That’s all it takes.
His breath hitches. His knees bend just slightly, like his body’s already collapsing for me without permission.
The bell dings. Doors slide open. I walk out.
He follows.
My key turns in the lock, the door clicks open, and the apartment swallows us in quiet. Warm light, leather, steel. Jackets hanging heavy by the door. The air smells like home.
I don’t stop moving until we’re inside.
Then I shut the door behind him.
He looks up at me. His chest heaves once, twice—and then he starts to backpedal.
“Captain… Sir…” He takes one step back.
But the little brat’s smiling.
It’s not defiance. Not really. It’s nervous, twitchy, reckless—like he can’t stop himself from playing with fire even when he knows it’s going to burn.
“Please…” he says, lips curling higher, trying to sweeten it like it’ll save him.
I step forward. Slow. Deliberate.
“Please what, pup?”
He swallows hard, grin flickering, then steadies it anyway, voice pitching up into the whine he knows drives me insane. “Have mercy.”
My chest rumbles, low, steady, dangerous.
“No.”
The word is final.
His smile fractures into a nervous grin, full teeth now, sharp and twitchy, like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or run. His hands shake at his sides, his breath stutters, and his whole body trembles in that way it always does when he’s seconds away from coming apart.
He loves this.
Every second of it.
The cornered heat, the pressure of my body closing in, the weight of the wordnolanding like a blade. He thrives on it. He feeds on it. And he knows—he knows—I wouldn’t give him a single drop of it if I didn’t know exactly how much he craves it.
How much he belongs to it.
To me.
“Knees,” I say. Calm.
The word cracks across the air like a blade.
“Yes, sir,” Elias breathes—no hesitation, no fight. His grin falters into something rawer, hungrier, and then he drops.
Right there.
On the hardwood of my entryway.
His knees hit with a soft thud, his palms pressed flat to his thighs. His eyes flick up once—bright, desperate, buzzing—before he lowers them again, obedient, steady in the only way he ever is when it’s me holding the leash.
