Piece Us Together (Monstrous Survivors #3)

28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Maison

Despite having felt like the day was passing by at a snail’s pace, now that it’s time for sex, it feels too fast, too sudden. It feels like all the talking we’ve done was just a step toward the edge and now I’m at the precipice. There’s no turning back after this. Once I submit to him, truly submit to him, I know I’m not ever going to want to stop.

It’s terrifying.

I want it more than anything in the world.

I’m trembling when he sends Nolan into the room to get naked and kneel like always. He sees it, of course. He sits me down on the couch and takes a seat across from me on the coffee table. My hands are taken into his, the touch warm and steadying. The green of his eyes is almost unsettlingly bright as he gives me this sincere, loving look that has me melting into putty.

“What’s your safeword?” he asks.

I release a breath. I know this. This is easy. “Red.”

“If you say no, do you want me to count it as a safeword as well?”

That’s…not so easy. “What?”

“One of the reasons for a safeword is because many people will say the word no or the word stop without actually meaning it. Some will do it out of instinct. Some will do it because they like the thought of being ignored.” He cups my jaw, thumb skimming over my cheek. “Some will do it because they’re a tough boy who doesn’t want to have to admit to wanting things. Who wants to pretend he’s not giving in. Who wants to be reminded he’s powerless.”

It feels hard to breathe. I can hear it when I answer, the breathless need, the aching want. “Just red. For a safeword. Just red.”

His thumb moves down my cheek, to the corner of my mouth, across my lip. He tugs at the center of it until my jaw is slightly dropped. I don’t know what he wants from me, if he wants me to suck his thumb into my mouth or just lick it or to do nothing at all. He’s looking at me, leisurely mapping the inches of my face, my shoulders, then focusing on my mouth. I just focus on breathing. If he wants me to do more than that, he’ll tell me, right?

“You can fight me tonight, if you need,” he tells me. At the same time, he slides his thumb into my mouth and over my tongue. I let it sit there, fighting the urge to suck. It feels bigger than it really is. My jaw aches like he’s stuffed me full. The weight of his thumb—of his attention, his dominance—has me pinned and flayed and unraveled. I’m not sure I’ll survive when he gives me more.

“I could just sit here, couldn’t I? Just like this. Until you’re drooling.” He leans in, his knee pressing between my legs. It’s hard. My chest pulls tight with the pain. My blood sets fire. “And you’d let me. Or would you not let me, hm? Maybe you just can’t fight me. Maybe I stole all that control you walk around with. What do you think, kitten?”

He pulls his thumb out, dragging it down my chin and leaving a trail of spit in his wake. I pant open-mouthed as my cock throbs under the pressure of his knee.

“Are you going to be a good boy who submits or a good boy who just has to be reminded of his place?”

I’m shaking. My eyes burn, tears welling up in them. “I’m good either way?” I whisper.

He grins. It’s confident and sexy as sin. It makes me dizzy. “You’ll be good either way. One makes you a sub like Nolan. The other makes you a bit of a brat. I’ll love whichever you end up being.”

“Do you know? Already?” I ask, remembering just how all-knowing this man is. “What I am? Do you know?”

“I think you’re both. I think sometimes it’s going to be so damn easy for you to go down for me. I think other times you’re going to fight me like your life depends on it.” He wipes the spit from my chin. His grin has softened now, his eyes the same. I’m less dizzy now, more…centered. Steady. “Do whatever feels right and I’ll react accordingly. Whichever direction you go, two things will always stay the same—red is your safeword and you belong to me.”

I close my eyes, letting that truth settle over me.

It’s the last truth, the reality of me belonging to him no matter what, that has me admitting, “I don’t know how to stop feeling like I messed up. You said it’s up to you, you said I don’t need to be punished, but I don’t know how to let it go…”

I open my eyes slowly, afraid of what I’ll see in his face.

He’s looking at me, his eyebrows pulled together. He doesn’t look upset, though. More contemplative. Mr. All-Knowing is trying to figure me out.

I shouldn’t be surprised that it doesn’t take him very long. “Then you need to be punished.”

My stomach swoops, a combination of fear and hope tugging at it. “I think I do.”

“Not up to you.” He runs his fingers through my hair before fisting it tightly enough to have me hissing in pain. His green eyes narrow, a whole different aura appearing around him. “You need to be forgiven, don’t you? And you need to feel like you earned it. I’m going to make you fucking earn it.”

I shudder, the tears that have been prickling my eyes threatening to finally spill over.

“Please.”

“Oh, you’ll be saying that word quite a lot tonight, I think.” He tugs at my hair a little more. A lump rises in my throat. When I blink, a single tear slips out and down my cheek. Hunter watches it with a heated gaze. “Say it again.”

“Please.”

He chuckles, low and dark, his eyes lifting from the tear track until he’s looking into mine. His grin is evil. I feel it down to my toes. “The things I’m going to fucking do to you tonight. The both of you.”

He lets go of my hair a little roughly, almost making me stumble back a step. Then he grabs me by the nape of the neck and starts steering me into the bedroom. My legs feel like jelly beneath the control. My cock hurts with how hard it is, the pain only worsening with every step I’m forced to take.

Nolan looks up when we enter the room, his lips parting with a gasp. I don’t know what I look like. Can he see how fucking wrecked I already am? How hard? How desperate?

Does he like seeing me like this?

That answer is easy enough to find. In a single glimpse to his cock, I see just how much he likes it. I’m pretty sure he’s already leaking if the way the light is glistening off it is any indication.

“Maison wants to be a good boy for us, Nolan,” Hunter explains as he stops me just in front of Nolan, enough distance between us for Nolan not to have to lean his head back to look at me, but close enough where Nolan could reach out and skim his fingers across my knees. “He wants to show us how sorry he is for how he acted. He wants to apologize for running from the two people he should trust to help him. He needs to be forgiven. Will you help me with that?”

Nolan bites his lip, eyes studying me warily before flitting over my shoulder to where Hunter is standing. I don’t know what he sees on Hunter’s face, but it’s enough to have Nolan’s shoulders softening, his lip free of his teeth and curling toward a smile.

“How can I help, sir?”

“Take his pants off for me. Don’t go getting needy on us, though. Leave his cock alone.”

He flushes pink, but does as told, scooting forward on his knees enough to be able to bring his hands to my belt. It doesn’t bother me to have him in front of me like that. To have him kneeling. It’s not for me. He’s kneeling right there for Hunter. I’m just in between them. I’m just Hunter’s boy, about to be punished.

Hunter chuckles again when I shiver. His hands come to rest on my bare hips as Nolan works both my jeans and underwear over my knees and down to my feet. The touch is warm and grounding, but electric too. I feel it everywhere—in my chest, my stomach, my cock.

I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for—for—I don’t even know. For anything. For everything .

For him to take me apart, piece by piece, and figure out how I fit with the two of them.

I freeze in the wrong kind of way when I feel his hands grab the hem of my shirt. He doesn’t lift it, his breath warm on the back of my neck as he just stands there and breathes for a moment. Then another. And another.

“You’ve never put this as a hard limit,” he says softly. I keep my eyes closed. It’s so much safer with my eyes closed. “Do you want to add it?”

I thought about this already. I know what I want, even if it scares me.

The words still stick a little in my throat though, so I shake my head instead.

“Can I take it off then?”

I force myself to open my eyes. Nolan is watching me, looking nervous. My hands twitch at my sides as I fight the urge to grab at him for comfort.

“It won’t disappoint me, Maison. The only way that will happen is if you lie. Can I take your shirt off? Or do you need it tonight?”

I look into Nolan’s big blue eyes and remind myself that these two men love me. I’m safe here. I’ve never been any safer.

“You can take it,” I whisper.

He doesn’t treat me like someone who can’t keep his word. Like someone who would lie. He doesn’t hesitate. The moment I’ve spoken, his hands are working the fabric up, up, up and over my head. I flinch when I hear it hit the floor.

His breath is still warm on my neck, but it’s also on the area between my shoulder blades now. I can’t decide if it’s just in my head or if he’s breathing harder now. Maybe it’s just me. I’m definitely breathing hard, nearly as hard as my heart is pounding.

“Oh, my boys…” he whispers, bringing his mouth to the nape of my neck and pressing a kiss there. “Nolan, darling, get on the bed. Maison, go join him. Let him sit in your lap. Kiss him. Touch him. I’m going to grab a few things. You just focus on that beautiful boyfriend of yours, okay?”

I take a step toward the bed before pausing, turning to look at Hunter. He freezes. “Okay?” he asks, his eyes starting to scan me like he’s searching for what could be wrong.

“Ours,” I correct. “Beautiful boyfriend of ours .”

His breath hitches, his chest heaving with it. He laughs almost breathlessly before nodding. And nodding again. “Yeah. Our beautiful boyfriend.”

I rock on my feet, wanting so badly to kiss him. He knows. He smiles, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. Fucking tease . “Not yet. Go. Kiss our boy. I’ll be there in a minute.”

That’s not exactly a hardship, so I don’t hesitate. I grab Nolan up and press my mouth to his in a kiss that’s full of all the anticipation and nerves for what’s to come. He puts a hand on the back of my head, slowing the kiss down, filling it with the calm and confidence he always seems to find when Hunter puts him on his knees.

My awareness prickles just before I feel Hunter’s weight settling on the bed beside us. I pull away from Nolan’s greedy mouth, catching my breath as I look over at Hunter. His face softens when our eyes meet. He lifts a hand, cupping my cheek, his thumb dragging along my damp bottom lip. Keeping his hand there, he looks toward Nolan, bringing his other hand up to Nolan’s face in a mirrored touch.

“God, I love the both of you,” he murmurs. His hands slide down the sides of our necks, across the slopes of our shoulders. I bow my head, my forehead resting against Nolan’s chin, as his fingertips start across my shoulder blade. My breath catches when they find my spine.

I can picture what he’s seeing. What he’s touching. I know the crossed lines, white and pink, some smooth, some raised like angry welts. I know the story they tell, interspersed with healed knife wounds and puckered scars from bullets.

He runs a single fingertip over the lines, pouring gold into each crack, fusing all of my pieces together. He leans his face in, lips skimming over my temple and Nolan’s jaw. I see his other hand moving in my peripheral vision. He’s touching Nolan’s scars, too. Adding gold there. Piecing him together.

Piecing both of us together.

How did I not see it before? That he’s everything we’ve needed. That he’s the liquid magic that will make us whole again. Make us beautiful. Make our love story art.

He shifts on the bed, closer to me than Nolan, his hand having made its way to the small of my back. He holds it there as he says, “Move out of the way, darling. Maison is going to lay down.”

Nolan gives me one last kiss on the lips before climbing off of my lap and shifting to the other side of me. I glance at Hunter, wanting to remind him that I won’t bottom, but I trust him. I’m safe with him.

I lie down on my back, head settled on a pillow. My stomach is quivering with nerves. I’m suddenly very aware that neither of them is touching me. I curl my fingers into the sheets, clinging to them to try and ground myself. It doesn’t work, but Hunter’s hand is settling on my thigh before I have a chance to panic about that. I exhale, melting into the mattress beneath the touch.

I don’t want him to ever stop touching me. Touching us. The feel of his fingers on my skin is grounding. Freeing. It makes it possible to breathe. It makes the world feel manageable. Makes the world feel safe. Makes me feel safe.

When he touches me like this, when he looks at me, speaks to me, cares for me, I know he’d take on the world if it meant protecting me from it. No one has ever protected me like that before. Not the dad who walked out or the mom who had too much on her plate. Not my little brother who looked to me to make things okay. Not the operatives or survivors who depend on me. Not even Nolan, as much as he loves me.

Hunter, though.

Hunter is going to protect me from the world, protect me from myself, and I’ve never felt so fucking safe.

“Give me your hands, sweetheart.”

I swallow hard, clinging to that feeling of safety as I offer him my hands. He doesn’t comment on their trembling, just winds his fingers around my wrists and guides them until my hands are tucked behind my head, pressed between me and the mattress. I’m not bound, not really, but he says, “Keep those there, no matter what,” and it’s just as effective as cuffs or rope. Especially when he adds, “I’ll tie you up if you can’t.”

I tangle my fingers into my hair, promising myself I’ll keep them there.

My cock is already hard, but it jerks when he reaches for it. My mind threatens to white out at the sheer realization that Hunter is about to finally— finally, finally, finally— touch me there. I was such a fucking idiot for telling him he couldn’t. As if that would have kept me from falling for him. If anything, it drove me crazier, drove me faster to the edge.

His hand is hot and firm when he wraps it around me. I gasp, widening my eyes as I focus them on the ceiling. He chuckles, that low, dark one that is quickly becoming a kink on its own.

My focus doesn’t stay on the ceiling for long though, my eyes snapping down to where Hunter is guiding Nolan to straddle me. He’s still holding my cock, making sure our leaking heads rub together before Nolan moves his leg over Hunter’s arm and continues up my body. He must have been given a whispered order because Hunter is no longer touching him, but he doesn’t stop until he’s settled with his cock pressed against the underside of my chin, dripping precum into the hollow of my throat.

Hunter gives my cock a single, languid stroke.

I have a feeling I’m not going to like whatever he has planned. Not one bit. But that’s why it’s punishment, right?

I’m quickly thinking I don’t like punishments at all.

Nolan’s eyes meet mine, glazed and heavy-lidded. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, not from nerves, but to keep himself from grinning. My fingers twitch to grab at him. To flip him over and make him giggle. Make him confess to whatever dirty thoughts he’s thinking. It’s only the thought of disappointing Hunter that has me holding still instead.

I’m distracted from the temptation by Nolan moving again, dragging his cock over my lips, my nose, my forehead—his balls are—and then— oooh .

I moan as he reaches back and spreads his cheeks, his hole suddenly right above my mouth.

“Get him ready,” Hunter orders.

It’s easier said than done at first. He’s a little too far away and instinct has my hands starting to move, ready to grab him and pull him down. I catch myself, though. I tilt my chin instead, sticking my tongue out. It’s awkward and a little demeaning but the pretty sound he makes with the first swipe of my tongue is fucking lovely, and the hot mouth suddenly on my cock is fucking phenomenal.

I try to look, desperate to see Hunter with my cock in his mouth, but no amount of turning my head gives me a good view. I make an angry, frustrated sound. Hunter’s mouth rumbles around my cock and I know he’s laughing at me. The fucking bastard is laughing at me.

I jerk when my cock is suddenly exposed to the cool air. “Sit on his face if he’s not giving you enough attention, darling,” Hunter orders. I see his fingers curl around Nolan’s hips. Then Nolan is being pressed down on my face, the only thing allowing me to breathe the crease of his ass. He shudders when I work my tongue deep inside him.

I try to move my hips, try to get Hunter to continue sucking my cock, but he leaves it there, hot and heavy and damp. I groan, remembering that this is a punishment. That I was an idiot who practically fucking asked for a punishment. Hunter’s deep, rumbling laugh is in my ear now, the man spread out beside me, his hand lingering so fucking close to my cock without touching.

Something brushes my chin before a finger is pressing into Nolan’s hole beside my tongue. Hunter wiggles it, helping me stretch Nolan out. I feel Nolan start to shudder above me, his thighs quaking. Hunter adds another finger.

I sob, Nolan crying out at the feel of it absorbing into his most sensitive spots.

“That’s enough, darling,” Hunter says, his fingers sliding out of Nolan’s hole. My mind spins, my tongue sore, my chin and neck getting wet as Nolan drags his wet ass and leaking cock down toward my stomach. Something is starting to buzz inside of me. Something that feels big. Too big. I want to run from it. Run to it. Run with it, maybe.

Hunter grips my chin, forcing me to look at him as Nolan’s wet hole presses against the side of my cock, pinning it to my stomach. “Do you want to suck my cock? Get it all wet for him?”

“Oh, fuck…” I whimper, needing that. Needing his cock in my mouth even if it’s going to make things so much worse for me in the long run. “Please. Yeah. Can I? Please?”

He hushes me, feigning sweetness, stroking my cheek as he deftly frees himself from his pants. He’s already hard, leaking from the tip. I’ve never let myself give his cock a good look before. It was all a part of my attempt at pretending he couldn’t affect me.

I probably should have looked, because now I’m horny as hell, on a knife’s edge of breaking apart, and seeing it for the first time. My mouth fills with saliva like I just got offered a glass of ice water in the desert.

For a moment, I don’t know how we’re going to do this with my hands still pinned behind my head.

I should have known Hunter had a plan.

The man doesn’t stop at just taking his cock out of his pants. He removes his pants completely. Underwear too. Then he climbs onto my chest, straddling it like it’s nothing, like we didn’t just have our first kiss yesterday, like I’m not in the middle of being tortured by his rules and his touches and his stupid fucking beautiful face.

“Give me your right hand,” he orders, his green eyes intense as he gazes down at me in expectation.

I don’t bother hesitating. I give him my hand, hoping he won’t comment on how hard it’s trembling. He takes it and places it on his thigh. There’s so much hair there. Dark and curled. Coarse. I can feel his pulse with my thumb.

“Tap twice and I’ll free your mouth. You can safeword then, if you need to.” He smirks, but it’s dark. Dangerous. Especially when he adds a tilt of his head. “Or you can tell me you’re about to come. Understood?”

He grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing my head to nod even though I was going to anyway. It feels as demeaning as having Nolan ride my face. I’d put that on my packet because a sick part of me thought maybe I deserved it. It doesn’t feel bad, though. God, it doesn’t feel bad at all. My gut fucking ignites with it, the heat quickly spreading through me until I feel it in my fingers, in my toes, in my fucking—I don’t even fucking know. I’m just on fire. I’m burning alive and he’s smirking and I’m nodding, not even sure if his hand is still in my hair, but I’ll be good, I’ll be so fucking good, I won’t come without his permission, I’ll tell him first, and he knows, his smirk, his dangerous fucking smirk, is knowing, because he’s all-knowing.

A warm, rich, heady smell that’s clean but still all-man floods my senses. Then his cock is slipping between my lips and I’m tasting him for the first time. It’s—it’s different. It’s so much more different than Nolan. Than most guys I’ve been with. It’s just—it’s dark, almost. Dark and heavy and thick. There’s salt and there’s sweat and there’s something that’s just Hunter , I think,. It’s just Hunter, and I never want to stop tasting it, tasting him—or maybe stop long enough to take tastes of Nolan, too. Just take turns. For the rest of my life, I get to fucking do that, I get to just take turns, to take my fill of them both, to drown myself in the two of them.

It’s such a big realization, it almost hurts.

I suck on him, frantic, desperate, chasing away the overwhelming everything of it all.

He pulls back far too soon, hushing me when I try to chase him with a whimper. He wipes the spit from my lips and chin and gives me a fond, proud smile that has me even warmer than anything else so far.

“Such a good boy. Keep being good for me, okay?”

I nod, desperate to do just that, but then he crawls around Nolan, who is still on my lower stomach, and settles between my thighs. A quick, awful panic spikes in my chest.

He wouldn’t—he knows he can’t—

Then Nolan’s breath hitches and he tosses his head back to moan and I realize Hunter isn’t trying to fuck me. He’s fucking Nolan . He has us slotted perfectly, so that when he rocks his hips forward, Nolan’s wet cock glides right along my achingly hard one.

I moan, long and low, Nolan leaning over and swallowing it down with a kiss.

It’s not long before Hunter is speeding up, forcing Nolan’s hard cock to rub against mine. It’s hot and heavy and pulsing, dribbling fresh precum onto my skin. I’m so fucking wound up that it’s almost enough to set me off.

Almost .

“Please, please, please,” I breathe into the kiss for seconds or minutes or hours.

Eventually, Hunter is yanking Nolan’s head back by his hair, his gasps and moans filling the open air, and I’m free to beg Hunter properly.

“Please, Hunter.”

“Please what, kitten?”

“I want—I want to fuck him.”

“He’s a little busy. Be patient. Wait your turn.”

I growl in frustration, clenching my hands in my hair until my scalps stings. Nolan is making the prettiest fucking noises as Hunter starts to fuck him in quick, punched movements that I can tell are nailing his prostate.

“Sir? Sir, can I come? Please?”

“Sure,” Hunter says, and I catch sight of a wicked grin over Nolan’s shoulder. It’s directed at me. It sets my blood on fire. Makes my cock pound with the beat of my racing heart. “Go ahead, darling. Cover his cock in your cum.”

I don’t know which of us makes a more wrecked sound, Nolan as he comes, or me as I’m coated in it. Hunter doesn’t stop fucking into him even as he goes boneless and starts to sink onto me. It adds pressure to my soaked cock, bringing me dangerously close to the edge.

“Can I?” I ask, realizing my whole body is trembling. “Can I come too now?”

Hunter just looks at me and says, “No.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, tears leaking out of them and down my cheeks. The wet, squelching sounds of Nolan’s body moving over mine are obscene as Hunter really starts giving it to him. Nolan’s cock is starting to harden against mine, considering a second round.

That’s when I sob for the first time.

I sob and I beg, “Please, please, Hunter, please, I need it, I need it, Hunter, please.”

“A little longer,” he pants. I open my eyes to find his face slack, his head tilting back. He rolls his hips against Nolan twice more before falling completely still to spill into him. I jerk, a sudden desperation rising in me at the lack of friction, but he moves his hands from Nolan’s hips to mine and holds me steady.

It’s awful.

It’s got nothing on how I feel when he slides out of Nolan, takes my aching and soaked cock in his hand, and guides me to take his place inside our boyfriend. I shout, heat zinging through me lightning fast.

I manage a choked, “Please,” as Nolan is pushed down far enough for my cock to bottom out inside him.

Hunter looks over Nolan’s shoulder at me, his eyes glazed with lust and pride. I start to shiver, feeling my resolve breaking apart, feeling my orgasm barreling forward whether I want it to or not.

I whisper, “Oh, no, Hunter—”

He reaches around Nolan, wrapping his hand loosely around my throat, and says, “Go ahead, Maison. You’re forgiven.”

I come.

With their hands on me, stroking, gentle, warm, and Nolan clenched around my cock, and a tsunami of emotion in my chest, and tears trickling down my cheeks, and lips on my throat, and lips on my ear, and whispered words like love you and good boy and both so perfect and love you two so much and that’s it and let it out and you did so good, Mais and we’re so proud of you, kitten and it’s okay, you’re okay, we’ve got you, I feel nothing but safe, so safe, so fucking safe, and forgiven, he said I’m forgiven, everything is okay now, I was good, I was good for them, I can breathe again, there’s so much relief, and I’m free.

I’m finally fucking free.

There's this soft layer around the world. It's warm. Good. Golden. If I had the energy, I swear I could lift my hand and feel it. A barrier, a protection, keeping the weight of the world from being able to get to me.

I notice things slowly, beneath the layer. I'm somewhere comfortable, somewhere soft like the layer itself. The thing beneath me is cool and dry against my heated skin. Something warmer, something damp, is being brushed against my thigh. There's a weight on my head, moving back and forth with a gentle scrape against my scalp. It feels good. I want to say so, but my mouth feels wrong, upside down or something, not working when I try to move it. That's alright. Words are stupid anyway. Who needs words under this soft, sweet, perfect layer?

Someone outside the layer is using words. They're muffled. Low and soothing, even without making any sense. They're nice to listen to, like background music, like when my mom would hum while she baked.

The warm, damp thing moves over me. I shiver when the air touches the wet places it leaves behind. I don't like that as much. I want it to stop moving. It's making me cold.

Something rumbles against my shoulder. The hand on my head pauses. There are more words on the outside. I think one of them is pouting. I wonder who is pouting. I wonder why. I wonder if they're cold too. If they're being tormented by a mean warm damp thing that leaves goosebumps in its wake.

That rumble is back. Then something soft, even softer than the layer I'm under, comes up to cover me. That's warm. That's very nice and soft and warm.

I think there are more words, but who cares about those when everything is back to being perfect?

Except… there's something not perfect about this. Something is missing. I have to fight to care about that, fight to think about what it could be as the happy haze tries to take over again.

Not something missing.

Two somethings.

Oh.

I blink my eyes open. It's hard to do. They're impossibly heavy, like Keats injected me with his special painkillers and I only have a few seconds before reality slips away. Except, this is in reverse, reality growing stronger with every blink, every inhale.

I see Nolan first. Well, I see his messy hair. He has his head resting just above my belly button, over the blanket that's been pulled up to my chest. I want to touch him, to run my hand over his bare back or ruffle his hair, but I feel… stuck. It's odd, actually, the weightlessness and heaviness I feel in unison. I feel like I'm floating but pinned in place. It's a safe feeling. A freeing one.

“Coming back to us, kitten?”

It takes effort to tilt my chin and look in the direction of the warm, pleased voice. It comes from the same direction - the same person - as the rumbling had earlier. Hunter.

I sigh. It's a happy, sated, lovesick sort of thing that ends in an almost painfully large grin and an emptiness in my chest I haven't felt in a decade. “Hi.”

Hunter chuckles. “Hello. We lost you for a bit there, huh?”

“Been right here the whole time,” I mumble, rolling my eyes because he's ridiculous if he thinks I could possibly have moved recently when he and Nolan have fucked the energy right out of me. I might not move ever again. They might need to just forward my mail to Hunter Meridian's bed.

“You're right, you have,” he agrees. He sounds amused. I'm too tired to figure out what's amusing. “Can you take a drink for me?”

I frown as a straw is suddenly placed against my lips. There's an instinct in me to grumble or push it away or tell him no. I can't possibly understand why such a ridiculous instinct would be there. I'm thirsty as fuck, and having him take care of me is like the warm fuzzy soft layer but as a person.

“Woah,” I say instead of drinking.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Woah?”

I shake my head. He wouldn't understand. It's too big to even put into words. I take a drink instead. He seems happy with that, which is good. I like making him happy.

He keeps asking me to drink and take bites of food and he keeps being happy every time I do. It's the easiest thing. Why haven't we been doing this all along? We're both so happy.

“Nol?” I manage to ask once the drinking and eating is done. I want Nolan to be happy too. I can't see his face or hear him, so how do I know if he's happy?

“Shh. He's asleep.” Hunter reaches over and adjusts the blanket that must have fallen off of Nolan's shoulders. Nolan shifts a little against me before settling back down with a soft exhale. “You took a while to come around. He tried staying awake for you, but we weren't sure if you'd wake up at all. Some subs don't wake after an intense scene. They just crash and sleep right through all the clean-up.”

“I'm sorry…” I mumble, something weird and cold growing inside of me.

Was this not good after all? Did I mess up? Is the soft layer not supposed to be there for so long? Was I supposed to fight harder?

“Hey, none of that. I'm glad you went so far under. I think you needed it.” I nod, that bad feeling going away as quickly as it came. I did need it. If he's glad, that's even better. It's perfect. “Do you need anything else? The bathroom or anything?”

I shake my head. My eyes are heavy again. I try to fight to keep them open. “Need nothing.”

“Okay. And you're alright? How do you feel, sweetheart?”

I let my eyes close, sinking back under that soft layer of protection. It was submission, all along - the layer, I mean. It was Hunter , all along. Hunter and his love for me. His control of me. His care for me.

How awesome .

How fucking perfect .

How do I feel? That's easy. “Free.”