Page 55

“That’s it. Break for me.”

His words hit harder than his touch. He narrated my ruin, stripping me away until only the needy animal remained.

“Finish it.”

My hand became a blur. I arched my back, heels digging into the floor as the tension snapped. I came with a guttural shout, spilling over my stomach, over my hand, staining the pristine white of the dress shirt on the floor.

It went on and on, a violent purging release that scraped the panic out of my veins. Leander watched every second, his eyes dark with satisfaction, drinking in the sight of me coming undone at his feet.

The aftershocks kept arriving after the wave had passed, smaller each time, my thighs jumping, my breath tearing out of me in ragged pulls, and through all of it I could feel his grip on my wrist, one fixed point holding a liquefied body in position. He did not let go until the shaking dropped below some threshold only he seemed calibrated to read.

I collapsed forward, catching myself on my hands.

I gasped for air, my chest heaving against the cold tiles. The panic was gone. The noise in my head had stopped, replaced by the comfortable silence of the room and the sound of Leander’s steady breathing above me.

I was wrecked. I was dirty. And I had never felt so safe.

“Look at that,” Leander murmured.

He reached down and ran a thumb through the mess on my stomach, spreading the warmth against my cooling skin.

“All that perfection,” he whispered, “ruined.”

He wiped his hand on my thigh, a claiming touch that branded me.

The print of his palm stayed warm on my skin after the hand was gone, and on my wrist the numbers were falling like a fever breaking.

“Stay there,” he ordered. “Don’t move until you can breathe without shaking.”

I stayed on my knees, head bowed, listening to the sound of him walking away to get a towel, too shattered to feel shame. The room went on doing its quiet mechanical things around me, the vents, water running briefly behind the bathroom door, and I knelt in the middle of it with my eyes closed and practiced being an object at rest. It was the closest thing to peace the night had offered.

“Clean yourself up, Cento,” he said, throwing the towel to my chest. “We have training in four hours.”

He turned away and walked to his own bed.

I stayed on my knees, still heaving.

Leander lay on his bed, his back to me, his breathing already evening out. He thought this was over. He thought I had just surrendered my body and that was enough.

But it wasn’t.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

I couldn’t walk onto that field tomorrow carrying this lie. I couldn’t let him think I sabotaged him out of ego when the truth was so much worse. I couldn’t let him look at me like he had in the equipment shed, like I was Anatol’s property.

I wiped my hands on the towel and forced myself to stand. My legs felt like water.

“Leander.” My voice cracked on his name.

“Go to bed, Felix.”

“I threw the drill.”

The words came out jagged, scraping my throat raw.

Leander went still. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he sat up. He swung his legs off the bed and turned to face me. His eyes were unreadable.

“Say that again.”