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Hank’s voice slices through the last tendrils of the dream. His soft speech—so different from the harsh consonants of my nightmare—pulls me toward the surface.

My lungs remember how to expand, how to draw breath that isn’t tainted with fear and mildew. Reality reasserts itself, pixel by pixel, against the corrupted data of memory.

“Breathe with me, luv.” His voice lowers, steady, calm—commanding. A lifeline in the chaos.

I latch onto the sound, the feel of his calloused hands, the scent of him—salt, skin, and something solid. The steady pressure of his touch tethers me, pulling me back inch by inch.

I inhale shakily, lungs burning, trying to mirror the slow, deliberate rhythm of his breaths as he demonstrates what my panicked body has forgotten.

Gabe’s hand finds mine, lacing our fingers together, warm and reassuring. His presence is a weight, holding me here.

My vision clears in fits and starts—Hank’s face inches from mine, eyes fierce with concern, Gabe’s silhouette steady at my side. The nightmare recedes, but not far enough.

It never goes far .

When I finally find my voice, it’s raw, cracked. “Why won’t it stop?”

A truth that tastes like defeat.

“You’re here. You’re safe. You’re with us.” Gabe’s voice is low and sure, his fingers tracing calming patterns on my shoulder.

I nod faintly, leaning into his touch even as my chest tightens with the weight of the past.

Safe . I’m safe. I’m safe. I. AM. SAFE!

I repeat the word silently, trying to make it feel real, but the shadows of what I’ve survived don’t loosen their grip.

It’s not that easy.

Memories claw at me, refusing to stay buried. Each time I silence one, another rises—different walls, different captors, but the same sense of helplessness, the same raw terror. Images flash like strobe lights behind my eyelids, fragments of nightmares made real.

“You’re tougher than this thing banging around in your head.” Hank’s grounding rumble is uncharacteristically tender. “But you don’t have to fight it alone.”

His thumb brushes against the base of my neck, circling the spot where tension coils like a spring. His eyes—usually calculating, assessing—now watch me with an intensity that speaks of something deeper than desire.

“Why is this happening?” The question tears from my throat, raw and desperate.

Just hours ago, I surrendered and found liberation in their control, pleasure in the pain they so carefully measured. I was riding the highest high of my life.

My body still bears the evidence of our passion—tender spots that should ground me in the present, not catapult me into the past.

Yet my fucking trauma hijacked my mind.

And just as suddenly, I’m back in that darkness, feeling bottomless despair.

Cold sweat breaks across my skin, dampening the sheet beneath me. My chest tightens, the air suddenly too thin, too sharp. The simple act of drawing air has become a battle. My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out everything else, the room blurring as tears prick my eyes.

“Ally,” Gabe’s voice breaks through the noise, low and steady, like a lifeline tossed into stormy seas. He moves closer, his hand firm on my shoulder, his thumb tracing slow circles against my skin. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

But the air won’t come. My throat constricts, and a faint whimper escapes before I can stop it.

“We’re here. Breathe, luv. Just try to breathe.” Hank is there in an instant, his hand brushing against mine. The rough warmth of his palm envelops mine, and I cling to it, my fingers trembling as I grasp his.

“Stay with us.” Gabe’s voice pulls me further back, his touch firm but soothing. “We’ve got you.”

“One breath at a time. That’s all you need right now.” Hank’s broad hand curls around mine, grounding me further.

“I can’t stop it,” I whisper, my voice breaking under the enormity of release—of being seen, of the fear clawing up from the inside out.

It’s too much.

Too loud in my head, too tight in my chest.

The air’s too thick, unbreathable—like I’m drowning in a room with no air. My skin burns. Too hot. Too tight—I can’t stay in it.

Can’t stand it.

I claw at the sheets, at myself, trying to find space, trying to escape.

“I can’t—I can’t—” My breath fractures, sharp and ragged. “I need to get out, I can’t?—”

Voices reach me—familiar, urgent—but distant. Muted, like I’m hearing them from underwater.

“… get her outside …”

The words warp and stretch, pulled thin like they’re at the wrong end of a tunnel.

Hank. I think.

Gabe’s there, too. I feel them move, feel the mattress shift, but their touch is like static, too soft or too sharp. I can’t tell. The panic drowns out everything else.

Gabe slides his arms beneath me, lifting me against his chest as though I weigh nothing. The man who pushed me to my limits hours ago now cradles me with exquisite tenderness.

“I’ve got her,” he murmurs to Hank, who is already moving, grabbing blankets from the chest at the foot of the bed.

Chilly night air hits my skin as Gabe carries me outside onto the expansive deck overlooking the ocean. The sharp salt tang cuts through the fog of panic, filling my lungs with something cleaner than the recycled memories of dank cells and fear.

Waves crash against the rocky shore below, a primal rhythm that somehow syncs with my heartbeat. The sound washes over me—constant, eternal, unconcerned with human suffering or joy. The ocean’s vastness stretches before us, stars reflected on its surface like scattered diamonds.

Hank lays blankets in the corner of the deck where the railing forms a natural alcove. Gabe lowers me onto this makeshift bed, and they settle on either side, cocooning me between their bodies—a human fortress against the demons in my mind.

The contrast is startling. These men who hours ago demanded and dominated now offer comfort with the same focused intensity they applied to pleasure and pain. Hank’s hand strokes my hair with unexpected gentleness; Gabe’s arm forms a protective barrier around my waist.

The wind carries the scent of pine from the inland forests, mingling with the ocean spray. Beneath me, the wooden deck vibrates slightly with each powerful wave that crashes against the rocks below. Above, stars wheel in a midnight sky, uncountable and ancient.

I close my eyes, letting their combined strength seep into me.

I’m not alone. I’m not alone. I’m not alone.

But even with them beside me, the ghosts of my past hover in the corners of my mind, waiting for the quiet to return.

“Trauma’s an asshole,” Hank mutters, not to me, but rather to Gabe. His voice rumbles through his chest, where my head rests against him.

I drag in a slow breath. “I don’t want to think anymore. I can’t take it.” My voice is thinner now, almost brittle.

I reach for Gabe with sudden desperation, fingers grasping at his wrist. I pull him toward me, guiding his hand between my thighs with unmistakable intent.

“Make me forget,” I whisper, the words torn from somewhere primal and raw. “Please, I need… I need to not be in my head right now.” My eyes lock with his, silently pleading. “Make me feel something else. Anything else.”

Gabe shifts closer, his arm curling around my shoulders, his weight stabilizing as he studies my face with an intensity that strips away pretense.

His eyes flick over my shoulder, meeting Hank’s gaze. The complexity of their dynamic extends beyond me, a language of subtle cues developed over years.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” Gabe asks, his voice deliberately controlled, each word measured and precise. “Tell me exactly what you need from me right now.”

My fingers tighten on his wrist, desperation clawing at my insides. “Drive the demons away,” I whisper, the words raw and unfiltered. “I need what only you can give.”

The implication hangs in the air—dangerous, forbidden. Something that skirts the edges of consent and blurs the lines between pain and pleasure, control and surrender.

Hank’s breath catches, his body tensing slightly against my back. The silence stretches like something alive—not heavy but charged.

Gabe’s hand shifts, his thumb smoothing over my jaw, tipping my face toward him. The movement is achingly unhurried, almost reverent.

“We will drive those demons away.” His voice dips, rich with promise and patience, and cuts through the chaos like a knife. There’s an edge beneath the softness, a glimpse of the darkness he keeps carefully leashed except in his most intimate moments. “But not like this. Not when your mind is fighting you. ”

The knot in my chest tightens, but it’s not fear—it’s surrender. A terrifying kind of freedom that threatens to unravel me entirely.

He holds my gaze, unflinching. “I know what you’re asking me for,” he says quietly, his thumb brushing my skin. “You think if I take control—really take it—you can outrun whatever’s chasing you. If I push hard enough, make it hurt, the demons will go quiet.”

His jaw tightens, and something flickers in his eyes—need, restraint, regret. “You know I want that with you. The darkness. The surrender. I want you in my playroom. I want you because you need it the same way I need you.”

His thumb presses against my jaw, holding me still, the moment taut with everything he’s barely holding back.

My breath hitches, but it’s not fear. It’s not panic. It’s the gravity of him—the truth laid bare, unvarnished and unafraid. His darkness should terrify me… but it doesn’t. It grounds me and pulls at me.

“But this?” His voice slices through the quiet, sharp, and sure. “This isn’t about me. Not right now. This is you, panicking, spiraling, and trying to escape. One of the burdens of holding power—is knowing when to step back. When to slow things down. When to stop, even when every part of me aches to take you there.”

My fingers tighten on his wrist, clinging—not out of desperation now, but as an anchor. My pulse no longer hammers; it pounds steady, a rhythm syncing to his voice, his control.

He leans in, his breath washing over my lips, dominance pressing down—not with force, but truth. “When I take you into that darkness—and I will—when you gift me your surrender, it won’t be because you’re running from something. It’ll be because you’re ready to face my darkness. Because you come to me, begging for it. Because you ache to suffer and serve—not to numb the pain, but to feed something inside both of us.”

His words settle over me like a weighted blanket, not crushing—soothing. My skin no longer feels like a trap.

My thoughts no longer claw for escape.

His hand shifts, thumb brushing my lip with almost reverent restraint. “Until then, I wait. Because your needs, your healing, matter more than my indulgence. I can live without unleashing my sadism. You can’t live shackled by trauma.”

Hank’s hand strokes slowly down my back, his palm firm, grounding. “You’re not alone in this, luv.” His voice is low, certain, and laced with command. “Not with us. Never with us.”

His presence behind me—solid and unyielding—pulls me deeper into the moment, tethering me not just to now but to them.

Gabe’s darkness.

Hank’s steadiness.

Two halves of the same whole, and both mine.

“We’ll get there, eventually, sweetheart, but not now.” Gabe kisses my forehead, soft, grounding… there .

My chest rises—slowly, fully—for the first time in what feels like hours. The panic ebbs, bleeding out of me with every word he speaks, replaced by something unexpected.

Relief.

Not because he won’t take me into that darkness—but that he wants to lead me there when I’m ready.

I close my eyes, letting the message of Gabe’s words sink in.

I can breathe now.

The chaos is still there—but it’s distant, quieter.

Gabe pulls back, eyes locked on mine, unwavering.

A breath shudders out of me—then Hank’s arm curls tighter around my waist, pulling me back against him, his voice warm against my ear.

“You’re safe, luv. With us. Always.”

His grip is firm, resolute—the kind of strength that doesn’t waver, even when I falter. He holds the line when I can’t.

A tear slips down my cheek, but it’s not from fear. It’s from the weight of Gabe’s words—the comfort in knowing that he’s waiting, and when I’m ready… he’ll be there.

“Breathe, luv.” Hank’s lips brush the shell of my ear. “You don’t have to face this alone. Not when we’re here.”

Gabe remains close, his hand resting against my cheek, but the dominant energy shifts—from Gabe’s held-back fire to Hank’s unshakable command .

“I’ve got you,” Hank says again, firmer this time, his tone brooking no argument. His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back just enough for me to meet his eyes—not demanding, but present and entirely in control. “I won’t let the darkness take you.”

He’s my anchor.

My breath leaves me in a tremble, my muscles finally unclenching, the last edge of panic bleeding out of me under his calm command.

Gabe’s truth lights the path.

Hank’s strength walks me out of the storm.

I melt into his chest, finally safe. Wrapped between him and Gabe. Held by Gabe’s darkness and steadied by Hank’s strength.

I no longer need to escape.

Not when I have them.