He tries to gasp out words and can't.

"Good boy." He kisses Ash's forehead, squeezes harder on his throat. "You're doing wonderfully."

He has something important he needs to say but he can't because he can't speak and it's so easy to slip away and trust Lindsay and assume that Lindsay knows whatever it was he was going to tell him--

He lets go. 

"What happened? Tell me." 

It is, unquestionably, an order. 

"...I do counterintelligence work for the Anglian government and Gallian spies are not always particularly happy when they find this out."

"And is that what you're doing when you leave?" Still firm, still just a little bit sharp. 

"Yes. --Mollies like us are good for spying, no one ever expects a dom to be able to flawlessly pull off sub."

"Good boy," he says, and means it. "You've done beautifully." 

"I'm not actually a rake."

"You seduced me and ruined me."

"I've made love to you and Serafin and Lydia and no one else."

"...then why?" 

"Mollies know gossip, whores know more, and gossipmongers don't particularly care why you're going to the house of ill-repute nor would I tell them if they did."

"And yet you had sex with me after knowing me for less than half an hour. Why?" 

"I wanted to."

"As good a reason as any." His hand goes back to Ash's throat. 

"I didn't have-- moral objections to being a rake, I just didn't want to, so I didn't. And then I did, so I did. --Also, I have lots of injuries, so you should be careful with me. Or not. Your choice."

He leaves his hand where it is, doesn't press down, just keeps that reminder that he could. 

"Strip." 

Ash does. 

His skin is covered in bruises and scrapes and blood. Most of the blood doesn't look like it's his.

"Gorgeous." 

Lindsay is going to kiss every single one of Ash's injuries. 

Ash is going to writhe under Lindsay's mouth. 

He should probably feel something about sharing secret governmental information with Lindsay because Lindsay made that face at him but it was really such a face. 

"Good boy," he murmurs, over and over again, "my good boy, my sweet thing, my Ash, my treasure," in between kisses and gentle bites. 

He's begging-- "use me, hurt me, Lindsay, please--"

Lindsay doesn't get jealous often. But.

Someone marked up Ash's skin, and that someone isn't him. 

He looks Ash in the eye and bites down, hard, at the top of his thigh. 

Ash's whole body goes rigid and he lets out a whine.