Chapter 26 RAFE #2
I wrap both arms around his waist now, dragging him back hard against my chest. I take the gun from his shaking hands—slow, reverent—while his hips roll instinctively, grinding back against me like he’s trying to fuse us together through sweat and violence.
My free hand slides down the curve of his spine, tracing the sweat-streaked dip at the base, two fingers parting him as he gasps for air.
He’s open. He’s shaking. He’s mine.
I lean in, voice a low snarl scraped raw. “You want me to fuck the fear out of you with a gun?”
He moans—wordless, frantic—and nods again, teeth bared in something halfway between pain and worship.
“Then bend the fuck over, halo.” I keep one hand firm on the small of his back and push, guiding him toward the bed.
He folds like I own the hinges in his body—knees hitting the mattress, chest bowing low, spine arching sharp and perfect.
His thighs spread wide, trembling, cock swinging heavy between them and already leaking dark spots onto the sheets. He whimpers once—sharp, pleading.
I spit into my palm and coat the muzzle, the wet sound making his breath hitch hard. I press the gun between his cheeks and slide it down slow—not inside yet, just tracing, just warning.
He whines.
“Say it,” I growl. “Say what you want.”
“Please,” he gasps, voice shredded. “Please, Rafe—replace it—burn it out—fuck me with it—please—”
I press the muzzle against his hole and push—just an inch. Just enough.
Julian screams. His head snaps up, mouth falling open in a moan so raw it shreds the last thread of my self-control.
I push deeper—slow, agonizingly slow, far too slow for the frantic need rolling off him—and he’s sobbing now, hands fisting the sheets, body clenching tight around cold steel like he’s trying to crawl inside it, to make it part of him.
“That’s it,” I growl. “Take it. Take all of it. Let the tape play. Let the ghosts scream. I’m the only fucking thing inside you now.”
I thrust it deeper. His whole body spasms, a wrecked cry tearing out of him—half-sob, half-orgasmic whimper—as he rocks back against the intrusion like he’ll die without the stretch, without the weight, without the punishment I’m giving him.
I brace one hand firm on his lower back, pinning him in place while I fuck him open with the gun—slow, deliberate, devastating. Every inch claims more ground, every shallow thrust erases another echo.
Behind us, the tape reaches another crescendo. His voice from then. My voice now. No contest.
This is the sound he’ll remember.
He takes the muzzle like it was forged for him—back arched, thighs shaking, fingers clawing at the sheets so hard the fabric tears under his nails.
Every small thrust makes his whole body twist, makes his breath stutter, makes that gorgeous broken noise catch in his throat like he’s trying to swallow the entire world and choke on the part that hurt him.
The tape behind us keeps playing—Nathan’s voice, Julian’s old moans, dead air wearing my boy’s face like a mask—but Julian isn’t listening anymore.
He’s panting, whimpering, pushing himself back against the weapon like he’s begging it to carve out whatever’s left of yesterday’s nightmare.
Sweat rolls down his spine in rivulets; his cock is so hard it could bruise my palm without even touching it.
He’s taking it like the steel is the only thing keeping him alive, like every inch buried inside him is burning away another layer of the past.
Then I feel it—the shift. His legs buckle.
His breath fractures. His body clenches tight around the muzzle, spasming in a rhythm that’s too raw, too close to the edge.
He’s going to come—not from pleasure, but from pain, from fear, from the gun cauterizing the panic like a wound that’s finally being closed.
“Rafe—Rafe—I can’t—oh god—please—please—”
He’s seconds from breaking open in a way I won’t allow. Not like this. Not on steel. Not on something that isn’t me.
I grab the gun with one hand, brace the other around his hip, and pull the muzzle out in one clean, brutal drag.
He screams—loud, frantic, desperate—and collapses forward, chest slamming into the mattress, ass still lifted high, shaking and clenching around nothing like he’s begging whatever was inside him to come back.
But I’m already there. I shove my sweats down, fist my cock, and line myself up in the slick, stretched, pulsing place the gun just left—ready, open, aching for something real.
Julian turns his head, face crashing into the sheets, voice wrecked beyond recognition. “Rafe—please—I need—you said—please—replace it—replace it—”
I grab both his hips and slam into him. Hard.
He goes silent for exactly one second. Then he breaks. Sound floods out of him—raw, obscene, holy—my name punched from his lungs like it’s the only word he remembers how to say. “Rafe—Rafe—fuck—oh my god—”
His entire body melts and seizes at the same time, spine arching, thighs trembling, fingers clawing for anything to hold on to, anything to keep him in his body while I drive myself in to the hilt.
I growl into his shoulder, teeth scraping skin. “That’s it. This is what replaces it. Not him. Not the past. Not the tape. Me.”
The word tears something out of him. He pushes back—hard—even through the shaking, even through the overstimulation. He meets every thrust like he’s trying to fuse himself to me, like his bones forget where to belong unless I tell them.
“Listen,” I snarl against his neck. “You hear that? That’s dead noise. That’s nothing. This—” I thrust deeper, hips crushed to his ass, voice dropping to a growl. “This is the only sound that matters now.”
He sobs—loud and beautiful. “Rafe—please—harder—I can’t—I can’t—”
“Yes you can,” I snarl, dragging my hand up his back and shoving his shoulders deeper into the mattress, forcing the arch in his spine. “You take me, you breathe. You breathe because I told you to. You stay because you’re mine. This is what replaces it.”
I pull almost all the way out—slow enough that he whimpers, hips chasing me instinctively—then slam back into him so hard his scream shatters down his throat. My breath hits his ear, hot and ragged. “Say it.”
He tries. Fails. Tries again, voice cracking on every syllable. “I’m yours—Rafe—I’m yours—please don’t stop—”
“I won’t.” I grab his hips, grind in deep, voice low and ruined. “I’m not stopping. I’m not leaving. I’m not letting anything in your head but me.”
His thighs shake. His breath stutters. His whole body tightens around me—pulling, begging, claiming me right back.
“Come,” I growl, pounding into him with punishing rhythm. “Come on me. Come because of me. And then I’ll erase the rest.”
He breaks open with a strangled cry—body locking tight, cock spilling hot and messy across the sheets, sobbing my name into the mattress like a prayer carved into flesh.
I come seconds later, buried deep inside him, holding him so tight he couldn’t fall apart even if the world tried to tear him open again.
He’s gone boneless in my arms, breath ragged and wet, back slick against my chest as I hold him through the aftershocks. His muscles twitch around me once. Then again. And I think—I think it’s time.
So I start to pull out—slow, careful—every inch dragging from the heat of him like I’m peeling us apart cell by cell. But then I hear it. Small. Barely a breath.
“No…”
It stops me cold—not from fear, not from guilt, but from knowing. Knowing exactly what he’s asking for. What he’s still chasing. What he still needs to bleed the ghosts out completely.
I don’t move. Not for a breath. Then I reach for the tape roll still on the nightstand—matte black, familiar weight. I grab it without looking, fingers curling around the edge as I hook my other hand into his hair and pull, tilting his head back just enough to see his eyes.
Julian gasps as I drag him upright—off the mattress, off the collapse, onto his knees and into me, back flush to my chest, his thighs still splayed open over mine. His neck arches, throat bared, breath catching. He doesn’t fight it. He gives it. All of it.
I wrap the tape around his throat—once, twice, three full rotations—tight, just enough to hold without choking. “You’re mine, little halo,” I growl into his ear, teeth grazing the damp skin behind it. “Do you hear me? And I don’t share with ghosts.”
His breath breaks on a fractured gasp. His head drops back slowly onto my shoulder—exhausted, willing—and he presses himself down onto me again, sinking onto my cock, onto the stretch, onto the ache like he needs it to stay whole, like the pain is the only thing left that can make the world quiet.
“Fuck…” I hiss, arms tightening around him, free hand bracing hard on his thigh to keep him steady. He rocks back against me—just once, just enough—and my vision blurs for a heartbeat. He’s still open. Still slick. Still taking every inch like it’s the only thing anchoring him here.
Then I hear it. “You feel like home…” A whine.
It hits me harder than the moans ever did. Harder than the screams, harder than Ezio’s smirk or Nathan’s voice or the tape still looping in the dark. Because no one has ever said that to me—not here, not in this place, not when I’m like this: full of rage, full of blood, full of him.
I freeze—just for a second—like the word sucker-punched the breath right out of me. Then I move. One arm locks around his waist, dragging him tighter against me like I could absorb him whole if I tried. The other brushes up—slow, shaking—to push the sweat-damp hair off his face.
He’s a mess: flushed, damp, wrecked beyond recognition. But he’s mine. And I’m going to hold him until he believes it with every ruined, holy piece of himself.
I reach for the remote without loosening my hold on him, my hand sliding blind across the sheets until my fingers close around the cold metal.
Julian shudders at the movement, that trembling aftermath that always rips through him when he’s given me everything and then some.
I raise the remote and point it toward the screen.
The tape cuts off mid-moan. Silence hits the room like a mercy.
He exhales—small, fragile, breaking on the edges. His shoulders loosen under my arm, his throat softening under the band of tape. His body sinks into mine, a slow collapse, as if the world finally stopped trying to tear him apart.
I don’t pull out. I don’t even shift. I guide him down instead, slow and sure, lowering us both to the mattress with the care of a man holding something irreplaceable.
Julian’s body folds with me, pliant, trusting, letting me position him exactly where I want him.
Back to my chest. Ass still full of me. Neck wrapped in tape like a collar.
Heart beating against my ribs like it’s trying to burn its way into my hand.
I slide one arm under his head, letting his cheek press into the crook of my bicep.
He melts there—completely—like his bones finally remember what safety feels like.
My other arm drapes over his thigh, holding him open, holding him close.
His skin is hot where my hand lands. Damp with sweat. Trembling from the aftershocks.
He sighs, breath catching on the tail end of it, and pushes back just slightly—barely an inch, just enough to feel the drag inside him, to remind himself he isn’t empty.
I tighten my grip around his thigh. “Easy,” I murmur against the damp curls at his temple. “You’ve taken enough for one night.”
He hums—soft, wrecked, almost content—but his body doesn’t stop clinging. Doesn’t stop searching. Doesn’t stop needing. Every breath he takes shivers through both of us, like he’s rewiring himself against me, cell by cell.
My hand drifts up to his chest, fingers spreading over his sternum, steadying his breathing. I feel every inhale. Every tremor. Every echo of fear still trying to claw its way out.
My eyes flick to the nightstand. That fucking gun is getting moved. Hidden. Locked away so deep not even Finn’s nosy little chaos-gremlin fingers could find it. Julian won’t reach for steel in the dark again. If he needs grounding, he reaches for me.
Always me.
I bury my face in the back of his neck, breathing him in—salt, sweat, tape glue, sex, panic, devotion. His hand twitches on the sheets, then curls back to my forearm, holding me there like he’s afraid I’ll fade out if he stops touching me.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, voice scraping low against his skin. “Sleep.”
He exhales once, heavy and raw, and the tremor in his shoulders finally eases.
I don’t sleep. Not with him like this. Not after the day he had. Not while the ghosts still try to whisper through the cracks. I stay exactly where I am—inside him, around him, under him, over him—until his breath evens out and the shaking stops.
And the gun? That’s gone before sunrise. Hidden where only I can reach it. Because from now on, if he needs something in his mouth to keep the world quiet, it sure as hell won’t be steel.