Never Your Fault
Pairing - Ethan Hunt x daughter!reader
Word count - 6,254
Warnings - MAJOR DEAD RECKONING SPOILERS, death, injuries, blood, knives, violence, guilt, grief, nightmares
Summary - after witnessing a traumatic loss, you begin to blame yourself. can your dad help you out or is he too wrapped up in his own grief?
A/N - the first official part of the lil' Hunt series y'all! I'm so excited for y'all to read this I've been working so hard on it! it was really fun exploring these new dynamics and I genuinely enjoyed writing this so much (even if it was super painful at times). anyways I won't ramble anymore, as per y'all, please send in requests, feedback and enjoy!!!
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Most people go to places like Italy on their holidays or maybe even visiting loved ones, but you and your dad? You travelled to Rome in search of a woman who had half of a key that was crucial in the shutting down of an ever-powerful AI named The Entity.
Your dad had been tracking Grace since she made off with half the key in the Abu Dhabi airport and had managed to track her down in Rome before she escaped his grasp once more. He, Ilsa, Benji, and Luther managed to track where Grace’s next move might be and it was in Venice, at the party held by someone Ethan and the IMF had dealt with before, Alanna Mitsopolis, better known as the White Widow. They figured if Grace was heading to Venice, then the person who hired Grace must be at that party or in the area.
Ethan decided that he and Ilsa would go to the party to see if they could track Grace or her buyer down while you, Benji, and Luther remained in the safe house and ran surveillance while the two were at the party.
“y/n, be good for Benji and Luther.” Ethan says as he tugs on his blazer, folding the collar down and checking he looked alright in the mirror before Ilsa walked in.
“Seriously? I’m not a kid you know.” You scoff jokingly as Ethan looks over at you with a grin.
“Well gotta put the warning down just in case. And if you want to leave the safe house, make sure Benji and Luther know where you are and-”
“Stick to lit areas and always stay alert. I know dad.” You finish his sentence for him, smiling up at him as he lets out a soft, breathy laugh.
“You’re too much like me, you know?” Ethan says softly, reaching out to tug you into his arms for a quick hug before pressing a kiss to the top of your head.
“I love you, dad.” You say quietly, squeezing him a little before pulling away.
“I love you too, y/n/n.” Ethan replies before he releases you and he and Isla gather the last of their stuff and bid a last goodbye to the three of you remaining in the safe house before leaving.
“You’ve taught her well, Ethan. She’ll be just fine.” Ilsa says with a gentle smile upon seeing the hidden worry in Ethan’s eyes. She knew how much he worried about you and your well-being, but she also knew that he was protecting you as best he could. The two make their way out onto the streets of Venice and head in the direction of the party to begin their investigation.
Not long after you heard that Ilsa and Ethan had arrived at the party, you stretched your arms above your head and stood up from your chair once you relaxed.
“Guys, I’m going out for a walk. I haven’t gotten a chance to explore yet.” You say as you grab your jacket and throw it on before grabbing your phone.
“Location on?” Luther asks, glancing at the phone in your hand as you nod.
“You know it.” You reply as both Benji and Luther see your phone location appear on their screens.
“Yep, there you are. Be safe out there y/n.” Benji says, looking at you worriedly as you smile softly at him.
“Always am.” You say reassuringly, bidding Benji and Luther goodbye before exiting the safe house and beginning to wander the streets of Venice. You didn’t have a set location in mind and since it was relatively quiet out on the streets you decided to let your legs take you wherever they wanted to go. You’d never been to Venice before so you took in every sight you came across, knowing that you may not come back to this beautiful city again after this mission. You find yourself at one point sitting on a bench near one of the canals and admiring the stars in the sky, you always found the night sky so calming.
Meanwhile, at Alanna’s party, Ethan and Ilsa had tracked down Grace and discovered that Alanna was the one who hired her to steal the half of the key that Ethan had attempted to acquire in Abu Dhabi. They found out that Alanna was planning to sell it on to someone else and despite Ethan’s best efforts, he couldn’t convince her to not sell it. Gabriel stood before the four sat on the plush sofa and revealed that The Entity had been listening in and had infiltrated the party thanks to Gabriel and his men.
“Ethan Hunt. The Entity knows all about you. And your precious little daughter. y/n, is it? Yes, that’s the one.” Gabriel starts, noticing Ethan’s body tense up at the mention of your name and a twisted grin covered his face. He was getting the reaction he wanted and now he was going to have Ethan play right into The Entity’s plan. Ethan’s heartbeat was pounding in his ears, and he could barely focus on anything around him other than Gabriel and his sneer.
“The Entity has also decided that you have to pick someone to die. Ilsa, or y/n. You cannot save both Ethan.” Gabriel says, his grin widening as Ethan shoots to his feet, immediately held back by Gabriel’s men from attacking him.
“If you hurt either one of them, I swear, no one, not even your god will stop me from killing you.” Ethan growls angrily, fighting against the two men, desperate to launch at Gabriel who stands there and laughs at Ethan’s threats. Gabriel slinks off with a couple of men in tow after Alanna leaves and Ethan and Ilsa take the opportunity to attack the men to keep Ilsa safe and buy time for them to find out where you were so they could keep you safe too.
“Grace take this comm, Luther will guide you to someplace safe, I promise. Now go!” Ethan says, shoving a small communication device into Grace’s hand and encouraging her to get out while she still can.
“Benji, where is y/n? Is she with you?” Ethan says as he dodges a punch and quickly delivers a blow in retaliation.
“No, she left a while ago, said she wanted to go on a walk.” Benji says, his eyes fixed on his laptop as he hurriedly scans the map for your whereabouts.
“Connect me to her comm now!” Ethan says to Benji, landing a punch on an enemy, sending them stumbling back.
“She didn’t take one Ethan, but she does have her location on.” Benji says, hurriedly pulling up the map and searching for the dot that signals where you are.
“Give me directions to where she is right now.” Ethan says as Ilsa subdues the final man and they exchange a brief look before both running out of the building, dodging the men pursuing them from outside the building.
“Yes, directions… wait… what’s going…? Ethan, I’ve lost her she’s not on the map anymore.” Benji’s panicked voice comes through the comms and Ethan feels his blood run cold.
“Benji, where is she? Where is y/n?” Ethan’s voice was clearly panicked, and everyone could tell how worried he was about you. Benji was frantically typing away on his laptop trying to figure out why your signal had disappeared.
“Let’s split up and search while Benji tries to find her. We’ll cover more ground that way.” Ilsa says as the two duck into an alley to avoid being spotted.
“Are you sure?” Ethan asks. He knew Ilsa also had a bright red target on her back because of her closeness to him and he wasn’t willing to lose you or her to Gabriel or The Entity.
“I’ll be fine Ethan. Whoever finds her has to let the other know and we’ll rendezvous back at the safe house. Nothing more dangerous than the stuff we’ve already done.” Ilsa says softly, taking Ethan’s hand and squeezing it softly. The two silently agree on which direction they’re going to head in before leaving the safety of the alley and running off.
“Ethan, I’ve got her back on the map I’ll lead you to her now.” Benji’s voice comes over Ethan’s comm and he perks up, completely unaware that back in the safe house, Benji had not said a word and was instead staring at his laptop in confusion at the voice that eerily mimicked his own.
You were oblivious to everything that was going on as you walked around Venice. You stopped halfway across a bridge and just admired the quiet canal and the sky above before the sound of footsteps reached your ears. You barely glanced their way at first, expecting it to be a passerby who would do no more than maybe offer you a curt nod before continuing on their way but when you noticed out the corner of your eye that they were standing there staring at you, you turned to face them. Your breath hitched in your throat and your heartbeat picked up when you got a proper look at the man standing before you. He stood in front of you, a maniacal grin on his face as he stared down at you. Every instinct was screaming at you to run, to move, to do anything but your body wouldn’t co-operate. It was like you were frozen in place and nothing you did could make you move.
“y/n Hunt. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.” The man says, approaching you slowly and your brain finally kicks in enough to make you pull your small switchblade out of your pocket and flick the blade out. Your dad and Ilsa had taught you how to defend yourself should the occasion arise, but you had always hoped and prayed you would never have to.
“Who are you?” You ask, fighting to keep your voice from shaking as you tighten your grip on the handle of your weapon.
“Just an old friend of your father’s.” The man says simply, moving ever closer as you lift your hand that held the blade and ready yourself, your brain repeating everything your dad and Ilsa had taught you as the man launched at you. You managed to dodge his attack and came just shy of your blade meeting his skin. The fight consisted of a lot of back and forth between dodging attacks and trying to land them. You managed to slash the man a couple of times with your small blade before the weapon was knocked from your hand and you looked up at the man in terror before he punches you across the face and sends you to the ground, hitting your head on one of the stone steps of the bridge which makes your world grow dark in an instant.
Ilsa came across you first, instantly recognising Gabriel who reached down and tugged you up by your hair as he lifted his blade to your throat. You were unconscious and unable to fight back and Ilsa couldn’t just stand by and watch.
“In all the years I’ve known Ethan I’ve learnt he cares for everyone. But his daughter will always be his top priority.” Luther’s words echoed in Ilsa’s head as she noticed the switchblade gleaming in the moonlight and she wasted no time in scooping it up.
“Pick on someone your own size.”
When you come to, the first thing that registers is the sound of an engine and the splashing of water against the walls of the canal. Your head was throbbing as you carefully sit up, blinking your eyes to adjust to your surroundings. You glanced to the side as you caught sight of a blurry figure to your right and squinted your eyes to focus them and are surprised to see the man who attacked you was now missing and your dad had taken his place, kneeling over a figure as you force yourself to your feet.
“Dad, what’s going-” You immediately cut yourself off as you approach your dad, recognising the figure he was kneeling by. Tears instantly sprang to your eyes as you stared down at Ilsa. Her eyes were open but there was no sign of life within them. Your hand covered your mouth as you blinked back the tears. You were confused, and you were worried, but above everything, you were scared. You didn’t know who attacked you and whether they were behind Ilsa’s death or even who that man was working for and what his end goal was.
“y/n, Ethan, get in!” You hear the hushed, hurried voice of Benji which breaks you from your thoughts and you see him positioning the boat near the path so you could get in the boat. You shakily make your way towards the boat, taking Benji’s outstretched hand as he eases you down into the boat.
“Careful y/n, are you okay?” Benji asks worriedly, grabbing a cloth from the first aid kit and holding it against your temple, encouraging you to hold it firmly in place as you sit down on one of the seats. In your haze, you hadn’t noticed the blood that had run down your face from when your head hit on the step.
“I’m okay.” You say shakily, looking up at Benji with tear filled eyes.
“Luther will check you over once we’re back at the safe house, just to be on the safe side.” Benji says softly with a small smile before moving to help Ethan into the boat, Ethan refused to leave Ilsa’s body behind and so Benji helped Ethan load her body onto the boat and travel down the canal until he found a place to bury her. Somewhere quiet that he would be able to visit. When he found the perfect spot, he insisted he didn’t need any help and disappeared on his own to bury the woman he loved. When he returned, his face was set and he barely spoke to you or Benji, just silently confirming he wanted to go back to the safe house and Benji complied.
When you arrived back at the safe house, Ethan excused himself to go to the roof while Luther crossed to you, placing his hands on each of your shoulders which makes you look up at him.
“Benji, keep an eye on Grace, and check in with Ethan when he comes back down. y/n lets go to your room and I’ll check that head injury of yours.” Luther says, at first to Benji who moves to sit near Grace at the table while Luther grabs the first aid kit and carefully guides you to the small room you would use to sleep in. Luther doesn’t switch the main light on, instead flicking on a small lamp. He sits you down on the edge of the bed and sits alongside you, carefully taking your hand in his own and moving both it and the cloth away from your injury so he could take a look.
“The good news is the bleeding is slowing, I’ll bandage it up now, but I think it’s best if you don’t sleep just so we can keep an eye on you. How are you feeling right now?” Luther says gently, opening the first aid kit and finding an antiseptic wipe to clean the wound.
“A bit dizzy, but I’ll live.” You mumble, wincing slightly when the wipe comes into contact with the injury, but you didn’t complain, you felt like you deserved the pain for what happened.
“And how are you feeling?” Luther asks, scrunching up the wipe and tossing it on top of its packaging before grabbing some gauze.
“I just told you I-”
“No, I’m asking how you are feeling. Emotionally not physically.” Luther corrects you gently, carefully placing the gauze against your temple and asking you quietly to hold it in place while he gets the medical tape out.
“I got Ilsa killed Luther, how do you expect me to feel?” The words came out sharper than you meant them to. You didn’t mean to snap, not at Luther but the guilt was beginning to take hold, clinging onto you gleefully like some sort of malicious creature and whispering in your ear about how it was your fault.
“y/n, it wasn’t your fault.” Luther says, a gentleness to his voice only reserved for heart to hearts like this.
“The guy that attacked me wanted to kill me I know it. So why did he kill her instead?” You whisper, tears springing to your eyes again as you think of what had just transpired. You were the one who was supposed to be dead. Ilsa was supposed to be alive, and you knew it. Ilsa was dead and it was all your fault. Luther remained quiet for a moment, silently debating his next words. He knew he couldn’t tell you that Ethan had been given a choice to save you or Ilsa, not that Ethan would have ever made the decision. But he couldn’t let you sit by and blame yourself either.
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened it was out of your control.” Luther argues gently, beginning to put the medical tape along the gauze to keep it in place while you remain silent, Luther’s words seemingly hitting a brick wall. When Luther finishes patching you up, he gathers up everything he’s used and stands, looking down at you softly.
“We’ll be in the other room if you need us.” He says before leaving the room. You remain sat on the edge of your bed, various thoughts swimming through your head of how you could’ve saved Ilsa somehow.
“y/n, we need you in the other room. We’re going over the new plan.” Benji says as he opens the door, making you wonder how long you had zoned out and did nothing but listen to your thoughts. You nod lightly at Benji’s words, forcing yourself to your feet and heading into the next room. Grace was still sitting at the table under both Ethan and Luther’s watchful eyes as you enter behind Benji. As you sit at the table, Ethan starts going over the new plan, how both he and Grace would disguise themselves and get the other half of the key and then Ethan would leave the train and meet you and Benji at the rendezvous point so you could figure out the next move from there while Grace would let herself get arrested and get into contact with Kittridge so she could join the IMF. Gabriel, who you learnt was the man who attacked you, was the only man who knew how to use the key so learning what the key opened and how it worked was important to the mission. As Ethan walked Grace through what she had to do, you noticed Luther packing up his belongings and you noticed he hadn’t been mentioned once in the plan.
“What about you Luther?” You ask, confused when he looks up at you with a soft smile.
“I’m heading off the grid for a while, I have traces of The Entity on my hard drive, so I want to investigate it further. I’ll make contact when I have something.” Luther says, putting the last of his stuff in a bag and straightening up.
“I’ll see you around Ethan. Don’t kill Gabriel, we need him.” Luther says, clapping Ethan on the shoulder as he approaches him.
“Luther, wait!” You call quickly, leaping to your feet and rushing over to give the man a hug which he quickly reciprocates.
“I’ll see you around Lil’ Hunt.” Luther whispers as he hugs you back, bringing a small smile to your face at the nickname Luther had been calling you since the moment he first met you. After pulling away you bid Luther one final goodbye before he leaves to investigate The Entity further. After Luther leaves, Benji notices that the mask machine has broken while making the mask for Ethan.
“Grace, you’ll have to get on the train by yourself. I’ll figure out another way on.” Ethan says, glancing at Grace who is visibly worried by the news.
“Promise me you’ll be on that train.” Grace says to your dad, and you watch him carefully to see how he’ll respond.
“I promise.” Your dad responds, and despite the lack of emotion on his face, you knew he was being one hundred percent serious. He’d never let anyone who trusted him down if he could help it. Grace is then given a mask with Alanna’s likeness and is instructed to put it in a bag so she can board the Orient Express and track down Alanna. She’s also given a sedative to knock Alanna out long enough for Grace to take her place and retrieve both halves of the key.
“We should probably make a move guys; we don’t have long until the train is due to leave.” Benji points out, scooping what he needs into his bag while encouraging you to do the same, so you quickly go into your room and grab the stuff you need and shove them into a bag and sling it over your shoulder. The four of you then head down to the garage that was used for IMF vehicles. Ethan immediately grabs the motorbike, gets on it and looks at Benji.
“You take Grace to the train station. Get her on safely, okay?” He says directly to Benji, barely sparing you a second glance, making you look to the ground, fighting back any potential tears as you follow Benji to the car and get in the back seat while Benji gets behind the wheel and Grace gets in the passenger seat. You lean back against the seat and squeeze your eyes shut to fight back the tears further. Seeing your dad actively avoid looking at you was just confirmation to you that he thought it was your fault Ilsa was dead. That he wished you had been the one who died instead of her. You watch as your dad revs the engine and drives off, with Benji following. When you reach the train station that the Orient Express will stop at, Benji pulls over and lets Grace out, reassuring her that she’ll be just fine before watching her walk into the station.
“Come on y/n, get in the front.” Benji says with a smile, turning back to look at you and fighting back a frown when you shake your head.
“I need my co-pilot for this.” He then says, noticing how you perk up just a little at his words. He knew Ethan tried to keep you out of the IMF life as much as possible but Benji figured that helping out behind the scenes wouldn’t hurt and so he taught you all the technical stuff he knew and allowed you to help out if you wanted to. Convinced by his words, you move to sit in the passenger seat, smiling softly as Benji smiles back.
“Atta girl.” Benji says with a smile before starting the car up and beginning the drive to the rendezvous point. You figured it would be a straight shot and a lot of waiting around. Your dad already knew where he was going to attempt to board the train and Grace was already on it, so it was just you and Benji until your dad met you at the rendezvous point with the key.
“Benji, the train didn’t slow down I need another place to get on!” You hear your dad’s shout come over the comms as you exchange a worried look with Benji.
“y/n, get my tablet and pull up the map.” Benji quickly instructs and you do as he asks, opening the map and handing it to Benji as he puts the car on autopilot. You and Benji scour the terrain and areas your dad could use to get on the train. You notice it first, switching your comm off and pointing it out.
“He might not like it, but this seems like our best bet.” You say, glancing from the map to Benji who lets out a small sigh but nods regardless.
“Okay, this is where you need to go.” Benji takes over directing Ethan where to go while you remain silent, listening to the pounding of your heart echoing in your ears. When you heard your dad confirming he reached the top of the mountain and wondering how he was going to get down you started to worry. Benji insisted he’d be fine since he had his parachute but when your dad’s comm went silent you started to worry that you had caused your dad’s death as well.
By the time you had reached the rendezvous point, you had confirmation that your dad had made it onto the train, but you didn’t hear from him after that, leaving you to wonder if he was okay.
“He’ll be fine. He’s Ethan and nothing stops Ethan.” Benji says reassuringly, noticing you fidgeting and the obvious tension in your body.
“I could’ve gotten him killed with that mountain idea.” You mumble, looking down and fiddling with the charm bracelet that sat proudly on your right wrist.
“It’s the only way Ethan could’ve gotten to the train, there were no other chances for him to get on. Your dad knows what he’s doing, and I bet it won’t be long until he turns up.” Benji says reassuringly, shuffling in his seat so he can face you as best he can. When you remain silent, Benji speaks up again.
“Are you okay, y/n? You seemed shaken up on the bridge and I haven’t gotten a chance to check in with you yet.” Benji asks softly, worry written across his face as he remembers watching you realise that Ilsa had died.
“It’s my fault Ilsa died, isn’t it? And dad thinks it’s my fault too.” You mumble, your gaze not moving from the bracelet as you flick one of the silver charms lightly, watching as it flies away from your finger due to the impact and then bounces harmlessly off your wrist. As you stared at your bracelet you neglected to see Benji’s expression shift to one of shock at the realisation that you were not only blaming yourself but thinking Ethan blamed you too.
“y/n/n, Ilsa’s death was not your fault at all. You didn’t even know what was happening because-”
“You’re right, I didn’t know what was happening and I should’ve. I should’ve taken a comm with me so I would know if anything was happening, like some mad man wanting to kill me. I should’ve known so I could’ve gone back to the safe house and Ilsa and dad wouldn’t have had to run around Venice looking for me.” You say, frustrated tears filling your eyes as more potential ways you could’ve saved Ilsa pop into your head.
“y/n, even if you did have a comm it wouldn’t have helped that much. The Entity managed to mimic my voice and use it to lead Ethan somewhere else when I was trying to figure out where you were because it wiped your signal from the map so I couldn’t lead your dad or Ilsa to you to keep you safe.” Benji explains, his heart breaking for you, wishing he could take this pain away from you because in his eyes you didn’t deserve it.
“It doesn’t change the fact that dad obviously blames me. He couldn’t even look at me before we left, and he didn’t talk to me either.” Your voice was no louder than a whisper now as the tears escaped their confinement and rolled down your cheeks. Benji’s face softened when he saw how upset you were and placed a gentle hand on your shoulder.
“Ethan would never blame you for what happened to Ilsa. He’s just trying to put the mission first, so he doesn’t have to deal with his emotions. You know what he’s like. Try and talk to him when we make it to the next safe house, it’ll do you both some good to talk things over.” Benji says softly, squeezing your shoulder gently to make you look up at him, eyes still filled with tears.
“I know you’ve got it in your head that your dad blames you, but he couldn’t. Ethan knows it’s not your fault. It’s Gabriel’s.” Benji assures as you sniffle lightly, reaching up with your hand to wipe at your eyes harshly.
“Benji, I’m on my way now stand by.” Before you had a chance to respond, Ethan’s voice crackles over the comms and you immediately move to sit in the back of the car, knowing it’ll be the easiest way to avoid talking to your dad. You waited with bated breath for your dad to arrive and as soon as he landed, he took his parachute off and loaded into the car.
“I got it, Benji. We’ve gotta get somewhere to lay low and get into contact with Luther to let him know we’ve got it.” Ethan says, holding up the key to show off that he has it while you curl into yourself in the backseat, avoiding even looking in your dad’s direction as Benji starts the car to drive to a safe house you could use to lie low in. Halfway through the journey, Benji glanced in his rearview mirror and saw you staring out the window intently, tears evident in your eyes and fought back a frown as he then glanced at Ethan out of the corner of his eyes and saw him focused on the road ahead.
The drive to the new safe house was silent other than the rumbling of the engine, and when Benji parked the car in the garage you were quick to jump out, grab your bag and disappear in the building, leaving Benji and Ethan behind. Benji, having had enough of the silence, turns to Ethan.
“Ethan, mate, you need to talk to y/n. She’s not okay right now and I know the mission is important, but I think right now your daughter is more important. You weren’t the only one there when you found Ilsa. She blames herself, Ethan.” Benji says, his tone gentle but with a certain strength in his voice showing how he wanted to get his point across. Ethan briefly looks in the direction of where you had gone and nods so lightly that the movement was almost imperceivable. Ethan decided to wait until he could find an appropriate time to talk to you since he needed to get into contact with Luther and try and figure out where to start searching for the Sevastopol so he can end The Entity. Before he knew it night had fallen and when he sticks his head in the room you decided to occupy to see if you were awake, he was greeted with the sight of you curled up in bed. He pressed his lips into a firm line and backed out of the room, vowing to talk to you in the morning.
What Ethan didn’t know was that you were faking it. You couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard you tried. Every time you closed your eyes you were greeted with the image of Isla’s dead body on the bridge and the heartbreak in your dad’s eyes. Your brain refused to let up as you continued to try, coaching yourself through methods your dad had taught you to help you get to sleep. After hearing silence fall around the safe house and realising that everyone has gone to bed, you get up, grabbing a blanket and tugging it around your shoulders as you head out onto the balcony to sit and watch the stars.
An hour after you went out onto the balcony, Ethan shot up in bed, panting heavily as flashes of his nightmare replay in his head, making him squeeze his eyes shut in an attempt to rid of them but immediately regretting his actions when he sees the dead body on the bridge again, but instead of Ilsa, it was you. Opening his eyes again, Ethan pushes himself off the bed and heads to your room, wanting to check in on you just to prove to himself that you were fast asleep and safe within the building. When he opened the door, he squinted to search for your figure beneath the covers, but panic rose in his chest when he realised you weren’t there. He rushed over to the bed to look for any signs of a struggle but when he found nothing, he left your room to look for anything that might clue him into your whereabouts, pausing as he walked past the doors that went out onto the balcony when he noticed a figure outside and when he focused, he realised it was you.
At first, Ethan’s instinct was to head out onto the balcony and scold you for disappearing without letting him know but just as he reached for the door handle, he took a step back and allowed himself to gather his thoughts. Had his nightmare not awoken him and made him want to check on you, you would’ve simply remained out on the balcony until you felt ready to come back in and he would’ve woken up in the morning none the wiser. You hadn’t left the safe house. You just needed a moment. After taking a deep breath, Ethan opens the door carefully before stepping out onto the balcony and closing the door behind him. You didn’t turn to face him, your gaze remained fixed on the stars that had provided you endless comfort night after night and when Ethan stepped closer, he noticed the tear tracks on your cheeks.
“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks softly, resting his forearms against the cool metal railings and joining you in looking up at the sky.
“Every time I tried; I saw Ilsa.” You mumble, blinking as another few tears roll down your cheeks. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Ethan turn his head to look at you.
“I’m sorry you were there. I should’ve been there to protect you.” You hear your dad say and that sentence made you finally tear your gaze away from the sky to look at your dad who had tears of his own shining in his eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault dad. Benji told me about The Entity mimicking his voice to throw you off.” You say, a sad smile on your face as you look at him before looking up at the moon, admiring how its crescent shape shone in the darkness.
“It wasn’t your fault either. Gabriel was already two steps ahead of me when he said he was going to kill you or Ilsa. He made it practically impossible for both of you to survive by distracting me.” Ethan says softly, getting your attention once more as he watches you softly.
“But Ilsa died.” You argue, watching how Ethan nods forlornly but his eyes never lose their gentleness.
“She did. But that doesn’t mean I’d want you in her place. It was never your fault that she died.” Your dad says, reaching out to wipe the tears that had fallen down your cheeks. He catches them softly on his thumbs and swipes them away as he considers his next words.
“Ilsa knew what she was getting into. She died protecting you because Gabriel had gotten to you first. I will miss her as long as I’m alive and I will always love her, especially because she saved you.” Ethan then says, silently asking for permission to pull you into a hug which you allow him to do, clinging to him as you fight back more tears.
“I wish there was something I could’ve done to have her with us right now.” You whisper, biting down on your lip to stop more tears from falling.
“Me too, sweetheart. But we can avenge her by using the key to destroy The Entity, and after that, I’m not going to let Gabriel get away again.” Ethan swears, a hand reaching up to run through your hair before he presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head before suddenly being reminded of the injury you sustained.
“Your head, is it okay?” He asks, pulling away slightly to look at the gauze that was covering the injury.
“It’s feeling a lot better than it was.” You admit, a small smile appearing on your face as you look up at your dad who mirrors your smile.
“I’m sorry for not realising how you felt sooner. I was just overwhelmed by losing Ilsa and I let the mission get-“
“Dad, it’s okay. Getting the key was important. And I know you miss Ilsa. Your grief is valid, and I never wanted to make you feel like it wasn’t. I know I’m your daughter and you want to protect me, but you can talk to me, and I’ll try to help.” You say and instead of replying verbally, Ethan pulls you in for another hug, squeezing you gently as he plants another kiss on the top of your head.
“I love you so much, y/n.” He whispers, allowing himself to relax as he holds you safely in his arms.
“I love you too, dad.” You reply, cuddling as close to your dad as possible as you spare the night sky one last glance.
You’d be okay.
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HI FRIENDS. 18K here!! This time we explore breaks, because sometimes they are necessary! Also, we see Jealousrry, and we see Isla being Isla. Hope you enjoy!! (Feedback always appreciated!) (✿◠‿◠)
PREVIOUS PARTS HERE - WATTPAD ALTERNATIVE HERE
Open houses, to Harry, are a stage, and the gift of his gab leaves him basking in the luster of the spotlight with no stage fright.
First time home buyers, young couples waltzing through hallways with gazes bouncing over walls with demure decorum, families with young kids who run amuck, darting from one end of the house to the other as he guides their parents through empty rooms, his dialogue friendly and bright — he finds comfort in any audience. Divorced milfs whose heels click over tile, mimicking wood varnish, trailing behind as his silver tongue sells, and sells, and sells — some of those really find his dialogue of “sleek, floor to ceiling windows,” and the “flowing floor plan,” and “custom built additions,” charming enough for hungry fingers to creep against biceps by the end of the tour.
Harry, never in his life, has had so many nerves over a tour. Maybe just his very first open house, where he’d taken the reins for the first time alone.
It makes sense, theoretically, that he’d be nervous to become enclosed in a space with Isla Cleery — his masked, blissfully unaware submissive, in a setting where so much was prone to go awry. It makes sense that he’d be nervous to let something slip, that he’d be nervous he’d find himself fucking into her, pressing her face against a full length bathroom mirror mid-tour, like the climax (pun unintended) to a dirty storyline in a professionally produced porno. Young, Hot Slut Isla Cleery Bounces on Raunchy Realtor Cock, or maybe Adorable Brunette Gets Pussy Pounding for a Discount. Something like that. That last one is especially depraved, but — gotta add some form of sordid cliche to create a flashy title. Click bait, if you will.
It makes sense to be nervous when his nerves are all he can think about, sitting behind the wheel of his Range Rover, parked on the curb as he waits for her own vehicle to turn the corner and pull up to the property. It’s all sort of a vicious cycle.
She’d called him two days prior. He’d been laying in bed, in the midst of his Candy Crush bedtime ritual — culling ice tiles and smashing colorful blocks with point-inducing combos of stripes and wrappers. He’d stared at his phone as the LED display sparked alive with a banner over the top of the screen — an incoming call from an unsaved phone number. A pinch had worked between his brows, and he’d tapped over the banner with the pad of his thumb, clearing his throat and pressing the phone to his ear as he answered. A business call was a business call.
“Hello?” his voice was low with incoming sleep, his vocal cords supplying a rasp on account of the silence he’d priorly stalled in.
The pace of the organ behind his rib cage had picked up considerably when Isla Cleery’s soft voice had come in response, her cadence tinny through the speaker, undeniably delectable.
“Hey!��� his ears had swallowed her chime, “Harry,” the man had shifted a bit over his linen sheets, “This is Isla Cleery.”
Isla Cleery. Bright, and chipper, and …randomly dialing his number at a strange hour in the night.
“Isla! Hi,” he’d responded, clearing his throat to curtail tacking on a quip of how can I assist you at this ungodly hour?
The uneasy wavelength of her inflection had spurred a crease to work over his brow bone — rushed, and breathy, and almost frantic in its phrasing.
“Hi,” a pause, a half-hearted apology, “Listen, I’m so sorry to be calling you so late but — ah,” a stifled, little sound that had caused his nostrils to flare and had sent an inopportune rush of excitement slithering through to the trench of his tummy and frothing, “So, you sent me this other property, and I wanted to — I wanted to see that one. The one on, Mul-Mulner, was it?”
“Mulnich,” he’d gnawed into his lip, sitting up a smidge, braced on his forearm as his curiosity piqued.
“Yes, the, uh, the Mulnich property. I wanted to see that one. So,” another pause that had his face contorting in bemusement — (was she running on a fucking treadmill?), “Can we set that up?”
The man had pulled the receiver back and toggled his counterpart to leak through the speaker setting, rolling onto his side as he’d swiped through his virtual calendar.
“Sure. Yeah. Let me just check,” Harry had supplied, pausing and pursing his lips as he’d just listened — background noise, like a TV, a rustle, a sigh, a laugh track, an inhale, “Does Wednesday at two work for you?”
“Can’t — can’t. Wednesday, at two. Anything — can you do anything later? In the evening, maybe?”
Harry had paused. He’d paused, and just listened, his ears working on overdrive to attempt to decipher whatever was spurring her strange behavior, the note of apprehension of her cadence, the — was he going insane? — desperation to her dialogue. There’d been nothing but the familiarity of a common laugh track and shuffling. His pupils had perused as he’d ripped his attention off of the odd display and swiped to give her a proper appointment.
“Yeah,” the man responded after a moment of lull, clearing his throat, “I can do …five? If that works for you.”
“Yes! Yeah,” He’d picked up on Isla Cleery doing the same on the other end of the line, her speech giddy and garbled, “Five. Wednesday. Yes. So, I can — I can come?”
His jaw had set at the choice of words — there was just no way, but the frenzy in her inflection so vividly resembled the way she’d begged him back in the White Room, days prior. There was no way, he’d told himself. She didn’t have the gall. She didn’t have the audacity. She was working him into a ludicrous frenzy — or rather, he was working himself into one with the lewd train of thought derailing his composure.
There was no way Isla Cleery was calling him and touching herself.
“To see the property?” the voice on the other end had tacked on, coaxing him from the zoned out thrill of a wild imagination.
“Yeah, yes. Of course,” he’d said.
There was just no fucking way.
More shuffling. A garbled sound. Something that’d incited his teeth to dig into his bottom lip, to sit up as he was met with silence beyond the sounds of a TV.
“Isla?”
More shuffling. There was just—
No. Fucking. Way.
He’d felt his own stomach clenching up then, muscles rippling as blood pumped and the familiarity of deluded arousal, at the prospect, suffusing through his veins like quick-acting alcohol.
“Isla?” Harry had prodded again, louder.
“Yes, sorry, I’m so sorry. God, I just saw the time — I’m sorry, it was so unprofessional of me to call so late. I hope I didn’t—“ his face twisted up at the breathless onslaught of her breakless cadence, like her speech was expelled all in one, rushed breath, “Thank you for taking my call. Wednesday at Five. Have a good night.”
His mouth had parted to inquire, because what the fuck — but from there, a click. The green logo of an active phone call had vanished. She’d hung up, evidently in a rush. Harry had stared up at his ceiling for a solid twenty minutes, ruminating on the odd encounter.
There was, simply, as previously emphasized, no fucking way.
So yeah, now, with his bare fingertips drumming over the leather of his steering wheel, he’s a smidge nervous to see her. His innards are twisting into knots by the time he catches sight of her white Corolla slipping in against the curb behind him. Harry climbs out of the car.
“Hi,” Isla Cleery talks first.
There’s no dainty bell sleeves trapped in car doors today — a pencil skirt hugs her hips, and a long sleeve with a funnel neckline adorns her torso. Harry notes the way she nonchalantly tugs to further lower a sleeve on the arm where he knows the bangle is manacled.
“You’ve renounced …your renouncement of heels,” is the first thing he says. He wants to smack himself square between the brows with the heel of his palm — what an inane start.
“Oh,” Isla shoots a glance to her choice of footwear — smart (Harry thinks, spiffy), dark pumps, “Yeah,” she bends a knee back and lifts an ankle a smidge, “Sort of had to. Felt a little weird wearing a pencil skirt with flats.”
“And,” the young woman casts a small simper his way, “No evil grates, as of yet. Fingers crossed,” she lifts her arm, the left, where the bracelet isn’t, and bares friendly teeth.
Evil grates …what the fuck? Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, her inner voice coaxes frantically.
Isla is dying inside. For good reason — it makes sense. Being enclosed in a space, casually, with her dominant un-dominant-clad, has this weird butterfly-eruption effect. They bounce against her insides aimlessly, like little crack-infused insects. She’s nervous to let something slip — anything, and it’s too easy considering she’s been cuffed by a bracelet that sort of gives it all away within a split-second flash of gold and secrets.
She’s unsure of what succubus-like tendencies of the day had possessed her to abandon her panties — that had been a dirty, last-minute decision of thrill, and it had seemed filthily exciting and sort of dangerous in the best way. The idea of ambling through a house tour with Harry, and knowing that she was entirely bare beneath her skirt. But now, faced by him, obnoxiously aware of her nude thighs grazing together under the fabric and … only …more debauched nudeness higher, well.
Isla just feels like a pervert.
It bears resemblance to the sensation she had encountered two days prior, once she’d hung up the phone (and the sex-haze had worn off). That was another thing she was nervous about. There’s no way the man had just glossed over the encounter as entirely unsuspicious. It was weird, she was weird for that, Isla thought, she was weird on the phone with a stuttery, breathy inflection that was obnoxious in give-away, and he definitely knew something was off, if not the entire background behind the lust-driven call.
She clears her throat in an attempt to ward off the flurry of nervous apprehension coiling in her stomach (that she’s sure will find its way among her vocal cords), “But. Yeah.”
Harry grins. He’s just so — Isla ogles, kind of dreamily — handsome. And she knows him on an intimate level, (a very intimate level), but these glimpses of his face, in person… she doesn’t get the pleasure of espying those often. His hair, coiled and placed in soft ringlets, his dimples burrowing as teeth showcase and his mouth lights alive with a smile. Last time he’d been clean-shaven and smooth, but today there’s a soft dusting of facial hair over his jaw. She wants to kiss him, she wants to feel it brush against her own face, wants to feel it graze over her inner thighs as he sucks kisses into her skin like affectionate bruises as proof of his presence, and—
“Please,” the man folds his palms together, like a prayer, and pillowy pink curves with his statement, “No …impromptu rope swing climbing—“
Isla’s mouth jolts.
“In heels,” Harry tacks on, raising his eyebrows and gesturing subtly with his palms.
“Ooh,” she rocks forward a bit, a pinch in her own brows, “Can’t make any promises. The rope swing calls.”
“Oh it does?”
“Siren song,” Isla nods.
Harry’s mouth quirks. And then he clears his throat.
“Well. I’m pleased you’re interested in viewing another property with me, but I can’t lie and say I’m not a bit disappointed that Sweeger Avenue didn’t particularly catch your eye. I’ll have to buy it if you don’t,” the curly-headed brunette jests.
“It did!” Isla assuages, motioning with her palm and following as he turns slowly — a gesture that indicates he’d like her to follow in the direction of the house, “It’s a beautiful house, I’m just keeping my options open.”
Harry hums. The young woman’s heels sink softly into the lawn, bright, neatly trimmed tufts crinkling with each step.
“Watch your step, there, darling,” the realtor warns softly as they venture over a pattern of concrete stone that leads up to the porch.
“Oh — thank you.”
She adds, once they’re stood under the awning of the porch, “And, well, you gave such a good tour, I figured another property in my price range was worth a look, right?”
“Right,” he sends a soft grin over his shoulder at her (that shrouds the nerves he feels teeming below the surface), “Sure. Of course.”
Isla watches him unveil a little key from his pocket and stuff it into the notch in the knob, twisting. “I will say,” the man starts, gaze cast to his handiwork, “while this one isn’t as… maybe ritzy as the last — y’know, all the bells and whistles of the reno’s — there’s still a lot of potential with this one. Character.”
The door creaks and clicks on its hinges as it swings open. Isla follows him in, greeted by the sight of what she imagines, once upon a time, had been pasted with warm hues of color and overbearing wallpaper patterns. The entryway, as the first showing had been, is no showstopper with elegant twin staircases. The wood beneath her feet is scuffed, and faint stains litter the walls near the baseboards — but it’s far from time forgotten and termite embraced, as she’d assumed would tail the realtor lingo of potential.
“Three bed, two-and-a-half bath — little more space with 2,052 square feet. Little more out of pocket, too, if you wanted to amp it up to that sort of à la mode Sweeger had,” the realtor’s shoes click over the wood in a sound that just oozes power, power, power, and Isla tails him, vision walloping the walls to curb the hunger that grows within her at something as innocuous as the sound of his dress shoes on wooden floors, “but if not, there’s loads of character to enjoy and build upon.”
The young woman sneaks a glance — they’re no serpentine patched loafers, but they’re smooth and glossy and jet. Simple.
She wonders what pair will greet her on Friday night.
“This one’s a bit newer than the last — but a lot of this stuff is original. Really a step back in time. Very open concept — vaulted floor to ceiling floor plan,” her vision flits over the living area, his velvety cadence like a pre-rehearsed soundtrack to fit a virtual tour posted on the web.
Isla gazes over the expanse of the innards — replicas of the imagery she’d scrolled through online. Only now, the lines are larger, the shapes are prettier, the space is more vibrant. Personal. It’s lived in — furnishings remain of the sellers, but there are no personalized touches of family photos (a key factor, she’d learned, to bolster prospective buyer imaginations, to spur their mental imagery into forming their own space). A half wall breaks a living area off from the entry. Set upon a platform (where tile sweeps from lounge to kitchen; a drab shade of beige others would perhaps not find nearly as endearing as Isla does — it’s a nostalgia thing, she’s sure) — between the wooded entryway that flows into an empty expanse of doors — are armchairs and a sectional in neutral tones. Beyond this, a formal dining area, and on the end is a little kitchen, broken apart from a hallway with another wall.
“We’ve got these sleek lines that come with open space like this,” Harry gestures towards the sculpt of plaster and drywall shaping lips over windows in the lounge, “but we’ve also got little touches, like a time capsule,” he twists, motioning towards the staircase — an interesting piece unforeseen, “like the spiral staircase. White wrought-iron with wood paneling — you’re not gonna find these being built very often, anymore.”
Upon the grin the realtor casts her way, Isla ambles towards it, and she runs her touch over the railing.
“Really pretty. You’re right. I don’t see many of these anymore.”
Her sight is torn between the man — his charismatic demeanor, his good looks — and the space as he continues, lucratively well-versed, “I’m sure you note there’s no overbearing pops of color, or wallpaper that’s wasting away, since I told you it wasn’t all that renovated. Carpet’s been ripped up,” he slides the toe of his shoe over the wooden floorboards, a dark, warm chocolate, and then his hand comes to rap softly over the short wall dividing the kitchen from an expanse of hallway with doors as jade reaffixes onto her, “and the walls were repainted by previous buyers. All original wood and tiling, though.”
As Isla steps onto the platform, she regards chips in laminate. Yes. Original.
“Between you and me,” her head twists — a friendly simper plays over the realtor’s cushiony (intimately familiar) lips, “I think that was a good choice. Versatile. But the rest, like these gorgeous light fixtures — all original,” he nudges towards the dining area behind her, and Isla pivots to face the table, “‘83, I believe.”
A bundle of two lanterns, elongated like cylinders with tapered ends. They hang over the table, a darling focus point.
Isla peers back over just as the man’s tongue peeks out to slick his mouth, “But my favorite’s in the kitchen.”
Eagerly, she makes her way forward, where the kitchen lays, open for her exploration. It’s no showstopper. She gets it now — his sugared warning of original pieces. And it’s not like the kitchen is this heinous sight, but it’s timeworn. An outdated shade of mustard hugs the countertops, and the cabinetry is stale and dinged. Scratches and blemishes stain almost plastic-y looking white. The appliances look to be about forty years old — which adds up, according to the timeline. But there’s an island. It’s beautiful, and broad, and even if Isla has no interest in piling it with culinary disasters, it’s still pleasant ken. She finds that on the opposite side of that wall is a pantry.
“I don’t know what to do with a kitchen like this,” her pink (gloriously fuckable, Harry thinks) mouth jolts as a smile slithers over, “It’s so. Large.”
“You don’t cook?”
Her irises roll up to the ceiling with her soft smile, “I microwave. TV dinners, mostly. I can put frozen waffles in a toaster, too. Maybe scramble an egg, but there’s no guarantee there won’t be shell in the mix.”
It’s sort of funny, Harry thinks — the way polar opposites attract. Like magnets, he supposes. Really, very horribly horny magnets. He can’t remember the last time he had a frozen waffle.
“But I guess I’ll have to learn, with an island like this,” Isla sighs and gestures.
Well, if you’re ever in need of a taste tester… Harry bridles his flirty quip. Instead, he shows her what lies behind the doors of the hallway, the rooms downstairs. A half bath, a bedroom scantily furnished — an office, for her, perhaps.
“You said you were a paralegal last time, right?” he cocks his head back at her over his shoulder as he leads the way, and Isla tries not to feel the warmth the remembrance of the minute detail ignites.
Of course he remembered. It was his job. She bites her tongue to curb the instinctive, “Yes, Sir.”
“I am, yeah.”
“Lot’s of research and a work-from-home, after-hours situation, you said, last time? I think the study on this property will be very suited to your needs.”
A laundry room, the entrance to the garage, a slow amble back towards the staircase. Ah, the staircase. The young woman feels a burnishing blush suffuse over her cheekbones when the male gestures with an open palm — an invitation for her to go on ahead of him. But there’s that little …no panties …thing. Her legs shift. Her skirt brushes against the back of her knees. There’s no probable likelihood of a flash, she’s sure. Still, that ruddiness glows over her skin as she takes the cautious, first step. She feels ludicrously lewd.
“Wouldn’t want you to get your heel caught,” the realtor states, strawberry mouth twitching.
No, that would certainly cause far more than a glimpse of a flash.
“Truly a gentleman,” Isla quips, and by the time she’s wound halfway up, Harry only a couple of steps behind, she tacks on, “God. It really is sort of a scary set of stairs.”
“Climbing a rickety rope swing is scary,” Harry scoffs from behind, his cadence lighthearted.
A hallway with a landing that allows for a gaze upon the first story. A wall of doors. A bathroom with an unsightly, pink tub. A cozy original with old-world-charm, according to the realtor; definitely creative wording, Isla thinks.
“Master bedroom,” the man slips the final door open, and Isla’s irises bounce from window to window — they suffuse the room with what she imagines would be bright, refreshing daylight. Now, it comes in the form of a warm, yellow glow with the time of day.
“Very roomy,” she comments. It is. The square footage of the space, she’s sure, has to be roomier than the master bedroom of the first showing, but perhaps the emphasis on the broadness of the space has to do with the sheer fact that the first showing had been bare, and this room holds furniture — even still, the space is bigger. Despite the queen sized bed, throned by the waxy, wooden headboard, the nightstands that mirror either side of the mattress, and the matching wooden dresser, the space is open.
“S’no reno’d Sweeger Ave,” the realtor supplies, wandering a handful of steps behind her as she makes her way into the room, “But it’s roomy, like you said. Bright. Beautiful windows — lots of light. Can you imagine yourself here?”
It’s a queen sized bed. Isla is not wearing panties, and she’s reminded of this particular fact as she stares at it and imagines Eros bending her over the edge of the mattress. She thinks of Harry’s chest pressing up behind her as his broad, ring-clad digits slide over her waist, settle on her stomach. She thinks of his mouth pasting to the crook of her neck, sponging kisses over the expanse of her skin as his soft breaths caress her nerve endings. She thinks of him walking her forward, his crotch glued to her hips. She thinks of fingers grappling for wrists and a firm grip as he manhandles the joints behind her back with ease. She thinks of him flipping her skirt up and discovering that she’s bare beneath it, thinks of a palm fondling, of croons in her ear on what a filthy, naughty girl she is, of his fingers slipping lower and his teeth grazing over her neck and—
“Great room, innit?”
Her eyes flash to him at a dangerous speed, his words from the prior week hurtling through her mind as he tells her, tone entirely innocuous, “But I think there’s something missing.”
An ottoman, the young woman thinks, her expression kept impressively neutral, all things considered. An ottoman.
“Accent wall there, long curtains with a sheer layering, different furniture set — contemporary, I’d go with, a rug,” the male taps his foot over a stark area of the floorboards, just ahead of the footboard of the bed, “Nice shag rug. Right here.”
Shag rug.
Shag rug — textile characterized by longer, heavier pile, so as to have the appearance of being shaggy. Isla imagines a white rug in tufts, warding her brain from mental images of the man physically shagging her on said rug. Yes. These are all very …compelling suggestions.
“Mhm,” Isla hums curtly.
“And, y’know, all this light lets the room whisper sweet nothings about the beauties of the approaching day, but I think, the view,” he takes slow steps over chocolate wood to tug blinds open, “beckons sleepless nights.”
Sleepless nights — Isla is going to wring her own neck. Despite the arousal that seeps through her at the dirty-fucking-twist of insinuation, she makes her way to his side for a peer. Beyond the horizon of plains and landscaping lies skyscrapers — the city a blip of scenery with the sky as its backdrop.
“Oh.”
“Mm. Really pretty at night, I’d think.”
“It’s a …good thing I have a strong constitution for sleepless nights,” Isla swallows, “I’m sure the view will keep me entertained.”
Harry steals a soft glance, down at her side profile. He’s bridled his flirtish nature, he’s restrained his quips. He’s bent over backwards for sanctity. But—
“If you ever find yourself in need of a midnight conversation partner, you know who to call.”
The young woman peers up at him through her lashes. It’s a blatant implication of her untimely phone call two days prior. He’s teasing. He has to be simply teasing. But the way his mouth twitches, the way his eyes fix on her — there’s something… something beyond innocent jest.
“Offering your services as a nocturnal conversationalist?” she tries to keep the nervous note from her cadence as she takes a step away — he had to be flirting. “I’m a lucky girl.”
“Real estate agent by day, midnight talk-show host by night. I’m a man of many talents,” the curly-headed brunette shrugs, digging ring-adorned fingers halfway into pockets of slacks. A soft smile plays over his soft mouth. It’s all sort of lascivious. Isla wants to clamber back onto a stranger's bed in a master bedroom that doesn’t belong to her, and she wants to ogle his reflection glint at her from the waxy headboard as his hips pump forward. As his cock pummels into her. A warmth pulses between her thighs, beneath her pencil skirt.
The reminder of her arousal, left in a dried stain post her drive home, confronts her as she strips in the confines of her apartment, alone, nearly two hours later.
Harry is not a green-eyed monster.
Which is an irony, because in the realm of indulge, there’s more than a handful of people who would confidently deem him with that pretty title.
Perhaps, better phrasing (that wouldn’t allow for the claim to be twisted by unruly, prior play partners), would be that Harry is not innately a jealous man. He’s a sure man, a man who knows his ambitions and aims — bluntly so. He’s a man that doesn’t like to share during scenes, but he’s upfront and honest about it. There’s no games, no teetering tugs and yanks on strings of emotions. He’s not a man that is known to ooze green at the sight of his partner fraternizing with someone else, and he’s definitely not the type of man to care about those things in any context outside of Indulge.
A person is a person — their own person. That’s not his thing to fuck with. Harry is not a green-eyed monster that bleeds envy with begrudging glances.
The sight of Isla Cleery, though, shrouded by her commonplace lace, leant up against the bar, in the midst of lively chatter with some shirtless dom adorned by an eye-cover with plastic-y tufts of horns — that culls an odd reaction from him. It’s strange — she’s early. He always shows before her to reserve the room of the night, and she arrives and waits in an obedient kneel until he opts to join her. But she’s early — she’s at the bar, and he’s just booked the room (The White Room, tonight). Harry nearly misses the sight of the interaction altogether.
But he doesn’t — she catches his eye, clad in a set of dark, silky underthings and sheer stockings. He watches her toe back against the stem of one of the barstools. She’s got her cherry concoction in hand, a plethora of syrupy fruit upon a bed of ice and artificial sweeteners, and she’s laughing at something her counterpart says. In response, the man’s grin is vibrant over the visible expanse of his lower face. Harry doesn’t know who he is at first. But then he squints, and his vision roves. Faunus. He vaguely knows of the dominant, but the most prominent thought that floats to the forefront of his mind involves the jest Isla had made prior to the drafting of their contract. The one where she’d mentioned the alternation of rocking her shit, and the name Faunus had been introduced in the prospective party.
And it’s not like Harry bleeds jade at the sight, but he kind of does. Because, the thing is, next week is their last scene, contractual obligations concerned — and. Well, it makes him feel ill. The thought of his submissive — of Isla Cleery, slipping to her knees for Faunus as their own contract comes to a close, the thought of Faunus manhandling her in the same way Harry does every Friday night, it all makes his jaw set from across the lounge. Because those are their Fridays. Something stirs in him when Faunus places his hand onto her arm — because, what the fuck?
Slowly but surely, he makes his way over, slipping into the interaction from behind his submissive. He brushes a gloved palm against the small of her back, and upon the touch, Peitho stiffens and twists. And then she relaxes. Smiles all pretty at him, too.
“You’re early,” the hand slides to the vale of her waist and squeezes softly as he presses close and speaks low. It’s obnoxious, Harry’s aware — opting not to initially acknowledge the other member of the conversation, but Faunus watches the two with a silent eye, anyhow, so.
“I was late last week, so. Wanted to be early this time. Didn’t know you were here, Sir,” the submissive supplies, rocking forward onto her toes, and then lets the outside of her arm glue to his torso as he pastes to her side.
Harry hums. And then he casts his gaze onto Faunus as the man speaks. “Eros, right?” the male’s mouth curls softly as he nudges towards Harry.
“In the flesh,” Harry grins politely. Politely. Because he’s polite.
His counterpart, glistening with a sheen of sweat under the purple-ish tinges of the lights, takes a swig from his glass — water, Harry assumes it to be, but you never can really tell in the hue of the lounge, “You’re a little infamous around here.”
Infamous. Sounds about right.
“Am I?”
“Mm. I’ve heard only good things from this one, though,” the horn-masked man gestures with his glass towards Isla. In turn, she shifts a little further against her dominant.
“Yeah?” Harry’s chin dips toward the submissive, then, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “All good things, baby?”
Isla nods and hums, melting with the side of her cheek against his chest.
“But between you and me,” Faunus leans forward a smidge, elbow braced over the marbled bar countertop, “This one’s a bit of a handful.”
Harry grins politely. Yeah, the reminder that this man has manhandled his submissive in the same manner he has makes him go a bit neon green. What the fuck. And Isla — she just squirms against him. Harry’s well aware that the nonchalant small talk of her, with no acknowledgement, like she’s not stood in the midst of the conversation, riles her in a filthy way. And Faunus seems to know this tidbit of information, too — his irises, glinty under the lights overhead, slink from Harry to Isla and back again. It’s a subtle motion, but it shows Harry enough. The dominant’s mouth quirks, gaze subtly steely in the narrow of his lashes.
“Mm. Well, between you and me,” the hand that’d previously settled on her waist slips up to her hair, cards through past the nape of her neck, digits entangling in the roots, “she knows her place with me,” Harry shoots her a look, and tugs firmly by slowly tightening his fist. It’s a subtle motion — but the pinpricks of pain that burst over her scalp, as a result, have her pulse quickening.
And Harry knows. He knows and his lips nearly crook up, but he curbs his smirk. And Faunus can ogle all he wants — but he can’t touch. Can’t draw the same reaction from her. That thought has satisfaction blooming in his chest.
“Don’t you, darling?”
When the young woman returns in concurrence, her inflection is breathy and soft. “Yes, Sir.”
He’s jealous, Isla thinks. She’s not sure why. But he’s jealous, and he tugs on her hair like a showcase of his dominion, like she’s simply a plaything for him and him only to lewdly siphon soft reactions from. It’s so blatant, the way he does it all in front of Faunus. He’s claiming his territory. It’s subtle, it’s obnoxious, it borders on impolite, but it lights a fire within her like no other.
“The White Room,” Harry croons against her ear, low in decibel, “S’open. If you were up to play.” Jade slinks back up to dull blue, to the opposite dominant watching the display — a blank slate of curious interest. His gloved fingers untether gently and he speaks a bit louder, face turned back towards Faunus, “Wouldn’t want to tear you away and impose, though.”
The White Room. With Eros. Yes. Isla wants to go to the White Room with her Eros.
“Oh — no,” Isla assuages quickly, pivoting her head from Faunus to Eros and back, “Great — it’s been great, catching up, with you,” she motions with her palm towards the horn-masked dom.
Faunus pauses, as if musing, and eventually the corners of his mouth curl up softly.
“Likewise,” he tells her, gesturing with his glass, before his vision skids from Isla to Harry and back. His tongue peeks out to glide over his bare lips. Harry doesn’t miss the way his eyes wander roguely over the submissive’s silhouette — a tad flirtily, if he’s not mistaken, before he tacks on what sounds uncomfortably ominous to him. “I’ll see you around, Peitho.”
Harry’s jaw sets and he watches the other man all the way as he ambles off and disappears into the midst of the crowded lounge to mingle. It’s childish, he’s aware, to feel as though his turf is being invaded upon, like a personally deemed sector of a sandbox, and Isla his prized, shiny …bucket …or something (what do children play with in sandboxes? Harry can’t recall, at the moment). And he’s aware that Isla is not his possession, per se, but she sort of is. For the window of six weeks, she is his and his only, and the way he seems to recall it, they’re only on number five. His head snaps to her as the submissive clears her throat. She’s peering up at him, her mouth twitchy in giveaway.
He’s jealous, Isla thinks, and obviously so, the envy in him visible like figurines through the glass of a snowglobe.
“Had a nice time catching up with your friend?” Harry settles on. His inflection is smooth like molasses and low like a foreboding omen — a siren song. Isla contemplates getting him jealous more often.
“Yeah,” the young woman blinks, “Faunus is always great.”
Her lips twitch on the latter, and the word choice is made with such outright and overt intent to goad him — but she’s so harmless about it, too, afterwards nestling against him sweetly post the double entendre. Always great. Always a great fuck. Harry gives into her game shamelessly. He fingers at the strap on her brassiere as his mouth quirks wryly.
“This is a pretty little piece. Wear it for Faunus?”
“No,” Isla’s cadence doesn’t offer nearly as much resolve, and she jolts minutely as he lets it snap back into place. “Wore it for you.”
“For me?” the dominant raises his eyebrows, playing coy, and smooths the pad of his finger over an embellishment of lace over the edge of a cup as he tacks on, a little derisively, “How sweet.”
Then, Eros juts with his chin towards her unfinished rocks glass of sugar and syrup and fruit with the barest bones of their original nutrients, “Are you gonna throw that up if I play rough tonight?”
The brazen insinuation causes Isla to swallow, her chest growing a little tighter and the valley between her thighs growing a little warmer.
“Wouldn’t be a pretty sight. S’the White Room, after all,” his irises glimmer mischievously.
“No,” Isla protests, her gaze jumping from the glass to the shiny latex disguising his stupid, perfect face. A beat. The sound of the glass grazing over the wood coaxes his eyes to her hand as she slides it away. Yes.
“No, no. Feel free to finish it. I’ll wait.”
Despite this, her eyes jump between the half-empty glass and his face. His lack of tout — the empty, unspoken allurement of possibility — only lure her further. Take your time, I’ll patiently wait to do cruel and unusual things to you (that would’ve probably been deemed beyond illegal in the middle ages). It’s — yes. That is, no. No. Isla does not want to wait, her imagination running rampantly on the prospects of a mean Eros spurred by a jealous streak suddenly prevalent.
That she’s wrenched from him.
“No, I’m good,” Isla tells him, her cherries discarded.
Harry blinks at her, and then responds, his mouth curling softly, “Really, love. S’no rush. Got all night to,” her fingers jump to her palm, as he stretches it and settles it against the countertop, pleather-coated digits splaying, “play.”
Play. Her interest itches horribly to know what his agenda for the night entails.
“No — no, I’m good. I’m good,” the submissive clears her throat, sliding the cup away just a smidge more with the flex of her fingers. Harry’s mouth quirks.
“You’re awfully eager.”
Good. He’s pleased to coax the reaction — he’s pleased that Faunus, evidently, doesn’t even have the ability to harvest her attention in the same manner. Good, good, good.
“Well. White Room’s waiting for you, then. I’ll meet you in there,” Harry blinks at her, and then his eyes flash to his fingers as those come out to smooth over the bangle manacling her wrist, “Lemme just tie up some loose ends.”
Isla looks at him then, for a second, speaking volumes through her expression despite the majority of it being clandestine by swirls of dark fabric. Loose ends. He can tell she’s bemused that he doesn’t personally walk her, hand-in-hand.
“Okay,” the young woman settles on.
“Okay?”
“Okay, …Sir.”
He watches her walk off down a secluded hallway at the edge of the lounge, and then he blows out a breath and turns to the mocktail bartender on shift. Bliss — pretty corset, pretty, bedazzled mask, and a pretty mean dominatrix on the weekends when she’s not tending to the bar, he’s heard.
“S’cuse me, could you just—“ he gestures with the glass once the bartender’s in earshot, and she lifts her face from the sink at his cadence, “switch this off her tab onto mine.”
He doesn’t have to specify — he knows Bliss well enough. They’ll engage in the occasional small talk. Mundane shit, usually; the weather, the housing market, reputable toy artisans. Or, they had. These days he spends much of his Indulge time playing rather than strung up at the bar. Anyways, it’s the least he could do for Peitho, considering… well. The agenda for the night. The least. His mouth nearly crooks at the thought.
“Oh, it’s not on her tab, babes. Guy that was with her already tabbed it out.”
Oh — Oh. Okay. O-kay. His head swivels back to the throng of Indulge, where Faunus has vanished into the midst of the mingling masses. So now Faunus was buying her mocktails. Sick.
“How …nice,” Harry turns back, a tick in his jaw.
By the time the door clicks open from behind her, Isla’s knees are already shifting into their welcomed ache. It’s all sort of a routine she’s become beyond well accustomed to. The young woman listens to his dress shoes pad over the floor, and then she feels his hand brush through her hair from the back.
“Come sit.”
He says it in a way that doesn’t imply that he’s presently vexed — it’s easygoing enough, but his tone nearly carries the impending weight of the incoming scene. The submissive feels his palm withdraw, and then watches the backs of his dress shoes move, for a moment, as he winds past her towards the chair. And then she clambers up and follows. The mischievous jest Isla had basked in, priorly, starts its usual gear-shift into apprehension. Because being in a room, alone, with Eros, post whatever brazenly mouthy infringements Isla has managed, doesn’t leave her with …nearly as much pluck. Though, unfortunately for Eros and his ego, (or perhaps fortunately — she’s convinced he quite enjoys manually taming her into submission far more than he lets on), she’s still far from that state of mindless subservience he always manages to draw her into by the end of a session. The dominant sinks into the cushion and blows out a breath as if to discard the heft of a long workday, and his thighs splay a smidge as his eyes convey, expectantly through the slit of his mask, that he’d like her to sit. Isla slips into his lap, against the sturdy muscle of one of his parted thighs, and his leg shifts beneath her as his arm winds around her waist to cradle her close.
“I didn’t fuck you last week, and you’re already looking elsewhere, darling?” are the first words out of his mouth.
The statement is said as a jest — but it’s only half of that. His strawberry mouth is twitchy, and the pads of his digits are gentle on her thigh, and his tone is calm, and friendly, and traitorously sweet.
But Isla knows better.
Her mother had always said, behind every joke there’s some truth, sort of like a more wholesome version of drunk words are sober thoughts — far more kid friendly, but. The young woman couldn’t relate more to the wise piece of advice than she was, now, in this moment. Because her Eros is green, and obviously so. It radiates from his pores, the envy, no doubt a response to seeing Faunus’s palm pasted to her arm (she’s sure her innocuous, little comment played some part, as well), and the tidbits of his vulnerability make something oddly twist in her. Something like — feelings, beyond the playroom. It pleases her, in a red-flag-on-her-part sort of way, knowing that he cares. But more than that, the sentiment leaves her brimming with arousal. A jealous man was never a kind man, and a mean Eros, tucked away with her in a reserved playroom at Indulge, always left her simmering in welcomed anticipation.
“Of course not,” she assuages, tracing the folds of fabric in his collar and fixing them up with a smoothing touch, her pupils fixed to her fingers as she tacks on, “I’d never look elsewhere when I’m contractually obligated to uphold monogamy.”
It’s a tease that’s blatantly meant to rile him — the corners of her mouth buckle like an afterthought, and beneath her touch, the dominant’s chest heaves with a sigh.
“Contractual obligation. S’that all my time is to you, then?”
His tone is lighthearted, but the words have that undercurrent of brooding, like her words have wounded him, and Isla thumbs over a button and pops it through a loop — just for a bit of skin.
“All my cock is to you?” the man shifts below her, his tone still playful, “A contractual obligation?”
“No,” she protests, her fingers twitchy before his chin dips to ogle her handiwork, and a palm clasps over her wrist to bring the fingertips to his mouth and nip.
“Hm?” he prods, teeth grazing over skin playfully, “Gonna go back to alternating having your shit rocked when my time is up?”
Okay. Little less playful. His cadence is still light and good-natured but. Oddly heavy question. That little, unspoken slice of reality peeks through the facade of joking, traces streaking like dawn through cracks of blinds, if only for a moment.
Isla swallows. Her pupils paste to his cushiony mouth, to the tips of her digits pressed lightly between his teeth. She settles for something safe, her breath held in her chest. Actually, maybe a little unsafe, given the trajectory of his emotions.
“If you want me to, Sir.”
Placate, placate, placate. The words are all that any dominant could want — submission in its ultimation. Whatever he wants of her. Despite this, the statement has something like …disappointment twisting in his chest. He doesn’t want that. He wants to elongate their contract, he wants to keep railing Isla over, and over, and over, he wants to spend the rest of timeless time with her as his in the realm of Indulge, and only his. And he doesn’t want it to be up to him. Tell me no, Harry wants to say. Tell me you want me and only me. Show me you care, the way I do.
Instead, his mouth purses.
If there’s any inkling of protest to her words, the dominant doesn’t showcase it. She’s curious to hear his response, but he doesn’t give one. Instead, he intertwines their fingers and shoots her a glance. The topic of conversation pivots.
“Were you a good girl for me this week, sweetheart?”
Oh, goodness gracious. She’d nearly forgotten all about Monday night’s debacle, so honed and amused by the envy the dominant was radiating. The mischievous streak in her really starts to fade, then.
Was she a good girl for him this week? Vague recollections of a very satisfying vibrator pressed between clammy thighs in messy sheets at late hours flit through her mind.
And her Eros on the other end of the line.
There’s a sudden heaviness to her tongue. It’d be easy to fib and pretend she hadn’t slipped up with hungry fingers between hungrily splayed thighs, just as he’d requested — commanded — her not to do. It’s not like he’d know.
Was she a good girl for him? No. Isla certainly wasn’t.
She admits, after a moment of deliberative lull, “No, Sir.”
Sir, she’s tacked on, politely — without coaxing, Harry notes. It’s the first thing he notes, in fact, besides her candid confession of misconduct. After that, it’s the way her body language has morphed from joking to tensed, to the way her fingers rub together in her lap, to the way her chest rolls lightly with her slow, bated breaths.
“No?” he prods softly, pondering on her admission, “You weren’t a good girl?”
Behind his ribcage, his heart kicks it up a notch from priorly peaceful equilibrium into a wild, racketing hammer. Because if she tells him what he thinks she’s going to tell him, if she confirms his suspicions and proves that he hadn’t spent Monday night driving himself mad, with hands raking restively through his tendrils in lieu of getting a good night’s rest post her late night call, then—
“I …touched myself, Sir.”
And there it is.
Isla bites into her cheek when faced with his hum of acknowledgement — of course the sound is coated with condescension, as if he’d expected her to fail.
“And you came, I assume?” jade glimmers between lengthy lashes and shadows of an unnecessary disguise as he tacks on, “I mean, I’d hope disappointing me was worth it, at least.”
It — what? Isla toes at the back of her opposite ankle, a crease working between her eyebrows.
“I didn’t — I don’t know,” she blows out a breath, “how to answer this question.”
“You don’t know if you came?” his own eyebrows rise in teasing, inflection jestingly incredulous. It’s a good sign, for now, the young woman thinks. She’d expected green to turn steely, but he seems keen on poking at her — which she’ll take rather than to be confronted by his demeanor of disdain.
“No— I,” she sighs, craning her neck back and crossing her arms as the dominant’s pillowy mouth twitches, “I did,” upon the glint of warning to his expression, even mostly bridled by rubber, the submissive curbs the exasperation that’s leaked into her tone, backtracking softly, “I mean, I don’t — I wasn’t trying to disappoint you.”
“Mm.”
“And — well, anyways. I think you should be the opposite of disappointed, considering I came clean,” the twist she takes on the circumstances, to Harry, are a little appalling.
He just sort of hums, entertained, and states, “S’that where the bar is, now?” and upon her vexed look, commences a slow clap, “Applause for the bare minimum.”
“Amnesty,” she cocks her head, sitting up a bit, unperturbed by his derisive sarcasm, “is a thing, by the way, if you weren’t aware.”
At that, he literally feels the dimples poke into place beside the curl of his smile. “You’re quite funny.”
“I know,” Isla tells him after a moment, her shoulders sagging as she tips her chin to her hands and picks at her nails, her voice low, “I’m hilarious.”
Harry brushes a pleather-clad palm over her thigh before he bats at her hands. He clears his throat. “How many times?”
Her face tips up, like she’s confused by the question, and the man clarifies, “How many times did you touch yourself?”
Rather than persisting with the jittery habit of nail picking, she mollifies by tracing down his chest, over his dress shirt, sort of hoping to smooth out the incoming tension of the scene in the same way her touch smooths the fabric, “Just once.”
“Tell me,” she watches his tongue peek over before his swipes over his lips, and her vision only flits away for a mere moment when she feels his colossal palm squeezing at her hip, “how you did it.”
She blinks up at him, like the request baffles her.
“S’not that difficult of a task. Well,” Harry pauses, and his eyes roll to the side with the patronizing dig, “The first one wasn’t either, but.”
“I—“ the young woman’s jaw sets as she lifts her chin at the jab and she declares with resolve (plucky, Harry thinks, considering the circumstances), “with my vibrator.”
Vibrator. Interesting. He hadn’t heard it on the other end of the phone — sneaky girl. The chatter from the television, obnoxiously loud, floats to the forefront of his mind, then.
“Okay,” he nudges with his chin, “Getting somewhere…”
“Third setting,” Isla states, deadpan in decibel, “and I came.”
And then his palm locks, softly, over the back of her neck, and he physically guides her to lean forward against him. The dominant’s strawberry lips brush over Isla’s ear as he speaks, low and tantalizing, and then that same mouth pastes to an expanse of skin just below.
“Details, little miss. And less attitude. Paint me a picture.”
Oh — her pulse stutters.
“Were you,” his mouth alternates between questioning and pressing open-mouthed kisses that incite chills to bloom over her flesh, “watching something? Thinking of something? Hm?”
The young woman’s unsure of the cause behind the sudden, sensual twist in their discussion, but she tries to bare her neck a bit, quite literally the furthest from complaining.
“I — the TV was on. But I was thinking about you,” she admits, and the dominant slides the opposite hand around the curvature of her hip, fondling over the side of her thigh.
“What about?”
“Your—“ the man’s mouth curls up lewdly against her skin in response to the stutter he coaxes as his hand ventures to her backside, squeezing — the way her throat bobs with a swallow, “your hands, touching me. Your mouth — on my, on my—“
“Your…?” Harry wheedles tauntingly, his hand tracing its way back onto her front and teasing at the hem of her underwear.
Isla’s confession comes breathy, and her legs splay apart a smidge when he dips his forefinger past the barrier just a tad, brushing over the smooth, sensitive crease between her pelvis and her thigh, “My pussy.”
“Mm. S’that all?”
“No,” her lashes flutter behind the lace, “I thought about — about your cock. Thought about you fucking my mouth, and,” her speech dies off as his fingers wriggle further beneath her panties and brush against her clit.
“And?”
“and I thought about you,” Isla swallows, screwing her eyes shut, “…holding my nose, as you did it. So I couldn’t breathe.”
The pads of his fingers stutter in their caress. Shit. His nostrils flare at the filthy admission, and the way desire teems through his veins and arousal coils through his tummy at the thought is pure, hedonistic darkness. When Harry asks her, “What else?” his voice is considerably huskier against the crook of her neck.
“I thought about you slapping me — my face,” her chest rolls as his fingers dip and gather sopping slick — she knows she’s ludicrously wet, reliving the fantasies that’d become tucked away in the dells of her mind, in combination with his soft touch, will sort of do that. It all has her feeling as if a fucking furnace glows angrily between her thighs. “I thought about—“ her jaw sets as she tips her head back, and he nips at her earlobe, “you spanking me for touching myself. How sore I would be over the next few days, having to sit at work.”
“Spanking you with what?” Harry’s cadence comes muffled and heady against her skin.
“Just — just your hand,” Isla’s heart races in her chest as he draws circles, like it beats in laps that trace the track of the motion.
The dominant presses open-mouthed kisses to her skin, crooning, “Just my hand? Y’dont think you deserve the paddle or the strap for disobeying me?”
Isla doesn’t think much of anything when his tongue pokes out and glides over straining muscle.
“Whatever,” she swallows, his fingers fisting desperately at the sturdy muscle of his thigh, “Whatever you want, Sir.”
“S’not whatever I want, though,” he hums, “It’s about what you deserve. So what,” his fingers press a little harder, his cadence grows a little hungrier, “do you think you deserve?”
“I — I deserve whatever you decide I deserve, Sir.”
“Mm. Well. I think,” Isla gasps and jolts, her breath morphing into a soft whimper when he pinches her clit between his digits, “You don’t deserve to entertain any of those little fantasies. Not after you couldn’t follow one simple rule.”
She sags as his fingers withdraw and the elastic snaps back into place.
“Don’t deserve to have your mouth fucked,” Harry sighs, shaking his head as if disappointed by the statement, himself (good, he’d be missing out, Isla thinks petulantly), “Don’t deserve to have my hands, or my mouth. I suppose spanking wouldn’t even serve as a punishment for you, would it?”
“Because,” he motions with a hand, “we’ve done loads of that, and you’re still what, darling?”
Isla gnaws on her bottom lip, chin tilted to her hands.
“I’m talking to you,” she’s caught off guard and has to bridle a gasp when he grips onto her jaw with a gloved palm and roughly guides her face in the direction of his own. The sudden emergence of his stern streak leaves her doused in want, “You’re still what?”
It’s appalling, honestly, the way a mercurial flip of a switch in his character could affect her so deeply, but there’s nothing Isla finds more arousing than when her Eros gets like …this.
“…Disobedient,” Isla tells him softly, after a moment, not entirely sure of the answer he’s looking for.
“A disobedient, little whore—“
Isla swallows dryly, his words — his irritated tone, sinking straight to her core.
“—that just doesn’t seem to learn.”
“I’m sorry,” the submissive starts after a moment, but her cautious apology is hindered by his scoff, a shake of his head that leaves light bouncing off the glossy hood, a sound of sardonic amusement. Her pupils, through the lace, bound to meet his narrowed gaze.
“No, you’re not.”
Isla swallows. He’s right. She’s not exactly this virtuous angel who’s lurched into a pit of misdeed because of a careless accident. And she’s not exactly regretful of it, either.
The way the dominant squeezes over her hip then, the fondle of his hand gentle in contrast to the foreboding words he tacks on — the way his irises sweep over her like he’s nonchalantly deliberating her fate, has an eager thrill of the looming danger wracking down the knobs of her spine. “But you will be.”
Loads of people are adrenaline junkies — the bungee jumpers, the skydivers, the bull riders, the mountain bikers, the people who like to watch scary movies in theaters with 3D glasses, melted back against their seats as the volume of the music dims and a pregnant pause of impending doom stalls. The ones who stand in lines, veins teeming with anticipation as they edge closer and closer, zig-zagging through dividers in slow, stalling steps, all to become seated in a rollercoaster with a 90 degree drop. That excitement on the drop billows through their arteries like a chaser. It’s all sort of the same thing. Isla just has …unorthodox penchants. Methods. She happens to enjoy having the shit beat out of her, maybe, or being terrorized by something rooted in fear. Because when you mix adrenaline and sex, it’s just. Unfathomable. Truly a top-tier recommendation, if Isla were ever coaxed to recommend it. But it’s all the same thing. All a similar outcome.
Isla’s absolutely aching for that enslaving rush, and then Eros nearly gives her whiplash as he just …looks at her and says, “Maybe we shouldn’t play at all tonight.”
She can’t manage to muzzle the bloom of bemused disappointment that seeps into her tone, “I — what?”
“I mean,” Harry retracts his palm, and Isla’s suddenly left oddly cold, perched on his lap as his arms cross laxly over his chest, “you’re a disobedient, little whore. We’re on the same page about that, aren’t we, pet? Doesn’t matter if I punish you for it. And you certainly don’t deserve to be rewarded. Could just call it a night, hang out in the lounge—” his eyes convey volumes as he peers at her through lashes with insinuation, “Could mingle a bit. Sit around with your great, little friend.”
Faunus. Back to Faunus.
“I—“ Harry watches her pillowy mouth part, and settle into a line as words fail her, and then part again, “Please.”
“Please?” his eyebrows jolt, mouth pursing as a huff of wry amusement is expelled from his nostrils, and he’s about to say more, but then she interjects—
“Please, Sir. Please, I need—“
“Shut—“ Isla freezes when his hand comes back to her face, this time with the pads of his digits squeezing into her cheeks harshly, “—the fuck up.” And all Isla can really manage, from there, is a wordless mouthing against his digit, like a fish out of water. Harry watches her lips move a bit over a silent please, sort of amused by the persistive spectacle (but he definitely doesn’t let it show).
“Stand up,” he tells her, after a moment, unlatching his grip and shifting his thigh beneath her, “Stand up, and strip.”
As the young woman stands, he nudges himself off the armchair as well, making a beeline straight for the wall of toys, but not before aiming his forefinger her way and adding, (a bit cheekily, if Isla’s not mistaken, though that note is drowned out by the sternness that brims his tone), “Leave the stockings on.”
The pads of her thumbs hesitate, just past the hem of her left, sheer stocking. Slowly, she straightens back out and fixes the digits into her bra straps, shimmying those off of her shoulders first, then winding her arms behind her back to unsnap the hooks with a deft enough motion (her hands are sort of trembling). Her fingertips dip into her underwear — soaked, of course, post the ministrations of the man who mills about the room all the while, gleaning objects. Isla watches him gather and deliver the objects to the mattress before going back for more — almost like an animal stockpiling in preparation for a lengthy winter. She works the pair of underwear down her thighs, stepping out of them, and throwing them alongside her brassiere on the armchair.
The young woman feels, for the first time in a long time, a bit awkward, just standing on the linoleum, bare of all but her stockings, as she waits for further instruction from a dominant who doesn’t look as if he cares to bask in her nudity for even a split second. Because Harry always has this way of making her feel worshiped — even when he feigns that his attention is entirely torn away. Because in those split seconds where his pupils train back onto her, that facade breaks, and she sees the hunger seeping through. Her pulse stays impressively even when she watches him set a long, metallic spreader bar with cuffs — like shackles — onto the comforter beside a large wand. Finally, the rubber-hooded male shoots her a blank gaze — it lasts, as expected, a minute timespan before he fixes his attention back onto the objects. He doesn’t look even a smidge interested in her denuded state — it’s an offhand glance to make a point.
“Are you just going to stand there all night?”
“If you’d like me to, Sir,” Isla tells him — he couldn’t possibly get upset at an open offer of subservience (despite the underlying aim of innocuously-feigned backchat), and that fact seems to register with him.
Harry gives her a good look then, one considerably longer than the previous had been, one where she can practically witness the gears turning behind his skull. The submissive supposes she’s gotten what she’d wanted, after all. Then, his mouth twitches like he’s actively attempting to bridle it from morphing to a grimace.
“Come here,” the dominant instructs eventually, tone firm.
Shrouding her timidness, Isla follows his directions and makes her way to the bed until she’s stood in front of him with her chin held high. The way his hand gently grasps her wrist then, as the opposite digs into a pocket of his slacks, has her heart fluttering. His face is downcast to the bracelet as the pin-like key winds, until there’s a click and it isn’t — instead it fixes onto her own. The dominant leans in, his voice soft.
“On the bed. All fours.”
Isla turns just as he pockets the bangle, and crawls onto the mattress, just as instructed. She feels chilly metal graze against her calves, a brush of smooth leather.
“Spread,” Harry demands, and starts fastening one of the plush, padded cuffs to her ankle once she’s knee’d her thighs apart. Then, the following joint. “Put your arms back, through here,” he pats at the empty space between her (involuntarily) splayed limbs.
So Isla does that, too, rocking forward onto her shoulders and pressing her cheek against the sheets, her face cast at the wall where the door stands as her fingers twitch. He fastens cuffs onto those, too, and by the time all’s done and well, Isla’s absolutely immobile. Testingly, she tries to wrench her wrist back, the attempt subtle. She can’t move. At all. And behind her, the dominant’s pillowy mouth crooks at the sight. Apprehension rises in her, like a flood of water surging through a cylindrical building, swelling in the space between a spiral staircase that clings to the curved walls.
The beginnings of that beautiful adrenaline.
“Anything uncomfortable?”
“No, Sir,” Isla tells him.
“I mean — you’re going to be plenty uncomfortable,” she rocks back a tad as the dominant smooths his hand down the back of her thigh, “but I’d prefer you didn’t end up with a cramp, or a weird soreness because your neck’s in a funny position.”
The touch withdraws. Isla swallows.
“No. Everything’s good.”
She jolts when her ears pick up on a sound that destroys the lull — like tape, bondage tape, she’s sure, and the dominant sounds as if he has a piece between his teeth when he responds, “Wonderful.”
Then comes the sounds of tape tearing. Her muscles tense as she feels something press against her thigh, against her core, and then his hand starts to wind what she knows is the tape around her flesh. A click. The wand comes alive, rumbling. Isla can’t begin to stifle her soft hum.
“Good spot?” the dominant prods, out of sight.
The young woman fixes her gaze onto the bland wall through shapes and swirls of lace, her lashes fluttering, “Mm — yeah. Really good spot.”
“O-kay.”
And then after that — a stalling silence. Nothing reverberates over the walls, nothing falls on eardrums besides her soft breaths and the fixed buzz of the wand, pressed between her clammy thighs. Pleasure builds within her like water surging behind a dam, just sort of steadily rising until the structure starts to show signs of wear, rifts in its integrity. Then — well, then, there’s imminent destruction.
The mattress creaks. He’s shifted.
“Sir?” Isla prods, her voice small.
“No talking,” the dominant tells her after a moment, his cadence steely, “Don’t wanna hear you.”
Her bottom lip becomes siphoned past her teeth. That’s — fuck. Okay. She regulates her breathing, and stares at the wall as the toy continues rumbling against her. He hadn’t exactly, explicitly mentioned that she was to hold off her climax, so. All sort of fair game, Isla thinks. Despite this, she does try to moderate the pace in the surge of bliss — maybe it could be, like, a trickle instead of a swelling flood, if she really focuses—
Another click. The buzzing increases in intensity. Her digits flex and clench, and her wrists shift in their respective cuffs. Still, she stays very quiet. That is, until the familiar, foreboding wave of pleasure tides, frothing at her tummy and sinking. Isla tenses in the restraints, and holds off pleading until she absolutely has to. It’s sort of a gray area, because she’s definitely not supposed to wait until that happens, but apparently she’s also not supposed to talk, so.
“Sir! Can I cum? Please, please, can I—“
“Cum,” he tells her simply, not even batting an eye at her improper wording — may, he’s told her so many times, may I?
Isla does, and it’s extraordinary. His dialogue nearly misses the mark entirely before the wave crashes, the countdown spent to milliseconds. Her toes curl, and her eyes screw shut, and her thighs tense, and her wrists tug reflexively, pinioned, as she groans and attempts to coil up. The dominant doesn’t make any moves that propose the idea of him touching her or using her for his own pleasure, in any manner, nor does he make an effort to remove the vibrator or her restraints. It buzzes at her core, even as the tide of pleasure ebbs. It ebbs, and all she’s left with is the hammering of her heart, and the toy still rumbling at her core. The young woman feels her pulse racketing in her eardrums. Isla shifts in her cuffs a smidge — as much as she can — though, there’s not much leeway for that.
“Thank you, Sir,” she tells him, after a moment, her tongue swiping out after, over her strawberry mouth. She supposes she’s supposed to thank him, right? Isla’s still unsure of what exactly is going on. He’s going to overstimulate her — that much she’s discerned. It’s not rocket science. Spreader bar plus vibrator plus bondage tape? That shit was crystal clear from a mile away. She figures the dominant is aiming to venture to three, …maybe four. Maybe until she’s crying. Who knows.
The dominant doesn’t respond. She hears him exhale, though. The bed creaks again.
The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit …wasn’t all that rough. The first bit feels good — even on the advance towards the second crest, past that incipient budding of discomfort post an orgasm, the pleasure builds up pretty well. In fact, it sort of feeds off that discomfort. For Isla, at least. Because once you get past that first hurtle of too much, too much, that smidge of aching becomes a mere shadow in the cliff of rapture that blooms from stone — growing, growing, growing.
Until, eventually, it gives.
“Oh, oh, please, can I— Sir—“
“Cum.”
She expands and shrivels all in one, everywhere and nowhere with a surfeit of dopamine spurting through her nervous system. The fire kindles. Ah. The beginning stages of displeasure-pleasure. She’s felt it before, a plethora. That kind where her nerve endings settle into a dull, numbing ache. Involuntarily, her limbs jerk in the restraints, tugging to get away. Her jaw clenches.
The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit wasn’t all that rough, but the bit after starts to suck. All good things must come to an end, and all that, but—
Despite that, the unwavering pleasure builds. It builds because of the stimulation, first and foremost, but then it builds because he hasn’t touched her, because he’s just sat back ogling, because she knows she’s dripping down the toy and that the bulbous head glints with her arousal. It builds because it’s a punishment, because Eros doesn’t want to hear her, because she’s disappointed him, and now she’s meant to appease him by enduring suffering. It builds because she wants nothing more than to endure suffering to please him—
“Sir!” Isla wriggles in the restraints, helplessly, the mantra of please-please-please morphed to nothing but a slurred string of words.
“Cum.”
The submissive nearly rolls and topples to her side under the earth-shattering abuse of the third — frankly, the only reason she doesn’t sink into a ridiculous sort of spreader-bar-mangled fetal position, is because Harry touches her, for the first time, steadying her with a firm palm against her bare hip. The pleasure with the third is much shorter-lived than the wide windows of the first two. It wanes nearly instantaneously, shrinking back as fiery ache overtakes it in the race. Isla grits her teeth, writhing forlornly as pain settles, coating her and seeping to interweave through the marrow of her bones. Three, maybe four, she tells herself, a mellow appeasement for inner peace — though, her brain has slowly begun its melt into a commonplace mush. Telling anyone anything, or even processing thoughts besides the signals fired off by her nervous system, is beyond strenuous. She doesn’t notice a sheen of tears has glazed over until she blinks and what’s normally sharp, clear lines of fabric turns to blurs. Despite the (reasonable, Isla believes) assessment of the dominant’s agenda (Isla’s fixated upon to ground herself amidst the curdling fear that tails the unknown, in all circumstances), she can’t help but start to plead, a bit, all things considered.
“Sir, please, please, please—“
“Cum,” the man tells her, from behind, offhand and simple, probably admiring his gloves, or something. The statement comes as if he’s nothing but a robot programmed to grant her permission, and that word is the only term coded into his feasible vocabulary.
If Isla had it in her to balk, she certainly would. She doesn’t. Partly because she doesn’t have it in her, and mostly because the tingling pain from the toy has her expression helplessly forming into a frown, almost as if on its own accord. The submissive just pouts, her bottom lip quivering in forlorn appall. Because Sir doesn’t care if she’s begging, because he doesn’t care that she’s already had three, because the realization dawns on her, then, that that would’ve been four, and he still hadn’t made any inclination to cease the torture.
“No — no, Sir,” Isla starts, her waterline welling with tears behind her disguise — it’s wet, and irritates her skin horribly.
The bed creaks. Behind her, the man tuts. And then the toy becomes toggled to a higher setting, buzzing incessantly against her clit with an intensity that wrenches a sharp keen from her.
“What did I tell you? I don’t want to hear you. Not unless you’re asking permission, or you’re safing. One or the other. Nothing in between. Disobedient, little whores don’t deserve to beg.”
It’s — he’s. Pitifully, Isla sobs against the comforter.
Five. Harry’s on the track to wrench five from her — which, all things considered, is a reasonable goal to shoot for, he thinks. He knows she certainly has four in her to give, because she’s already given him four, weeks ago, in the Dungeon. And if she can’t make it to five within a reasonable time frame, he’ll cut it short post her enduring the aftershocks of the fourth for a bit. He settles back onto his arm, braced against the mattress as he splays behind her, at the foot of the bed, cheek pasted to his gloved palm as he drinks in the sight of her cunt leaking helplessly over the head of the wand. Great view. One for the books.
Despite all of this, the sobs wracking her body have him sitting up a smidge to peer around at her face, which. Not much to decipher past swollen-post-teething lips and trembling flesh, without a good view of her eyes, but. The goal is definitely not to make her safe — that last bit was just sort of open encouragement. Like, an, always feel free sort of thing. They’re only on three. He frowns.
“Hey. Baby,” Harry sits up to lean beside her, closer to her face, where she expels helpless sobs from a quivering, slobbery mouth.
The thing with Isla crying was that it was cool. Deemed cool by both parties — sought after, in fact. But checking in, Harry thinks, is also (even more) cool, especially when she’s crying in a manner that implies that she’s slipping, and that it’s all teeming into the territory of too much, despite the fact that it can sort of break apart the characters they play up in a scene. Because roles are easy to slip back into, but reforming a bond of security post the unnecessary trauma of a boundary being unintentionally crossed is, frankly, much more difficult to casually slip back into. Safety is cool. Big thumbs up.
This stuff is so much easier with eyes, Harry thinks — they speak volumes. They get blown like nightfall, crossing and shading past the lines of pupils and seeping into colors of irises, they become shifty and evident in apprehension, they kind of give it all away. He flips the toy off, but it stays nestled to her core, and he strokes hair off the band of lace shrouding her from him.
“Sweetheart, are you alright?” a crease works between his brows as he rakes his digits through Isla’s hair from her sweaty hairline. Because you sound like I’m murdering you, goes unsaid.
The thing is, he knows Isla’s limits, basically. General ballpark, that is. Really knowing and understanding takes months, and months — maybe years of experimentation. But even then, there’s those scenes where you have to check in and break character, and that’s okay. He just hadn’t prepared that it’d be after three.
Isla sniffles beneath his touch.
“Do you want to stop, darling? Red?” he smooths the pads of his digits over her cheek. And beneath his palm, weakly, the submissive shakes her head, an indication that, no, she doesn’t want to do that.
The muscles in her neck strain with a swallow as Harry tucks loose fragments of hair away, his chin dipped to observe her response, and then the young woman tells him, softly, “No. Please.”
“We don’t have to keep doing this, pet,” Harry promises, his cadence taking on a note that’s the most gentle it's been since she’d been sat over his lap, “I can take these off, and we can keep playing, but we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.”
Isla sighs softly. The pain had begun intermingling with pleasure just before he’d shut the toy off, tinges of bliss blooming post abuse on her physical senses — that’s not why she was crying. Really, there’s a plethora of reasons, some not entirely decipherable. Partly because of the intensity, partly because of the adrenaline and their subsequent endorphins, and partly because she was definitely fucking slipping. She could feel it loom over her when her mind got all mushy, when it all became slower, and more difficult, like trudging through a swamp of molasses. When her tongue got heavier and her body felt fuzzier.
“Wanna make you happy,” Isla tells him. Her eyes are screwed shut behind the lace, mostly to hinder the onslaught of tears, so she can't see him, but she does hear him sigh.
“You do make me happy. Always make me happy. Always happy I get to play with you. Silly.”
Her mouth twitches, then, and curls up a bit. She huffs through her nostrils. Harry cocks his head, smoothing a thumb down the bare fragment of her face on one cheek.
“You make me happy, too,” Isla confesses, her voice small.
Harry tries to keep his mouth from curving into a sad sort of smile in return. Instead, he slips his thumb up to brush over the bottom-most hem of her mask.
“Let me get you out of these,” he only pivots his head towards the bar before she’s humming, evidently dissatisfied by the proposal.
“No,” Isla whines, “Don’t wanna stop playing.”
“We’re not going to stop playing,” the dominant curbs the instinctive eye roll that nearly overtakes the jade, “Just a little break. Don’t you want some water? Doesn’t water sound so good?”
He smirks when she gnaws on her bottom lip and gives him a slow, little nod against the sheets. The man smooths his hand, fondly, down the side of her neck, kneeing around her to slip his fingers to the tape. He unravels that, first, trying to keep the process short, like a bandaid, and he sets the toy down beside her on the bed. Next to go are the cuffs.
“Just a little break,” he promises, “Gonna get some water,” he unbuckles the first cuff — her left wrist, “stretch a bit,” the second — her right, “stretch your neck. Can’t imagine it’s not cramping a bit,” Isla rolls her wrists, her arms still splayed beneath her in the space between the bed and her arched back — the third to go is her left ankle, “and we’ll get you back to shambles in no time,” the last, her right ankle, and he smacks her backside lightly, because it’s there and it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the opportunity, honestly. “How’s that sound?”
The dominant strokes a palm softly up her calf after he sets the spreader bar aside. Isla stretches back against him, like a little cat. Yes. All of these things sound great.
“Stretch out a bit. I’m gonna grab some,” Isla picks up on him saying, before his touch retracts and she hears his shoes clicking over the tile.
Isla shuffles her arms forward, lifting up a bit only to flop back down and morph into Child’s Pose. Sort of. As best as she can. The water machine grinds in the background. By the time Harry has made his way back to the foot of the bed, Isla’s rolled onto her side. He gestures out with the plastic, little cup, and Isla flips onto her back and sits up to grasp it between her palms. They’ve ceased their shaking, for now. Harry takes a seat beside her, his legs kicked out ahead as opposed to her coiled hover, calves pressed against the bed. Her Eros has all the answers, Isla thinks. Her throat bobs frantically as she chugs, and in her peripherals she watches him take a slow sip. Once she’s reached the bottom, her hands flop against her sweaty lap, the empty cup wrapped by her right hand.
She turns her face to him, a little smile over her mouth. The dominant peers at her, lips wrapped over the rim of his respective cup through the unzipped mouth slit, and he lifts a hand to swipe a stray rivulet of water from the corner of her mouth with a thumb. Her tongue swipes out as his touch retracts, almost as if to chase the pad of his digit. The man makes a soft sound of amusement over the lip of the cup. Slowly, Isla cranes her neck back, and then forward, and then side to side, and Harry takes another sip.
“You take care of me so well,” Isla admits, planting her forehead against his arm. She’s jostled then, and nearly complains, but then she realizes that he’s only done it to grant her a space to nestle, a nook for her so he can hold her. She still feels a little …warm and fuzzy, but her head has cleared considerably since he’d unshackled her. Isla scoots in, and the dominant winds his arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly.
“You always know what I need, even when I don’t.”
“S’because I’ve got you figured out,” Harry nudges in her direction with his beverage, three thirds of the way down. His hand, cradling the cup, lays laxly against his thigh, then.
“Do you?” Isla’s gaze narrows behind the mask as a little grin plays over her mouth. She lifts her chin up to display it. And she’s so close, he could kiss her.
The male’s tongue peeks out to glide over his pillowy mouth. Isla Cleery. Cherries, and Hydrangeas, and pencil skirts and strange tendencies to do dangerous things on a whim.
No. He absolutely does not.
“Basically. You’re an easy read, love.”
Her pupils rove over the rubber hood. Over his eyes, glinting through the shadows cast by parted zippers, slipping to the muted berry of his mouth. She’s never yearned, so badly, to surpass a personal limit and kiss someone she was …just playing with. Desperately. She tears her gaze away.
“Can we keep playing?” the young woman inquires, instead.
The dominant rolls his eyes, a soft smile cresting his cushiony mouth, “Do you want to keep playing?”
“Yes. Sir. Please. Right where we left off.”
“Right where we left off?” his eyebrows raise a smidge, “Are you sure? We can move on to phase two.”
“Phase two?”
“Well. Since phase one was punishment for your little slip up earlier in the week,” Isla’s gaze skids away sheepishly, “figure s’only fair phase two is penance for that little comment you made out in the lounge.”
The young woman’s gaze snaps back to the dominant, and she wracks her brain for a dull moment where her mind sort of lags, the edges still a little fuzzy. And then it dawns on her. Fuck. Right. There was that.
“Okay,” Isla tells him, after a moment — not a deliberative one, per se. Just. Mental preparation. “That sounds good.”
“That sounds good?” Harry’s hand slinks out to stroke over her bare thigh, and then his gaze skims to his thumb as he strokes it over the hem of her stocking, “You’re sure?”
“Yes, Sir,” Isla tells him, sitting up a bit with her rejuvenated courage, “and I want to start where we left off.”
Harry hums, pausing his thumb over her stocking. He digs it under, just a bit, tugs up, and lets it snap back into place. And then he pats her thigh, takes her cup from her, and tells her, “Alright. Back into position then. M’gonna refill these so we have them ready, for later.”
As the dominant stands to refill their respective beverages of sustenance, Isla scoots back on the mattress, flips, and clambers into position, already prepped with her arms stuck flat out in the space between her parted calves by the time he returns and sets the cups onto the, (oddly domestic and ludicrously practical), nightstand, beside the bed. She hears him blow out a breath, and the bed shifts as he knees his way onto it from behind.
“All good to keep going?” Harry prods, the thin pole of the spreader bar grasped in one hand, “Promise?”
“I promise,” the young woman returns, half-nodding and half kind of just taking the opportunity to snuggle her face into the comforter. The area soused by her tears is a little further to the right, now, and despite the fact that her mask is still wet, the blanket beneath her face, now, is dry, so it all feels like a spruced up, fresh start.
He slots the cuffs back on, one by one, working backwards from the order in which they’d been discarded minutes prior. And when she’s all splayed and riveted for him, a particular sort of sensitivity settles in her as the wand, still slick from her, presses to her cunt as he sets all the props back into place for the scene (pun intended). It’s not necessarily that grating numbness she’d become accustomed to, or a cloying past aftershocks. Just the sensation of knowing, physically, that she’s already given three. A tremble nearly slinks down the knobs of her spine at the thought. The tape unsticks from the roll as the dominant works it back over her thigh.
Isla blinks, her lashes brushing over the innermost of the lace, squeezed to her face in its tightening against the sheets. She chimes, for good measure, “And. I’m all good. You don’t have to …be nice.”
His handiwork pauses. And his cadence, rasped like sandpaper, slow like seeping molasses, sweet like syrup, nearly causes her to drown in it all. He sounds …hungry, for the first time in the night since they’d explored her fantasies in the verdant armchair, when he tells her, “I don’t intend to be.”
That’s — shit. Okay. Then, Eros smooths his palm down the back of her thigh and ponders, aloud, “Can you give me five, d’you think?”
Five. That’s a …milestone.
Isla blinks. Warmth coils in her at the suggestion, instantly, hunger unsatiated as if she hadn’t just endured the three course meal of three orgasms, back to back. Her throat feels dry, like her mouth’s been stuffed by cotton.
“I can — I can try,” she swallows, “Sir.”
“There’s a good girl,” the man hums, pleased by her answer, and he sits back a bit, rewarding her with a loud smack that siphons a gasp and a jerk in the restraints from her. A ruddy splotch teems over the surface of her skin — tinges shaped by his open palm. He gives her another, just over where the first had landed, and Isla releases a girlish grunt in response, rocking forward. A third, then, and with the opposite hand, he toggles the toy on. Harry watches every muscle in her body tense, at that.
The newfound pleasure, post the break, feels almost as if spawning from square one. Not entirely — there’s still that nagging reminder deep within her nervous system that she’s already spent so much for him (recovering from three takes, maybe, just a little longer than a span of minutes). But rather than numbing tingles enmeshed with knife-like, slicing pain, pleasure blooms quickly, radiating from between her thighs and coaxing the pit of her tummy to coil with something familiar and warm. And rather than sitting back like an audience member to enjoy the show, this time, the dominant seems interested in taking part — an active part, in fact. He smooths his palms over the globes of her ass, and every blow, falling in increments (when she seems to least expect it), sends jarring shocks through her nervous system that throw her entire comprehension of sensation for a loop. It doesn’t hurt — not at all, really. Instead, each hit enmeshes with the overpowering bliss from the rumbling against her core, and the only tinges of pain come from the eventual soreness that blooms. But it makes her wetter, hotter, more sensitive, and, eventually—
“Sir!” Isla’s eyes squeeze shut as the beginnings of the flame lick at her, “Can I—“
And then one of his palms squeezes into one of her hips and the opposite smacks her again — and, fuck. Isla can’t bridle her strangled sound when he tells her, “Cum.” The wave washes over her like water crashing over jagged rock.
The discomfort that flourishes as the weak bout of ecstasy recedes is not …horrific, per se, but it certainly reminds her that this isn’t her first, and, just as it’d been strung up prior to the break, her body becomes launched into a frenzied state of escape. Five. Why did she agree to try for five? Isla whimpers, her thighs trembling in desperation. And, as if to allay her worries (or perhaps to spur them further), Harry just delivers another strike. And then again, and again, and again, and again.
“Sir,” the submissive whines, a plea (for more? for less?), tears gathering over her waterline like rain in a gutter.
“Say it with me now, go on, darling, I will not,” the volume of his cadence climbs up the stairwell as he smacks her and digs the pads of pleather-clad digits into her skin. Her brows pinch when his mean affections don’t abate, when she aches everywhere to please him, and she sobs.
“I will— will not,” Isla hiccups, sniffles, sobs, pleads for more of his aggressive attention. More, more, more, please.
“Cum without permission,” Eros waits for her to parrot the dialogue before he toggles the setting on the vibrator pressed within her to a higher setting and her sentence cuts off into a high, loud moan. Perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of pain, and probably a solid concoction of both.
He talks over her nonetheless, “I will not cum without permission,” he says it until she’s up to par and mimics, in unison, “I will not cum without permission.”
“What—“ Isla keens as the dominant smacks her again, and her arms strain in the restraints, shackled to the slim pole between her ankles, “—will you not do?”
“I will not cum without permission!” the young woman responds, her cadence breaking into a sob as the toy buzzes incessantly, nuzzled to her overstimulated clit.
“You will not,” Eros agrees and assures her, tone unwavering despite her sobs, “and I will make sure you remember this lesson very, very well.”
By the time she really starts approaching the fifth crest, Harry’s faltered on the follow through of the blows, just sort of admiring the marks, in lieu, like a rabid animal. He’s nearly foaming at the mouth. The dominant traces the pad of his forefinger over a curve, entranced, and nearly misses her shrill plea entirely.
“I’m—“
“Cum,” he demands, pupils roving over her hips, over her sticky thighs, between her legs where she clenches emptily, helplessly, drinking in her cry like an audible variation of nectar.
The burst of pleasure is as short-lived as Isla can imagine, like the most anti-climatic climax of all time. It tears through her, severing her seams, and dwindles almost immediately for a dull ache to settle in its place. Except, this one isn't dull at all. It’s sharp, and it sends her nerve endings into pure angst. She freezes up, her muscles quivering, tensed like the string of a bow just waiting to snap, and she can’t even make out discernable request for him to turn the wand off. All that slips from her is a string of incoherent, muffled sounds, and then the rumbling ceases. Isla pants, her heartbeat so frantic she can feel it in the tip of her tongue. It pulses through her neck, through her appendages, tingling in their cuffs. It slinks through her stomach, through her fingers, it rattles her ribcage as the organ pumps rapidly.
She doesn’t realize the cuffs are gone until she feels herself being manhandled, onto her side, and then onto her back. The dominant slips off the bed, standing at the foot, and wraps his arms around the backs of her thighs as he yanks her toward him. And Isla just splays like a ragdoll. She watches him watch her, her legs flopping and her soles planting against the mattress, knees bent. The submissive tells him, then, cadence soft and dry as if she hasn’t drunk in days, “Please.”
Her chest rises and falls, almost in tune with the slow clink of his belt buckle as he opens it, nimbly, with one gloved palm as the opposite strokes over her knee. His eyes glint like green embers — hungry with want like fire kindling in a forest. Contained in a campfire, for now, just yearning to swallow the branches and brush in flame. Her own pupils shift to his belt buckle. He draws the belt out.
“Please.”
Finally, some give in his otherwise hardened features — his mouth quirks as he tips his chin towards his trousers, utilizing both hands to pop the button and tug down the zipper.
“Please? What, you wanna bounce on my cock, a bit? Gave you five orgasms, and you’re still desperate for it, like a slut.”
Her inhale is tremble-y as she watches him cull a condom, tucked away in its wrapper — red, this time, unlike his usual. His mouth purses as he flips it, rotating between his fingertips.
“Funny,” Harry shoots a glance her way, “This one’s cherry.”
Want a taste, she nearly expects him to jest, memorable remnants of their first one-on-one scene floating to the forefront of her mind. He doesn’t. He goes quiet, and looks awfully concentrated. Isla exhales at the sight of him untucking his cock from its confines, at the view of him tearing the wrapper open with his teeth, and the image of him rolling the condom down his shaft. He takes his hands away, and his cock bobs. The young woman’s chest rolls as he lines himself up with her core, and she jerks when he swipes the head from where she gushes and leaks to where she’s swollen and sensitive. Jade flickers up to face her.
“Gonna be a good girl and follow the rules from now on?” he croons, his voice a bit strained given that he’s been aching for fuck her for the entirety of the session.
The submissive nods, weakly. More than anything, it’s a mindless jerk of her chin. She tenses when he nudges into her. And the stretch is — it’s euphoric. She feels like pure euphoria to him, her spongy walls squeezing over his tip as if they’re two puzzle pieces destined to slot together. A perfect fit. A tight one. His teeth clench, and he hisses and he slides further, unable to curb his groan halfway to the hilt.
“Fuck.”
Isla spasms over him, over the perfect drag, over the perfect stretch. He buries in, sheathing his cock in its entirety until she hugs every last inch, and his fingers fondle over her thigh as he lifts her legs to plant her calves against his shoulders.
“Please,” Isla says again, her hips shifting like she’s eager for him to move.
His mouth twitches. He huffs, reining the instinct to hammer into her as his stomach swirls with want and his mind swims with defiling filth. “Look at you. Desperate to cum. Desperate for attention — for anyone’s attention,” he tacks on pointedly, a dig made as her little rendezvous back at the bar, and Isla’s irises nearly roll back into her head as he withdraws, just a smidge, and pumps forward harshly. Harry grunts. “Just a desperate, little thing. Aren’t you?”
All Isla can manage, as his hips work into a steady pace, is a wordless part of her lips.
“Answer me,” the dominant demands, tone hard.
“No,” the submissive manages out, eventually, and his hips stutter. She whines, bracing her calves against his shoulders to grind wantonly. Case and point.
A wryly amused crease works over his brow bone, behind latex, and his pace becomes stifled to nothing, “No?”
Isla whines, frantically, rolling her hips and squeezing over his length, until he scoffs, throws her legs off of him unceremoniously, and leans down in the newfound space to press her cheeks between his digits harshly.
“No? What the fuck are you doing right now? Grinding on me, like a desperate whore.”
Her breaths are shallow, and she expels, again, a denial. His takes his hand away, just a smidge, and then pats, once, over the fleshy part of her cheek with his open palm splaying — it’s borderline harsh enough to be considered a slap. Isla groans, and the dominant feels the aftermath manifest as a frantic spasm over his cock.
“No?” he repeats, voice low and soft.
“No,” Isla tells him, for the third time. So, he lifts his hand back and does it again, this time a little firmer. Her hips cant as she muzzles a soft sound with her lips, glued together.
“Don’t want anyone’s attention,” the young woman tells him from below, then, her inflection borderline frenzied, “just want yours.”
Slowly, the plush strawberry of his mouth quirks and curls up. His ego swells, and the man pulls his hips back, just a smidge, and pummels forward — a reward, for her, and she’s aware. “S’that right?”
“Yes, Sir,” Isla cranes her neck back against the comforter when he pushes off of her, picks her legs back up, and melts back into a sure, satisfying tempo, his hips pumping relentlessly. It’s the best. He’s the best.
The dominant takes her ankles in one palm — how the fuck does he do that, Isla thinks, his hand is so large, and strong, and—
“Fuck, baby, f’you could just see the way we fit together — s’like a fucking match made in heaven,” he throws his head back with a groan post taking in the view of her cunt swallowing him up, coated in cherry-flavored, red latex. His shoulders roll as a shudder wracks down the knobs of his spine, and he separates her ankles off with his hands, setting them into a spread, against the bed, gently. He pushes her knees back until the front of her thighs nearly brush over the sheets, and braces himself with his palms on either side of her head as he works into a hammer.
“He fuck you like—“ Harry grunts as his hips swivel, and Isla watches, entranced, the plush of his lips part on shallow breaths, his grin wicked and twitchy in response to her little sounds, “this? Give you what you want? What you need?”
She doesn’t have to inquire to know that he’s talking about Faunus — still on about Faunus.
“No,” Isla tells him, soft and breathy, And he rewards her, again, by pumping forward, harder, faster, deeper, and groaning, soft huffs suffusing his speech.
“No? Doesn’t stretch this snug little cunt out the way you need? Who does?”
“You — just you,” she keens as the entire mattress rocks beneath her.
“Just me?” his tongue sticks to the tips of his front teeth as he pummels forward and punches a little gasp out of her, “Who does this sweet, little cunt belong to?”
“You — Sir!”
“That’s right. S’my cunt. Mine to fuck, mine to tease, mine to kiss,” his gaze flickers down between them, where they connect, and the sight alone nearly has his balls draining. His hand ventures, and fingertips rub over the bundle of nerve endings in a way that has her tensing and crying out.
“My clit. Isn’t it?” He switches to a thumb, swiping over it, and his jaw falls open as he watches her pulse over his shaft while her head thrashes above, her teeth clenched and grinding in a pained frenzy. She’s quite pretty, overstimulated, too.
“And that means,” the left corner of his mouth buckles up, his speech glazed with condescension, “I can do whatever I want to it, right?”
As soon as his touch abates, Isla can no longer restrain herself. She digs the pads of her fingers onto his placket, into the empty spaces between the buttons of his shirt and the slits where they’re looped, clenching a fist as she raises herself and tugs him down. And before the dominant has the opportunity to scold her for treating his dress shirt with such an unshackled lack of care, she meshes their mouths together. Harry’s arms nearly buckle.
It’s filthy — but not at first. At first, he doesn’t return it, appalled by the gesture. Because it’s a limit, according to her, it’s her limit, because it’s too personal, and she’s just broken it herself. Because she just couldn’t hold back anymore, and in the fervor with which she kisses him, that shit is pretty evident. But then, he does return it. His lips move, and he moans against her strawberry mouth, and then her lips part, and from there it’s just …lewd. They’re sort of in the middle of active intercourse, Isla thinks, so a kiss shouldn’t make her feel so dirty — but it does. It’s not a dainty first kiss of first loves and soft touches and curious experimentation. It’s thrilling, and dirty, and his tongue slips into her mouth after she brushes her own against his bottom lip, and one of her hands tangles into his dress shirt while the opposite presses against his shoulder as if aiming to work out a fucking knot with the pressure. She whimpers against him, wetly, and in turn he groans and nips at her bottom lip with his teeth, his cock pulsing inside of her. And then it’s all teeth, and tongues, and want, want, want, as his hips hammer against her. It’s wanton moans, and whimpers, and rugged groans. It’s everything she’s been yearning for, and more.
“Open your mouth, open your mouth,” Harry urges, pulling off a bit and slinking a hand over her cheek, “Tongue out.”
She complies, and then a rivulet of spit dribbles from his mouth against her twitching tongue, and that’s just—
“Fuck,” Harry groans, his hips rolling against her, “You’re fucking filthy. Swallow it.”
So she does, her throat bobs below his palm, which slinks to cradle over her windpipe — not squeezing, just …there. She moans, soft and melty and desperate as his hips roll into her. And then Harry exhales, takes his hand off of her throat, and plants his palms on either side of her head to raise himself, hovering over her. He sighs like the experience is too pornographic to even comment upon. It sort of is.
“Dirty fucking girl,” the dominant settles on, eventually. And then he plows her like fucking farmland.
Her palms roam, frantically, over the fabric covering his back, the craving to leave marks of her own with short nails swelling through her mind, as he pumps forward, until it’s the only thought fathomable. It’s that — and the sick urge to spit into his own strawberry mouth, to have him leant back against the sheets, bare beneath her as she works and bounces over his cock.
Christ.
She’s warm, and wet, and heaven, and Harry imagines that his own personal Nirvana, then, would involve nothing but her cunt squeezing over his cock for the rest of eternity, her skin sticky with sweat beneath him, and her muscles quivering as he imbibes and basks. She is, in the moment, everything he wants and everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he ever will want, maybe. Because sex with Isla was — well. It was something else. Something rapturous, something sick and twisted, something he imagines he could never grow tired of. Ever.
His muscles do, though. Eventually. He feels the ache start in his hamstrings, in his shoulders, in his neck from its crane to gaze down upon her, because he just can’t tear his irises away — it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the view of a lifetime, afterall, Harry thinks. And along with the ache of his muscles comes the familiar chip in his resolve — cracks surfacing as he begins to become rended apart. He feels that in his stomach, first and foremost, in the trench of his tummy as his muscles tense — then, on the underside of his balls, a pleasured warmth that radiates as he pulses, and finally it seeps through his shaft. She squeezes over him, like she knows, and he almost loses it, then and there. He drives into her frantically, groaning animalistically as his body chases release almost on its own accord.
“Shit — always milk my cock so good, baby. Gonna— FUCK—“
Isla moans, soft beneath him, when she feels the warmth of his release, confined by the stupid cherry-flavored condom. When she feels his cock pulsing in her, when she feels his tempo slow, when he gives her a few last, weak strokes. When his head dips and he blows out a long breath, grunting as he pulls back and slips out, when she feels nothing but emptiness.
“Sir,” she starts, soft, soft, soft, and the rough exterior, the paramountcy-hungered, hard shell of his demeanor splinters and falls apart.
“So sweet for me,” Harry says, voice coated in candy, tucking strands back from her sweaty hairline, “Aren’t you? Always so eager to be good for me.”
Isla whimpers. Harry coos, shushing her with soft croons for a moment, until he pulls back and starts untucking himself from the condom and clearing up a bit.
“Always make me happy, always such a good girl. Take everything I give you and more, so well,” the man tells her, his pupils bouncing from his cock to her face as he cautiously rolls the condom off, “Hold on just a minute, baby, and we’ll have a cuddle, alright?”
He stows the condom away in its wrapper after he’s tucked himself away, and he contemplates making the short walk to the trashcan by the electric water thing against the wall. Ultimately, the dominant decides against it when she whines, needy for him and in need. Instead, he sets it off to the side, on the nightstand, as he turns back to her, lips twitching up into a little grin.
“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he starts, kneeing his way back onto the bed to sit beside her and hover, his hand stroking over her cheek, the side of her head, over her ear, down the side of her neck, “Gave me five today. Made me so proud.”
Isla just nods against his gloved palm, her sigh dreamy. Did she? Five, really? What an exciting and, frankly, impressive number. It’s all sort of a bliss of euphoria. She feels it, the headspace, the kind where she’s buzzing and floaty and her mind drifts and bobs about the walls aimlessly. The kind where all she can fathom is that she wants to be close to him. And it really hits her when Eros coaxes, “Can you sit up for me, pet?”
Absolutely not.
She shakes her head at him, wordlessly, and his mouth quirks with an endeared scoff, and the young woman nearly whines until he slips onto his side beside her to cradle her close. For a minute, he just lays near her, his chest to her side as he pets and caresses over her waist, and eventually he rolls to his own back and beckons, “Come here, baby,” holding her close as she shifts her head onto the space just over his butterfly.
Harry stares at the ceiling. All is well.
All is well, and it happens nearly out of the blue, brought about from a murky horizon, unforeseen. Because in their nights together, Isla cries — she always cries, and sometimes, when Harry cradles her close, he coddles her out of soft sobs that wrack her body post an intense scene. But those are traces. Remnants. They’re aftermath. The unanticipated is a fresh wave.
And Isla feels it coming on. She feels it settling in her chest, first, bursts and blooms of sadness, like the kind where you feel nostalgic, missing something. Then, her eyes. They already feel puffy and swollen, but they start to burn in the back. Her throat feels tight. And that sadness creeps deeper and settles.
Because she sort of feels she’s living through the nostalgia, then and there, in the moment. Like she’ll never relive it again.
Isla lays her head over his heartbeat and starts to cry.
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