Chapter 10 Jonah
Chapter Ten: Jonah
Two days after Jagger kills a man for me, I find him in the library just after one thirty a.m.
He's not reading. He's sitting in the dark, staring at the shelves like they hold answers to questions he can't articulate.
I've been watching him unravel since Holloway died.
Not dramatically. Not obviously. But in small ways that someone else might miss.
The way he checks the security feeds twice as often.
The way he flinches when his phone buzzes.
The way he looks at me sometimes, like he's memorizing my face in case he never sees it again.
He gave up something when he killed that man. Some piece of the stoicism he's spent years building. And now he doesn't know how to function without it.
"You should be asleep," he says without turning around.
"So should you."
"I don't sleep much."
"Bullshit. You sleep fine when you're not spiraling." I cross the room and sit on the arm of his chair, close enough that my thigh presses against his arm. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"More bullshit." I reach down and run my fingers through his hair. He tenses, then slowly relaxes into the touch. "You've been wound tighter than a spring for two days. Something's going to break if you don't let it out."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're sitting in the dark, staring at books you're not reading." I tug gently at his hair, tilting his head back so he has to look at me. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
His eyes are gray in the low light. Gray and tired and full of the emotion I'm learning to recognize as fear.
"I don't know who I am anymore," he says quietly.
"You're Jagger Harrison."
"That's a name. It's not an identity." He reaches up, catches my wrist, holds it against his cheek. "Most of my life, I knew exactly what I was. A weapon. A tool. Something designed for a specific purpose. And now..."
"Now you're becoming something else."
"I don't know how to be something else."
I shift off the arm of the chair and into his lap, straddling him. His hands come up automatically, settling on my hips, and I feel him tense beneath me.
"What are you doing?"
"Helping you get out of your head." I cup his face in my hands, the same way he held mine that first night he kissed me. "You spend too much time up here. Thinking. Planning. Calculating. Sometimes you just need to feel."
"I don't—"
"I know. You don't feel things. You weren't designed for it." I lean in, brush my lips against his. "But I think that's changing. And I think it scares the shit out of you."
"It does."
"Good." I kiss him, soft at first, then deeper. He opens for me, lets me lead, and the surrender in it makes my cock throb. "I want to try something."
"What?"
"I want you to let go. Completely." I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. "I want you to let me take care of you for once."
His hands tighten on my hips. "Jonah—"
"You don't have to say yes. But I think you need this. I think you need to not be in control for a little while." I trace my thumb across his lower lip. "Do you trust me?"
The question hangs between us. It's not a small ask. Jagger doesn't trust anyone. Doesn't let anyone close enough to hurt him. The walls he's built are the only thing that's kept him alive.
But he's been letting me in. Inch by inch, day by day. Letting me see the cracks. Letting me touch the places he's kept hidden.
"Yes," he says finally. "I trust you."
I kiss him again, harder this time. He groans into my mouth, and I feel his cock stiffening beneath me, pressing up against my ass. I roll my hips, grinding down on him, and he makes a sound I've never heard before. Desperate. Needy.
"Stand up," I say.
He obeys. I slide off his lap and take his hand, leading him to the center of the library. The window behind us is floor to ceiling, the city sprawled out below like a glittering carpet. Anyone could look up and see us. The thought sends a thrill through me.
"Take off your shirt."
His fingers move to the buttons. Slow. Deliberate. He's used to undressing for me now, but there's something different in his eyes tonight. Vulnerability. Anticipation.
The shirt falls to the floor. His chest is pale in the moonlight, the muscles tight beneath the skin. I can see the faint scars I've traced with my fingers, the marks of a life spent fighting.
"Now your pants."
He hesitates. Just for a second. Then his hands move to his belt, and he strips the rest of his clothes with the same robotic motions. He stands before me naked, cock hard, his chest rising and falling faster than usual.
I circle him slowly, letting my eyes travel over every inch. He's beautiful. I've thought it before, but I've never said it out loud. The lean muscle. The sharp lines of his hips. The way his cock twitches under my gaze.
"Beautiful," I murmur, and watch the word hit him like a blow.
"Jonah—"
"Don't talk." I stop behind him, press my chest against his back. He's taller than me, but like this, with my arms wrapped around him, he feels smaller. Breakable. "Just feel."
I run my hands down his chest, his stomach, skipping over his cock to trace the insides of his thighs. He shudders, pressing back against me, and I feel his ass against my still-clothed erection.
"Do you know what I want?" I ask against his ear.
"Tell me."
"I want to fuck you." I bite his earlobe, feel him jolt. "I want to bend you over and open you up and make you feel what I feel when you're inside me. I want you to lose control. I want to hear you beg."
His breathing goes ragged. "I don't beg."
"You will."
I push him forward, toward the table in the center of the room. It's solid oak, heavy enough to hold both our weights. He goes willingly, bracing his hands on the surface, and the sight of him like that, bent over and waiting, makes my cock ache.
I step back to admire the view. The long line of his spine, each vertebra visible in the moonlight. The muscles in his shoulders, coiled with anticipation. The curve of his ass, pale and perfect, presented to me like an offering.
"You have no idea how you look right now," I tell him.
"Tell me."
"Like an alter I want to worship. Like a man I want to ruin." I run my palm down his spine, feel him shiver beneath my touch. "Like you've been waiting your whole life for someone to take you apart."
His fingers curl against the wood. "Maybe I have."
I strip off my own clothes quickly, not wanting to waste time on ceremony. When I press against him again, skin to skin, we both groan. My cock slides between his cheeks, hot and hard, and he pushes back instinctively.
"Eager," I murmur.
"Shut up."
"Make me."
He laughs, rough and surprised, and the sound loosens something in my chest. This is what he needs. Not just the sex, but the connection. The permission to exist in the present, not the past, not the future.
"Have you ever done this before?" I ask. "Let someone fuck you?"
"No."
The admission makes my head spin. The man who's done everything, who's seen everything, who's been in control of every situation his entire life, has never let anyone take him like this.
And he's going to let me.
"I'll go slow," I promise. "Tell me if you need me to stop."
"I won't."
I reach for the lube I grabbed from his bedroom on my way here. Slick my fingers, warm them between my palms. Then I spread his cheeks, exposing him, and press one finger against the tight ring of his hole.
He tenses. I wait, rubbing small circles, feeling the muscle flutter against my fingertip. His body doesn't know what to do with this sensation, this intrusion, this surrender. I give him time to figure it out.
Slowly, so slowly, I push inside.
The low whine that escapes him almost makes me forget to go gentle. His body clamps down on my finger, tight and hot and impossibly snug. I have to breathe through the urge to push in faster, to take more, to claim him the way he's claimed me so many times.
"Relax," I murmur. "Let me in."
"I'm trying."
"I know. You're doing so good." I work my finger deeper, feeling the way his body opens for me inch by reluctant inch. "So good for me, Jagger."
His head drops between his shoulders. His hips push back, seeking more. I crook my finger, searching for that spot, and when I find it, his whole body jerks.
"Fuck." The word tears out of him. "What—"
"Your prostate." I rub it gently, watching him shake. "That's what I feel when you're inside me. That fullness. That ache."
I add a second finger and he cries out, the sound echoing off the library walls, off the shelves of books that have witnessed a thousand quieter moments. His body resists, then opens, then pulls me deeper.
"More." His voice is wrecked, shattered, nothing like the controlled tones I'm used to. "Please, Jonah. More."
"There it is." I add a third finger, stretching him wider, and he groans. The sound is animal, desperate, nothing like anything I've heard from him before. "There's my begging. Such a good boy for me, baby."
I work him open patiently, thoroughly. Three fingers become four, and by the time I'm satisfied, he's loose and slick and pushing back onto my hand with shameless desperation.
His cock hangs heavy between his legs, dripping a steady stream of precum onto the polished wood below. His breath comes in ragged sobs.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Yes. God, yes. Just do it."
I slick my cock with my free hand, hissing at the sensitivity. Pull my fingers out of him, watching his hole clench around nothing. Line up, pressing the head against his entrance.
"Deep breath," I tell him.
He inhales. I push in.
The tight heat of him steals my breath. He's so fucking tight, even after all my preparation, his body clamping down on my cock like it's trying to keep me out and pull me deeper all at once. I sink in inch by inch, watching his spine arch, listening to the sounds spilling from his throat.