Chapter Nine Jace #2
Grabbing his hair, I yank his head back, force his spine into an arch. The new angle lets me go deeper, lets me hit that spot inside him with every stroke. He screams, actually screams, the sound raw and broken and utterly unlike anything I've ever heard.
"Jace—Jace—I can't—"
"You can." I lean over him, press my chest to his back, speak directly into his ear. "You can take everything I give you. You were made to take it. My beautiful little pain slut."
He sobs. His body is shaking, trembling, barely holding itself up. I can feel him fluttering around me, can feel how close he is.
"Don't come yet," I say. "Not until I tell you."
"I can't—please… please just…"
"Obey me, like the good whore you are and I’ll give you everything you need." I slow my thrusts, make them deep and grinding instead of fast and brutal. "Hold it. For me."
He whimpers, but he tries. I feel him clench, feel him fight the orgasm building in his body. His cock is dripping steadily onto the sheets, untouched, neglected, desperate for attention.
I won't give it to him. Not yet.
"Good boy," I say, and something about those words makes him shudder violently, makes his ass clench around me. "You're doing so well. Taking everything I give you. Such a good boy."
He's crying openly now, face wet, body shaking. But he's not telling me to stop. He's not saying the word that would end this.
He's just taking it. Just like I told him he would.
I speed up again. Harder. Faster. My balls pull up as the rush starts down my spine.
Fuck, I’m close.
"Look at me."
He turns his head, meets my eyes. His gaze is unfocused, glassy, somewhere far away.
Subspace. He's dropping.
"Come," I say. "Now."
He does. His whole body seizes, back arching, cock pulsing untouched, painting the sheets with white. He screams my name—or tries to, the sound dissolving into a wordless wail as the orgasm tears through him.
I follow seconds later, the sight and sound and feel of him pushing me over the edge. I bury myself as deep as I can go and empty into his ass, vision whiting out, body shuddering with release.
For a moment, everything is silence and stillness and the shared rhythm of our breathing.
Then his arms give out, and he collapses onto the mattress.
He's not responsive.
I pull out carefully, the gape of his ass so beautiful as my cum leaks from him, before turning my attention to assessing his state. Eyes closed. Breathing shallow. Muscles completely slack. He's deep in subspace, his mind somewhere far away, his body running on autopilot.
I've seen this before. In footage of the ‘training’ assets got for clients who preferred domination.
This is different. This is chosen. This is surrender, not escape.
I need to bring him back slowly.
Grabbing a washcloth from the bathroom, I wet it with warm water, and return to the bed. Then I clean him gently—the sweat, the tears, the mess between his legs. He doesn't react, doesn't stir, just lies there like something abandoned.
"Elliot." I keep my voice low and steady. "I'm going to move you now."
I shift him onto his back, rearrange the blankets, tuck them around his body. Then I climb in beside him, pull him against my chest, wrap my arms around him.
Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.
"You did well," I say. "You took everything I gave you. You were perfect."
No response. But his breathing is slowing, evening out.
"I'm here. You're safe. I'm not going anywhere."
I keep talking. Low murmurs, words that don't matter, a steady stream of sound to anchor him. I stroke his hair, run my hands down his back, press kisses to his forehead.
It takes twenty-three minutes for him to come back.
I feel it happen—the shift from absence to presence, the subtle tension returning to his muscles, the change in his breathing. His eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, then gradually sharpening.
"Jace?"
"I'm here."
He blinks. Processes. His hand comes up, touches his face, like he's checking to make sure he's real.
"I went somewhere," he whispers. "I went... away."
"Subspace. It's a physiological response to intense sensation. The brain releases endorphins and other neurochemicals that create an altered state." I pause. "How do you feel?"
He's quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he smiles.
"Empty," he says. "In a good way. Like someone scraped out all the bad stuff and left me clean."
"The memories?" I ask.
"Still there." His smile fades, but doesn't disappear entirely. "But... quieter. Like they're in another room instead of inside my head."
"That may be temporary."
"I know." He shifts closer, presses his face into my chest. "But right now, I'll take it."
I hold him. I don't speak. I just hold him, and let him breathe, and wait for whatever comes next.
He falls asleep eventually, curled against my side, one hand resting over my heart.
I’m far too in my head to get any sleep. I lie in the dark and memorize what happened. The sounds he made. The way his body responded. The look in his eyes when he finally let go.
There’s no framework for this. No protocol. No training that explains why the sight of him coming apart took something out of my chest.
Not because I broke him. I didn't break him. I gave him something he asked for, something he needed, and I brought him back safely when it was over.
This is new. This is different.
This is something I need to understand before I can use it.
But for now, in the dark, with his warmth against my side and his breath steady on my skin, I find that I don't want to analyze it.
I just want to keep it.
Him.
I want to keep him.
The realization settles into my chest like a stone, heavy and permanent and utterly inevitable.
Whatever comes next—Webb, the Custodians, the entire weight of The Silent bearing down on us—I will not give him up.
Not for threats. Not for orders. Not for anything.
Morning comes grey and quiet.
I got a few hours and woke at my usual hour. But instead of getting up, I stayed. Despite the fact that I need to finish reports and get them to Abernathy… I stayed.
We have time. Not much, but enough.
Elliot stirs beside me. His eyes open slowly, blinking against the weak light filtering through the curtains. For a moment, he looks confused, disoriented. Then his gaze finds me, and something in his expression shifts.
Not fear. Not the wary, watchful look he's worn since the warehouse.
Something softer.
"You stayed," he says.
"Yes."
"All night?"
"I don't sleep much."
He processes this. Then, slowly, he sits up. The blanket falls away, revealing the marks I left on his body. Bite bruises on his neck, red lines down his sides, fingerprint-shaped shadows on his hips.
He touches them, one by one, like he's cataloging them.
"I thought I'd feel different," he says. "After."
"Different how?"
"Broken. Used." He looks at me, and there's something in his eyes I haven't seen before. A steadiness. A certainty. "But I don't. I feel... claimed."
The way he says it just about undoes me.
"Is that what you wanted?" I ask.
"I didn't know what I wanted." He shifts closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. "I just knew I was tired of feeling like something that happened to me instead of something that I chose."
"And now?"
"Now I feel like I chose." He reaches out, places his hand on my chest, directly over my heart. "I chose you. Whatever you are, whatever you've done, whatever you're going to do. I chose this."
I don't know how to respond. The words create an input I have no model for, no framework to process.
So I do what I've learned to do when words fail.
I lean in and kiss him.
It's not like last night. Not brutal, not demanding, not designed to overwhelm and overwrite. This is slow. Soft. Exploratory, like I'm learning the shape of him all over again.
He makes a small sound against my mouth, something between a sigh and a moan. His hand fists in my shirt, pulling me closer.
When I finally pull back, his eyes are wet.
"Why are you crying?" I ask.
"Because no one's ever kissed me like that before." He wipes his face with the back of his hand. "Like I'm something worth being careful with."
I don't tell him that careful isn't in my vocabulary. I don't tell him that what he's interpreting as tenderness is actually calculation, a deliberate application of reduced force designed to produce a specific emotional response.
I don't tell him because I'm not sure it's true anymore.
Something has changed. Something shifted last night, in the dark, with his body under mine and his cries in my ears. The calculations are still there, the analysis still running, but underneath it there's something else.
Something that doesn't fit the model.
Something that feels almost like feeling.
"Breakfast," I say, because I don't know what else to say. "You need to eat."
He smiles. It's the first real smile I've seen from him, unguarded and genuine.
"You always say that."
"Because it's always true."
I stand, pull on clothes, head for the kitchen. Behind me, I hear him moving, the rustle of sheets, the soft pad of feet on the floor.
He follows me. Stands in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, watching me cook.
It should feel strange. Domestic. Wrong.
It doesn't.
It feels like something I didn't know I was missing.
I file that under anomaly and keep cooking.
But the file is getting crowded. And sooner or later, I'm going to have to figure out what all these anomalies mean.
For now, though, I make eggs. I make toast. I set a plate in front of him and watch him eat.
And I let myself want this.
Just for a moment.
Just until the world comes crashing back in.