Chapter 24
Brendon
I’m not awake enough to panic yet. For a blissful few seconds, I just lie there and breathe, taking in the slow rise and fall of Dominic’s chest pressed against my back, the deep, even sound of his breathing at the back of my neck, the warmth cocooning me under his sheets.
Then my bladder makes its presence known, and the morning reality hits.
I slept with Dominic Volkov.
Not the hand stuff, not the kneeling in my office, not the endless teasing and stopping right at the edge he’s been doing for weeks. Real sex. Full on, no turning back—line destroyed and ground scorched. Everything my father said would send me straight to Hell before the trumpet even sounds.
I let a six-foot-four serial killer fuck me, and I called him Daddy while he did it.
Multiple times.
Loudly.
Heat rushes up my neck before I even open my eyes, and last night crashes back in flashes: Dominic’s mouth, his hands, the way he looked at me, the feel of him inside me for the first time.
His voice in my ear, filthy and low, telling me to breathe, telling me to take it, telling me I’m doing so fucking good for him.
The stretch that hurt and then didn’t, since I’ve gotten used to his fist; the burn that turned into heat that turned into something that broke me down and rebuilt me at the same time.
The way he held my thigh up with one hand, while the other laced our fingers together and pressed them into the mattress, and my body just… agreed.
I clamp down on the memory hard, because if I let it roll, I’m going to get hard again.
And I genuinely don’t know if any part of my lower half can handle that right now.
He’s heavy, and he feels… safe. Too safe.
That stupid sleepy part of me that used to cling to a pillow as a kid wants to stay right here forever.
Unfortunately, my bladder disagrees, reminding me why I’m awake in the first place.
Right. Bathroom. I need the bathroom. Through the curtains, I can see a slice of morning light—that grayish kind before the sun fully commits—which probably means it’s earlier than my body would’ve normally chosen to wake up.
My body also chose to get railed by someone built like a Greek tragedy last night, so we’re not trusting its judgment today.
His arm is pinning me, and his leg is dead weight over mine; there is no way I am waking a devil up to tell him I need to pee. My survival instincts aren’t completely dead.
Carefully, I slide my hand down to his forearm, fingers brushing over warm skin and ink. He makes a low noise in his sleep, and his grip tightens for a second; his body’s first response to movement is “no, stay.” I freeze, heart lurching, then exhale slowly as his hold eases again.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “You can do this. You just need to slide out. You’re an adult man. You can get to the bathroom without waking the Beast.”
The problem is moving involves my lower half, and it has some very strong opinions this morning.
I shift my hips, trying to slide out from under his thigh, and the second I engage anything from the waist down, white-hot pain lances through me.
It’s not a gentle burn—it’s a vicious, full-body jolt that rips a yelp out of my mouth before I can swallow it.
“Fuck—!”
The sound comes out high and raw, more startled than anything, but it might as well have been a gunshot for how fast he reacts.
One second, Dominic is dead asleep behind me, and the next his arm clamps over my waist again and he’s dragging me back against his chest with a jolt that knocks the breath out of me.
“What?” he snaps, voice harsh with sleep, body already tense. His hand sweeps over my stomach, my ribs, checking for blood as if he expects to find a knife in me. “What happened? Who’s here?”
“There’s no one here, dumbass,” I manage, face burning. “Calm down, it’s just—ow, fuck. Dom… wait, wait, that hurts.” My voice cracks on the last word, and to my absolute horror, my eyes sting.
He goes still. “Hurts where?” he demands, immediately shifting from murder mode to assessment mode. His hand slides lower over my stomach, careful now, hovering and afraid to make it worse. “Brendon, talk to me.”
“Everything,” I mutter, then wince when I try to shift again and pain spears through me. “Okay, not everything. Just… Jesus, my ass feels like it lost a bar fight with a truck.”
There’s a beat of silence, then I feel his whole body go loose behind me, breath huffing out in a way that’s fifty percent possessiveness and one hundred percent relief.
“Oh,” he says, and there’s a grin in it I don’t have to see to hear. “Oh.”
“Don’t,” I warn, mortification climbing up my neck. “Don’t you dare sound pleased right now, Dominic Volkov. I swear to God.”
“I’m not pleased,” he lies immediately, but the bastard is clearly fighting a laugh. “I’m concerned. Very concerned. Devastated, even.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” I say through clenched teeth—because the pain is still there, which is exactly how I wanted this morning to go, obviously. My throat feels thick and my eyes blur, and that just pisses me off more. “You broke me. This is your fault. All of this is your stupid fault.”
“Hey,” he says, voice softening. His arm snakes more gently around me. “Breathe. Don’t try to move yet. Let it settle.”
“It’s not going to settle,” I say, blinking fast to keep the tears from spilling. “I have to pee, but I can’t even sit up without feeling like I got hit by a truck; while you’re over there sounding like you just won the damn Super Bowl.”
He strokes his hand up my stomach, palm spread wide and warm, soothing in a way that makes my throat tighten more, not less. “I did warn you that you were going to feel me for days.”
I turn my head, shame burning a hole through my face.
His hair’s a mess this morning, eyes still heavy with sleep and lashes clumped together, jaw shadowed with stubble.
He looks stupidly good for someone who spent half the night wrecking me.
I feel ridiculous in comparison: eyes watering, nose stinging, and my body one big complaint.
“That’s not funny,” I snap, except it comes out wet because now my stupid body has decided tears are happening. My eyes finally overflow, and a hot trail slips down my cheek—which is mortifying on top of everything else.
His mouth twitches; I see it. The bastard tries to swallow the smile, but it still tugs at the corner of his lips before he schools it into fake sympathy.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I say, voice wobbling.
“I’m not laughing, baby. First time’s always rough, especially with… everything we did.” His gaze flickers down my body and back up. “And with me.”
“With you and your six bars of hell,” I bite out, because if I don’t brat I’m going to start sobbing. “Who the fuck needs that much metal in their dick, Dominic? What are you, a walking hardware store? You should come with a warning label.”
This time, he doesn’t even try not to smile: it breaks over his face before he reins it in with a wince, like he knows full well it’s the wrong reaction.
“You’re okay,” he says, relief bleeding through the amusement. “If you’re bitching at me, you’re okay. I’ve got you. Breathe. You’re not broken, you’re just sore as fuck. I’ll fix what I can, yeah?”
“Can you un-fuck my ass?” I demand through my embarrassment. “Because that’s the part complaining.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “No refunds, but I can make things easier. Stay here. Don’t move unless you absolutely have to. I mean it, Brendon. You try to get out of this bed on your own, and I’ll tie you to it.”
A shiver runs through me at the thought, which is extremely unhelpful given the context. “That’s not a deterrent, and you know it,” I mutter.
“Exactly my point,” he says dryly. He leans in and presses a quick kiss to my forehead, then swings his legs out of bed.
I try very hard not to stare when he stands up, but it’s impossible. His back flexes as he stretches, long lines of muscle under skin, tattoos shifting with the movement—all black ink and scars.
He pads to the bathroom, naked and unconcerned, comfortable in his skin in a way I can’t even imagine. I glare at him halfheartedly, then yelp again when a tiny shift in my hips makes everything clench in protest.
“Brendon,” he calls from the bathroom. “Color?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, then raise my voice. “I’m fine.”
“Fine as in green, or fine as in you’re going to faceplant on your way to the toilet?” he asks. I can hear cabinets opening, bottles clinking. “Don’t lie to me, Little Sin.”
“Yellow?” I say reluctantly. “Everything hurts and I want to die, but I’m not actually dying.”
“That’s amber, not red,” he says. “You’re so fucking dramatic. It’s normal to be sore after the first time—especially when you spent half the night telling me not to be gentle.”
“You didn’t have to listen,” I shoot back, then bite down on a whimper when I accidentally shift my weight wrong again.
Left alone, I stare up at the ceiling and focus on breathing. It hurts, yeah, but not like something’s wrong. It’s that deep, raw sting, layered over muscle ache; the kind that says my body got pushed somewhere brand-new and is now filing 12 complaint forms about it.
Underneath the discomfort, though, is this strange warmth. He never forced. He never ignored a flinch. He did exactly what he said he would do and gave me every exit—and I still chose to stay, to take all of that on purpose.
Dom comes back in carrying a glass of water, a couple of pills, and a small tube. He sets the water and pills on the nightstand, then sits down on the edge of the bed, looking at me with too much amusement in his eyes and too much tenderness in everything else.
“Okay,” he says. “Step one. Painkillers. Can you sit up a little if I help you, or is that a hard no?”
“I can try,” I say, because I have some pride left, even if it’s hanging by a thread.