Epilogue #2
Adriel sobbed at the loss, empty again, aching, and then Landen was rising over him, positioning himself, and the head of his cock pressed against Adriel’s entrance.
“Look at me,” Landen said.
Adriel forced his eyes open. Landen’s face was above him, close, his eyes dark and intent, his jaw tight with the effort of restraint.
“I love you,” Landen said. “Do you understand? I love you.”
Then he pushed inside.
One long, slow thrust that filled him completely.
Adriel’s mouth fell open in a silent cry.
His nails dug into Landen’s shoulders, his back arching off the bed, his body struggling to accommodate the sudden fullness.
Landen was thick inside him, stretching him in a way his fingers couldn’t, filling him so completely that Adriel couldn’t tell where he ended and Landen began.
Landen held still. His forehead pressed to Adriel’s, both of them shaking, both of them breathing hard. The intimacy of it undid something in Adriel’s chest.
“Okay?” Landen murmured.
Adriel nodded and gripped Landen’s shoulders tighter, and tried to breathe through it.
Then Landen started to move. Slow strokes at first, deep and devastating, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in with excruciating patience. Each thrust hit that spot inside him, that place that made his vision white out, and Adriel’s cries were punched out of him with every pass.
Then the rhythm built. Harder. Faster. Relentless.
Landen fucked him with purpose now, deep and driving, his hips snapping forward, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room.
Adriel’s legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, his heels digging into the small of Landen’s back, his body moving with Landen’s, meeting every thrust.
“Look at you,” Landen gritted out, his voice rough, wrecked. “So needy. So desperate. You feel…fuck, Adriel, you feel incredible. Like you were made for my cock. Like you were made for me.”
Adriel moaned, the words going straight through him, winding around something deep and hungry.
“You’re everything,” Landen continued, his pace quickening, his breathing ragged. “Everything. I didn’t know… I didn’t know I could want someone like this. You undo me. Every time. You undo me.”
Adriel’s hands roamed Landen’s back, his shoulders, his neck; touching everywhere, holding on, trying to anchor himself to something as the pleasure built and built and threatened to sweep him away.
Then Landen’s hand moved to his throat.
Not the gentle resting weight Adriel was used to. That time, Landen’s fingers closed, the pressure applied to the sides, restricting the air flow. Landen’s eyes locked onto his, his other hand braced on the mattress, hips still moving in deep, steady strokes.
“Breathe,” Landen told him, and the command was soft but absolute. “Look at me.”
Adriel’s eyes went wide. The pressure on his throat was; he didn’t have words for it. It wasn’t pain. His vision softened at the edges. Every sensation amplified. His whole body lit up, every nerve ending firing at once, pleasure so sharp it bordered on something else entirely.
He loved it.
The realization hit him the same way it had that first time Landen had tied him up; sudden, undeniable, a door he didn’t know was there swinging open.
He loved the pressure. Loved the control.
Loved the way it made everything else disappear, the way his mind went blank and clean and there was nothing left except Landen’s eyes and Landen’s hands and the feeling of being held exactly where he was, suspended between breath and release.
Landen’s eyes darkened. His grip adjusted, fractionally tighter, and Adriel moaned, the sound coming from somewhere deep and involuntary, his back arching, his cock throbbing between them.
“There it is,” Landen breathed. “There you are. God, you’re beautiful like this. So open. So perfect. Giving yourself to me completely.”
He held the pressure for three heartbeats, Adriel counted them, couldn’t help it, felt each one pounding in his ears, and then released.
The rush hit Adriel like a wave. Air flooded back, sensation amplified, his whole body buzzing with it, his hole clenching around Landen. He gasped, vision swimming, and Landen was still moving inside him, still thrusting, still watching him with that dark, hungry focus.
Landen’s hand returned to his throat. Pressed. Waited. Released.
Again. Press. Release.
Again.
Each time the pressure returned, it amplified everything.
Each release flooded him with a rush that made his entire body sing.
The edges of his vision swam. Colors blurred.
Sounds muffled. He was crying again, tears streaming, and he didn’t care, didn’t care about anything except this, except Landen inside him and around him and holding his throat and telling him he was good, he was perfect, he was everything.
“That’s it,” Landen murmured, his voice coming from very far away and right inside his ear at the same time. “That’s it, baby. Let go. Let me have all of you.”
Press. Hold. Release.
Press. Hold. Release.
Adriel was floating now. His body was still there, he could feel it, distantly, could feel Landen moving inside him, could feel his own cock hard and leaking against his stomach, but he was also somewhere else, somewhere soft and dark and warm, where nothing existed except the rhythm of Landen’s hand and the sound of his voice.
“You’re so good,” Landen was saying. “So good for me. The best thing that’s ever happened to me. Do you understand? The best thing.”
Press. Hold. Release.
“I love you. I love every part of you. Every inch. Every curve. Every sound you make. You’re mine, Adriel. All of you. Forever.”
Press. Hold.
Landen’s hand released his throat fully. Blood rushed back. Adriel gasped, vision sparking, pleasure crashing through him in a wave so intense his whole body locked.
“Cum for me,” Landen growled. “Now. Let go.”
Adriel came.
Every muscle in his body seized, his back bowing off the bed, Landen’s name torn from his throat in a sound he didn’t recognize as his own.
It went on and on, wave after wave, his cock pulsing between them, cum streaking across his stomach and chest, and still it continued, wringing him dry, taking everything he had.
And then…
Everything went quiet. Soft and vast and warm, like sinking into water that held you instead of pulling you under.
The edges of the room dissolved. His body was there but distant, floating, and there was nothing; no thought, no fear, no voice in his head telling him he was too much or not enough or wrong.
There was only warmth. Only peace. Only the faintest awareness of being held.
He didn’t know how long he was gone. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. Time didn’t exist in that place.
The first thing that came back was Landen’s voice. Far away at first, then closer, like surfacing through layers of warm water. Soft. Steady. Repeating his name.
“Adriel. Hey. Come back to me, baby. That’s it. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Then touch; a hand on his face, thumb stroking his cheek. Something cool and wet pressed to his lips. Water. He drank without thinking, a few sips, then more.
The room reassembled itself around him in pieces. Ceiling. Light. Landen’s face above him, close, watching him with an expression Adriel had never seen before; tender, alert, awed, and something else beneath it. Pride.
“There you are,” Landen murmured.
Adriel blinked. His body felt boneless and heavy, like he was made of something denser than flesh. His limbs didn’t want to move. His mind was still cottoned, still soft, still wrapped in whatever that place had been.
“What...” His voice came out slurred, barely there. He tried again. “What happened?”
Landen was stroking his hair. His other hand was wrapped around Adriel’s, thumb moving in slow circles over his knuckles.
“Did I faint?” Adriel asked, a flicker of worry cutting through the haze. “The… the breathplay, did I…”
“No,” Landen said immediately. “You didn’t faint. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Then what…”
“You went into subspace,” Landen said.
Adriel stared at him. Subspace. He knew that word. He’d heard it…
“Like… like what happened at the Knot?” Adriel asked. “To that sub? When we watched the… the scene with Adrian?”
Landen nodded, his expression warm.
The memory surfaced in fragments. The Crimson Knot, weeks ago.
Landen had taken him to watch a performance, his first time in the club’s main room during a scene, and Adriel had been terrified.
Not of the scene itself, though the scene had been intense enough to make his pulse pound, but of everything around it.
The people. The confidence they carried, the ease with which they moved through that world, the words they shared that Adriel was still learning one word at a time.
He had felt, standing in that room with Landen’s hand on the small of his back, the acute awareness of being an outsider. A tourist. Someone who didn’t belong.
It wasn’t the lifestyle itself that had intimidated him, it was what it represented.
Experience. Mastery. Years of knowing yourself and your desires with a clarity Adriel couldn’t imagine.
He’d looked at the subs that night, beautiful, confident, certain in their submission, and felt the familiar whisper start up in the back of his mind:
They can give him what you can’t. They know things you don’t. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes you’re not enough.
He was working on that. He knew the voice was wrong, knew it, even when his body hadn’t fully caught up.
Landen loved him. Landen chose him. Landen had told him, in words and in touch and in every way that mattered, that Adriel was what he wanted.
The voice was quieter now than it used to be.
Some days it was almost silent. But it was still there, in the corners, waiting for a moment of weakness to speak up.