Chapter 9 Control
Control
Tuesday arrived wearing gray dawn light and the taste of copper in my mouth.
I'd been awake for hours, sitting cross-legged on my bed in the pale pink nightgown Gabriel had chosen three years ago, watching Nathan sleep on my couch through the doorway.
His presence had rewritten my apartment's silence into something less hollow.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Not from fear—I'd eliminated fear from my emotional vocabulary long ago, or so I told myself. This was something else. Anticipation mixed with an unnamed thing that made my chest feel too tight for my ribs.
"You're thinking too loud," Nathan said without opening his eyes.
"I don't think loudly. I think efficiently." But I uncrossed my legs, bare feet finding the cold floor. "We have four hours before we need to position ourselves."
"I know." He sat up, sheet pooling at his waist, revealing the scars I'd catalogued but not touched. "Come here."
"That's not—we should review the plan again."
"Bunny." Just my name, but the way he said it made me stop mid-protest. "Come here. Please."
The 'please' undid me. Gabriel never said please. Commands came wrapped in silk smiles or sharp disappointments, but never requests. I padded across the room, nightgown whispering against my thighs, and stopped just out of reach.
"Closer," he said softly.
I took another step. The morning light caught the green of his eyes, turning them into something that belonged in forests, not apartments where girls planned murders.
"Can I touch you?"
The question short-circuited something in my brain. "I—what?"
"Can I touch you?" He repeated it patiently, hands resting on his knees. "You can say no."
"Nobody asks." The words came out small. "They just... take. Or command. Or position."
"I'm asking."
I nodded, not trusting my voice. His hand rose slowly, telegraphing the movement, before fingers brushed my wrist. Just that, just the lightest touch where my pulse hammered against thin skin.
"Tell me about your boundaries," he said.
"I don't have any. I was trained to—"
"No." Still gentle, but firm. "Not what you were trained for. What do you want? What don't you want?"
"I want..." My throat closed around words I'd never been allowed to form. "I don't know how to want things for myself. Only what serves the mission. What pleases the handler. What maintains the asset."
His thumb stroked over my pulse point. "Then we'll start simple. Do you want me to keep touching your wrist?"
Such a basic question. Such an impossible kindness.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Good. Do you want to sit?"
I perched on the couch beside him, careful not to touch except where his fingers circled my wrist like the world's gentlest shackle.
"Better?" he asked.
"Different." I watched his thumb move, mesmerized by the simplicity of touch without purpose. "Gabriel would have had me positioned by now. Kneeling, probably. He liked the height differential."
Nathan's hand stilled. "I'm not Gabriel."
"I know. That's what makes this terrifying." I met his eyes. "I know Gabriel's patterns. His preferences. What would trigger punishment or praise. But you're... unmapped territory."
"Then let's draw the map together." He turned my hand over, tracing the lines on my palm. "What else did Gabriel do?"
"Everything. Nothing. He'd touch me like I was precious porcelain, then leave bruises that lasted weeks.
Said it was about control—teaching me to separate sensation from reaction.
" I shivered. "I learned to climax on command by the time I was done with his conditioning.
Learned to stay silent through anything.
Learned to beg prettily when that's what was required. "
"But what did you want?"
"Want wasn't part of the vocabulary." I watched him map the scars on my fingers, tiny white lines from years of blade work. "He'd say 'good girl' when I performed correctly. Like training a dog. And I'd... I'd glow from it. The praise. Even knowing it was manipulation, I craved it."
"Everyone needs approval. That's human."
"But I wasn't supposed to be human. I was supposed to be perfect. His perfect weapon, his perfect doll, his perfect—" My voice broke.
Nathan lifted my hand, pressing it against his chest where his heart beat steady and real. "Feel that?"
I nodded, palm flat against warm skin and old scars.
"That's human. Flawed and real and continuing despite everything." He covered my hand with his. "You're allowed to be human with me."
"I don't know how."
"Then we'll learn." He leaned closer, slow enough I could track the movement. "Can I kiss you?"
My programming screamed eighteen different responses—seduce, submit, perform, please. I ignored them all, finding my own voice underneath.
"I... yes. But—" I swallowed hard. "If I say stop?"
"Then I stop. Immediately. No questions, no anger, no punishment."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
He kissed me like I was something that might shatter—not from fragility but from the force of being truly seen. His lips were soft, patient, asking rather than taking. When I made a small sound, he started to pull back.
"No," I breathed. "Not stop. Just... processing."
"Take your time."
I kissed him back, clumsy with the newness of choosing. He let me lead, let me learn the shape of this wanting that belonged to no one but me. When his tongue touched mine, it felt like revolution.
"Bedroom?" he asked against my mouth.
"I—" Old training said yes, said perform, said please. But underneath: "Scared."
"Of me?"
"Of me. Of what I might do. How I might... default."
He pulled back enough to see my face. "Then we go slow. And you tell me the moment something feels wrong. Deal?"
"Deal."
He stood, offering his hand. I took it, letting him lead me to my own bedroom like I'd never seen it before. Maybe I hadn't. Not like this. Not as a space where I got to choose.
"Lights?" he asked.
"On. I need—I need to see you. To know it's you and not—"
"Not him. Yes." He left the lamp on, golden light softening the edges of everything. "On the bed?"
I sat on the edge, hands twisting in my nightgown. "I don't know how to do this without performing."
"Then don't worry about doing. Just be." He knelt in front of me—not dominant positioning but equalizing, putting his face level with mine. "Tell me what you're feeling."
"Terrified. Excited. Confused." I touched his face, wondering at the permission to do so. "You have a scar here. Knife?"
"Box cutter. Age twelve. Long story." He turned his head to kiss my palm. "What else are you feeling?"
"Warm. Here." I pressed my free hand low on my belly. "Like before a hunt but different. Softer."
"That's arousal without adrenaline. Just want for want's sake."
"It's strange."
"Good strange?"
I considered this. "Yes. I think. Maybe."
"Can I touch you more?"
"Where?"
"Wherever you want me to."
The freedom of it paralyzed me. "I don't—can you just—"
"How about this," he said. "I'll try things, very slowly. You tell me yes or no or stop. Think of it as building a database. What Bunny likes versus what she's been trained to tolerate."
"I understand databases."
"I know you do." He smiled, and it reached his eyes in a way that made my chest ache. "Can I touch your face?"
"Yes."
His hands cupped my cheeks, thumbs stroking over cheekbones. I catalogued the sensation: gentle, warm, purposeless except to give comfort.
"Good?" he asked.
"Good."
"Your neck?"
I tensed. "Careful. That's—Gabriel would—"
"I'm not Gabriel." But he waited. "Yes or no?"
"Try. But careful."
His fingers traced down from my jaw, barely-there touches that made me shiver. No pressure on my throat, no reminder of vulnerability. Just touch for touch's sake.
"Okay?"
"Yes." It came out breathless.
"Can I kiss your neck?"
"I—" Fear and want tangled. "Soft. Please. Just soft."
He pressed lips to where pulse met skin, gentle as breathing. My hands found his shoulders, gripping probably too tight, but he didn't complain. Just kissed a path that rewrote every bruise Gabriel had left.
"Still good?"
"Different good. Keep going good."
"Can I touch your arms?"
"Yes."
He traced patterns from shoulders to wrists, learning me like a map he planned to memorize. Each touch asked permission, waited for response, honored the boundaries I was only just discovering I could have.
"The nightgown," I said suddenly. "Can I—I want it off. It's his choice, not mine."
"Then take it off. Or I can help. Your decision."
My decision. The phrase felt foreign in my mouth. I pulled the nightgown over my head before I could overthink it, sitting there in plain cotton underwear that was mine, my choice, bought after he died and left me rudderless.
"Beautiful," Nathan breathed.
"I'm not—" I crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm scarred. And too thin. And my breasts are—"
"Beautiful," he repeated. "May I?"
I nodded, letting him uncross my arms, letting him look. His gaze felt different than the cataloguing I was used to. This was appreciation, not assessment.
"Can I touch?"
"Above the waist," I managed. "For now. I think. Maybe."
"Whatever you need."
His hands skimmed up my sides, careful of the knife scar under my ribs, the bullet graze near my shoulder. When his palms cupped my breasts, I gasped—not from sensation but from the asking, the patience, the revolutionary act of going at my pace.
"How does that feel?"
"Like I'm real." The words surprised me. "Like I'm here, in my body, not floating above it watching myself perform."
"Good. That's good. Can I use my mouth?"
"I—yes."
He lowered his head, pressing kisses to scars first, honoring the history written on my skin. When his mouth found my nipple, I made a sound I'd never made before—not performed pleasure but genuine surprise at how different it felt when I wanted it.
"Oh," I breathed. "Oh, that's—"
"Tell me."
"Good. Really good. I didn't know it could—when I want it—"