Dean’s Control
Dean’s Control
She’s still shaking when I pin her wrists above her head against the fridge, her chest heaving, her mouth open on a sob she tries to swallow down.
I warned myself—again and again—not to break her. Not like this. Not with the rage still burning my veins from knowing Rafe touched her air, spoke into her ear, left his shadow crawling over her skin.
But then she looks at me with those wet eyes, broken and defiant all at once, and something in me snaps so violently I swear I hear the crack echo through my skull.
“You don’t cry over him,” I growl, my lips scraping the corner of her jaw. “You don’t waste a single goddamn tear on a man who doesn’t get to breathe your name. Do you understand?”
Her answer is a trembling whisper. “Dean…”
“Say it,” I cut her off, my hand sliding from her wrists to the delicate column of her throat, pressing just enough that her words faltered, caught between breath and silence. “Say. You. Belong.”
Her tears streak hot down her cheeks, and she fights me even as her body arches into mine, traitorous, hungry. “You’ll destroy me.”
I snap then, fully, completely. My grip tightens, my mouth crushes hers in a bruising kiss that tastes like salt and fury and desperate possession. My control shreds to ribbons, and what’s left is the feral truth I’ve buried too long.
“I’ll ruin you,” I snarl against her lips, dragging her skirt up, ripping the barrier away like it offends me. “I’ll tear apart every excuse, every lie you tell yourself about why you shouldn’t want this, and then I’ll fuck the fight out of you until the only word you remember is my name.”
Her sob turns into a gasp as I slam her back harder into the fridge, my mouth claiming every sound she makes, swallowing them whole.
She’s trembling beneath me, but her thighs part when my knee presses, instinct giving me what her words won’t.
And I lose myself.
I broke every rule I swore I’d keep with her. No patience. No control. Just a savage need to stamp out Rafe’s ghost, to etch myself so deep into her body that no threat, no warning, no man will ever come close to touching what’s mine.
Every thrust is a brand. Every bite, a vow. Every filthy word against her ear is another nail sealing her to me.
“Cry for me,” I rasp, tasting her tears as my pace turns merciless. “Cry because you belong to the monster, not the knight. Cry because you’ll never escape me.”
And when she breaks—really breaks, sobbing and begging and clinging to me like I’m the very air she needs to breathe—I finally know it.
Rafe might have tightened the net. He might circle in the dark, waiting to strike.
But she’s already caught.
And she’s never leaving my web.
Her body is limp against mine when I finally let her wrists go. They fall uselessly to her sides, palms still twitching like they forgot how to move without my grip to command them.
The fridge hums low behind her back, the entire kitchen smelling of sweat, sex, and something sharp and metallic, like blood from where my teeth split her skin.
She doesn’t look at me at first. She can’t. Her lashes are stuck together with tears, her mouth red and swollen, a sound caught in her throat that’s not quite a sob and not quite a moan.
I lean in, cage her with my palms on either side of her head, and force her chin up with one finger until her eyes—glass-bright, wrecked—finally drag to mine.
“Look at you,” I whisper, and the words taste like reverence and damnation in equal measure. “Ruined. Just how I wanted.”
Her lips part, her chest shudders, and I swear she tries to speak—tries to find her voice through the wreckage I’ve left her in—but all that comes out is a broken, breathless whimper.
I tilt my head, studying her like she’s both the weapon aimed at my throat and the salvation I’ll never deserve.
“Do you think he could’ve given you this?” My voice is low, gravel and poison. “Do you think Rafe could’ve carved you open like this, left you crying for a man you claim to hate?”
Her eyes flutter shut, and I grip her jaw tighter, forcing her back into the raw, dangerous blue of my stare.
“Don’t close your eyes. Not with me. Not when I’m the one who owns every single tear.”
She swallows, a broken tremor racing down her throat, and finally—finally—she whispers: “You scare me.”
I laugh then, harsh and ragged, pressing my forehead to hers. My sweat slicks into her hair, my breath scorching her lips.
“Good,” I snarl. “Because fear keeps you honest. And it keeps you mine.”
She shakes her head weakly, but her hands—traitorous, trembling—fist in my shirt, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away.
And it undoes me.
All at once, the rage fractures into something rawer, more dangerous than fury ever was. I soften my grip, let my thumbs trace the wet tracks her tears left behind, my mouth brushing over her temple in something that feels too much like tenderness.
“You’ll run yourself ragged trying to fight this,” I murmur, voice dipping lower, rougher. “But in the end, you’ll crawl back every time. Because this—” my chest crushes hers, the rhythm of our heartbeats uneven and desperate “—isn’t a choice. It’s a curse. And you’re mine until it kills us both.”
Her tears come again, quiet, steady, soaking into the fabric at my collar. But this time she doesn’t turn away. This time she lets herself sink into me, trembling in my arms like she already knows there’s no escaping.
Her breath rattles against my chest, small and uneven, like she’s not sure if she’s crying or choking. My shirt sticks to her face with tears, and every sound she makes feels like it threads a wire tighter through my ribs.
I should let go. I should step back, give her air, let her pretend she has control again.
But I can’t.
I drag my mouth down the side of her neck, not kissing, not biting—just pressing hard enough that she feels the weight of me, the claim I refuse to loosen.
“You think you scare easily?” I whisper against her skin, voice low, dangerous. “You don’t even know what fear is, Brooklyn. Not yet. Not until someone like me loves you.”
She flinches at the word, sharply and involuntarily. Her fingers twitch against my chest, like the sound carved straight into her nerves.
“Don’t—” she breathes, the word so fragile I almost don’t catch it. “Don’t say that.”
I grip her face again, harder, forcing her to meet me. Her eyes are still glassy, rimmed red, but she doesn’t look away. She can’t.
“You think it’s a choice?” I snarl, my forehead pressing to hers, voice breaking on the edges. “You think I haven’t tried to stop? I’ve burned women out of my life, torn down walls, drowned myself in everything this city offers—and none of it touches me. None of it matters.”
I pause, my chest rising and falling like I’m seconds from breaking apart. My thumb drags across her lower lip, smearing the salt of her tears.
“Then you walk in,” I whisper, softer now, ruined. “And suddenly I’m human enough to hurt again.”
Her breath catches, her lips part like she wants to tell me I’m wrong, that she doesn’t believe me—but nothing comes. Just a trembling silence that feels louder than any scream.
I press my mouth to her cheek, to the corner of her mouth, to the bruised swell of her jaw. Not kisses—confessions I don’t know how to voice.
“You scare me too,” I admit, and it tastes like blood to say it. “Because I’d burn everything I built, everything I am, just to keep you looking at me like this. And that kind of need?” I shake my head, teeth grazing her ear. “That’s lethal.”
Her hands fist tighter in my shirt, dragging me closer even as fresh tears streak down her face.
I let them.
Because this—her trembling, me unravelling—isn’t weakness. It’s the truth stripped bare. And if it kills us, so be it.
Her nails bite through my shirt. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it—digging in like she needs to anchor herself, like if she lets go I’ll disappear into smoke.
I don’t move. I let her hold me like that because, for the first time in years, I feel like I’m not made of stone.
“You want the truth?” I rasp, voice low, raw. “Here it is.”
I cup her jaw, not gentle, not cruel—just unyielding. I force her to look at me even though her eyes are still swimming.
“I built my life on control. Deals. Power. Every move calculated. I don’t lose. I don’t break.” My thumb presses harder against her chin, my breath hot against her trembling mouth. “But you… you undo me with one look. One fucking tear. Do you know what that means, Brooklyn?”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Just a shake of her head.
“It means I can’t let you go,” I snarl, the sound almost feral. “It means I’d rather burn Club Z to the ground, slit Rafe’s throat with my own hands, and ruin everything I’ve built than risk losing you to the world that wants to chew you up.”
Her chest jerks with a sob. She tries to twist from my grip, but I cage her tighter, pinning her against the wall of the alley with the weight of my body.
“You don’t fit in my world?” I hiss, dragging my mouth close to hers. “Then I’ll tear my world apart until there’s nothing left but you in it.”
She shudders, tears spilling over again. But this time, when her voice comes, it’s cracked, desperate.
“Dean…” Her breath breaks. “I still want you. God help me, I still—”
I crush my mouth against hers, swallowing the confession before she can take it back. It isn’t soft. It’s bruising, claiming, a kiss that tastes of salt and ruin.
Her hands claw up into my hair, pulling me closer, answering me in the only language that matters.
When I finally break from her lips, I don’t let her breathe before I speak again.
“You belong to me, Brooklyn,” I growl, forehead pressed to hers, breath ragged. “Say it. Right here. Right now.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. She fights herself for one long, trembling second—then the words tear free, small and broken, but real.
“I belong to you.”
The world stops. My chest collapses with relief so violent it feels like pain.
And for the first time in a long, long time, I let her see it. The truth. The rawness. The way she’s carved me open and left me bleeding in her hands.