of a man who had, less than an hour ago, cut your dildo into pieces because it had hurt his feelings.

He wouldn’t buy you any pretty little objects that promised to “hit the right spot,” because Dex’s fingers hit the right spot. Dex’s mouth hit the right spot. Dex knew your body now, and anything that claimed it could do the same made him want to start another fire.

He moved deeper into the store, and that was when he found the restraints.

He picked up a metal pair of padded cuffs with real locks and tested the weight in his palm, expression blank. Good and sturdy. Soft enough not to hurt you unless you wanted it to. He placed them in the basket.

Then silk ties. Black, then red, then a dark blue because he imagined that one against your wrists and had to stand very still for a moment. Rope came next, the kind that would look filthy wrapped around you but would not actually hurt you. 

He found a blindfold and the thought of you wearing it made his mouth go dry. You, trusting him enough to give up sight. You, lying back and letting the world narrow down to what he was doing to you. That was good. That was right. That didn’t replace him. That made him necessary.

Into the basket.

A gag made him pause when he imagined your mouth around it and then imagined not being able to hear every little sound he worked so hard to drag out of you. He frowned at the display for a while, then chose one anyway because some nights, maybe, you would like being made quiet. Some nights, maybe, he would like the sight more than he hated losing the sounds.

Then he saw the collar.

It was not flashy, just black leather, with a small metal ring at the front. His hand closed around it as the leather bent slightly under his thumb. He pictured it at your throat. Pictured his fingers hooking under the ring to pull you close. Pictured you looking up at him with that half-angry, half-wanting expression you got when he was being too much and you liked it anyway.

Mine, he thought.

Not because he wanted to own you like an object, not exactly. Dex was too broken to make the distinction cleanly, but he knew this much: he wanted you choosing it. He wanted you holding your chin up while he fastened it around your neck. He wanted to see it on you and know you had let him put it there.

He put it in the basket.

By then, the sales assistant had started watching him with polite concern.

“Shopping for a gift?” she asked.

Dex looked down at the basket. “For my girlfriend.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, which was such a wild misunderstanding of the situation that Dex only stared at her.

“Yes,” he said finally.

Sweet. Sure.

He added a proper storage box too, black and lockable, because if he was replacing your box, he was replacing it correctly. He added massage oil after checking three labels and rejecting anything that smelled too artificial. He added a small bottle of specialised cleaner because you would complain if he didn’t, and because even in the middle of this deranged little shopping trip, Dex was still painfully, pathetically attentive to the boring practical details of loving you.

At checkout, the woman rang everything up without comment.

Dex kept his eyes forward.

He didn’t look at the wall of vibrators behind her. He didn’t look at the glossy pink boxes promising pleasure in ten different speeds, because if he looked too long, he might start thinking about the one currently melting behind your building, and if he thought about that too much, he might smile.

So he paid, took the bag, and left.

When he returned to your apartment, he arranged the new box carefully. Handcuffs tucked to the side. Rope coiled neatly. Silk ties folded. Blindfold, gag, cleaner. The collar went on top. Maybe he should’ve gotten a leash. Oh well. If you really liked it, he’ll bring you to the store and get you to choose.

Dex stared at it for a moment before he closed the lid and slid the box under the bed where the old one had been.

There.

Fixed.

Not really, of course. Not in any healthy or normal sense of the word.

But when had Dex ever been healthy or normal about you?

—

You came home tired that day

When you unlocked the door, Dex had been waiting in the kitchen, wearing one of the shirts he had slowly migrated into your drawer.

“Hi, baby,” you murmured, already smiling when you saw him.

Dex walked towards you immediately, too fast, probably. He kissed you before you could take off your coat, hands going to your waist, mouth lingering like he had been counting the hours since you left because he had. You laughed into the kiss and pushed at his chest.

“Missed me?”

“Yes,” he said, too honestly.

For a while, everything was fine. You changed out of your work clothes. Dex followed you around like a shadow, trying not to look too often at the bed. He made tea. You drank half of it. You complained about overtime, about your feet hurting, and Dex listened with a deadly seriousness most men reserved for hostage negotiations.

Then you went into the bedroom to put something away. You crouched by the bed to shove your bag out of the way, and that was when you saw the box.

A new box.

It was black, neat, expensive-looking, tucked exactly where the old one used to be.

You pulled it out slowly, already suspicious, because Dex didn’t misplace things. Dex arranged. Dex corrected. Dex replaced. When you opened the lid, you immediately saw the collar laid right on top like a dark little apology ribbon.

For a second, you said, “Oh, wow," because you genuinelyliked it.

It was gorgeous. The cuffs were padded and clearly not cheap. The silk restraints were soft. The rope was smooth, the kind that would not burn if handled properly. The collar was simple black leather, pretty in a way that made your stomach give one stupid little twist before. It was thoughtful. Dex had gone shopping with your body in mind. He had pictured your wrists. your throat, your mouth. The little sounds you made when you were overwhelmed and pretending you weren’t.

And then you remembered the empty space where your actual things should have been.

“Ummm…” You looked up. “Where’s my stuff?”

Dex stood in the doorway, too still. That was answer enough, really.

“What stuff?” he asked, badly.

You stared at him. “What?”

Because really, what the hell did he think he was gonna get away with like that?

“My old box, Dex. The one that was here. The one this is replacing.”

“You don’t use it anymore.”

You blinked. "That's not what I asked.”

Dex shifted his weight, and there was something almost innocent in the confusion on his face. Though not innocent like harmless. Dex was never harmless. He looked innocent like he genuinely couldn’t find the part of the situation where his logic had failed. You had stopped using the old toys. You had him now. He had bought you better things. Things for both of you. In his mind, he had done everything right. Why did it matter? 

“You have me,” he said, like that settled it.

You stared at him for another beat. Then your tiredness warped into irritation. “Dex. Where. Is. My. Stuff.”

His eyes flicked away.

Your stomach sank. “Did you throw it out?”

“No.”

“Did you put it in the dumpster?”

“No.”

“Please tell me you didn’t donate it.”

Dex looked appalled, like that wasn’t his modus operandi. “Of course not.”

“Then where is it?”

He hesitated and Benjamin Poindexter did not hesitate unless the answer was somehow worse than every option you had given him.

“I destroyed and burned it.”

What. The. Fuck?

For a second, you genuinely couldn’t speak.

“I…” you looked empty. “You burned it.”

His mouth tightened. “You don’t use it anymore.”

“Oh my god.” You stood up with the collar still in your hand. “I know I don't use it anymore.”

“Then why—”

“Principle, Dex!”

He frowned, and that made you want to throw the collar at his head.

“Principle,” you repeated, louder. “It was mine. I bought it. You don’t get to decide something is useless and destroy it because you personally don’t like it.”

“You don’t need them,” he said again, and he was starting to feel like a broken fucking record.

“Principle!”

“You have me.”

“Principle, Dex!”

He looked genuinely distressed now, but not because he understood. Not because he had suddenly realized that taking your things from under your bed and burning them was unhinged. He looked distressed because you were upset, because the warmth had drained out of the room and he didn’t know how to get it back without lying about the one thing he couldn’t make himself regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. A pathetic last ditch effort, really.

You laughed once. “No, you’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“I said,” he managed through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry I’m mad.”

Dex went quiet. There it was.

You watched him realize you had him cornered. His face went tense, his eyes a little too dark, his mouth pressed into a hard line. Dex was sorry you looked hurt. He was sorry your voice sounded like that. He was sorry there was a chance you might pull away from him and mean it. But he wasn’t sorry the toys were gone. If he was honest, he was relieved they were gone. He was relieved they were ash. He was relieved they could never sit under your folds again.

“Say it,” you said.

His eyes lifted to yours. “Say what?”

“That you’re not sorry you burned them.”

His throat moved.

“Dex,” you scolded.

He looked away again.

You stepped closer. “Say it.”

“I’m not sorry they’re gone,” he said at last, honest and rough.

Your anger went hot and bright. “Of course you’re not.”

“You don’t need them,” he said, almost pleading now, like if he could just explain it properly, you would understand. “You don’t. You reach for me now. You wake me up when you want something. You pull my hand between your legs. You say my name. You don’t need something fake. You don’t need something that works like—” He stopped, breath hard through his nose. “You don’t need it.”

You stared at him, stunned all over again by the sheer deranged sincerity of it. “You hated it.”

His silence answered for him.

“You hated my toys.”

“They touched you,” he said, as if that explained anything.

“They were objects.”

“They touched you,” he said again, as if he repeating it enough would make you believe.

He said it like he was naming a crime. They touched you. That was the entire case. The entire verdict. In Dex’s head, the old box was not just a box. It was proof of a life before him. Proof that your body had known pleasure without him. 

“You’re jealous of fucking objects,” you said, “Do you hear yourself?”

His mouth tightened.

“You are. Oh my god, you are so fucking jealous.”

“It was made to—” He cut himself off, eyes flashing, dark and humiliated. “You used it instead of me.”

You dragged one hand down your face. “I used it before I knew you.”

Dex swallowed then started, “Then what…”

“That still doesn’t mean you get to burn it!” you exclaimed, cutting him off.

Dex looked genuinely lost for a second, and that made the whole thing worse. He had walked himself straight into a psychosexual spiral and couldn't understand why the conclusion was not obvious to you. You belonged to yourself, yes, fine, he knew that was what he was supposed to think, and he did think that, but your pleasure had become his job, his purpose, his proof that you chose him. The old toys were obsolete. They made him imagine you alone, reaching under the bed instead of reaching for him, and even the thought made his brain go static with jealousy.

“I bought you better things,” he said, smaller now.

You looked down at the box again, then back at him.

“No,” you said. “You bought things that need you.”

He went still, because you were right.

“You bought cuffs because they need your hands. Rope because it needs you to tie it. A blindfold because it makes you important. A gag because you think would look pretty on me. A collar because—” You stopped, glancing at the leather in your hand. Dex’s eyes followed the movement immediately, hungry and ashamed. “Because you wanted to put this on me.”

His breathing changed. 

“You replaced my box with yourself,” you said in deft realisation.

Dex looked at you like you had cracked open his skull and read the ugliest scroll inside it.

“I bought things for us,” he said, but his voice had gone rough.

“You bought things that couldn’t touch me unless you were there.”

His lips parted, closed. Opened again. “I wanted to be there.”

“I know.”

“I should be there.”

“Dex.”

“It should be me.”

Dex looked almost sick, eyes fixed on you, shoulders tight. He was jealous, yes, but the jealousy had gone molten now, mixing with want and shame and the awful fear that you might still want something that wasn’t him.

Your frustration gentles for half a second. Then you remembered how fucking expensive those toys were.

“Principle,” you snapped again, because you needed the word to land in his skull. “Dex, I’m not mad because I desperately needed a vibrator. I clearly don’t. I’m mad you destroyed it.”

“I replaced it.” He had the audacity, even now.

“You replaced it with what you wanted.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I do like it!” you shouted, then immediately hated yourself for giving him that.

Dex’s eyes flicked to the box.

His face went blank, trying not to startle you further. “I’m sorry.”

“But you don’t regret it.”

He swallowed.

You stepped closer again, and he let you.

He could be terrifying. He could be impossible. He could turn an argument about property into an existential crisis about a lifeless object touching you before him. But when you came close, when your anger had nowhere else to go but into his space, he stayed. He let you corner him. Let you press the collar flat against his chest and watch his whole body react.

“What did you think was going to happen?” you asked, voice low now. “Honestly?”

Dex’s eyes dropped to the collar.

“You thought I was going to come home, find out you burned my things, and what? Say thank you? Let you put this around my neck?”

He looked at the leather in your hand. Then at your face.

The want in him was so obvious it was almost embarrassing.

“You did,” you said because you knew. “You thought you were going to put this on me tonight.”

His breathing went uneven.

“You were going to be all sweet and insane about it, weren’t you? You were going to touch my throat and call me yours and pretend burning my stuff was just a little misunderstanding because the new box is prettier.”

Dex said nothing.

“No,” you said.

He looked up.

“You don’t get to do that,” you told him.

Disappointment flashed behind his eyes, then confusion. Then that needy, miserable focus again, like he didn;’t know where the scene was going anymore but he still wanted to follow you there.

You stepped forward until he backed into the doorframe.

“You don’t get to burn my things and reward yourself,” you said, pressing the collar higher against his chest, up toward his neck. “You don’t get to make this about what you want.”

Dex’s throat bobbed. “What are you doing?”

You smiled but it was slightly sadistic. “What do you think?”

His eyes dropped to the collar again. For one second, he genuinely didn't understand.

Then you lifted it to his throat, and he froze.

His brain went haywire so visibly you could almost see the wires sparking behind his eyes. He had thought about that collar on you. He had probably thought about it all afternoon. He had imagined his fingers hooking beneath the ring to pull you close. He had built the whole fantasy around possession moving outward from him to you, about you wearing the thing he chose, about you looking up at him and letting him see proof that he had replaced everything in your life before him.

But now your hands were at his neck. Now the leather was against his skin. Now your fingers were brushing the vulnerable place under his jaw, and the fantasy inverted so violently he looked like he was falling into an unpredictable void of your lust.

“Oh,” he breathed.

You paused with the buckle still loose.

Dex’s eyes had gone wide and dark, his mouth parted, all his vicious certainty suddenly gone. He looked overwhelmed by the speed of his own neediness. The collar was supposed to mean you were his, in that fucked-up symbolic language he had written in his head. But with you fastening it around him, with your furious hands at his throat, with your body pinning him in place without force, it meant he was yours.

Oh. He knew the difference now.

“Oh my god,” you murmured, studying his now half-lidded eyes. “You like this.”

His lashes fluttered once.

“Dex,” you said, squeezing his cheeks together with one hand. He swallowed against the leather as you buckled it with your other hand.

The tiny click sounded obscene in the otherwise quiet room.

His eyes closed for half a second, and his whole body seemed to shudder inward. When he opened his eyes again, he looked wrecked.

“Color?” you asked. 

Oh.

“Green,” he managed. Because of course it was. 

You pretended not to be pleased as you hooked two fingers through the ring. Dex stared at your hand. You tugged once.

It was barely anything, but he followed immediately.

The sight of it made your anger burn hotter and lower at the same time. Benjamin Poindexter, following one small pull at his throat like his body had decided before his pride could argue. All that violence, all that jealousy, all that insane possessive logic. And here he was, looking at you like punishment was the only language he fully understood.

You pulled him out of the bedroom by the collar, and into the living room, where the good chairs were. 

He looked confused and turned on and miserable, which was exactly what you wanted him to be. He still didn’t fully understand the principle. Fine. You would make him understand by the end of the night.

“Strip.”

He obeyed fast.

You watched the fabric hit the floor and felt your mouth go dry despite yourself. He was all lean muscle and restrained violence, chest rising and falling. It should have been absurd. But it was also fucking unfair how good he looked, how the leather made him seem both more dangerous and more helpless, how his eyes stayed locked on you like he would do anything if you kept looking at him like that.

“Don’t look so eager,” you said.

His jaw flexed. “You put it on me.”

“You bought it.”

“For you.”

“Funny how that worked out.”

Dex’s eyes darkened.

You pushed him back into the chair by the window, the one you usually curled up in with a book. He sat because he wanted you to push him, because being handled by you was the closest thing to absolution he understood. You had the cuffs on your other hand, the ones he had imagined around your wrists, and his gaze followed them with naked hunger.

“Hands behind the chair.”

He hesitated, but because he did not want to. He hesitated because some stubborn, spiraling part of him was still stuck on the same loop, still fighting from inside his own head. He had done everything right. He had removed what you didn’t need. He had bought better things, and you were clearly using them now. Why were you still angry? Why did you still want the old ones? Why wasn’t this enough?

You leaned down, holding the collar ring between two fingers. “Dex.”

His eyes snapped to yours.

“I said hands behind the chair,” he snapped.

This time, he obeyed.

The cuffs clicked shut around his wrists one after the other. Dex tested them once, shoulders pulling tight, then went still, his chest rising hard beneath the collar. You stood in front of him with the key in your palm and watched his eyes move over you, your work clothes, your tired face, your angry mouth. He looked like being denied forgiveness was hurting him. He looked like it was making him harder to breathe.

You stepped closer, close enough that his knees bracketed your legs, close enough that he had to tilt his head back to keep looking at you. The collar put his throat on display.  You could see every swallow, every uneven breath, every tiny betrayal of his body when you touched the ring again.

“I’m not letting you go,” you said.

His lips parted.

“Not until you promise me you’ll buy me new ones.”

Dex’s face changed immediately.

“No.”

You almost laughed. “Excuse me?”

“No.”

You smiled as if he had just fallen into your trap. “Then I guess you’re not going anywhere.”

“No. No, no, no.” The words started coming faster, tumbling out of him with a desperation that made his voice crack. “No, you don’t need them. You don’t need those. You have me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

You narrowed your eyes, but your anger snagged on the way he said it. He was not being smug now. He wasn’t calm, or even really arguing anymore. His wrists pulled once against the cuffs, metal clicking behind the chair, and he looked almost startled by his own helplessness before his eyes found yours again.

“Use me,” he said.

Your stomach tightened. “Dex.”

“Use me,” he repeated, rougher now, pleading. “You don’t need them. You don’t need it. Use me. I’ll do it. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. Just don’t make me buy you something that replaces me.”

“No one said you were replaceable,” you frowned

“You want them back.”

“Because they were mine.”

“You want them back,” he said again, like he couldn’t hear the difference. “You want them back, but I’m right here.”

You grabbed his face, fingers firm on his jaw, and kissed him before he could say it again. It was supposed to shut him up. It did, for maybe half a second. Then Dex made a sound into your mouth, needy and broken, and started kissing you back like he was trying to climb out of his own skin. His hands flexed uselessly behind the chair. The collar pressed into your fingers when you tugged him closer, and his whole body followed the pull so immediately that heat between you legs through your anger.

You kissed him again. And again. And again, until his breathing was wrecked and his mouth was swollen and his begs had turned into a whine against your lips.

“No,” he whispered when you pulled away. “No, baby, please. Don’t make me. Don’t make me buy those. Use me. Please use me.”

“You don’t get to beg your way out of consequences.”

“I’m not,” he said, even though he absolutely was. “I’m giving you something better.”

“You are giving me a headache.”

“I’m giving you me.”

It shouldn’t have made your heart jump. It shouldn;t have made you look down at him, collared and cuffed and half out of his mind, and think that maybe the worst part was not that Dex was insane. It was that he was insane in ways that made you want to love him more

You stepped back.

Dex’s eyes followed you immediately.

“You want me to use you?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“You want to be useful?”

“Yes.”

“Then watch.”

His face changed into a flicker of confusion first, then anticipation, then frustration when you turned away from him and started unbuttoning your shirt.

Dex went silent so abruptly it almost made you smile. His eyes were locked on your fingers, on each button sliding free, on the thin strip of skin appearing beneath the fabric.

You stripped in front of him because you were angry and petty and tired of him thinking his jealousy got to be the only thing in the room. Your shirt fell to the floor. Then your trousers. Your bra. Your underwear. Dex watched every inch of you like it hurt him not to touch, his wrists straining once behind the chair before he forced himself still.

Dex’s mouth opened, as if he was getting exactly what he wanted, but then you walked to the couch and picked up one of the decorative pillows, the cotton one you usually shoved behind your back when you watched TV. 

Dex’s eyes shifted again as realization crept in.

“No,” he said.

You arched a brow.

His breathing changed. “No.”

“Oh?” You held the pillow in between your legs, watching his eyes go dark and frantic. “You don’t like this?”

“Don’t.”

“You were jealous of plastic, baby. Surely you’re not jealous of a pillow too.”

Dex made a sound that was almost a growl and almost a whine. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t make it sound stupid.”

“It is stupid.” You sank down to the floor in front of him, grinding down on the cushion keeping your eyes on him. “You burned my toys because you were jealous of objects. You’re sitting there in a collar you bought for me because you couldn’t handle a vibrator existing under my bed. And now you’re looking at this pillow like you’re going to kill it.”

His face twisted.

You had meant it to be teasing. Cruel, yes, but controlled. A punishment, a lesson, proof of how ridiculous he was being. But when you settled over the pillow and shifted your hips once, Dex’s reaction was so immediate and visceral that the room seemed to tilt around it.

He didn’t look angry anymore.

He looked distressed.

His wrists jerked against the cuffs, the chair creaking under the force, and his breath punched out of him like he had been hit. You saw his brain do the horrible thing it always did, watched him turn a pillow into another rival, another thing touching you, another thing getting what he wanted while he sat there forced to watch.

“Dex,” you said, but you moved again without thinking. 

His whole body flinched.

“No,” he choked. “No, no, no, no, please.”

You froze.

He was staring at you, eyes wet now, breath coming too fast. He wanted to obey. He wanted to be punished. He wanted to be good. But he also could not bear the sight of you taking pleasure from anything that wasn’t him, even in play, even as a punishment.

“Baby,” you said carefully, uncertain now.

Dex shook his head, almost violently. “Red.”

Oh.

Just like that, you stopped. 

Neither of you had ever used that safeword before, but you were glad he did.

You were off the pillow almost immediately, scrambling to him. 

“Oh,” you whispered. “Oh, fuck, baby, I’m sorry.”

Dex’s gaze snapped to you.

You dropped in front of him, hands going to his face first because you needed him looking at you. His skin was hot under your palms. His eyes were wet, not fully crying yet but close enough. He looked wrecked, and not playfully desperate like usual, not turned on in that cocky way he got when he thought he had pushed you into giving him what he wanted. The sight of you using anything else, even a pillow, even as a punishment, had wrecked him.

“You hate it,” you said softly, almost to yourself. “You actually hate seeing that.”

He nodded pathetically. “Mmmhmm.”

“You said you hated the toys,” you murmured, thumb brushing over his cheek. “I thought you were being insane. I mean, you are being insane, but I didn’t realize it was hurting you like this.”

Dex looked away, ashamed, furious, overwhelmed by being understood too clearly. You leaned in and wrapped your arms around him carefully, pressing your face into his neck. For a second, he didn't move. Then his whole body sagged into you as much as the cuffs allowed, breath trembling against your shoulder, face turning blindly toward your warmth.

“We’re done,” you said. “I’m taking these off.”

You reached behind his neck for the collar first, but the moment your fingers found the buckle, Dex jerked his head to the side.

“Dex.”

“Green,” he said quickly.

You froze.

His voice was rough and wet, the word scraping out of him like he had dragged it up from somewhere raw. “Green.”

“You just said…”

“I know, I know, but—” He swallowed hard, throat shifting against the collar. “Green as long as you use me.”

Your breath caught.

Dex looked at you then, fully, and the tears finally slipped over. His face twisted with it, like he hated himself for crying but couldn’t stop. “Not the pillow. Me. Use me. Please. I don’t want to stop if it’s me.”

“Dex.”

“I need this,” he said, and it came out so naked that it hurt. “I need to know I’m better than a piece of plastic.”

Fuck.

“Oh, baby.” You cupped his face again, thumbs catching the tears before they could reach his mouth. “I know you are. Of course you are.”

“Then why are you still mad?”

The question came out small, almost confused. Because there it was again: the part of him that truly did not understand. The part of him that had made a perfect little equation in his head and couldn't see where it failed. If he was better, why did you care? If you had him, why did the burned things matter?

You sighed, pressing your forehead to his. “Because they were mine.”

Dex shut his eyes.

You felt him breathe, shaky and uneven.

“I’m yours, too.” he whispered.

Your whole body went still.

Fuck fuck fuck. You were going to fold again, were you?

Dex opened his eyes. Damp lashes, ruined mouth, collar snug against his throat. He looked up at you like that was the only answer he had, the only thing he knew how to offer in return. I’m yours, that could balance the scales. Like giving himself over completely should make up for taking the box from you.

You should have argued. Instead, you kissed him.

“Yes,” you whispered against his mouth. “You are.”

Dex made a broken sound, and then he was kissing you back as much as the cuffs allowed, desperate and clumsy, trying to lean into you with his wrists still locked behind the chair. His mouth tasted like salt and need. You kissed him slowly at first, grounding him, giving him something real to focus on that was not the pillow, not the old toys, not the psychosexual spiral eating itself alive inside his head.

“Color,” you murmured.

“Green,” he said instantly.

“Not because you think I’ll be mad if you say red.”

“Green,” he repeated, steadier this time. Your hand slid down to the collar ring, and his breath hitched.

You kissed him until his begging started to lose shape.

It wasn’t really words anymore, just broken little sounds against your mouth, the scrape of his breath, the helpless pull of his wrists against the cuffs every time you shifted in his lap. Dex kept trying to follow you, kept trying to give you more than his body was allowed to give. 

Your hand slipped between you, hiking in his thighs, meaning to wrap around him, to give him pleasure with your fingers. 

Dex jerked so hard the cuffs clicked behind the chair.

“No,” he gasped into your mouth.

You froze immediately. “Color?”

“Green,” he said, frantic. “So fucking green, green, I just— not like that. Please, baby, not like that.”

You pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes were wet, pupils blown black, his lips swollen from kissing. The collar sat snug around his throat, rising and falling with every shaky breath.

“Then what do you want?”

Dex swallowed, and the motion pressed against the leather. “Use me.”

Your breath caught.

He looked ashamed of how badly he needed it and too desperate to hide. “Please. I don’t want your hand. I don’t want anything else. I want you on me. I want you to take it from me. I want you to ride me. I want to be what you use.”

“Oh,” you whispered.

His whole face changed at that, like the understanding alone almost broke him.

You climbed into his lap slowly, one knee on either side of his thighs, watching him fight himself not to move. He was already hard beneath you, hot and straining, his body tense with the effort of staying still while you settled over him. His hands flexed uselessly behind the chair. He wanted to touch you so badly it looked like pain.

You took the ring of the collar between two fingers and pulled his face up to yours.

“You sure want me to take what I need from you?”

“Yes,” he breathed, almost frantic now. “Yes, baby. Please. I can do it. I can be good. I can be so good for you.”

Oh.

Then you sank down onto him, so slowly that both of you stopped breathing.

Dex’s head fell back against the chair, mouth open, the sound that left him too raw to be pretty. You felt him stretch you open inch by inch, felt the heat and weight of him filling you so completely that your own voice broke before you could stop it. You had to stop halfway down, fingers tightening around the collar ring, forehead dropping toward his as your body adjusted to his stretch.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes opened at once, glassy and wild. “Say it.”

You blinked, barely able to think. “What?”

His voice cracked. “Say I’m better.”

Your heat clenched around him. “Dex.”

“Please,” he begged. “Please, b-baby. Tell me. Tell me I’m better than it.”

You should have scolded him. You should have told him again that this wasn't the point, that you were still angry, that he did not get to turn this into another deranged little competition. But then you sank the rest of the way down, taking him fully, and Dex made a sound so broken and grateful that your whole body went hot.

“You’re better,” you breathed.

He shuddered beneath you, hard enough to make the chair creak. “Again.”

You moved your hips once, slow and deep, and his entire body strained against the cuffs. “You’re way fucking better.”

Dex’s eyes fluttered, his breathing turning ragged. “Again. Please. Again, baby, tell me again.”

So you did.

You started riding him properly, lifting yourself up and sinking back down, bouncing on his length until neither of you could pretend this wasn’t affecting your train of thought. The cuffs rattled behind the chair every time he fought the urge to grab your hips. His thighs flexed under yours, his chest rising too fast, his throat exposed beneath the collar every time you tugged the ring and made him look at you.

“You’re better,” you said, breathless, riding him harder. “You’re better than it.”

Dex groaned, loud and wrecked. “Yes. Yes, fuck, yes.”

“You’re better than the stupid, the vibrator, the rose toy.”

His face fell with pleasure and humiliation, eyes wet, mouth open like every word was going straight through him.

“Better than the box,” you panted. “Better than anything under my bed.”

“Anything,” he echoed, desperate. “Anything. Say anything.”

“You’re so needy,” you whispered, but you were not much better. You were moving faster now, chasing the way he filled you, the way he looked under you, collared and cuffed and entirely yours. “You’re so fucking jealous, baby.”

“I know,” he gasped. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just— fuck, don’t stop.”

You grabbed his jaw and kissed him,  barely a kiss at all with the way both of you were breathing. Dex tried to follow your mouth when you pulled back. 

“Look at you,” you murmured. “You just want me to choose you, dont’cha?”

His eyes locked on yours.

You rode him harder, your voice breaking as the pleasure started making your thoughts blur. “You’re better than anything. Better than anything I could buy. Better than anything I could touch.”

Dex looked like he was going to fall apart beneath you.

“Again,” he begged. “Please, again.”

“You’re better than anything,” you gasped, fingers tight in the collar. “Or anyone.”

Dex stopped thrusting his hips up so abruptly you yelped into a halt.

You barely had time to catch your breath before his eyes opened and darkened.

“Anyone?”

Your stomach dropped.

It was one word. One stupid word you had said without thinking because you were dizzy and full of him, because Dex had begged you to tell him he was better and you had.

Oh. Fuck.

“Dex,” you said carefully. “No.”

His muscles flexed. “No?”

“No. We can’t do this.”

He stared at you, still in his lap, warm and shaking from the way you had been riding him. Still close enough to feel how badly he wanted to move, how hard he was holding himself back by force alone.

“Dex,” you tried again, softer this time.

His eyes did not move from your face. “Uncuff me.”

It should have scared you, how fast he switched.

One second, he was pliant beneath you, desperate to be used. The next, his voice had gone flat and enraged, eyes narrowing like a predator. 

But it was still Dex. Your Dex. He would never hurt you.

“Color?” you asked.

“Green,” he said immediately. Then, rougher and impatient, “Uncuff me.”

Your hands were not steady when you reached for the keys, then behind him, squirming because he was still inside you, and his size wasn’t making it easy for you to jostle around like that. 

The cuffs clicked open, and for a second, he only trailed his hands up your thighs he was so gentle, rubbing circles on your sweat-slicked skin.

“I know you had someone before me,” he said.

He knew, because Dex was jealous, not delusional.

He knew you had a life before him, knew there had been men before him, had even heard your friend’s tiny voice over the phone once saying, I met your crazy ex today? while you laughed awkwardly and changed the subject too quickly. He had stood in your kitchen with his hand frozen around a mug, filing that away in some dark corner of his mind.

But knowing was one thing. Hearing you say “anyone” while he was still inside you and your hand was tight in the collar he still wore for you, was another thing entirely. 

Your face went hot. “Obviously.”

“How many?”

“Dex.”

“How many?”

You swallowed. “I’m not talking about my exes while we’re having sex.”

His hand went up to the collar ring, not to pull it off. To press your fingers there. To make sure you were holding it right.

“How many?” he asked again, and this time his voice was demanding.

You tried to climb off him. “Baby, no. You don’t want this.”

Dex moved so fast you barely registered it.

One second you were above him, the next he had you up and over his shoulder, your breath punched out of you in a shocked little yelp. The room tilted. Your hands grabbed at his back, his waist, anything. Then he was putting you down on the couch, bending you over the arm with one hand between your shoulder blades, still wearing the collar. 

“Eyes forward,” he said.

Your thighs clenched at the sound of his voice. “Dex—”

“Eyes forward.”

You hated that you listened. You that your body shivered. 

He pressed in behind you, close enough that he made your knees weak all over again. One hand slid over your hip, shaking with restraint, almost tender before it turned possessive. The other covered kept your ass up for him to line up.  “Tell me how many.”

You exhaled hard. “Three.”

Dex went silent.

Then, softly, terribly, he echoed it, “Three.”

“Before you,” you snapped, trying to sound angry even though your voice was already ruined. “Before I even knew you like this. Before us. Dex, this is stupid.”

He laughed once. It sounded broken. “Names.”

“No.”

“Full names.”

“No, I’m not giving you their full names so you can go insane and hunt them down.”

His breath hitched behind you.

Oh.

That was not the wrong thing to say. That was the worst thing to say. Because now he had pictured it. Now some awful part of him had lit up at the thought, and you felt his body go harder against yours, felt the way his grip tightened like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

“Fine,” he said, trying so hard to compromise. “First names.”

“You don’t want those either.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t,” you whined, “You think you do because you’re jealous and insane and horny and trying to hurt your own feelings.”

His forehead dropped between your shoulder blades.

For one second, he just breathed there, shaking. When he spoke again, his voice was wet.

“First names,” he whispered. “And what was wrong with them.”

He knew it would hurt. Dex wasn’t confused about that. He was not so far gone that he thought hearing their names would make him feel better. He knew it would put pictures in his head he would never be able to scrape out. He knew he would imagine their hands, their mouths, their stupid little claims on you. He knew every detail you gave him would become a weapon turned inward first, he wanted you to press this emotional knife into his ribs just to see if the pain proved how much he loved you.

But that was exactly why he needed it.

Dex didn’t know how to be reassured gently. Soft comfort slid off him too easily. He needed the wound opened first. Needed to be shown the ugliest picture and survive it. It was emotional masochism dressed up as jealousy, and the sickest part was that he knew. He wanted you to hurt him with the truth so your praise would feel earned when it came after.

“Tell me,” he said again, voice breaking at the edges.

“Dex…”

“I need to know,” he said, and the desperation in it cut through you. “I need to know what they did wrong. I need to know I’m better. I need you to say it while I’m fuckin’ deep inside you, while you’re fuckin’ clenching me, baby please.”

You closed your eyes.

His mouth pressed to your back. It was almost a kiss. Almost an apology. Then he pushed into you again, and the sound that tore out of you was so loud it made your own face burn.

Dex groaned behind you, ugly and wrecked. “Tell me.”

You gripped the couch cushion, because fuck it. What the fuck did you owe them anyway?

“Finn.”

His hips snapped forward harder.

You cried out, body jolting against the couch.

Dex groaned like the name had hurt him exactly the way he wanted it to. “What was wrong with him?”

“His nails,” you gasped, already struggling to keep your voice steady. “College boyfriend. His nails were always too long and when he fingered, it hurt. I took it, but then he blamed me when I bled.”

Dex’s hand slid over your stomach, pulling you back into him, his breath breaking against your skin.

“Careless,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“I’m not careless.”

“No,” you said quickly. “No, baby, you’re not.”

“Say I’m better.”

“You’re better.”

He thrust harder, and your answer broke apart into a moan.

“Say it properly.”

“You’re better than Finn,” you choked out. “You’re so much better than him.”

Dex shuddered and you felt it in his chest, in his grip, in the way his mouth dragged wetly over your back.

He was crying, you realised, when you felt hotlittle drops against your spine while he kept fucking you like jealousy had turned him feral. Dominant and ruined at once, giving orders while crying because he had asked for the knife and now wanted you to twist it.

“Next,” he said.

“Dex,” you moaned, shaking your head. “Please.”

“Say red and I’ll —fuck! — stop. Until then…” His fingers tightened around your hip. “Next.”

You tried to breathe. You tried to remember why this was a bad idea. You remember that you didn’t want your stupid dickhead exes in the room with you while Dex was behind you, collared, crying, and pounding into you like every name was a target he needed to hit.

“Matteo,” you managed.

Dex’s rhythm stumbled for half a second, then came back harder.

You sobbed his name.

“What was wrong with him?”

“You don’t want this one,” you managed to hiccup.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, baby. You really don’t.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t amused. He moaned again as he managed, “Tell me.”

“He was a creep,” you finally said, the words scraping out of you. “From my old job. He shared p-private pictures. With his friends.”

Dex stopped breathing, his forehead hit your back again.

“Oh,” he whispered.

It was horrible. 

You felt the tears fall faster now, sliding down your skin while his hand trembled on your waist. For all his violence, this was the part that broke him. Someone had treated you like something to pass around. Someone had treated you like you were anything less than sacred.

“Dex,” you warned softly, because you could feel him thinking.

Dex made a small, broken sound, then moved again, harder, like he could fuck the memory out of your body. You gasped, eyes rolling back. 

“He didn’t deserve to look at you,” Dex said, voice shaking.

“No,” you breathed.

“He didn’t deserve anything from you.”

“No.”

His tears kept falling, pathetic and hot against your spine, even as his body stayed rough behind yours. He had asked for this. He had wanted the wound. Now he was bleeding into it.

“Tell me I’m better,” he begged.

“You’re better than him,” you said quickly, before he could ask, before he could spiral too far away from you. “You’re better, Dex. You don’t make me feel like I’m just here to be shown off. You make me feel wanted.”

He sobbed against your back.

“Again.”

“You’re better than Matteo.”

Harder.

“You’re better than him.”

Harder.

“You’re better because you actually care if I want it,” you gasped, barely able to speak now. “Because you ask. Because you listen. Because even when you’re like this, even when you’re out of your fucking mind, you still need me to want it, too.”

Dex’s whole body jerked.

“Next,” he choked.

You shook your head, cheek pressed to the couch cushion, eyes wet now too. “Dex, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I hate this.”

“Say red, then.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to. Because he was right. You might pretend to hate this, but fuck, you were sick. 

Sick enough for this to get you off. 

You managed a pathetic little, “g-green.”

His breath hitched, satisfied. “Thought so.”

He liked it, too. He liked it like self-punishment. Liked it because it hurt. 

“Last one,” he whispered.

You swallowed around a moan. “Colin.”

Dex’s hips snapped into you so hard you cried out.

The hand on your hip slid up to your chest, holding you back against him as he bent over you, making the most pathetic sound you had ever heard from him.

“What—hnghhh—  was wrong with Colin?”

“He was possessive,” you said, barely coherent. “But not like you.”

Dex went rigid. “Like w-what, then?”

“Shit,” you gasped. “He was controlling. Mean. He wanted to own me, but he didn’t love me. Not like you. He didn’t want to be good for me. He j-just wanted to win.”

Dex was sobbing now.

You could hear it. Feel it. His mouth was pressed to your shoulder, his breath hitching, tears smearing over your skin while his body kept driving into yours with desperate, punishing force. He had you pinned beneath him, yes. He was the one moving you, the one holding you, the one demanding answers. But the collar was still around his throat, and you now managed to trail your hand up and grab the ring. You held the fucking collar and tugged, and he was surprised he didn’t come then and there as he gasped, breaking a little more.

“I’m not him,” he said.

“No.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, t-too.”

“I’d never—” His voice cracked. “I’d never make you feel like that.”

“I know, baby.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re better than Colin.”

His rhythm faltered. “Tell me why.”

“Because you’re mine,” you moaned. “Because you— fuck!— want to be mine. Because you don’t just want to have me, you want me to choose you. You want t-to be useful. You want to be good— hmphh— to me.”

Dex sobbed so hard his hips stuttered.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, fuck, yes.”

“You’re better than all of them.”

“Again.”

“You’re better than Finn.”

He groaned.

“Better than Matteo.”

His grip tightened.

“Better than Colin.”

He started breaking, cracks building through him in these beautiful little fractures. Your pleasure was already rising too fast, your thighs trembling, your voice gone thin and helpless beneath him.

“Dex!” you cried.

“I know,” he whispered, frantic and wet. “I know, baby. I know. I’ve got you. Tell me again.”

“You’re better,” you sobbed. “You’re better than anyone. Anything, Dex, anyone.”

He came with your hand fisted in his collar.

The pull of it dragged a sound out of him that was almost a sob and almost your name, his whole body folding over yours as he spilled into you, shaking so hard you felt it everywhere. You could hear the broken relief in his voice as he kept whispering yours, yours, yours like he could make himself believe it if he said it enough.

That was what tipped you over, when your orgasm hit so hard your whole body seized beneath him.

You cried out into the couch, fingers yanking the collar ring without meaning to, and Dex choked behind you, shuddering again like the pull had gone straight through him. Pleasure tore through you in waves, hot and blinding, your legs trembling, your voice breaking on his name until it didn’t even sound like a word anymore.

Dex held you through it, crying into your back like he was the one who had been ruined.

When it finally ebbed, he stayed folded over you, his mouth pressed between your shoulder blades, breath ragged. Your hand was still caught in the ring of the collar.

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

The couch was too small for both of you, but Dex made it work because Dex always made himself fit wherever you needed him. 

His body was still trembling in little aftershocks, but the violent edge had burned out of him. What remained was his mouth against your shoulder, his hand spread over your stomach, his thumb moving in slow, soothing circles like he was trying to apologize through touch before words.

You could feel the little ring of the collar cool against your skin when his head dipped and nuzzled into the space between your neck and shoulder. 

Fifteen minutes later, he wasn’t crying anymore. His lashes were damp, his breathing uneven, but he had settled down. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he still wasn’t sure for what.

You were too boneless to answer properly. Your whole body felt heavy and melted into the cushions, your skin still humming everywhere he had touched you. You only reached back, clumsy and tired, and found his hand.

Only then did you realise that it was red from how hard he was pulling at the handcuffs. Because despite the fuzzy liner, it was still metal underneath.

Dex threaded his fingers through yours immediately. That was answer enough for him.

He kissed your shoulder again. Then the back of your neck. Then your cheek when you turned your head just slightly. 

These were small, careful kisses. Sweet, almost shy.

His voice stayed low when he spoke again. “I’ll be good.”

You closed your eyes.

The jealousy had calmed, but he still needed to be chosen. 

Dex held you like service. Like worship. Like if he could keep you warm enough and safe enough, maybe it would balance out everything else he was.

His hand slid over your side, checking without asking. He smoothed your skin gently over your hip and your thigh. His mouth touched the back of your shoulder, and his breath relaxed when you relaxed into him instead of pulling away.

You should have been angry.

You were angry, maybe, somewhere far away. Obviously, there were things to say later. Things about boundaries and consequences and the fact that Benjamin Poindexter could not solve every insecurity by turning it into sex so absolute it felt like a salvation. 

But right now, Dex was curled around you like a guard dog who had been allowed into bed after making a big mistake, and you couldn’t bring yourself to bring it up.

His big arms were careful around your body, face pressed to your skin. The collar still snug at his throat because he had not asked you to take it off, because maybe he liked the reminder that even when he got like that, he was still yours.

Your fingers brushed the ring lazily.

Dex melted immediately.

“Oh, what the hell,” you mumbled with a hazy smile, mostly into the couch cushion. “I don’t need those toys anyway.”

Dex tried not to look smug, but you felt it. 

You knew what that little hitch of breath meant, the way his mouth pressed to your shoulder and stayed there, hiding whatever painfully pleased expression had crossed his face. 

You didn't have the strength to scold him for it.

He kissed your shoulder again, grateful this time.

Still, you knew you had just signed a death warrant for Finn, Matteo, and Collin.

You hadn’t given Dex their full names, but Dex had heard enough. He could find people with less. He had found you, hadn’t he? 

You knew they were as good as dead. And if Dex could destroy and burn your old toys with that much passion, you couldn’t imagine what he would do to living men who had actually hurt you. Whatever came for them would not be quick or merciful. You knew that.

You shouldn’t want that.

On principle, you shouldn’t want that.

On the principle that you were better than them, that you were obviously morally superior, that you should not want three men dead just because they had once made you feel small, even if they deserved it.

But then Dex nuzzled closer in his devotion. His lips brushed your shoulder, and even half-conscious, he murmured your name like a prayer. His hand slipped over your stomach, protective now, his thumb moving in small circles like he was still trying to soothe you from your last.

You looked down at him and thought, I hope you make them beg.

Oh, principles.

Who needed those anyway?

—end.

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Meanwhile, the rest of his team is still as geared up as their Captain—all waiting for orders or further instructions, scattered around the room and listening with bated breath while Price grows more agitated with each shaky exhale he can hear coming from you.

You're currently sitting on one of the tables, boot-clad feet dangling off the edge as you stare at the ceiling, right into the fluorescent lights above, ignoring the way your eyes begin to sting from their brightness.

You've been putting on a brave face since getting stabbed with the needle a few hours ago and you've kept the façade up since hopping off the helo back on base, but it's getting harder to mask the panic rising inside you as your body starts to feel funny.

You swipe the back of your gloved hand over your sweaty forehead, catching the cold perspiration on your feverish skin with the rough fabric, and out of your peripherals, you notice the way your teammates' heads snap in your direction—different-coloured pairs of eyes assessing you with worry, concern, and a hint of curiosity.

Soap and Gaz are standing to your left and right respectively, sneaking glances at you whenever you shift on your spot, while the Lieutenant is still as a marble statue a little offside, arms crossed over his bulky tac vest.

Laswell begins to explain calmly, clutching a thick folder to her chest.

"We're still waiting on anything concrete, John, but the research papers your team managed to extract have offered a great insight on that—whatever that bioweapon is."

Bioweapon.

Your eyes widen as you sit up straight, the word making your heart race and your skin crawl with fear. Both Soap and Gaz take a step closer—two strong pairs of arms outstretched and ready to catch you if you faint.

"Nothing concrete yet?" Price snaps incredulously. "Goddammit, Kate!"

"Easy there, John—" Laswell says firmly, unbothered by his tone as she takes a step towards the captain and gestures at the two scientists watching the scene unfold with wide eyes from behind their laptops.

"They said she won't die. The amount of injection was too low… apparently."

Apparently?!

You inhale sharply and open your mouth to announce your imminent panic, but you're interrupted when one of the scientists speaks up first.

"That is correct, sir. She won't die."

Professor Doctor Boswel, as the name badge on his white lab coat states, chimes in. Price stops pacing at once, though his sharp eyes scream you better start explaining now, or one of you will be made responsible for this.

"Bringing the syringe back to base was the decisive factor. Our team at the lab is still working to decipher and translate the medical reports and research papers your team recovered, but we can confirm that this bioweapon is most likely a toxin."

A low murmur of various curses goes through the briefing room as you try to ignore the odd tingles in your limbs—like they're going numb from sitting in a bad position for too long—and process the doctor's words instead.

"You're saying I've been poisoned, doc?" You butt in crudely, letting out a humourless laugh as you begin fidgeting with your hands, clenching and unclenching them to get rid of those tingles while a cold drop of sweat trickles down your left temple and is swiftly wiped away by Soap's gloved thumb.

"Fuckin’ hell, lass. Ye dinnae look too good," Soap mutters under his breath, exchanging a concerned glance with Gaz, who then looks to the captain for guidance with a serious frown.

When Gaz turns around abruptly, you get a whiff of his scent, and you're ashamed to admit to yourself that you inhale it deeply—musk and sweat and gunpowder smoke, a hint of his fancy body wash lingering underneath all the grime. A perfect concoction of what is entirely Gaz.

It's intoxicating. Mouth-watering.

And absolutely inappropriate, because he's one of your best friends and a comrade.

What the hell is happening?

Of all the injuries and wounds you've already acquired during missions and deployments, this must be the fucking worst. You'd rather get shot or stabbed than sit here, feel strange as hell and be ogled like a failed science experiment.

Price's eyes flicker to Ghost, who hasn't said a word since sitting you down on the table with a gruff order to stay seated, and then to his three sergeants, lingering on you heavily before he turns back.

"What kind of bloody toxin?"

"It seems to be some sort of aphrodisiac, but… uh, well—about fifty times worse than that."

The other scientist, Professor Doctor Adebayo, answers tentatively, as if explaining it out loud makes him uncomfortable.

"The reports say it turns men—"

Dr. Adebayo hesitates, clearing his throat and looking between Laswell and Captain Price, until the latter lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Turns them what, doc?"

It's Laswell who says it eventually, "Turns them aggressive, John. Feral with lust, as ridiculous as that might sound."

The CIA agent finally looks in your direction before approaching you slowly while Dr. Adebayo seems to heave a sigh of relief as soon as she takes over.

"A high dose of it can be used to lower one's inhibition levels to a point where even the most honourable man would resort to sexual assault to ease his urges."

Her factual yet grim explanation makes the tension inside the briefing room spike tenfold. Every man present tenses up, visibly uncomfortable—Ghost especially, who's practically vibrating with strain.

Using a toxin like that—a bioweapon—on soldiers in the field could lead to even more and worse war crimes, and everyone here is aware of that.

"Wait—what? What the fuck?" Gaz utters, bristling next to you while you grip the edge of the table, gritting your teeth as the tingles intensify and wreck through your body in waves that leave you shuddering with each one.

"'Scuse me, what now?" You scoff. "Does that mean I'm gonna turn into a fuckin' nympho any second?"

Multiple pairs of eyes snap towards you at your choice of words. Some look intense and laced with worry. Price scolds you with one glance. Others look mildly amused—the latter being Soap, who lets out a snort but tries to cover it up with a fake cough into his fist.

Laswell surveys you intently, though her voice softens when she addresses you directly.

"How are you feeling, Sergeant? Are you in pain? Nauseous?"

A beat of silence follows. Your eyes flutter briefly as you meet Kate's blue gaze, and you exhale a long breath through your nostrils before you answer curtly.

"I feel weird."

You feel like you're about to get your period, but you keep that information to yourself for now and try not to wrap your arms around yourself self-soothingly.

Your lower abdomen is starting to tighten and cramp. Your gut twists like you just chugged a steaming bowl of soup and your limbs keep tingling—from your toes to your fingertips, and up to the tip of your nose. Tiny vibrations along with hot and cold flushes that make you quake and squirm in your seat on the table.

Kate squints at you, though she doesn't press further.

"What kind of effect will this stuff have on her?" Price enquires gruffly, more level-headed this time, his gaze shifting from the two scientists over to you and then back.

Meanwhile, as you crank your sore neck from left to right to get a good crack in, your eyes catch sight of Soap's muscular forearms and—to your horror—they linger.

The sleeves of his combat fatigues are rolled up to his elbows, exposing dark coarse hair and thick veins and that damn SAS insignia tattoo.

You want to trace the black lines with your tongue and imagine the salt of his skin on your parched taste buds.

And your eyes widen when a sudden rush of mind-numbing, pulsating heat makes you squeeze your thighs together as you clench your jaw to keep the lewd sound bubbling up in your throat from escaping.

Soap shoots you a quizzical look, one eyebrow raising as you avert your eyes from him swiftly, heat crawling up your neck and prickling beneath your skin.

"Fuck," you breathe, doubling over with a groan as the muscles in your thighs and lower abdomen begin to cramp up painfully while you can practically feel your pussy start convulsing around nothing, leaking with arousal and soaking into your underwear.

In a matter of seconds, your team—Ghost included, like a solid wall of quiet reassurance—are by your side, keeping you upright, asking questions, though their deep, accented voices are muffled as your quickening heartbeat begins to thud in your ears.

Their every touch seems to burn through the thick layers of your kit.

"Kate—Kate," Price is by her side in a few long strides, ducking his head to get on eye-level with her as he points at the two scientists accusingly, though Kate is already on her smartphone, contacting the lab again.

Price huffs like an angry bull trying to protect his herd as he turns his attention back to Dr. Boswel and Dr. Adebayo, who seem to be in a frenzied discussion, watching the way you're cramping and writhing.

"What the fuck is happening to her?" He barks at them, demanding an answer yesterday.

"It's—it's the toxin," Dr. Boswel stammers obviously, blinking up at Captain Price from behind his glasses. "She didn't get the full dose, but it's still—" He pauses, eyes flickering nervously under the captain's glare. "—bad."

Another gut-wrenching moan from you echoes through the briefing room as you squirm in Gaz's embrace, and Price must restrain himself from directing his wrath towards the two men in front of him—it's not their fault, after all.

It's his.

"Oxytocin might help… neutralize the toxin in her body," Dr. Adebayo remarks, clicking his pen nervously as he stares at his laptop screen before meeting Dr. Boswel's eyes, who is waiting for an elucidation.

"The hormone," Dr. Adebayo clears his throat again, clearly uncomfortable, "—not the drug." He clarifies, clicking his pen a few more times.

Laswell lowers her phone and shares a look with Price, holding an entire conversation with one long, meaningful glance, the one learned and perfected over more than a decade of working together, when Gaz's voice breaks through the chaos, calling for attention.

"Cap'n! What do we do?!"

You're not brought back to the barracks but Captain Price's private quarters.

Your squad makes sure to keep you out of sight in your condition; away from prying eyes while Ghost sneaks through the shadows with your quivering form cradled against his chest, carrying you bridal style like you're something fragile, something vulnerable he must protect.

Once safely inside the captain's flat, the curtains are drawn before your heavy gear is stripped from you, all while you don't even bother paying attention to who is grabbing or holding you at this point.

All that matters is someone touching you.

Your brain is mush, reduced to your most simple and carnal desires. No shame nor worry about the needy noises you're making whenever one of their big, strong hands strips another layer of clothing.

"Shit, I think she has a fever," Gaz mutters, cupping your face with both hands as he investigates your hazy, unfocused eyes while you let out another pathetic whimper. "She's completely out of it."

"Get her into the guest bedroom. Down the hall, first door on the left," Price orders gruffly, trying to keep his eyes from wandering up and down the length of your trembling, half-naked body.

"I'll call the senior consultant."

Ghost grumbles a low curse under his breath when your hand brushes over the front of his crotch—by accident or voluntarily this time, he doesn't dare imagine—and leaves the guest bedroom while Gaz and Soap manoeuvre you onto the king-sized bed.

Meanwhile, you don't care about the effect your uncharacteristic behaviour has on your teammates and superiors.

Whenever they try to make you drink or take an easy bite of food—whether it's a chewy protein bar or an overripe banana, because Price has no proper groceries at his place—you twist in whoever's embrace you're in, turning your scrunched-up face away like a petulant toddler.

"I don't wanna," you whine and hiccup, protesting each time Gaz tries to lift the rim of the water bottle to your lips, your speech now slightly slurred, glossy eyes averting their gaze as you breathe shallowly, squirming while Soap keeps you propped up with your back resting against his chest on the bed.

Gaz, who has been trying again to make you drink a sip of water for the past twenty minutes, looks back at his Lieutenant and Captain helplessly.

"Doc said we need to keep her hydrated," Price announces, rubbing his bare hand over his tired face. "Keep flushing that bloody poison outta her system and—"

Suddenly, Ghost's deep, gravelly voice interrupts the captain's speech with a harsh bite to it. "Johnny."

Soap, who has been trying his best to ignore the way you keep grinding your arse against his crotch in this position, ducks his head at the sharp and sudden warning.

"What? 'M not doin' anythin'," he grunts before sucking in a sharp breath as his cock keeps stirring and twitching in his combat trousers, "Fuck, lass, please—"

Soap tries to keep you from moving; his ungloved hands get a firm hold of your hips, but you're practically panting and mewling in his lap, making it harder for him not to crumble under the pressure building up in his dick.

Then Gaz is swift to pluck you out of the Scot's embrace with a disdainful frown, like you're some toy that was stolen from him.

"Don't be a fuckin' perv, Soap," Gaz snaps, cradling you into his arms, where you immediately begin pawing at his black compression shirt, determined to get your palms under it and on his bare skin.

"She can't consent!"

It's Price who approaches the bed then, while Ghost stays leaning against the doorframe, keeping a keen eye on the situation.

"Enough! Both of you," Price barks, eyes flashing before his shoulders drop with a rough sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Doc said it might help if—"

John stops mid-sentence, clenching his strong jaw. He can't believe what he is about to say, and he crosses his arms over his chest again, feigning control while he internally braces himself for his next words.

"Those doctors said it might help if she… climaxes."

His words hang in the air like a thick fog that no one can quite see through nor think in, and everyone seems to be holding their breath while you finally manage to tug Gaz's shirt out of his waistband, making him cuss under his breath when you go on to lick a long, wet stripe over his exposed abs like some feral lioness, utterly hungry for a taste.

"Shit—Babygirl, no, d-don't—" Gaz stammers helplessly while a rush of heat goes straight to his neck and cock simultaneously, overwhelmingly so.

He pushes you away by your shoulders—and hates himself for how reluctant he is at it—and he winces when your blunt nails claw into his bulging biceps, digging into his skin even through his shirt with another whimper.

"Please, Kyle… Let me—" you mewl, batting your eyelashes up at him. "It—It fuckin’ hurts."

Soap pushes his fists into his eye sockets, heaving a deep breath that turns into a frustrated groan. "Steamin' Jesus, lass, ye’re fuckin’ killin' us here."

"Take a bloody walk, MacTavish," Price orders, pointing his thumb at the door over his shoulder, and while Soap climbs off the mattress, grumbling to himself with an obvious erection pressing against the seam of his zipper, Price addresses Gaz.

"And you, Garrick, take—" He hesitates again, balling his hands into fists at his sides, trying to keep his own body in check at the sight and sounds of you, before he nudges his chin towards the door of the bathroom.

"Take her to the shower to get the fever down and… help her."

The captain's last words are nothing more than a strained grumble.

Gaz gapes at his superior. Soap freezes in his steps at the end of the bed, openly gawking and blinking like he didn't just hear right. Ghost visibly stiffens and shifts his stance, still leaning against the doorframe of the guest bedroom. No one can see the way he grits his teeth so hard he might chip a tooth behind his balaclava.

"But sir—"

Price shakes his head; brows set in a stern frown as he holds Gaz's widened gaze.

"She'd want you to take care of her if she could actually consent to it. And that's an order, Sergeant."

Ghost wants to disagree, but keeps his mouth shut and exhales a sharp huff of contempt instead.

The rest of the men try to distract themselves around Captain Price's flat while Gaz takes you to the en-suite bathroom like he was ordered to.

Not asked, ordered to.

He keeps repeating that in his head as he walks you towards the bathroom door with his arm around your waist, your body listing into his side like you've forgotten how to hold yourself upright. His jaw is set so tight his molars ache.

He's been ordered to do a lot of things in his career. Clear rooms. Hold positions under fire. Drag wounded men through mud while rounds cracked overhead. He's followed every order without hesitation, because that's what good soldiers do—they trust the chain of command and they execute.

This doesn't feel like any of those things.

He keeps the bathroom door unlocked—just in case you faint and he needs help—and lets out a huff when you fling yourself into his body suddenly and the air is knocked from his lungs.

"Easy," he pleads with you while his head dips down, and he inhales your familiar scent before he can stop himself. Sweat and the remnants of whatever lotion you put on this morning underneath your gear before the mission, something warm and sweet that he's caught whiffs of a hundred times before in passing and never let himself think about for longer than a second.

"Easy there, love," he tries again, his trembling hands wrapping around your midriff tentatively.

Gaz hates these circumstances. Hates how the mission ended in such a bloody mess. Hates how excited he is to undress you to your underwear, and he despises that this is how he'll get to have you for the first time.

This is not how he'd imagined it.

He never imagined it. Not in any concrete, detailed way. Not like he'd planned it in his head, step by step—the restaurant he'd take you to first, somewhere nice but not so nice you'd take the piss out of him for it. The way he'd tell you after the second drink, maybe the third, that he'd been thinking about you. Casually. Like it hadn't been eating him alive for months.

He hadn't planned any of that.

Fucking liar.

You make a sound against his chest, somewhere between a sob and a moan, and your fingers twist into the wet fabric of his compression shirt, tugging weakly.

"Kyle… Kyle, I need—"

"I know," he murmurs, and his voice comes out rougher than he intends. "I know, love. C'mon."

He manoeuvres you towards the shower, reaching past you to turn the dial to lukewarm. The water sputters, then hisses to life against the tile, and steam begins to curl at the edges of the glass.

You're still in your underwear—plain, standard issue, nothing designed to be sexy—and it doesn't matter, because the sight of you trembling and desperate in front of him with water beginning to mist across your skin is doing things to his head that no amount of mental discipline can counter.

He starts to dismantle his assault rifle in his head.

Upper receiver. Charging handle. Bolt carrier group.

You stumble into the shower cabin and he follows, still fully clothed. The water hits his chest and soaks through his compression shirt in seconds, plastering the fabric to his skin, and the cold shock of it helps. Briefly.

Bolt. Firing pin. Cam pin.

"C'mon, Babygirl," he coos at you as he turns your quivering body in his embrace until your back is flush against his chest. One arm wraps tightly below your breasts, forearm pushing up against the swell of them through the soaked fabric of your bra, and he tries, and fails miserably, not to take a long look over your shoulder.

Buffer tube. Buffer spring. Buffer.

You melt against his body and his cock throbs in his combat trousers, straining against his briefs uncomfortably. The water is doing nothing for the heat radiating off your skin. If anything, you're burning hotter, pressing back into him with small, involuntary rolls of your hips that make his breath stutter.

Lower receiver. Trigger assembly. Trigger—

"Please," you whimper, and his entire train of thought derails.

Your head lolls back against his shoulder, exposing the column of your throat, and he can see the way your pulse hammers beneath the surface, rapid and frantic. Your hips buck against his hand when he finally—finally—lets it trail down over your lower belly, his calloused fingers dragging across the wet skin, feeling the muscles jump and twitch beneath his touch.

"Yes—yes—yes—" you chant breathlessly, and your hips cant forward, chasing his hand with a desperation that makes something crack open in his chest.

Fuck—fuck—fuck—fuck.

He cups your pussy through your knickers and the heat of you against his palm nearly makes his knees buckle. He can feel you through the thin, soaked fabric and he's not sure if the wetness is from the shower stream or if it's all you.

His chest is heaving when he finally gathers enough courage to dip his long fingers beneath the waistband of your underwear. His jaw clenches and his mind grasps desperately for the drills again—clear left, clear right, move to the next room, check your corners—anything to stay anchored while you let out a moan that echoes off the tile walls and punches straight through him.

You're so wet, so swollen, it's obscene. His fingers slide through your folds with zero resistance and the groan that rips from deep within his chest is involuntary, guttural, ashamed. He can feel your arousal ooze from your entrance, slick and hot, and he can already tell how tight you'd feel clenching around his fingers, how you'd—

No. He's not going there.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, more to himself than to you. "I'm only doin' this for you, Babygirl. This is only about you."

He says it like a prayer. Like if he repeats it enough, it'll be true.

His fingers press on your clit, pulsing and twitching already, and he starts rubbing small, firm circles over it, adjusting the pressure when your breath hitches or your thighs clamp around his wrist. He reads your body like he reads a room. Methodically, attentive, and cataloguing every reaction.

You writhe and squirm in his tight grip, your nails digging into the arm he has banded around your ribs, and every sound you make, every whimper, and stuttered gasp of his name, chips away at the wall he's trying to keep standing between following an order and wanting this.

"M-more, Kyle, please!"

Gaz curses himself, but he gives you more.

Two fingers pressing into you, slow and careful despite every instinct screaming at him to give you what you're begging for. You clench around him immediately, hot and tight and silky, and his cock kicks in his trousers so hard he must bite the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning.

He curls his fingers, searching for the spot that makes your thighs shake, and when he finds it, you keen so loudly the sound bounces off every hard surface in the small bathroom.

"That's it," he murmurs against your temple, his lips brushing your skin without quite kissing. "That's it, love. Let go for me."

He's not sure when he started talking to you like this. Somewhere between the first touch and the second, the clinical detachment he'd been clinging to crumbled and something else took its place—something tender and fierce and terrifyingly honest.

Your first orgasm hits you hard enough to make your entire body seize in his arms, your back arching away from his chest as a strangled cry tears from your throat. He holds you through it, fingers still working, still pressing and giving, because even as the tremors wrack through you and your legs give out, he can feel your body already winding up again, the toxin refusing to let you rest.

"Shh, shh, I've got you," he breathes, adjusting his grip to take your full weight when your knees buckle entirely. "I've got you."

You cum again two minutes later, and then again after that, and again, and Gaz loses count somewhere around the fifth or sixth time, when his fingers are cramping and his arm is trembling from holding you upright and the water has long since turned cold.

Each time, he thinks it'll be enough, and each time, your body coils tight again within minutes, the toxin driving you right back to the edge with a cruelty that makes him want to put his fist through the tile.

He doesn’t want to imagine what a full dose would have done to you. To anyone.

When you tell him that you're hurting—repeatedly, begging him to make you cum in that desperate, broken tone of yours—the young Sergeant is sure something dies inside him on the spot.

"Kyle—Kyle, I need more, I need you to—please—Fuck, please!"

He knows what you're asking for. You're grinding back against his cock, which has been rock-hard and aching for what feels like hours, and every roll of your hips sends a jolt of white-hot arousal through him that he must physically brace against.

"I can't," he grits out, and it takes everything in him. "Christ. I can't do that to you. Not like this."

"Please—"

"No, Babygirl." His voice cracks on the word, and he presses his forehead against the back of your head, squeezing his eyes shut. "Not like this."

He drops to his knees instead.

The tile is hard and unforgiving under his kneecaps and the now cold water from the shower hits the back of his neck, but he barely registers any of it as he turns you to face him and hooks one of your legs over his shoulder.

He looks up at you once—your hazy, unfocused eyes, the way your chest heaves, the water running in rivulets down your body—and then he leans forward and drags his tongue through your folds in one long, broad stroke.

The sound you make is devastating.

Your hands fly to his head, fingers scrabbling for purchase on his wet hair, and your hips jerk forward so violently he must grip your thigh to keep you steady. He groans against you, he can't help it, and the vibration makes you cry out again, blunt nails raking over his scalp.

Gaz eats you like he's starving for it, because the truth he can't say out loud is that he is.

He's thought about this. Dreamed about it. Wanked to the idea of it in the dark of his bunk with his fist shoved against his mouth to keep quiet. And now he's here, on his knees in his Captain's shower with cold water running down his back and your taste flooding his mouth, and it's everything and nothing like what he imagined because you're not choosing this—you're not choosing him—and that knowledge sits in his chest like a brick.

But he doesn't stop.

Gaz licks and sucks and fucks you with his tongue until his jaw aches and your thighs are shaking so badly you can barely stand, even with his hands gripping your hips. He makes you cum on his mouth twice, then thrice, pressing his face into you each time your body locks up, working you through it with relentless, single-minded focus because if he stops to think about what this means, about what happens after, he'll fall apart.

When he finally pulls back, his lips are swollen, his chin is slick and his cock is so hard it genuinely hurts. You're still whimpering, still reaching for him, still not done, and the toxin is still pumping through your veins with no sign of stopping.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and exhales a shaky breath, pressing his forehead against your hip.

"I need—" His voice is wrecked. He swallows hard, then tries again. "I need a minute."

Not because he's tired, or his fingers are cramped and his jaw is sore and his knees are bruised from the tile. No.

But if he stays on his knees in front of you for one more second, he's going to give you what you're begging for, and he will never forgive himself for it.

He stands on unsteady legs, turns the shower off, and reaches for the towel hanging on the rack outside the cabin. His hands are shaking as he wraps it around, and you cling to it loosely, swaying on your feet.

"C'mon," he says, guiding you towards the door with one hand on the small of your back. His voice has steadied, but his eyes haven't. "Let's get you dried off."

You're protesting. He's cursing under his breath. There's shuffling, a stumble, and then he grabs the door handle and swings it open—

And Soap nearly falls backwards into the bathroom.

"Soap!"

The Scotsman catches himself on the doorway, one hand gripping the frame as he glances over his shoulder with a look that's not even remotely sheepish enough for a man who was clearly pressing his ear to the door thirty seconds ago.

Gaz is still wearing his clothes, though they're completely drenched—his compression shirt is a second skin, his combat trousers heavy with water, boots squelching on the tile. He's holding you by the forearm as you stand next to him, loose towel wrapped around your body, still trembling, still making those small, desperate sounds in the back of your throat.

"The fuck, mate? Did you eavesdrop on us?"

Soap shrugs as he straightens up, adjusting his stance in a way that's clearly meant to disguise the state of his trousers. "Was jus' checkin' on ye."

"Checking on—" Gaz's jaw works, nostrils flaring. He wants to snap, wants to shove Soap back into the hallway and slam the door, but he's running on fumes and you're leaning into him again, your face pressed against his soaked chest, mumbling incoherently.

"She needs—" Gaz starts, then stops. Looks down at you, back up at Soap. Something heavy passes between the two men, unspoken but understood.

"She needs more than I can give her right now," he finishes quietly, and the admission costs him more than any of them will ever know.

Soap's expression shifts. The boyish smirk drops, replaced by something sobered, and he gives Gaz a short nod—the kind they exchange in the field when one of them is spent and the other takes point.

"A'right," Soap answers, surprisingly steady, rolling his broad shoulders. "Ah’ve got 'er."

Gaz transfers you into Soap's waiting arms with a gentleness that borders on reverent—one hand on the back of your head, the other guiding your shoulders—and he doesn't let go until he's sure Soap has you secure.

Then he walks past them both, water dripping from every inch of him, and doesn't look back.

He makes it to the kitchen before his hands start shaking badly enough that he has to brace them flat on the counter. He stands there, head bowed, water pooling on the linoleum beneath him, and breathes.

Ghost is leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed, and he doesn't say a word.

There is no need to.

Soap carries you back to the bed like you weigh nothing to him; one arm under your knees, the other around your back, the towel slipping loose and neither of you caring, and he lays you down with a surprising gentleness that contradicts every tightly coiled muscle in his body.

He's been hard since the briefing room, balls throbbing uncomfortably. Over two hours of it. The kind of persistent, throbbing ache that sits low in his gut and pulses in time with his heartbeat, and he's been dealing with it the way he deals with most discomfort.

By ignoring it aggressively and hoping it fucks off on its own.

It has not fucked off unfortunately. Truth be told, he’d be worried about himself if it did.

"Right then," he mutters, kneeling on the mattress beside you as he cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders again like he's about to breach a door. "Let's sort ye out, hen."

And that's the thing about Johnny MacTavish—he doesn't agonise. Not the way Gaz does, all quiet guilt and moral calculus. Soap's moral framework is simpler, blunter, built from different materials. You're his teammate, you're hurting, and he can help. Everything else is noise.

That doesn't mean he's unaffected; doesn't mean his hands aren't shaking when he settles between your legs and pushes the towel fully away from your body, or that his breath doesn't hitch hard enough to hear when he gets his first proper look at you fully naked, spread out on the white sheets with your chest heaving and your thighs trembling and your eyes half-lidded, glassy, barely tracking him.

Christ, you're beautiful.

He's thought about this. Fuck. Of course he has. He's not a bloody monk, and you're you.

He's thought about it in the gym when you spot him on the bench press and your face hovers above his, upside down and grinning. He's thought about it on long transports when you fall asleep against his shoulder and he stays perfectly still for hours so you won't wake up. Or when you laugh at his shite jokes that no one else finds funny, when you steal chips off his plate in the mess, when you call him Johnny instead of Soap and don't even notice you've done it.

He's thought about it a lot.

But not like this.

"You with me?" he asks, tapping your cheek lightly with two fingers. Your eyes roll towards him, struggling to focus, and you make a sound that's part whimper, part plea.

Close enough.

"A'right, sweetheart. I've got ye."

He doesn't ease into it the way Gaz did. Where Gaz was methodical, with careful touches, measured pressure, and constant checking, Soap is instinct. He reads you through vibration and sound, adjusts on the fly, follows the frequency of your moans like he's tuning into a signal.

He dips his head between your thighs and licks into you without preamble, broad and hot and greedy, and the noise that tears out of you rattles something loose in his chest.

"Fuck—tha's it," he groans against you, the vibration making your hips jolt, and his big hands grip the backs of your thighs to keep you spread open and steady. "Tha's my bonnie girl."

He's not quiet about it, either. Soap eats pussy the way he does most things. With enthusiasm, commitment, and absolutely zero self-consciousness. Wet, filthy sounds fill the bedroom, punctuated by his own groans and your increasingly incoherent cries, and he doesn't give a single shit that the door is open, and his team can hear every obscene noise he's wringing out of you.

Let them hear.

His tongue works over your clit in fast, tight circles, then broad, flat strokes, alternating rhythm and pressure every time he feels your thighs start to shake. When you try to close your legs, he pins them open with his forearms. When you try to squirm away—overstimulated, oversensitive, too much and not enough at the same time—he follows relentlessly, dragging you back by the hips with a growl that rumbles against your soaked flesh.

"Nuh-uh. Stay still f'me."

He makes you cum with his mouth in under five minutes and then doesn't stop.

Your fingers twist into the sheets, into his mohawk, clawing at his scalp as your back arches off the mattress and a wrecked sob punches out of your lungs. Soap groans in response, the sound reverential, like your pleasure is a hymn and he's on his knees in church.

He keeps going. Lapping at you through the aftershocks, sucking your clit between his lips until you're keening, pressing his tongue inside you just to feel you clench around it, and when you cum again with his name breaking apart on your lips—Johnny, Johnny, fuck yes, Johnny—he nearly blacks out from how hard his cock throbs in response.

His hips have started moving on their own. Small, involuntary rolls against the mattress, his aching cock grinding against the sheets through his combat trousers, and he knows he should fucking stop, should pull his hips back, should focus on you and not the desperate friction building between his body and the bed.

But he doesn't stop.

He is physically incapable.

You taste like honey and salt and something almost medicinal underneath—the toxin, probably, working its way out of your system through your sweat and your slick—and he's drunk on it. Drunk on the way you say his name, how your thighs tremble against the sides of his head, drunk on the wet sounds of his tongue on your cunt and the way you keep pulling his face closer, harder, more.

"God—fuck—lass, ye taste so fuckin' good—"

He's rutting against the mattress in earnest now, his hips snapping in sharp, desperate little thrusts, and the friction is nowhere near enough and exactly too much at the same time.

The sheets are going to be ruined. He doesn't care. Can't. He’s a weak man, and his entire world has narrowed to the taste of you on his tongue and the ache in his junk and the way your body keeps arching into him like he's the only thing keeping you alive.

"Please—please, Johnny, I need—I can't—"

"I know, hen, I know—" he pants against your inner thigh, pressing a biting kiss there that makes you yelp, "—jus' one more, c'mon, give me one more, aye?"

He flickers his tongue, seals his mouth over your clit and sucks, hard, and you shatter. Your thighs clamp around his head, your hands fist in his hair so tightly it stings, and the scream that rips from your throat is ragged and raw and so fucking beautiful that he comes.

Inside his combat pants.

His hips stutter against the mattress and a guttural, muffled groan vibrates against your pussy as his cock pulses and spills, hot and wet, soaking through his briefs and into his trousers. His arms shake, his vision whites out for a second, and he has to press his forehead against your inner thigh and just breathe through it, chest heaving, while you whimper above him, still trembling from your own orgasm.

He pulls back slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and the reality of what just happened settles over him like a cloth soaked in ice water. He stares down at himself, at the damp patch darkening the front of his trousers, and lets out a long, defeated exhale.

"MacTavish."

Ghost's voice comes from the doorway; flat and sharp, dripping with contempt.

Soap closes his eyes, disappointed in himself, exhaling through his nose. "Aye. I know."

"You know?" Price's voice joins Ghost's, closer, much heavier. The captain is standing just inside the bedroom now, arms folded, jaw set. He looks at Soap the way a father looks at a teenage son caught doing something monumentally stupid.

"Get yourself sorted. Now."

Soap doesn't argue. He climbs off the bed on unsteady legs, not meeting anyone's eyes, and adjusts his trousers with a grimace as he shuffles past Ghost in the doorway.

Ghost doesn't move to let him pass. Makes him squeeze by, shoulder to shoulder, just to make it uncomfortable.

"Disgusting," Ghost mutters, low enough that only Soap hears it.

"Fuck off, LT," Soap mutters back, and there's no heat in it. Just shame.

You don't notice the shift at first.

One moment there are hands and mouths on you, voices and pressure and friction. The next, everything is quieter. Stiller. The mattress dips on one side and stays dipped, a solid weight settling beside you but not on you, not against you, not close enough to touch.

You whine at the loss of contact, of heat, of anything, and reach blindly for whoever is there.

A large hand catches your wrist. Gentle and firm, holding it in place.

"Don't."

One word. Low and gravelly, scraped raw like it was dragged over broken glass and wire mesh on its way out of his throat.

Ghost.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed with his back straight and his boots still on, because taking his boots off would mean he's staying, and staying would mean—he doesn't finish the thought.

Price asked him to sit with you while Gaz and Soap pulled themselves together. Asked this time, not ordered, because Price knows that ordering Ghost to do something he doesn't want to do is about as effective as ordering the tide to turn. Ghost agreed with a single nod, and now here he is, and every muscle in his body is locked so tight he might snap a tendon.

You're lying on your side, curled in on yourself, wearing nothing but your sodden underwear again and the ghost of everyone else's touch on your skin. The towel is long gone. Your body is still trembling, still feverish, still caught in the grip of the toxin, and the soft, pained sounds you keep making are doing things to him that he absolutely cannot allow.

He's hard. Has been since you doubled over and moaned and he had to watch your body betray you in front of everyone. His cock is straining against his trousers, thick and heavy and insistent.

Ghost pretends it isn’t. He's very good at pretending things don't exist.

"Simon…"

His jaw clenches beneath the balaclava. You rarely use his first name—none of them do—and hearing it now, in that voice, breathy and desperate and small, is a kind of cruelty he wasn't prepared for.

"You need to drink something," he murmurs, and reaches for the water bottle on the nightstand without looking at you.

"Don't want—"

"Wasn't bloody askin’."

He unscrews the cap and turns to you, and the mistake—the critical, tactical, unforgivable mistake—is that he looks at your face next.

Your eyes are glassy and wet, your lips parted around shallow little breaths, and you're looking up at him like he's the only solid thing in a world that's been spinning for hours.

Not with lust—not the way you looked at Gaz and Soap—but with something quieter. Something that reaches past the toxin and grabs hold of something deeper.

Trust.

You trust him. Even now, reduced to your basest instincts, your intoxicated, unhinged brain still recognises him as safe.

Something fractures behind his ribs, and he shuts it down immediately, brutally, the way he shuts down everything that threatens to breach the walls.

"Sit up," he orders, and his voice is soft yet steady even if the rest of him isn't. He slides one hand behind your head—just his palm, just enough to support your neck—and lifts the bottle to your lips.

You drink. Slowly, reluctantly, with small sips that dribble down your chin, but you drink. He holds the bottle still and watches the column of your throat move with each swallow, and when a drop of water runs from the corner of your mouth and trails down your neck, dark eyes track it all the way to your collarbone before catching himself and looking away.

"More," he says curtly, bringing the bottle back.

You manage a few more sips before turning your head away with a pitiful sound, and he lets you, setting the bottle aside. His hand lingers on the back of your head a moment too long—his thumb brushing once against the nape of your neck—before he pulls it back like he's been burned.

You reach for him again. Fingers closing around the fabric of his sleeve, tugging weakly.

"Stay. Please. Don't—Don't go."

"'M not goin’ anywhere." The words come out before he can vet them, gruff and low, and he immediately resents himself for saying them so quickly, so easily, like a confession slipped out under duress.

He lets you hold onto his sleeve. That much he can allow. That much won't cross a line he cannot uncross.

You shift closer, seeking warmth, and your body curls towards him until your forehead is pressed against his thigh. He goes completely rigid, every muscle locking and nerve firing, and his hands hover in the air on either side of you, not touching, not pulling away, suspended in the unbearable middle ground of a man who wants desperately but won't take.

Another small whimper from you. Not desire this time but pain. The cramps rolling through your body in waves, the toxin still doing its vicious work even after everything Gaz and Soap wrung from you. You're shaking, and not just from arousal. You're exhausted. Dehydrated. Your body is at war with itself.

Ghost is not a gentle man. He knows this about himself the way he knows his blood type and his boot size. It's a fact, unalterable, built into the architecture. He doesn't comfort. He doesn't soothe. He handles.

But.

His hand comes down on the back of your head, and it stays.

Heavy and warm through the leather of his glove. Not stroking just resting, a solid weight against your skull, and you let out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in your lungs for hours.

You stop shaking. Not entirely. The tremors are still there, running through you in small aftershocks, but the worst of it eases under the steady pressure of his palm, like he's an anchor and you've been drifting.

"Ghost?" Your voice is small, barely a whisper.

"Yeah."

"It hurts."

He closes his eyes behind the mask. His hand presses down just slightly—a fraction more weight, a fraction more warmth—and his throat works around words that don't come.

He knows it hurts. He knows Gaz and Soap's efforts weren't enough. He knows what the doctors said—what Price said—and he knows what would fix it, and he can't.

Not because he doesn't want to. Because he wants it too fucking much.

Simon Riley is not a man who trusts himself with things he wants.

Wanting, in his experience, is the first step towards destroying, and he has destroyed enough for one lifetime. Touching you now the way his body is screaming at him to would not be careful or measured or controlled or gentle.

It would be all consuming, and he would take too much, and he would never be able to look you in the eyes again.

So he sits on the edge of the bed with his boots on and his cock aching and his hand on the back of your head, and he holds himself perfectly, agonisingly still. Just a solid shadow in a bedroom.

You press your face harder against his thigh and he lets you. Your fingers tighten on his sleeve and he lets you. Your breath evens out incrementally but still too fast, still too shallow, though calmer now, and he lets that happen too, guarding it like a perimeter, daring anything to disturb it.

He doesn't know how long you stay like that. Long enough for the light under the curtains to shift and for his leg to go numb beneath the pressure of your head. Long enough for Gaz to appear in the doorway, freshly changed into borrowed civvies, and stop dead at the sight of them.

Ghost meets his eyes over the top of your head. His expression is unreadable behind the mask, but his hand doesn't move from your hair, and that says more than his face ever could.

Gaz nods once and backs out without a word.

In the kitchen, Price is pouring two fingers of whisky into a tumbler and staring at the far wall like it owes him money. Soap is sitting at the table in a pair of Price's joggers, his soiled trousers balled up in a plastic bag at his feet, looking like a scolded dog.

"She's calmer," Gaz says quietly as he enters, and both men look up. "Ghost's with her."

Price takes a long drink. Sets the glass down. Rubs a hand over his beard.

"It's not enough, is it."

It's not a question and Gaz doesn't answer it.

"She's still in pain. She keeps—" He stops and swallows thickly. "She keeps asking. Saying she’s in pain."

The captain stares at the whisky in his glass. The silence stretches, tense and heavy, pressing in on the walls of the small kitchen.

"She needs more than fingers and a mouth," Soap says bluntly, because someone fucking has to, and delicacy has never been his strong suit. Gaz shoots him a look, but Soap holds it, unapologetic.

"He's right," Price agrees suddenly, and the words taste like bile. He pushes away from the counter and stands to his full height, shoulders squared, and for a moment he looks every inch the officer. Burdened, resolute, carrying a decision he'll second-guess for the rest of his life.

"Gentlemen's agreement," he says. His voice is low, steady, absolute. "What happens tonight stays in this flat. No one treats her differently when this is over. No one brings it up unless she does. No one holds it over anyone, including himself."

He looks at each of them in turn—Gaz, then Soap—and holds until he gets a nod from both.

"And we tell Ghost."

Ghost doesn't agree.

He listens to the terms of the gentlemen's agreement from the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed, stance wide, radiating the kind of stillness that makes lesser men instinctively check their exits. When Price finishes, Ghost holds the silence for a long, loaded beat.

And then: "No."

Price doesn't flinch. "No to which part?"

"All of it. My part." Ghost's voice is flat and final, stripped of everything except the decision itself. "I'll stay with her. I won't fuck her."

Soap opens his mouth—probably to say something spectacularly unhelpful—and Gaz kicks him under the table without looking.

Price studies his Lieutenant for a moment. Then he nods once, heavy with an understanding that doesn't need to be spoken.

"Fair enough." He rolls his sleeves up to his forearms. The mechanical motion of a man preparing for something he cannot delegate. "I'll go first."

No one dares to argue.

Unlike Soap, Price closes the guest bedroom door behind him and stands there for a moment with his hand still on the knob, just breathing. It smells of sex and pheromones, but wrong.

The room is dim. Someone turned off the overhead and left only the bedside lamp, casting everything in low amber light that softens the edges of the furniture and the shape of you on the bed. You're curled on your side, knees drawn up, one hand clutching the pillow beneath your head. The sheets are wrecked; damp and twisted, pulled loose from two corners, and your skin glistens with a thin sheen of sweat.

You look small.

That's the thing that hits him first and hits him hardest.

You're one of his soldiers. He's seen you clear buildings, haul wounded men twice your size to extraction, take a round to the vest and get back up swearing. You are not small. You have never been small or fragile.

But you look it now, trembling and fever-damp and reduced to a version of yourself that he never should have had to witness, and the weight of that sits on his shoulders like a ruck full of stones.

He crosses the room in a few strides and sits on the edge of the mattress. The frame groans under his weight.

"Sergeant."

You stir, your head lifting, and your eyes find his face. They're glassy and unfocused, but there's a flicker of recognition—Captain—before it's swallowed by the next wave rolling through your body. You let out a sound that's half sob, half moan, your thighs pressing together, and your hand reaches out blindly until your fingers catch the fabric of his shirt.

"It hurts," you whisper. "Still hurts. Why does it still—"

"I know." He catches your wrist, holds it. His thumb presses against your pulse point to check, and it’s rapid, thready, way too fast for simply lying on a bed. "I'm going to help you."

He says it the way he says we're moving on that compound at 0300 or I need eyes on that ridgeline. Leaving no room for ambiguity, because if he allows ambiguity into this room, he'll start thinking about what he's doing, and if he starts thinking, he'll stop, and if he stops.

You'll keep hurting. Under his command.

He stands long enough to strip his shirt over his head and remove his belt, and then he's back on the bed, propped against the headboard with you between his legs, your back against his bare chest; coarse salt and pepper hair rasping against your tacky skin. One arm wraps around your midsection, heavy and secure, anchoring you.

"Easy," he murmurs against the top of your head. "I've got you, love."

His free hand trails down your stomach, and your muscles jump and twitch beneath his rough palm. He catalogues every reaction. The hitch in your breathing, the way your hips tilt up to meet him, the small, desperate noise you make when his fingers dip below your navel. The same way he catalogues threat patterns and exit routes.

This is a mission. He is completing the objective. He is taking care of his wounded soldier.

He keeps telling himself that as he peels your underwear down your thighs and off, tossing them aside. As he runs his hand up the inside of your thigh and feels you shake. As he finally cups you and discovers just how wet and swollen you are, dripping on his fingers, he has to close his eyes and clench his jaw against the visceral punch of arousal that knocks through him.

This is the job. You gave the order. See it through.

He works you with his fingers first, because he needs to know what you can take. Two thick fingers pressing into you slowly, carefully, and the sounds you make guts him.

"That's it." His voice is lower now, rougher. "There you go, sweetheart."

He doesn't call his soldiers sweetheart. He has never, in twenty-odd years of service, called anyone under his command sweetheart. The word falls out of him like a loose round, and he can't take it back.

Your sopping hole clenches around his fingers and his cock, already hard and straining against the front of his trousers, jerks so violently he must bite back a groan. He curls his fingers inside you, finds the swollen spot that makes your spine arch and your breath stutter, and works it with a patient, devastating precision.

You cum and gush on his fingers with a broken cry, your body locking up in his arms, and the aftershocks roll through you in long, shuddering waves that he holds you through without a word.

It's still not enough. He knows it won't be for a while longer.

Price reaches for the condom on the nightstand—Gaz found them in Price's bathroom cabinet, a half-empty box, almost expired, shoved behind the toiletries like an afterthought—and tears the foil with his teeth while you keen and squirm against him, already spiralling back up.

He undoes his trousers and pushes them down just enough to free himself, because keeping them on feels like maintaining some essential boundary, some last scrap of separation between Captain Price doing what needs to be done and John wanting what he shouldn't want.

Rolling the condom on is a particular exercise in self-control. His cock is thick, flushed dark when his foreskin slides back, weeping pre at the tip, and every brush of his own fingers against the oversensitive skin makes his abs clench.

He lifts you with ease, one hand on your hip, the other gripping himself, and positions you above his lap.

"Sergeant," he grunts through gritted teeth, "look at me."

Your head lolls back against his shoulder, eyes half-open, and you meet his gaze as best you can. He searches for something in your expression—recognition, maybe awareness, you—and finds enough of it to quiet the loudest of the voices screaming in his head.

"If it's too much, y’tell me. That's a bloody order."

You nod hazily. He doesn't know if you actually processed the words, but he needed to say them. Needed that on the record, if only between himself and God.

He lowers you onto him slowly.

The sound that comes out of him is not one he's ever made before.

You're scorching hot and soaked. Your body takes him inch by inch, clenching and fluttering around him as gravity and his guiding hand ease you down, and by the time you're fully seated in his lap, he's seeing stars and his fingers have left dents in the flesh of your hip.

"Fuck," he breathes, and the word is ragged at the edges, torn from somewhere deeper than his chest.

You moan shamelessly, and the relief in the sound nearly undoes him. Like something that's been wound unbearably tight has finally been given slack. Your body relaxes against his, tension draining from your muscles for the first time in hours, and the change is so visible, so immediate, that it almost justifies this.

Almost.

He starts to move. Rolling his hips up into you, slow and deep, both hands gripping your waist to control the pace. He keeps it measured; long and deliberate strokes that drag against your inner walls and make you whimper with each one, because if he lets himself go, if he fucks you the way his body is begging him to, he'll lose himself entirely.

And he hates—Christ, he hates—how fucking good you feel.

He hates the way you fit around him like you were made for it, and the way your head falls back against his shoulder, how your lips part and you breathe his name—not his rank, not Captain, but John—and the sound of it rushes through him hot and electric and wrong. Hates the wet, obscene sound of your body taking him repeatedly; that his hips are moving faster now, snapping up into you with a force that makes the headboard knock against the wall.

Hates that he doesn't want to stop.

Your eyes squeeze shut, your head tips back as you cry out. "John—John—oh god—"

His arm tightens around your ribs, crushing you back against his chest, and his mouth finds the curve of your shoulder—not kissing, just pressing there, teeth grazing skin, breathing you in. His other hand slides down between your thighs and rubs tight circles on your clit in counterpoint to each thrust, and you come apart so violently in his arms that he has to hold you through it with every ounce of strength he has.

You clench around him like a vice and he follows you over the edge with a bitten-off groan, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing deep inside you as the orgasm tears through him with a ferocity that whites out his vision.

For a few suspended seconds, there's nothing left. No rank, no mission, no guilt. Just the pounding of his heart and the aftershocks rippling through both your bodies and the impossible, terrible warmth of you around him.

Then reality seeps back in, cold and unforgiving, and Captain John Price opens his eyes and begins the long process of hating himself for every second of the last twenty minutes.

He pulls out carefully, disposes of the condom, and fixes his trousers. When he leans you back against the pillows, your eyes are already glazing over again, your body winding up for more, and the sight of it makes something weary and furious crack behind his chest cavity

He cups your jaw, tilting your face up. "Stay with me, Sergeant. Stay with me."

You whimper, and your hips shift restlessly against the sheets.

Price stands and walks to the door on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.

"Garrick. You're up."

Gaz and Soap take you in turns after that, and it's different this time.

Where the first round was clinical in its own way—Gaz with his careful guilt, Soap with his missionary zeal, Price bearing the weight of command—this his round is rawer.

The boundaries have been breached, and the gentlemen's agreement hangs over the room like a ceasefire that everyone knows is temporary.

Gaz is gentler than Price was. He lays you on your back and settles between your thighs with a tenderness that borders on devotion, pressing his forehead against yours as he pushes inside you.

He goes slow and gentle, and whispers things against your temple that no one else can hear, private things meant only for the space between your mouth and his.

"I've got you," he murmurs repeatedly. "I've got you, Babygirl, I'm right here. I will be here."

He comes inside the condom with a shudder and your name bitten into the skin of your shoulder, and when he pulls out and rolls onto his back beside you, he stares at the ceiling for a long time without blinking, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

Soap goes after. He's not gentle—can't be, doesn't know how to be, not with the way you claw at his back and wrap your legs around his waist and beg him harder, please, harder—but he's present.

He hooks your knee over his broad shoulders and fucks you deep, watching your face with a focused intensity that's almost clinical in its own right, cataloguing every reaction, every gasp, adjusting angle and depth and rhythm like he's zeroing a scope.

"Tha's it, sweetheart, take it—fuck, yer so—fuck—"

The condoms run out after Soap's first round.

Gaz discovers this when he reaches for the box on the nightstand and finds it empty, and the look on his face—the quiet oh, shit—would be funny in any other context.

"Cap'n," he calls, voice strained. "We've got a problem."

Price, who has been standing in the hallway staring at nothing, appears in the doorway. Gaz holds up the empty box. Price closes his eyes.

"Then pull out," the captain says flatly. "That's an order."

It should be simple, and it’s anything but.

Gaz tries. He genuinely, sincerely tries, but you're clenching around him so tightly and making those sounds, those desperate and wrecked, grateful sounds, and when your orgasm hits and your walls contract around his cock in rhythmic, milking pulses, his hips stutter and he buries himself to the hilt and spills inside you with a choked groan before his brain even registers what his body has done.

"Shit—shit, I'm sorry, I—fuck—"

He pulls out too late, watches his cum leak from you onto the sheets, and drops his head against your sternum with a devastated exhale.

Soap doesn't even pretend he's going to manage it.

"'M not gonna be able to pull out," he announces with a frankness that makes Gaz want to strangle him. "Jus' bein' honest, Cap."

"You'll pull out or I'll pull you out myself, MacTavish."

And yet Soap does not, in fact, pull out in time.

Price has to physically haul him back by the shoulder, and even then, Soap's cock jerks and pulses as it slips free, painting your inner thighs and lower belly with hot, thick ropes of cum while the Scotsman lets out a string of Gaelic curses that would make his mother disown him.

The room smells like multiple people fucking and sweating and something medicinal—the toxin, working its way out of your pores at last—and you're finally, finally, starting to slow down.

The desperate edge has dulled. Your whimpers are quieter now, tired rather than urgent, and your body has stopped arching off the bed every few minutes.

You're still reaching, though. Still searching for contact, for warmth, for a body against yours.

Ghost enters the room without being asked.

He's stripped down to his black t-shirt and trousers. The balaclava is still on, but his gloves are off, and the sight of his bare, scarred hands is somehow more intimate than anything else that's happened in this room tonight.

He doesn't look at the other men or acknowledge the state of the sheets or the smell or the heavy, post-coital guilt saturating the air.

He simply moves to the bed, sits down, and gathers you against his chest with a practised efficiency that suggests he's been rehearsing this moment in his head for the last two hours.

You go willingly. Boneless, exhausted, trembling with the last dregs of the toxin and the cumulative aftermath of more orgasms than your body was designed to handle in one night. Your face presses into the crook of his neck, your fingers curl loosely in the front of his shirt, and you let out a breath that sounds like surrender.

Ghost pulls the duvet up over both of you. One arm settles around your back securely. His other hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, fingers curling into your hair, and he holds you against him like he's shielding you from blast radius.

"Go to sleep," he says quietly. An order and a request and a plea all compressed into three words.

You make a small, incoherent sound against his throat.

"I know." His hand moves over your hair, slowly and gentle. "Sleep."

Price watches from the doorway for a moment. Then he pulls the door halfway closed and leaves the Lieutenant to his vigil.

In the kitchen, the captain pours himself another whisky—three fingers this time—and drinks it standing up, staring at the drawn curtains. Gaz is in the shower. Soap is sprawled on the sofa in the living room, one arm over his eyes, dead to the world.

Price's phone buzzes. Laswell.

How is she?

He stares at the screen for a long time. Types and deletes three different responses before finally settling on one.

Handled. Debrief in the morning.

He sets the phone face-down on the counter and finishes his drink.

Hours later, you wake up slowly, like surfacing from deep water.

The first thing you register is warmth. A wall of it, solid and breathing, pressed against your back. An arm draped over your waist, heavy with sleep. Fingers loosely tangled in yours against your sternum.

The second thing you register is that you are naked, sore in places you don't want to think about, and your mouth tastes like the inside of a boot.

The third thing is the balaclava.

You can feel it, the knitted fabric against the back of your neck, and the slow, even exhale of breath warming your skin through the cloth. The chest behind you rises and falls in the deep, steady rhythm of genuine sleep, which means the Lieutenant trusts this room enough to have let himself go under.

Which means something, though you're too foggy to figure out what.

You shift slightly, testing your body. Everything aches. Your thighs, your hips, your abs, your jaw for some reason, and there's a deep, bone-level exhaustion settled into your muscles that reminds you of the tail end of a bad flu.

The cramps are gone, though. The tingling, the feverish heat, the desperate, clawing need—all of it has receded, leaving behind a hollow, wrung-out emptiness.

And memory. Fragments of it. Arriving in pieces like delayed radio transmissions.

Kyle's hands shaking as he touched you. I'm only doin' this for you, babygirl. Johnny's mouth on you, hot and relentless. The sound he made against your thighs.

The shower. The water. Voices.

John.

Your eyes open wide and your body goes rigid, and the arm around your waist tightens reflexively. Ghost pulling you closer in his sleep, an unconscious response to a perceived threat, even though the threat is just you waking up and remembering.

You lie very still.

The flat is quiet. Early morning light edges around the curtains, pale and grey, and somewhere in the distance, you can hear the muffled sounds of the base waking up—vehicles, a distant shout, the rhythmic thud of boots on tarmac.

You don't move, don't speak. You stare at the wall and breathe and try to organise the wreckage in your head into something you can process.

Behind you, Ghost's breathing changes. Shifts from deep and even to something shallower, more aware. His arm tenses around you, a brief contraction of muscle, there and gone, and you know the exact moment he wakes up, because his entire body goes perfectly, absolutely still.

Neither of you says a word.

His hand is still tangled with yours against your bare chest. His thumb rests against your knuckle. But he doesn't pull away.

The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Heavy. Full of things that need to be said and won't be. Not now, certainly not yet, and maybe not ever. And there is a fragile, terrified understanding that what happened in this room changed the molecular structure of something that can never be unchanged.

Finally, after what feels like an hour but is probably two minutes, Ghost speaks.

"How do you feel?"

You consider the question. Really consider it, not the reflexive I'm fine that sits on your tongue out of habit.

"Like shit," you answer honestly. Your voice is wrecked, raspy, and it hurts to talk.

Then, so quietly you almost miss it, he answers, "Yeah."

His thumb moves once. A single, slow stroke across your knuckle.

Then he lets go of your hand, carefully disentangles himself from around you, and gets up without another word. You hear his boots being pulled back on. The soft click of the door.

You lie in the bed that smells like all four of them and none of yourself, and you stare at the wall, and you breathe.

The two giant German Shepherds he was herding were intimidating on their own but mixed with the tall, broad person who owned them, people switched the side of the street they were walking on.

"This is the fourth time this week!" you yelled, still a bit away from his house but clearly seeing his dark silhouette on the front porch.

"What is?" Sleep — or the lack there of — was clear in his under eyes, so heavy it looked like they had sunken. His hands were tucked into his hoodie's pocket, his dogs' chains peeking out.

"My sheep," you answered, cautiously approaching the three. You didn't know who you were scared of the most. They could all kill you, for sure. The dogs would most likely just chew you up slowly while Simon would most likely get over with it quickly. But, then again, none of them had ever attacked you nor really threatened to.

Simon sounded out the name of your sheep, scrunching together his eyebrows. "She's not here."

You looked up at that, ripped out of your thoughts. "What do you mean she's not here?" you asked.

"I haven't seen her today."

Finally, you looked at his yard, the slightly overgrown lawn and the one tree with no sheep in sight.

"Huh," you only managed, sweat and doubt already collecting on your back and in your mind, separately. You scratched the back of your neck, furrowing your eyebrows too. You bit the inside of your cheek, thinking for a moment.

"Maybe you should think about getting a lock."

"Shut up!" you yelled and his dogs jumped out of their resting position.

You physically jumped, only furthering their bad mood as they growled at you. Simon pulled them down and back, scolding them gently.

He looked to you, saying: "It's okay." After a moment he stood up and made his way over to you, shepherds in tow.

"If you want, I can help you search for it."

He was truly menacing-looking. Tall but mostly broad, thick thighs, chest and arms, clothing desperately trying to hang on and keep the fabric together. His dark brown eyes stood with the black of his mask and against the pale of his skin.

"Search for her," you mumble.

You yelled out your sheep's name, screaming: "Come on, baby! I have some dandelions for you!"

Simon's dogs were sniffing the ground, walking around the forest and occasionally taking a sharp turn in another direction. Your shins were getting scratched up, sharp plants and thorns begging to enter your flesh and bloodstream.

Suddenly you felt a sharp burn, hissed and shrieked, mostly out of surprise.

Simon turned to you, raising an eyebrow and quickly looking over you. He looked for any sort of injury, eyes circling in on the angry red cuts on your legs. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just," you winched again, "some nettles."

He nodded when his Sheperds’ ears perked up. Both of you looked towards where they were looking, seeing nothing. The dogs' chains slipped out of Simon's hands as they leaped forward, barking at whatever was behind the hill they were running towards.

"Shit," Simon muttered before taking off after them.

You were completely out of breath when you'd gotten over what was basically a mountain, incline so step you almost had to climb. You were ready to fall over and rest but instead of that you just rested your hands on your knees, sweat dripping off throat into the grass.

At the sound of a baaa, you lifted your head. In the middle of the clearing Simon was gathering his dogs' chains again while they licked at your baby's face.

You rushed over to them and brushed your sheep's coat, snuggling into her side. "You scared me," you whispered.

"Baaaa," she answered.

When you realized that you were talking to a sheep and cuddling it in front of your absolutely terrifying, ex-military neighbour, you stood up straight again. "Thank you," you coughed out.

"No problem," he chuckled. "They would miss her if she just disappeared."

He can't always tell. Not when you're so soft and open around him, all relaxed and welcoming him happily. Can't always feel when you squeeze, or how tight. You have other tells, though. 

You arch your back, scratch your throat raw. You shut your eyes and bare your neck, burying the back of your head into the pillows. His name falls from your lips in its entirety at first,

"Simon." It drips thick as honey. "Oh f-fuck Simon, I'm—"

Then you lose parts of it. Or he interrupts you,

"Si—" Thurst. "Simo—" Thrust. "Fuck—fuckfuckfuck."

Until you're only babbling nonsense, or barely saying anything at all,

"Ah f-fuck." Panting, sighing blissfully inside his own mouth. "M'com—m'coming again—"

It's shrill, sometimes. It's breathier, or barely rasped. Like it's clawing out of your throat, talons and all. 

"Shit—" Sharp, strident. "Baby." Sweet, tender. "M'still comin'—shit—"

Likes it when you can barely look at him, too busy rolling your eyes to the back of your head. Likes it when your mouth babbles around nothing if not ragged breaths, words you want to form but can't muster the strength to do it.

The pierce of your nails at the nape of his neck. The sting of his scalp as you fist his hair. What a view, the bounce of your tits as his pace picks up, pistoning inside you until the squelch of your cum almost surpasses the slap of skin.

Then, the pull of your arms. 

He's studied the ways to make you cum over and over. Tried it all out with you. Practice, practice, practice—until it became second nature.

Though it took you nothing to understand how to make him babble your name instead.

You crash his lips to yours. A simple kiss at first. Your hips roll upwards, meeting his movements and deepening each thrust. 

Only when you feel his arms give out, the slightest tremble of his elbows, do you lick his mouth. The tip of your tongue along the seam of his lips, inviting him to open them. And he does, dutifully so. Lets you eat him up like he’s your last meal, curling his tongue around yours.

Fingers through his hair. The fat of your tits bulges as it presses up against his chest. The hardness of your nipples as they meet his skin, the curves and lines of your stomach moulding against his own—all enhanced, like he's spellbound and can feel every inch of you cling to his very being.

There is no space to breathe, not when you kiss him so, not when you hold him this tightly.

Wet tongue against his, your spit glistening on his lips. The vibration of your moans transfers against his mouth, until he can't tell if they're yours or his own.

He grunts. "Oh fuck—"

You drink it with your tongue. 

He murmurs your name like a warning,

"D-Don't." Like it's dangerous, like you're a threat. "Fuck, m'gonna—"

Then you deepen the kiss, tilting your head against the pillow to slot your lips together, noses resting against each other. You grab his hand, and he collapses on top of you, burying you under his bulk. His palm is guided to your breast, where you squeeze his own fingers in his stead.

There, he loses bits of himself. Bits of your name, too, muttered in broken syllables,

"Fuck, love—" He curses, pleads. "Shit—yer gonna take it, yeah?" 

Your mouth eats all of them: each fuck and each please.

"Please fuckin' take it."

His hips stutter, but you don't allow him to stop, meeting him halfway with yours. He tries to run away from your mouth, but there's nowhere he can go, not with the shackles of your arms around him.

You kiss him until his lips can only babble specks of your name and that of God. 

"Christ. Fuck—" Thrust. "Perfect—" Thrust. "—Girl. My perfect girl—"

The tightness in his stomach unravels and wraps him wholly, from his throat down to his thighs. Strangles him, robs him of breath and control. 

Makes him tear your name into shreds in the cradle of your tongue. 

Until there's nothing he can do but kiss you, too.

Groaning in your mouth as he cums inside you—rolling deep so he can feel you ripe with it, so he can feel you take it. 

Until your thighs are bouncing limply around his waist for each thrust. The broken sounds of his orgasm further wrecked by the thud of the headboard against the wall.

Better than ecstasy, bringing him higher than any drug. 

You're still keeping him close when he comes down from it. You're still kissing him when he opens his eyes.

He hopes you'll never stop, as he whispers your name.

So, imagine his face when you straddle his hips while he's reading in bed. Your lips tickle his neck with kisses, hands sliding under his shirt, toying with the band of his sweats. 

Once done mumbling and brooding like he usually does, he closes the book and sets it on the nightstand. With his hands finally free, he promptly puts them to use, grabbing a greedy handful of your ass to grind you down on him. 

And just as the fun is about to begin, he goes to take off his glasses, but—

"Keep 'em," you whisper, lips already swollen with kisses.

Simon's eyes widen. Pupils blown, long lashes fluttering, entirely puzzled. So, so big—frankly, everything about him is, but nothing like his eyes the moment your hands grabbed his wrists to stop him from taking off his glasses.

"What's tha'?" 

You bite your lip, returning his hands to grab your ass. A distraction of sorts. 

"Keep the glasses on." 

Thick frames slide down his nose, so you push them up until the plastic knocks against the space between his brows. 

He blinks, confused.

"You look hot," you explain. "Or. Well. You look cute."

His eyes widen. Big, brown, and glittering with mirth.

"I," he sighs. "Look cute."

You snort. "Adorable."

Simon kisses his teeth. Face deadpan, though struggling not to burst out laughing. It's why you force him to break his facade, leaning down to leave soft kisses down his neck. 

He unravels. Exhales, deep and ragged.

"Lovely," you whisper, warm breath brushing his throat.

And as he tries to hide it with all his might, you can tell your words affect him more than what he conveys. His cock jumps, twitches under your weight. 

You smile. He pinches your ass in retaliation when he feels it. 

"Oh, you're so sweet, aren't you, Simon?" You coo. Your hand slips in the space between your bodies. Slides underneath his briefs. 

Then, you lift your face to align your lips with his. His breath is heavy, tight. Lenses fogged up, but those big brown eyes are still beautifully there, though now hooded and unfocused.

His throat works, bobbing as he swallows his pride, only to favour whatever this is that you're making him feel.

"Am I?" He croaks.

You hum. His cock is impossibly hard when you take it in your hand. The tip is wet, making your movements easy and smooth. 

A moan crackles through his lips. You drink it with your mouth.

"Good boy, Simon," you whisper. "The best."

You look delectable straddling his hips.

Naked and soft, plump tits sitting prettily in his hands. His thumbs swipe idly around your perked nipples as you ride him slowly, early morning sun peeking through the curtains and lapping at your skin. What a way to wake up, what a sight.

He stares at your lips and how they part for him—something he still has to get used to, though he probably never truly will. How dulcet does his name sound if it’s your voice whispering it, how beautiful your eyes when they take in his face.

Soft hands are pressed on his chest for leverage, and you’re treating him with a view he keeps pinned to the forefront of his brain—gliding your cunt until you’re chock-full of him, stroking yourself until you’re shivering.

He likes it when he’s on top, sure. He’s used to taking the lead and orchestrating every detail, in and out of the job. 

But when you allow him to sit back and take it? Hell, sign him up. He’d do it every day. Especially when it’s this lazy sex here, in which you’re canting your hips to cum before he does, giving him the blissful chance of feeling you clench around him when he's still hard. 

Goosebumps rise under your nails as they graze down his chest and brush his stomach. Your hands wander blindly on his belly, then his sides, as you clock his eyes with your heavy ones, panting softly, idly—my beautiful, beautiful girl.

But then you inadvertently brush his ribs, and he stiffens—even squirms, and your movements come to a halt.

You blink as conscience returns to you slowly, and the room sinks into tense silence. His cock twitches inside of you when you tilt your head inquisitively, squinting your eyes.

Experimentally, you brush your fingertips against his ribs again, and his biceps flatten to his sides, trapping your hands.

Your eyes widen, and his do the same.

“Don’t.”

You gasp, “Oh my God.”

“Darling, no.” He warns, but you’ve clearly made up your mind already.

Your lips are curled in a smile that promises mischief, and he can only give up, sit back, and count his losses.

“Darling, yes.”

Simon feels your fingers wiggle under the tight press of his arms, but no matter his strength, they're seemingly useless against that playful resolve you're displaying.

His cock is still embarrassingly hard inside you, and Simon reckons it won't soften any time soon. You don’t seem eager to get off him either, thus prolonging the torture with each tiny movement you make.

He inhales sharply and fights tooth and nail to school his expression into neutrality. His eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is locked tight. The only thing giving him away is the flush of his cheeks, getting pinker by the second because he refuses to open his mouth to breathe a much-needed lungful of air. Knowing that if he would, he'd bark a laugh that would proclaim you as the winner of this fight.

He would never.

You roll your hips, then—cheap trick. He unravels with a shaky breath, and his biceps give out enough for you to slip your hands away.

And then, he knows he's done for.

“Cut it out.” He barks, trying to sound stern and miserably failing. He knows because you're laughing even harder.

Your fingers feel like tiny bugs crawling up his sides, and they make his breath catch in his throat.

“Never.” You say, with a grin that scrunches your nose. A smile that would normally make his heart throb, but right now just makes him wish he were a lesser man so he could throttle you.

“Fuckin’-“

You chuckle.

You evil little cunt.

Resistance lasts a few more seconds before he bursts.

It’s not a full laugh that leaves him; more of a wheeze that makes you chortle like a wicked witch. His chest heaves as your fingers frantically tickle his sides. Tries to get you off him by shaking his hips, but that only makes the two of you falter and moan, and then chuckle and catch your breaths.

His shoulders shake in a breathless, choking laugh that pitches upward as you continue with your assault (yes, assault—he is not being dramatic), eyes veiled with tears of frustration and mirth. He shrieks when your hands travel under his armpits—the sound makes you giggle in a way that would have him melt. 

“That laugh’s lovely, baby.” You say with a smarmy grin he wishes he could wipe with a kiss, hands unrelenting against his sides. “Sound like a kettle whistling.”

He tries to glower and push you off, but you’re surprisingly strong when you’re focused. Right now, your only goal is to apparently make him hate you—he'd rather be held at gunpoint than being forced to hold in a laugh that makes his stomach hurt.

Simon now looks shockingly harmless, with his cheeks flushed bright red and his voice an octave too high—wouldn't look dangerous if he tried.

“Tea ready, yet?” You add, batting your lashes, because why not rub salt into the already embarrassing wound marring his pride.

It’s that unfathomably stupid joke that finally makes Simon crack. He barks out a laugh that bubbles up his throat, rippling through his stomach so suddenly that you bounce above him. Your own laugh follows soon after, because each time you manage to steal one from him, your heart vibrates with loving triumph.

But still—he is Simon Riley, isn’t he? Member of Task Force 141. Lieutenant in the UK Special Forces, SAS. The Ghost. There is some pride in there, one he'd like to keep intact.

He tries to recollect his breath, sniffling, and his arms shoot out to wrap around your waist. He rolls onto his side, taking you with him.

It’s then that you find yourself in a position of utter disadvantage, on your back with your big brute of a boyfriend holding you down. You’re wide-eyed and still smiling with barely contained giggles, and he’d be lying if he said it doesn't make his heart soar.

Sure, he’s panting, still proper flushed and apple-cheeked, with shivers wrecking his spine and unshed tears in his eyes—but he takes great pride in having won yet another fight (again, not overreacting at all, if you ask him).

He grabs your wrists and pins them above your head.

You fix him with a look. “Simon, no.”

Before you can add more to your complaint, he rams his cock into you until your chest stutters, your lips mouthing around a shaky breath he drinks dry with a wet kiss.

He fucks you into the mattress, then—once, twice, until the remnants of laughter vanish from your face and you’re trembling in bliss, eyes rolled back under heavy eyelids.

He places a sloppy kiss down to your collarbone.

“Simon, yes.”

Soft legs around his waist, your arms holding his head to your face, kissing the aches of his mind away.

It's rare for him to change from his usual unhurried pace, to break through that comforting tempo he's so used to—like the rhythm of a tune that calls him back home. Like a siren, coaxing his soul away from the bloodshed and back into his body—and his body back to you.

A big hand leaves its gentle grip on your waist, curling firmly at the base of your jaw to hold your head steady against the plush pillow.

He collects a glob of spit in his mouth. It falls into a string, slowly, until it sits at the slit of your lips.

It startles you, at first—brows fluttering to your forehead. But even in the haze of sex you manage to recollect yourself just in time.

A shaky exhale from your nose, and then you lick your lips deliberately, slow as anything, gauging a reaction from his eyes.

He watches how your throat bobs when you swallow it down.

He watches when you open your mouth again, pink tongue hanging out. Inviting, warm.

He cums right afterwards with a muted curse.

Doesn't care if he's sensitive as can be when he fucks you through his orgasm, then through yours, until your legs are trembling so fiercely that he thinks he's shattered you like the finest porcelain.

A stolen kiss, sloppy and wet. One where his lips taste yours fully, where your teeth clack as they're in the way.

Simon doesn't pull out. Waits a tick instead, hiding in the curve of your shoulder, long enough for his blood to return to where he needs it, still inside of you—so tight in the afterglow of your orgasm that he thinks he might cum again if he's not careful.

He fucks you a second time, ensuring your lips never part from his.

When he rolls onto his back, taking you with him, he lets you take the lead. Impaled right on his lap, hips dancing like waves on the shore, mouth parted to breathe softly and slow.

It's your turn now, he guesses, because suddenly lithe fingers are wrapped around his chin. Your thumb tugs at his lower lip as your hips slow to a more controlled pace.

"Open," you whisper.

Simon can only oblige. One look into your eyes is all it takes, his mouth already open before you even ask.

Your spit lands slowly on the flat of his tongue. He tastes it like you're dripping honey in his mouth, like that's his favorite thing to savor after weeks away from everything good.

His hand comes to cradle the back of your head only to pull you down, where he kisses you until his head spins because he doesn't care to breathe—doesn't think it matters.

"Like it when you tell me wha' to do," he says to your lips. "S' a nice change of pace."

You can hear the smile in his voice.

So, you smile too.

"Yeah?" You reply, panting softly against his mouth. "Then be a good one and fuck me like you haven't seen me in weeks, eh?"

Not the hardest order he's ever had to follow, he reckons, since it's the truth.

He breathes a chuckle, but otherwise agrees, stealing yet another kiss from you. Arms fully wrapped around your waist, feet planted on the bed, Simon fucks you like he hasn't seen you in weeks. 

"Yes ma'am."

Simon, who is not sure what to do with himself the first time you welcome him home in nothing but lingerie.

He’s so unbelievably tired, dropping his clothes on the floor of the bedroom without even lifting his head. Mumbling apologies to you—how he’ll clean tomorrow, how he just wants to go to bed and sleep fourteen hours straight, right now. Bonus points if you hold him through the night, too.

Yet you’re not replying, but he’s seen your silhouette in the darkness; he knows you’re awake because you whispered a soft “Welcome back” when he walked in the room. His heart pounds in his chest, his palms get clammy—he thinks he’s overstepping lines by not giving you the attention he thinks you deserve.

So, as he unzips his pants, he lifts his eyes to look at you, and fuck—

You’re lying on your side, propped on your elbow, chin tucked in your palm. Perfect tits covered in sheer fabric, burgundy and black, your nipples peeking through. The soft line of your waist is bare—he follows it with his eyes until they land on your hips. Ornated lace curves around your hipbone and thins into see-through, dark fabric over your mound. Two strips of silk clasp your knickers to a pair of thin stockings that cinch the fat of your thighs, and the sight makes his mouth water.

“Welcome back,” you say once again, this time with soft amusement.

He looks like a proper idiot. Hand still on his crotch, practically feeling how his cock comes to a stand at the mere sight of you.

He gulps. Feels a little lightheaded. “F’ me?”

You smile, chuckling softly but not derisively. Simon follows your hand as you guide it over your belly, up to the valley of your breast, as if you’re there, showing the goods he can pick and taste.

“For you.”

Simon is stunned into silence again.

Fuck is he supposed to do, uh? He’d be content just looking at you lying there and looking like you came out of a magazine, instead of touching you and potentially ruining what you did just for—for him?

He must not have noticed how his whole body (aside from his cock) has gone into standby—entered sniper mode. He's quiet, breaths reduced and silent, eyes attentive and narrowed.

It's a handful of seconds that leave you uncomfortable, as your plastic pose softens, your smile faltering at the corners.

“You don’t like it?” You ask, trying to sound steady, but he picks up the nervousness in your tone right away.

He won’t let you have it, obviously. He snaps out of it and takes you in for what you are: a fucking present, on his bed, wrapped in strings and bows and lace like gift wrap.

“Shoulda guessed it was too much, maybe. Should’ve gone for somethin’ soft—"

Simon is on you in seconds. Grabs your face in his hands and smashes his lips to yours something fierce, nothing like you’ve ever experienced before. No hesitation. Simple, tangible desire. Scorching lust. Want. Need—fuck, he’s never kissed you like this.

Your eyes lose their surprise, and they slowly surrender to him—hands wandering down to help him out of his pants and briefs. And then you wrap your arms around his neck, grazing his scalp with your nails until he shivers.

Simon thought there was nothing comparable to the softness of your skin against the harder patches of scars freckling his abdomen. But he’s proved wrong when he feels the rough texture of your lace scratch his chest and his hips—it has him leaking embarrassingly quick.

He’s all lips and tongue as he races down your chest, sloppy kisses leaving a burning trail between your tits, down your belly, settling on your cunt covered by thin mesh.

Simon looks up at you, holding your thighs between thick fingers, smushing them against his cheeks. His eyes are hooded, dark, different. He tilts his head and bites into the plump flesh within reach—not enough to hurt, but sure enough to taste. Mercifully passes his tongue over the teeth marks before biting into it again, until the sting has you arching your back off the bed.

And he never breaks eye contact, which leaves you dumbfounded and flustered to the bone—because where is this confidence coming from? You’re wide-eyed and biting your own teeth in anticipation—this is all new and all the more exciting.

His kisses travel from the lines of your stretch marks up to your sex, where he doesn’t even bother moving the gusset of your knickers, and he just dives in.

Tongue flat against your cunt, drenching the sheer fabric with his spit and your moisture. Your moans are so soft compared to the sloppy mess he’s making of you down there, his insecurity blessed by a sort of beginner’s luck. Or maybe he’s just that hungry, and that is enough for your cunt flutter around nothing anyway.

You’re speechless when he finally lifts himself up, slotting his hips between your kiss-bitten thighs. His cock lands heavy on your pelvis, painting your lower belly with speckles of sheer precum. Head swollen and red right above your belly button.

You look at him wide-eyed, on your back, stock-still—anticipating his next move with your heart rate spiking.

He takes you completely by surprise (once again? In one night? Who is this man?), when he moves your knickers to the side, and instead of plunging in, he slides his cock between your folds and snaps the lace back above it. And then he starts rutting in shameless abandon, holding you steady by your thighs, letting the sheer fabric of your panties cover his tip and half of his shaft, as he runs himself back and forth over the surface of your pussy.

“M’gonna ruin it, sorry.” He croaks, as one of his hands comes to clumsily grab your tits through the lace. “So fuckin’ pretty—fuck—bloody hell, you—”

You coax him to go on with breathless moans because he’s never looked more breathtaking than he does now. Tiny drops of sweat drip from his forehead onto your belly, cheeks flushed and long lashes fanning his cheekbones. His lips yield a grunt each time the lace scratches his shaft. Your breath hitches each time the head of his cock catches your clit.

“Gonna buy ya a new one, yeah?” He grunts, looking down at the wet patch his cock is making through the lace. “Gonna buy ya fuckin’ ten.”

He’s never been this vocal, and you don’t dare to mouth a whisper in case he catches himself in the act. Not even when you cum, a short and stinging orgasm that makes your clit burn at the friction, do you dare to moan. You tilt your head back and shut your eyes, neck corded in the strain to keep it in, flushing with warmth in unbearable silence.

You think you hear his voice crack through the cotton in your ears when you come back down from your high. “Fuck—God, fuck. Wha’ a gift, eh? F’ me. All f’me.”

He pulls back a few moments later, taking his cock out of your panties and into a thick hand. A few pumps, and he cums on your lace, painting your belly and your cunt in glistening white.

He’s panting as his hand languidly comes to a halt. Chest flushed and with a thin layer of sweat over it.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, clearly dizzy—as if he needs to apologize for this. “I ruined it. I—just—gonna go grab somethin’ to—to clean y'up, wait 'ere—Jesus Christ.”

He slowly comes to stand, knees popping and legs shaking as he stumbles to the bathroom.

You look down at the spurts of cum covering your stomach and staining the lace of your panties, and then you flop your head back onto the mattress, wide eyes locked to the ceiling.

A chuckle of disbelief escapes you, still in shock from the sudden switch in behavior. And you think, when he comes back with a towel to clean the mess he’s made on your skin, that you might have to take another trip to the shop this weekend—buy yourself a new little piece.

But later, then, he falls asleep with his head on your chest, fingers lazily toying with the lace of your bra (because he’s asked you to keep it on, you know—“Like how 't feels”), and so you move up your shopping a little—already on your phone, running your thumb to skim through pinks and blues, laces and silks.

You might just order a new one right now.

It’s at that moment that he shifts in his sleep, slipping his hand under the band of your lacy bra and curling his fingers around your breast.

You change your mind.

You might just order ten.