Flesh & Blood Chapter 16: Control part 2
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
His hand slides into your hair and his mouth crashes against yours, hungry and rough and so full of restrained want that you stumble backward from the force of it. He catches you immediately, arm around your waist, pulling you flush against him as he kisses you like he has been drowning for days and finally found air in your mouth.
You kiss him back just as hard.
Angry. Shaking. Starving.
His body drives yours carefully backward until your spine meets the padded wall again, and this time you go willingly, hands fisting in his shirt, mouth opening beneath his. His hips press into yours, not teasing now, not quite. A slow, hard reminder of what he’s been holding back.
“Still want to fight?” he rasps against your lips.
You drag your teeth lightly over his lower lip.
His laugh is dark and breathless.
Then he kisses you again, and whatever lesson this was supposed to be dissolves completely into heat.
The kiss is no longer careful. It is hungry, desperate, restraint finally cracking open. Leon’s mouth claims yours with a groan that vibrates through your chest, his hand sliding into your hair to tilt your head exactly how he wants it. You meet him with equal need, fingers fisting in his shirt, body arching into the hard line of him pressed against the padded wall.
He breaks away only long enough to breathe your name against your lips like a prayer and a curse.
Then his hands are everywhere.
One slides beneath the hem of your sports bra, palm hot against your ribs, thumb brushing the underside of your breast. The other grips your hip, pulling you harder against the insistent press of his cock through his pants. You gasp into his mouth, and he swallows the sound, deepening the kiss until your knees feel weak.
“Been thinking about this since the moment I walked in here,” he rasps, voice low and rough. “All that fire. All that fight. And still so fucking wet for me.”
You moan when his fingers dip beneath the waistband of your leggings, tracing the edge of your panties. He doesn’t tease for long. He pushes the fabric down your thighs in one smooth motion, taking your panties with them, then lifts you just enough to kick them the rest of the way off. The sports bra follows a moment later, tossed aside without ceremony. You’re bare in front of him now, chest heaving, skin flushed.
Leon’s eyes rake over you like he’s starving.
He reaches for the tape still wrapped around your hands. The same tape you put on to hit the bag. The same tape that’s now stained with your blood and sweat. He unwraps it slowly, deliberately, then uses the long strip to bind your wrists together in front of you.
“Hands stay here,” he murmurs, pressing them against the wall above your head. “Don’t move them.”
The restraint is loose enough that you could pull free if you truly wanted to. But the act of it — the quiet command in his voice — sends a fresh wave of heat through you. You nod, breathless.
He spreads your thighs with reverent hands and buries his face between them without warning. His tongue drags through your folds in one long, slow stroke, then circles your clit with devastating precision. You cry out, wrists flexing against the tape, hips jerking forward. He groans against you like the taste of you is everything he’s been craving.
“So sweet,” he murmurs between licks. “So fucking perfect. Let me hear you. Let me hear how much you need this.”
He doesn’t rush. He worships. His tongue and fingers work you open with patient hunger, curling deep inside you while his mouth sucks and licks and teases until you’re trembling. Every time you get close, he slows, pulling back just enough to edge you, to keep you right on the brink.
“Not yet,” he rasps against your thigh when you whine in frustration. “Not until I say.”
You’re shaking by the time he finally stands, cock hard and flushed, eyes dark with need. He spins you gently, pressing your chest to the padded wall, your bound hands still above your head. One hand grips your hip while the other guides his cock to your entrance.
He pushes in slowly, inch by thick inch, stretching you open until he’s buried to the hilt. The groan he lets out is raw, almost broken.
“Fuck… you feel like heaven.”
He starts to move — deep, rolling thrusts that grind against every sensitive spot inside you. His body covers yours, chest to your back, mouth at your ear as he fucks you against the wall.
“That’s it,” he praises, voice wrecked. “Take me. Just like that. Good girl. You’re doing so good for me. So tight. So wet. God, I can feel you fluttering around me already.”
You moan helplessly, cheek pressed to the cool padding, wrists bound above you as he drives into you again and again. He edges you twice more — slowing when you get close, murmuring filthy praise against your neck until you’re sobbing with need.
“Please,” you gasp. “Leon, please—”
He finally gives it to you.
His pace turns harder, deeper, one hand sliding between you to circle your clit while the other keeps your bound wrists pinned to the wall. The orgasm rips through you like fire, your walls clenching around him as you cry out. Leon follows right after with a low, guttural groan, burying himself deep and spilling inside you in hot pulses.
He stays there for a long moment, forehead pressed to the back of your neck, breathing hard. Then he gently lowers your arms, unwraps the tape from your wrists, and turns you in his arms. He kisses you softly, reverently, hands stroking down your back as if he’s still trying to memorize every inch of you.
The gym is quiet except for your shared breathing and the distant hum of the house around you.
Leon rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed, voice barely above a whisper.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs. “Right here. Don’t disappear again.”
For a moment, you can’t answer.
You are still shaking too hard.
Not from fear. Not exactly. From the force of it. From the heat still pulsing beneath your skin, from the way your body feels boneless and oversensitive, from the sudden quiet after being taken apart against a padded wall in the middle of his gym like anger had finally found somewhere to burn.
Leon notices immediately.
His hands move over you with a different kind of urgency now. Not hungry. Not teasing. Careful. Checking. His fingers slide gently over your wrists where the tape had been, thumb brushing over the faint marks left behind. His face tightens when he sees them, even though they’re barely there, even though you know he kept it loose enough that you could have pulled free if you wanted.
“Too much?” he asks, voice rough.
You shake your head, still catching your breath. “No.”
You know he needs more than that.
“No,” you say again, softer. “It wasn’t too much.”
The tension in his shoulders loosens by a fraction, but not completely. He lowers his mouth to your wrists, kissing one, then the other, so gently it makes your throat ache.
The gym suddenly feels too bright.
The mats. The bag still swaying faintly. Your leggings and sports bra discarded somewhere near the wall. The ruined wraps on the floor. The quiet hum of the ventilation system overhead. The whole room smells like sweat, leather, him, and the sharp metallic trace of your split knuckle.
Leon releases you only long enough to straighten himself. He fixes his pants with brisk, controlled movements, jaw still tight, like the practicality of it is the only thing keeping him from staring at you too long and starting all over again.
He is almost fully dressed.
The imbalance should make you feel embarrassed.
But then he pulls his black shirt over his head without a word and steps back toward you, holding it open.
His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay soft. “Exhausted.”
A small laugh slips out of you, fragile and breathless.
Leon pulls the shirt over your head carefully, easing it down your body. It falls to mid-thigh, warm from him, smelling like clean spice and skin and the gym. You close your fingers around the hem before you can stop yourself.
His gaze catches the movement.
He crouches and gathers your clothes from the floor, folding the leggings over one arm, picking up the sports bra, the tape, the discarded wrap. When he reaches your injured hand, he pauses and takes it gently in his.
The split knuckle has started bleeding again.
You look down and grimace. “Oops.”
Leon gives you a flat look. “Oops?”
His eyes darken for half a second.
Then he exhales through his nose. “You are going to kill me.”
“I thought you were training me so I could try.”
You make a face at him, but it lacks any real bite.
He wraps a clean towel around your shoulders, then slides one arm around your waist. “Can you walk?”
Your ankle aches dully, more from the earlier stupidity than anything else. Your legs, however, feel like they belong to someone else.
“That means technically.”
Leon’s expression says he is not amused.
Before you can argue, he bends and lifts you into his arms.
You groan, dropping your forehead against his shoulder. “You have got to stop doing that.”
“At least pretend to consider my autonomy.”
“You’re barefoot, bleeding, and your knees almost gave out.”
“That sounds like slander.”
“That sounds like evidence.”
You huff against his neck, but your arms slide around him anyway. His skin is warm beneath your cheek. Bare, now, because you’re wearing his shirt. The thought is stupidly intimate, and you hate that your body still softens into it.
He carries you out of the gym and into the hallway.
The mansion is dim now, most of the sconces lit low along the walls. The windows are black mirrors, reflecting fragments of you in his arms: your bare legs, his broad shoulders, your face half-hidden against him. The house feels different at night, quieter but not kinder. It seems to hold its breath as he carries you through it, past closed doors and polished tables and paintings that look almost judgmental in the low light.
You glance toward the upper hallway where Mara’s room is.
Leon feels the shift. “She’s not there.”
“She’s in the west guest suite.”
“No. She requested a room with better pillows and less ‘haunted duchess energy.’”
Despite yourself, you laugh. “That sounds like her.”
“She also asked whether the gym was soundproof.”
Your entire body goes hot.
You lift your head fully. “Leon.”
“She said, and I quote, ‘Tragic, but good for her.’”
You bury your face against his shoulder, horrified. “I’m walking into the lake.”
A low laugh rumbles through his chest, and the sound loosens something inside you. Not all the way. Not enough to erase what happened today, the question Mara asked, the panic that sent you to the gym in the first place.
By the time Leon reaches your room — his room, your room, the room neither of you has figured out how to name without making it heavier — your body has gone quiet against him.
He sets you on the bathroom counter first, not the bed.
He cleans the split knuckle with warm water and antiseptic while you sit in his shirt and watch his face. He is focused, but not cold. His brows are drawn slightly, mouth set in that stern line that means he is worried and annoyed and trying not to make either one your problem.
That honesty should irritate you.
“You scared me,” he says quietly. “And then you provoked me on purpose.”
His mouth curves faintly. “I didn’t say that.”
“I thought you were reckless.”
He tapes a small bandage over your knuckle, then brings your hand to his mouth and kisses the edge of it. The gesture is so soft after everything that your throat tightens.
You look at your bandaged hand, then at him. “Thank you.”
He still reacts to that from you.
He helps you wash up, gives you space where you need it and touch where you don’t, then guides you to bed. The sheets are cool when you slide beneath them, and the room smells faintly of rain through the cracked window, clean linen, and Leon’s skin on the shirt you’re wearing.
He turns off the lights until only the lamp beside the bed remains.
When he climbs in beside you, you go to him without thinking.
That is becoming a problem.
Leon pulls you against his chest, one arm wrapping around you, his bandaged hand resting carefully over your hip. For a while, neither of you speaks. The house settles around you. A pipe clicks somewhere in the walls. Wind presses softly against the windows. Far down the hall, a door closes, quiet and distant.
Your eyes are almost shut when Leon says, “Tomorrow, you’re mine.”
You lift your head. “Excuse me?”
His mouth is serious, but his eyes are warm in the dim light. “All day.”
You stare at him. “That is a very bold way to phrase whatever this is.”
“The wedding is in three days.” His thumb moves slowly along your hip through the shirt. “Three days, and every hour is going to get swallowed by fittings, security, DSO calls, final approvals, ceremony details, people in and out of this house.” His gaze holds yours. “Tomorrow, I want one day with you.”
You blink. “You told Mara?”
“And she didn’t threaten you?”
“I also paid for a full spa day.”
Your mouth falls open. “You bribed my best friend with a spa day?”
“She said she was still suspicious, but willing to be moisturized.”
A laugh breaks out of you before you can stop it, warm and startled and tired.
Leon watches you like the sound is something he wants to remember.
You settle back down, cheek against his chest. “What does ‘all day’ mean?”
His hand moves into your hair, slow and soothing. “No paperwork. No wedding talk. No DSO unless the house is on fire.”
You roll your eyes against his chest. “Unfortunately.”
His fingers pause in your hair.
“Breakfast somewhere that isn’t the kitchen,” he says quietly. “Maybe the lake if the weather holds. A drive if you want one. A real one. Not just the grounds.”
“I’ll keep it safe,” he says. “But I thought maybe you’d want to see something beyond the gate.”
Your throat tightens so fast you can’t answer.
Not freedom. Not exactly.
But something that looks enough like it to make your chest ache.
Leon’s voice lowers. “Or we stay here. Whatever you want.”
“You’re doing it again,” you whisper.
“Making it hard to hate you.”
His chest rises beneath your cheek.
“You’re supposed to apologize.”
A tired smile pulls at your mouth.
For a while, you lie there listening to his heartbeat, feeling the steady pass of his fingers through your hair. The question from the porch still exists. It waits somewhere in the dark, patient and terrifying.
Tonight, there is only his shirt on your skin, his arms around you, the wedding three days away, and the promise of one day where the rest of the world is supposed to stay outside the room.
Leon kisses the top of your head.
You huff a soft laugh, eyes closing despite yourself.
His arm tightens around you.
“Tomorrow,” he says, voice low against your hair, “you don’t disappear on me.”
You are too tired to fight the tenderness in his voice.
So you only whisper, “I’ll try.”
Leon’s lips linger at your temple.
“For tonight,” he says, “that’s enough.”
And somehow, wrapped in his shirt, in his bed, with the whole house dark around you, it is.
