The knife didn't cut skin.
Not really.
It just traced.
Eve dragged the cool, flat edge of the paring blade along Micah's neck with the same precision she used to slice strawberry tops. Her breath was steady. Her hand was practised. The blade never trembled.
Micah, however, did.
Bare-chested, wrists tied behind his back with one of her father's old aprons—he knelt on the tile floor like a penitent monk. Flour dusted his thighs. Sweat beaded at the hollow of his throat.
He was aching.
Hard from nothing but her voice, her stare, and that damned knife humming promises against his skin.
"Still," she whispered, tapping the blade against his jaw. "Or I start carving initials."
He didn't move.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
But because he needed her to hurt him right.
---
His brain was a storm of contradictions
Run.
Kiss her hands.
Beg for mercy.
Beg for more.
---
She smiled as she knelt in front of him. Pulled the knife away and replaced it with her tongue—licking up his neck, savouring the salt of him like a wolf tasting her claim.
Her fingers trailed down his torso, nails leaving red crescents in their wake.
"Look at you," she murmured. "Tied up like bread waiting to rise."
He whimpered when her hand wrapped around him.
And when she squeezed—harder than necessary—he gasped, back arching like a bow. She chuckled, low and dark.
"Tell me what you are."
He hesitated.
The grip tightened.
"Say it."
His voice came out wrecked, humiliated.
"Yours."
"Say it right."
"I'm your crumb."
She kissed him then—hard, teeth clacking, tongues war-wild—and shoved him backwards. He landed on his side with a grunt, cheek pressed to cold tile.
She didn't wait.
Didn't warm him up.
Didn't ask.
She rode him like vengeance.
---
The pain was sharp at first—no prep, no care. Just need.
But that's what made it feel real.
Because gentleness felt like lying.
But this?
This felt like the truth.
---
Each thrust knocked a broken prayer from his lips.
Each bounce was a commandment written in bruise and breath.
She pulled his hair. Scratched his chest. Bit his shoulder hard enough to bleed.
And when he sobbed—not from pain, not really, but from the overwhelming flood of being known so cruelly and still kept—she moaned like it was her name he'd cried.
Because it was.
---
Her climax came with a growl. Animal. Possessive. And when she collapsed on him, breathless, fingers still tangled in his ruined hair, she whispered
"If anyone else touches you,
I'll cut their hands off and feed them to you."
Micah said nothing.
He couldn't.
But in his silence was a sick sort of worship.
Because no one had ever loved him loud enough to break him.
Until her.
---
She untied him, finally. Ran her fingers through the sweat-matted strands of his hair. Kissed the welts. Cooed his name.
A lullaby of apologies with no intention to stop.
And he?
He kissed her back.
Because it hurt.
And because it felt like love.