Page 55 of Dirty Hit
“Eyes on me,” I demand.
He locks on immediately, pupils huge. “Yes, Daddy,” he says, without a beat of hesitation this time—and that’s when I know he’s gone.
The word shivers through me, cutting straight past muscle and bone to someplace older than sense, but I force myself to keep my tone steady, almost clinical, because he’s glassy-eyed and floating and I need every syllable to land like an anchor.
“Why are you calling me that, Brendon? Why ‘Daddy’?”
He blinks slowly, as if the question has to travel through syrup before it reaches whatever part of his brain is still translating thought into speech. His lips move, nothing comes out, then he wets them and tries again.
“Because it… feels right,” he whispers, each word drawn out on its own thread of breath. “Feels like you’re the one in charge of everything loud in my head… and the only thing I have to do is listen… and be good, and you’ll handle the rest.”
I slide my hand from his hair to hook under his chin, tilting him another fraction so I can see every flicker in his eyes. The honesty in them is obscene.
“When you say it, what are you asking for?” I press, lowering my voice until it’s a rasp meant for him alone.
His eyes flutter closed, lashes trembling, but he forces them open again, pupils swallowing nearly all the green. “Safety,” he breathes. “Protection. Control.”
The fucking irony that I could ever be someone’s idea of safety is so fucking absurd. He isn’t wrong; Iamin charge right now, and whether the world calls that safe or suicidal is irrelevant.
What matters is that he’s here on the floor in front of me, choosing my hands over any sanctuary the church ever offered. I need to treat that with something bordering on reverence.
“And you trust Daddy, Little Sin?” I ask, needing to hear him say it, even if it makes me sick.
“Yes,” he says immediately. “You scare me, but I trust you.”
This is the part where a sane man would haul him to his feet, shove him back into his car, and walk away.
I am not a sane man.
Dominic
Asanemanwoulddraghim upright, dust off his knees, and send him home with a lecture about self-preservation and the futility of worshipping monsters. But sanity and I parted ways the night I learned how easily a body folds when you carve between the ribs.
“Open your mouth.”
Brendon’s lips part on a breathless hitch, head tipping back farther, throat bared in that perfect curve that has feral possession slamming against the cage inside my chest.
I drag him closer by his hair so I can watch every inch of his surrender. His pupils blow wider, huge and hungry, but he doesn’t flinch; he leans into the sting, knees spreading for balance.
I thought I understood control. I thought I understood power. Then this timid, sass-mouthed TA decided he belonged to me and rewrote every rule.
I slide my thumb along the corner of his mouth and push inside, pressing down on his tongue until the pads of my otherfingers cradle his jaw. His eyes flutter, dark lashes shivering against flushed skin, but his gaze stays locked on mine, unblinking, daring me to see how far he will go.
“Fuck, look at you.” The laugh that slips out is half snarl. I ease my fingers along the ridge of his jaw, thumb tracing the damp swell of his lower lip. “My pretty little sinner.”
His breath drifts warm across the back of my hand, quick and shallow, and I know he’s seconds from breaking posture to chase friction. I have to bite back a groan, because the obedience is fucking intoxicating.
I curl my free hand around his throat, thumb pressing into the hollow where pulse meets jaw, and feel his heartbeat slam against my skin—fast, frantic, so fucking eager.
“Keep that mouth open for me. Don’t close it until I say. You wanted to see what happens when you offer yourself up to my bloodlust?” I let a slow, filthy smile curve my mouth. “Congratulations, Little Sin. You’ve got my full fucking attention now.”
His breath stutters, but he holds the position—body loose and ready, mind slipping under, but still tethered to my voice. I can see subspace wrapped around him like a second skin now, and I know if I’m careful, if I keep talking, keep checking, I can take him exactly where he begged me to.
“Good boy,” I murmur once more, because he needs it, and I enjoy how it sounds. “Let Daddy show you how quiet that mind of yours can really get.”
He leans forward to nose against the fabric of my sweats again, inhaling like he needs my scent to breathe, then drags his tongue along my length through cotton. The wet heat of his mouth, even through the barrier, rips a groan from my chest.
“Okay, wait—fuck—this is how it’s gonna go,” I start, white-knuckling the urge to face-fuck him. “Green, yellow, red. Green means everything’s good—keep going, no problem. Yellow, Ipause and we talk. If you say red, I stop. The same goes the other way around. Doesn’t matter what’s happening, or how far we are into something: red always wins.”
