Chapter 11 Recruitment #2
He started at my ankles, kissing up paths that made me squirm. By the time he reached my thighs, I was panting, hands fisted in sheets to keep from yanking him where I needed him.
"Patience," he said against my skin.
"Don't have any." I spread wider, shameless in want. "Need—"
"I know what you need." He held my thighs open, gentle but firm. "I'm going to give it to you. But slowly. I want you to feel everything."
The first touch of his tongue made me arch. He worked me like he had all the time in the world, building pleasure in waves that threatened to drown me. When I got close, he'd back off, kissing my thighs until I calmed enough to start again.
"Please," I gasped after the third denial. "Nathan, please—"
"You're beautiful when you beg." He looked up, meeting my eyes. "But you don't have to. This isn't about earning anything. It's about you feeling good. Just because you deserve to."
The words undid me as much as his mouth returning to that bundle of nerves. I came with something between a sob and a scream, pleasure so intense it bordered pain. He worked me through it, gentle but relentless, until I collapsed boneless against the mattress.
He crawled up my body, kissing paths that made me shiver with aftershocks. When he reached my mouth, I tensed—Gabriel had always been disgusted after, made me wash out my mouth before—
Nathan kissed me deep, sharing my taste between us like communion wine. I made a sound I'd never made before, something vulnerable and grateful and wholly mine.
"Okay?" he asked, pulling back to study my face.
"More than." I touched his cheek, feeling brave. "But you didn't—"
"This was about you."
"I want it to be about us." I shifted, making space between us. "Want to watch you."
His breath caught. "Bunny..."
"Show me." I propped myself on elbows, still liquid from release but hungry for something else. "Want to see you come thinking about how I taste."
"Fuck." He laughed, breathless. "You're going to kill me."
"Small death. You'll recover."
He held my gaze as he unfastened his jeans, shoving them down just enough. Already hard, leaking at the tip from denial and my pleasure. The sight made heat coil fresh in my belly.
"Like this?" He gripped himself, starting slow.
"Yes." I couldn't look away from his hand, his face, the flex of his stomach as pleasure built. "What are you thinking about?"
"You." His voice went rough. "How you looked coming apart. How you tasted. The sounds you made." His hand sped up. "Thinking about next time. How I want to take hours. Map every sensitive spot until you can't remember any touch but mine."
"Nathan..."
"Thinking about—Christ—about how strong you are. How you choose this. Choose me." His breathing went ragged. "Never seen anything as beautiful as you trusting me enough to let go."
He came with my name on his lips, spilling across his stomach in pulses that made me clench on nothing. I watched every second, memorizing the vulnerability of his release, the way his face went open and young in pleasure.
After, he cleaned up quick then gathered me close, my back to his chest. We lay quiet, breathing syncing as city lights painted patterns on his ceiling.
"I wasn't lying," he said eventually. "About loving you."
"I know." I laced our fingers over my stomach. "I don't know how to say it back yet. The words are all tangled with him."
"Then don't say it. Just feel it. However that looks for you."
"It looks like this," I said. "Like choosing to stay when every instinct says run. Like letting you see me shake apart. Like trusting you to put me back together after."
"That's enough. More than enough." He kissed my temple. "Question though?"
"Mmm?"
"You said twenty-three when he recruited you. How long were you there?"
"Twelve weeks" I did the math. "I'm twenty-four now. I lost some time after they abandoned me, when I thought I was going to die."
"You're young. You have a lot of life ahead to build something better."
"With him alive out there?" I laughed bitterly. "He won't let me go, Nathan. Not really. I'm his greatest success. His perfect proof of concept."
"Then we make sure he can't touch you again."
"How?"
"By being what he never expected." Nathan pulled me closer. "By you healing. Growing. Becoming someone who doesn't need his structure to survive."
"That could take years."
"Good thing I'm patient."
I turned in his arms, studying his face in the dim light. "Why are you doing this? Really?"
"Because you're worth it." Simple. Certain. Shattering. "Because everyone deserves a chance to discover who they are outside their damage. Because—" He smiled, crooked and real. "Because I'm selfish enough to want to be the one who gets to watch you bloom."
"I might never be normal."
"Normal is overrated. I just want you whole." He traced my cheekbone. "However that looks."
I kissed him, pouring everything I couldn't say into the connection. Gratitude and terror and something that might have been the seed of love, planted in soil I was still learning to tend.
When we broke apart, I said, "Moscow."
"What?"
"If we're going hunting, we need information. Real intel, not Dmitri's scraps." I met his eyes.
"You sure you're ready for that?"
"No. But I'm tired of running from ghosts." I settled against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "Time to face them. All of them."
"Together?"
"Together."
The word felt like a vow. Like choosing a future neither of us could predict but both of us wanted to survive. Outside, the city pulsed with neon life, unaware that two broken people were learning to build something whole.
I'd signed my autonomy away at twenty-three, desperate for quiet in the chaos. At twenty-four, I was choosing to reclaim it, one terrifying free decision at a time.
Gabriel was out there, wearing a stranger's face and thinking his rabbit would stay in her cage.
He was wrong.
The real hunt would begin soon. But tonight, held by someone who saw all my fractures and chose to stay, I let myself rest in the space between who I'd been made to be and who I was becoming.
It felt like freedom. It felt like home.
It felt like the first real choice I'd ever made.