Chapter 3: The Morning After
The first sensation was the ache. A deep, throbbing pulse that started in his core and radiated outwards, mapping the memory of the previous night onto his muscles and bones. Eli woke not to light, but to the slow, deliberate drag of fingertips over the sensitive skin of his hips. He winced, a sharp intake of breath hissing between his teeth.
“You’re bruised.”
Dominic’s voice was a low rumble in the semi-darkness. The crimson drapes were drawn against the morning, leaving the room in a blood-tinged twilight. Eli could just make out the outline of him, propped on one elbow, his gaze fixed on the marks his hands had left.
Eli didn’t speak. He kept his eyes closed, pretending the touch wasn’t sending treacherous shivers through his exhausted body.
“Look at me.”
He opened his eyes. Dominic’s face was unreadable, a sculpture of sharp angles and shadows. His piercing blue eyes were focused, assessing, like he was examining a ledger sheet. His tracing finger pressed down, just once, on the darkest bloom of color. A fresh jolt of pain, sweet and sharp.
“You look good ruined,” Dominic murmured, his voice devoid of its usual mocking edge. It was a simple statement of fact.
Before Eli could process it, a strong arm hooked around his waist and flipped him onto his stomach. The movement was swift, effortless. The silk sheets were cool against his feverish skin. He gasped, face buried in the pillow that smelled of Dominic’s cologne and their spent sex.
“Wh—"
A heavy weight settled over him. Dominic’s body covered his, skin to skin, a furnace of contained power. Lips found the junction of Eli’s neck and shoulder, not kissing, but tasting, lingering. Then teeth. A sharp, claiming bite that made Eli cry out, his back arching involuntarily.
“You’re tense,” Dominic breathed against the wounded skin. “Still fighting it.” His hands slid beneath Eli’s hips, lifting him, adjusting the angle. There was no preparation, no courtesy. Eli felt the thick, blunt head of Dominic’s cock press against him, against the sore, swollen entrance that had only just begun to relax.
“Don’t—” Eli’s plea was choked, muffled by the pillow.
“Don’t what?” Dominic’s tone was flat. “You’re mine. This is mine. I take what’s mine whenever I want it.” He pushed.
The breach was brutal. Eli’s body, raw from the night before, seized in violent protest. It was a white-hot tear of pain, so intense his vision sparked. He screamed, the sound swallowed by the bedding. Dominic didn’t stop. He pushed relentlessly, past the clenching resistance, until he was fully sheathed in that impossibly tight, searing heat.
“Fuck,” Dominic groaned, his body going rigid above Eli. “Christ, you’re still so fucking tight. Like you’re trying to keep me out.”
He gave Eli no time to adjust. He began to move, a slow, punishing withdrawal followed by a deep, grinding thrust. Each stroke dragged against oversensitive, abraded nerves. It was agony.It was a violation. And yet, beneath the sheer, tearing pain, a shameful, familiar heat began to coil in Eli’s gut. His body, traitorously, began to soften, to accommodate, the burn melting into a deep, full ache that echoed his heartbeat.
Dominic’s pace increased. He braced himself on his forearms, caging Eli in, his mouth returning to the bite mark on his shoulder. The thrusts became harder, faster, a relentless piston driving the air from Eli’s lungs. The bed rocked against the wall with a rhythmic, protesting creak.
“Is this what you needed?” Dominic growled, his breath hot and ragged in Eli’s ear. “All that attitude, that fucking defiance… was it just a plea for this? To be used like a cheap little hole?”
“No,” Eli gasped, but it was a lie, and they both knew it.
“Yes, it was.” Dominic’s hand fisted in Eli’s red hair, yanking his head back, arching his spine painfully. “Tell me you love it. Tell me you love being my fucking slut.”
Eli couldn’t. The words wouldn’t form. Instead, a broken sob escaped him, a tear tracking into his hairline. His own cock, trapped beneath him, was hard and leaking onto the sheets, utterly betrayed by the rest of him.
Dominic’s hand left his hair and snaked beneath him, finding his erection. His grip was punishing, a rough, dry pull that matched the jarring rhythm of his thrusts. The dual assault was overwhelming—the deep, brutal fullness and the rough friction on his cock. Eli’s resistance shattered.
“I… I love it,” he choked out, the confession torn from him. “I love it, I love it, fuck, please—”
“Please what?” Dominic grunted, slamming into him with a force that shook the headboard.
“Please don’t stop. Please, sir.”
The honorific, unlocked in his desperation, seemed to electrify Dominic. His rhythm lost all control, becoming a frantic, animalistic drive. “Come for me,” he commanded, his voice thick. “Come all over your stomach, you filthy boy.”
The command, the brutal friction, the overwhelming sense of being utterly owned and used—it tipped Eli over the edge. His orgasm ripped through him silently, a violent, convulsing wave that left him seeing stars. He spilled over Dominic’s fist, his body clamping down viscously around the cock still pistoning inside him.
The sudden, intense constriction was all Dominic needed. With a final, guttural roar that was more triumph than pleasure, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his release hot and endless, flooding Eli’s overstimulated channel. He collapsed forward, his full weight crushing Eli into the mattress, both of them slick with sweat and spent.
For long minutes, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city below. Slowly, Dominic softened and slipped out. Eli felt the stark, empty ache of it, the sudden cool air on ravaged skin.
Dominic rolled off him, onto his back. He didn’t touch Eli. He just stared at the draped ceiling, his chest rising and falling steadily. The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable.
Finally, Dominic spoke, his voice back to its usual, dispassionate calm. “There’s a breakfast meeting in an hour. I expect you to be dressed and presentable in the dining room in thirty minutes.”
Eli blinked, stunned. He slowly pushed himself up on trembling arms. His body felt shattered, used, dripping. He was supposed to just… get up? Go to a meeting?
“I…” His voice was a wrecked whisper.
Dominic turned his head on the pillow. His blue eyes were icy, clear, already miles away. “You heard me, Elias. Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”
He threw back the sheets and stood, walking naked and unselfconscious towards the bathroom. The door closed, and the shower started.
Eli sat amid the ruins of the silk sheets, the scent of sex and pain thick in the air. He looked at the closed bathroom door, then down at his own trembling, marked body. The submission was complete. The ownership was total.
And the worst part, the part that made a fresh, cold sweat break out on his skin, was the horrifying, hollow certainty that now, after all that, he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do next.