I should have said yes, stop, leave me alone to sort through the wreckage of my mind. Instead, I heard myself whisper, "I hate you."
"I know." He leaned closer, breath warm against my ear. "And yet your body tells a different story. The training didn't just disappear, Bunny. Every response I built is still there, waiting. All those careful associations between pleasure and surrender."
His fingers found the hem of my shirt—when had I been changed into pajamas?—and slipped beneath. Just fingertips on skin, but my nervous system lit up like celebration fires.
"Your skin remembers." Observational tone, like noting results in an experiment. But his breathing had changed too, gotten rougher. "Temperature rising. Muscles tensing then relaxing in waves. Classic arousal pattern, but specifically calibrated. No one else could map your responses like this."
"Nathan—"
"Never touched you like this." His hand spread flat against my stomach, possessive and familiar. "He touched you carefully. Respectfully. Like you were fragile. Because that's what his profile said you'd respond to. But you're not fragile, are you? You're titanium wrapped in silk. My perfect creation who he tried to reshape into something softer and more violent in one."
I was losing the fight against my own nervous system. Every point of contact sent signals straight to conditioning, muscle memory overriding higher thought. Gabriel had spent years teaching my body this specific language, and it was fluent despite my mind's protests.
"I can feel you fighting." His lips brushed my ear, not quite a kiss. "That resistance is beautiful. But we both know how this ends. Your body was made for surrender—but only to me."
"Please." I didn't know what I was begging for anymore. Stop. Don't stop. Make it make sense. Make me stop feeling.
"Please what?" His hand moved higher, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through thin cotton. My back arched without permission, seeking pressure that didn't come. "Use your words, sweetheart. Tell me what you need."
"I need—" To understand. To know what was real. To stop wanting someone who'd broken me so thoroughly. "I need you to stop confusing me."
"The confusion isn't my doing." But he did pause, hand stilling against my ribs. "That's all chemical interference and implanted narratives. Would you like me to prove it?"
I knew I should say no. Every rational part of my brain screamed warnings. But rationality had never been my strong suit where Gabriel was concerned.
"How?"
"By showing you the difference between what's real and what's manufactured." He shifted, moving to straddle my thighs, weight careful but present. Inescapable. "Nathan activated surface responses. I built the architecture underneath."
His hands framed my face, holding without forcing. But I couldn't look away from those winter eyes, couldn't escape the intensity of his focus.
"When he kissed you, did it feel like this?"
His mouth found mine, and everything went white-hot. Not gentle, not careful, not asking permission. Taking what had always been his, tongue claiming with the same precision he'd used to map every other response. I made a sound—protest or plea—and he swallowed it, hands tightening just enough to hold me still.
When he pulled back, I was shaking.
"Did he?"
"No." Truth pulled from somewhere deeper than thought. Nathan's kisses had been careful, sweet, designed to make me feel safe. This was drowning. This was coming home. This was every synapse firing in recognition of its creator.
"Because he was following a playbook." Gabriel's thumb traced my lower lip, gathering moisture. "Page fifty-seven: establish trust through consistent gentle contact. Page sixty-two:allow asset to believe they're controlling pace. Classic retrieval protocol."
"You're lying."
"Your body knows I'm not." He rocked slightly, just enough pressure to make heat pool low in my belly. "Every response tells the truth your mind won't accept. Watch."
His hands moved with clinical precision, touching points that made me gasp, arch, reach for him before catching myself. But catching myself came too late, always too late, body responding before consciousness could intervene.
"Here." Fingers pressed against pulse point. "Acceleration within normal range. Nathan probably found this spot too, used it to monitor your responses while seeming affectionate."
"Stop analyzing—"
"Here." Thumb brushing the spot where neck met shoulder that always made me melt. "Involuntary muscle relaxation. Took me weeks to condition that response. He just had to read your file."
Each touch was catalog and claim, showing how thoroughly he'd mapped me while explaining how others had used his work. I hated him for the knowledge. Hated myself more for responding.
"And here." His palm pressed flat against my lower stomach, just above the waistband of borrowed pajamas. "Core temperature spike. Anticipatory response. Your body preparing for what it knows comes next."
