I started it. Then I left before the sun came up—dead drop at 0500, couldn’t wait. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Because staying means being someone I haven’t learned how to be without a cover story.
Langley’s quiet on Sundays. Which means I have no excuse.
I dump my bag in the apartment and head straight to the gym.
Not the Agency rec center. Too many eyes, too many people who pretend not to notice. I have a membership at a hole-in-the-wall place three miles off base that’s half MMA fighters, half ex-Marines, no music, no mirrors. Just sweat and steel.
I run five miles. Pull a sled across the floor until my quads burn. Punch a heavy bag until I feel it in my teeth.
My knuckles split open sometime during the last round. I tape them up and keep going.
The burn is good. It means I still exist. It means there’s still a shape to me under all the people I’ve had to be.
I don’t need to feel strong. I need to feel used up.
Back at the apartment, I shower until the mirror fogs and the tile burns my feet. Scrub until the sting in my knuckles wakes me up again. Retape my right hand... knuckles split open from poor form, poor focus, poor everything.
I dry off. Step over the gear I haven’t unpacked. Drop onto the bed—sheets shoved down, mattress half-bare.
Doesn’t matter. I don’t plan on sleeping.
But I close my eyes anyway.
And there they are.
Nina on her knees in front of me, naked, flushed, watching every twitch of my body like she already knew how this was going to end.
Wyatt behind me—quiet, steady, hands on my hips, his breath warm against my neck. One hand gripped mine. The other moved slow down my spine, grounding me right before he pushed inside.
My body jolts at the memory, cock hard again before I even touch myself.
I curse. Let my left hand drift. The other’s too raw to use, knuckles taped, fingers stiff.
But the fantasy’s already happening.
Scratch that—the memory.
Nina was the one who told me to ask for what I wanted. She said it like a dare, and I said I want it all, like I didn’t care what it cost.
Wyatt moved like he was afraid I’d change my mind. Too slow at first. Too careful. Until I said please and pushed back against him and the sound she made?—
That’s it, she whispered. Take him. Let me see you take him.
She was touching herself, two fingers between her thighs, the other hand clutching her breast. She never looked away.
I’d never felt so fucking seen. Or wanted. Or desperate to be worthy of it.
Wyatt’s rhythm changed. Deeper. Harder. My knees slipping on the sheets, my arms giving out. I collapsed down onto my elbows and Nina came closer, dragging herself forward, mouth parted, thighs slick.
I buried my face between them without thinking, licked her open like it might save me.
And Wyatt was still fucking me, still holding me down with one hand at the base of my spine while I drowned in her flavor.
I came before she did. It hit like a gut punch, everything too much, her thighs trembling, his body locked to mine, the smell of sex and sweat and something I’d never had the right to ask for before that night.
I groan in the dark, left hand tight around myself, stroking harder now, chasing that exact second when I stopped pretending I was anything other than theirs.
When I come, it’s brutal. Sudden. Shattering.
