THE KNOCK came at exactly five thirty, and Tai rode a rush of power all the way to the door, opened it, and found himself holding David’s face in a kiss before becoming aware of deciding to do it. After a startled breath onto Tai’s lips, David kissed back, instant hunger in the slide of his tongue, the open welcome of his mouth. Tai kicked the door shut with his heel.
Tai didn’t know how long he’d have kept them standing there if Jez hadn’t pushed between them to demand her own greeting. David lost his balance, one palm slapping the wall.
Jez jumped.
“Sorry, girl,” David said as Tai was telling her she was all right.
“Sorry to keep you on that leg.”
“Maybe I just swoon from your kisses, Sir.” David’s words rolled with a thick accent, hands rubbing behind Jez’s ears. His cane clattered to the floor as he went down on one knee to let her nuzzle his hair and neck.
Tai scooped up the cane. Jez dropped to her haunches to watch him, eyes bright like she thought it was a new game. When Tai put the cane on his desk, though, she lowered herself with a sigh.
“Did you think about whether you want to keep doing this?” Tai turned to watch David answer.
Without the dog to play with, David’s hands dangled at his sides, but he didn’t get to his feet. With his gaze somewhere between Jez and the bedroom door, David nodded.
“That’s not an acceptable answer, David.”
David flicked his tongue over his lips, head lifting until he met Tai’s stare. “Yes, Sir. I do.”
“Okay. Did you bring the checklist?”
David started to nod again, then said, “Yes, Sir. Here.” He slid a folded paper out of the pocket of his cargo shorts.
Tai took it from him, drinking in the obedience on offer, the hunger in David’s eyes as he tracked Tai’s every move.
“When I ask you to come here, you will always be on time. After you say hi to Jez, you will remove all of your clothes and put them on this chair, folded neatly.” Tai turned his desk chair out to face the couch. “Then you will put on your cuffs and”—he couldn’t have David kneeling with that bad leg—“sit on the floor until I am ready for you.”
“Yes, Sir.” David climbed to his feet and stripped off his shirt.
Under his husky breaths of arousal, there was something of a pushback. “What?” Tai asked.
David swallowed. “It wasn’t on the sheet. But I don’t like waiting. I get bored.”
Tai watched him, drawing the tension out, feeling it stretch like a wire between them. David didn’t look away, not even as he unfastened his shorts, dropped them to the floor, and then peeled away the briefs underneath. As he folded them between his hands, Tai stepped forward.
“Too bad. You’ll wait if I want you to. But as for you being bored, I’ll take care of that.” Tai took the shorts from David and fished the cuffs from his front pocket. “Give me your hands.”
The light from the blinds could have been the reason, but David’s pupils widened as the leather was buckled over the tender inside of his wrists. Only a hair’s width of blue iris showed as Tai leaned forward to breathe the order across David’s mouth. “Go sit on my bed and wait for me.”
David didn’t answer, but he went, disappearing around the corner. Jez had gone off to stretch out under the air conditioner when she realized it wasn’t her kind of play date. Her ears barely twitched as Tai unfolded the checklist to scan it.
He was relieved to see David wasn’t looking for anything Tai didn’t feel able to deliver.
In fact, with the exception of impact play, they were well matched.
Tai wouldn’t say he was a sadist in the way he understood it from Nic’s point of view. If Tai marked a sub, the satisfaction was in the proof of ownership, not the hurting. To him, impact play was about a submissive surrendering to what Tai wanted, demanded. That pleasure and pain came from him. And the sight of a guy over Tai’s lap, upturned ass waiting for the smack of his hand, got him hard enough to cut diamonds.
He tucked the list in his back pocket and went into his bedroom.
David had followed orders—insolently. He was sitting on the bed, barely. His legs were wide apart, and he leaned on one arm as his other hand made a lazy stroke on his half-hard dick, as if he wouldn’t mind waiting until August to get off.
Tai leaned back against his closet door and folded his arms. It would serve the brat right to make him wait that long. “Are you challenging me, David?”
David’s hand stuttered in its stroke, his voice husky and low as he answered, “No, Sir. I get bored.” He looked away. “I’d rather you put me in the shower again than make me wait.”
“Better negative attention than none? I think you should learn patience, boy. Get up on the bed. On your back. And get your hand off your dick.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Spread your legs. Wider.” Tai buckled on ankle cuffs and attached them to the restraints he had under the bed. Kneeling at David’s side, Tai studied David’s face. There was the quick slide of his tongue he did when he was nervous but no fear in his eyes. “You will tell me if your leg hurts from this.”
“Yes, Sir.”
After licking a kiss across David’s palm, Tai attached the left hand to the corner restraint.
David’s breath came faster. His head turned to look at his wrist. “I can take a picture for you,” Tai offered.
He wouldn’t mind having that picture. David with his Abercrombie looks, spread out and pinned down with dark leather and steel clips. Held open for anything Tai wanted to do.
David’s eyes widened. “Um, I—Not this time.”
“You trust me to tie you up but not with a picture.” Tai smiled. “Ah, well….”
Tai ran his finger along the forearm of David’s unbound hand, drawing a shiver. “What’s your safeword?”
“Red. Or—” He flexed his fingers. “I don’t think I could reach anything to tap.”
“I won’t gag you.” Tai used his teeth and lips on each fingertip, then clipped the restraint onto the cuff. “Because we’re going to talk.”
“Talk?” David arched up, and the cuffs pulled him down again.
“Yes. About patience. Lie flat. You challenged me, and I will punish you, David. When I tell you to wait, that is part of you submitting to me. Concentrate on that. You’re not only waiting. You’re giving me obedience. And in waiting you have my attention.”
Tai pushed off the bed, backing away. “Tai—Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Are you leaving me like this?”
“Close your eyes.”
The soft lids were almost convincing.
“All the way, David.” Tai moved around the bed. “I’m still here.”
Eyes still shut, David nodded then stammered, “Yes, Sir.”
“Is your leg okay?”
“As much as it ever is.”
“When is your physical therapy appointment?”
This time David’s tongue made a full sweep of his lips. “Ah. I called.” When Tai didn’t answer, David kept rolling. “But they’d left for the day so I didn’t get an appointment. But I did call, and I’ll call them back tomorrow.”
Tai moved to the window and peered behind the blinds. “You had time to go get your car from the impound but not to call for an appointment.”
“I forgot.” For the first time, David’s voice held genuine regret. “I meant to.” Tai turned back to watch his throat bob with a swallow.
At last in the silence, David whispered, “I’m sorry, Sir.”
“Why?”
David blinked, his eyes unfocused for a minute, and then he looked at Tai.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because I—” The apologetic tone vanished, replaced with something stronger. “I made a promise. And I like to think I’m a man of my word.”
Tai leaned down and brushed a thumb across David’s lips. “Think about that, David. Do you like displeasing me?”
Tai watched understanding crash over David like a bucket of ice water. Shock, a sharp intake of breath, the strain in his immobilized muscles to protect himself from the knowledge. Then the relaxation of acceptance.
“No.” David’s voice was as hoarse as if he’d been under a cold shower.
Tai bent to kiss him. “Good boy.”
Damn. If he’d known, he’d have started there. It would have been a perfect time to pull David onto his lap, reinforce that yielding, the recognition of his desire to please.
David shifted, squaring his shoulders against the mattress, and the moment, along with his vulnerability, slipped away.
“How do you feel?” Tai asked.
“Comfy. I could sleep like this.” David closed his eyes again.
“I want you to practice patience, not fall asleep, so I have something special for you.” Tai had made a quick stop on his way home from work. Even without the checklist, he’d been pretty sure David would take to light cock-and-ball torture. He’d nodded at the clerk at Studs and Satin and gone right past the bachelor and bachelorette party stuff and into the back room where the serious stuff was. He’d eyed a triple crown of metal rings, but then remembering how David had loved the leather cuffs, Tai had bought a five-stud leather band with a ball separator.
Now he took the band out and trailed it down David’s chest, watching the skin prickle in reaction. David lifted his head to peer down.
“Everything’s already cuffed.”
As the edge approached David’s cock, Tai flicked it up and then let it lightly snap against the inside of David’s thigh, provoking a flinch and a hiss.
“Not everything.” Tai dragged it up from thigh to groin.
“Oh. Oh shit.” David’s dick filled as Tai watched, lengthening and thickening.
“Relax. It’s easier if you’re not fully hard.”
Tai’s words had the opposite effect. He grabbed David’s shaft. “Don’t make me jerk you off.”
David laughed. “That is the most peculiar threat I’ve ever heard.”
“Trust me.” Tai breathed the words into David’s ear. “You won’t enjoy what I’ve planned if you’ve already come.”
“Damn. You telling me that is not likely to make me less—ah—tumescent.” David’s voice leapt from baritone to tenor as Tai fastened the leather tight around the shaft and behind his balls.
Tai chuckled as he checked the fit.
“Ah—I think it’s too tight,” David complained around a high, fast breath.
“It’s going to get tighter as you get more tumescent.”
“You told me to—Even saying hard is—shit—making me harder.”
“Are you bored?”
“No, Sir.”
“Good.” Tai smiled. He lifted the T-strap and drew David’s balls up close, carefully checking the snaps to avoid pinching hair or skin.
“Oh sweet Jesus.” David shuddered. “I—Don’t—I—” Tai ran his finger up the throbbing vein on the underside. “T-Tai, Sir, please.”
“What do you want, David?” Tai crawled up from the foot of the bed to crouch between David’s shivering legs.
“I—don’t know.” Desperation grated through David’s clenched jaw.
“Good. Don’t think. Don’t anticipate. Take what I give you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Tai flattened himself, dropping his legs off the mattress to reach David’s balls with tongue and lips. One long lick of the velvety skin stretched tight by the straps, and then he gently tugged one side of the sac in to cradle the soft roundness in his mouth, nose buried in the sweat and sex pouring from David’s skin.
The body around him jumped and twitched, harsh groans following David’s breathing. A little harder on the other side, a firmer tug of lips, more pressure as Tai traced the shape with his tongue. After a row of wet kisses along the underside of David’s dick, Tai slid backward off the bed.
David’s panting got shallow and fast to the point where Tai stopped stripping his clothes to put a palm on David’s chest.
“Shhh.”
David’s eyes had been screwed shut. They popped open, and he twisted his head back and forth for an instant.
“Still with me?”
David nodded then blew out a long, steady breath. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy. If you hyperventilate, you’ll pass out, and I have plans.” The tightness under Tai’s palm eased. “That’s it.”
Tai stepped out of his shorts and dropped them on the chair, watching David’s breathing even out. He leaned to brush his lips across David’s neck. “I’m proud of you.”
David turned his head, and the surprise in his eyes made Tai have to kiss him. At first David tried to push frantic hunger into it, but when Tai’s hand landed on his cheek, the stroke of tongues became slow and deep.
Right then it wasn’t a scene, didn’t feel anything like playing. It was more than an eager sub, obedience on offer. The familiar buzz was there, connecting them in this space, but it was different. A dizzying pull that kept him matching his breaths with David’s as they kissed, kept Tai stroking the cheeks and rough jaw under his fingers, kept him there, forehead pressed against David’s when the kiss ended.
“I’ve got you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I want you to remember this when I ask you to wait. Remember it’s for me. It’s being good for me like this. Taking what I give you.”
“Yes.”
Tai stared down into David’s eyes and wasn’t sure which of them was deeper in.
Dragging himself away, Tai took out the checklist and gathered other supplies from the nightstand drawer.
“You skipped the last two questions.” Tai held up the lube and the curved steel wand, slicking the heavy ball at the end.
David licked his lips. “I did answer them.”
“Hmm.” Tai moved around to the foot of his bed again and knelt on the mattress. “Lift your hips a little.”
When David did, Tai slipped the bulb on the wand up against David’s asshole and pushed, barely enough to let him feel the pressure. With the other hand, he held the checklist out for David to see.
“Are those really answers?” He rocked the tip of the wand, stretching the rim of muscle. David’s thighs started shaking. “How were you punished as a child? Answer: Same as everyone.” Tai studied David’s face.
He groaned, jaw and lips tight. “If I answer, what do I get?”
“It doesn’t work like that, David. You answer because I ask. But we’ll come back to that one. What nonphysical elements of D/s do you like the most? Answer: Can’t I just tell you? Yes. You can tell me now.” Tai nudged the heavy steel ball deeper, so the full width of it stretched David’s hole.
“This,” David managed on a gasp.
Tai rocked the toy back and forth by fractions. “What about this?”
David’s shoulders rolled, his chest undulating like a snake, hands into fists as his muscles pulled at the restraints, his words a raw whisper. “When I don’t have a choice. When you tell me I don’t have a choice.” He kept his eyes tightly closed. “Please tell me I don’t have a choice.”
The power of David’s surrender hit like a helmet to the chin, the force snapping down Tai’s spine, rattling in his skull. But unlike suffering a stinger and having to be carted off the field, after the dazzle of impact faded, he could move. He pushed the wand in deep, then dove forward, braced over David’s body on fists.
He dragged his mouth, then his teeth through the sweaty-sweet taste of David’s neck, his jaw. “That’s right. And right now you don’t have a choice about coming. Your dick is mine to use how I want.”
David’s head cranked back against the mattress, opening more skin to Tai’s teeth. Drunk with it, Tai sucked a mark up under David’s ear, and another, sharper, faster, along his jawbone.
Tai might as well have been socking away liquor for all the coordination in his fingers as he dug out a condom, tore open the wrapper, and got the tip over David’s dick.
“What are you do—?” David’s words cut off as Tai put his mouth over the latex-covered head and rolled the edge down with a rough stroke of his hand.
“You don’t need to know. Because I’m making the choices.”
David groaned, but his gaze was steady on Tai as he slicked the condom, then reached back to lube himself. It was fast, rough, and nowhere near enough stretch to make this easy, but that slur of dazed heat inside him wouldn’t let him slow down.
“Yeah, David,” Tai said to the blue eyes wide with the question. “I’m going to ride you. And you’re going to stay hard for me.”
A protest started in closed lips and tighter eyes, then faded on a moan as Tai gripped the base of David’s cock to angle the entry.
It burned, too much and too fast, but Tai only gave himself a few seconds to recover before sliding down over the head again.
The sound that burst out from behind David’s bared teeth made Tai want to go faster. A strangled scream, tearing, gurgling like David was drowning as Tai sank all the way down. He slid his palms up David’s chest, thumbs coming to rest at the notch in his collarbone.
“Tell me what I’m making you feel.”
David whispered the answer without hesitation. “It’s good. Tight. So tight. And that thing inside, God, so heavy, and it’s pushing right. It’s heavy and pushing—”
Tai rocked forward.
“Jesus.” David’s body jerked.
“Yeah, boy. Your dick is in me, and I’m still fucking you.” Tai started a slow grind, David’s dick shifting and touching all the right places inside. “Gonna have to wait for it. Wait for me.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Tai moved faster, shoving David’s cock in deeper, pushing them both further into a place where everything was raw and hot to the touch. Strength and power unleashed between them.
Tai trailed his thumbs gently alongside David’s windpipe, the absolute trust in David lifting his chin to give Tai access to every inch of that fragile stretch of flesh. The perfect submission sending another drug-like wave to cloud Tai’s brain. Even if they’d done breath play before, practiced it, if he knew every cue from David’s face, he couldn’t risk that now. Not with Tai’s head high on this buzz.
He spread his palms wide on David’s shoulders, the deltoids solid and hot as the muscles flexed and strained, and took a grip to anchor them for the fuck.
David’s eyes came back into focus, zeroing in on Tai’s with the first thrust. Tai moved his hips in hard, shallow strokes, keeping David’s cock angled to rub Tai’s gland over and over. The quick burn of friction didn’t take long to put him right up on the edge. Despite Tai’s weight and the spread of his thighs, David did his best to meet the thrusts, his hips slapping up against Tai’s ass.
“Please, Sir. Please, God, please.” The words might have begged, but David’s voice was a raspy growl.
“Wait. For. Me.” Tai timed with his thrusts.
“Yes, Sir.”
Tai slowed and released David’s shoulders, bringing a hand to his mouth. “Make it wet for me.”
David sucked in Tai’s fingers and licked over Tai’s palm as if lapping up honey. “Good. You’re doing good.”
Even with Tai’s body pulsing from the pressure in his ass and the urge to come drawing his balls up tight, his own hand on his dick felt like a stranger’s. He was so focused on David and his reactions, on the way David had melted into pliancy, that Tai had pushed back the demands from his own body.
He tightened his ass around David’s cock, drinking in the moans, the strangled breaths and the pleas as he started moving again. It was good and sweet, the slide of his hand and the stab of pleasure from being fucked. A long, steady rise and fall of sensation on the climb, until it wasn’t. Until something switched inside him and it was there, a violent shock, jolting bright and hot from his balls, the first shot flying past David’s shoulder. Instead of a drop, the next wave was sharper, then harder, spasms from deep inside as he painted David’s jaw, his lips, his chest with endless streams until Tai was wrung dry and aching.
“Fuck.” The word shuddered out of him with a last, rough gasp, and he hung there, staring down into David’s face, cock giving a desperate final twitch as David licked the come from his lips.
Tai pulled the edge of the sheet from the mattress and wiped David’s eyes. The body under Tai trembled, the cock in his ass swelling and throbbing.
He eased forward, letting David slide out of him, then rolled to one side.
With one hand on David’s jaw to keep his face turned to Tai, he reached down first to unsnap the strap on his balls, which produced a bone-deep whimper, and then freed his cock.
There might have been curses or only sounds from David’s lips, but Tai kissed them away, pulling off the condom and working David’s dick with firm strokes.
“You were a good boy. Now you’re gonna come for me, David.” Tai breathed in David’s gasp through another kiss and jacked him faster.
David tore his head free, and his body convulsed into jerks as his cock spilled thick and warm and creamy across Tai’s arm and fingers.
“God, David.” Tai breathed in the smell of his hair and skin and the faint bleach of spunk. “So good. So sweet, baby.”
David smiled. “I waited so long I was afraid I forgot how to do it. And then it was the best one of my life.”
“Patience can be rewarding.” Tai swept his hand up through the trails of come on David’s chest.
“Yes, Sir.” But there was a hint of a brat in the hoarse voice.
“I’ll be happy to convince you some more.”
“I’m looking forward to you topping that.”
“Oh, I plan to.” Tai nodded.
“Mmm.” David let out a long breath and sank onto the mattress, then flinched.
“Right. Let me get that for you.” Tai reached between David’s legs and gripped the curve of the wand. “Breathe out.”
“Appreciate it. Hard to relax with a stick up your ass.”
Tai chuckled as he eased it out of David’s body and tossed it on the mattress at their feet. If David needed teasing and humor to come down from sub space, Tai was happy to go along with it. It beat the hell out of pounding on the bathroom door.
“Damn, that was good.” David turned his head to look over at Tai.
He’d never actually seen eyes sparkle before. But there it was. Happiness and good humor and the late-afternoon sun made David’s eyes clear and bright.
So when it hit, it was as sudden a shift as the last time. Tai had just decided to start unhooking David from the restraints when he jerked his arms. Hard. And again. His face went slack with panic.
“Red. Okay? Red.”
Tai blessed Nic for teaching him to always have quick releases on restraints. Both David’s hands were free before he’d safeworded a third time. But he repeated the word over and over as Tai released the clips on his ankle cuffs.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he whispered as David curled into a silent ball. Tai reached for David’s shoulder but hovered an inch above his skin. “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want, but don’t try to get up until you feel steady.”
“I hate this.”
David’s mood had shifted fast enough to give Tai whiplash, but those words spread something cold and hollow through him, until he wondered which of them would end up in the bathroom hiding a reaction under running water.
David uncurled enough to roll his shoulders and head to look to where Tai stood at the foot of the bed. “It’s so damned stupid.” David’s laugh echoed the hollowness in Tai’s chest.
“What is?”
“I want it so much. I fucking love it. What you do, everything.” David paused. Swallowed. “And then.” He shook his head. “First time I ever got drunk enough to puke, Chip Montgomery slapped my back as I was hanging on to the toilet for dear life and said, ‘If you run with the big dogs, you’ve gotta learn to piss in the tall grass.’ Guess I’m still learning.”
Tai stood silent, waiting.
“I’d rather—Don’t go. Please.”
“Okay.” Tai sat on the bed next to him.
When David moved closer, Tai stroked a hand down David’s spine. “I’ve never been much of a backslapper.”
“Really? Would have figured you for a sports guy.”
“Figured right. But that’s all ass slapping and chest bumps.”
“I think I’ll pass on both right now.”
Tai’s phone launched into Gina’s ringtone.
David followed Tai’s gaze to his shorts. “Do you need to get that?”
Tai leaned back on his hands. “No. Not unless it rings again.”
“Your… daughter?”
He hadn’t given David time to ask any questions on the phone yesterday. Hadn’t ever expected to mention Sammie to—
The phone went off. “Sorry.” He fished it out.
“She’s all right,” Gina said immediately, though from that opening and the strain in her voice, his baby girl was anything but all right.
“What happened?”
“There was an accident. But she’s okay. Might have broken her wrists.”
“Wrists? Gina, what happened?”
“She got hit by a car. She’s okay.” How did hit by a car equal okay?
“I want to talk to Daddy Tai.” Sammie’s voice, thank God her voice, sounded from somewhere. And then a lot of other voices, indistinct, and one saying, “How about a ride, princess?”
“We’re going for X-rays now.”
“Where are you? Johns Hopkins?”
“Mercy.”
“What the hell for?” Gina worked at Johns Hopkins. His mother worked at Johns.
“It was closer. I have to go. She wants you to come.”
“On my way.”
He pressed End, though disconnecting by throwing the phone through the nearest wall felt like a better plan, then turned back to David. Who was gone.
Tai yanked up boxers and shorts and was reaching for a T-shirt when David appeared in the doorway, dressed and leaning on his cane.
“I have to—” Tai started.
“I know you have to go,” David interrupted. “I’ll see myself out.” His voice was firm, and if the windows weren’t toward the sun, Tai might not have noticed how pale David’s face was. But after what had happened, there was no way Tai could miss the flatness of his eyes or the faint vibrations in the hand that held the cane.
“No. You’ll get in my car.”