Reminding everyone Eric is not a toolbag.
Honey awoke to a world of warmth and sensation as Eric's lips moved slowly against the back of her neck. She was wrapped in his arms, fitted perfectly into the curve of his thick, muscular body. The shirt she wore had either ridden up in the night or been pushed up by him and the soft curls on his chest and stomach tickled her bare back. She stroked her hands over his forearms, tracing his tattoos with still shut eyes as if by memory. He rumbled against her spine and she cooed sleepily in reply. His arms squeezed her tight for a moment, then loosened. One hand slid up her ribs to cup her uninjured breast, rolling the nipple firmly between his fingers. The other pushed between her thighs, rubbing her through her shorts.
Honey groaned, rocking against his touch. She reached back to grip his hip and found Eric completely nude. That sent a lovely shiver through her body. He grazed his teeth against the back of her shoulder and rocked his hips forward. His dick rubbed slickly against the back of her thigh and the girl wondered how long he'd been awake and hard before his kisses brought her to consciousness. His head gently butted hers aside and she arched her neck, knowing it was what he wanted. He rewarded her by pressing his lips firmly to her skin and sucking hard. The girl moaned his name and covered the hand between her legs with her own, making him stroke her harder as she rocked against his fingers.
Eric growled and pinched her nipple cruelly. She squealed and just arched further into his touch. After a moment of agonizing bliss, he released her and stroked his fingers over the throbbing peak. Honey tried to turn her torso towards him. She wanted his mouth, craved his sweet taste. With a warning rumble, the man's hand gripped her ribs, his arm squeezing her so tight that she couldn't breath in. With a quietly despondent whine, she quit her attempts to roll towards him and his arm relaxed again. His hand stroked firmly over her skin, up over her ribs and breast to her shoulder and neck.
At first Honey didn't really react to Eric's fingers closing around her throat, just lazily enjoyed his caress, but when those strong fingers tightened, her eyes popped open wide. She stiffened and arched her head back, trying to get away, but there was nowhere she could go. Her hands abandoned their previous positions and dug into his forearm, trying to pull his hand off her. Once again, the dangerous man was stone, immovable.
"Eric!" the girl gasped out his name, high in alarm and tight from the way he was squeezing her throat.
"Shh, relax," he breathed against her jaw, then shifted his lips to her ear. His teeth scraped over the silver ring there, then caught it and tugged, before he said, "I know. It's okay."
Yet his grip tightened still further. Honey squirmed, writhed desperately, drowning under the icy flood of fear and panic. She clawed at his arm and tried to protest, but couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. His fingers were working between her thighs, but she couldn't feel it, numb to everything but his constricting hand. Her vision started to darken, her head spinning wildly. She elbowed him hard in the ribs, but the man barely grunted. She kicked back at him, but he just wrapped his leg around hers and pinned them in place. The panicked girl reached a claw up towards his face, but he saw it coming and wrenched his hand from betwixt her thighs and caught her wrist.
"You can breathe," Eric told her. His voice was firm and commanding, but still only a murmur against her ear. "I'm not hurting you. Breathe, Honey."
She could and did, sucking in a great gulp of sweet, blessed air. Honey was shaking, dizzy, heart pounding. Eric remained as solid as a rock behind her, his fingers locked around her neck. They were tight, constricting the blood and airflow, but he was correct. Her breath was raspy, but he wasn't cutting it off; his grip wasn't painful, just strong.
"You don't have to be afraid of me," he said in that authoritative tone that shouldn't have been as reassuring as it was. "I know you're not afraid of me."
And she wasn't. Not when she'd seen him so wild and viciously brutal in the Hole and not now completely at his mercy. Just a slight flex of his muscles and Eric could snap her like a twig, but he wouldn't. Little by little, Honey's own muscles relaxed, the tension seeping out of her body slowly until she was resting comfortably against her lover again. The hand that had remained on his forearm now simply held it, waiting passively.
Eric slowly released her wrist and uncurled his leg from hers, moving with marked hesitance, lest she turn out to be placating him and waiting for her chance to strike out again. His hand slipped between her legs and there was no mistaking Honey's sigh of pleasure or the way her hips rocked forward. When his fingers tightened around her throat, she didn't tense, just laid her other hand along with the first, gripping his forearm lightly as an anchor while she groaned. Even when the man did cut off her airway, she didn't try to force air in; only held on and waited for him to allow her to breathe again.
With a groan of his own, Eric relaxed his hold on the girl's neck, kissing her ear and jaw again and again.
"Thank you," he breathed. Honey didn't really understand what he was thanking her for, but it made her feel wonderful just the same. He reached lower between her thighs and tugged the legs of her shorts up.
"What are-" the girl started to ask, absolutely bewildered, but Eric bit her earlobe and tugged and her question was lost to a lusty moan. Caught up in the delicious little electric tingles his mouth on her sensitive ear was causing, she didn't realized what all his tugging and shifting was about until his cock slipped between her legs. "Oh!"
The man at Honey's back let out a wicked chuckle and sucked on the soft bit of flesh as he started rocking into her. His erection wept precum onto her skin, slickening her thighs and sliding more smoothly between them with each thrust of his pelvis. She shuddered and groaned, her nails digging into his arm all over again.
"Like that?" Eric purred, all smugness and pleasure. "Just imagine what it'll be like when I'm inside you."
He rolled his hips on the next push and his dick brushed against her pussy. The feeling was muted by the barrier of fabric between them and Honey so wished it wasn't there. With Eric's strong hand around her throat, a feeling that was suddenly reassuring instead of threatening, she would have let him fuck her if he tried. But he didn't; instead the man rutted against the girl, muttering dirty promises into her ear about how good it would feel once he was inside her pussy. The outright lasciviousness of his actions sent heat coursing through her, making the little Dauntless feel so very lewd in the very best way.
His hand was in her shorts now, rubbing her clit in fast circles that pushed her rapidly towards climax. Just before she reached her peak, Honey whimpered his name and shoved her hands between her thighs to cup his cock and force it against her core, rocking her hips frantically back against him as she came apart at the seams. Eric shuddered and moaned loudly, muscles bunching and tensing, squeezing her tightly as he spilled himself all over her thighs, shorts, and hands.
He was so slippery and nice. She loved everything about his cock. In a gaspy pant, Honey told him so and the man groaned in reply, so pleased. If he hadn't pulled her cum-drenched hands away, she would have been content to stroke his slick, velvety dick all day. The girl purred in absolute contentment when he finally allowed her to turn enough to kiss him. So generous. His fingers brushed and stroked and petted her throat and she sighed against his mouth happily. Eric was definitely the best alarm clock ever.
"We need to talk. Now."
Honey sighed. She'd known this was coming. After the way people had started murmuring when she and Eric walked into the mess together that morning, it was obvious word of the young leader's illicit interlude in the eastern corridor had gotten around. People might have chalked it up to coincidence, if not for the very prominent hickey the white-haired girl was sporting high on the side of her neck. She was fairly certain Eric had done that on purpose.
The meal had been pleasant. Eric sat beside Honey, closer than a coworker, his bulky arm brushing against hers. They chatted about work and other safe topics. It became obvious to the girl that he was very easy to be around, when he let himself be. Of course, he was still Eric, smug and superior, but Honey didn't mind so much when he wasn't smothering her with it. No one had said a word to her with the big, scary leader at her side and when the meal was finished, they'd headed off to the office and parted ways. Marta's eyes were huge and questioning, but the woman still didn't bring up the subject.
Now, the young sub was back in the mess for lunch and her beautiful, but very angry friend was standing over her, scowling. With the pink mohawk spiked up today, Honey thought Daisy looked very like a pissed off tropical bird. She considered mentioning it and offering the young woman a cracker, but decided that wouldn't go over well.
"Can I eat my lunch first?" the girl asked.
"I bet you've got quite an appetite after last night," the squad leader sneered, dropping onto the bench beside her.
"I've always got quite an appetite," Honey told her somberly. Daisy's scowl intensified.
"Don't try to change the subject."
"Since you haven't really said anything, there wasn't a subject to change," the girl pointed out. Daisy grabbed Honey's tray and stood, stalking out of the hall. Damn. She could stay and get a new tray and new food, but why bother? The conversation was going to happen now or later tonight. If she stalled, the pissed off former Amity might come right to her office and Honey definitely didn't want that. So, she got up and followed her tall friend.
"So, are we meeting the others or did you draw the short straw? And where are we going, anyway?"
They ended up in the initiate barracks, which was empty and waiting for the next class that would be there in a matter of weeks.
"Calhoun's pretty pissed off," Daisy told her, kicking a rolled up mattress so it unfurled onto its cot. "Beth's just confused. We're all confused. What the fuck, Honey?"
The girl sat on the cot and accepted her tray, setting it beside her and picking up the sandwich she'd been about to eat. She couldn't bring herself to take a bite, however.
"I dunno," she shrugged, picking at the bread. "It just kinda happened."
"How does something like that just happen? With Eric? Remember what he did to you?" Daisy demanded, angry and confused.
"He-" Honey had started to say Eric was different now, but he really wasn't. She just saw him differently. He was still the same hardass who'd tormented her and her friends all through initiation, but he was also more than that. She frowned, trying to figure out how to explain it to her friend. Daisy took her expression and silence a very different way.
"Did he make you do it? Because he's a leader?"
"What? No!" the girl insisted, abhorred by the notion.
The squad leader's eyes grew large and furious, every muscle tensing. "Did he say he'd make you a crow if you did?"
Honey shot to her feet, instantly boiling. "You think that's how I made ancillary? On my fucking back?!"
Daisy popped up as well, looking down at her angrily, but also worried. "Of course, not! But he might have made you think that!"
"He didn't!" the outraged girl insisted. "He supported me and was proud when I made sub! He didn't even touch me before then! You think I'd have let him do that to me? We still haven't even had sex, yet!"
"Oh, you haven't fucked him?" To say her friend was a little skeptical would be like calling the marsh a bit damp.
"No, I haven't fucked him," Honey insisted acidly.
"Then what happened last night? You didn't get these-" indicating the ligature and the hickey "-at the Mats."
"We… do other stuff," the girl said; quite a bit of her fire was suddenly smothered under a blanket of awkwardness. "Just not… sex. Yet."
Daisy's flame seemed to extinguish as well as she took in the hunched shoulders and bright blush that lit the smaller Dauntless's face. "Really?"
Honey huffed in exasperation. "Yes, really. I know it's Eric, but he's really not trying to force me to do anything I don't want to do."
The squad leader unrolled a mattress of her own and sat down. "And you want to - with Eric?"
Honey sat as well, pouting at the half sandwich that now sat on the floor by her boot. I was gonna eat that. "There's more to him than the asshole from initiation," she told her friend.
"Is he secretly nice or something?"
Honey smirked, then chuckled, then smiled and shook her head. "No. He's not nice at all."
"Is it just physical, then?" Daisy asked the next logical question, relaxing a bit more into her usual self. "I mean, I can't deny he's easy on the eyes, even if he is a prick."
"I thought it might be, at first," Honey admitted, picking up a broccoli-stuffed potato skin and taking a bite. "But it's really not. That's actually why I didn't tell you guys right away. I wasn't sure what was going on between us and wanted to figure it out before I made some big announcement."
"So what is going on, then? Are you guys, like… a couple now?"
The girl's lips curled upwards. "Yeah, I think so." That was a lovely little realization. The happy expression on her friend's face seemed to sap the last of Daisy's ire and suspicion.
"Explain the wrist," she ordered, pointing at said appendage. "Because it's got Calhoun climbing the walls. Punching the walls, actually."
Honey cringed. At the fact that the big, laidback Dauntless was so uncharacteristically angry; not the memory of her first night with Eric. She explained what happened in the most benign way she could think of. "I was a little nervous when we finally… you know, did anything. So he cuffed us together to help me get over it. He's got a mark on his wrist, too, if you'd look."
"That's weird," Daisy told her, face pinching in perplexed discomfort. "You know that's weird, right?"
"Yeah, I know," Honey shrugged, starting on the remaining half of her sandwich. "But it worked. I guess I'm weird, too."
"No argument on that." The line was delivered with a cheeky, teasing grin, but they both knew it was true. "Did he apologize for initiation? For Visiting Day?"
The girl's brow furrowed; now she was the one confused. "No. Why would he?"
"Because he treated you like shit and was a huge asshole."
Oh, that. "He didn't treat me like shit, specifically. He treated all of us like shit. He's just a hardass. He'll do the same thing to the next class." She motioned around the room in which they sat.
"You're not giving me alot to hang my hat on, here," Daisy admonished. "You gotta give me something. Why are you with him?"
A soft little smile lifted Honey's lips and she had no idea how warm her eyes looked as she spoke. "He's intelligent and clever. Honest and straightforward. He's so intense. And strong. And pretty much amazing at anything he sets his mind to."
The squad leader sighed, shaking her head with a wry twist of her mouth. "Okay. I can get behind that. As long as you're not pretending he's not a total shithead."
Honey laughed hard, leaning forward, hand on her stomach. She waved her sandwich dismissively. "No. No, I know he's a shithead. But I guess he's my shithead now."
The thing that had settled inside her so completely when Eric had called her his now lifted its head, growling in approval and a startling amount of possessiveness. Apparently, she'd claimed the young leader right back. Mine. The bit inside said it without doubt.
"So, what's he like, then? You know, the 'other stuff'." Daisy folded her legs up on the cot and leaned forward, burning with curiosity. "He's not gonna get all pissed if you tell me right? He seems like he'd be pretty controlling."
"Nah," Honey assured her, picking up her tray and eating a spoonful of beans. She eyed the fallen sandwich half and wondered when was the last time the floor was cleaned. "He won't mind. I mean, yes, he's definitely dominating, but he's not controlling. Hey! Why didn't you tell me cunnilingus was so amazing?"
For an instant, Daisy just blinked at her over the suddenly outraged question, then broke into wild peals of laughter and fell over onto the cot.
"God, you gotta tell me everything!" the pink haired Dauntless insisted between loud bouts of humor.
Honey told her alot, but not nearly everything. She'd only just gotten her friend to accept that Eric wasn't some kind of rapist. The biting Daisy might accept as just more weirdness between the couple, but the way their first sexual encounter had taken place would set the squad leader right off again. Not to mention how Eric had pressed her in the hallway while she was on her knees and the way his hand had been around her throat that morning. It wouldn't matter that Eric had never pushed too far or that he'd always ensured she felt wonderful and secure in the end.
With a feeling that was very like loneliness, Honey realized she might never be able to tell her.
By dinner it was all over Dauntless. Eric and the kid. Honey knew people were giving her curious glances when they thought she couldn't see; a few tactless souls even stared at her openly. Before her conversation with Daisy, the girl had never even considered that her involvement with the youngest leader would cast a shadow over her appointment to ancillary. How many people thought she'd slept her way into the office? The crows that already hated her had to be salivating over the little morsel of possible scandal. The ones that liked her… She knew some of them would switch sides over the hint of impropriety.
Honey was miserable for the next several days, stewing in resentment of the whispers hissing behind her back. Her friends did their best to be supportive and tell her not to listen to idiots. They were right, but that didn't quell the tight feeling in her chest or remove the oppressive weight from her shoulders. She'd earned that spot, goddammit! Even if Eric were the kind of awful person who would disregard the welfare of his faction and use his position to unfairly promote his girlfriend, Max and the other leaders would never have gone along with it. Honey never thought she'd miss anything about Erudite, but fuck, she wished the denizens of Dauntless had some of the noses' logical sense.
The embittered girl won every fight she had that week, taking out her ire on whatever poor soul Dante put into the ring with her. Even Jasper wasn't spared; though the beating he took only seemed to make him like the kid even more. She barely ate, which worried those who were familiar with her appetite. Her work didn't suffer, however. If anything, Honey pushed herself even harder. She ran poor Marta ragged and was seriously considering taking on an additional staff member to lighten her secretary's load.
The only peace Honey knew was in Eric's arms. The pleasure he gave and the exquisite pain he inflicted burned away any thoughts that didn't revolve around his mouth, his hands, his cock, his body against hers. She slept deeply and awoke sweetly, curled into him in his bed or hers. But once they stepped out into the halls of Dauntless, the pressure burst back into her head and into her chest.
So, the throat thing. If you don't get it, the best way I can explain is to compare it to some wolf behavior I saw on a docu-series some years back. The pack member whose job it is to keep the others in line will close its jaws around the throat of another wolf that is afraid - basically saying, "See how strong I am? I could hurt you, but I'm not. It's okay; you're safe."
I did warn you guys things would be relationship and smut heavy for a while. They're building an understanding, guys. I promise, there's plenty of plot still. As always, feel free to drop me a line with questions or concerns. :)