Page 88 of Dirty Hit
We stay tangled for a while, his breathing evening out, my heartbeat settling from gallop to steady pound.
Eventually, I ease him back, arrange pillows, and fetch warm cloths to wipe him clean—gentle where moments ago I was merciless. He watches me with that soft baffled awe, as if he can’t reconcile the killer on the field with the man who now smooths a washcloth over tender skin. I toss the cloth aside and slide in behind him, spooning; one arm slung heavy over his waist.
“My good boy,” I murmur against his nape. “Never letting you go.”
He blushes so deeply that it stains his throat, and curls closer, heart still racing. I stroke his back slowly, letting him pretend this calm is mercy instead of the prelude to darker lessons. I watch the way his lashes flutter, the way he leans into every pass of my hand, and I think about the next drill, the next stretch, the next time he washes himself clean so that I can dirty him again.
I think about how easy it is to own a soul that’s convinced it’s already damned.
And I smile.
Brendon
FourmonthsofbeingDominic Volkov’s dirty little secret, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.
By day, I’m the same Brendon Lane everyone thinks they know: my schedule is still color-coded, my notes are still immaculate, and my shirts are still pressed, neutral, and boring. I still show up to class fifteen minutes early. I still help undergrads untangle their mess of thesis statements. I still call my parents every Sunday afternoon and tell them what they want to hear.
By night, I belong to a monster.
I still remember the way he kept looking at me the first time I took his fist—checking in and talking me through each new sensation—the way his voice shifted when he asked for my color, the way he paused when I said yellow, and then waited until it was green again.
Four months in, I know exactly how he takes his coffee, how he grinds his teeth when he’s concentrating on a case brief, and howhis hand finds the back of my neck without even looking when he wants me closer.
I know what his voice sounds like when he is calling audibles on the field, and what it sounds like when he is in my ear. I know the difference between the smile he gives reporters, and the one he gives me across the table when I’m being a brat.
He’s never broken his word about keeping it quiet. We talk in the hallway about midterms and readings. He calls me Lane, or “Professor,” in that mocking, fond way that makes half the girls in a ten-foot radius giggle.
In interviews, he smiles that easy, practiced smile, answers every question in that calm, captain’s voice, and throws in a self-deprecating joke about his grades being saved by his “angel of a TA.”
Cute.
They don’t know that same TA spends his nights on his knees, in the cottage at the edge of town, calling that same golden boy ‘Daddy’while he gets his soul rearranged.
Everyone else gets the golden boy; I get the Beast he actually is—teeth and blood and soft hands in the same package. I get the man who calls in disposal like it’s a normal thing, but also lifts me onto his counter to make sure I eat.
He’s coaxed things out of me I didn’t even have language for before. Fantasies I didn’t let myself acknowledge, kinks I would’ve sworn I didn’t have. The first time he made me say what I wanted from him without prompting, I went bright red and tried to hide my face in his shoulder.
He yanked my hair, made me look at him, and said, “Use your words, or you don’t get shit, Little Sin,”and somehow the words came.
Now they come easier.
“Good boy” slipped into my bones like a drug. I crave it in ways I can’t explain.
“Daddy” isn’t an accident anymore. It falls out when I’m on my knees, when I’m straddling his lap and his hand is wrapped around my throat, when he’s behind me with his mouth pressed to my ear, telling me exactly how he’s going to ruin me, then asking,“You want it?”until I stop stuttering and admit that I do.
“Beast”has become a nickname that isn’t just about anger now. Sometimes, I use it to bait him. Sometimes, I use it when I’m being an idiot and stepping on every line he drew, just to see the way his eyes darken. Sometimes, I say it softly, breathless and reverent against his neck when I’m too far gone to be clever; he always goes very quiet and very still.
The thing that scares me isn’t any of that. It’s how happy I am.
I am stupidly, recklessly happy. I fall asleep more easily, I don’t wake up in cold sweats about my morality as often, and the constant hum of anxiety that used to sit under my ribs has gone from a scream to a murmur.
When my phone buzzes, and it’s his name that appears, my entire body relaxes. When I see him on the field, when he scans the stands and finds me, when his mouth tips up in that private smile, it feels like something slides into place.
I’m a preacher’s kid. I’ve been told my whole life that happiness like this comes with a bill.
I haven’t prayed since I licked his boots, but I think about it every day. There’s a Bible on my shelf that used to be open more than it was closed. My cross still hangs around my neck, my fingers finding it in lectures, and in the grocery store, and in bed when I’m alone.
But the words don’t come.
