Milo—my shy, adorably unsureMilo—somehow had the courage to do what Sebastian and I never could. He didn’t cower and blindly obey Luke the way we always had. He took each of Luke’s thinly veiled attempts at control and broke them open to expose the vile, rotten mass of repression hidden within.
It’s not that Milo wasn’tafraid.
It was that he was afraid but chose to fight back anyway.
That’s what made him so fucking beautiful to me.
He was saving me.
He was saving me, and he didn’t have any fucking idea.
I wanted to be like him.
I wanted to make him proud.
I wanted toprotect himso that he wouldn’t have to be brave like this for me ever again.
It wasmyturn to be brave, and I made a promise to myself right there, with Milo’s soft lips pressed against mine, that I wouldn’t stop until Milo, Seb, and I were free of Luke forever.
Milo’s fingers slid up the back of my neck and curled into my hair. He tugged at the roots, and I hissed into his mouth as I buried my own fingers into his hips so hard I knew he would bruise.
“Fuck,”I rasped, plunging my tongue into his hot, sweet mouth. My entire body reacted viscerally to the tiny sound of pleasure he made as I licked and sucked at his tongue.
“Milo, Milo, Milo…”I hummed, finding myself smiling against his mouth in between tiny, affectionate bites to his lips. “So, so brave…”
He chuckled softly, his cheeks warming as I ran the tip of my nose across his gorgeous face so I could nuzzle into that sensitive spot right beneath his ear.
“Not brave, just desperate to be able to touch you again…” He breathed, just as I nipped that spot, causing him to gasp and arch back against the chair.
“Sweetheart, if you ever try to tell me you’re not brave again, I will paddle your ass raw.” I left kisses down his throat to the collar of the shirtI’d picked out for him this morning, revelling in the way he squirmed beneath my touch.
“Promises, promises,” Milo chirped, and I jerked back away from him, shocked by the snarky joke he’d just made.
He was grinning at me with one of his rare, mischievous little smirks that made him look like a wickedly impish version of Cupid.
I reached out and brushed my thumb over his warm cheek, grinning down at him with a look that I hoped clearly showed him how much he meant to me.
“If you’re looking to get punished, you’re out of luck, baby. I’m so fucking proud of you. All I want to do is worship you right now.”
Mirroring me, Milo reached forward to cup my face, but the still bleeding cut on his arm brushed my t-shirt, and he hissed in pain, which immediately caused my cock to soften.
I snatched up his wrist as I rolled off of him, getting to my feet next to the surgical chair and investigating his wound.
“Though, maybe the worship will need to wait. I need to stitch this up, and we need to get Sebastian in here before the presentation.” I glanced up to meet Milo’s eyes, and he was already nodding in agreement.
“Yes. Do you think we have time… to… to free him?”
“If we hurry, yes.”
I laid Milo’s arm back in the stirrup, though I didn’t belt him down this time. Heading over to the lab’s sink, I got to work washing my hands again so I could stitch Milo back up without risking infection.
“NOVA, can you message Seb on our encrypted chat and ask him to swing by The Cave as soon as he can? Let him know we found a way to remove Milo’s chip,” I ordered, feeling like I couldn’t wait another second to tell Sebastian what we’d accomplished here.
As rocky as our friendship had been since Milo had entered the picture, Seb was still like an older brother to me.
He and I had grown up together, and we’d always looked out for each other. Honestly, he usually looked out for me more than anything.
When I first showed him my dad’s pond as kids, it had been his idea to use nets to make catching the frogs easier.
