Into Darkness

A noise woke me from my slumber. It was soft, furtive, coming from the back door instead of the front.

I crooked an ear, listening, contemplating. The nest I'd made for myself at the foot of the bed was both very comfortable and warm from my body heat. I didn't want to leave it for something inane like one of those small trash bears that were forever getting into things in the backyard. Sure, it was amusing to sit at the kitchen window and look down on them, both literally and figuratively, but I'd had a busy day, and I was tired. Earlier, my pet human had roused my nemesis from its slumber: the monster known as Roomba. That cireular atrocity had whirred zo life out of its lair and chased me all over the house. At one point, my human attempted to soothe me, but her efforts were wasted - I would never forget the time I turned my back on the beast, and it had tried to eat my tail.

A gentle scraping sound reached my ears. Was something at the back door? Maybe one of the forest nymphs with the tree branches growing out of their heads? I'd only seen them once before, late last fall, and they were majestic, terrifying creatures, with baleful black eyes and legs too long for their bodies. The thought of them trying to enter my domicile was horrifying. I'd watched them defecate all over the backyard with no care to where their droppings fell, and that amount of feces littering the floor would surely wake the Roomba again.

I couldn't face it twice in one day.

I got to my paws and did a biiig stretch. Warm light filtered in from the main room, where the inside tree (that I was not allowed to climb for some reason) was decorated with lights and a variety of toys (that I was also not allowed to touch). Every now and then I batted a paw against the lowest-hanging baubles while staring directly at my human, just in case her edict had changed, but then out came the dreaded hand hose and I was forced to flee or risk getting sprayed with my other nemesis: water.

I leapt from the bed and padded out of my room on stealthy feet. The forest nymphs had big ears, and I didn't want them to hear me coming.

Lying in the middle of the hall was my favorite mouse, large, gray, with a long tail and an ear missing from one of our previous altercations. I planned to walk right past it, but I swore it twitched as I pulled even. With a slap I sent it skittering across the floor, all thoughts of stealthiness disappearing from my mind as my hunting instincts took over. It might have started this fight, but I was going to finish it.

I tackled the mouse, flipping sideways. My front claws dug into its head, my back claws disemboweling it with several brutal kicks. I was a vicious, glorious creature. Mice feared me. Trash bears wanted to be me.

Creeeeak.

I froze. The back door was opening, and I was about to be invaded by the gods only knew what. Forest nymphs, an army of Roombas, the neighbor lady who insisted on petting my face even though I'd repeatedly told her my whiskers were ticklish.

Not tonight! I vowed.

Rising to my feet, I let out my fiercest battle cry and charged into the kitchen. There was something huge inside it, human-shaped but much larger than I'd seen before. I sucked in a breath, and the smell of man hit my nose. Oh, no. They were not allowed in here. All they did was hurt my human's feelings.

He said something to me in that infantile language humans use, and while I might not have understood him, I didn't appreciate his tone.

Get out, I told him, leaping sideways and puffing up as large as I could.

From the way he stood stock-still, eyes wide, heart thundering, I knew he was afraid. His scent confirmed it a second later, turning tangy and acrid.

Hmmm, maybe this one isn't as stupid as the other males, I thought. None of them had given me the proper respect I was due. None of them had feared me as they should have. All had needed to be taught a valuable, bloody lesson.

I smoothed myself out and stalked forward, my eyes on the man's leg, my thoughts on how hard I would have to bite to get through his leg coverings to the squishy flesh beneath. He flattened himself to the door, his scent reeking of terror. It triggered my hunting drive again, and as the instinct to rorment him rose, I prowled closer, closer.

He said something else, sounding petrified. As he should be. Finally, someone who recognized my ferocity.

I got right up close to his leg and took a deeper sniff. Beneath the stench of fear, he actually smelled... good. Clean, sincere, safe. Huh. The only other human to smell like that was my human. Maybe this one wasn't so bad after all.

I decided to take pity on him and purr, just a little, so he would know I had no immediate plans to eviscerate him.

He dropped down to my level, showing me even more respect, and I decided he could pet me now. I purred a little louder, hoping he would get the hint, but humans, in general, were less intelligent than my kind and needed things spelled out for them, so I butted my head against his shin.

He said something else, and then a big hand landed gently on my upper back and stroked downward toward my tail. As far as pets went, I'd had better, but at least he hadn't touched my whiskers.

Two more strokes, and then he stood again.

Who said you could be done? I yowled, but he ignored me and stalked deeper into the house.

Gods, if he wanted a tour, all he had to do was ask. Humans had no manners.

I padded after him, leading him first into the spare room with the inferior bed where the peasants my human called "houseguests" slept when they visited, and then into the place where the food was kept. I stopped by the door that my food was hidden behind, pawing at it, but again, he missed the hint. Sigh. Just when I'd started to hope that I'd finally met someone of my intelligence.

Lastly, I showed him the way to my room, pausing to pick up my discarded mouse along the way. He seemed suitably impressed, opening some of my human's drawers to inspect her belongings.

I jumped onto the bed and faced him, dropping my mouse. Proving he wasn't totally useless, he picked it up and tossed it into the pillows, and I... well, I may have embarrassed myself by shriek-leaping after it. The next five minutes of me completely losing my mind as he threw it again and again don't need to be recounted.

Once I was done, I settled in my nest and watched him unpack innumerable objects from the cache he had brought with him. He set several boring human things up in the room, and I was just starting to doze off when he took his upper body blanket off. I perked up, studying the strange markings on his exposed skin, wondering what they were.

Was he... ill? Had I let a plague-bearer into my domicile? I certainly hoped not. My human was useless when she was sick, lying on the couch for days on end and making me fear she might die and I would have to - gag - consume her corpse to stay alive. If only she would install a small door for me to come and go as I pleased, it wouldn't have to come to that, but despite my continued efforts to dash past her whenever she opened the big doors, she still hadn't realized that I wanted to go outside.

Maybe if this one stuck around, I could convince him instead. He looked like he was making himself right at home, climbing up onto the bed beside me, coming close, and then - Excuse you, sir, why are you putting me in air jail? l've done nothing to deserve such mistreatment!

He stood, carrying me toward the door. I flipped in his arms, presenting him with my belly - it always worked on my human - but he didn't scem as enthralled by my fluff as she was, and he tried to set me down in the hall. Absolutely not. I was not about to be shut out of my own room.

I dashed between his legs and ran full speed toward the bed, diving under it instead of on top, coming to a halt dead center, where I couldn't be reached. The man got down on the floor, staring at me, speaking in a stern tone that I planned to fully ignore, And then he was gone, feet thudding as he rounded the bed. I eyed him, wondering if he was going to try to reach me from a different angle, but suddenly, a red light filled the room. Overhead, the bed creaked.

What was he doing up there? He better not have kicked me out of my nest only to take it for himself.

I crept out, pecking over the edge to see him propped up in the mid- dle of the blankets with some sort of face covering on. Humans were so strange. One hand trailed down his front while the fingers of his spare one dangled next to him, enticingly, hovering within easy reach.

It was time he learned a lesson. Yes, I might have liked him better than most, but he still needed to learn his place in the hicrarchy. In this household, I was the alpha.

With a yowl, I charged.

I WATCHED JUNIOR TROCCI WALK away, his dark-clad form blending into the shadows as he made his way to the edge of the boat, where a rickety ladder would take him back to shore. My fingers complained from how hard he'd squeezed my hand when we shook on our deal. I was now in business with a mobster.

Great. Wonderful. I was sure it wouldn't blow up in my face or anything.

The bastard had put me in an impossible situation. I couldn't let Patrick MeKinney's debt go for anything less than the two million he owed me. Not if I wanted to be taken seriously in this city But it was clear from the look in Junior's eyes that if I hadn't let it go, I would have made an enemy I couldn't afford. He knew who I was, the real me, not this shady alter ego I'd donned last year. One word from him could expose me to my enemies, of which I admittedly had many

I'd do anything to avoid that, because I wasn't just building this gambling empire for no reason. I had a job to do, a debt to settle of my own, and I was so close I could taste it. No one and nothing would stop me from completing my rask, from getting vengeance for my mother and all the wrongs done to us.

Look at the silver lining, I told myself.

I would soon have a fifty percent ownership stake in a legitimate business, and I'd just made one hell of an ally. Junior came from a Mafia family with connections to the entire criminal underground of this city. The fact that he'd found me when no one else had been able to was proof enough of that. If I played nice with him, maybe I'd be able to use those connections for my own gain.

And there were worse people I could have aligned myself with. This was only my third interaction with the man, but there was no denying that Junior was intelligent, driven, and held his cards close to his chest. Speaking of which, I needed to find out which of McKinney's buildings he was after and why. Fuck, I probably should have done that before agreeing to this little arrangement, but I'd been a bit distracted by the sniper laser pointed at my chest.

I took a deep breath. Everything was fine. I could easily rectify my mistake. This time tomorrow, I'd have all the dirt on Junior I could find - he wasn't the only one with connections. We might have just become reluctant partners, but I wouldn't put it past him to try to push me out somewhere down the line, and if I wanted to keep that from happening, I nceded to be prepared to fight back.

I watched until Junior disappeared over the edge of the deck before turning to study my surroundings. This part of the old port was a decaying ruin of the city's industrial past. Overhead, the moon hung low and pregnant in the night sky, its silvery light casting long shadows across the rotting docks and crumbling buildings. Far below, the water lapped at the hull of the ship.

It was the last place anyone would think to look for an ultra - exclusive, high - stakes gambling den, which was why I'd chosen it.

I was locked in a perpetual war of one-upmanship with myself. Tonight, I'd commandeered an abandoned freighter. Next month, I'd have to come up with something even better, even more unexpected and exciting to keep my clients' attention, to remain the most elusive and sought-after entertainment in this city. The wealthy, I'd learned, were a lot like children, easily distracted by the latest shiny object, and it took a lot of effort and planning to keep them clamoring for a spot at my tables.

My phone chimed in my suit jacket. I slipped it out to see a text from Josh.

Hey, it read. Everything okay? You were more of a dickbag today than usual.

I sighed. Josh and I went so far back that we were more like brothers than friends, which meant that we didn't pull our punches. Not that I didn't deserve an insult or two for how I'd behaved at his engagement party earlier. I'd been stressed about tonight, and stress had a way of shortening both my temper and my tolerance for other people. Maybe flipping a cornhole board was a dick move, but the guy I'd been playing against had been cheating all fucking day, and there wasn't anything I hated more than self-entitled assholes who didn't think the rules applied to them.

Yeah, sorry, I wrote back. I'm under a lot of stress at work.

I see you're at home, he said. Want me to bring over some beer and we can talk about it?

My heart rate spiked. Shit. I obviously wasn't at home, but my cell phone, the one I had this burner slaved to, was. Because my best friend was an overprotective hacker with boundary issues, there was a tracker in my cell, one hidden somewhere in my car that I'd (annoyingly) never been able to find, and I was pretty sure he'd even put one in my sneakers or gym bag since he always seemed to know when I was working out.

Most of the time, it didn't bother me. He'd been like this our entire adult lives, and I'd grown used to his helicopter friendship. Oddly enough - and maybe this was the Stockholm syndrome speaking - it was kind of reassuring to know that I had someone looking out for me.

My very own ethically questionable guardian angel.

But I didn't want Josh watching my every move all the time. Thankfully, some of his technical prowess had rubbed off on me over the years, and I had gotten pretty good at evading him. It was only in moments like this that I worried he was starting to get suspicious about my... ah... extracurricular activities.

Taking a deep breath, I responded to his offer to hang out. Pass. I want to hit the gym early, so I'm gonna head to bed. Grats again on the engagement.

No problem. And thanks. Who would have thought that I'd end up marrying one of your exes? LOLOLOL.

I snorted. I would have thought. Aly had reminded me a little of Josh when we'd been seeing each other, and I hadn't missed the way he'd oh-so-casually asked about her when she'd ghosted me. The second she popped back into my texts with that screenshot of Josh's "super-secret" masked thirst trap account, I knew I had to find some way to set them up. My hope was to kill two birds with one stone: get Josh laid (because he'd turned into a full-blown hermit last summer, and not the fun Outer Hebrides kind that spouted false prophecies and threw feces at passing boats) and get Josh someone new to obsess over and take the pressure off myself.

My plan had worked out better than I'd intended. Was it a little weird that my best friend was now engaged to a woman I used to fuck? Yeah, kind of, especially since they were more alike than I'd initially realized and the two of them together were almost unbearable. Neither of them took anything seriously. They never stopped making sex eyes at each other. Their cats had become their children, and I swear to god, if I had to watch one more sickeningly sweet video of the four of them together, I would-

I took a deep breath. This was good. This was what I'd wanted. And I was happy for them, truly. But did they have to constantly shove their premarital bliss in everyone's faces? It brought up memories I'd rather forget. My mother crying alone in the kitchen when she thought I was asleep. Worrying over how she was going to feed us because my piece-of-shit father refused to even acknowledge our existence.

I locked my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. Soon, my bastard father would regret what he'd done. The next step to my revenge was sitting right below my feet, and if all was going to plan, he was being overserved by the bartenders and was scated at a table full of much better poker players than he was.

Not willing to trust such an important puzzle piece to fate, I headed back toward the deck hatch that led below. There was more wealth sitting in the belly of this ship than most people would ever see in their lifetimes, and I'd hired one of the best mercenary outfits in the city to guard the game. I passed one of the team members on my way to the hatch.

"He's gone," the man told me. 

Remembering Junior's warning about being more civil, I inclined my head. "Thank you."

The man huffed and ambled off. Couldn't really blame him. The words had sounded stilted and forced, even to my ears. Politeness didn't come easy to me. Mostly because I didn't see the point of it. My mother had been kind to her core, polite to everyone, even those who didn't deserve it, and her manners had done nothing to stop her shitty bosses from underpaying her, or her even shittier boyfriends from laying hands on her. Only I had done that. Once I was old enough to fight back.

I flipped the deck hatch up and turned, taking the ladder down into a dimly lit hallway This ship had been rotting here for decades, and the once-white paint was grayed and peeling, revealing the rust-streaked steel beneath. Leaky pipes lined the left wall. The overhead light flickered as I passed beneath it. It looked like the set of a low-budget horror movie, the constant groans and creaks of the ship its haunted soundtrack.

You'd think all this rot would have been off-putting to the city's elite, but they had flocked here like vultures to a bloated corpse, titillated by the macabre setting, gasping and clutching at their friends when I'd first led them down.

I followed the raucous sounds of cheering toward the center of the ship, where a large open room that used to house cargo now held well over a dozen tables. Crowded around them were some of the wealthiest people in the city, art dealers rubbing elbows with heiresses and crime bosses alike. A temporary bar was set up along the far wall, and waitstaff dressed in stiff formal attire made their way to and from it, delivering topshelf cocktails to the gamblers. It looked like a scene out of a modern-day Gatsby remake, the soft light from the overhead chandeliers we'd rigged up bathing the scene in a warm glow that glinted off jewels and champagne flutes.

Every member of the crowd wore masks to protect their anonymity, but, as the master of ceremonies, I knew who they were. My gaze strayed to the far corner and the trio of poker tables standing in a line near the decommissioned boiler. Seated at the center one, with his back to me, was a twenty-year-old man-child who had no business being here.

A woman materialized at my elbow, carrying a clipboard. I glanced over to see her dressed in a form-fitting emerald gown, her cherry-red hair swept back in a low bun. Sarah. Another ex. Like it had with Aly, our relationship ended amicably after we realized we were better off friends. Now, she was my right-hand person, the only one I trusted to help with these events, because she kept even more secrets than I did and hated these assholes just as much.

"How's it going?" I asked. I could have been talking about anything, inquiring after the event in general, but Sarah knew better, her gaze following mine to the far corner.

"Good," she said. "He's lost half a million already."

I rocked back on my heels. Jesus Christ. The night was still young, with hours of gambling spread out ahead of us. How much would he lose by the end of it?

"Keep delivering him drinks, even if he doesn't ask for them," I said.

"And make sure he knows how willing the house is to spot him if he runs out of funds."

Sarah nodded and disappeared back into the crowd.

Everything was going to plan. The kid would lose his ass at poker and soon be in my debt. A debt I planned to fully exploit. Because he had an older sister who would do absolutely anything to protect him, and she was my real target. My way in. My means to an end.

See you soon, Stella baby, I thought, smiling to myself as another round of cheering rose from the crowd.

"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM TODAY?" JUNIOR demanded, rounding on me.

"I don't have a fucking problem," I snarled.

He arched a brow and sent me a look the Trocci family had perfected, a devastating blend of scorn and disgust.

Okay, fine, he might have a point.

I blew out a breath and rose from my chair, pacing to the window to stare down at the street below. We were up on the third floor of Velvet, going over contract costs for our next round of renovations, and we couldn't agree on anything. Mostly because I kept fighting with Junior just to fight. Just to vent the frustration scorching through my veins.

"It's Stella," I said.

He snorted. "Yeah, I figured. What'd she do?"

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "It's more like what she won't do. Let me pay off her mortgage."

Junior chuckled. "So do it anyway. Worked out fine for me."

"Lauren literally tased you."

"That was about something else."

I cocked a brow.

He shook his head. "Story for another time. We're talking about your problems, not mine. What's the worst that could happen if you paid it off without Stel's approval?"

My mind spat out the answers I couldn't say out loud.

She never lets me come again.

She flogs my ass until I bleed.

She finally makes good on her threat to peg me with an arm-sized dildo, turning me into a human Muppet.

"She breaks up with me," I said, because, yeah, that would be the worst.

Junior scowled. "Really? You think that's how she'd repay you for making her life infinitely easier?"

"Stella can be... stubborn." Understatement. "She's hell-bent on doing everything by herself because she grew up with her parents doing everything for her, so now she needs to prove that she's independent by working herself into an early grave."

"She flaring again?"

"No, but only because AJ and I force her to slow down and take care of herself."

He whistled, staring upward with an innocent expression. "Bet she'd be a lot less stressed if she wasn't worried about a mortgage. Probably do a lot to help keep her from flaring later on down the road. I'm just saying, maybe she's mad at you for a while, maybe she even threatens to break things off, but once she settles, she might change her mind. Especially if you get AJ to go halfsies with you."

I grumbled. "AJ thinks she should be allowed to suffer debilitating financial debt if that's what she really wants."

Junior grimaced. "Good people are fucking weird."

I nodded, agreeing, starting to think he might be on to something. I'd been doing pretty well lately. Therapy was helping, I'd been working through a lot of my baggage, and I hadn't done much backsliding into bad behavior.

I owed all of that to Stella. Without her, who knew where I'd be right now? Dead, or in prison, or still operating under the belief that my father was irredeemable scum?

I could never, ever repay her for saving my life. Which she well and truly had even if she refused to look at it that way. Every time I tried bringing it up, she pulled that You saved yourself bullshit with me.

No. I hadn't.

She had.

The least the woman could do was let me thank her properly.

Junior grinned, guessing where my thoughts had gone. "I bet if we call Josh, he can have all her mortgage information within five minutes."

I lifted my phone from my pocket. "Twenty bucks says he can do it in less than one."

***

The worry set in on the drive back to Stella's.

What if she really did leave me over this? The woman was so goddamn mulish when she put her mind to it, and yeah, she'd been doing it all by herself up until this point, but continuing to do so out of some misplaced moral principle was stupid.

I winced.

No. Stella wasn't stupid. Bad Tyler. Those were old thoughts. Pre-enlightened-Tyler thoughts. But still! Argh! She was making me fucking crazy with her shortsightedness. No mortgage meant more money to help Runa. Improvements to the shop. Purchasing a whole wardrobe worth of sad-girl clothes to shove into the black void that was her closet.

I understood wanting to do things on your own, but why would someone force the issue when their partner was literally begging to help them? I had the means. Stella had the need. The way I saw things, it shouldn't be a problem. And yet, here I was, agonizing over it because I didn't know if I could get Stella to see it that way.

She wouldn't really break up with me over this, would she?

Oh, fuck, what if she did? What if she finally realized that I was more trouble than I was worth and I didn't deserve the second chance she'd given me? That I was no good. That I would only drag her down. Already, I demanded too much of her. She put up with my mercurial moods. Let me practically move into her apartment even though I had a perfectly good one of my own on the other side of town. She even acted as a buffer for me and my father when I didn't feel like I was in a good headspace to spend time with him alone.

What if she really fucking dumped me?

By the time I reached her place, I was a wreck. It was Monday, and the shop was closed, the silence making it feel like I was marching to my grave as I took the stairs up.

Stella was sitting on the couch when I entered her apartment, drawing in a sketch pad, wearing a pair of black sweats and one of my T-shirts. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and her freckles were on full display because she wasn't wearing makeup. She looked borderline cute, rumpled, like she'd just woken from a nap.

"Hey," she said, eyes lifting to mine, a soft smile playing about her lips.

My love for her hit me like a battering ram, knocking the wind out of me. Fuck, what had I done? Why had I thought my need to help outweighed what she wanted? Goddamn Junior. I knew he was a bad influence, brought out my darker instincts, and this just proved it.

I took a deep breath. No. Blaming him was misguided. This wasn't his fault. He hadn't held a gun to my head and forced me to be a dumbass. This was on me and me alone.

"Tyler?" Stella asked, setting her sketch pad aside. "Are you okay?"

I dropped to my knees, hard, welcoming the rush of pain because I'd earned it. My chin lowered to my chest, gaze dropping to the ground because I didn't deserve to look at her after what I'd done.

"I fucked up," I said.

"Fuck up, fuck up," Amos cawed from a nearby perch, either echoing or tormenting me, I couldn't be sure. That bird was smarter than he had any right to be.

The couch creaked as Stella stood. "How?"

"I paid off your mortgage."

Silence.

I didn't dare look up at her, was too afraid to see her soft glow get burned away by rage.

Time seemed to drag on. My ears were strained, listening for any sound, any indication of how she felt, but my heart was beating too loud for me to hear anything over it. I was well and truly afraid now. Finally, she sighed, long and heavy, like she was exhausted. Like I exhausted her. "When?"

"This morning."

"Are you sorry?"

I opened my mouth to tell her yes, but the word refused to come. Because the truth was, I wasn't sorry. Yes, I regretted the decision. Yes, I was terrified of the repercussions. But I wasn't sorry. Not for removing Stella's biggest stressor from her life. I cared too much about her physical well-being for that. I'd seen how bad a flare could hurt her - hell, I'd caused it - and I'd do anything in my power to keep that from happening again.

"Crawl into the bedroom," she bit out.

Adrenaline flooded my veins as I complied. And hope. She wouldn't order me around like this if she were going to break up with me, right? She'd just yell and then kick me out. We didn't handle all our disagreements through brat play. Half the time, we bickered like any other couple, needed to use our words and keep level heads as we worked through our (mostly my) shit.

"Stop there," she said.

I froze.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind her. "You lasted longer than I thought you would," she said, sounding more annoyed than furious.

"I ... did?"

"Three months?" she said. "Yeah. AJ and I thought you'd cave and pay it off ages ago."

I dared to glance up at her.

She grabbed the back of my head and forced my head back down, and the sting of her nails in my scalp had tears of relief pricking my eyes. "I'm still mad at you for it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Go sit in your corner quietly and don't look at me. I need to finish this drawing."

I crawled to my spot, a taped-off section of flooring I could barely fit in while kneeling, which was half the battle. If I so much as crossed a pinkie over the line, I got punished.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stella plop down on her side of the bed. She pulled her sketch pad into her lap and got back to work, ignoring me. Seconds ticked by, and then minutes. You'd think I'd get bored, sitting there being ignored, but the opposite was true. I was hyper-focused, fixated on her every movement, waiting for my next command, fighting my body's urge to relax into a more comfortable position.

"Take your penis out," Stella said after a small eternity.

I did, and yes, I was already hard.

She returned to drawing for a while, without giving any other instruction, so I just sat there with my erect dick in the breeze like an idiot. Embarrassment crept over me, and I did nothing to stem the tide. This was hardly anything compared to some of the degradations I'd been subjected to by the vixen on the bed. No, I was more embarrassed by how badly I wanted whatever was to come, some small part of me still fighting against the reality that, instead of the big bad man I thought I was, in truth, I wanted to be dominated to within an inch of my life and then be given forehead kisses and told I was a good boy.

I wrinkled my nose, fighting an itch, praying I didn't sneeze because Stella had taken to ball-gagging me if I made so much as a single sound after she ordered me to be quiet - whether they were intentional or not. Not that I minded the gagging part; it was the taste of silicone I couldn't stand.

"Stroke your cock, Tyler," Stella said. "Slowly." She leaned sideways, pulling open a nightstand drawer to chuck a bottle at me. "And use enough lube to keep from getting chafed."

I caught it out of the air and squeezed a generous amount onto my hand, dropping it beside me before fisting the bottom of my shaft and squeezing hard enough to relieve some of the pressure. The first slide of my hand upward felt like heaven, and I managed to stroke my thumb over the tip before moving back down, smearing the precum gathered there.

"Slower," Stella said.

I dropped my pace, my hand barely moving, almost too slow to register as pleasure. At first. But soon, I realized it did actually feel good. Forced me to focus on the sensation of my dick in my own hand, the tightness of my grip on my shaft. The tip turned sensitive, the frenulum more erogenous than I'd ever experienced before. Huh. In the past, I'd jerked it hard and rough, racing toward the finish line, but Stella was teaching me to appreciate the act of foreplay more, not just with a partner, but with myself.

Could I get off like this? Hell no. But it could get me close.

I played with myself long enough for my breathing to pick up. Long enough that I needed to reapply lube.

"Faster," Stella said. "But slow back down before you get too close to coming."

My hand flew up my shaft. Down. Updownupdown, fuck, that felt good.

She set her sketch pad aside and grabbed her tablet, face tipped toward it, completely ignoring me except to issue orders, and the sight of her so goddamn unbothered while I choked back groans of pleasure just a few feet away was way fucking hotter than it should be. AJ always went on about how much control I had, but it was Stella who was really impressive. If our roles were reversed, if it were her touching herself in front of me, I would have been on her in a heartbeat, shoving those legs wide and-

I slowed my hand so much it hardly moved. Christ, that was close, the orgasm sneaking up on me before I was even aware of what was happening. I blamed my wandering mind.

"Stop."

I froze.

"Are you sorry?"

"No."

"Play with your balls. Make it feel good while you squeeze your base."

I shoved the fly of my pants wider so I could reach inside them with my free hand. My balls sat high and tight against me, evidence of how close I'd been to coming. I choked my cock, gently tugging at them, my chin thumping onto my chest while I watched myself.

I rolled my balls in my palm, easing the tension on my shaft just slightly before clamping down again, restricting blood flow. I started a pattern: relax, grip, tug, relax, grip, tug. How good was too good? Because this felt pretty fucking incredible.

My breath hitched. My thighs trembled.

I could tell from the sound of Stella's digital pen sliding over her tablet that she was still drawing. Could see her scrunched up on the bed like a shrimp even though she knew bad posture could bother her stomach. It made me feel the teensiest bit vindicated, proof that she did need someone to help take care of her.

My dick throbbed in my hand, begging for more, begging me to move because I couldn't get off like this either.

Relax, grip, tug.

Time dragged by.

"Are you sorry?"

"No," I groaned.

"Take your hand out of your pants."

I complied, letting it hang loose by my side.

Three minutes passed before she spoke again. I knew, because counting seconds was the only thing keeping me sane. My knees hurt from kneeling. My spine throbbed from holding myself so stiffly upright. And my dick... it begged for mercy.

"Jerk yourself off at a semi-slow speed. Stop before you get too close."

I added more lube to my hand and did what she said, feeling slightly dizzy. Feeling the orgasm immediately start building again, like the threat of coming had never fully gone away.

A strange sort of peace descended over me as I walked the knife-edge of pleasure. I could come, if I really, wanted to, but right now, what I wanted didn't matter. My pleasure wasn't my own. It was Stella's. It belonged to her. And she said not to, so I wouldn't.

I sighed out a long, slow breath, working myself, getting lost in the blissed-out, hazy feeling of submission. I'd spent my entire fucking life being selfish to my core, concerned only with my wants, my needs, and I didn't want to be that person anymore. I'd been trying hard to change that part of myself, but it was clear from today that I still had a lot of work to do.

"Are you sorry?" Stella asked.

"No," I answered, tongue thick as I struggled to think around the sex hormones pumping through my blood.

"Why not?"

"Because I still have a lot of enemies in this city, and if anything happens to me, I can die knowing that you're at least okay financially."

"Stop."

I stopped.

"Don't you dare fucking die."

I fought back a grin and kept my mouth shut since it wasn't a direct question. Inside, I was crowing. She still loved me. I could tell from how ragged that last sentence was, like the thought of losing me caused her physical pain.

"Only play with yourself as much as it takes to keep you hard," she said.

Oof. Okay, but she was still pissed.

It's fine, I thought as I gave myself a single, solitary stroke. I could take her anger. God knew I'd more than earned it with this stunt.

On the bed, she went back to drawing, rolling onto her stomach with the tablet in front of her on the covers. I kept my gaze down but focused on her in my periphery, and the sight of her spread out like that was enough to keep me hard without having to do much more than give myself the occasional squeeze or caress.

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

My dick was starting to feel hot to the touch.

"Go faster, Tyler. But stop just before coming and not a second sooner."

Nope. She wasn't going to break up with me. Because she clearly planned to kill me instead.

I fisted my dick, dumping lube onto it, hand working at my normal speed, cock head leaking more precum than I had ever seen in my life. Veins were starting to pulse along the shaft. My balls lifted, tight and high and fast. Where was the line? How close was I? It was hard to tell after the last... hour? Fuck, had she been edging me for an hour? That was longer than ever before.

My breath shuddered out of me. Thighs bunched. Pressure built low on my spine, and I knew I must be in danger of coming, but my head was so blissed out that I didn't know up from down anymore.

Suddenly, my dick turned to iron in my fist. I yanked my hand away, panting, clamping down every muscle in my body to keep from blowing, shredding the inside of my cheek with my teeth as I fought for control.

"Are you sorry now?" Stella demanded.

"NO!" I roared, too out of it to censor myself.

She leapt from the bed, kicked her sweats off, and was on me, practically tackling me backward into the wall. Her hand hit my throat, pinning me there as her fingers clamped down and she dropped herself onto my dick. I sank all the way in. Because Stella was fucking soaked. Proof that she wasn't nearly as unbothered as she'd appeared.

"I'm glad you did it," she purred.

I was so shocked that I looked up at her.

She leaned forward, hand squeezing harder, and pressed a delicate kiss to my lips, keeping her eyes open so I could stare into their unfathomable depths. "Don't come until I do."

There was no stopping the whimper that slipped from my lips. Her pussy was so hot and wet around me, already pulsing, and I'd been balanced on the precipice of oblivion for what felt like a lifetime. How was I supposed to hold back now that I was inside her?

Her hand slid up from my throat, and her other one rose to join it, framing my face, tilting my head as she started to move, riding me with gentle, rolling thrusts.

"I love you," she said, dropping another kiss on my lips. "Even though you're a stubborn asshole."

You're one to talk, I thought.

She must have seen it in my eyes because she bit my lower lip in warning before deepening the kiss. I groaned into her mouth, my trembling hands gripping her hips, steadying her while she really started to fuck me. She didn't need me to touch her clit like this. The friction of it rubbing over my lower abdomen was enough to get her off.

So instead, I sat there on bruised knees, back braced on the wall as I held both of us up and tried to pretend like the hungry little noises she made weren't driving me crazy. That I wasn't on the verge of blacking out.

I had no actual idea of how I was keeping myself from coming at this point.

My balls were so tight it felt like they were trying to ascend into my body cavity. My dick was so hard it was painful, which was really fucking weird since it also felt fucking incredible, like I'd suddenly grown an entire second nervous system in it. Stella's pussy always felt good, but she was especially tight at this angle, and the fact that she moved her tongue in time with her hips was about to send me to the moon.

She'd said I couldn't come until she did. But she hadn't said anything about me getting her there faster.

I clamped down on her hips and started pounding into her in short, shallow thrusts to keep as much contact with her clit as possible. Her breath hitched. She broke our kiss to bury her face in my neck, panting.

I needed her to come.

Now.

I couldn't keep this up much longer. Already, I could feel the warning signs. The tightening, the stiffening.

"Please," I begged, my voice ragged. "Please come, Stella. Please. Oh, fuck. Baby. I need you."

I choked on a sob, and she finally relented, pushing off my chest, arching back, riding me hard, her tits bouncing beneath her shirt, wet, filthy sounds filling the room. She threw her head back on a scream, pussy clenching around me like a fist, and I waited just long enough for her to start to come down from her orgasm before I pinned her to the floor and unloaded inside her, my hips pumping furiously, my conscious mind gone as my hindbrain took over and I rutted her like an animal, filling her with so much cum it leaked out between us in hot, viscous spurts.

I might have blacked out.

It was the only thing that explained the brief jump in time between coming like a geyser and being sprawled out on top of Stella while she petted and praised and apologized. To me.

"Wait, what are you saying?" I mumbled as her words started to coalesce. Somehow, I found the strength to lift myself enough to look down at her.

She smiled, looking soft and sated and... happy? "I was being stubborn. And I'm sorry for that. You had the ability to help me without any ulterior motives, and I... " She exhaled. "I just couldn't let myself accept it. It felt too much like a handout."

"More like a bribe for putting up with me."

She chuckled, pussy squeezing down on me, and my balls spasmed, more cum leaking from my dick.

I groaned, dropping my forehead to her chest.

"You don't have to bribe me," she said, running her fingers through my hair. "And I'm not just glad that you paid the mortgage off. I'm glad that you stood up to me."

I craned my head back. "What?"

She shrugged, still stroking my scalp. "Sometimes, I worry about how this part of our relationship might impact the whole. I don't want you to ever feel like you can't push back when you need to."

I smirked. "Remember that the next time I mouth off after you tell me to shut up."

She shook her head, but she was smiling. "Tyler. You know I like it when you do that, right? That I'm just as turned on by you fighting me as I am by you submitting."

"Explains why you were so wet when you tackled me." I gave a little thrust with my hips for emphasis.

"Don't make me regret telling you that."

"I already knew it, Sunshine."

She growled. "That fucking nickname."

"Sorry, I meant Snack Bitch."

Her legs tightened around my waist like a boa constrictor, arms squeezing my neck as she shoved my face into her chest. "Go to sleep."

I laughed into her, more cum seeping out between us.

She eased her hold on me. "I wished you'd tried harder to talk me into accepting your help."

"Me too. I don't think I'll ever be sorry for paying your debt off, but I am sorry for how I did it."

"Accepted."

"I accept your apology, too." I nuzzled my nose against hers. "So... who's getting the mop to clean up this mess?"

"You are," she said. "I'll be too busy trying to shower it all off. I'm pretty sure I have cum halfway up my back, which is hot in the moment, but now that it's starting to cool... " She grimaced.

The front door opened, and we both stiffened on instinct, even though, logically, it could only be one person.

"Honey, I'm home!" AJ called.

I pushed up, and shared a grin with Stella, waiting the obligatory two seconds before we joined Amos in yelling back. "Fuuuck you!"

"Hey! Can you bring the mop in here?" 1 called. "Stella made a mess!"