Chapter 4 · Ch4

Say Stay I sank down and took him in one brutal slide. Same table. Same cuffs. Same blood on his gland. No captain. No squad. The lock held. Levi's head went back so hard it rang the iron. I felt him pierce me — no: I pierced the lie that I was only here to map him — as I seated myself to the base.

"Look at me while I take you," I said, and I moved, punishing, claiming, the aching heat turning into a rhythm the room couldn't deny. He strained the cuffs and still tried to thrust up. I let him. I wanted him desperate.

"You think you can run from this?" I bit the mark fully this time, a claiming press that made him shout.

"Don't you dare," he gasped, "call this a report."

"I'm going to write nothing." I rolled my hips.

"I'm going to knot the truth into you." The swell caught. Not a storybook wolf-knot, not clean — a hard lock of bodies and instinct that held him inside me while I shook apart. He followed with a broken sound, pulsing, conquered, eyes wet with fury. I stayed through it, forehead to his, both of us wrecked on official steel. When I could speak I said, "You're not Beta. You're not leaving this room as cargo."

"Then say I stay." His voice was hoarse.

"Mean it."

"Stay." I kissed the blood.

"That's an order. That's a claim. That's the only file that matters." Only after I lifted off him — slow, shaking — did I look at the printer in the corner. A single sheet had fallen earlier. Termination language. I tore it in half with bloody fingers.

"If they come, they come for both of us."

"Romantic," Levi said, wrecked and smiling.

"You're terrible at torture."

"I'm excellent at it." I unlocked one cuff, then the other, and his hands flew to my hips like he'd been waiting years. We dressed like soldiers after a crime. The room still smelled like sex and iron. That smell was the unlock. A reader who'd paid would have gotten every thrust. I opened the door on my time, not theirs. The hallway was empty. Sergei would have questions. He could wait until I could walk straight. Levi stood, chain marks on his wrists, mark shining on his throat.

"Maps," he said softly.

"I'll give you the maps. After that, you don't get to pretend I'm a prisoner."

"I stopped pretending on the first slide." He laughed, low.

"Good. Because I didn't." We left the table behind like a witness. It didn't speak. It didn't have to. Outside, war could start. Inside that hour, I'd already won the only fight that paid. My mouth still tasted like his . He shoved my boxers aside. Clothes already wrecked. He stepped between my knees, full weight covering me. I trembled. Wrists pinned. Pride refused to yield. My body had already signed.

"Your mouth says no, but you're dripping for me. Look at me while I take you." He slid inside. The first thrust wrote the charge. He kept a punishing rhythm, withdrew, slid inside again, tight/slick, counted, marked. I hated how I clenched. After the first climax I came with him through, he stayed buried, breathing hard, a rough thumb on my pulse, not tender enough to be a lie. Then he moved again — angle, depth, pace — until the second finish spilled into me and I still would not call it love. We stayed joined for the after. Sweat. Silk. A kiss on the mark that was almost kind. Then the plot was allowed back in. Beat 1: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 2: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 3: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 4: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 5: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 6: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 7: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 8: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 9: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. blood. I didn't wipe it.

"Next session," I said, "you talk first."

"Next session," he said, "you lock the door faster." I did not tell him I'd already decided there would be a next session. Some claims you write in reports. Some you write in a body. I'd used the second pen. He stayed inside the claim. Look at me was still in the air. The mark still throbbed. Aching heat did not cool. I was still soaked. That was the payoff. That was why the coin was worth it.