It really was as simple as that—a woman you’d known for over a decade now was going through the worst breakup of her life, and she needed your support. You’d offered that support without hesitation, thinking nothing of the fact that you were in the healthiest of relationships yourself. You sure as hell never would’ve imagined a conversation like that could lead to this.

“His dick was huge, too,” your friend groaned across the line. You heard a shuffling of pillows and a soft thump, and you pictured her punting one off the bed.

You were lying on your stomach in your own bed several hundred miles away, holding your phone to your ear and trying to bite back a slow-growing grin.

“Couldn’t have been that big,” you hummed.

Again, your best friend groaned as if she were in pain.

“No, I’m telling you, the guy was fucking massive, hon. Just hung like a…a goddamn horse. I’m gonna be sick.”

“You can find another monster cock someday.”

“I don’t want to, though! It was so good.”

“You know, a big dick isn’t everything.”

Now you were trailing a finger over the embroidered edge of a pillowcase, trying your hardest not to think of the man who’d just slipped out of your sheets thirty minutes prior. Right before your friend had called with her devastating news, before you had been obliged to join the I-Hate-All-Men tirade of the century, you’d been getting put through the mattress by your boyfriend—a man who didn’t lie, or cheat on you, or steal, or shatter your heart into a million pieces.

A man whose dick was considerably bigger than most.

Simon was probably already three beers deep with his buddies at the pub down the road, the same lopsided, happy-go-lucky smile on his face he always wore when you and him had just had a quickie before he left home

Suddenly, the tail-end of a sentence snapped you out of your reverie, your friend’s tone loud and a little shrill:

“—easy for you to say!”

You blinked. “Easy f—wait, what?”

“Simon Riley. Love of your life.” You could imagine the woman snapping fingers in front of your face if she had been with you then, as if to say, Ring a bell? “Don’t even try to act like he isn’t a crazy good lay. And huge.”

Your cheeks heated at the accusation. Hell, you’d probably mentioned to friends in passing that your boyfriend was an altogether generous lover, a caring man in every respect, along with a couple other vague intimations about his prowess that would leave a whole lot more to the imagination than not, but this? You hadn’t even touched on anything about his size.

Normally, you wouldn’t engage in that kind of talk—at least not to that level of detail, revealing intimate facts.

But your best friend was hurting, and it seemed like she needed something to feel better in the moment.

So, shortly, it slipped out before you could think better:

“Simon’s not even big.”

Your mouth clamped shut as soon as you said it.

Liar, every fiber of your being hissed at once.

(Shut the fuck up, I’m helping a friend out)

“No way. You’re full of shit,” she giggled.

(Well, yes)

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

You swallowed hard. Already hating yourself as the silence across the line stretched on and you knew your friend expected you to elaborate, and then you did.

“Honestly, it’s pretty, um…small. And—And that’s OK! Like, nobody’s perfect. The sex with him is still so great, and if anything, it’s nice not having such a big dick to worry about, y’know? So don’t feel like dating a smaller guy is so bad. You can still have amazing sex.”

You tried to end it on a positive note—the message you meant to get across, which was that the girl could be happy with a guy of any size and she didn’t need to stay hung up on her stupid ex—but it fell flat, even to your own ears. Clearly, you’d dropped a bombshell.

“But he is just…such a big dude. You’d think—”

“No, I know, Simon’s tall,” you interrupted hastily. Wincing. “But like I was saying, you can still do a lot with an average-sized dick. Or—Or even a tiny one.”

“It’s tiny?!”

Fucking shit.

“No, no, no, not tiny! I mean, not that…tiny. He’s fine.”

Your pulse was pounding so loud in your ears you could hardly hear yourself think. Or breathe. Or lie. Or try to piece together the most incoherent string of words that came out a little something like, ‘Seriously, uh…Simon’s the sweetest guy I’ve ever dated, and um…dick size doesn’t even really matter. The big ones hurt. I mean, the guy’s not huge, but not tiny, and—’

“Well shit, lovie, how fuckin’ little are we talkin’ here?”

At the rumble of a voice by your other, phone-free ear, you nearly jumped and catapulted your device across the room. You would’ve yelped, too, had it not been for a big, broad palm clamping over your mouth. As a familiar weight and breadth and scent settled over your being—a body coming to lay on top of you from behind—your friend continued to chatter on the line, clueless.

“OK, OK, I get it. Love a guy of any size. And Simon’s not perfect—even though that fucker’s about as delectable as you can get in every other way…”

While the woman’s voice faded off into a far-distant hum rattling off Simon’s best qualities and lamenting the odds she’d ever find a man quite so wonderful, you were confronted with several of these same features at once: his wide, muscular chest blanketing the back of you entirely; his stubble tickling the cusp of your cheek as he leaned in close; his strength pinning you to the bed and only loosening the grip around your mouth a little; and of course, there was that voice again, lower—

“Too bad about my microdick, huh?” Simon chuckled.

“—and I bet he knows how to use it!” your friend went on, not hearing a word of what was going on with you.

“Hey, uh—hey, I’ve gotta go. I think I—” you started.

As soon as you did, though, you felt the pressure on your spine soar to new heights. You let out a low whine.

Simon was crushing you now.

Your friend cut in, “Yeah? You OK?”

Before you could attempt a reply, the hand that had once been covering your lips lowered to just underneath your chin; Simon squeezed your throat.

Playfully, he made clear by nipping at your earlobe.

“No need to stop on my account,” he murmured.

So, rushed and more than a little flustered now, you made up some excuse on the phone about mistakenly hearing the doorbell, and you let your friend forge on. You dropped the phone onto the bed by your pillow.

Then you turned your head, the rest of your body immobilized by the heft of your boyfriend’s weight on your back, and you finally, finally got to meet his gaze.

Behind you, Simon was smirking.

His whole demeanor betrayed amusement.

It wasn’t every day the man got to hear his dick was the size of something much smaller than it actually was, you reckoned. Still, he deserved an explanation.

“S-Si…” You tried to grit out a whisper, deflated by his weight and forced to hide your words from your friend.

Never mind the fact that your boyfriend looked, smelled, and felt just as irresistible as he had when he left home less than an hour ago. A simple, all-black ensemble fit him like a second skin and accentuated every mouthwatering ridge of his body, most visible to you in the glimpse of his bicep you caught under your chin. He was warm. Solid. Drenched in that dizzyingly potent sandalwood aftershave that you liked so much.

You’d never tapped the ‘mute’ on your phone so fast.

“Shit, Si, I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean— I only said it— she’s going through a breakup right now, and I just t—”

Simon hit ‘unmute,’ followed by ‘speakerphone.’

He leaned back.

“…but what reeeally fucked me up was how he acted after. Like, couldn’t even look me in the eye, the dick…”

Your friend prattled on—back to sinking neck-deep in a story of how shitty the dating scene was and how she should’ve given up ages ago—while you flitted your gaze to your phone. You stared in awe, wondering why the fuck Simon had decided to tap those buttons in a moment like this, and questions started to bubble up.

At the same time, you heard the clink of a belt buckle.

Simon knelt behind you. He straddled your ass, and when you tried to sit up, he pressed a palm to the center of your back. He moved about it all swiftly.

Finally, the quietest, quickest hiss, ‘Si, what the fu—’

“Spit.”

That part, he said too loud. But the man didn’t seem to care much at all as he reached with his other hand and stuck his upturned palm under your face, waiting for it.

“What did you say?” your friend cut in presently.

Your face stung with embarrassment—at just the prospect of being found out by someone who had no concept of what was going on—that you forced it out:

“N-Nothing. Keep going.”

You spit in Simon’s hand like he’d told you.

Your phone couldn’t have been resting more than two or three inches from your face on the bed, and the space in general was small. There wasn’t a lot to be done by way of masking your activity, other than to simply hang up the fucking phone, but it didn’t sound like discretion and decorum and being considerate were at the top of Simon’s list of priorities right now.

Still, you felt a press of his lips against the back of your neck before he mumbled, “Remember our safewords?”

You did.

‘Yellow’ to slow down, ‘red’ to stop.

It wasn’t often you had to use the words with Simon, but from time to time, in particularly heated and impassioned moments, you appreciated the safety net.

And freeuse was something relatively new to you both—just accepting him in and letting him have his way with you at random points during your day, casually.

It didn’t make it any less tricky, or jarring, when the man next pushed inside you, bottoming out in one go.

Your sleep shorts tugged to the side, lying facedown underneath this massive, hulking man, you had only to grit your teeth and feel yourself stretched to full capacity with the shove of Simon’s bare cock in you.

“Oh, fuck,” you let out, hoarse.

“No, right? It was so gross, honestly.”

Amidst the airing of your friend’s mile-long list of grievances against her ex, your boyfriend settled his full, thick, demonstrably larger than average dick in your body until it felt like he was scraping your lungs.

You clawed the sheets and squirmed under him.

“That feel tiny to you, sweetheart?” Simon’s mouth was right next to your ear now, whispering filth while your walls stretched and squeezed to accommodate him. Warmth leaked out from where you connected.

You shook your head weakly, barely able to breathe.

It somehow made it even wilder and more maddening to have your senses deprived—Simon behind you, restricting your movements, with you obliged not to make a sound at the pleasure he was inflicting on you.

Your hips pinned to those pretty, floral-patterned sheets and your pussy made to gape in a perfectly wide ‘o’ around Simon’s whole cock, you felt helpless.

Stretched.

Protected, still.

Simon hadn’t even withdrawn to get a full stroke in, and he was already caressing your cheek with the backs of his knuckles, giving you more time to adjust to him. His tip kissed your cervix, and a heat sank in.

“Sweet dove’s still sore from earlier, yeah?” he murmured. “Didn’t think I gave her that much…”

But he did, of course.

“—couldn’t even make me cum—” your friend went on

Simon always gave you enough.

Just as your walls preemptively clenched around that slick, hard length and the man started to stir, rolling his hips against your ass in the shallowest of movements, your lips parted on a half-moan. Your chest constricted

“—it must be so much better with Simon, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, your boyfriend took a fistful of your hair.

In a murmur again, close to your ear:

“Go on, then. Don’t be impolite.”

“S-So, so good,” you rushed out. Those thrusts finally picked up, and Simon fucked you quietly into the bed. You sucked in another strangled breath, and trying your hardest not to moan, “He’s fucking…incredible.”

“I bet,” your friend laughed.

More shit-talking of men ensued.

Simon returned to his original, dominant position blanketing your body completely with his own, forearms planted on either side of your head on the bed and your phone resting inches away from you both. His cock pounded a furious pace inside you, precum and spit and your shared fluids easing the repeated slide. You gripped the sheets tighter, and Simon did the same with his ironclad hold in your hair.

Then his cock slid in higher, a little to the left, and the tip of him hit that special, tender, mind-numbing spot.

You felt the grin against the side of your face before you heard him chuckle, quiet as anything but elated.

Simon was the only guy who’d hit your G-spot before.

He hit it again. And again. And again, shaking the whole bed frame with the force of his thrusts. He kissed your neck and let your head loll back on him. While your friend chattered on, he did what he did best

“That’s a good girl,” he praised. “Gonna come f’me?”

You nodded, head bobbing against his softly.

If there were any moment for retribution, now would be it. If Simon were even the slightest bit the spiteful, insecure type, he probably would’ve taken the opportunity to make you beg for him—tell him how huge his cock was and how lucky you were to get it; how terrible it was to lie about a thing like size. It was.

But Simon didn’t, opting instead to give you pleasure. And he got plenty from you, too, you could tell by the breaths that were growing more and more ragged against your neck and the frantic stutter of his hips.

He was so big it was as if you could feel him in your throat. With every thrust that pushed you closer and closer to the edge, and with every twitch of every inch stuffed inside you, you feared you might not be able to conceal the sounds from your friend for much longer.

Your jaw unhinged on another wide-open, noiseless moan that probably made it look like you were in pain, and at the same time, your friend carried on over the phone, laughing about this loser’s goofy fucking face.

“Yellow?” Simon panted into your ear.

In other words, did you want him to slow down?

You shook your head no. Let him pelt your insides with the force of those hard, merciless thrusts and carve a path clean through your body in a way that only he ever could. He molded you to him perfectly. Tenderly.

Crescents digging into your scalp from how tightly he held you to him, you felt Simon twitch and keep beating your G-spot while you writhed under him, “You wanted a big dick, yeah? Don’t run from it now.”

It was in those words—paired with the obvious stretch and the depths your boyfriend was able to reach with his cock, how lovingly he fucked you while controlling your pleasure—that you broke. You couldn’t hold it in.

At the last possible second, Simon offered you his free hand to cover your mouth, knowing how loud you were liable to get, and you let out a muffled shriek into his palm. You grit your teeth and whimpered and kind of despised how high-pitched and needy you sounded, but you knew Simon loved it, almost as much as he adored the slippery wet noises your body and his made when he was emptying the contents of his balls into your cunt and fucking you senseless through all of it.

You finished as close as you were when you’d started, Simon’s chest glued onto your back. You both were breathing heavily, senses reeling from your highs. Simon’s cum stayed plugged in you with his thick cock holding it there, and the heat burrowed to your core.

You blinked, and you smiled contentedly at the warmth

Simon planted kisses wherever he could find bare skin for them to go, along your jaw and on your cheek and over your ear, like he always did after you two had sex.

“Wasn’t too far, was it?” he whispered. “Know I’m—”

“—big,” you giggled, barely louder than a breath after his hand had slid from your lips and cupped your face.

Then you went on, as the haze in your mind was starting to clear the slightest bit, and you remembered why you were here in the first place, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything about your size, Si. I’m—”

“—going to bed!” your friend announced suddenly.

Your attention and Simon’s snapped back to the phone

With all that had been going on over the last couple minutes, you’d almost forgotten the woman was still on the line at all. She’d been talking before that, right?

“I— OK. Yeah, no, that’s fine,” you said, stupidly. Then, regaining a bit more of your composure, “I’m so sorry about everything that’s been going on with…him. You deserve so much better, and you will find better, OK?”

That sounded coherent enough.

You would call again tomorrow. Really listen and be there to offer more helpful advice than you’d done tonight—this was more about letting her vent, anyway.

So, reaching for the phone and expecting to hear your best friend chirp a quick, simple good-bye at any second, you lifted your hips back against Simon. You angled his still-hard dick inside you and pushed him deeper through the sticky warm mess he’d just coated your walls with, and you bit back a smile when he grunted. You met his eyes over your shoulder, and you felt his grip on your chin flex. His gaze sharpened.

But, before he could smirk and murmur in your ear something like, ‘Round three can be arranged if you really want it,’ your friend cut in again over the line.

Her voice rang louder, and a little lighter, too, this time.

“Goooooodniiiiiiiiiight, hon, I love you so, so much!”

“I love you, too. Night!” you answered reflexively.

Then, your friend added, as swift as anything:

“And goodnight to you, too, Simon! Glad to hear that microdick’s being put to good use, happy for you two!”

He rolls you over with fluid strength. You straddle his hips, knees sinking into the mattress. The sheet falls away, leaving you bare to the cool morning light. His body sprawls beneath you, powerful and ready.

You rise up and guide him to your entrance. Hot, blunt heat against slick skin draws a sharp moan from you both. You sink down, taking him inch by excruciating inch until you sit flush against his lap.

Simon groans, hands gripping your waist like a lifeline. His head falls back, jaw clenched, the muscles in his neck standing out in sharp relief.

You begin to move; a slow, sinuous roll of your hips. Hands braced on his chest, you feel the firm muscle and the soft, solid power of him beneath your palms. Your hair falls forward, shutting out the world. You lean down, taking his mouth in a deep, languid kiss. A share of breath and taste.

The pace gathers heat. The bed creaks softly, a steady cadence beneath the sound of your mingled breathing.

"You're so beautiful, Si," you whisper against his lips.

He opens his eyes, raw and hungry. "Look who's talking," he growls, one hand moving up to cradle your face, thumb stroking your cheek. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Riding me like this... Christ."

A whimper escapes you as the pleasure coils tight. You sit tall, changing the angle, and he hits deep enough to make sparks dance behind your eyes.

“Ohhh fuck, Si…”

"Shhh," he hushes, his grip on your hips guiding you, setting a pace that makes you see stars. "Gotta be quiet, doll. Johnny's right outside."

The threat of being heard sharpens every sensation. You bite your lip to muffle the moans tearing at your throat. Simon’s hand rests at your neck—a grounding, possessive weight. His hips drive upward to meet every downstroke, each movement devastatingly precise.

"I love you," you whisper.

His response is a choked groan. He pulls you tight against his chest, crushing you to him. "I love you," he breathes, his voice breaking. "My girl. My whole world."

The orgasm hits like a rolling wave, crashing over you from the inside out. You clamp down around him, a silent scream locked in your throat as shockwaves ripple through your body. He holds you through the tremor, whispering low praises until the shaking stops.

Before you can cool, he rolls you over, pinning you beneath him without ever slipping out. He braces himself on his forearms, caging you in, his iron composure completely shattered.

"Where...?" he pants against your skin.

"Inside," you whisper, fingers laced in his hair. "Always inside."

With a few hard, erratic thrusts, he follows you over the edge. The thick pulse of him fills you, a primal groan muffled against your shoulder. His body shudders against yours, then settles, heavy and warm.

You lie together as your heartbeats slow to a shared measure. Outside, the soft sounds of the kitchen continue, distant and irrelevant.

You kiss his temple. You feel his lips curve against your skin.

"I think I smell coffee," you murmur.

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

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

“What?”

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

For a second, he just stares at you.

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

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

Not mine.

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

So you just stare at him.

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

His gloves, first.

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

Your gaze flicks lower.

His shirt, too.

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

He cleaned up.

The thought comes through the haze in pieces.

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

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

Simon watches your mouth form the words.

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

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

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

A cold thread winds through the heat in your stomach.

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

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

Simon’s hand slides slowly from your hip.

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

Thumb resting over your pulse. Counting it.

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

Your breath locks. You blink at him, stupidly.

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

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

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

Your nails bite into his shoulder.

“I-I—“ you whimper. “Si—“

His hips move before you can say anything else.

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

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

Your stomach twists.

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

He pulls out just to thrust in again.

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

Simon feels it.

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

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

There is blood on him.

Someone else’s blood.

Graves’s blood.

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

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

Clean enough. Except for the one place he missed.

Simon watches the realization move across your face.

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

Your voice is barely a whisper.

His answer is immediate. “I hit him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It doesn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

Simon feels it. Of course he does.

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

Your face burns.

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

His mouth shifts beneath the mask. “Oh.”

The sound is low. Cruel in its understanding.

Your pulse kicks under his thumb. “Simon—”

“There she is.”

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

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

“You liked that.” He croons.

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

“N-no.”

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

“Liar.”

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

And now he has caught you reacting to it.

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

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

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

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

“You should be callin’ me reckless.”

Another thrust. Your eyes squeeze shut.

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

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

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

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

You swallow. “You can’t—”

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

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

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

“I can’t what?” He murmurs.

You try.

You really do.

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

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

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

You can’t.

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

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

“Too far gone to scold me now?”

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

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

“I’m, mmff—serious,” you whisper.

“So am I.”

“Simon—”

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

Your breath leaves you in a gasp.

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

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

Your face burns hotter.

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes flash. “There she is.”

“I mean it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

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

“Try that again.”

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

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

“Probably.”

“Price is going to—”

“Already did.”

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

His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist.

“Read me the riot act.”

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

“Yes.”

Something in your chest tightens. “Why?”

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

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

God. You think he’s lost his mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You squirm under him, helpless. “Simon—”

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

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

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

You do.

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

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

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

You barely manage the whisper. “What?”

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

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

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

“Leave it.”

Your breath trembles. “Why?”

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

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

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

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

The flat has no air conditioning because Simon is, at his core, a man who believes suffering builds character and that a desk fan pointed at the bed is a reasonable substitute for modern climate control.

So you've been lying on the kitchen floor in your knickers for the better part of an hour, cheek pressed to the tile, when you hear his key in the lock.

He's come home from the gym. You know this before you see him because you can smell him the second the door opens—that warm, salt-heavy wave of clean sweat and cheap deodorant losing its war and something underneath that's just him, dense and male and so fundamentally Simon that your brain whites out for a second like a computer hitting a critical error.

He rounds the corner and finds you on the floor. Doesn't blink.

"Heatstroke?"

"Almost."

"Drink water."

"No."

He steps over you to get to the fridge, and the smell of him hits you full force.

The cotton of his shirt is damp at the collar and under the arms and clinging to the small of his abnormally broad back, and when he reaches up to grab a glass from the cabinet his shirt rides up and you get a flash of his stomach, the trail of hair below his navel, and the waistband of his shorts sitting low on his hips, and something in your hindbrain just snaps.

You don't make a conscious decision. One moment you're on the floor. The next you're standing behind him with your nose pressed into the space between his shoulder blades, inhaling like you're trying to extract his soul through his t-shirt.

He goes still. Glass in hand. Tap running.

"Whot're y'doin'."

It's not a question. It's a statement—delivered all flat and measured, the voice he uses on comms when someone is doing something tactically stupid and he's deciding whether to intervene or let natural selection handle it.

"You smell good," you mutter into the damp cotton, which is—objectively insane.

He smells like a man who just did over ninety minutes of deadlifts in thirty-degree heat. He smells like exertion and iron and the ghost of this morning's soap buried under hours of sweat. He smells absolutely incredible.

"I smell like a bloody gym bag."

"Yes." You press closer.

And your arms come around his waist and your hands flatten against his stomach, feeling his abs flex, and you drag your nose up the line of his spine to the nape of his neck where his hair is damp and the scent is concentrated, thick and warm and salty, and the sound you make is embarrassing.

It's a sound that belongs in a nature documentary. The sound a wolf makes finding its mate's trail.

Simon turns the tap off. Sets the glass down.

"You're sniffin' me."

"Mm-hm."

"Haven't showered yet."

"I know." You say it like that's the point, because it is, and you feel the exact moment he processes that by the way his stomach tenses under your palms, the slow, deliberate way he turns around and looks down at you.

His pale face is flushed from the heat. Dirty blonde hair pushed back and slick at the temples. There's a bead of sweat tracking down the side of his neck and you want to lick it, and something in your expression must telegraph that thought clearly because his dark eyes go half-lidded and the corner of his mouth twitches, twisted by a scar.

"Filthy girl," he says, low and warm and not remotely disapproving.

You lose your mind a little.

It gets worse from there. Or better. Depends who you ask.

Simon comes home from a five-day exercise on Salisbury Plain—unwashed, kit bag reeking, the smell of him so potent that it practically has its own postcode—and you ambush him in the hallway before he's even got his boots off.

Shoving your face into his neck as he drops the bag before his mammoth hands come up to grip your hips, and the noise he makes is quiet and dark and satisfied, like this is exactly what he expected and he's been thinking about it for five days.

"Missed me, then," he murmurs against the top of your head, and his voice has that edge it gets—the arrogant one, the one that knows precisely what effect he has and has decided to be insufferable about it.

"Take your shirt off," you demand, tugging at the fabric impatiently.

"Haven't even locked the fuckin' door."

"Take your shirt off."

And he takes his shirt off.

And you, you're past the point of pretending this is normal when you press your face into his chest and breathe him in, the dip of his sternum, the hollow of his collarbone, the coarse hair that covers his pecs.

He smells like five days of sweat and gun oil and British weather and the base layer he hasn't changed since Tuesday, and you're making noises against his skin that are genuinely unhinged—little huffs and hums and one actual, literal whimper when you find the crease where his arm meets his torso and the scent is so strong your vision blurs.

His armpit.

You have your nose in his armpit. You are a woman with a degree and a mortgage and you are huffing your boyfriend's unwashed armpit in the hallway of your shared home and making sounds like you've found God.

Simon's hand comes up to cradle the back of your head. Not pulling you away but holding you there.

"That's rank, luv," he says, conversationally. "Haven't washed in days."

You whimper again. He feels it against his skin and his fingers tighten in your hair and his chest expands with a slow, controlled breath that you've learned to identify as Simon Riley exercising enormous restraint.

"You're proper fucked in the head," he tells you, fond as anything, sporting a throbbing erection in his tac pants.

"Your bloody fault."

You drag your mouth across to the other side. Equal opportunity. His skin is salt-warm and slightly tacky and you tongue the hollow of his throat on the way and he makes a sound—a real one, rough and low—and his hips shift forward and you feel exactly how okay he is with all of this pressing hard against your stomach.

The thing about Simon is that he's a hypocrite.

He'll call you unhinged and stand there with that flat, unimpressed expression while you bury your face in his worn hoodie that he deliberately left on the back of the sofa. He'll raise one split eyebrow when you steal his pillow on the nights he's away because it still smells like his shampoo and his skin.

But then you'll catch him.

You'll catch him pressing his nose into your hair when he thinks you're asleep, breathing slow and deep like he's memorising you. You'll catch him picking up the shirt and knickers you wore yesterday and holding them to his face for just a second before tossing it in the wash.

And you'll catch him pulling you onto his lap after his run and settling you so your face tucks against his neck, unprompted, like he's offering himself, and when you latch on and inhale he'll sigh this long, heavy, settled exhale, like a man setting down something he's been carrying for a very long time.

He likes it. He more than likes it.

He loves that you want him like this—graceless and desperate and raw.

Loves that it's not the clean, put-together version of him that gets you going, but the unwashed, sweating, human animal underneath.

He loves it because Simon Riley has spent his entire adult life being a weapon, a ghost, a thing behind a mask, and you're down on your knees in the hallway sniffing him like a deranged bloodhound because he smells like himself and that's enough to make you lose your mind.

He'll never say it. But his hand in your hair says it. The way he tilts his chin up to give you access says it. The way he comes home from a run and finds you on the sofa and stands in front of you, shirt dark with sweat, and waits—just waits expectantly—with that barely-there smirk until you reach for him.

The worst instance—the one that becomes legend, the one that Simon would murder you for if you ever told a living soul—happens on a Saturday afternoon.

He's been out on a long run. It's hot again. He comes through the door in shorts and a vest that's soaked through, and he's flushed and breathing hard, and you're sitting on the kitchen counter eating an apple and you just stop chewing, eyes big. Mid-bite. Like a prey animal that's just spotted a predator.

Your eyes drop from his face to his chest to the dark trail of hair disappearing into the waistband of his running shorts, and then lower, to where the thin material is clinging with sweat and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, and your brain produces a single, coherent thought:

I need to put my face there.

Simon follows your gaze. Looks down at himself. Looks back at you.

"No."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have'ta. I can hear ya bloody thinkin'." He grabs a cold water bottle. Takes a long drink. A drop escapes down his jaw and tracks along his throat. "The answer's no. I'm disgustin'."

You put the apple down.

"I will literally get on my knees right now, Si."

He chokes on the water. Actually coughs—Lieutenant Simon Riley, the man who has been waterboarded and didn't flinch—and when he recovers, his eyes are dark and his voice is rougher than it was ten seconds ago.

"You're a fuckin' menace, luv."

"And you fucking love it."

He stares at you. You stare back, unblinking. The kitchen is very quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the sound of your shared dignity circling the drain.

He sets the water bottle down. Leans back against the opposite counter. Spreads his stance—just slightly, just enough—and the look he gives you is the most arrogant, self-satisfied, obscene thing you've ever seen on a human face. The whore.

"Come here, then."

You have never moved faster in your life.

You slide off the counter and cross the kitchen in two steps, and then you're on your knees on the tile in front of him, and he's looking down at you with that heavy-lidded expression that's half disbelief and half want—raw and dark and barely controlled.

"Christ," he mutters, and his hand comes up to cup the side of your face, thumb dragging across your cheekbone. "Fuckin' look at you."

You nuzzle into the front of his shorts before he can say anything else. Press your open, wet mouth against the shape of him through the thin, sweat-damp material, and the sound he makes—low, involuntary, and punched out of his chest—sends a hot pulse of satisfaction straight through you.

He's already half-hard and you can smell him here, concentrated and musky and so overwhelmingly male that your eyes flutter shut and you moan against the fabric like you've been starving for it.

"Fuck." His hand slides into your hair. Not pushing, not yet. Just there. "You're really goin' to—"

You tug his shorts down. He helps, lifts his hips off the counter just enough, and then there's nothing between you and the thick, flushed length of him, and the scent hits you unfiltered. Skin and salt and the dark, heady musk of sweat pooled in the crease of his thick thigh, and you bury your nose there first, dragging your tongue along the join of his hip and his leg, tasting the salt on his skin, lapping it up like it's something precious.

"Jesus." His thigh tenses against your cheek. His fingers tighten in your hair. "That's—You're actually—"

You lick a broad, flat stripe up the underside of his cock, base to tip, and his sentence dies in his throat when you slowly stroke his foreskin back, revealing his glistening tip.

He tastes like sweat and skin and Simon, bitter-salt and warm, and you take the head into your mouth with a groan that vibrates through him and makes his hips jerk forward. You feel the twitch of restraint in his grip, how he stops himself from thrusting, and you reach up and grab his wrist and pull, giving him permission.

He swears. Low and filthy and barely audible.

You take him deeper. Relax your throat and let him slide heavy over your tongue, and you can taste every inch of him. The clean salt of fresh sweat, the musk that clings to the coarse hair at his base when you press your nose into it, the slick of pre-come that you chase with your tongue and swallow without hesitation.

And you're sloppy about it. Graceless. Drooling and gagging and moaning around him like you're the one getting something out of this, and the thing is—you are. Your thighs are pressed together and you're grinding against nothing and you're so wet it's obscene, all from the taste and smell of his unwashed, post-run, sweat-soaked body filling your mouth and bursting on your tastebuds.

"Look at me," he rasps, and when you drag your eyes up the length of his body—his clenched stomach, his heaving chest, the dark flush spreading across his collarbones—his expression nearly undoes you. It's wrecked.

The arrogance is still there but it's cracked open, underlaid with something raw and desperate that Simon Riley does not let anyone see, ever, and his chiseled jaw is tight and his lips are parted and he's watching you with the kind of focus he usually reserves for a scope.

"Fuckin' perfect," he grits out. "Taking me so—fuck—so well, that's it—"

You hollow your cheeks and suck, hard, and his head drops back against the cabinet with a dull thud. His hips stutter forward, once, twice, and you feel the tension coiling in his thighs, the tremor in his hand where it's fisted in your hair, and you pull back just enough to tongue at the slit, taste the fresh salt of him leaking onto your tongue, then swallow him down again as deep as you can take him.

He comes with a groan that sounds like it's ripped out of him—low and broken and long, and his hand holds you steady while his hips pulse forward and you swallow every drop of it, hot and salty on the back of your tongue, and you keep swallowing, keep licking him through it until his thigh is shaking against your cheek and his grip in your hair softens from holding to cradling and the sound he's making is just breath—ragged, shattered breath.

You pull off slowly. Press one last, open-mouthed kiss to the crease of his thigh, tasting the sweat still cooling there. Look up at him.

He looks properly ruined. Chest heaving, eyes half-closed, lips bitten red. And he looks down at you on your knees on his kitchen floor with your swollen mouth and your wild eyes, and the corner of his lips curves into something that's too undone to be a smirk.

"C'mere," he murmurs, and pulls you up into his lap on the floor.

And later—much later, after you've done things on the kitchen floor that would get you both banned from polite society—he's lying on his back on the tile with you draped across his chest, both of you disgusting, and he's running his fingers through your hair with this idle, lazy contentment that he only ever shows when it's just the two of you.

"You're absolutely mental, woman," he deadpans. "You're aware, yeah?"

"You literally invited me."

He clicks his tongue. "Didn't say I was complainin'."

Then his calloused hand drifts down your back, and he pulls you closer. His nose presses into your temple and he inhales slow, deliberate, tasting the smell of your sweat and his sweat and the two of them mingled together—and the rumble in his chest when he exhales is so deep that you practically feel it in your teeth.

"Good girl," he says quietly, into your hair. "Fuckin' feral, but good."