BEACH SPRAWLED on his back on Tai’s bed, skin still tingling from that ice bath. As miserable as it had been, as furious as he had been at Tai for that implacable look on his face, something about it had felt right. And that was downright scary. For the first time in his life, Beach wondered if he was in way over his head.
If he had any sense, he’d be ready to leave. He’d been curious. Now he knew he liked being dominated by a guy in bed. Especially if the guy had a voice like smoke and gravel and could lift Beach up like he was a doll.
As for the other stuff….
He definitely hadn’t liked it while it was happening, being undressed like a child, suffering under the brain-locking cold. No, that didn’t turn him on. But waiting here for Tai to get back after taking Jez out, Beach felt good. Better than just knowing-sex-was-coming good.
No one had ever accused Beach of having too much sense.
Keeping the towel wrapped around him, he rolled over onto his stomach, making the pillow send up a solid breath of Tai, his aftershave and sweat. Beach pressed his face in and took another whiff, his hips making a slow stroke to drive his cock against the towel. It hurt a little, skin still cold, the nubs on the cloth rough. Flattening himself on the too-firm mattress, he drew steady, deep breaths. The smell put Tai’s voice in the room like he was standing there.
No, David. That’s mine.
Beach made another slow rub, defying his imagination. And the sensitivity of his chilled skin. Damn it. It was like Tai could enforce his will without actually being there. Why couldn’t his idea of consequences be something like his dick up Beach’s ass?
With a sigh, Beach flopped onto his back. He collected his phone from his shorts and found a picture of a ball gag.
The idea of a shiny plastic—or was that rubber?—ball in his mouth had Beach’s tongue practicing how he could push it out. He put a hand to his cheek like the strap was already there, feeling a great deal of sympathy for horses that curled their lips at the sight of a bit. And what the fuck was that for? He enlarged the next image of lips forced open around a circle. Why would—oh. Tai’s cock forcing Beach’s throat open, the eye-watering gag reflex.
Which made his distinctly perverted libido send blood zinging to his dick.
It wouldn’t be the first time it had gotten him in serious trouble.
More images. Men and women hog-tied with cuffs and clips like the ones Tai had used to bind Beach’s hands. Beach rolled back onto his stomach to try to copy the posture. Maybe ten years ago he could have done it.
A bar, legs cuffed at the ankle to keep the man’s legs from closing. To keep Beach’s legs from closing while Tai did whatever he wanted. That set the blood to throbbing slow and steady, and Beach was definitely warming up now.
Collars. Beach put his hand to his throat, squinting at the text. For play and everyday wear. Every day? Like so other people would know you liked to have a man tell you what to do in bed?
He glanced around the room and wondered if Tai had that stuff tucked away in here.
Maybe in the closet?
Before he’d left, Tai had done the lifting-the-chin thing that was starting to have as much of a direct line to Beach’s dick as a nip on the side of his neck and said, “Be a good boy, stay on the bed, and don’t poke around in my things.”
Beach rolled onto his side and stared at the closet. It wasn’t that he expected a Bluebeard’s-wife type discovery. But curiosity was a horrible curse. He looked at his wrists and thought about those cuffs, trying to find some sort of rationalization for snooping. It would only be polite to find out what sort of things Tai liked if Beach was going to buy Tai another pair.
Beach’s breath seized up like he was back under the cold shower. Until that moment he hadn’t really thought about how many other men had worn those cuffs, had knelt for Tai, probably with a great deal more finesse or deference or whatever it was Tai liked. Beach had never given much thought to a lover’s previous experience before, except to prefer they had some. He certainly didn’t promise fidelity or expect it in return. So he couldn’t understand why the thought of those more submissive men should hit like a punch to his gut.
The sound of Tai coming back into the apartment was soon drowned out under the click of Jez’s nails as she trotted toward the bedroom and nosed open the door.
“Hi, pretty girl. Yes, I’m still here.”
She approached and sniffed, then let him rub behind her ears.
“She wasn’t the only one wondering.” Tai leaned against the doorjamb.
Beach shrugged, hiding a confused mess of jealousy, shyness, and lust under a grin. He wished it was as easy to turn off the way those feelings tangled around each other, their roots shooting all the way down into his thighs until they ached. Maybe he should have run when he had the chance. “I’m an adventurous sort. Don’t scare easy.”
“I scare you?”
“No.”
Beach wasn’t afraid of Tai, but himself. The way he was with Tai. Like someone Beach didn’t recognize, but he’d been trying to find. Someone drowning in a hunger that was satisfied with something as simple as Tai’s growled good boy.
Tai did that stare, the one that seemed to look right through Beach’s head, the slash of his brows making the look more intimidating.
“Sir,” Beach added with an inviting smile.
Tai’s face relaxed. He kicked off his sneakers and sat on the bed. Scratching the dog’s giant head, he said, “Jez, down.” To Beach, Tai said, “Does it bother you if she’s in the room?”
“Is she likely to post compromising pictures online?”
“She’s likely to make grumbling noises and go out into the living room.”
“And what are you likely to do?” Beach drew the towel off his lap.
Tai tossed off his T-shirt. “Do you ever turn off?”
Beach eyed the breadth of that chest, the way the muscles underneath bunched and shifted like cars out on I-95. Each shoulder could easily be concealing a Volkswagen underneath the skin. “Why on earth would I want to?” He was looking forward to using his tongue to trace the intricate geometry of the tattoo covering Tai from shoulder to elbow.
From other touches, Beach knew the skin underneath was smooth, so Tai had worn the ink for years, yet the lines were clean and sharp. They spread from his shoulder to his chest, even under his arm. Did it hurt? Beach bit back the stupid question before it slipped out. Of course it had. But for some reason Tai had chosen to endure it. To prove something? A warrior-style initiation like the hazing Beach had undergone as a Citadel cadet?
The patterns were reminiscent of woven leather, like the gauntlets a now-nude Tai slid over his wrists, zipping them tight. An echo of that sound purred from Beach’s belly to his balls. Straddling Beach as he lay on his back, Tai kept his weight supported on his thighs, only offering a brush of contact at Beach’s hips. The ripple of abs and the cut of hips were an even more inviting place to touch and taste. Beach curled up, thumbs finding the grooves, tongue hungry for a taste of that semihard cock. He planned to start practicing with bananas, but maybe he ought to go straight for a Coke can.
Tai watched him look, but when Beach snaked a hand through to cup the velvety sac inches from his own, Tai circled Beach’s wrist with a grip like the cuff had.
“David.”
Beach was catching on, learning when Tai switched fully into that demanding mode that made electricity spark along every nerve in Beach’s body. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy.” Tai ran a hand through David’s hair. “If you behave, you can explore later. Tell me exactly what the doctor said about taking care of your leg.”
Beach managed to keep the sigh and the eye roll to himself. His skin was still sensitive from the deep freeze. “Keep weight-bearing activities to a minimum, pain meds and ibuprofen as needed—though according to my probation, the pain meds are out—and start physical therapy.”
“Did you start physical therapy?”
The squirm began inside, deep in the pit of Beach’s stomach, rolling to his ass and legs. It was coming out of the shower all over again. A pissed-off insistence that Tai didn’t get a say in things that weren’t part of them having sex, battling with the shivery jolt of being the focus of Tai’s attention. Beach shut his eyes and shifted his shoulders on the mattress.
“What’s wrong?” Tai moved so he wasn’t touching Beach at all.
“Nothing. Nothing sex won’t fix, Sir.”
“Answer my other question first.”
“I just got the cast off.”
Tai stretched out over Beach in a push-up pose, the promise of hot, hard flesh grinding against him frustratingly out of reach. He put his arms around Tai’s neck to drag him down, but Tai shook his head.
“Obviously the answer is no.” Beach paused. “Sir.”
“Don’t be a brat, or I’ll send you home.”
As a threat, that was particularly effective. “Sorry, Sir.”
“David, I want you to call and make an appointment.”
Beach tucked his hands behind his head. Measuring his tone and words carefully, he said, “I don’t understand what that has to do with this.”
Tai lowered himself until he was radiating prickling warmth to spark across the inches still separating them. His breath tickled Beach’s lips. “You don’t need to. You’ll take care of your body as long as you’re offering it to me.”
There was that same strange shudder of pleasure without anything touching his dick. “Okay.”
“Try again.” Tai’s brow got that look that had Beach remembering how fucking cold that shower had been.
“Yes, I will make an appointment, Sir.”
“On Monday.”
Damn. Beach’s lips vibrated with the need to find the words that would carve him a loophole, fight this last bit of capitulation. But Tai stared down. It wasn’t the threat as much as the anticipation that tipped Beach over. And not only for the physical reward hovering close enough to taste.
“On Monday, Sir.”
“Good boy.” Tai lowered himself, and damn he felt incredible, weight and praise all sinking into Beach with a heat that went to his bones. Tai rocked his hips so their cocks slid together, dragging a shudder and groan from Beach. That last orgasm felt a lot further away than this morning.
Beach squeezed Tai’s shoulders and tried to urge him faster, harder. His dick was so hot, so heavy on Beach’s. Blood raced, thickening his cock to answer the pressure. Tai took Beach’s mouth, tongue driving in to remind him of the way it had felt with Tai’s cock stealing his breath. Beach hung on tighter and lifted his hips. Tai pressed him down into the mattress.
Tai raised his head. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
Beach’s lips felt huge, scraped. “No, Sir.”
“Then slow down.”
Beach groaned. Tai chuckled. The bed squeaked as he shifted his weight again, beard scraping against Beach’s neck, wet kisses following. Tai repeated the action on Beach’s chest, sensitizing the skin with the rub of hair and then kissing and teasing with lips and tongue.
When Tai did that to Beach’s nipples, he arched off the bed, gripping Tai’s head. Tai nipped the swollen flesh, then commanded, “Let go.”
Beach dropped his hands to his sides. But he couldn’t keep them there when Tai moved lower, the mixture of sensations on Beach’s belly making him curl up around Tai.
“David, do you want the cuffs?”
“Please. Yes, Sir.”
They weren’t a punishment. The tight grip on his wrists, it was security and control, because Beach was going to lose his mind if Tai—Sir—touched Beach’s cock. The thought that this man who could take what he wanted would give Beach that hot mouth made the tip of his dick burn with need.
Tai buckled on the cuffs and pushed Beach’s arms up over his head, and the sound of clips echoed like a bass line under Beach’s ribs.
“Okay?”
Beach tugged lightly. His hands were clipped to something over his head, and it felt perfect. Safe.
He started to nod, then remembered. “Yes, Sir.”
There was no brush of hands, lips, or beard, but Beach felt the intent gaze on him and opened his eyes. He took a deep breath and stopped straining toward Tai. Energy flooded him, a hot rush both like and nothing like coming, because he could stay here, heartbeat after heartbeat. And despite the way his body sparked, he felt absolutely still. There. Letting Tai fill him up with that stare.
When Tai ran his hands down Beach’s outstretched arms, the feeling stayed, lighting Beach up and rooting him into the mattress at the same time.
Tai moved between Beach’s legs, and the feeling slipped away, chased by the shivery expectation of pleasure.
“Listen, David. This is just like last night. Your body is mine. Whatever I make it feel. Relax and take it.”
Tai lifted Beach off the mattress, cradling his ass in hot, rough palms, forcing his legs apart on those broad shoulders. Beach was spread wider than he could have been with one of those bars, only it was warm, hard muscles under his thighs that ensured he wouldn’t be able to close his legs unless Tai allowed it.
At least the weight was off his healing bones. Beach recognized the giddy rush of nerves and tried to tamp it down, but he couldn’t stop the completely inappropriate giggle.
Eyes slitted as if that would keep him safe from any disapproval in Tai’s eyes, Beach peered up. Tai didn’t look pissed. He only smiled and rubbed his thumbs firmly in the crease between Beach’s ass and thighs.
The urge to giggle faded as Tai’s expression changed, and he leaned in to roll one of Beach’s balls across a hot tongue. Tai’s goatee tingled and scraped, his tongue sucked and licked, and Beach shifted, already trying to move, already forgetting he couldn’t.
He was all for a lover taking care of him in bed, but he was used to participating.
Tai didn’t stop but rubbed his chin against Beach’s sac, lapping at the base of his rigid cock. Too much and not enough.
“Oh God.”
Tai made a sound like a growl that vibrated across Beach’s skin, and Beach jerked his hands.
He needed to touch his cock. Just a little. Just to take the edge off. “Please.”
Tai lifted his head enough to rumble words. “You’re not going to come. You’re going to feel what I want you to feel.”
Beach wasn’t simply in over his head, he was drowning, dragged under so deep he couldn’t find his way up. Tai licked up the length of Beach’s dick, but too soft, the sucking pressure on the head only a tease. A giant snake took control of his spine in a twisting, undulating roll.
Tai gripped Beach’s ass harder, pulled his cheeks open, and rubbed a flat, fat tongue against Beach’s hole.
Slithering heat, a build of pressure, and Beach squeezed his eyes shut so tightly tears leaked from the corners.
“David.” It was sharp. Harsh with demand. “Breathe.”
He managed a shuddering exhale.
“That’s it. I’ve got you.” The grip on his ass shifted to a hard rub, forcing the muscles to relax or hurt.
Beach took another breath.
“Yeah. I’ve got you.” Tai held Beach open and licked his hole, darting flicks that set off little pops of pleasure rippling out from his ass to his balls and the tip of his dick.
It built urgently, the need to move, to free his hands and take back what Tai demanded from Beach’s body. Built in the burn of precome on his dick straining into the air, in the pressure of a sharp nose in his balls, in the warm wiggle of tongue in and around his rim.
But he knew the secret now. He let out a breath and rode it out because there was nothing to do but take it. Take it and let it control him, let Tai decide what Beach would feel. His legs dropped open wider, and he floated on it, more and more of him cracking open for Tai to take and hold.
Beach’s breath came faster, and it was already so loud he added words to it. “Yes, Sir. Yes. God, yes.”
“So good.” Tai’s fingers worked in, deeper than his tongue had, and Beach absorbed that new sensation, let it spread out from his ass to under his rib cage. “Mine.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Tai sucked Beach’s balls, pulling one and then the other into a hot mouth, tension and pressure a blinding swirl of pain and pleasure. Beach found that place where he was wide-open to everything Tai gave and sucked in the hurt with the ecstasy.
He lost track of everything but sensation and the way it poured back out of him to the man pushing him, connecting them deeper than skin.
Bedcover under his ass, cock jabbing into his balls, then sliding along Beach’s shaft.
Face cradled between hot palms, hips pinned under a slow, grinding weight. Thumbs warm and insistent under his jaw, and Beach tilted his head back, offering his throat to the solid grip along his windpipe.
“Fuck.” Tai’s grunted curse was pure praise, bursting over Beach like sweet rain.
He came back into his body to the vibrations of Tai’s hand smacking around on the mattress, then the nightstand, aching from the absence of the drive of sensation. Beach jerked his hands to reach out.
“I’ve got you, David.” The deepness of Tai’s voice settled over him an instant before his physical weight pressed down and filled the hole that had opened in Beach’s sternum, slick fingers pushed lube into his ass, and the sound of a condom wrapper tearing told him he wouldn’t be feeling empty for long.
But he did. As the blunt head made an eye-watering stretch of his asshole, his hands tried again to reach for Tai’s shoulders, to pull him closer, craving the mass of muscle and warm skin to keep that terrible emptiness away. Tai lifted Beach’s hips.
“Take it, David. Open that ass and take my cock.”
Beach dragged his eyes open to face the dark stare that sank into him, turned him to liquid so his body could reform around Tai as he fit inside.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t fast. But for once Beach wasn’t chasing sensation. Wasn’t moving on to the next high. He simply was.
He breathed and it burned, too full, but he wanted Tai deeper. No, it didn’t matter what Beach wanted. He would take more, if Tai chose to give it.
Tai shifted his hips, small movements that were huge on the inside. But that was good because it made room for all that thickness and pressure. So the stretch went on and on.
Beach closed his eyes in concentration.
“No. Look at me.” Cock, voice, eyes. Tai was finding more ways into Beach’s head. He dragged his eyelids up.
Tai moved, urging Beach’s legs up toward his chest, high around Tai’s waist. God, so deep, pressure enough to make Beach’s eyes roll back toward his hairline.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
The tiny part of his brain that wasn’t on board with this objected Then don’t jam your cock up me until I feel it in my chest. But that part wasn’t in control. The Beach who belonged here, the Beach who was happy to belong to Tai right now, nodded.
“I’m going to fuck you now, David. You’re going to stay open to me, and I don’t just mean your ass.”
“Yes, Sir.” It burst from him on a groan, and Tai answered with one, fingers convulsing where they gripped Beach’s hips.
Beach thought it was hard to keep his eyes open on the first thrust. But it was almost impossible on the second and the third. Tai moved slowly enough to leave Beach aware of all the different sensations. The jar to his whole body as Tai bottomed out, the drag that made pleasure ripple out from ass to dick, then the screaming excitement of the nerves in muscles stretched to the limit at the rim, and then the jolt of hot, sweet need as his cock prodded Beach’s gland on reentry.
Every stroke forced a deep breath from his lungs, the slide out making him suck in a gasp as he willed his eyes open to meet Tai’s gaze again.
“Good. That’s it.”
Beach got dizzy, tried to fling his hands out for balance, but he couldn’t. Tai gripped tighter.
“I’ve got you. Feels good in you, David.”
No one had ever called Beach David during sex. Every time Tai did, it set off a prickle of awareness that this was different. This was new. That Tai was focused on this part of Beach he’d never known was there.
But when Tai went on in his deep-as-the-ocean voice, “So hot and tight around me, boy,” Beach lost it.
He wanted to cry, he wanted to come, but most of all he had to touch the man who made him feel like this. Have more than just the spot where Tai rocked inside to mold them together.
“I’m—” Beach shook with the effort to explain it. He wanted to be good and open, but it was hard and he needed. “I can’t—God. Please…. Sir.”
Tai loomed over, fingers brushing Beach’s. A dull, heavy click and his hands were free.
He reached for Tai’s arms.
“Yeah.” Tai scooped him up, pressing them together. “You can come for me now, David.”
Beach would like that. He really would. Tai’s hips pumped short and quick, cock stabbing over and over at the place inside that felt so good, so close.
Tai kissed him, openmouthed, sloppy drag of lips and beard, trailing across Beach’s face to his ear.
The powerful arms squeezed him tighter. “You will come for me. You’ll come just like this. From my cock in your ass.” Tai’s rapid breaths scorched Beach’s ear. “You’ll come like this because you don’t have a choice.”
Not having a choice was something guaranteed to send Beach fleeing as far and fast from that dead end as possible. But not David. David loved it. David didn’t want a choice. He wanted this. Rough demands and the impossible challenge of getting off when he had no control over the sensations in his body.
Hotter, slicker, sweat and precome between them, and the spike of nuclear heat from where Tai jabbed with every hard slam of his hips.
Beach shook, reaching for it with everything he had, Tai deep in his ass, his chest, his head. Groans and pants in his ear. “Now, boy. Do it. Right now. Come.”
The warning was a sizzle, a wisp before the force of it slammed into him, pumped out of him. Spasm after spasm yanking the hot flood from ass to balls to dick. The delicious shocks echoing into his thighs and chest and ears, until it slowed to nothing but a hum. Because this thing they were doing was still there. Even though Tai had stopped moving, had separated from Beach’s body, the connection linked them, anchored to the spot where his breath was.
Tai stripped off the condom and gave his dick a few hard jerks. Harsh grunts washed over Beach’s ears, and then a gravel-scraped “So good, David. Yeah, fuck,” as Tai bucked and splashed Beach’s chest with warm, thick strings, sharp bleach smell in his nose.
Tai rubbed a hand over Beach’s cheek while the other pushed Tai’s cock next to Beach’s on his belly, sliding in the slick puddles.
“You okay?”
Beach nodded. Okay couldn’t really cover feeling like he’d come apart and shifted under his skin into something new, something better. Something that didn’t fade away with the ebb of the high from sex chemicals. The sex rush was gone. What was left was like a low-level hum of arousal, a mild buzz from a couple of quick shots of liquor. But without the urgency to chase after it. He could stay here forever.
“Let me check your wrists.” Tai uncuffed them, looking over the red skin, a gentle thumb on the pulse point. “Anything feel wrong? Pulled muscles? Your leg okay?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I still have legs, but I can’t really assess their condition at the moment.”
Tai chuckled and lifted his weight off Beach’s thighs.
“Thank you, but that wasn’t really a problem. I like how—strong you are.”
Tai’s lips twisted. “Move your fingers, let me see them.” It wasn’t his Sir voice, but there was still a demand there.
Beach complied. Then he wiggled his toes. “All functional and accounted for.”
“Good.” Tai brought his sticky hand to Beach’s other wrist, rubbing their mingled come over the redness that was already fading.
Beach caught his breath. His cock was out of commission for the foreseeable future, but his pulse ramped up. Tai kissed, then licked the inside of Beach’s wrist. His skin tingled, like he’d stepped into sunshine from too long in air-conditioning.
“And how do you feel in here?” Tai made Beach’s lax hand point and tap his own forehead.
Safe. Happy. And when Tai anointed Beach’s other wrist and followed up with kisses, he didn’t think it was unreasonable to add worshipped. “Pretty good,” he answered and drifted to sleep with Tai’s mouth still tickling a wrist.
TAI WISHED he could fall asleep like that. But no, he had to be one of the rare guys who got energized after sex. Just one more way to remember he didn’t fit a category. But then, neither did David A. Beauchamp.
He was the entitled, arrogant prick Tai had pegged him for from reading the case file. But the self-deprecating charm wasn’t something that came through on paper. And most of the entitled snots Tai came across would have to be a breath from dying before they’d admit the kind of vulnerability David had shared.
Tai had pushed hard last night, driven to find out if an interest in D/s was nothing more than a new adrenaline rush to Beauchamp, or if he really could give himself up to it.
And he had. Fuck, he really had.
Then today, the way he’d let Tai strip everything away with his mouth and tongue and feed it back on his cock, God. Tai rubbed his face across the sleeping man’s wrist.
Leather, sweat, come. Tai’s hand tightened around David’s forearm. Mine.
With a mumbled sound, David rolled into Tai. Cradling David with an arm at his waist, Tai eased onto his back and let David settle on top, cheek prickling Tai’s nipple with stubble.
Tai wanted to drag David in tighter, right under the skin, open up and pull him inside to keep him safe. Mostly from David himself. Tai had run into new subs at Nic’s. Ones who had met the wrong guy and were only beginning to put themselves back together from the damage.
The way David went tearing off after things on a whim, the file full of crazy stunts, he’d been lucky so far that the worst was a coma and a busted leg.
Tai ran his hand down David’s back, palm flat over the muscles, heat against the chill of David’s skin exposed to the air-conditioning. At the base of the spine, Tai spread his fingers wide to cover as much skin as he could, wishing he could leave a heat signature on David’s body, a warning that everyone’s luck had run out.
When the Terps were in a bowl game Tai’s freshman year, he’d picked up some Samoan from a player on the other team. David was O le lima e paia le mata, looking for trouble and bringing it on himself. If Tai remembered it right, the words were about punching yourself in the eye. Those pretty blue eyes weren’t where Tai wanted to leave his message about staying out of trouble. He stroked his hand down farther, fingers grazing the top of David’s ass.
That was one effective way of getting attention, but Tai knew plenty of others. If he had his way, David would start relying on self-control rather than luck. And Tai was going to make sure that, for once, things went exactly his way.