Chapter 58: Stress Relief

Atticus chuckled. A small, measured sound. His glasses caught the lamplight in that smug little way they always do, and for a fleeting second, I considered snatching them right off his nose just to break his composure. But then I remembered I liked him better when he wasn’t squinting at me like I was some misbehaving equation.

I smirked, of course I did, because smirking is my natural state of being, the face the gods sculpted me into before tossing me into this chaotic world. “Oh, professor,” I cooed, “you laugh now, but wait until you see what brilliance I wring from this little disaster.”

Then I turned toward Mia. The girl was still trying to decide whether she’d accidentally joined a gang or wandered into the world’s strangest amateur theater troupe.

I leaned close, close enough that the steam of my words kissed her cheek, and purred, “Go back to your boss, darling, and tell him I agree to the meeting.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

Brutus cocked his head at me. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture—Brutus doesn’t do drama, not unless you count breathing like thunder as drama—but even that small tilt of his head carried the weight of suspicion. His brows furrowed just slightly, and I swear the air shifted, like a stone pillar deciding it might collapse if provoked.

Freya, however, had no patience for silence. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“Yes,” I answered sweetly, without missing a beat. “But don’t worry, I’ve been out of it for years now, it’s never slowed me down before.”

Dregan nearly choked laughing in the corner, slapping his knee like some filthy uncle at a wedding. Atticus muttered something about probability curves. Freya rolled her eyes. Mia—well, Mia blinked at me like I’d just asked her strip naked and juggle knives in front of the Warden himself.

“You’ll also tell him,” I continued, my voice softening into that velvet edge that always gets people listening, “that I’d like to meet at a specific location.”

“A location?” she echoed, confusion lacing her tone.

“Mm-hm,” I hummed, leaning closer still. I cupped my hand against her ear and whispered the words into it, savoring the way her body stiffened, her eyes snapping wide like lanterns being lit for the first time. Saints above, she nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to nod.

And just like that, she bolted. Cloak swirling, boots slapping against stone, gone out into the courtyard like a frightened messenger pigeon set aflame.

The room stilled. My crew—my little dysfunctional, broken family—looked at me with varying degrees of suspicion, amusement, and barely contained homicidal urges.

Brutus spoke first, his voice a low rumble, the kind that makes the walls remember they were carved from mountains. “What are you planning?”

I stretched, yawned, made a show of cracking my neck like a cat too lazy to chase its own prey. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I paused for a moment before sticking out my tongue like some bratty child hellbent on stealing sweets. “It’s a secret.”

Brutus narrowed his eyes. Freya hissed. Atticus scribbled something down, no doubt labeling me “suicidal” in Latin. And me? I just smiled, letting the silence do my work.

The day passed in its usual sluggish rhythm, though I floated through it like a feather dipped in wine. Men shifted crates, coins clinked, whispers spread, and for once, nothing burst into flame.

Which, of course, meant I was bored out of my skull.

So naturally, I went to bother Brutus.

I found him in his “room,” though calling it a room was generous. Four stone walls, a cot that looked like it had been punched into submission, and a single candle stub burning down into melted wax.

Dingy, plain, depressing as an unloved outhouse. And yet—it was also where we kept our hoard. Fifteen sacks of coin now, piled neatly against the wall, each one fat-bellied and promising temptation. Our empire, all sewn into burlap.

Brutus sat at a table that looked like it had once been a door, hunched over as he counted coins with the patience of a saint and the expression of a man who’d rather be stabbing someone. His massive hands moved with surprising delicacy, stacking silver like a sculptor building towers out of hope.

I tiptoed in, exaggerated my steps like a sneaky child, then tapped him on the shoulder.

“Oh, Brutey,” I whined in my sweetest, most insufferable tone, “I’m stressed.”

He stiffened instantly, the way he always does when confronted with my weaponized affection. “You’re always stressed,” he muttered, not even bothering to face me.

“Yes, but this is a different kind of stress,” I said, wriggling around until I was practically draped across his back. I clutched at my skirt dramatically, sighing as though the weight of the entire prison had crushed me flat. “The kind of stress that only a big, strong, terrifying brute like you could relieve.”

Brutus’s sigh was deep enough to collapse buildings. “No.”

“Pretty please with cherries and chains on top?”

He finally sighed, set down a stack of coins, and turned his mountain of a face toward me. His eyes narrowed, weighing me like one weighs a noisy insect. “What do you want, Loona?”

I pouted, my deadliest weapon. “Attention. Relief. A little affection, maybe. A cuddle if you’re feeling generous.”

Brutus groaned, the sound shifting out from his chest like an avalanche. “You’re insufferable.”

“Why of course,” I agreed brightly, “but that’s what keeps it fun around here, isn’t that right?”

His lips twitched. Not a smile, no, Brutus would never debase himself so openly. But a slight curl, a betrayal of amusement. I considered it a victory. After several minutes of me prancing, sighing, and pretending to faint on the floor, he finally stood with a muttered curse.

“Fine. Come with me.”

I perked up instantly. “Where are we going?”

“The bar.”

My eyes lit up like fireworks. “The bar?! Oh, Brutus, you do care!” I threw my arms around his waist before he could shove me off, hugging him tight like a child clutching a teddy bear twice its size. He grumbled, but his massive hand landed on my shoulder anyway, steady and warm.

The makeshift bar was buzzing when we arrived. Smoke curled up into the rafters, voices roared, mugs clinked. Men slouched across benches, dice rattled, and somewhere in the corner someone was singing off-key about a girl who’d broken his heart and stolen his boots.

We walked in, and the room tilted toward us, just slightly. Eyes followed. Whispers tickled the air. Being me, I soaked in the attention like sunlight. Being Brutus, he ignored it all and headed straight for the counter.

He ordered two drinks, his voice booming over the din, then sat. I, naturally, plopped myself right into his lap, ignoring the perfectly good seat next to him. His thighs were far more comfortable anyway.

He didn’t push me off. Instead, his hand settled on my shoulder, heavy and grounding. Saints above, I nearly purred. “Well, this is cozy,” I murmured, leaning back against his chest.”

Brutus sighed into my hair. “You never stop, do you?”

“Nope,” I giggled, turning my head to grin up at him.

He studied me, his eyes narrowing with that sharp, measuring look of his. Then he said, voice low and even, “Gods, you’re good at seduction.”

I gasped, clutching my chest dramatically. “Why, Brutus, you flatter me! It’s almost as if I spent my past life prostituting myself for coin. Oh, wait—I did.”

That earned me a look. Not a scowl, not amusement, but something steadier. Curiosity maybe. “That reminds me. You’ve never told me,” he said slowly. “Not about you’re time before you were reincarnated. But about after. The years before you ended up here. What happened to you then?”

For a moment, the din of the bar seemed to hush. The laughter, the clinking of mugs, the off-key singing—it all blurred into a dull hum behind his words. My throat went dry, caught off guard by the earnest weight of his question.

I hesitated. Just long enough for him to notice. Just long enough for my smile to falter. The truth pressed hot against my teeth, begging to spill, but no—I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not here, not now, not with his steady eyes waiting to sift through my every syllable.

So I giggled instead, bright and false, brushing the moment aside with a wave of my hand. “Oh, come now, Brutus. Let’s not get dreary. What’s past is past, and if I tell you mine you’ll only fall more hopelessly in love with me. We can’t have that, can we?”

He didn’t argue, but the question lingered in his silence. Curious. Heavy. It clung to the air between us like smoke.

And so I leaned back further, nuzzling against his chest with a wicked little grin. “Besides, you must be so pent up. Sitting here all stoic, watching me wiggle in your lap. It must be torture.”

His breath deepened, a low rumble against my back. I felt it through my spine, through my ribs, through the heat pooling in my stomach. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t push me away either.

I giggled, soft and wicked. “Make it quick then, darling,” I whispered, lifting myself just slightly from his thighs, my skirt slipping scandalously high. “Before anyone notices.”

Brutus’s massive frame shifted beneath me, his thighs like iron slabs under my ass, radiating heat that seeped through his pants and into my core, making my bussy twitch with greedy anticipation.

Saints above, he’s like a goddamn furnace, I thought, my pulse hammering as I heard the telltale rustle of leather—his fingers fumbling at his belt, undoing just enough to let that monstrous cock of his slither free into the humid air.

It sprang out hot and heavy, the veined shaft slapping against my ass with a meaty thwack, already slick at the tip with a fat bead of pre-cum that smeared across my skin like warm honey.

Brutus’s breath caught in his throat as he glanced around the tavern, eyes scanning the rowdy crowd of leering faces and swaying drunks, oblivious to the filthy secret blooming right beneath their noses.

“Loona… fuck, someone’s gonna see,” he muttered, his voice a gravelly whisper laced with that rare edge of vulnerability, his massive hand flexing on my hip like he could crush the whole damn bar if they looked too close.

“Shhh” I cooed, my hand snaking under my skirt to brush the sodden lace of my panties aside, the fabric clinging wetly to my ass from the sheer thrill of it all. “Just relax for a bit,” I said, my fingers trembling as they grazed the swollen lips of my bussy, already leaking slick down my thighs in sticky rivulets.

The air between us thickened with the intoxicating scent of our arousal, mingling with my own wetness that perfumed the space like forbidden fruit gone ripe and rotten.

Without another word, I slammed myself down onto him, my ass stretching obscenely around his girth with a wet schlorp, the burn of the intrusion ripping a gasp from my throat as his cockhead punched deep into my guts, filling me so completely I swear I felt it nudge my ribs.

Brutus bucked beneath me, a guttural “F-fuck” escaping his lips in a strangled moan, his hips jerking like he might slip right out and flood the floor.

I clamped my hands on his thighs, nails digging into the unyielding muscle, holding him steady as my walls fluttered and clenched around his pulsing length, milking him with greedy, rippling squeezes.

A blush crept up my neck then, hot and traitorous, staining my cheeks as the audacity hit me like a slap—the thrill of it all, this massive brute buried balls-deep in my dripping cunt while the tavern roared on, oblivious to the lewd symphony of our joining.

Gods, one wrong glance, one shout, and we’d be the evening’s entertainment—fucked raw on display like cheap whores, I thought, the danger coiling tight in my belly, turning my slick into a gushing flood that eased his girth even deeper.

Just then, the bartender lumbered back, his meaty paws balancing two foaming mugs, his beady eyes narrowing as he thudded them down on the scarred wood.

I yanked my skirt down in a frantic flutter, the fabric whispering over my stuffed hole, trapping Brutus’s cock in a vise of lace and secrecy.

He paused, suspicion etching his pockmarked face like cracks in dry earth, his gaze lingering on the flush staining my skin, the way Brutus’s jaw clenched like he was chewing glass.

“Everything alright here?” he grunted, his voice a phlegmy rasp that made my skin crawl, but I batted my lashes up at him, all wide-eyed innocence laced with a coy pout, my hips giving the tiniest grind that made Brutus’s cock throb warningly inside me.

“Oh, just peachy, handsome—your ale’s the only thing saving me from dying of thirst,” I purred, my voice a breathy trill that had him muttering under his breath about “fancy little sluts” as he stalked away, his boots scuffing the floorboards.

I fell back against Brutus’s chest with a giggle bubbling from my lips, the solid wall of him cradling me like a throne of flesh and bone. His heartbeat was a frantic drum against my spine as I reached for my mug, taking a slow sip of the bitter foam. The cool fizz burst on my tongue while my bussy wept around his buried shaft.

The first rock of my hips was deliberate, a slow, filthy grind that dragged his veined length through my clenching walls, the wet slap

of my ass meeting his thighs muffled by the bar’s roar but echoing lewdly in my ears like a secret sin.

Brutus grumbled low in his throat, a guttural “Nngh… Loona,” his massive hands flexing on my waist as I picked up the rhythm.

I began rolling my hips in lazy circles that made his cockhead kiss the deepest recesses of me, stirring my insides into a sloppy, bubbling mess of slick and pre-cum that leaked out in warm trickles, soaking my panties and dribbling onto the stool in obscene little puddles.

I took another sip of ale, the foam clinging to my upper lip like a creamy mustache, a sharp contrast to the salty tang of sweat beading on my skin.

My free hand slipped up to bite down on my finger then, teeth sinking into the soft pad as the rush hit me—a dizzying wave of heat and shame that made my vision blur.

“Easy now, big guy,” I whispered through gritted teeth, my voice a cheery trill laced with command, guiding him with breathy instructions that spilled from my lips like honeyed venom. “Don’t rush it. That’s it, take a deep breath…”

Brutus’s arms wrapped tight around my waist then, steel bands of muscle locking me in place as he thrust up experimentally, a deep “Hah~ shit” rumbling from his chest, his breath hot and ragged against my ear.

The friction built like a storm, sending jolts of filthy pleasure sparking up my spine, my own cock trapped and leaking in my soaked panties, rubbing against the lace with every rhythmic bounce.

He leaned in closer, his stubble scraping my neck like rough silk, his voice a gravelly warning that vibrated straight to my core.

“Loona… fuck, I’m gonna… I’m gonna cum.”

His hips stuttered as his cock swelled impossibly thicker inside me, stretching my hole to its slick, quivering limits.

My eyes blew wide, a fresh gush of arousal flooding around him at the thought of it—the hot, bubbling flood of his seed painting my insides white, spilling out in messy ropes to stain the stool, marking me as his filthy secret in front of everyone.

“Go ahead and let it out big guy, you deserve it.”

“Unngh~!” Brutus sounded from his throat, the sensation so intense my vision spotted black.

With one last, bone-rattling grunt, Brutus arched forward, his body going rigid as he erupted, thick ropes of cum blasting into my depths, each pulse knocking against my walls with wet, forceful splats that I felt in my fucking soul.

The heat bloomed deep and dirty, overflowing almost immediately in creamy river that seeped past his shaft and trickled down my thighs.

I shut my eyes tight, biting my lip bloody to stifle the moan clawing up my throat. My body trembled as the pressure built unbearably, his seed sloshing inside me with every tiny shift as the scent of his cum—salty, musky, utterly depraved—rose to mingle with the bar’s stench.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore, a tiny squeak escaping my lips—”Ahh!”—high and broken, as my own climax ripped through me.

My cock spasmed in my panties with a wet little squelch, soaking the lace in hot spurts of cum that smeared against my belly, the release so intense my toes curled, my vision whiting out in a haze of filthy ecstasy.

Brutus kissed the back of my head, a soft, rumbling chuckle escaping him like a burden finally lifted, his arms loosening just enough to cradle me in their warmth.

His softening cock still twitched inside my cum-stuffed hole, plugging the worst of the mess but letting fresh trickles escape with every breath.

“Gods… you little demon,” he murmured, his voice husky and sated, tickling my scalp as he nuzzled closer, the tenderness a stark contrast to the depravity still dripping between us.

I melted against him, giggling breathlessly, my body limp and buzzing. The aftershocks rippled through my oversensitive walls, squeezing out another lazy spurt of his seed that warmed my thighs like forbidden nectar.

Just then, the door to the bar slammed open with a thunderous bang, the hinges groaning like a dying beast.

A figure in black darted toward us with quiet urgency, cloak billowing like raven wings, their boots silent on the floorboards as they cut through the crowd like a shadow with a purpose.

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