Chapter 22 #2
As soon as I text him that I’m out of the clinic, and I step outside, the mask slides off like it was never there. The concern drains, the easy smiles evaporate, and what’s left is a tight coil of fury sitting hot in my gut.
My hands are shaking from restraint. Throwing her into the door wasn’t the problem; I’ve done worse with less provocation. The problem is how fast I lost my temper, how automatic it was, how there was no calculation in the movement—just pure, unfiltered possessiveness.
She had my Little Sin pinned in that old role he’s trying to crawl out of, and the rage inside me snapped like a cheap plastic fork.
I know it’s more than that; it’s always more when it comes to him. She pushed, yeah, but it wasn’t the push that set me off. It wasn’t even because she put her hands on him, although I really had to hold back because of that.
It was the way he shrank. The way his shoulders curved in, the way his voice went tight and polite and small, the way he looked at her like he owed her the air he was breathing.
I’ve watched him do that for five months with everyone else. I’ve watched him say yes until his eyes go dead. Tonight I watched him finally draw a line, and someone tried to walk right over it.
Not on my fucking watch.
I should be thinking about contingency plans—what if she remembers more, what if she talks, what if someone actually noticed.
But all that takes a back seat to the singular, obsessive thought that he saw me do that. Not as a rumor. Not as an abstract “Dom’s dangerous.” He saw me live, up close, in a parking lot where the only light came from a broken lamppost.
He’s going to leave me.
He’s going to tell me he can’t do this anymore, that there’s a line even he won’t cross and I just jumped over it, laughing. He’s going to tell me that he can handle his own exes, his own boundaries, his own trauma, and he doesn’t need me brutalizing everyone who ever made him cry.
Part of me, the smallest part, knows I deserve that. The rest of me is still replaying the look on his face when I told him he was my person.
I pull into my driveway, kill the engine, and sit there for a minute with my hands on the wheel. He came straight here like I told him to. Good boy. My throat feels weirdly tight around the thought.
“Brace yourself,” I say, rolling my shoulders back. “He’s allowed to be mad.”
I get out, grab my bag from the back seat, and lock the car without looking back.
Every step up the path sounds too loud: the crunch of gravel, the creak of the porch boards.
My palm feels damp when it touches the doorknob, then the lock gives easily and I step inside, already opening my mouth to say his name.
“Br—”
I don’t get a word out before Brendon’s body hits me hard enough that I stagger back a step, the door bumping closed behind me. I think he’s finally snapping, but then his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on mine, hot and rough and desperate in a way I have never felt from him before.
I make a noise into his mouth, shock cracking through carefully arranged composure, and grab his hips to steady both of us.
He doesn’t pull back—if anything, he presses in harder.
Fingers fisting in my hair, making these wrecked little sounds that vibrate straight into my spine.
His teeth catch my lower lip, his tongue slides against mine.
He doesn’t feel afraid right now—he’s wired and high on something that isn’t just adrenaline.
I break the kiss so I can breathe and get a look at him. His pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any green left, cheeks flushed, hair mussed like he’s been running his hands through it for twenty minutes straight.
“What the fuck was that?” I manage, voice rough. “I leave you for half an hour, and you turn into a heat-seeking missile?”
“Shut up,” he says, voice breaking, and surges up on his toes, chasing my mouth again like I didn’t just slam someone’s head into a car half an hour ago.
He’s shaking, but it’s not the brittle, on-the-edge panic I expected. His hips are pressed flush to mine, and there’s no way he doesn’t feel how hard I am, the erection that’s been simmering since I watched him square up to his ex now pressed against the line of his belt.
“Thought you were going to yell at me,” I say, after breaking off the kiss again.
“I was going to,” he says. “On the drive over, I rehearsed it. You can’t just—” He breaks off, shaking his head.
“But then I kept seeing the way you just… did it. The way you didn’t even hesitate when she had me cornered.
The look on your face when you told me to get in my car.
I should be horrified. I should be on the phone with the cops, or with my dad, or with a priest.”
“You should,” I agree quietly.
“But I’m not,” he says, almost angrily. “I got here, and I was shaking, and I thought it was fear—but it wasn’t just that.
It was… you. The fact that you did that for me.
” His hands tighten on my hoodie. “The fact that I watched you be exactly what you are. No filter. No smile for the cameras. Just… you. Violent and calm and so fucking sure I belong to you that you didn’t even think twice. ”
I feel my pulse slam against my throat. “And that’s… turning you on?”
“Yes,” he grinds out, like the admission is being dragged out of him with pliers. “Yes, okay? I was standing in your kitchen five minutes ago, and I just kept… seeing it. Then I realized I was hard and I wanted to throw up and I wanted… this.” He jerks me closer. “You. I wanted you.”
Then the pieces click, and another jagged little kink is revealed, courtesy of the worst possible trigger: voyeuristic violence. Watching me hurt someone for him lit him up.
Of course my broken, church-raised, repressed little TA gets off on wrath.
Of course the same brain that was taught to fear God’s anger, and worship his protection, has now decided to misfile those instincts under me. My protection, violence, possessiveness—all wrapped around his body like a shield instead of aimed at him.
Of course some deep, twisted part of him responded to watching me weaponize myself on his behalf.
“Well, fuck,” I murmur, half to myself. “You’ve got a violence kink.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Voyeuristic violence,” I say, still tasting the shape of it.
“You get off on watching me be a monster, especially when it’s for you.
Not just the aftermath, not just the idea, but the actual impact—the sound, the sight, the knowledge that it’s happening because of you.
That’s what had you so worked up you tried to climb over the bleachers the other day.
That’s what’s got you pressing your tongue down my throat right now instead of calling the cops. ”
Color surges up his neck, but he doesn’t deny it; his fingers tighten in my shirt instead. “You say that like it’s not fucked up,” he whispers.
“Oh, it’s fucked up,” I say, and I let a slow, filthy grin spread across my face. “Which is why it fits perfect, Little Sin. You were never going to be vanilla.”
He swallows, eyes flicking to my mouth again. “I should… I should be upset,” he says. “I should be yelling at you.”
“You can yell while you’re stripped down on my sheets,” I say. “You can scream, if you want. Just be honest about what your dick’s doing while we talk about it.”
He makes a low sound that’s basically a groan of pure frustration. “You’re supposed to be horrified with me right now.”
I huff a laugh. “Brendon, I’m a murderer. I’m not going to clutch my pearls because my boyfriend got a little turned on watching me be an asshole in a parking lot.”
He jerks back enough to glare at me, eyes shining. “Don’t say that word.”
“What, murderer?” I ask, knowing that’s not what he means.
“Boyfriend,” he snaps, but his fingers don’t loosen on my hoodie.
I tilt my head, studying him. “You’d rather ‘the guy who puts his cock in your mouth three nights a week’?”
His face flames. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m observant,” I say, my hand slipping to his throat, thumb stroking along the curve, feeling the rapid hum of his pulse under my fingers.
“You liked that someone stepped in and enforced your ‘no’ without making you explain why it mattered. You liked that the person doing it was the same one who holds your throat while you call him Daddy.” I lean in, letting my lips brush his ear.
“You liked that your Beast bared his teeth for you.”
He shudders—a full-body tremor that I feel all the way down to my bones. “Stop calling yourself that,” he mutters, which is hilarious considering he’s the one who named me.
“Don’t get to give the monster a name and then complain when he answers to it, baby,” I say, and kiss him again.
This time, I set the pace; slow at first, letting him feel the shift in control.
My hand stays at his throat, fingers splayed, thumb stroking the line of his jaw.
His lips part, and I take my time, licking into his mouth, tasting every soft, broken sound.
He answers, eagerly and messily, his hips grinding against mine.
He’s buzzing from adrenaline, guilt, and arousal. I know that feeling; I’ve lived in it most of my life. The difference is, he’s not alone in it now.
After a long minute I pull back, resting my forehead against his, both of us breathing hard.
“Color?” I ask.
“Green,” he says immediately, then laughs, shaky. “I don’t even have to think about it anymore.”
I hook my hands under his thighs and lift, the movement easy with his weight, and instinct kicks in. His legs wrap around my waist, arms looping over my shoulders, and suddenly I’m carrying him through the cottage again, like he’s the only thing I’m built to hold.
His mouth finds mine halfway to the bedroom and I kiss him harder, swallowing every noise he makes for me. The anger that’s been coiled in my gut since the parking lot twists into feral need when his fingers slide into my hair and he whines against my tongue.
Protecting him, hurting someone for him, coming home to him, wired and wild, and finding out he’s just as wired for me—that’s a hit I didn’t know existed.
When we reach the bedroom door, I shove it open with my shoulder and set him down on the edge of the bed, hands framing his face so I can look at him.
His lips are swollen, pupils blown, hair sticking up in half a dozen directions.
He looks ruined, and somehow more himself than he ever did in all those church pictures his mom posts on Facebook.
“You’re not mad at me,” I say, because I need to hear it from his mouth even if his body already answered.
He laughs, breathless. “I am mad. I’m so fucking mad at you.
” His hands slide down my chest, fingers curling into the hem of my shirt.
“I’m mad you hit her. I’m mad you didn’t warn me.
I’m mad I liked watching you do it. I’m mad I came straight here instead of…
I don’t know...” He looks up, meeting my eyes head-on.
“I’m mad at you, and I still want you more than I have ever wanted anything. ”
That’s all I need.
“Last chance,” I say, voice dropping, hands sliding to his knees and pushing them apart so I can step in between.
“You tell me right now if you don’t want this to go further than it has.
You say red, and we stop. You say no, and I back off.
You say you need to go slow, and we go slow.
Once we start, though…” I trail off, letting the weight of it hang between us.
“No half-measures right now, Little Sin. I need to be inside you tonight.”
He holds my gaze, breathing hard, and there’s fear there, yeah, but it’s the right kind. The kind that says he understands this is a line and he’s choosing to cross it with his eyes open. His fingers tighten on my shirt, and he tugs me closer until our noses almost brush.
“I don’t want you to be gentle,” he says. “I want you—all of you. I want to wake up tomorrow and know this is where I crossed the line, and that I did it on purpose.”
My control snaps so hard I almost hear it. “Good, because I’ve been holding back for too long, and it’s getting fucking painful.”
He huffs, a small, wild smile tugging at his mouth. I lean in, kiss that smile off his face, and let my hands finally do what they’ve been itching to do since the first night he walked into my cottage in that neat button-down.
I drag his sweater up over his head, my fingers brushing the warm skin beneath, and feel him shiver under my palms. His hands are all over me too, tugging my hoodie off, pulling my shirt up, splaying over scars and ink like he’s cataloguing every inch.
When he reaches for my waistband, fingers trembling, he hesitates, looking up for permission. I grab his wrist and press it down, not to stop him, but to steady him.
“I’ve got you,” I say. It’s a promise, a threat, a vow—all of it at once. “You’re not going to Hell for this, Brendon. If anyone’s punching your ticket, it’s me. And I’d drag you down myself before I let anyone else touch you.”
He laughs, choked, disbelieving, and turned on as hell. “That’s… not how salvation works,” he says, even as he arches into my touch.
“Lucky for you,” I murmur against his throat, “I don’t give a fuck about saving your soul.”
I push him back on the mattress and climb over him, his legs opening for me without hesitation now, his hands pulling me down like gravity.
For the first time in a long time, the only thing in my head is the sound of his breathing and the knowledge that this right here is what all that violence, all that control, all those sleepless nights have been circling without a name.
I found another kink buried in my Little Sin tonight: watching violence done in his name, knowing I’ll break things so he doesn’t have to. It’s fucked up and messy and dangerous.
It also makes a lot of sense that he’d be drawn to the monster that stepped in when his own saints failed him. Of course he’d want to see what it looks like when the Beast bares its teeth on his behalf.
As for me: Addiction confirmed.
And I’m so fucked.