#trauma!

Preliminary Assessment

The first time you spent time with him outside of work had its own strange sincerity. Smaller, quieter, and increasingly more dangerous the more gentle it pretended to be.

Weighed down by nothing but a fitted sheet and a duvet twisted into a careless heap, buried under a scatter of clothes you’d never seen him wear: simple, civilian pieces, impossible to tell if they were clean or abandoned. Tossed aside like an afterthought.

A mattress on the floor. No frame. 

You sat cross-legged on the edge, pretending your phone held more gravity than the man humming with calculation three feet away. Apps opened and closed under your thumb, your screen locking and unlocking in a jittery rhythm you couldn’t control. Your thoughts scrambled too fast for the text in front of you to make sense.

Why would Rick Prime, the Outer Ring authority, walking knife’s edge in a lab coat, live in a shitty apartment furnished like a half-abandoned frat crash pad? None of it fit the man you saw every day.

Laughing at the idea snuffed like a match. The more you looked, the clearer it became: this had to be intentional.

The details hit one by one. A kitchenette with nothing but a half bottle of something cheap and a row of nutrient bars still sealed. No tech consoles, no datapads. No trinkets. No mess that meant anything.

“You don’t live here,” you said, and it came out sounding like you were accusing the room rather than him.

Prime didn’t blink. “Correct.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t soften the edges of the word, didn’t bother filling the silence with anything that might make this apartment make sense. He simply stood there watching you work through the reality of it.

He watched the realization unravel there on your face, watched you try to reconcile the man you knew with the place that absolutely wasn’t his.

“Confusing?” he asked eventually, his tone touched with a faint, dry amusement. “Good. Means you’re paying attention.”

He moved past you with slow precision, close enough that the air between you changed. You tracked him as he crossed to the dryer, opened it casually, and pulled out a heap of clothes he’d washed.

It took you a second to register what you were looking at. These weren’t the mismatched casual shirts thrown across the bed. These weren’t the soft, unfamiliar clothes that made no sense on him. These were his real clothes, the ones you saw him wear to work every day, pressed and severe, the monochrome pieces that matched the man who inspected your deck and ad-sets with razor-bright scrutiny.

He snapped one shirt out and began folding it with mechanical precision. The lines sharpened under his hands exactly the way they looked when he wore them. Something uneasy twisted through your chest.

“But... you do your laundry here?” you asked, unsure why the idea unsettled you as much as it did.

Prime didn’t look up. “That surprises you.”

“You just said you don’t live here.”

“I don’t,” he replied, still folding. “This place is useful. That’s different.”

Useful. Not home. Not personal. Function, not belonging. A den. A drop point. A place to disappear into without leaving anything of himself behind.

You stared at the growing stack of folded shirts. So familiar, so perfectly him. The truth sank in with a dull, heavy thud. This place wasn’t part of his life. It was part of his schedule. And somehow, you were slotted at the end of his day.

Prime finally lifted his head enough to catch your expression, and a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth, smug and sharp. “You’re figuring it out,” he murmured. “Smart girl.”

Tangled between irritation and curiosity. Analyzing his space was the last thing you thought you'd be doing here tonight. It wasn't the premise, wasn't the unspoken promise you'd solidified with him only an hour before.

He set the finished shirt aside and watched you with a form of quiet satisfaction. Prime gave a small, unconcerned shrug. “A man in my position needs alternatives.”

“So this is just… what? A place you use?” you asked.

“For what I want,” he said simply. His gaze slid over you in a slow, deliberate sweep. “And who.”

"Are bed frames too expensive these days?" You pointed out the offense. He'd invited you here for more than laundry, surely. Unless you'd misread the situation entirely; you thought he'd spelled it out for you.

The complaint hung between you like a question you weren’t ready for. This didn’t match anything you’d imagined on the drive over. Prime, mattress on the floor, folding shirts like someone with a soul.

If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought you’d gotten the wrong apartment. He started a second load one shirt at a time, the soft thuds of fabric hitting metal just loud enough to mark time.

“Are bed frames too expensive?” he echoed, lips twitching. “Cute.”

He stepped toward you, slow, deliberate, closing the distance like he owned the air in between.

“You’re not confused because of the mattress,” he gestured. “You’re confused because this isn’t the space you imagined being alone with me in.”

His voice dipped lower. “And you’re trying very hard not to admit that.”

You weren’t sure what to make of it, not really.

Part of you was proud. Stupidly, dangerously proud to be one of the few he let this close. You’d offered just enough of yourself to interest him. Presented yourself exactly as he’d engineered you to, and for a moment you let that feel like success. 

Even if this was just one of his temporary spaces, one of his nowhere-rooms. Some pathetic part of you still counted it as being chosen. It was a staging ground. A controlled environment. And you were the variable. You still wanted, needed, to believe the invitation meant something more than science.

✧

Earlier that evening, the message slid across your screen like a provocation, a trap you walked into willingly.

A line cast glittering with the kind of dangerous subtext you’d let spool too far already. A thread tugged from the depths, baited too deep to resurface. 

You’d been the one sending bold little echoes throughout the day. Words tossed like coins into dark water, hoping he’d catch the shape of them. Of course he would. You knew he would.

You’d fed the line and then he tugged it tight.

All the flirtatious static of the past month finally converged into something sharp and his message had cut through all of it. Refusing was no longer an option.

'Prove it.'

Even after a full shift running the orbital beauty deck, stretched thin managing a starlit cosmetics hub on the Outer Ring. You’d floated between cargo bays and sales floors, sprinting between broken holo-palettes and impatient clients. Putting out managerial fires that sparked faster than you could snuff them.

Efficiency demanded you split yourself into four people; the station never cared you were only one and the Outer Ring’s ever-present rush rarely promised space to breathe.

You saw him almost every day, though not because he had any business with cosmetics. Rick Prime oversaw the entire Outer Ring Operations Division (OROD), from freight routing to the R&D tech embedded in every fluxshadow and quantum tag your store depended on. If a display flickered, if a scanner misread stock, if freight arrived two minutes off schedule, he appeared. Always under the pretense of inspections, system checks, “observational data.” Your deck wasn’t just retail. It was one of his testbeds. And you, unfortunately, were one of the metrics he measured most closely.

His position sat cleanly above yours—oversight, audit, merchandising—anything ops was yours to answer for. Planogram deviations, delayed inventory adjustments, any margin of error so small it barely existed; it all traced back to you. With him, it was never the system that failed. It was your hands. Your oversight. Your responsibility to correct. Fault irrelevant. Classic management, really.

He’d been in the store earlier, overseeing plano adjustments with that cold precision he carried everywhere. You passed him when you came in for your closing shift, familiar tension flickering between you. He left a few hours later, but not before reminding you he knew exactly how to get under your skin.

Not with anything blatant. He never needed that. It was the way he paused behind you while you set endcaps, hovered close enough that you felt the heat of him. The way his presence ghosted over the bottom shelf you were adjusting, knuckles brushing against the back of your head like it was an accident as you wrestled slatwall panels into place. The way he hummed a low, amused sound when you stiffened and pretended you didn’t notice.

The dynamic wasn’t new. He initiated pull months ago; you swayed. A pattern formed. A ritual, almost. Not spoken aloud, never defined, but undeniably real.

You'd offered some part of yourself in the quiet. Your attention, your stance, your pulse. Prime pocketed it, unhurried and certain, like it was already his. And in return, he gave you those deliberate inches of proximity, those soft-voiced corrections, those glances that felt like being pinned and studied.

A prelude to what he really wanted: the slow pull only ever had one direction to go.

He grew bolder in the way a man does when he’s already mapped out every reaction you’re capable of. Designed it that way. Each day he pressed a little further, testing how close he could get, how much he could say, how sharply he could pull on the invisible string he’d tied to you. 

Prime catalogued you long before you knew you were under his study. Once he had the data he advanced with lethal precision. He pushed exactly where you’d yield and pressed exactly where you’d resist simply because he’d already decided resistance was just another way of telling him where to touch.

When he realized you couldn’t cut it—wouldn't cut it—when you startled but stayed, he stopped pretending restraint had anything to do with patience.

Prime told you what he envisioned, what he expected, what he planned to take from you like he was reciting data he’d already verified. Not a question. Not an invitation. A controlled reveal spoken in his language. The kind meant to make your pulse spike, your logic falter, your defenses rise just enough to give him something entertaining.

And it worked. God, it worked. Your body answered before your mind even formed a thought, leaning toward the pressure he created, toward the space he carved out for himself inside you. Because he didn’t just grow bolder, he made sure you were prepared to receive it.

You caught on to what he was doing, knew how the warmth he offered was designed to hook you deeper. And still, you let yourself crystallize in the sugar of it, addicted to the twisted thrill of thinking he picked you above everyone else. You didn’t want to let go of it. The craving sat too deep, too warm, threaded through places you couldn’t unwind.

It started with sarcastic comments, the kind he delivered like tests. Then came the pauses, small, disarming moments where his voice softened just enough to make you second-guess the entire dynamic. A push, a pull, a current he knew you’d indulge.

Before long, you were texting him after close. Answering his calls on your commute. His voice in your ear on the way home, like he’d always planned for it to end up there. You'd let his prose become part of your nightly routine. 

And then, as these things always did with him, it escalated. His voice grew lower in the quiet hours, threaded with a confidence that made it impossible not to answer. He’d speak like he already knew where your night would end, like your orbit had tilted permanently toward his. And you let him pull, wanting him to. Let him tug at your evenings and thread himself into the parts of your life that should’ve stayed untouched. It started to hit like a habit. Fast, familiar, impossible to break.

That was the danger of it. He made intrusion feel like invitation.

'What are you doing right now?' (Tell me exactly where you are and how open you are to me.)

'You sound distracted.' (Focus on me.)

'Did you eat today?' (I’m checking for weaknesses. If I find any, I’ll use them.)

'You don’t have to pretend with me.' (Drop your guard. Make this easy.)

'I like your voice when you’re tired.' (You’re easier to manipulate when you’re worn down.)

He’d ask where you'd go when you’re upset, who you trusted, what you feared, what you wanted. Each question timed to when your guard was lowest, each answer coaxed out with that calm, patient attention that made you feel both seen and cornered.

Prime had started with nothing lines, half-thoughts, little hooks sent just rarely enough to make you wonder what he wasn’t saying. Each one landed like a tap against glass. Somewhere between the gaps, between the three-word texts and the long stretches of nothing, something in you snapped. Deciding you needed more than the breadcrumb attention he fed you that afternoon.

Halfway through your shift you cracked and started texting him.

‘You left too fast. Kinda rude, actually.’

A minute later, your phone buzzed.

‘I had things to do.’

‘Not with me, apparently.’

You hit send too fast. Too honest.

‘You’re being bold tonight.’

A beat.

‘Be careful with that.’

‘Why? Can’t handle it?’

‘I can handle you.’

Your pulse spiked.

‘Then maybe you shouldn’t have left.’

Silence. Thin. Electric.

‘You’re worked up.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I want to hear why.’

‘You know why.’

Typing bubble. Slow. Intentional.

‘Say it like you mean it.’

You bit down on your hesitation.

‘Fine. I wanted you here.’

A final buzz:

‘Prove it.’

You didn’t answer.

Not because you didn’t know what to say, but because every word felt too revealing, too hot against your tongue. Your thumb hovered over the screen for a full minute before you locked your phone and shoved it away.

The remaining hour that followed stretched out in tight, restless loops pacing the sales floor, straightening shelves you’d already fixed, trying not to check your phone every thirty seconds. You told yourself he wasn’t waiting. Told yourself you weren’t either as you aimed your attention on closing duties.

Your screen lit up as you were counting the registers. Just a pin drop on your map: an address and nothing else timed minutes before your departure. The kind of message that wasn’t a question, the kind that expected movement.

You closed the store on autopilot after that. Lights off, tills counted, doors locked. The whole place felt too quiet, too hollow, like the address on your screen had pulled all the oxygen out of the air. By the time you stepped into the parking lot, the night was thin. Cool air drifted over your skin.

You sat in your car with the engine off, keys dangling from your fingers, staring at the glow of your phone on the passenger seat. That little pin sat there like a dare, like pressure building behind your ribs. You told yourself you didn’t have to go. Told yourself you could ignore it, go home, pretend you hadn’t seen it. Dance the routine again tomorrow.

Your hand maneuvered underneath the passenger seat, dragging a half-drained bottle of peach tequila from the depths. You drank in small, stinging pulls, claiming it was for your nerves. You weren’t soothing yourself. You were preparing. Because he’d said 'Prove it,' and some treacherous part of you wanted to.

Your hand kept drifting toward the phone anyway. Not to text—to call. Like you always did. Like the ritual had already been carved into you. Same as every night, convincing yourself it was your idea.

'I’m stopping at AstroBite, should I bring you anything?' like the pretext could hide the truth.

His pause was smug enough to hear through static. A synth-chicken sandwich neither of you expected him to touch. A paper bag as an excuse. A keycard into trouble.

The drive over was a mess, your nerves were shot, your hands unsteadily buzzed on the wheel as you eyed the navigation terminal. The nerves, the burn of cheap tequila, it all collided with the immediate. You were headed over to Prime's place. All to prove that the flirting, the late nights, that you were worth the attention he’d weaponized so easily.

The closer you got, the more that sick little fear gnawed at you.

All the teasing, all the late-night breathing shared through the receiver. He’d open the door and see someone smaller, quieter, less bold than the voice he’d been indulging for months.

He’d see the truth of you: nervous, overwhelmed, human. You worried he’d recognize the gap between the fantasy you’d fed him might collapse the moment you stood in front of him. Greeted instead by a trembling, wide-eyed thing not worth her salt.

You’d braced yourself for the man the station saw, the one you saw. Outer Ring authority, all precision and power. And instead you’d walk into that dim little room with a mattress on the floor and a dryer rattling in the corner like a tired heartbeat.

As if he didn’t notice the stark contradiction between who he was out there and who he became in here. He wasn’t the immaculate, untouchable Director everyone feared. Not here. Not in that apartment born out of necessity, not preference. Even if it was only temporary.

A space that felt liminal, like he could vanish overnight. Maybe that mismatch was the real danger, the way he stripped himself down without ever taking anything off. 

✧

Your nerves must’ve finally irritated him, because he crossed the line without warning—flat palm to your back, pushing you down into the mattress like he was settling a restless pet.

Your laugh cracked in your throat. He exhaled against your hair, warm and dismissive.

“Quit complaining," not a request. A correction. Amused and annoyed at the same time like your small talk had personally offended him.

Your head dipped, curtain of hair hiding your flush.

The washing unit churned repetitively in the background, mundane and strangely brutal. You shouldn’t have been surprised he cared more about laundry than calming you down. That was Prime: priorities, procedures, the world according to him. 

He was a man who ordered his world by touchpoint, by maintenance, by control. You were just the guest in his space, uninvited until he chose to make you part of it. The trespasser on a bed that barely qualified as furniture until he decided you’d earned your place there. You wouldn’t belong here until he allowed it.

His breath peppered your skin then, right after pressing his palm between your shoulder blades. Prime hovered over your shoulder, brought his lips to the exposed curve of your neck. A test of reaction, gauging whether you could carry the momentum of whatever he intended for you long after tonight.

His hand stayed on your back while he watched you, really watched you.

How your shoulders rose under constraint, how your breath stuttered, how uncertainty twisted into something warmer. Accentuated by the fall of your hair, laden with the muddled cocktail of perfumes you’d been marinating in all shift. Exacerbated by the growing flush of realized contact. The ghosts of a dozen perfumes telling on you. 

Prime shifted, just a subtle lean. The mattress dipped under his weight as he followed the angle he’d created, lowering himself with slow deliberation, his face drifting into your periphery.

His breath skimmed your cheek first: a silent warning before you could brace. His mouth brushed yours, soft and unbothered. Prime's kiss landed with the same energy he folded with. Unhurried, efficient, barely invested yet precise nonetheless. A chore. A box ticked.

It chipped at something fragile in you, but you didn’t pull away. Agreed to the consequences before understanding the terms. The peach tequila found a home behind your eyes, settling into something bolder. A fragile confidence blooming only because he was close enough to conduit. You weren't drunk, no. Just fluttery enough for your body to skip a few beats.

A false bravado guided your hand, threading up to the back of his head with careful, terrified intent. You weren’t sure if you were allowed to touch him like that, if the moment permitted it, if he permitted it. As though sliding your fingers through his hair crossed a line kissing didn’t.

If it bothered him there was no obvious tell. Just hours ago you’d seen him polished and untouchable, ordering half the deck into submission without breaking stride. Now he was here, pressing the air out of you by simply existing within reach. Letting you tug his hair like it meant something pacifyingly domestic.

He kissed you slowly, deliberately, and you felt the curve of his mouth shift. Not tenderness, but ease. A private little smile he wore like a reward for pulling the right string and watching you melt on cue. A man congratulating himself for engineering your reaction exactly the way he intended. A man pleased with the proof of his own hypothesis.

He liked it—your sheepishness, the way you tried to make yourself small under his touch. He didn’t need fire from you, not tonight. Prime preferred the quiet before the burn and he knew he’d coax the flames when he was ready to see them.

He broke the kiss first, breath brushing your cheek as his brow pulled tight. His hands slid down your sides, gathering fabric with a rough, impatient fist. The moment snagged on cloth; his hands froze, irritation spiking sharp. 

Lavender chiffon. Black ruffles. Tights.

The exact same outfit he’d seen you in hours ago on the deck. His eyes found yours. Steady and unimpressed, heavy with intent.

He scoffed sharp, almost incredulous. “I saw you in this earlier. Should’ve known it’d get in the way.” Prime leaned in just enough that his breath brushed your ear, his hands flattening deliberately against your hips: not to help, but to hold you in place.

“This is inefficient,” he hissed, as if the excess fabric was a logistical failure on your part, "Fix it."

You hesitated for half a breath, pulse ticking loud in your ears. Of course you moved. What else were you going to do when he told you to?

Fingers trembling just enough to betray you, you reached for the chiffon first, lifting the lavender veil to unhook it from the ruffled underlayer. Each adjustment felt too loud, too pointed, like you were confessing something with every motion. You kept your eyes down, afraid to meet his, terrified to stop.

Prime didn’t touch you. Didn’t help. His gaze dragged over every movement. Clinical, assessing, a little too satisfied as he watched you peel back the layered skirts for him like it was part of the protocol.

“Hm,” he murmured, a low sound of approval or critique—you couldn’t tell. “Should’ve done that before you showed up.”

You exhaled a fluttered breath, unsure whether to apologize or laugh.

When you reached the tights, sliding the fabric enough to smooth the clutter he’d complained about, Prime shifted his stance, barely, but enough that you felt the air change. Interest sharpening into intention.

“You’re nervous,” he observed, not mocking, not kind, just reading you like data he already expected.

"Yes," you admitted. Your fingers halted where they hovered over the seam of tights at your waist. The air cooled on your near-exposed thighs, acutely leaving you painfully aware of how little you had on and how much he controlled what happened next.

His jaw flexed once. “Don’t stop.” Not a compliment but not quite an order, more like he liked the way you reacted to him and didn’t want to interrupt the experiment. 

He didn’t give you time to argue. You shakily maneuvered yourself free from the remaining layer, leaving just your underwear.

Prime's eyes met yours with mischief. “Good,” he murmured.

You half expected him to fuss about the rest of your attire but the black tank you wore gained no attention from him. You left it on, leaving you caught somewhere between relieved, thrown off, and a little bruised.

He joined you a moment later, lowering himself into the space beside you with deliberate weight, close enough that the air shifted. He closed the distance in a single, purposeful motion, catching your jaw between his fingers like he was centering a piece of machinery.

The kiss was different this time—not exploratory, not testing. More like he’d found the setting he wanted and pressed firmly into it. His gaze swept your face, reading every inch with that knife-edge precision he wore like a second skin. Prime tilted his head, a small, calculating motion.

You didn’t know whether to flinch or defend yourself. You didn’t get the chance.

A small flick of his fingers, a gesture more command than suggestion. “Move,” he said, chin tipping toward the wall behind you.

His gaze flicked to your throat, to the rapid rise of your breathing, then back to your eyes like he was watching something unfold exactly as he’d predicted. A second wave of nerves knifed through your chest. Sharp, hot, thrilling. His thumb swept a slow arc against your side, the smallest shift of skin against skin, enough to send a tremor of heat up your spine.

His hand lifted, fingers hovering a breath from your collarbone before settling gently. A touch so soft it felt like it cut deeper than anything abrupt could have. The pad of his thumb traced a deliberate path along the hollow just beneath your throat, as if testing the quality of your breath beneath it.

“You tense up every time I move,” he said softly, almost curious. “Relax. If I wanted you scared, you’d know.”

The mattress flexed under his shifting weight, and with him this close, you understood every stripped-down surface, every unfinished corner was designed to funnel your focus directly onto him. And it worked. Your pulse kicked. His eyes flicked to the movement beneath his thumb like he’d been waiting for it to spasm.

The pause between breaths was the only warning you got. Prime shifted forward, his gaze flicking briefly to your legs—a decision made in silence. Made by him alone.

You felt it before you understood it, the shift of the mattress, the quiet intention rolling off him the way the air reorganized around his movement.

Prime hooked his hands around your ankles and tugged. A simple motion, decisive enough to overturn your balance. Your back met the duvet. The black tank you wore rucked up along your spine, hair scattering into the sheets in a tousled spill of perfumed static and heat. He adjusted you until the angle suited whatever invisible architecture he was mapping.

Heat flooded your cheeks before you could school your expression. You felt off-center, too aware of your limbs, of your breathing, of the exact place he’d set you. You leveraged your weight on your forearms, angling desperately to see what he was aiming to do.

“Stay where I put you,” he said, voice dipping low. His hand found your hip with mechanical certainty, guiding you back into alignment as though correcting a miscalibrated axis. “Or I’ll start thinking you showed up tonight without a plan.”

His presence pressed in like gravitational pull, altering the room’s center of mass.

“Right there,” he said softly to himself, a thread of satisfaction weaving through the words. “Don’t move unless I say.”

You lay there, stunned, caught between anticipation and panic. Body slipping into that instinctive hush, the stillness of something small and aware of a predator’s shadow.

He caught the hitch in your breath immediately. “You get flustered fast,” he observed, almost clinical. “Noted.”

Prime’s eyes flicked down to your exposed navel. A tiny, surgical glance. Sharp at first, then molten, like your body was waking up under a heat lamp. Too quick to be admiration, too exact to be accidental.

He shifted as if he were about to move away, a subtle lift of his weight, a fractional pull of his torso. For a heartbeat you thought he was leaving the moment entirely. But instead of stepping back, he moved down the mattress. A deliberate glide of knees and forearms, his body angled lower, further from your face and closer to the center of you. Detached, analytical, like he was narrowing his field of study.

Your fingers curled into the duvet. Your breath shortened without your permission and you hated how obvious it felt. He looked like a man who’d only moved lower just to watch you react to him from above.

“You’re trying really hard not to move.” A light hum, almost amused. “Interesting choice.”

"You just told me not to." The words slipped out, equal parts defense and panic. You tried to channel the stress to your fists.

He tilted his head, that tiny, predatory tilt he did when he wanted to see something from a different angle. “I said stay. You’re not in trouble for reacting.”

His hand lifted from the mattress and found your knee—not squeezing, not restraining, just anchoring you with the weight of his palm. A subtle correction that sent a ridiculous surge up your spine.

“Much easier,” he murmured, as though you’d unknowingly cooperated with a larger plan.

He lowered his hand with deliberate care, letting his fingertips settle just above the thin elastic. His palm was warm, his fingers splayed slightly, each one claiming a small territory of fabric. The contact wasn’t forceful, but it carried weight. An unspoken reminder that he could shift you with a single motion if he wanted.

His eyes stayed on yours as his palm flattened against the soft curve of your stomach. A slow inhale, a subtle narrowing of his gaze. Like he’d found something unexpectedly beautiful there. His hand shifted again, higher this time underneath your tank, gliding up the center of your torso with reverent precision, like he was smoothing out the tremors himself.

He dipped lower, his breath skimming your skin in a warm, controlled sweep. The proximity alone made your muscles twitch, your stomach flutter tight. Somehow it felt less intimate than kissing. An unexpected relief, yes, but also a jolt of confusion, because what he was doing should’ve felt deeper, closer…and instead it landed with a strange, hollow distance you didn’t know how to name.

“Nervous?” he questioned, not looking up. He didn’t kiss you there yet. He didn’t have to. The almost-touch was worse, a teasing brush of heat that made your breath stumble. Prime lingered like he was amused by how tightly your body wound itself waiting for something he had no intention of giving.

Denial melted into a shaky inhale as his breath hit lower than you expected. “I’m not—” The words snagged in your throat, breaking apart before you could reshape them. You hated how honest it sounded. “I’m not nervous,” you tried again, quieter, as if volume could convince him.

Your hips twitched despite yourself; you cursed the instinct. Part of you wished he'd return to folding his shirts. His soft laugh said he saw everything.

“You sure?” he asked, dipping just low enough for his breath to roll over you again. “Because everything else is telling me a different story.”

Prime didn’t retreat. He didn’t touch you. He simply stayed suspended there, breath warm between your legs, letting the anticipation gnaw at you molecule by molecule. You could feel the moment stretching on purpose as his fingers spiraled prints into your skin. Elongated. Designed.

He watched every flutter, every twitch of muscle you tried and failed to smother. The duvet barely rustled under you, but he noticed even that. Your breath stuttered again, building quickly into frustration.

Another flicker of his touch overwhelmed you. The anticipation pulsed, gently overtook you, and your spine curved upward, lifting off the mattress like you needed to breathe different air.

He let the silence draw thin before speaking, “Mm. There it is.” Prime’s arm braced across your abdomen, blocking the rise. He flattened a palm over your sternum, catching the movement in its tracks.

"Uh-uh," he chided, a delighted reprimand that somehow felt heavier than a shout.

You froze under his hand, every muscle locking as if he’d iced your ribs with a single touch. The heat of his palm stood out in cruel contrast, burning while the rest of you stalled cold.

His thumb pressed lightly once, a silent command to settle. “Lay back,” he said quietly. “I want you where you were.”

“I—I’m sorry,” you breathed, unsure how to play any of this. The words slipped out thin and warm, like they’d been exhaled instead of spoken.

"Hm," he buzzed. His eyes sharpened with quiet satisfaction. “Relax,” he guided, almost soothing, almost cruel.

Your pulse jumped hard beneath his palm. He felt it, his fingers tightening just slightly, like he was acknowledging the kick of your heartbeat with private, silent amusement.

“I can’t—” the words broke as your stomach fluttered violently under another warm breath, “I... please, Prime." The words came out shaky, not nearly as coordinated as you meant. The demand you tried to formulate dissolved under the weight of your own rising frustration, raw and quickly dolloping.

His breath dipped lower again, closer, warm enough to make your skin contract in tiny, helpless shivers. You didn’t even realize until his eyes dipped and then the cold press of it registered all at once. The fabric was already wet. Sticking, betraying you in ways he didn’t have to say out loud.

“You think I didn’t plan for this?” His tone had that soft, clinical cadence like he was explaining a technical readout, not your own reactions. Maddeningly calm, "You'll adjust. I knew that going in."

Prime pinched just enough to lift the soaked weave from your skin—slow, deliberate, like he wanted to feel the weight of the dampness between his fingertips.

"I know you." His thumb stroked a small line, coaxing a tremor from you he definitely meant to cause. “Even here.” He watched your face, smugness softening into that sickly-sweet tone he used when he wanted someone pliant. Syrup over a blade, warm enough to lure, sharp enough to warn.

“Please," he echoed you. "You’re easier to read than half the tech I audit." Prime continued brushing your inner thigh like he was indulging innocence. Petting your nerves down until they followed his orders.

“No, that’s not—I just thought…” You stopped, eyes dropping away as your legs grew hot. “It's fast, that's all."

Prime's eyes narrowed. "You haven't seen fast. Fast is what happens when I stop giving you warnings."

Your knees bent slightly, legs drawing in a fraction without your permission, like your body was folding around the sensation rather than bracing against it. Prime teased harder, the pressure sharpening just enough to make your breath hitch, his touch no longer a suggestion but a deliberate provocation. Pinching and dragging the damp fabric with a firmer pull, the movement grazing your skin in a way that forced a trembling, involuntary sound to the back of your throat.

“Quit acting like you don't know me," he lured quietly, almost offended you’d questioned him. "We work together nearly every day. You hit my line like an addict."

His voice softened into velvet alert. “I’ve seen every version of you,” he mused. “Stressed. Tired. Irritated. Flustered. Trying so hard to pretend you’re composed.”

A quick flicker of amusement cut across his mouth, sharp and glinting. Sweet in the way poison is. Razor edges lacquered in honey. You tried to decipher how to move, or if you should say anything, but your body stayed locked under him, caught between instinct and caution. Your tongue hesitant as every option seemed wrong, risky, or exactly what he wanted.

Your breath stalled. His knee pressed into the mattress beside your hip, sinking it just slightly, enough that your body tilted toward him.

"You’re very good at what you do. Annoyingly so." The words were soft, “You perform better than anyone else on that deck. You think I wouldn’t notice you past that?” The sudden compliment slipped out with surgical accuracy, aimed to make you flinch or blush—or both. The angle of him blocked the light. Blocked everything.

You didn't dare interrupt him. You didn’t dare break eye contact, held there by something sharp and magnetic in his stare, like you'd shatter if you looked anywhere else.

“I’m your direct superior,” Prime gently reminded, voice dipping into something almost possessive. “I trained you, cherry-picked you."

He continued toying, fingers precise in their refusal, giving you nothing but the poignant edge of almost-sensation. The result was predictable: your hips shifted without permission, your breath broke into small, desperate sounds he clearly wanted to hear.

“And this—” he slid, watching your chest stutter under his touch, “this little jump in your breathing? Same as when I stand behind you at the palette bar.”

Prime teased you with such maddening precision that your thoughts dissolved into static, every rational thread burning away. Need eclipsing everything else. Every breath, every tremor, every sound narrowed. All that remained pulsing repetitively through your skull was 'please just touch me.'

“And now you’re lying here,” he cooed, “breathing the same way you do when you’re trying not to look at me in front of half your truck team.”

A low hum followed, almost amused as his finger traced the tremor running through your ribs. He shifted the lightest fraction on your collarbone. He watched the way your pupils stuttered, watched the twitch in your lower lip, watched you try to steady yourself underneath his hands. Collarbone and core.

Prime's brow twitched. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why you’re here.”

"You think this is pretending?" You scoffed through a breathy inhale. "I'm here because I wanted to come," you admitted desperately, as if offering the truth might earn you something. Leniency, closeness, a little more of his touch.

“You’re here because I wanted you here," he corrected. “And you came...” he added, smirk haunting back into place, “knowing exactly who I am. Knowing exactly what I do to people. Knew exactly what that meant.”

You fought it. Bit down on it. But he made it impossible. You didn’t want to have to beg—God, you tried to hold the line—but his words softened something through you.

"Do something. Please," you cried. Hot, humiliating. Prime ignored your request.

“Tell me something,” he queried, voice so gentle it made the pressure worse. “When you were driving over here… when you were rehearsing every possible scenario in that little head of yours…”

His lips brushed the air above your cheek, deliberate and careful. You forgot to breathe.

“…did you ever once imagine,” Prime whispered, continued scratching over your center with care, “that I’d let you leave untouched?”

Your heart lurched painfully, audibly.

His smirk answered for you. “No. I didn’t think so.”

Prime closed the distance again. Slower this time, deeper, not rushed but inevitable, like he’d been waiting to confirm what he already knew. His breath warmed your mouth. It wasn't even deep. Just a claiming press of his mouth against yours, like he was verifying something he’d already built a theory around.

He took his hand away, guided it up to your jaw, fingers firm. The noise that broke out of you was tiny and desperate, a helpless protest at the loss of his touch.

Prime pulled back only an inch, barely enough space for air, and looked at you with a slow, blooming smirk that told you he’d found exactly what he was searching for. A soft, dismissive sound that almost passed for a laugh vibrated within his chest.

His fingers trailed just beneath your lower lip, collecting the faint, peachy scent lingering there. “You walk in here half-shaking, half-bracing, cheeks warm, pupils blown…and you think I wouldn’t taste that shot or two you took for courage?”

You opened your mouth—maybe to deny it, maybe to breathe—but he leaned in, voice dropping to a silk-edged whisper that brushed your lower lip.

Prime tilted your chin up with two fingers, guiding your line of sight to his like he was adjusting the angle on a scanner. “Don’t bother hiding it,” he smirked. He brought a knee to the crook of your legs, pressing in just enough to make your hips jolt toward him before you could stop yourself.

"Come on, you're fine. I didn’t say anything you can’t handle," he purred.

“God,” he added softly, mock-admiring. “You’re so much cuter when you try to, though.”

His thumb slipped from your jaw to your throat in a slow drag. Prime slotted his hand against the curve of your neck. “And I like watching you fail at it.”

Prime let the word 'cute' settle over you like dust. He watched the way your jaw clenched, the way your breath shook unevenly through your nose, the way your fingers curled in the duvet as if your body was trying to outrun the embarrassment he’d pinned you to.

Without breaking eye contact Prime withdrew, reached over to a small metal tray on the floor beside the mattress.

You shimmied back, retreating until your spine met the wall, until you could steady. You lifted a trembling hand to fix your hair, as if smoothing it might disguise what he’d done to you. Thighs pressed tight, a small relief of pressure. You brought your knees together, trying to hide the growing mess. It felt pointless: he’d already seen too much.

Prime presented a small glass vial. Clear. Cold. Something distilled and merciless sat inside, catching the dim light. He held it between two fingers, rolling it slowly, deliberately, like he was preserving data. Like this was another observation he already knew the result of.

“You want another?” he asked, tone lilting in that soft, almost affectionate mockery he saved only for you. “Since you clearly need it tonight.”

You glared through fire, "So you just had that there?" It was instinctive, sharp.

Prime’s smirk returned instantly. The soft one. “There it is,” he approved, amused. “A little backbone.”

He lifted the vial closer, letting it hover just inches from your lips, not touching, but enough that you could smell the clean, sterile bite of alcohol.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that,” he said, voice dropping warm and poisonous. “You’re the one who needed liquid courage just to knock on my door.”

You tightened your jaw, throat thick with indignation. “I don’t need—”

“Oh. You do,” he said calmly, cutting you off. “You proved that the moment you got dizzy in my hands.”

Your glare deepened, and Prime’s eyes glittered like you’d just confirmed another hypothesis.

“Go on,” he hummed, tilting the vial slightly. “Glare at me. That's cute too.”

His eyes never left yours as he brought the vial to his mouth, the glass touching his lower lip with a soft, final click. He tilted his head back slightly, throat exposed for a fraction of a second, and swallowed the shot in a smooth, unbroken pull. 

“Wow,” you said, tone tight. “Seems like you've had a lot of practice.” Anger knotted with want in a way that made your chest tighten. It wasn’t fair how quickly your body missed the pressure of his hand. All need, no logic.

Prime inhaled a soft, amused sound that made your stomach flip. “Mm,” he hummed, tilting his head. “Smart girl."

He came back to you with unexpected care, a softness that didn’t match the sting he’d left behind. Prime's fingertips brushed your skin in slow, almost affectionate sweeps. Petting you back into place. Calming you like he hadn’t caused the reaction in the first place.

"We're even now... unless you drank more than you're letting on. If that's the case I don't mind catching up." He let his fingers run a lazy line down your sternum, stopping just shy of your ribs, a gesture halfway between affection and examination.

“No, you know what? Give me a shot,” you demanded. You refused to melt for him again—not without something more to hold onto. Not after the way he fed empty praise. 

"You're not getting drunk tonight,” Prime laughed like it was obvious. “You think I’d waste your first time here?”

A small click of his tongue. “No. I want you remembering every second.”

His smile softened into something terrible.  “And don’t worry,” Prime added. His voice dropped into a low, intimate mockery. “This is the last time you’ll ever be here this sober.”

Eyes glittered malicious and bright, like broken glass catching the light right before it cuts. “You won’t need tequila next time. I’ll handle that part.”

Your stomach plunged, that dizzy-mistake feeling of missing a step on a moving walkway, and for a heartbeat you nearly pushed him off you. "The fuck does that mean?"

Prime’s eyes flicked up, catching the crack in your voice like it was a gift. “Oh?” he murmured, amusement blooming. “That got your attention?"

You swallowed hard, heat climbed your throat. A need to prove you weren't such a skittish creature startled by its own heartbeat.

“I’m serious,” you snapped back.

Prime didn't answer you. Just continued watching your features falter.

“I’m not doing this again," You bluffed, voice too thin, too tight. He was confusing. This space was confusing. Nothing about him or this temporary hollow of a room was built for your logic.

Prime raised one brow, amused in the way only someone who already knew the answer could be. A whisper of alien liquor threaded through his breath, strange and sweet in a way that unsettled you.

“Sweetheart,” he stated, leaning in just enough to make your pulse slam. “You’ll be back the second I want you back.”

You stiffened. “You don’t get to decide—”

“Oh, but you’ll think you did,” he cut in, tone soft, deadly. "That’s the fun part.” 

His eyes narrowed just a fraction, amused, certain, cruel in the way only accuracy can be. “But you already know that.”

He said it like he was reminding you of something you’d tried to bury. Like you’d already proven his point in ways you didn’t realize counted. Like every choice you’d made tonight—every tremor, every pause, every pathetic attempt at denial—was Exhibit A in a case he’d been building long before you walked in.

Prime let the silence sit between you for a beat. Long enough for the denial in your throat to curdle into something brittle. He eventually pushed off the mattress, rising in one smooth, controlled motion. You watched him cross to the edge of the room, the shift of his shoulders deliberate as he fished through the kitchenette. A punishment of distance before you understood how.

A moment later, he straightened with a heavy bottle in one hand, glass in the other. Prime didn’t even look back at you as his fingers curled around the bottle’s neck with casual authority, tilting it to pour himself another measured drink.

He lifted the glass between two fingers, admiring the way the amber caught the light, and finally, finally his eyes cut back to you.

Prime exhaled a quiet hum, like he’d been waiting for you to ask something. “You wanna know how?” he plucked. “Fine. I'll bite.”

“The first time I knew you'd come tonight,” he said, voice warm and low, “was when you walked past me today and couldn’t look me in the eye for more than half a second.”

Something in the air shifted, tightening corners like an invisible drawstring.

“You always make eye contact. Except,” he said softly, “...when you’re scared of disappointing me.”

Your breath hitched—small, pathetic. Nothing else to do but react. He'd made that very clear.

“The second,” he said, leaning forward just slightly closer, “was when I left the floor early and you didn’t ask why.” His smirk curled poisonous.

“You never let anything slip at work but you let that one go," he reflected. A faint crease formed between his brows, the closest he came to looking genuinely surprised. "Complained about it later though."

Your heart hammered hard enough to shake the mattress.

“And the third…”

Prime paused, savoring it as his eyes dragged over your expression like he was reading a line of code. “…was when you called me on your way home.”

Your arms tightened in a cross against your chest. He swirled his glass.

“Said you were stopping for food,” he said, brow arching towards the untouched AstroBite bag on the counter, “but you don’t eat on nights you’re anxious."

“And the fourth,” he finished, “was the smell of peach tequila when you walked through my door.” He raised the glass in a mock toast. Nearly took a bow.

“A dead giveaway,” he stated. “You only drink when you can’t stand how badly you want something.”

Soft, devastating. “So tell me again,” he prodded, “how you aren't planning on coming here again.” Prime tipped his head back in one smooth motion, throat working, a pleasured hum slipping as he shot his liquor down.

The irritation simmered so hot under your skin it felt like a physical thing, prickling along your arms, tightening your throat. The words burst out before you could contain them. Sharp, bold, reckless. Fueled by how badly you wanted him and how furious you were that he knew it.

"If you don't fuck me."

He stalled for a beat, eyes flicking over your face as if he had to process that you’d really said something so ridiculous and now he had to correct it personally.

He nodded slow, tongue braced against his molars, jaw tightening around some silent conclusion. A choice. A pivot. Something dangerous and last-minute, the kind of shift that made your stomach drop before he even moved.

A tiny sign—subtle but undeniable—that he’d changed his mind about how he planned to handle you.

You felt the shift before you understood it.

He moved back over with dark precision, not stalking so much as arriving, his presence hitting you like a shadow falling exactly where it meant to. You felt pinned before he even touched you. And when he finally did, his hands were noticeably rougher, sliding up to your jaw and catching it in his grip, forcing your gaze up, forcing your breath still, forcing you into his control without a word.

Prime’s smile turned slow. Dark. Certain as he tightened his grip. He brought his fingers to the soft flesh of your neck and squeezed lightly on your pulse points. Your breathing shifted to adjust for the change in flow.

“You sure about that?” he tested. Deeper, pressing more firmly against your throat—anchoring you to the wall with a calm, steady pressure that made your pulse thrum into his palm. "If I don't fuck you bloody tonight, you're never coming back, huh?"

“I could make you flinch, make you scream, make you run—" Prime spat, "I could push you until you’re trembling, until ‘stop’ sounds like ‘more' and you’d still come back to finish what I started.”

He continued almost gentle in its precision as you silently fought your thinning breath. "And I fully intend to see the look on your face when I do."

You couldn't meet his eyes, vision hazing at the edges, blurring like heat off metal as your nerves tried to make sense of the way he carved. Alarm bells keened through you, a siren-song of instinct and fear, piercing enough to lace the air, sharp enough to make your lungs seize.

Some traitorous part of you folded toward him, leaned into the danger like it was warmth. The collision of fear and longing. The subtle flex of his forearm, the faint exhale through his nose, the unmistakable spark of pleasure. He was enjoying this. Pain just as much as the admission. The need.

Prime flexed his hand, "You've got time, don't you?" A taunt ghosted his mouth. Too sweet, too wrong.

How small. How chosen. How absolutely ruined you were by a voice spoken to sound like a promise and a threat at the same time. Your pulse thudded against his fingers, hurriedly figuring out if it needed to flee. He absorbed the rhythm like data.

“Mhm, just like that," he observed, tone quiet, coaxing, stating the obvious, “your breathing's uneven.”

“See how fast it is right now?" His fingers dug a few centimeters deeper, palm stiff, "I can fix that... if you'd like." 

Air thinned brutally. A bright, frantic ache built under your sternum. You squirmed underneath his grip, bringing a hand to his wrist. Your fingers curled around the tendons flexing beneath your touch. Tried to make sense of his motives, his end game, how he layered honey and harassment until it muddied into heroin. 

Prime’s lips curved, soft, victorious. “You don’t control anything,” he said. “Not at work. Not here.”

Your chest fluttered violently, a full-body giveaway, a kicked beehive. The breath left you in stuttering flashes, oxygen fading into a high. He saw it—felt it—and pressed his palm a little firmer, enough to restrain, enough to solidify the reaction.

“And the best part?” he leaned closer, his breath grazing the corner of your mouth. “You'll trust me through all of it.”

Prime finally lessened his grasp, leaving his hand to feel your body's rapid recalibration. Your breathing plumed into a fit of trembling inhales. His eyes softened. Tender.

"Your body tells me the truth every time," he whispered, squeezing once more—cruelly timed with your exhale so the next breath never came.

You shut your eyes hard, trying to steady the rising panic. You tried to pull in a normal breath, mouth silently open, begging. Instead of easing it, he let it thrum in the space. A current he’d engineered. His hand stayed exactly where it was but the rest of him shifted forward, barely a breath closer, enough that the heat of his body began to steep into yours.

You scraped your nails into his forearm, tiny crescents engraving themselves against his wrist like a desperate signature. A breathless act of self-defense, a tap-out, or need, you couldn’t tell. You weren’t sure how far he would let this go, how far he wanted it to go, but the uncertainty burned hotter than the lack of oxygen.

His eyes pinned you in place, narrowing just slightly as he took in the strain on your forehead, the plea in your open mouth, the way your knuckles whitened. Prime's grip on your throat remained purposeful. You felt that in the deliberate pressure of his hand. Too much. Like your struggle was something he could savor. Would. Was.

“Look at me.” He watched you without blinking, logging the flicker of fight he was drawing out of you for later use. He leaned forward another inch, just existing in a way that tripped your senses. The air felt warm and heavy and coded to him alone.

“You think this is bad?” he murmured, the vibration of it brushing your throat. “You don’t know half of what I can do.” Prime simply focused, and the atmosphere constricted around you.

Your chest felt too tight, like air had turned to something heavier, something he wouldn't let you reach. Each inhale an impossible task. You shook your head once, trying to pull in more air, failing. The stream was non-existent. Prime felt your tears and pressed his hand a little more firmly anyways, controlling the pace and timing of your panic with the weight of his palm.

For the first time he softened, but only in a way that made it worse. “Hey,” he murmured, voice low, syrup-sweet, coaxing. “Shh, you’re alright.” He hushed you softly. Almost tender, cruel.

Your chest lurched so hard it hurt.

Prime huffed, a half-sigh, half-growl. “You’re a mess.” But he didn’t let go.

“Stop trying to control it,” he whispered, the softness in his tone a trap. “You’re only making it worse for yourself."

You kept trying. You failed each time. Prime watched with quiet, beaming satisfaction.

His lips twitched, almost fondly as he witnessed your weakening, panicked stature. “Now you’re feeling it.”

Dark vignette blooming slow, a tunnel pulling inward. Your pulse climbed too fast, too loud, like it wanted out of your ribs. Out from under his grasp.

“You dramatic little thing,” he murmured. A soft scoff escaped him, half-mockery, half—God help you—fondness. “Look at you,” he teased. “Still shaking. Still going.”

He hovered another beat, letting your nerves paralyze openly beneath him before he finally released you, wasting no time to move his hand back low.

Something in you snapped—not true anger, something less than fear. The unbearable pressure of being watched so closely, touched so purposefully, horribly while you tried to keep yourself from shaking apart.

The first breath you dragged in came out wrong. So wrong. Too sharp, too cold. It scraped your throat raw and caught halfway, turning into a sputter before you could stop it. Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes as your lungs fought for rhythm. You tried to blink it down, tried to pull a clean breath through the constriction that remained in your throat, but your chest seized again.

"Why'd you—" It came out hoarse, cracked, more wounded than you meant it to—but anger felt safer than the humiliation clawing up your spine.

Prime’s brows lifted, amusement flickered like a flame. “Do what, exactly?”

Air found your lungs in thin, ragged ribbons. The coughs eventually softened into weak, residual spasms. Each one stole a little dignity with it.

“Finished?” he asked quietly, fingers toying cruel kindness over your hip bones. You pushed at him, not hard enough to mean it, just enough to pretend you still had control over the distance he closed. You pulled in a breath like you were ready to fight him, but Prime didn’t give you the space.

“Oh, don’t start pretending I crossed some line,” he said, voice low and precise. “You misjudged the moment. I adjusted it. That’s not cruelty, that’s maintenance. That's how this works.”

Your jaw clenched, heat clawing at your throat as you shied away. “Stop—!”

“I’m not going to stop.” His eyes darkened. An incredulous scoff. “Not after everything I’ve put into you. You think I’m responsible for your lungs forgetting how to function?”

Your head lulled to the wall. An attempt to quicken recovery. “You knew what you were doing.”

Prime’s mouth curled at one corner. Slow, knowing, infuriating. “Of course I did.”

Your breath stalled again, this time from sheer disbelief. You were fucked. Truly, dangerously fucked. There was no slipping out of this now.

“That wasn’t panic,” he said quietly. “That was anticipation your body wasn’t built to process.” Prime smiled, small and devastating. "You'll learn," he added.

“So don’t ask me why I did it,” he finished. “Ask yourself why you reacted exactly the way I expected.”

“I’m not—I don't—” The denial fractured as your stomach fluttered violently under another one of his steady, infuriating breaths. You swallowed hard, “I’m not trying to fight anything. I thought I made that very clear. You didn't have to choke me.”

Your breath accelerated in humiliating little bursts and coughs. He stayed there, letting you drown in the anticipation he’d built with two inches of space and a single, devastating truth.

"I didn't," he agreed nonchalantly. "You gave me a reason."

“You’re just—I don't understand” Your voice wavered, too soft, too raw. “You’re making it impossible to think. I can’t—we can't."

“Good,” he murmured, as if your unraveling was the entire point. “I don’t want you thinking.” Prime finally broke the barrier, the backs of his knuckles brushing along your inner thighs, turning to grab and knead. A rough, frustrated force teasing at elastic edges.

“You’re done talking.” He said it against your mouth a moment before he kissed you, firm and final, a quiet command sealed with a cold, furious intensity that felt like punishment and want tangled together.

Prime sunk down your frame, close enough that his next exhale heavied a line of heat, dragging another uncontrollable flinch from you. He threaded his fingers underneath the band by your inner thigh. Warmth flooded through you again, hips involuntarily bargaining for more as you cursed universes in your head.

Your thighs tensed; your ribs trembled. You hated how obvious it was. He wouldn't be coming up any time soon.

“Hey,” he soothed, the word barely touched your skin. “Breathe.”

His hand came up slowly, deliberately, letting the elastic guide his dangerous tracing. Prime's fingertips brushed the edge of your hip. A touch light enough to feel optional, which somehow made it heavier. His thumb traced a small arc you nearly gasped at.

“You’re doing fine,” he said quietly, revealing. “Better than you think.”

He let the gentleness hit you like a blow, soft enough to undo you. You were too exhausted to pretend you didn’t melt for it.

Prime tilted his head, gaze dragging slowly along your torso. “You’re trembling in three different muscle groups,” he stated. “Respiratory pattern’s inconsistent. You’re overwhelmed.”

The diagnosis landed like a hand back on your throat. Two fingertips dragged along your core. Testing. Measuring. His thumb pressed slowly into the soft flesh just above, deliberate pressure that electrified you at once. Your breath broke on contact.

You jerked beneath the touch, "Prime, please." A tired submission.

“You’re reacting to proximity alone,” he said. “You know how rare that is?” he praised quietly.

And then—just when you leaned into the warmth of his hand, just when your body reached for the contact, he lifted it away. He watched the shiver run through you. One last, satisfying tremor, then something in him clicked over. The amusement softened. The predatory edge sharpened. And the torture evaporated like it had never existed. Betrayal written in muscle and breath.

His posture changed first: a subtle settling of shoulders, a readjustment of weight, a breath that came slower, heavier. Purpose replacing play.

“Alright,” he decided, almost to himself. “That’s enough.”

Before you could decipher what he meant, Prime returned, this time with full intent, not experimental breath. His palm pressed firmly against your abdomen, steadying you, grounding you, claiming the tension he’d built and holding it still.

He brought his mouth to the ruined cloth, dragging his lower lip on the cotton. Hot breath sent yours hitching. Sharp, startled. Prime didn’t flinch at the reaction. His tongue carried more pressure than anything he’d touched you with all night.

He rose for a moment, fingers replacing the rhythm his tongue had set. Slow, confident, until he finally slid them underneath the fabric along your folds.

You swallowed, breath catching on his fingers as he dragged your underwear down your thighs, yanking your hips to his liking. Prime sunk a finger in, stopped just below the knuckle. Prodding, testing. It felt overwhelming, sharper than if he’d started the night this way.

The ecstasy hit almost instantly, embarrassingly. Body hurdling over mind. Of course it did; he’d engineered the pacing, layered each moment until your nerves had nowhere left to go. 

Prime leaned into it, fixing you with a calm, almost clinical patience that made your pulse thrum harder. 

“There you go,” he trained. “Match me.”

Your chest rose too fast, stuttered under his assault. He didn’t scold you, just added another finger, wrapped around you with a patience that felt rehearsed. He worked moderately, spreading just a little at a time. Millimeter by millimeter. Hooking, dragging, purring. Fingers spread over the soft tissue with a certainty impossible to ignore.

Prime worked you up the way he did everything: methodically, like a problem he already knew the solution to. He pressed in, nothing delicate left in him. Soon enough his hands were everywhere, dragging you closer before you even realized you were moving. He guided your hips, the small of your back closer into his face like he was rearranging you into exactly where he wanted you on his mouth.

Your knees nearly buckled. He didn’t stop. Didn’t soften. Didn’t give.

The warmth of his breath hit first, a soft exhale over the thinnest part of your skin. You felt him more than you heard him. The heat of him, the solidity, the deliberate pressure that left you breathless and off balance as he hummed deep vibration into you. Pushing you where he wanted you with rough, decisive alterations. He sucked at your pulse point with a quiet, claiming pull as if tasting the panic right from your bloodstream fed his ego. Peppered nips interspersed with careful nudges. The kind of pressure that said your body wasn’t going anywhere unless he allowed it.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was him. Heated, rough, unrelenting. Driving you higher than you meant to go, leaving you breathless under the sheer weight of him closing around you. His tongue dragged the moans hiding underneath your ribs out to open air. A mess of blue hair tousled and feathering against your thighs as he worked an agonizing pattern timed with your orbit.

You gasped. Your balance failed. Prime used it. His hands locked you in place, body pinned between the pressure of his mouth and the cage of his grip. You couldn’t twist away, couldn’t move at all. 

You felt the moment it tipped from shocking to too much.Your palms shot down to his shoulders on instinct, pushing, trying to create even an inch of space. But he didn’t budge. Not even slightly. He just kept his mouth against your skin in that devastating, unhurried way. Controlled, deliberate, like he was proving a point you hadn’t realized you were losing. Prime steadied you as if you were the one causing trouble, not him.

Your breath stuttered; your hands stayed braced on his shoulders without meaning to. He lifted his head and met your blurred gaze, raised an eyebrow. Smug, knowing.

It hit you all at once: too much pressure, too much heat, too much of him in too small a space. Your brain couldn’t track the pace he set; every touch landed before you recovered from the last, stacking sensation until your whole body felt jittery and uncoordinated.

Your breath started breaking in short, uneven bursts, mind scrambling to catch up with what your nerves already couldn’t handle. It felt like your skin had been turned up too high. Every brush, every shift, every drag of him across you sparking off something raw and immediate. Override over override.

Your legs wouldn’t stay steady. Your hands could only grab for balance instead of escape. Falling through gaps he created faster than you could close them.

You couldn’t organize the feeling, couldn’t separate heat from pressure, fear from wanting, instinct from confusion. All of it tangled, coiling tight inside you until you couldn’t get grounded in any direction to release.

A sound slipped out of you you didn’t mean to make. Thin, breathless, overwhelmed, upset.

He felt the near-collapse the moment it almost hit you.

Of course he did.

Your body gave you away long before your voice did, trembling under the rush of too much, too fast, too close. Your pulse thudded against every place he touched, frantic and unsteady, your whole system overrun by sensation you hadn’t prepared for. Locked under his hands, his weight, his heat, the pressure he’d been building into you without pause had all hit your system at once, tripping every instinct you had.

A small, panicked sound tore out of your throat before you could stop it.

You pushed at him more out of sheer, overwhelmed desperation. Your fingers trembled against him, weak and useless, your body collapsing under sensations you couldn’t process fast enough.

Until finally—finally—he lifted his head and his expression settled into something cold and self-satisfied.

Prime went still like someone had flipped a switch. His grip eased just enough to keep you upright, but not enough to let you go. His eyes cut over your face with frightening precision, reading every tremor, every rapid breath, every place your body had lost its footing.

The absence hit harder than the contact.

Your whole body felt too hot and too cold at once, tight in some places, numb in others, like you’d been pulled out of yourself too fast. The shaking wouldn’t stop. Neither would the short, sharp breaths you couldn’t get control of.

You swallowed hard, throat tight. “I—” The incompleteness hit you wrong, raw. Something unsettling about the half-finished state of it like you’d been opened up and never stitched shut, left exposed in a way that made your nerves buzz in agony.

You hated that he saw it. Hated that he caused it. Hated that you still leaned into his steadiness because you had nowhere else to put the panic.

Prime reached out. Not to help you, not to steady you, but to brush one trembling strand of hair away from your face, the gentleness somehow worse as he cupped your cheek.

“Try pushing me again,” he said lowly. “See where that gets you.”

“The way you reacted here…” His voice dipped, soft and thoughtful.

“It tells me more than anything you’ve said tonight.” Prime tasted his lips, drew his wrist to his mouth and transferred your slick in a fluid, dominating motion. 

You stared at him through wide eyes as he tossed your skirts over your lap. Frozen. The tights pooled in your lap. You watched him move around the room like nothing seismic had just shifted under your ribs.

He returned to his laundry, checked the remaining time on the washing unit, smoothed his hair back like it was nothing. Your thoughts returned slow, electric, charged like the atmosphere before rain. 

He’d rattled you, undone you, and acted like it meant nothing.

This was real. And you had no idea what it would cost.

And the terrifying part?

A piece of you wanted him to do it again.

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“We are come to Coerthas to slay Garuda, Lady of the Vortex. To that end, we seek the Enterprise, the airship of Master Cid nan Garlond, who stands before you now.”

“Master Garlond, you're alive!?” the knight in charge gasps. “But that’s impossible!”

“Indeed it is, my lord.” Another Ishgardian, this one dressed in robes and a circlet rather than chain armour, cuts in. The glance he directs towards them sends a shiver running down Nadir’s bones.

This will not proceed as Alphinaud wishes, he has time to think before the Ishgardian continues.

“Do not be deceived by their honeyed words. These foreigners are not to be trusted,” he urges. “At this critical moment in Ishgardian history, as House Durendaire marshals its forces to retake the Stone Vigil, who should appear in Whitebrim Front but three mysterious strangers…” The Ishgardian steps forward, towards his companion, and his voice is low and serious.

The knight’s expression changes, dawning realisation writ upon his features.

Nadir breathes out slowly. He pulls gently at his aether, allowing it to rest beneath his scales, humming against them - ready to cast at a beat of his heart. At his side, Alphinaud tenses.

“Cid Garlond - missing and presumed dead since before the Calamity, and two Scions of the Seventh Dawn.” A pause as the Ishgardian’s turn to look at them. The robed man focuses on him. “One of whom is dragon-blooded.”

The Ishgardian’s - their gazes heavy with disgust - glance at him.

His aether hums with danger.

Nadir breathes in, keeping carefully to himself as they are quickly shoved out of the settlement and into the cold of the snow and ice.

Mountains tower over them and he does not breathe out until they are alone, tucked away in a defensible corner.

“I cannot wait to leave this place,” he murmurs.

“I am sorry, Nadir,” Alphinaud says, his voice subdued. “I did not expect the Inquisitor to-”

He places his hand on the child’s shoulder. “We will find another way.”