Chapter 7: Morning Claiming
The first sensation was heat. A solid, insistent pressure against the back of her thigh. Then, the slow, rhythmic stroke of a hand down the curve of her spine. Ava surfaced from the deep, drugless sleep like a diver ascending too fast. Her mind was fog, but her body was awake, humming in response to his touch.
She was still wrapped around him, her back to his front. His arm was a steel band across her ribs, holding her flush against him. He was fully hard, his erection nestled in the cleft of her ass. He wasn’t asking. He was already in motion.
“Eli?” Her voice was a sleep-ravaged croak.
His answer was a low, wordless sound against the nape of her neck. His hand left her spine and cupped her breast, his thumb circling her nipple through the thin cotton of her t-shirt—his t-shirt. He rolled the peak to a stiff point, then pinched, just shy of pain. A sharp gasp caught in her throat, and her hips jerked back against him involuntarily.
“Quiet,” he murmured, his lips brushing her skin. The command was soft, absolute.
His hand slid down her stomach, over the waistband of her sweats, and dipped inside. His fingers found her, slick and swollen from the night before. He made a satisfied, gruff noise. “Still wet for me.”
He pushed a finger inside her, then two, curling them, stretching her. It was a clinical preparation, efficient and devoid of tenderness. He scissored his fingers, working her open, his other hand still kneading her breast. She was panting, her fingers digging into the arm wrapped around her. She was completely at his mercy, and the terrifying truth was, she didn’t want mercy.
He withdrew his fingers, shiny with her arousal. He brought them to her lips. “Taste.”
She opened her mouth. He slid his fingers over her tongue, watching her suck them clean, his eyes dark and intent. The obscenity of it sent a fresh flood of heat between her legs.
In one fluid, startling motion, he shifted. His arm tightened, and he rolled her onto her stomach. The pillow muffled her surprised cry. He yanked her sweats and underwear down to her knees in a single, rough pull. The cool morning air kissed her exposed skin.
He loomed over her, a dominant shadow in the dawn light. He hooked his hands under her hips and dragged her backward, up onto her knees. Her cheek was pressed into the pillow, her ass in the air. She felt exposed, vulnerable, a offering on the altar of his bed.
She heard the tear of a foil packet. The sound was brutally pragmatic. Then, the cold, slick touch of lube. Not just on himself. His thumb, thick and deliberate, pressed against her other hole. She stiffened, a jolt of pure adrenaline shooting through her.
“Eli—”
“Shhh.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb in slow, insistent circles. The pressure was immense, unfamiliar. “This is mine now, too.”
He didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t ask. He pressed his thumb inward, breaching the tight, clenching ring of muscle. The intrusion was a bright, shocking sting. She cried out, the sound swallowed by the pillow. He worked his thumb in deeper, then out, coating her with the cool gel. It was a violation so intimate it felt like theft. He was claiming a part of her no one else had ever touched.
He replaced his thumb with the broad, slick head of his cock.
“Breathe out,” he commanded, his voice strained with tension.
She exhaled a shuddering breath. He pushed.
The burn was exquisite, a searing fullness that ripped a raw, guttural sound from her throat. It was too much. She tried to crawl forward, but his hands clamped on her hips, holding her immobile. He sank deeper, an inexorable invasion, until he was fully seated, buried to the hilt inside her impossibly tight heat.
He didn’t move. He stayed there, panting, his body trembling with the effort of holding still. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her back. “Fuck,” he breathed, the word full of awe and agony. “You’re so fucking tight.”
He began to move. Short, shallow thrusts at first, letting her body adjust to the brutal stretch. Each one dragged a ragged moan from her. Then his strokes grew longer, harder. He fucked her with a focused, relentless intensity, each drive punching the air from her lungs. The pain began to morph, blurring into a sharp, forbidden pleasure. It was overwhelming. There was no thought, only sensation: the slap of his skin against hers, the creak of the bed, his choked grunts with every thrust.
“You take it,” he growled, his fingers digging bruises into her hips. “You take all of me.”
He leaned over her, blanketing her body with his. One hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back. His mouth found her ear. “This is where you belong. Under me. Full of me.” His words were filthy, perfect. They unspooled her.
The coiled wire inside her snapped. An orgasm, different from any before—deeper, darker, wrenched from a place of pure submission—exploded through her. She screamed, her body convulsing around his invading length, the intense, internal contractions milking him violently.
It triggered his own release. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself as deep as he could go. A roar was torn from his chest, raw and unrestrained. He pulsed inside her, hot and endless, marking that claimed, secret place. He collapsed over her, his weight driving her into the mattress, both of them spent and shaking.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their desperate breathing. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. The sensation was strange, leaving her feeling hollow and profoundly occupied at the same time.
He rolled off her, onto his back. She didn’t move. She felt the warm, wet trail of his release leak down her inner thigh. The physical evidence of his possession was stark, undeniable.
The dawn light had strengthened, painting the room in pale gold. It felt like a witness.
Eventually, he moved. He left the bed and walked, naked, to the adjoining bathroom. She heard water run. He returned with a warm, damp cloth. Gently, he turned her onto her back. His eyes met hers, and for a fleeting second, she saw something unguarded and shattered in their depths. Then it was gone, shuttered behind his usual impassivity.
He cleaned her with meticulous care, wiping the mess from her thighs, tending to the sore, stretched flesh between her cheeks. The tenderness was a dissonant chord after the violence of the act. He helped her out of the tangled sweats and his t-shirt, then guided her, naked, back to the bed, pulling the covers over her.
He walked to the window, his back to her, a silhouette against the brightening sky. His shoulders were tense.
“The forty-eight hour window closes at noon,” he said, his voice flat. “Your vital signs have stabilized. Sleep patterns show increased REM duration. The physiological crisis has passed.”
He was speaking the language of his model. Rebuilding the walls.
Ava pushed herself up on her elbows. The ache in her body was a full-body throb. “What about the other crisis?”
He didn’t turn. “What other crisis?”
“The one where you fuck me like you’re trying to exorcise a demon at five in the morning.”
He was silent for a long moment. “That data is inconclusive.”
She let out a shaky laugh that was almost a sob. “Bullshit.”
Finally, he turned. His face was a mask, but his eyes were alive, turbulent. “What do you want me to say, Ava? That I lost control? You know I did. That I wanted to brand myself inside you so you’d never fucking forget who you belong to? You felt it.” He took a step toward the bed. “The algorithm is for your safety. This… what just happened… that’s for me. It’s a flaw. A catastrophic system error.”
“Maybe it’s not an error,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s a bypass.”
He stared at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign code. He looked down at his own hands, as if they belonged to someone else. “I need to shower,” he said, his voice quiet. “There are clothes for you in the dressing room. We have things to discuss.”
He left her alone in the rumpled, scent-filled bed. She heard the shower start. She lay back, staring at the ceiling, her body a map of his possession. The cut on her hand, the bruises on her hips, the deep, throbbing ache within. He’d catalogued her vital signs, but he’d missed the most important one: for the first time in as long as she could remember, the static in her mind was gone. It had been replaced by a single, crystalline point of focus.
Him.
The terror of that was more profound than any addiction.