Page 10

10

T he next two weeks settle into a rhythm we pretend is normal—daytime restraint, nighttime ruin. During business hours, Sterling barely looks at me. Formal nods. Measured conversation. If you didn't know better, you'd think we were just a boss and his intern, not two people who spent nights stripping each other down to skin and sound. But after the last door locks and the security lights hum to life, the whole world tilts.

We've fallen into a pattern—three nights a week, meeting after hours at the facility. Sterling had framed it as practical: "My home isn't equipped with the specialized tools your preparation requires. Here, we have privacy. Precision." I'd nodded, like that was the part I was worried about—the tools. The privacy. Not the way he watched me. Not the way he touched me.

Tonight is our sixth meeting. I should be used to it by now—the careful prep, the methodical escalation, the way Sterling scrubs down the room until it smells like clinical soap and something underneath it, something hot and male and dangerous.

"You're progressing well," Sterling says, his voice that perfect mix of professional and fucked-up hungry as he presses against the plug I've been wearing for the past hour. We're in Room 7 tonight. Different setup. More restraints bolted to the walls. More surfaces designed for… endurance. Exploration.

"The body," he says, tugging the plug free with obscene slowness, "has remarkable capacity for adaptation when approached methodically." If his voice were any cooler, I might believe him. But the heat burning behind his amber eyes gives him away. Barely leashed. Barely breathing.

He believes in control. I'm starting to hate it.

"I think I'm ready for something larger," I rasp, shameless, bending over and spreading my ass cheeks like I'm presenting myself for inspection—because I am.

Sterling's nostrils flare. His thick fingers twitch against the discarded plug. For one charged second, I swear he might lose it, just take—but then his mouth tightens into a firm line.

"Patience," he grits out, even as his own body betrays him. "Rushing leads to setbacks."

I know better than to argue. Sterling has this whole roadmap in his head—every step calculated, every session building in intensity. But still. Still, I burn for it.

"Lie down," he orders, his voice rougher now, slipping a little from clinical toward desperate. He helps me onto the padded bench, shifting my legs apart until I'm wide open, heart hammering in my throat.

Sterling starts slow—kissing me like a man starved, massive hands tracing every inch of my chest, teasing my nipples until they're tight and aching. I clutch fistfuls of his thick, soft fur, tugging the way I know makes him rumble deep in his chest, a sound that vibrates through my bones.

"I've prepared something different for tonight," he growls against my neck, teeth grazing my skin just enough to sting, just enough to make my cock twitch helplessly.

He leads me toward the modified collection mount—a monster of a machine fitted with new attachments and panels I don't recognize. "On your back. Legs spread."

I obey, trembling with anticipation.

Sterling moves with a predator's focus, activating something behind me. A low hum starts beneath my spine, a thrum that vibrates through the padded surface.

"This model has massage capabilities," he explains, casual as if my heart isn't about to jackhammer out of my chest. "Originally for rehabilitating minotaurs with lumbar injuries. But adaptable for more… stimulating purposes."

The vibration deepens, buzzing up through my back and hips, loosening everything. Making me soft and open in ways I didn't know were possible.

Sterling slicks his fingers and starts prepping me again—each touch more sure, more demanding. The intrusion burns and soothes at the same time, my body pulsing around the slow stretch.

"Relax," he murmurs. "Let it happen. Let me happen."

I try. God, I try. The combination of the vibrations and Sterling's relentless patience works me open inch by devastating inch, until he slides the larger plug against me. It's thicker. Heavier. A slow, splitting stretch that knocks the air right out of me. I clutch the sides of the mount, knuckles white, thighs trembling.

"Breathe through it," he coaches, low and urgent. "You're doing so well. Your body wants this."

I gasp as the widest part finally slips inside, the fullness so obscene, so overwhelming, I nearly sob from it. Sterling shifts the angle, and suddenly the plug grinds against my prostate.

My entire world detonates.

I arch off the mount, helpless. Stranded between pain and pleasure so sharp it feels like dying.

"Too much?" he asks, voice strained.

I shake my head frantically, panting, lost to the intensity. "No. Please—don't stop."

Sterling's control snaps, just a little. His hands fist against the edge of the bench like he's physically restraining himself. The outline of his cock is straining brutally against his pants, almost painful-looking. Still, he holds back. Still, he makes me wait.

And I'm starting to realize—maybe this was never about preparation. Maybe this is Sterling's form of worship. Methodical. Merciless. A slow, agonizing devotion to tearing me apart in the most beautiful way possible.

The combination of the plug's relentless fullness and the mount's steady, insidious vibrations has me fully hard and leaking in minutes. I can't stop twitching, gasping, aching for something more. Sterling watches, breathing rough, nostrils flaring, his fists clenched like he's holding himself together with pure determination and prayer. He hasn't even stripped yet. He's just standing there, towering over me, watching me come apart like it's his fucking job.

"I want to taste you," I blurt, the need ripping out of me before I can think to stop it. "Please, Sterling. Let me?—"

"That's not part of tonight's progression," he bites out, voice ragged, strained like he's choking on his own restraint.

"Please," I beg, desperate, ruthless. I know him now—I know his weakness. Directness. Want. "I've been thinking about it constantly. Imagining how you'd feel in my mouth. How you'd taste."

Sterling's pupils blow wide, swallowing up the amber. His breathing goes wrecked. "Hank?—"

Before he can summon another flimsy objection, I slide off the mount, the plug pressing hard against my prostate and stealing a moan from my throat as I drop to my knees in front of him. The pressure is maddening. Electric. Every nerve ending strung out and howling.

"This is not—" Sterling grits out, but his words die when my hand closes over the massive bulge straining his pants. A brutal, involuntary growl tears from his chest, and fuck, it's the hottest sound I've ever heard in my life.

"Let me," I whisper, looking up at him, already working his belt loose with trembling fingers. "I need this."

Something shatters behind his eyes. With a guttural sound of surrender, Sterling nods—tiny, reluctant—and I tear his zipper down like a starving man. His cock springs free, thick and heavy, the base already swelling into the start of a knot. My mouth waters at the sight of him—far bigger than any human, thick-veined and flushed dark.

I wrap my hand around him first, testing the heat, the impossible silkiness stretched over steel. Sterling's thighs tense hard beneath my touch, muscles bunching like he's one breath away from grabbing me and wrecking me.

When I lean forward and flick my tongue over the leaking tip, he hisses a sound between pain and ecstasy.

The taste is sharp. Salty. Mine. It punches straight to my cock.

I work my mouth down his length, taking as much as I can, stroking the rest. He's too big to take all at once, but I give him everything I've got—hollowing my cheeks, swallowing around the head.

Above me, Sterling's control fractures. His big hands hover at his sides, shaking like he's fighting the urge to grab my head and fuck deeper.

One more look up at him—one more desperate, filthy whimper from my throat—and he loses it.

"Enough," he snarls, voice breaking, yanking me up off my knees like I weigh nothing. Before I can blink, he spins me around and shoves me against the nearest wall. Hard enough that the impact rattles my bones, punches the air from my lungs.

His massive body cages mine, heat rolling off him in waves. His breath is a ragged growl against my ear.

"You think you know what you want? What I want?" His hand clamps around the back of my neck, pinning me. I gasp, arching into him without meaning to. Needing him like fucking oxygen. "I've been holding back for weeks. Treating you like something breakable."

"Sterling—" I choke out, half-pleading, half-lost.

"Shut up," he snaps, and it's not cold—it's raw. Feral. It's the hottest fucking thing I've ever heard.

"Tonight, you do exactly what I say." He releases me suddenly, stepping back, ripping his shirt off and shoving his pants down with savage, impatient movements.

Sterling, fully naked in the low light, is obscene. A wall of muscle and thick fur and pulsing need.

"Get the lube," he orders, voice dropping into something lethal. "Now."

I stumble to obey, dizzy from the headrush of want.

"You want to know what I really want?" he growls, stalking to the mount, planting his hands wide on the frame but not entering it yet. His body shudders, impatient, wild.

"I want you inside me while I fuck this mount. I want to feel you losing your mind, trying to keep up." He looks over his shoulder at me, mouth twisted in something dark and wicked. "I'm going to use your cock like a fucking toy, intern. Think you can handle that?"

The words detonate inside me, white-hot. My cock jerks against my stomach, leaking helplessly.

"But—are you sure?" I gasp, lube bottle clattering from my hand.

Sterling laughs, low and sharp and merciless. "Little human worried about hurting me?" he mocks, baring sharp teeth in a feral grin. "Trust me, Hank. You couldn't hurt me if you tried."

He spreads his legs wider, lowering his massive hips to a more accessible height. His hole is right there—taut, dark, perfect.

"Two fingers. Lots of lube," he snarls. "And don't waste my fucking time being gentle."

The degradation hits me like a drug. Shame. Lust. Worship. All of it.

I slick my fingers until they're dripping and press against his entrance harder than I would have dared if he hadn't told me not to be gentle. He grunts, low and approving, grinding back against the pressure. Sterling doesn't want careful. He wants wrecked. And I'm going to give it to him.

"That's it," he growls, voice rough with satisfaction as my fingers breach him easily, heat clenching around me like a fist. "Fuck, that's it. Been thinking about this all week. Imagining your cock inside me while I wreck this mount."

The confession hits me like a gut punch. Sterling—so controlled, so clinical—had been secretly wanting this. Needing it. A groan rips out of me. I push a third finger in without waiting for permission, and the low, guttural sound Sterling makes is nothing short of filthy.

"You've been holding out on me," I manage, voice wrecked with want. "All that careful progression bullshit?—"

"For you," Sterling snaps, shoving back against my hand like he can't get enough. "Your fragile little human body needs slow prep. Me?" His breath hitches into a half-growl. "I can take whatever I fucking want."

Before I can answer, he reaches back, grabs my wrist, and jerks it toward his body with a sound between a moan and a hiss as my knuckles slip past the tight rim of his hole and disappear inside his ass. I nearly come right then, watching his sphincter pulse around my wrist, like his body has its own language for more.

"Enough," he snarls, pulling my hand out of his ass. "Get your cock in me. Now."

I'm shaking with the force of it—the command, the hunger—but I line myself up without hesitation, both hands clamping onto his thick hips, absurdly small against him. I push forward, the blunt head of my cock breaching his heat—and we both moan like we've been starved for this.

"Fuck," Sterling growls, reaching back blindly to grab my thigh and drag me deeper, forcing me in until I'm fully seated inside him. "Harder," he snarls, hips grinding. "I'm not a delicate fucking flower."

Something inside me snaps. I drive into him with everything I have, pounding up into the impossible heat of him, gasping at how he takes me—like he was made for it. Sterling slams his hand down on the mount's controls, and the machine shudders to life, vibrating, pulling at him, matching the brutal rhythm we're setting.

Sterling braces himself fully against the mount now, his massive body moving like a force of nature—thrusting forward into the machine, dragging back and spearing himself onto me. Over and over. Harder. Rougher. A brutal, endless rhythm.

"That's it," he grits out, sweat slicking his fur, his muscles flexing under my hands. "Use me. Make yourself fucking useful for once."

The degradation burns through me—shame and lust and exhilaration braided into something filthy and perfect. I give up trying to control it. I grab his hips harder, fingers digging into thick muscle, chasing the rhythm he sets.

"Touch my knot," Sterling orders, voice a harsh rasp. "Feel it."

I fumble a hand around his hip, down to where his cock is buried inside the mount. My fingers brush the thick base—and holy fuck. It's already swelling, heavy and throbbing against my palm.

"Is this what you wanted?" Sterling growls, head dropping low, breath coming in broken pants. "Have you been jerking yourself off to the thought of my knot splitting you open? Stretching you until you can't think straight?"

"Yes," I gasp, so far gone in the heat of it I can't even pretend otherwise.

Sterling laughs, a wrecked, savage sound that doesn't carry an ounce of mercy. "Such a hungry little slut," he taunts, hips snapping back into me with brutal force. "Couldn't stop staring. Couldn't fucking breathe without thinking about getting wrecked on my cock."

His hand snakes back again, fisting in my hair, dragging me forward until my face is smashed against the sweaty, heaving expanse of his back. His scent is everywhere—salt and heat and pure male.

"Bite me," he snarls, voice vibrating against my teeth. "Mark me."

I don't even hesitate. I sink my teeth into his back, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to taste salt and flesh. Sterling roars—a full-bodied, primal sound—and his entire body jerks under me, his rhythm collapsing into something rough and frantic and unstoppable.

"Fuck yes," he groans. "Harder. Both. Everything. Give it to me."

And I do. I drive into him with every ounce of strength I have left, every inch of my body burning, every nerve ending on fire. Sterling's knot swells larger, tighter, as his body clamps down around my cock, and I know—I know—he's right there on the edge of losing it.

I clamp my teeth into thick muscle of his shoulder, one hand groping down to grab the fully swollen knot locked in the mount. It's huge. Obscene. And the way it throbs under my fingers—God, it's too much.

Physically, I'm the one inside him. But that's a lie we're both telling ourselves. Sterling controls everything—pace, power, pleasure. He's using me the way he uses the mount—ruthless, selfish, unstoppable—and I love it so much it feels like I'm dying from it.

"I'm close," I gasp, teeth dragging free of his skin, mouth still flooded with the taste of him. Sweat. Salt. Iron.

"You don't come until I say," Sterling growls, voice a wrecked snarl, hand locking around my hip with bruising force. His thrusts get messy, frantic, his massive body trembling under me. His knot bulges impossibly thick against the mount, locking him in place. Every muscle in his back bunches and quivers under my chest.

"Fill me with your cum," he demands, raw and breaking, "I want to feel your pathetic little load hot and wet inside me while I empty myself into this fucking machine. NOW."

The command shatters me. I drive into him one last desperate time, crying out as my orgasm explodes through me—white-hot, devastating, the kind that leaves you hollowed out and wrecked inside your own skin.

Sterling roars—a wild, primal sound that shakes the walls—and his whole body jerks, shudders, holds, pinned between me and the machine as he comes, thick and endless, draining himself into the mount even as I spill into him.

For a long, dizzy moment, we stay locked like that—joined, shaking, breathing like we just survived a war. I don't even know where my body ends and his begins.

Eventually, Sterling's knot deflates enough for him to pull free from the mount with a wet, obscene sound. He turns immediately—huge arms wrapping around me—and hauls me against his chest with a roughness that feels almost desperate.

"You did good," he mutters, voice hoarse, lips brushing the sweat-damp hair at my temple. His hand—still massive, still calloused—smooths my hair where he'd grabbed it before. His touch is clumsy, almost uncertain, but gentle. It punches harder than anything else tonight.

I look up at him, dazed, searching his face for the cold regret I half-expect.

But there's nothing cold there. Just satisfaction. And something hotter. Warmer. Softer.

"That wasn't in the progression plan," I rasp, still trying to get enough air into my lungs.

"Fuck the plan," Sterling growls, low and savage. "Sometimes I get tired of being so goddamn responsible all the time."

My legs finally give out, and Sterling catches me with ease, carrying me over to the cushioned bench like I'm weightless. He sets me down carefully, like I'm breakable again—even after he just broke me wide open. I watch through heavy-lidded eyes as he fetches a clean cloth, wiping me down first, then himself, his hands trembling just slightly with leftover adrenaline. It feels... intimate. Too much. Too good.

He sinks down beside me, exhaling like the last of his rage has burned out of him.

"You're frustrated with my restraint," he says finally, voice softer now. Clinical. But the edge of hunger is still there, simmering under the surface.

"Sometimes," I admit, raw honesty scraping up my throat. "I get it. I do. But—" I swallow hard. "I want more. I want to taste your cum as it slides down my throat. I want to feel you. Not just between my thighs. Inside."

The words hang between us, vulnerable and aching and messy.

Sterling studies me for a long moment, the golden ring of his eyes glowing low in the dim light. There's no anger there. No mockery.

Only heat. Only want.

"Your eagerness," he says, slow and measured, "is both flattering... and concerning."

He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, tracing it like he's memorizing me.

"This isn't a race, Hank," he murmurs. "Every step has to be careful. Has to be right."

"I know," I whisper. "Knowing doesn't make it easier."

Sterling pulls me against his chest again, cradling me in the massive, indestructible shelter of his body. His heartbeat pounds against my ear—strong and steady and grounding.

"The wanting," he says, voice roughened by more than just exhaustion, "is mutual. Don't ever doubt that."

The admission soothes something restless inside me—some wild, clawing thing that's been pacing my ribs for weeks. For now, this slow, careful exploration will have to be enough. Even as my body aches for more. Even as my mind spins out reckless, fevered dreams of everything—of being split apart and filled. Of being marked and claimed so thoroughly that there's no space left inside me that isn't his.