Page 86 of What We Don't Say: Part One

My hands find his shoulders, his ribs, the hot line of his spine. He drags me away from the wall only to put me down on the mat with his weight over me and his hand at my throat, steady enough to hold and careful enough to let me breathe.

“Again,” he says, breath rough against my mouth. “Color.”

“Green.” I grip his wrist, not to move it, only to feel the strength there. “Idris, please.”

His face changes at that. The anger stays, but it goes focused and intimate, his control closing around both of us until the noise in my head finally starts to narrow.

I shove once against the weight holding me down. Idris doesn’t shift, and the steadiness of him gives the rage somewhere honest to land.

Idris keeps me pinned to the mat with his full weight, one hand still at my throat, the other braced beside my head. His knee stays firm between my thighs, holding me open and still. I surge up against him once, testing the hold, and he answers by pressing harder, forcing the air from my lungs in a short, sharp exhale that leaves my vision edged in white.

“Color,” he says again, voice low and absolute.

“Green.” The word comes out gritted between my teeth. My body is still full of the kitchen—Garrett’s calm voice cutting everything into manageable pieces, Callie’s sudden stillness, the way Theo flinched when I growled—and the rut wants to turn all of it into motion, into force, into something I can break against a wall. Idris feels every bit of it. He always does.

“Ask,” he says.

I hate that he makes me do it. I hate that it works. “Fuck me.”

Idris’ eyes darken. He shifts just enough to shove my sleep pants down my hips with one hand, never fully releasing the pressure at my throat. I kick them the rest of the way off, the fabric catching around one ankle until he reaches down and yanks it free. He does the same with his own, shoving them down just far enough, and then the heat of him is against me—hard, already slick at the tip, pressing against the cleft of my ass with deliberate weight.

I try to push back onto him too fast, chasing the burn, the force, anything that will quiet the noise. He stops me with a hand on my hip, fingers digging in hard enough that I know I’ll feel the bruises tomorrow.

“No.” His voice is low and absolute. “You wait.”

“Idris—”

“Color.”

“Green, goddamn it—”

He works two fingers into me first, rough and efficient, no slick beyond what little he gathers, stretching me open with the kind of focus that leaves no room for argument. The burn is immediate and perfect. I groan into it, hips jerking, but he holds me down with the forearm across my chest and keeps the pace deliberate, scissoring his fingers deeper until the resistance eases and the stretch turns into something my body starts to want. He adds a third finger without asking, watching my facethe entire time, and the pressure makes my cock jump hard against my stomach.

“Breathe,” he orders.

I drag in a ragged breath. He curls his fingers and finds the place that makes my thighs shake, working it with short, ruthless strokes until I’m pushing back onto his hand despite myself. Only then does he withdraw, leaving me empty and aching.

He lines himself up. The blunt head of his cock presses against me, and for a second he just holds there, making me feel the threat of it.

“Ask again.”

“Fuck me,” I snarl. “Idris—please—”

The first thrust drives the air out of me completely. Idris buries himself in one long, relentless push until his hips are flush against me, and the stretch is so deep it borders on too much. I claw at his shoulders, at the mat, anywhere I can reach. He doesn’t give me time to adjust. He pulls back almost all the way and slams forward again, setting a hard, punishing rhythm that forces every thought out of my head except the solid weight of him and the way my body has no choice but to take it.

The wet sound of skin on skin fills the gym. The mat shifts under us with every thrust. Sweat is already running down my temple. I try to meet him, to turn the force into something I control, to fuck myself back onto him and reclaim some of the power, but he pins my wrists above my head with one hand and keeps me exactly where he wants me.

“You don’t get to rush this,” he says, voice tight with his own restraint. “You stay here. You feel it. Color.”

“Green—” The word breaks on a moan as he changes the angle and drives against the place that makes my vision white out. “Fuck—Idris—”

He doesn’t let up. Every time the rage starts to climb again—every time Garrett’s reasonable voice or Callie’s quiet or Theo’swide eyes flicker through me—Idris answers with another deep thrust, another command, another demand that I stay inside my own body instead of the kitchen. His free hand slides under my hip and lifts me slightly, changing the angle so every stroke drags harder against that spot inside me. My cock is trapped between my stomach and the mat, dragging with every movement, the friction sharp enough to hurt in the best way.

“Breathe,” he orders again.

I try. The breath comes out broken. He fucks me through it, the pace almost brutal now, the kind of force that leaves bruises and silences everything else. When I start to spiral toward release too fast he slows deliberately, holding himself deep and still until the edge recedes, making me feel every pulse of him inside me.

“Not yet,” he says. “You don’t get to finish until you stop trying to turn this into a strategy.”