“I have a… a fantasy.” Simon wiggled his hips, the motion rocking Harlow’s. Driven delirious with pleasure, Harlow pumped into Simon several times, increasingly breathless. “I m-mean… I had a fantasy—before I met you—that you would… would throw me on the bed andfuckme. Own me. Take control. And… and while you were doing it,” Simon put increasing pressure on Harlow’s hand, “you’d choke me, so I would know that I was yours completely—that everything, from the pleasure I felt to the very air I breathed, was your decision. Your gift.”
Ohfuck.
“So I want you to… to choke me, while you come inside me,” Simon uttered. “I wanna feel that rush and know that I’m totally at your mercy. Knot me, choke me,destroyme.”
Need crashed through Harlow, greedy and demanding. He’d been trained to incapacitate a man—to use his hands for harm. Now Simon called on him to use his skills for something far more intimate. But there were dangers in putting pressure on the trachea, even if that pressure was distributed equally across the neck. There was no safe way to choke someone, even under the pretext of pleasure. With the size difference between them so great, and Simon’s mind addled from want, Harlow didn’t trust himself to do what Simon asked.
But there was another way.
“What about something else?” Harlow asked.
He pumped slowly in and out of Simon as Simon wiggled his hips and begged for more. Intrigue flashed in Simon’s eyes, and he tilted his head to the side as if to invite Harlow to try whatever it was right away. The long line of his neck was fragile, vulnerable, and trusting. Simon gave him everything and relied on him to keep him safe, even when engaged in dangerous games. The power was incredible. Humbling.
“You’ll breathe for me, little boy.” Harlow spoke in a low and even cadence that carried well, even when it was whispered. “You’ll breathe, but you’ll start to pass out all the same. Do you want to feel the head rush? The echoing throb of your own heart in your head as everything goes fuzzy and your world shuts down?”
“Please,” Simon begged. The plea was saturated in need, incredibly certain of itself.
Simon would do anything to please him, wouldn’t he? So reserved in person, and yet unchained and greedy in bed. Harlow was wrapped around his little finger already, sucked in by those wide, beautiful eyes, but hooked by the contradictions that made Simon who he was—the same contradictions that brought his other hand to Simon’s neck and his thumbs to each of his carotid arteries. Harlow knew them by touch, a boon of the medical training he’d undergone.
Shielding either side of the windpipe, feeding blood to the brain, pressure to the left and right common carotid artery would knock a man out and eventually cause death should the passage of blood be completely restricted. Harlow wouldn’t take it that far. Instead, careful not to put pressure on the vulnerable area at the center of Simon’s neck, he put light pressure while he continued to thrust. Simon would continue to breathe, but it would do him little use. With oxygen flow to his brain restricted, his body would start to shut down in all the same ways it would if Harlow’s hands were wrapped around his throat. Adrenaline would spike, his consciousness would narrow, and the beat of his pulse would thrum in his head, drowning out all other noise. Sensation would dull in most areas except for where blood flow was greatest—his neck and his genitals. He’d remain aware of what was happening to him—his helplessness, his arousal, and his plummet toward unconsciousness—until Harlow let him go and allowed him to breathe.
Medically, Harlow knew all this.
Emotionally, he hadn’t been prepared in the slightest for what asphyxiating Simon during sex would do to him.
As Simon bit back a cry of total ecstasy and pushed himself harder against Harlow’s thumbs, begging for more, Harlow realized his gift. What Simon gave him wasn’t simply power—it was an offering that few other people would dare to give. It was a demonstration of trust, of consent, and of total love. It told Harlow that, no matter what, Simon believed that he would keep him safe and do the right thing.
So Harlow did what was right—he refused Simon what he wanted and eased the pressure on Simon’s neck the more Simon leaned into him.
“Greedy little boy,” Harlow murmured. “You’re playing by my rules now, remember? That’s what you agreed to. I’m not going to let you black out—I want you to feel every thrust I make so you remember me when I’m gone.”
As he spoke, Harlow pumped into Simon in slow, deliberate ways meant to drive him crazy. Simon’s body, already hotter than it had been just a few moments ago, clenched around his shaft and begged for his knot. Harlow wouldn’t give it yet. Not now. He wanted to remember, too. The softness of Simon’s skin, the narrowness of his body, the gleam of his eyes in the darkness of the room… one day, when Harlow was alone, these were the memories he’d cling to. He wouldn’t let them end so soon.
“I want you to remember the way I stretched you.” Harlow increased the pressure for a measured second, then let it go completely. Simon gasped and lifted his head, apparently affronted by Harlow’s consideration for his health. God, was he cute when he was angry—Harlow didn’t think he could stay mad with a face like his for long. “I want you to remember how you begged for my knot—how you craved my cum.”
A press of his thumbs was all it took to melt Simon into pliancy. With a moan, Simon wilted against the pillows and bucked his hips in time to Harlow’s thrusts, allowing him full penetration.
“Want you to always remember that I’m here for you.” Harlow had never been mouthy during sex, but now, the words came to him as if they were sent from the divine. Seeing this side of Simon, learning what he wanted and needed, connected them in ways Harlow hadn’t believed possible. His love for Emerson had been strong and true, but the love he felt for Simon rivaled it in ways Harlow couldn’t yet compartmentalize. “Remember that I willalwaysgive you what you need.”
Simon choked back a moan and shivered, then came. As he shot, his body tightened, squeezing around Harlow’s cock. With a low moan, Harlow gave in to instinct and pushed as far in as he could go.
Release.
Sweet, indulgent release.
Cum surged from Harlow’s balls as they clenched. As he shot, his knot inflated. It stretched Simon’s too-tight body and increased the pleasure Harlow felt by tenfold, bringing him to thrust in short, sporadic bursts that only served to push his seed deeper. He continued on like that for a while, monitoring Simon’s health as Simon jerked and thrashed beneath him, until, at last, fully swollen, Harlow eased his thumbs away from Simon’s neck and settled on top of him.
With a shuddering sob, Simon locked his arms around Harlow. He nuzzled close, ever careful of his nose.
“I love you,” Simon whispered through his tears. “I wish you didn’t have to go. I wish I could go with you.”
Harlow closed his eyes. His heart raced in a bid to catch up with his mind—it was far ahead, thinking of the years to come when Simon would at last be his, and all the stolen days they’d have in between. “I love you, too, and I wish you could come more than I could ever hope to say… but the distance won’t last forever. We’ll get this figured out. I won’t leave you. We’re a team now, Simon. You, and me, and Evie, and Shep, and Jayne. All of us. I swear, I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you until my bones are old and brittle, and my spirit’s lost the fight.”
“And when that happens, we’ll take care of you.” Simon ran his hands through Harlow’s hair. “Until life and death divide us, until there’s nothing more we can do. I’ll be there for you, Harlow.We’llbe there. I promise.”
