Flesh & Blood Chapter 16: Control part 1
18+ only. minors do not interact. this is a dark fic containing mature themes, forced captivity, coercive dynamics, trauma, power imbalance, forced marriage, emotional manipulation, possessive behavior, and emotionally complicated intimacy.
word count: 9.4k in total
Summary: after mara’s question leaves you spiraling, you try to make the panic physical.
but when leon finds you in the gym barefoot, bleeding, and furious, the confrontation becomes something far more dangerous than anger. what starts as a lesson in control turns into restraint, praise, need, and another impossible reminder that hating him is becoming harder every time he touches you.
⚠️ chapter content warnings ⚠️
emotional manipulation
possessive behavior
controlling behavior
toxic intimacy
trauma bonding undertones
conflicted feelings toward captor
attachment confusion
fear of dependency
fear of loving someone you feel you should hate
spiraling / emotional distress
panic after difficult conversation
self-destructive behavior
injury / bleeding knuckle
reckless physical exertion
injured foot / ankle pain
praise kink
“good girl” language
restraint / bondage with tape
rough kissing
wall pinning
explicit sexual content
oral sex
unprotected sex
creampie
possessive sex
edging
aftercare
emotional vulnerability after sex
explicit language
By the time you leave Mara on the porch, your skin feels too tight for your body.
The question follows you through the house like a second heartbeat.
The mansion presses in from all sides as you walk upstairs, every polished surface too bright, every doorway too quiet. You can still feel Mara’s arms around you, still hear her voice telling you it can be wrong and real, like that is supposed to make anything easier. It doesn’t. It makes you want to crawl out of your own skin.
You make it halfway to your room before you pass the gym.
The door is cracked open, the lights low inside, dark mats and polished equipment waiting in silence. You’ve barely noticed this room before, except as another absurd feature of Leon’s impossible house. A private gym. Of course. Because apparently brooding in a mansion requires a full training facility.
Your eyes land on the heavy punching bag hanging near the far wall.
Something hot and ugly rolls through your chest.
Ten minutes later, you’re changed into black leggings and a sports bra, hair pulled back messily, feet bare because your shoes are somewhere else and you don’t have the patience to find them. Your injured foot still aches. You ignore it.
You wrap your hands badly with tape you found in a drawer, stare at the bag like it has personally ruined your life, and hit it.
Pain shoots up your wrist immediately.
You swing again, sloppy and furious, shoulder twisting wrong, weight landing too heavily on your still-healing foot. The pain in your ankle flares, but you welcome it. Good. Fine. Pain makes sense. Pain has edges. Pain doesn’t ask you impossible questions about love and cages and silk dresses.
Each hit gets worse. Less controlled. More frantic. Your breathing turns ragged, chest burning, eyes stinging with tears you refuse to let fall.
“Stupid,” you snap at the bag, swinging again. “Fucking stupid.”
You don’t know if you mean the wedding.
You hit the bag so hard your wrist buckles.
A sharp pain snaps through your hand.
Leon’s voice cuts through the room like a blade.
He’s standing in the doorway, and he looks furious.
Not irritated. Not stern. Furious.
His jaw is locked so tight you can see the muscle ticking there. His eyes sweep over you in one brutal pass — the badly wrapped hands, the bare feet, the thin sports bra, the rise and fall of your chest, the sweat at your throat, your still-healing foot planted wrong on the mat. Whatever he had come looking for, whatever version of you he expected to find, this was clearly not it.
For a second, he doesn’t even speak.
He just stares at you with that dark, controlled rage that makes the entire gym feel smaller.
“Do you knock on gym doors too,” you snap, breathing hard, “or is that just for rooms where I’m crying?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
You gesture at the bag. “Processing.”
“You’re destroying your wrist.”
“I’m expanding my skill set.”
“Your foot is still healing.”
“And your form is fucking terrible.”
Your mouth drops open. “Wow. Okay. We’re body-shaming my rage now?”
Leon steps into the room, and the air changes with him. “That wasn’t rage. That was a poorly executed attempt to injure yourself before dinner.”
“Oh my God, do you critique everyone’s emotional breakdowns, or am I special?”
His eyes drag over you again, and this time there is no hiding the heat beneath the anger. It darkens his face, sharpens the line of his mouth, makes the fury look even more dangerous because it has nowhere clean to go.
“You are standing in my gym, half-dressed, barefoot, with a bad ankle and worse form, trying to beat the shit out of a bag like it owes you money.” His voice drops. “Yes, you’re special.”
You hate him for noticing.
You hate him more for making it sound like that.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like you’re mad and turned on about it.”
Your pulse jumps again, vicious and satisfied.
Leon takes another step closer. “Careful.”
You laugh, but it comes out too breathless. “That’s your favorite word.”
“With you? It has to be.”
“Because you make me want to forget every responsible thought I’ve ever had.”
Leon looks like he regrets saying it for about half a second.
His gaze drops to your wrapped hands again, and the anger surges back into place, protective and sharp. “You’re bleeding.”
A thin line of red has seeped through the tape over one knuckle.
Your own words come back to you. His favorite bad habit. Nothing. Always nothing.
The look he gives you is dark enough to make your skin prickle.
“Do not,” he says softly, “use my worst habit against me.”
You swallow. “Maybe don’t make it so easy.”
He closes the distance in two long strides.
You step back on instinct, but your heel catches the edge of the mat. Pain flares up your ankle, sharp enough to make your face twist before you can hide it.
His anger snaps into something colder.
“See?” he says, voice low. “That. That right there. You don’t get to hurt yourself because you don’t know where to put what you’re feeling.”
You glare up at him. “I don’t get to? That’s a bold phrase from you.”
His eyes darken. “I know exactly what I said.”
“You want to hit something, fine.” He steps closer again, looming now, heat rolling off him. “But you don’t get to tear yourself apart in my house because you’re too stubborn to ask for help.”
Your chest heaves. “Your house. There it is.”
His jaw flexes. “Our house, then.”
The words slam into the air between you.
Leon goes still, like he didn’t mean to say it.
“Our house?” you repeat, voice sharp and trembling. “That’s cute.”
“No, really. Very romantic. I’m sure the locked gates love that.”
“Don’t serious-voice me.”
“Then stop making me need to.”
You laugh harshly. “You don’t need to do anything. You just like having control.”
Leon’s eyes are blazing now, anger and something hungrier twisting together until you can’t tell which one is leading.
“Yes,” he repeats, stepping closer, voice rough. “I like control. I like knowing where the threats are. I like knowing you ate. I like knowing your foot isn’t bleeding again because you decided to fight gym equipment like it personally wrote the vows.” His gaze drops to your mouth, then back to your eyes. “And I especially like knowing when you’re angry enough to be dangerous to yourself, because then I can do something about it.”
“You’re impossible,” you whisper.
“And you’re trying to pick a fight with a punching bag because you’re scared of a question Mara asked you.”
His eyes narrow. “I’m right.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“No,” he says, voice lowering. “But I know you.”
That one cuts deeper than you expect.
You hate that you want him to.
You lift your chin. “Then you should know I’m not in the mood to be handled.”
Leon looks at you for one long, charged second.
Then his mouth curves faintly.
“No,” he says. “You’re in the mood to be challenged.”
Heat rushes down your spine.
You scoff, because it is the only defense you have left. “Wow. Is this your professional assessment?”
“You’re breathing like you want me closer.”
His eyes darken with victory.
You point at him with one badly wrapped hand. “You are so full of yourself.”
The switch is so sudden you almost stumble.
His gaze drops to your mouth again.
Leon steps closer. You step back until your shoulders nearly touch the bag behind you.
“You do,” he says, voice quiet now, intimate and infuriating. “You like when I tell you you’re doing well. You like when I notice. You like when I say good.”
Your whole body goes hot.
His hand lifts, slow enough that you could move away, and catches the loose end of the wrap around your wrist. He tugs once, not hard, just enough to pull your hand between you.
Leon’s eyes stay on yours as he starts unwinding the mess you made.
“You wrapped this like you were trying to lose circulation.”
For one second, the heat dims beneath something more painful.
Then he looks back down at your hand.
The question is too quiet.
Then he resumes, slower now, his thumb brushing over the split knuckle. “No. I didn’t think so.”
“Don’t be gentle with me right now.”
Then he says, “I’m not sure you know what you’re asking for.”
For a moment, the gym is nothing but the sound of your breathing, his breathing, the faint sway of the heavy bag behind you.
Leon steps closer until you can feel him.
“You want to fight?” he asks, voice low.
“No.” His eyes burn into yours. “Don’t maybe me. You came in here to hit something. You want to be angry? Be angry. You want to fight? Fight me.”
He tosses the ruined wrap aside and reaches for a clean one from the bench without looking away from you. “You heard me.”
“You want me to fight you?”
“I want you to stop pretending that punching a bag badly is enough.”
You laugh once, disbelieving. “You’re three times my size.”
“And you have enough attitude for six people.”
“Yes.” He wraps your hand properly now, firm and efficient, each pass of the fabric snug around your wrist. “And you’re stalling.”
You glare. “I am not stalling.”
“The bag doesn’t have abs and emotional baggage.”
His mouth almost twitches.
Leon’s gaze sharpens, because he knows exactly what he just did.
“You did not just bait me.”
“And you’re still stalling.”
Your free hand swings before you can think better of it.
Not a real punch. Not hard. More fury than technique, a sharp little shot toward his chest.
Leon catches your wrist effortlessly.
Before you can blink, he turns with your momentum, steps in, and guides you backward until your spine meets the padded wall.
Not rough enough to hurt.
But firm enough that every thought in your head scatters.
Your captured wrist is pinned gently beside your head, his fingers wrapped around the padding of your gloves. His other hand braces near your waist, not touching, but near enough that your skin burns in anticipation.
His face is inches from yours.
His eyes flick to your mouth. “Predictable.”
You glare up at him. “You caught a half-assed punch from an injured woman and now you’re proud?”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
His mouth curves, slow and wicked. “Sweetheart, you’ve done worse than that with your mouth.”
Leon freezes too, like he knows exactly how that sounded.
The silence turns filthy without either of you touching more than this.
You swallow hard. “You are impossible.”
“Because you keep proving it.”
He leans closer, voice dropping until it is nearly against your ear. “Try again.”
A shiver goes through you.
His fingers tighten slightly around your wrist.
“Try harder,” he says. “Or are you only brave when I’m not looking at you?”
You shove at him with your free hand, and he lets you move him half a step before catching that wrist too. In one smooth motion, he turns you away from the wall, guides you two steps across the mat, and then takes you down.
But suddenly your back is against the mat, breath knocked out of you by shock more than impact, and Leon is above you, one knee planted beside your hip, both your wrists pinned carefully over your head.
You stare up at him, stunned.
He is breathing harder now.
The gym light catches on his face, on the tension in his jaw, the darkness in his eyes as he looks down at you spread beneath him in your leggings and sports bra, furious and flushed and trembling.
For a second, he forgets to be careful.
The possessive, starved, barely leashed thing in him that he has been choking back for days because he has been trying to give you room.
“You still want to fight?” he asks, voice rough.
“Let go of my wrists and find out.”
A low sound leaves him, almost a laugh, almost a groan.
“You have no idea how much trouble that mouth gets you into.”
You lift your chin as much as you can from the mat. “Seems like you like my mouth just fine.”
Leon’s expression turns dangerous.
For one long second, you think he’s going to kiss you.
Instead, he lowers his mouth to your ear.
His breath is hot against your skin.
“Good girl,” he whispers. “There she is.”
A sharp, helpless inhale. Your hips twitch before you can stop them. Your fingers flex beneath his grip.
Leon goes still above you.
Then very slowly, he lifts his head and looks at you.
His eyes are almost black now.
“You do like praise,” he says, voice low with dark satisfaction.
Your face burns. “Shut up.”
“No,” he repeats, softer, rougher. “You’re angry and scared and pretending you don’t want anything from me, but the second I tell you you’re good, you forget how to breathe.”
The heat remains, but something tender cuts through it.
“No,” he says. “It’s not.”
He releases one of your wrists, slow enough that you understand he is not trapping you. His hand moves to your face instead, thumb brushing along your cheekbone.
“You want me to stop?” he asks.
The question lands soft and serious in the middle of all that heat.
You hate that it makes you want him more.
The hand still pinning your wrist loosens, but he does not move away. His body stays above yours, heavy presence without full weight, heat without crushing.
“What do you want?” he asks.
You stare up at him, heart hammering.
You want answers to questions you’re not ready to ask.
You want the impossible thing Mara put in your head to stop echoing.
You want him to be only one thing.
You want him to be yours.
The thought terrifies you so badly you almost shove him off.
Instead, you say, “I don’t know.”
Leon looks at you like that hurts.
Your brows pull together. “What?”
He sits back slowly, releasing your other wrist and offering you his hand.
“Training,” he says, voice still rough. “You wanted to hit something. I’ll teach you how to do it without hurting yourself.”
The disappointment that shoots through you is immediate and humiliating.
His mouth curves faintly.
“I just expected you to be more dramatic after pinning me to the floor.”
His eyes move over you, still on your back beneath him.
“Trust me,” he says quietly. “I’m being very controlled.”
He pulls you up too easily, and you nearly crash into his chest. His hands catch your waist. Yours land against his shoulders.
His gaze drops to your mouth.
“Very controlled?” you ask, voice barely steady.
His fingers flex once at your waist. “Barely.”
The word burns through you.
The absence is almost insulting.
“Stance,” he says, voice rougher than before.
You blink. “You’re serious?”
“You pin me to the floor, whisper in my ear, and now we’re doing stance?”
His mouth twitches. “You wanted a fight.”
“No.” He steps closer again, just enough to make your breath hitch. “Finish that sentence.”
Infuriatingly patient now.
You lift your chin. “I wanted to stop thinking.”
His expression softens a fraction.
Then he nods toward the mat. “Then move.”
You square up in front of him, hands raised the way he showed you, anger still burning under your skin but now tangled with heat so thick you can barely tell the difference.
Like a predator pretending not to be one.
You roll your eyes but do it.
He steps behind you, close enough that his chest nearly brushes your back. His hands settle at your hips, correcting your angle, shifting your weight off the bad foot.
He leans closer, voice at your ear again.
“See? You can listen when you want to.”
His hand wraps around your forearm, and he uses the motion to turn you back toward him. Suddenly you’re chest to chest, your arm trapped gently between you, his face inches from yours.
Your breath shakes. “You’re enjoying this.”
“At least pretend to be noble.”
“I’ve been noble for three days.” His gaze drops to your mouth. “I’m tired.”
His eyes lift. “Careful.”
“There’s that word again.”
His mouth hovers close to yours now.
Instead, he releases you and steps back, leaving you furious and wanting on the mat.
You lunge before you can stop yourself.
Leon catches you again, turns you again, and this time pins you against his chest from behind, one arm banded lightly across your middle, the other catching your wrist before you can throw another terrible punch.
Your back is flush to him.
His breath is against your ear.
Your whole body goes still.
“Too emotional,” he murmurs. “You’re telegraphing every move.”
Your voice comes out thin. “Maybe stop being so distracting.”
His arm tightens slightly around your waist.
Enough to make you feel him everywhere.
His mouth grazes the shell of your ear, barely there.
A shiver tears through you.
“You’re distracting,” you whisper.
His breath is uneven now too.
His arm around your waist tightens immediately, catching you, holding you upright.
For a moment, neither of you breathes.
Then he turns you in his arms, and suddenly you’re facing him again, pressed close enough that your hands are flat against his chest and his hands are at your waist.
The fight has gone quiet.
It fills every inch between you.
Leon looks down at you like he is starving and choosing, second by second, not to devour you.
That might be the worst part.
Not the heat. Not his hands on your waist. Not the hard line of his body so close to yours you can feel every controlled breath he takes. The worst part is that he is still holding back. Even now. Even after pinning you to the mat, whispering praise in your ear, dragging every reaction out of you like he knows exactly where to press.
He is holding back, and you hate him for it.
You hate that you want him to stop.
“What?” you snap, breathless. “Are we done now? Did I pass your little anger management class?”
His gaze sharpens. “You think that’s what this is?”
“I think you like pretending everything is a lesson when really you just like having your hands on me.”
Leon’s fingers flex at your waist.
His eyes darken, and the corner of his mouth pulls into something barely there. Not a smile. Too dangerous for that.
You lift your chin, trying to reclaim even a shred of control. “At least you’re honest.”
The word lands strangely.
You catch it, even through the heat.
Leon sees that you catch it.
For a moment, the tension shifts. Not breaks. Shifts. His expression tightens almost imperceptibly, like he has stepped too close to something he didn’t mean to touch.
Then his hand slides from your waist to your hip, slow and deliberate, and the air goes hot again.
The question cuts through the room.
Leon’s eyes stay locked on yours, no longer teasing. No longer only hungry. There is something else underneath now — the same thing that was in his face when he found you in here. Anger, yes. Concern. Possession. But also fear. The quiet kind. The kind he hates letting you see.
His hands do not stop you.
That somehow makes you feel even more cornered.
Leon’s jaw flexes. “Don’t.”
A sharp laugh escapes you. “That’s rich.”
You regret it as soon as it leaves your mouth.
Not because it is untrue.
And because you can see that it does.
Leon steps closer again, slow enough to give you time, close enough to steal the air when you don’t move away. “You came in here like your skin was on fire. You wrapped your hands like shit, nearly rolled your ankle, and tried to break yourself against a punching bag.”
His mouth tightens. “What did she ask?”
His brows draw together. “No?”
“No.” Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “You don’t get every thought in my head.”
“I’m not asking for every thought.”
“You’re asking for that one.”
“Because it did this to you.”
You scoff, but it sounds weak even to you. “Maybe you’re overestimating yourself.”
His expression goes cold-hot in that awful way that makes your pulse jump. “This isn’t about me?”
“Then why won’t you answer?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
For one long second, nothing moves.
Then he laughs once under his breath.
“You say that like you’re surprised.”
“I’m not.” He steps in, and this time you back up until the padded wall is behind you again. He does not touch you yet. He only leans close enough that you have to tilt your head back. “I’m angry.”
“No.” His voice drops. “You haven’t.”
His hand plants on the wall beside your head. The other follows, bracketing you in without touching you. It should make you furious. It does.
It also makes heat coil low in your belly so fast you almost forget what you were fighting about.
“I’m angry,” he says, each word quiet and controlled, “because you were hurting and you came in here to make it physical. I’m angry because you’re still favoring that foot and you pretended you weren’t. I’m angry because your hands are bleeding. I’m angry because you would rather tear yourself open than tell me what made you run.”
His eyes sharpen. “You always run. Sometimes your feet don’t move, but you still run.”
His eyes move over your face, and something in him softens for half a second.
Then you shove at his chest.
He catches your wrists instantly and pins them gently to the wall on either side of your head.
Your breath leaves you in a sharp rush.
His body is against yours now.
Not fully. Not crushing. Just enough.
Enough for you to feel the heat of him. The hard tension in him. The proof that he is not nearly as controlled as he is pretending to be.
Your eyes widen before you can stop them.
Your face burns. “Don’t.”
“I asked you a question.”
Your pulse pounds so loudly you can barely hear him. “You are so fucking arrogant.”
His hips press forward, slow and deliberate, just enough to make the words die in your throat.
Your whole body goes still.
“Arrogant?” he repeats, voice rough. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just very bad at hiding what you want from me.”
It fails because he shifts again, a slow roll of his hips that sends heat licking up your spine. Nothing explicit, nothing enough, just pressure and promise and the maddening knowledge that he could take this further and is choosing not to.
A shaky breath escapes you.
His mouth hovers near your cheek.
“Still don’t want to answer me?”
His lips brush the corner of your jaw. Barely. Not quite a kiss.
You turn your face away, but he follows, mouth grazing the line of your throat. He does not kiss you the way you want him to. He only lets you feel how close he is, lets his breath warm your skin, lets his body hold yours against the wall while his hands keep your wrists pinned with infuriating care.
But absolutely not letting you pretend he isn’t there.
“What did she ask?” he murmurs again.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
His hips roll again, slower this time.
Your knees nearly buckle.
Leon presses closer, catching you with his body before you can sink. “Careful.”
The question from the porch slams back into you with enough force to steal your breath.
Your face must change, because Leon’s expression shifts immediately from heat to alertness.
His grip loosens at once. “Y/n.”
He releases one of your wrists, then the other, but he does not step away. His hands lower to your waist, gentler now, grounding instead of pinning.
“What did Mara ask?” he says again, but this time the anger has burned down to something rawer. “Tell me.”
You laugh once, breathless and bitter. “You really don’t give up.”
The thing that makes everything worse.
You look up at him, flushed and angry and shaking with want you can’t separate from panic.
“She asked me something I don’t want to talk about,” you say.
Leon’s eyes search yours. “About me?”
Something closer to wounded.
“What did she ask you about me?”
Leon’s fingers tighten slightly at your waist, then loosen like he catches himself. “Was it about the paperwork? The wedding? What I said in the office?”
“I’m trying to understand why you came in here ready to hurt yourself.”
“I came in here because I needed to hit something.”
Your eyes flick back to his.
The heat is still there. Banked. Waiting.
Leon leans closer, and his voice drops. “What do you need now?”
You know what he’s doing.
You hate the way his body presses into yours again, slow and restrained, the way one hand slides from your waist to the small of your back and pulls you in just enough to make your breath catch. You hate the way he watches your face like every reaction is a confession.
You hate that your body is telling the truth even while your mouth refuses.
“I need you to stop asking,” you whisper.
“That’s not the same as answering.”
Then his mouth lowers to your ear.
“Fine,” he murmurs. “You don’t want to tell me?”
His hand spreads over your lower back, holding you to him as his hips rock forward again, slow and deliberate, dragging a small sound from your throat before you can swallow it.
Your fingers clutch at his shirt.
He smiles against your skin.
“But don’t walk into my gym half-dressed and furious,” he continues, voice low and rough at your ear, “pick a fight with me, gasp every time I touch you, and then act surprised when I notice exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“No?” His mouth grazes the side of your neck. “This is nothing?”
He moves again, just enough pressure to make your body arch before you can stop it.
Leon lifts his head, eyes locking on the movement.
You glare up at him, breathing hard. “Don’t what?”
“Hide those sounds from me.”
“You keep saying that when you’re losing.”
His hand slides up your back, between your shoulder blades, pulling you chest to chest. His mouth hovers over yours now, close enough that every word brushes your lips.
“You’re pinned against a wall, shaking, and refusing to answer a question because you’re scared I’ll know the truth before you do.”
His face shifts. The heat wavers beneath regret.
You slip out from between him and the wall, chest heaving, wrapping your arms around yourself as if that can cover the parts of you he just saw too clearly.
“Don’t,” you say, voice shaking. “Don’t do that.”
Leon turns toward you slowly. “Do what?”
“Look through me like that.”
His expression tightens. “I’m not trying to.”
“Yes, you are. You always are.” Your eyes burn now, and that makes you angrier. “You always look at me like if you stare long enough, you can figure out what I feel and decide what to do with it.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you doing?”
He steps toward you, then stops when you tense. His breathing is rougher now too, restraint visibly fraying at the edges.
“I’m trying to find where you went,” he says.
Leon’s voice drops, quieter, still rough with wanting but threaded with something more desperate. “You were here with me two minutes ago. Angry, sarcastic, reckless, alive. Then I said something and you disappeared behind your eyes again.” His jaw tightens. “I hate when you do that.”
“You don’t get to be mad about that.”
“I’m not mad at you for it.”
“Yes.” His eyes burn. “Because I want you right here, fighting me, yelling at me, looking at me like you might either hit me or kiss me, and then you vanish into whatever hell your head makes for you, and I don’t know how to pull you back without making it worse.”
The room goes quiet except for both of you breathing.
Your fingers curl into your palms, the wraps rough against your skin.
Leon looks at your hands immediately. “Stop.”
You’ve tightened your fists over the split knuckle again.
He crosses the distance before you can argue, takes your hand, and opens it carefully. The gesture is gentle, but his face is still dark, still angry, still trying not to become too much.
“See?” he mutters. “Five seconds and you’re bleeding again.”
“Maybe I like being dramatic.”
Your mouth twitches despite yourself.
But the almost-smile slips through.
Leon sees it and exhales like he has been holding his breath since the second you pulled away.
You roll your eyes, but it is weaker now. “Don’t sound so relieved.”
That one catches you in the chest.
You look down at your hand in his.
The gym feels too warm. Too quiet. The bag hangs motionless beside you. Your body still hums from the way he pinned you, the way he moved against you, the way his voice turned praise into something that went straight through your defenses.
Leon unwraps the worst of the tape around your bleeding knuckle with maddening patience.
“Mara asked me something I can’t answer,” you say, barely above a whisper.
“She asked me something about you.”
That makes it easier and harder.
“I don’t want to tell you what it was,” you continue. “Because if I say it out loud, then it’s in the room. And if it’s in the room, then you’ll look at me, and I’ll know what you think before I know what I think, and I can’t do that right now.”
Leon’s thumb moves once against your palm.
His face is still flushed with heat, still tense with frustration, but his eyes have softened.
“You’re not going to push?”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I want to,” he repeats, voice rough. “Badly. I want to know everything she said that made you look like you were trying to outrun your own skin. I want to fix it. I want to drag it into the light and make it less powerful.”
“But I won’t take it from you.”
The words settle into the room like a hand unclenching.
You hate how much they mean.
You hate that this, too, feels like being touched.
Leon’s eyes drop to your mouth again, and the heat flares back between you so quickly it almost knocks you off balance.
His voice lowers. “But if you want to stop thinking…”
The corner of his mouth curves.
“You are the worst person alive,” you whisper.
“You know that’s not what you meant.”
“No?” He steps closer, still holding your injured hand gently. “What did I mean?”
You lift your chin. “You meant you’d pin me to the mat again.”
“Only if your form is sloppy.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“And yet,” he murmurs, leaning down until his mouth is near your ear again, “you keep trying to earn another good girl.”
Leon’s lips brush the side of your neck, barely there.
Your fingers curl in his shirt with your uninjured hand.
He smiles against your skin.
You close your eyes. “You cannot be serious.”
He stills for half a second.
Then his voice drops, rough and shameless.
Your entire body goes hot.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes dark, mouth close, control hanging by a thread.
“And you’re still angry,” he says. “So use it.”
You stare at him, breath shaking.
“What if I don’t want to use it?”
“What do you want to do with it?”
The answer crawls up your throat.
His hand is still wrapped around yours. His chest is inches away. His mouth is right there. The question Mara asked still sits inside you, terrifying and unnamed, but for the first time in the last hour, it is not the loudest thing in the room.
“I want you to stop being noble,” you whisper.
