Chapter 24 #2
He slides an arm behind my shoulders and one under my knees, moving me with the same care he used last night when he flipped me onto my back, and I hiss as the movement pulls at sore muscles.
He murmurs words in Russian under his breath, the cadence low and soothing, and props me up against the headboard with pillows.
“Breathe,” he reminds me. “Go slow. In through your nose, out through your mouth. You’re okay.”
“Screw breathing,” I mutter, but I do it, and some of the pain eases into a dull, manageable throb.
“Drama queen,” he says, handing me the pills. “Take these.”
I eye them. “What are they?”
“Ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant,” he says. “Not laced with anything homicidal, I promise. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t do it with over-the-counter meds.”
“Comforting,” I say dryly, but I take them, washing them down with half the glass of water. The coolness helps; my mouth was so dry I didn’t realise until now. He watches to make sure I swallow, then sets the glass back down and holds up the little tube.
“And this,” he says. “Topical. Numbs everything a bit. I grabbed it at the same time I bought the lube and the extra towels, before you ask. I was planning ahead.”
“Of course you did,” I say, torn between embarrassment and grudging gratitude. “You make serial killing look impulsive, but everything else is planned out to the last detail.”
He grins. “Flattery will get you nowhere.” Then his expression softens again. “I can walk you through how to use it, or I can help, but I’m not pushing that while you’re already overwhelmed. Your call.”
The idea of his hands anywhere near the part of me that currently feels like it lost a fight with a freight train makes my face go hot, but the idea of having to contort myself and actually apply that stuff on my own makes me want to crawl under the bed and never come out.
“You can… show me,” I say quietly. “I’ll do it. Just not right this second.”
“Good call,” he says, and sets the tube on the nightstand. “We’ll handle that after you pee and after the pills kick in a bit.”
He gets back on the bed, curling against me, one arm going around my shoulders this time instead of my waist, pulling me into his side. His hand rubs slow circles between my shoulder blades. “You’re okay, Brendon.”
“I feel like you parked a truck in me,” I grumble, but the contact helps, grounding everything and slowing my racing thoughts. “A very large, very smug, Russian truck.”
He laughs, a low, warm sound that rumbles through his chest into my cheek. “You were the one begging that truck not to pull out. I distinctly remember ‘Don’t stop, Daddy,’ and ‘more’—and at one point, some very creative blasphemy.”
I groan, mortified all over again. “You’re making this worse.”
“I’m reminding you that last night was mutual as fuck,” he says calmly.
“Your brain’s going to try to rewrite it today, because you’re sore and you were raised to believe any pleasure outside a narrow script is sin.
I’m not letting that happen. You wanted it, you asked for it, you loved it.
You’re paying for it today, yeah, but that doesn’t erase the fact that it was good, and you were safe. ”
My eyes sting again, but this time it’s not just from pain or embarrassment. I lean into him more, letting his warmth soak through the lingering chill.
“What if I’m not safe from me?” I mutter. “From my own head?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he says, simple as that. “I’ve got you.”
“You promise?” I ask, because apparently I’m that guy now—the one who needs reassurance in plain words, no matter how pathetic it sounds.
He huffs a soft breath against my hair, then pulls his arm back long enough to hold out his hand between us, pinky crooked. His eyes meet mine, steady and a little amused, but there is nothing mocking in them.
“Yeah,” he says. “Pinky promise.”
I stare at his hand, and even with the ache in my body and all the embarrassment, it makes warmth bloom in my chest. I hook my pinky around his, the motion small but stupidly significant.
“You’re ridiculous,” I murmur, echoing what I said that first time, but there’s no bite in it.
“Still binding,” he says. “Too late to back out now, Little Sin.”
We lie like that, our fingers linked, his thumb tracing absent circles over my knuckles while the pain pills start to dull the worst of the throbbing.
My breathing evens out; the panic that spiked when I first tried to sit up settles into a manageable discomfort.
Eventually, he squeezes my hand once and lets go.
“Okay,” he says. “Game plan. I’m going to run you a bath—”
“Bath?” I echo.
He raises an eyebrow. “You’re not getting back into this bed until I’ve soaked some of that ache out of you. Warm water, Epsom salts, and muscle soak—you’ll thank me later.”
“You’re weirdly prepared for this,” I mutter, feeling jealous. Which isn’t fair, because of course he’s fucked others before me.
He must see the look on my face, because his mouth slows around the next word and his eyes narrow, catching on whatever expression I’m failing to smother. His gaze flicks from my eyes to my clenched jaw and back again, and I watch the exact second the penny drops.
“There’s that little storm cloud.”
I scowl at the ceiling, because looking at him feels dangerous. “What storm cloud?”
“The one that just rolled in when I mentioned being prepared,” he says. “You got that kicked-puppy look for a second. Talk to me, Little Sin.”
“I do not have a kicked-puppy look,” I mutter, which is a lie we both know it. I pick at a loose thread on the comforter, cheeks heating. “I’m just… surprised you have a whole ‘post-destroying-your-TA kit’ ready to go, that’s all.”
His brows lift. “Post-destroying-your-TA kit,” he repeats with a chuckle. “You jealous of the fictional boys who got wrecked before you?”
“Wow,” I draw out the word, as dry as I can manage while still lying half on his chest. “Straight for the jugular.”
“You’re not straight for anything,” he snorts, then sobers. “Seriously, though. Say it. Get it out of your head before it throws a party in there.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, fighting it, then sigh, because he’s right.
“You’re just… really good at this,” I admit, forcing the words out.
“All of this: the sex, the talking, the aftercare, the knowing I’d freak out in the morning and preemptively buying ass ointment.
You just casually dropped ‘Epsom salts and muscle soak’ like this is routine, and my brain immediately decides I’m…
I don’t know, victim number forty-eight on the Dominic Volkov Ruination Tour. ”
His mouth curves even before I finish. “Brendon Lane, jealous of ghosts,” he says. “That’s new.”
“I’m not jealous,” I say automatically, which is so obviously bullshit I can feel my ears burn.
“I just… don’t like thinking about you doing all of this with someone else; or you knowing exactly what to do because you learned on other people, and now I’m just…
benefiting from your experience like some kind of group project. ”
He stares at me, then lets out a laugh that’s half amused, half affectionate, and annoyingly gentle. “You really want to know why I’m ‘weirdly prepared’?” he asks.
“No,” I say, then immediately contradict myself. “Yes. Maybe. Shut up and tell me.”
He moves, sliding his hand from my hip up to my ribs, his thumb rubbing a slow line back and forth.
“First,” he says, “I’m not new to sex, you know this, but I haven’t done what I do with you with anyone else.
Not the way we did last night. Not that deep or that intense.
Not that… us. I’ve fucked people, I’ve played a little rough, but I don’t take many people apart, and I sure as fuck haven’t spent half the night holding anyone through subdrop before you. ”
I blink, thrown by his words. “You… haven’t?”
“Newsflash,” he says. “Most of my hookups were quick, dirty, and not particularly emotionally intelligent—bar bathroom, party bedroom, someone else’s couch while their roommates were out.
No brat training, no pinky promises, no baths in the morning.
I got off, they got off, everyone went home.
You’re not standing in a long line of aftercare recipients, Little Sin. You’re the first.”
The ridiculous warm thing in my chest expands, and my throat tightens—which is unfair because I was prepared to be smugly righteous in my jealousy, and now I just feel stupid and seen.
“Then how do you know what to do?” I ask quietly. “The drop thing, the pills, the bath… You said ‘subdrop’ like it’s not your first time saying it.”
His eyes crinkle slightly at the corners.
“Because I’m not a complete animal. I knew exactly what I was planning to do with you after the first time you got on your knees and looked at me like that.
I also knew if I didn’t handle it right, you’d implode.
So I did what people do when they care about getting something important: I fucking researched. ”
I choke. “You… researched.”
“Yeah,” he says, completely unbothered. “I read shit; articles, forums, whatever I could get my hands on. I listened to podcasts while I was lifting. ‘How not to break your sub’ is surprisingly popular content on the internet. I picked what made sense for you, and adapted it to my brain and your neuroses. The ointment’s from a completely different grab bag of experience, but the rest is all for you, Little Sin. ”
My face is probably doing something humiliating, because he watches it like he finds the whole process fascinating. “You… you Googled ‘how not to break your sub’,” I repeat weakly.
“Among other things,” he says. “You’re not a casual kink for me, Brendon.
You’re not a side quest. You crawled under my skin the second you knelt for me and licked my fucking boot.
I knew if I was going to keep pulling you down with me, I needed to make sure you didn’t drown.
I like breaking rules; I don’t like breaking you wrong. ”