Archive of Our Own ^beta

Regret, as you will eventually learn the hard way, always comes late. The prelude of it arrived as the gold-tipped wings of dusk basked your bedroom, accompanying a military uniform-clad figure striding inside with an apple in his left hand.

“So, have you reflected enough?” Caleb’s familiar baritone disturbed the quiet, his footsteps echoing against the four walls and only receding once he stopped in front of your bed, his hat having been discarded on the nearby desk. “Or do I need to remind you of the dangers that await you outside?”

Still hazy from the painkillers-induced sleep, you sat up on the edge of the bed, blinked a few times and lifted your bleary gaze. Straight-faced save for a hint of a relaxed smile, Caleb’s eyes, however, smoldered with a fiery emotion that you easily attributed to his anger from this morning after he thwarted your attempt to sneak past the high walls that surrounded you as far as the eyes could see. Gooseflesh skittered across your back, but you willed the courage to maintain eye-contact lest you upset him more. The last thing you would want was to see Caleb irritated; he might have never once raised his voice to you, but he always had a crestfallen look whenever he was angry. One that you usually likened to a dejected puppy.

His frustration, however overbearing it might seem, was justified. From the time you learned your first word (“Gege.”) to the time you reached the cusp of adulthood, the high-security fortress of the Farspace Fleet had been your entire world. It was your home and your playground; your office and your retreat. The place your reliable stepbrother raised you in all on his own. The steel edifice was located on a man-made floating island far from the noise and tumult of civilizations, safeguarded by Caleb and his most trusted officers, men and women that he had ensured would never harbor any dubious intention towards you. None of the men interacted with you beyond trite pleasantries, though a few of the women were your close confidants albeit within limits. You weren’t sure why he insisted on confining you (and, technically, also himself) here, considering you weren’t a clumsy teenager anymore, but you had heard the talks among the officers, spoken in hush when they thought they weren’t within your earshot.

Eden. Adam and Eve.

A paradise for two.

Surely it couldn’t have implied anything profane. Caleb would never wish you harm. He always called you his everything, and he devoted all of his resources to you. His youth, his time, his future. There wasn’t a tinge of doubt to his affection and loyalty. 

“You are safe here.” Caleb intoned sternly, as he had done a thousand times like a binding mantra, a prayer to the deepspace gods. You nearly flinched from the coolness of his palm on your cheek, but your heart fluttered when the pad of his thumb traced soothing circles along your skin. Always so comforting like the remaining pinch of sunset that formed a faint halo around his imposing figure through the floor-length windows.

“I’m sorry, gege.” You sighed, closing your eyes, inhaling the balmy air of summer mixed with his distinctly earthy scent. “I was just—”

“Curious?”

You hummed, barely registering the rustle of fabric, but could sense the diminishing gap given the outline of his silhouette. A striking pair of amethyst was leveled on you once you opened your eyes. For a second your thoughts dissolved in their immense chasm until the light tap of an object in your hand attracted your attention. Looking down, it was the red apple Caleb had been carrying; now on your palm. You stared at it and wondered if this was your consolation prize. For reasons unknown, he harbored a fascination with the fruit and had cultivated a lush orchard in the garden.

“What’d you do if you had gotten your cramps while you were outside, away from me, away from the guards?” Caleb tutted without sounding unkind, absently stroking the back of your hand. “It’ll be that time of the month in five days, no?”

“Yes,” you answered weakly, knowing well you’d lost this conversation the moment you nearly collapsed from your abdominal cramps earlier. It was Caleb who had rushed to your aide and given you the painkillers before you drifted off from exhaustion. “Forgive me?”

“I can’t ever stay mad at you, but can you even promise me that you’d never try to sneak out again?”

He huffed and removed his dark coat, letting it fall in a heap to the floor. Tentatively toying with the apple, you lifted it to your mouth and bit into it. You chewed the fruit while watching him loosen his buttoned-up shirt. Gone were the harsh edges of a stoic colonel who inspired fear and veneration in his wake. What remained was the youthful visage that carried memories of the many nights you’d spent embraced in his arms, lulled in the blanket of security only he could offer. This was Caleb, who had tirelessly read you bedtime stories, who had always kissed your nightmares away, who had studiously monitored your red days. Who, even now, wore the handmade necklace you gifted him on his twentieth birthday, treasuring it to such an incredulous degree. 

“I’m not sure about keeping a promise,” you murmured and reached up, running your hand along the dog-tag before tugging at it, feigning playfulness, “but I’m good at keeping you busy, aren’t I?”

Beyond the windows, nightfall had descended on the horizon, casting long shadows inside your room and obscuring a portion of Caleb’s features. Dimmed as it was, you could make out the obvious stirring in his eyes, the darkening of his expression as his hand homed in on your nape like a heat-seeking missile and his face loomed over you, warm breath fanning dangerously close to your lips. Anticipation fluttered in your chest, and your cheeks instantly flared up due to the sudden proximity.

“You sure are,” his voice was heavy and full of intent, fingers curling in the hairs on the back of your neck.

Passionately, as though finally foregoing his tightly-held restraint, his lips slotted against yours with enough force to coax a gasp. The apple rolled down to the ground with a faint thud as you gripped his sleeve, crumpling up the material. One of his strong arms snaked around your waist and guided you to the soft mattress. His necklace clinked softly and brushed against your clavicle. Swayed by the skilled motion of his kiss, you whined into his mouth and instinctively followed his lead, lying back with both arms around his shoulders. Body pliant and embarrassingly willing despite the buzzing nervousness. You shuddered when he wrenched open your oversized shirt to reveal your naked breasts and equally naked hips. The nipples immediately stiffened in the sultry air.

Caleb paused and admired your exposed body, seemingly noting the lack of undergarments. You abruptly closed your legs.

“Full commando? Didn’t expect that.” At some point during the kiss, he had undressed his top, leaving his muscles displayed in all their scarred and sculpted glory. “One could have mistakenly thought you had prepared yourself for this.”

Truthfully, you did, though you wouldn’t admit it aloud. One of the many reasons you often dreaded your period was the lack of… bodily contact between the two of you, since you believed it might end in an unwanted result. But it had been weeks since Caleb touched you, and even longer since he was intimate with you, so how could you resist it? How could you not secretly crave for him? 

“Relax, it’ll be alright if we do it in moderation.” His knuckles grazed along the swell of your breast, two fingers deftly rolling the dark-pink bud. You made a choked out whimper and feebly squirmed to dispel the current of heat between your thighs, sensing the tell-tale sign of desire. Caleb, after turning his necklace backward, cupped both mounds and lowered his head in order to drag the flat of his tongue over your perky nipple, sampling the salt of your skin and swirling over the tip. A searing ache overcame your senses in an instant.

“Ah! Gege…”  

Far from sated, he brought one nipple into his mouth to lap and suckle almost lovingly at. The sparks of arousal grew so intense that your chest heaved, breathing ragged. Once he withdrew, pupils heavily dilated that the brilliant amethyst was merely a sliver around them, a wet string of saliva connected his spit-slick lips to the glistening nipple. He broke it by pulling away, situating himself between your legs. When he nudged them apart so that he could use his thumb to stroke lightly along the lips of your entrance, you realized that you were already soaking wet, even more so than usual. Your head was also beginning to feel light and muddled by a wanting that was almost primal.

Odd… Never had you felt bizarrely hot like every inch of your body had been doused in flaming inferno. Your breathing also staggered, coming in pants as if your sensitivity to his exploratory touches had heightened. 

“You’re exceptionally eager today, pipsqueak.” By now, the full mast of Caleb’s erection was blatantly straining his trousers, and as he got down on his belly in front of your spread open legs, pressing his bulge against the bed, he groaned menacingly low. The rumble of it sent shivers down your spine.

Momentarily your head spun. Your focus zeroed in on the tips of his hair tickling your inner thighs. You inhaled deeply in order to tame your wild heartbeats. 

It couldn’t have been the painkillers, which you consumed each time you underwent the torment of pre-menstrual discomfort. Then, what could it possibly be?

Your racing mind briefly conjured up the image of your half-bitten apple amidst the dizzying mist of lust.

“Gege, wait—”

Both thighs rested on his shoulders, you almost wept from the damp sensation of his tongue dragging fully through the entirety of your sticky folds. Caleb raised a brow to showcase that he was paying you full attention and flicked the pearl of your clit, clearly delighting in the unconscious jolt of your body. Muscles tensing, you couldn’t help the series of whimpers that drifted from your lips when he repeated the action.

“Nnngh… Did you—ah!—Did you put anything in that apple?”

The texture of his tongue on your pulsing clit was addicting. Still, you wanted your answer, which you understood Caleb was unable to give now that he slipped inside, licking at your inner walls. He swallowed like a man positively starved, devouring your soaking wet core as if to simulate penetration, his tongue entering and exiting at a steady pace. Obscene squelches reverberated in the star-lit room. More slick dripped out of you and coalesced with the spit trickling down your behind. Helpless against the ravenous ministrations, your hips involuntarily bucked forward to press into his face. Your tight grip on the rumpled sheets was the only anchor tethering you to sanity.

A faint plop—and the warmth of his mouth disappeared before you could lose your mind to the searing ecstasy. Confused and disappointed, you searched Caleb’s countenance when he returned to hovering over you, the mattress dipping under his weight. Beneath the matted hair framing his elegant face, his half-lidded eyes were glazed with a strange sadness. Wordlessly he pinned you to the bed, his free hand wandered over your torso, gun-calloused digits brushing into the divots of your unblemished flesh. You swallowed thickly past the indescribable burning in your throat and made for the button of his trousers. 

“Do you understand how restless you make me feel?” He savored the remnants of your fluids on his lips and pried your hand away to instead work open his pants with great efficiency, the bulbous head of his manhood shining with translucent precum once it was freed. “Again and again, I keep wondering if I’m going to lose you. If you are going to disappear from my sight forever. What do I have do to keep you with me?” 

The room, which was already stuffy, had become too hot. You felt an ineffable discomfort that a cold shower wouldn’t assuage. The heat had permeated your entirety and left your inside itching for relief. Your mouth was dry and your tongue was as coarse as sandpaper, as if you were undergoing a transformation that attuned you to the rough hands on the backs of your knees, folding you in half. Suddenly his presence consumed you; he was all that mattered.

“Mmmh!” You yelped as Caleb’s hardness breached your wet folds, sheathing his engorged arousal inside you with measured caution, inch by torturous inch. The stretch was deliciously burning, almost making your knees buckle, but it was far from enough. Luckily, he wasted little time in claiming your waist and dragging you down onto the thick length of his erection, filling you completely. Your body arched off the sheets, head thrown back into the soft pillow. Around the sturdy shaft, your walls constricted and fluttered, adjusting to the heavy girth. Sharp tingles coiled on your pelvis.

Caleb set a steady pace, drawing his hips back and then surging forward again to sink into your heated depths. Every deep, thorough stroke had the blunt head of his hardness kissing your cervix, intentionally aiming for a firm wall in the furthest part of you. Tears blurred your vision and cascaded your face, body throbbing in tune with your frantic heartbeat. You were certain that you would never forget his shape with how he rammed into you; feverish, designed to overwhelm you with a heady deluge of pain mixed with pleasure.

“You are taking me so well, sweetheart. Missed me that much?” His lips felt chilly against your neck, but his guttural voice stung—almost caustic. Flushed against you, fully buried to the hilt, you briefly registered the small bulge in your belly, just below the navel. Even more so when his hand splayed over the bump, tracing the outline.

“Caleb…” His name slipped past your lips faster than you could stop yourself, and the result was far from what you expected as he began to pick up his rhythm, hammering into you with reckless abandon. Stimulating your sensitive bundle of nerves with each rough thrust. Imprinting his existence deep within. 

You flinched and trembled all over, unable to stop his name that spilled out of your slacked mouth in a litany of lewd pleas. Trailing wet kisses along your pulse point, his movements grew erratic, quick and rough. Less like a man of his prestigious reputation and more like a feral beast devoid of a single coherent synapse, mouth agape as he groaned and panted against your skin. The necklace around his neck had returned to dangling from the front and occasionally scraping your shoulder though you were past the point of caring. Moreover when one of his hands found your swollen clit and rubbed at the firm bead in sloppy but diligent circles, making your spine arch as you mewled breathily.

“Gege, I’m… I’m close…” Harder, harder, harder. The pressure in the bottom of your abdomen was steadily rising from the combined onslaught, yet he didn’t show signs of pausing; fully dedicated on driving you to the precipice of release, filling you up until the bedroom consisted nothing more than a debauched symphony of hoarse moans and slapping skins.

“Go ahead, my sweet girl.” Caleb whispered raspily, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Let me bring you heaven.”

The force of your release knocked the breath out of your lungs. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, toes curling and moans hitting a crescendo. Around the persistently moving shaft, your walls spasmed and clenched. You would’ve collapsed to the soaked sheets had it not been for the strong grip on your waist that held you in position as Caleb continued to pound into you through your climax—dragging the peak out until a familiar look of ecstasy contorted his face. He slammed into you one last time just as warm and thick fluids flowed inside you, nestled squarely against your cervix. Still hyper-sensitive from the blissful quakes, your walls pulsed and twitched as he rutted his hips forward a few times, smearing your insides as deep as he could. 

Keeping his pulsing manhood inside you, Caleb half-collapsed on you and wrapped you in his embrace, tonguing wetly at the sheen of sweat on the spot just beneath your jawline. Usually, after reaching your orgasm, you would lose consciousness this way, against his warm body, but for once the bothersome itch inside you was nowhere near satisfied. The burning flame had yet been quenched. When he shifted his position to hold you better while dusting kisses over your forehead, you could feel your insides stirring—eager and far too insatiable for more of him. It almost threatened to burst out of your chest.

You swallowed once and twice, turning to face Caleb, anxiously fiddling with the chain of his necklace.

“Gege?” 

“Hm?” 

Any remaining confusion was soon obliterated once you studied his expression. He seemed calm, terribly so, but there laid an undercurrent of devious possessiveness in his gaze as if he was holding you captive in his gravity. Only his to see and only his to touch. The seething flame under your skin roared hungrily in response. It was then that the answer became as clear as the star-littered sky outside; held plainly for you to see in the upward curl of his lips into a gentle smile that belied his purposeful stare. 

“My body, it’s so hot… What did you—what did you give me?” Though your voice quivered, you couldn’t decide whether it was from the flickers of desire or the waves of shock. “You said we’re only going to do it in moderation, didn’t you…?”

From the corner of your eyes you could see the apple-pendant of his necklace. Its polished surface reflected the lighting of your room, glinting with an indiscernible warning.

“Do you remember how Adam and Eve fell from grace after eating the forbidden fruit? The apple of Eden; the fruit with which everything began and ended.” Caleb’s fingertips gently waltzed along your cheekbone, drawing abstract lines. So comfortably sweet his voice always was that never once you imagined there would come a day that it would carry enticing temptations; slithering around your last pillars of resolve, crumbling them apart bit by bit, rendering you completely at his mercy. A bird kept in the snake’s gilded cage.

With a smug grin tugging on his mouth, he hooked an arm around your knee and lifted your leg to once again surge into you, announcing that the illicit affair was far from finished. That this was only the beginning. That through no-less-than nefarious means he had devised a method to turn you into a prisoner of your own wretchedness as your body accepted him again with little to no resistance. The Eve of his malformed paradise.

“Why can’t that be us, bound together by the same sin, for all eternity?”