DAVID INJECTED the word with so much sarcasm it rang in Tai’s ears until understanding lit up his brain. He dragged the door shut, sealing them in.
If David had used any other word, Tai would have let him go. Been too stupid, too hopped up on the roller coaster of panic and anger from what had happened with Sammie to see, to hear, what was going on with David.
David took to D/s so readily, it was hard to remember it was all new to him. Everything David had said and done from the moment Tai tracked him here had been a demand for reassurance, a need to know that Tai was still in control.
And Tai wasn’t going to fail him.
He pulled David off balance and then pressed him against the door, using size and weight rather than a grip to keep him there.
David didn’t fight but held his body rigid. “If you get this turned-on by industrial tiling and the smell of urinal cakes, it should be easy enough to recreate it at home.” His voice was flat, but the tightness in his eyes and mouth showed it was anger, not fear.
“I’m sorry.”
David tilted his head. “That doesn’t sound very dominant of you. Aren’t you breaking the rules?”
“I already broke them. I brought you here with me because we hadn’t really ended the scene. I shouldn’t have left you like that.”
“I assure you I am able to function without constant supervision. Even if you and the county believe otherwise.” David shifted his foot to press the band against Tai’s ankle.
“And yet there’s still a problem.”
“No. There isn’t. At least there won’t be if you get out of my way. I have a ride waiting. You have a daughter waiting to be fed ice cream.” David didn’t try to move.
“You’re still acting like a brat.”
“If you aren’t enjoying my company, you have only yourself to blame.”
That was true. Tai was to blame. Talking wasn’t what David needed. It wasn’t what either of them needed right now.
“But you’re my brat, aren’t you, David?” Tai put his hand on David’s jaw.
The shiver ran through both of them. An electric arc of connection, the knowledge that this was exactly where they were supposed to be. David’s head dropped back against the door, and Tai accepted the offer of David’s throat, stretched and waiting. Thumb and fingers spread wide, Tai slid his hand over the prickle of jaw to rest at the open V just above David’s larynx. Staring into eyes with only a hint of blue left around the flared pupil, Tai let the weight of his bones do the work, owning, accepting what David offered.
David sucked in a breath, one Tai felt fight its way past his fingers.
“Aren’t you?” he demanded, though the proof was there, blood and air struggling, throbbing under his fingers.
David kept his head tilted up in surrender, his choked whisper vibrating into Tai’s fingers. “Yes, Sir.” His body shuddered. “Bastard.”
Tai brushed his mouth over David’s. “We’ll talk about your behavior later.” As Tai withdrew his hand, David strained to follow it for an instant, then fell back against the door.
David took a deep breath and blew it out with a rush of sound before relaxing into Tai’s body.
Tai wrapped his arms around David’s waist. “Good boy. I’ve got you.” The closer Tai held him, the more tension ebbed away.
“Is this supposed to feel like this? Every time?”
“Tell me what this is.” Tai pressed his forehead to David’s, sharing his breath.
“Like I swallowed a bottle rocket. I should be afraid, but the explosion is too amazing.” He held out a hand as if he expected to see a spray of sparks from his fingertips.
It sounded about right. But Tai wanted to absorb that burst, soak it up, and keep them both from coming apart with the strength of it. Tai didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like, but he wanted more. “It can be.” If you stay mine.
David’s phone emitted a blast of music about party people. Weight still against Tai’s, David took it from his pocket, glanced down, and tucked it away.
“Your ride?” Tai asked. David nodded.
Tai kissed him. He’d meant it to be a quick check-in, to be sure David was ready to leave, but that wasn’t the reason for the second kiss. Or the third. The way he tried to leave a print on David’s mouth he’d feel all day if he had any doubts.
The phone repeated its tune.
“Is it your run-away-from-home-at-thirty-three friend?”
“No. It’s Gavin.” David said the name as if it held a defining label that fit into no other category, catching Tai off balance, trapped between jealousy and want.
David only shifted his weight, but Tai felt the separation pull them much farther than a centimeter apart. “I should get going. I’ve already pissed him off. Though he’s put up with me for twenty years, as he likes to remind me, I probably shouldn’t risk it. He’s the only one who’s managed.”
David smiled, retreating in a way Tai couldn’t follow after. No shaking or bratting or freaking out. Tai had no good reason to keep him there.
“And I’m sure Sammie’s looking for you,” David added.
Tai stepped away. “I would have driven you back.”
“I know.” The surety in David’s voice echoed the trust he offered when he put his throat in Tai’s hand.
Tai took a deep breath. “I can smell us fucking on your skin. And I want it again. Want—”
Another eruption from David’s phone saved Tai from going too far while dazed by hunger.
I want to mark you up. Leave the bruises on your skin that prove you’re mine. So you know you’re mine.
Those were the kinds of things that freaked people out. Had freaked Tai out too until he got to understand things better. It would send David running, especially with his limits around impact play.
David looked up from his phone. “I should—”
“Come with me.” Tai was careful not to use his Dom voice, kept it soft and husky.
“For ice cream?” David raised his brows.
“If you want.” Tai had no problem introducing David to Gina and Sammie. And as far as Josh was concerned, he could suck it.
“I don’t know. Ice cream is a good exercise for limbering up the tongue, but I have to keep my sublimations in check.” David patted his waist.
The exaggeratedly coy protest wreaked havoc with Tai’s resolve not to turn the invitation into a power play. “Okay. I’ll take you back, and I’ll use your throat until you need ice cream for it.”
David’s eyes widened, but his tone still teased. “What kind of man would I be to come between a father and daughter? Weren’t you just telling me to learn to be patient?”
Tai’s text alert chimed, and while he was busy checking it, David eased away, tugging at the door. Tai pressed it shut with his hand as he read the text aloud. “She fell asleep three blocks away from the hospital.”
“Poor kid.”
“She’s pretty tough. But she’s upset about not being able to swim.” That had been the only thing to make her lip quiver when they were in the ER. A piece of his heart chipped away every time she looked at him with the conviction that Daddy Tai could fix anything and he had to tell her he couldn’t.
“Ugh. Wet casts are no one’s friend,” David said with authority.
“The voice of experience?” The introduction of a six-year-old, even if only by conversation, made it impossible to keep other things in focus. Tai stepped back from the door as David opened it.
“Far too much of it. You played sports, what about you?”
“Two fingers and my nose and bruises that lasted all season.”
“Sounds colorful.”
“It was.”
A convertible glided toward them as soon as they stepped outside. Matte black, smooth shape, like something out of a Bond movie. One rim probably cost more than Tai’s rent for the next two years. And the driver…. If David could model for Abercrombie, this guy could be on the GQ cover.
Tai’s hand automatically came to rest on the small of David’s back as he approached the car. They hadn’t decided—well, David hadn’t decided—where he was headed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” David went up to the driver’s side.
“No problem. I live to keep hauling your ass out of trouble.” Gavin took a long look at Tai, who felt the urge to bare his teeth and growl.
David leaned on the driver’s door. “See, I knew I brought meaning to your life. So when I called, I thought Tai was going to be tied—held—up longer. But—”
“Things got less complicated?” Gavin suggested through a thin smile.
“Exactly.”
“Meaning you’re going to get laid, and I drove here for no reason.”
“And everyone thinks Chip’s the smart Montgomery.”
Gavin stared at Tai again.
“Just think,” David continued, “you can get to Sergeant Boyfriend that much sooner.”
“Beach,” Gavin began in a low voice, but whatever he was going to try to say, he abandoned in favor of finishing with “you’re lucky you’re such an asshole you make me look good by comparison.”
“Come on. When have you ever known me to turn down a good time?”
Gavin shook his head. “Never. Especially if it’s wearing pants. Or a skirt. And for all I know, a clown costume.”
Tai’s ears throbbed, then flushed with a steady heat. He knew the dig was for him more than David but couldn’t figure out exactly what Gavin was aiming for. Tai brought his fingers up to graze the back of David’s neck.
The result was sweet. David straightened, body shifting under that touch. His energy turned toward Tai, away from Gavin.
“Ooo, baby. Those red noses. Big and shiny, pushing forward. Mmmm. I get a boner every time.” David slapped a hand on the top of the doorframe. “Say hi to your—to Jamie.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise, but David only waved as Gavin drove away.
“Sorry.” David turned to Tai. “He’s usually less of a prick. It’s not like I haven’t done the same for him.”
“Gone out of your way to be blown off?”
“Exactly.”
But in the car, David retreated again, off somewhere in his head. Tai replayed the conversation with Gavin, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you have sex with women?”
“Yes.”
Always looking for a good time and the fuck with anyone else. Gavin had been offering Tai a warning. Today it’s you, tomorrow it’s… who knows.
“What about clowns?” His question didn’t come out as light as he’d meant it to.
“No. Not really my thing. Is it yours? I didn’t see it on the checklist.” David abandoned the bantering tone. “I haven’t had sex with anyone else since we started this thing. Is that what you want to know?”
What Tai wanted—needed—to know right now was whether this thing was like any other in a long line of fascinations for David.
When Tai didn’t answer, David went on, “I realize that as”—he let out a long breath—“your submissive, it isn’t my business to set rules for you. But I want to tell you I wouldn’t expect you to only confine yourself to me. I mean, to have me as your only submissive.”
“What if I wanted that from you?”
“You want me to tell you not to be with other people?”
“No.”
“Oh.” The word was clipped. Sharp. “Well, you’re the only Dominant I know.”
Tai summed it up. “In other words, you want to keep your options open.”
Silence poured into the space between them like morning fog off the harbor.
Tai backed the car into a spot a few houses down from his door and was reaching for the ignition when David said, “I want this. It isn’t anything I ever spent time thinking of before, so excuse me if I screw it up sometimes.” More softly he added, “Or a lot. If you remember, I told you one of the things I like best is when you take away the responsibility of having to make choices.”
Tai turned off the car. With the summer heat still pulsing around them, this conversation would be over soon one way or another. Neither of them could stay in the car long. “I can’t order you not to fuck around.”
“Why not? You can order me to make an appointment. I’m not saying—I don’t mind that you do.”
Tai pressed himself back against the seat. “I think you should want to not fuck around.”
“I don’t know that I do.” David put his hand over Tai’s shoulder. Was that the first time he’d initiated a touch? “What I do know is that I want things with you, want you to do things with me, to me, I don’t even have the words for. And I don’t want that with anyone else. I like… submitting to you.” There was less of a hesitation on the word this time. “If that means only having sex with you, then I can do that. Hell, I’m hoping you keep me too worn-out for anything else.”
Tai opened his door. “Before that, I’m going to have to take Jez out. Do you want to stay in my apartment?”
David climbed out and tried a couple of steps. “My leg feels pretty good right now. Mind if I walk with you?” David’s phone went off with a generic ringtone. The uncharacteristic blandness was a brief warning for the tension that came into his face. “I have to take this.” He turned away before pulling the phone from his pocket. “Dad?”
Tai wrestled with a desire to stay and find out the cause of that sudden tight jaw, but David’s back and the way he had dropped his voice to almost a murmur made it clear he wanted privacy. Tai left him to it and went upstairs, taking a quick sweep of the apartment after greeting Jez, then, leash in hand, peered through the blinds at the front of the apartment to see David still on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, unmoving. Keeping Jez to her usual routine, Tai walked her to the door and had her sit to get her focused. And to get himself focused.
It should be as easy to control the environment out there as the one in here, but as he knew from training Jez, things never went that smoothly. One moment when his attention shifted and she felt it. One phone call from outside and then another and then it was back to the endless push and pull.
He went down the stairs first, Jez following as she’d been trained, sitting again at the front door as Tai clipped the leash to her collar.
David’s conversation was over by the time they approached, the phone gone. David crouched as he always did to greet Jez face-to-face, but she sensed the absence of something in him as Tai did, her tail stub twitching in concern rather than wriggling with joy. After a minute she looked back at him, as if in accusation.
“Bad news?” Tai asked as they started down South Streeper. Might as well bring it up since even the dog knew.
“Just news.”
It was almost full dark. Tai decided they’d only do the block. David would have to leave to make his curfew soon enough.
“Your daughter is very cute.”
“She is. Though I guess my mother told you I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
David shrugged. “I think personality plays a lot into a person’s attractiveness. And that is nurture, not nature. She lights up a room because she knows she has a lot of people who love her. That happiness makes her beautiful.”
All the things he told himself, that his mother and Gina had said about him still being part of Sammie’s life, none of it had the impact of David’s words. Sammie was who she was because Tai was there, not because he was her real father.
David went on, “Broken wrists aside, she’s a lucky kid. Three parents. Security to spare.”
“I guess. Though as she gets older, I’m sure she’ll be sick of it. I don’t think Josh and I will ever be ready to consider her old enough to date.”
“She’ll need help from her mom and your mom when she gets there, then.”
For a second there was a pause in the street noise of cars and stereos and TVs, enough for Tai to hear the tapping of David’s cane. He eased back on the pace. Both Sammie and Jez were energetic walking companions, and Tai had managed to forget about David’s scarred leg.
The moment of quiet was swallowed up by an SUV with a sound system that echoed from pavement to skull. When the echoes died away, David said, “So why do you call your mom Tina if her name is Kara?”
“It means mother in Samoan. She said my father called her tina la’ititi—little mother—all the time when she was pregnant with me. And he called me la’u tama when I was a baby. He died before I was one, so we use the words to remember him.”
“Not a lot of security.” David’s voice was barely audible over the whine of car brakes from a sudden stop at the corner. They rounded the block.
“No. But Mom was awesome. And I had my mom’s dad for a bit, until he died.”
“Your father was from Samoa? Have you ever been there?”
“American Samoa. And no.” After what had happened with Sammie, he understood now why his mom had cut them off from his father’s relatives, could relate to her fears about the pressure of losing him to his father’s huge, tight-knit family. But it still felt like half his identity was a shadow, waiting to come to light. “Maybe someday.” If he found which of the twelve hundred Tau Fonoti records he’d turned up would lead him to the right family.
“And your mom—”
Tai felt the corner of his lip curl in a smile. He’d take David’s hedging over people’s blunt What are yous any day.
“Is black. You can say it. It’s not an insult.”
“No, of course not.”
“If you were curious, why didn’t you ask?”
“Where I grew up, who you’re related to is the most important thing about you. I’ve only ever considered lineage a factor in picking a racehorse.”
“So who are you related to?”
“No one worth mentioning.” David’s voice was flat. They turned back onto South Streeper in silence. “And I thought the conversation in the car was awkward. Who do you think will win the Davis Cup this year?”
“Tennis isn’t really my sport.”
“Damn.” David’s laugh was all air and no joy. “I’ll have you know I actually have a reputation for being good at this.”
“At what?”
“Small talk. Charm. I’ve been known to sweep people off their feet.”
Tai didn’t know why delving into family history—which was apparently painful for both of them—would be considered small talk. But charm? David had that to spare. Thick hair and sun-creased eyes and dimpled chin and an ability to laugh at himself. Not to mention the sweet, yielding submissive under it all. They reached Tai’s door. “There’s plenty you’re damned good at, David.”
Good wasn’t necessarily the word Tai would have chosen to describe things upstairs. Jez grabbed a nylon bone to chew on in her corner under the AC, but David bounced from hall to living room to kitchen.
“Come here.” Tai sat on the couch and looked back at where David was scrutinizing the cabinet over the stove.
“For?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“Oh. Are we—?” David’s tone shifted from uncertainty to lilting and sly. “What if I don’t?”
Not What if I don’t want to, Tai noticed. He’d see how David intended to play this out. “Your curfew is in two hours, and I want to spend some time with my submissive.”
David shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
Another time, Tai might have enjoyed the challenge or even encouraged it with a teasing response, but after everything that had happened, he’d wanted to lose himself in the way David opened to him, let Tai reach in to take them both out of their heads and back into that space where the connection burned away everything else.
Real resistance is always purposeful. And never convenient. Nic had had plenty to say on that subject. But for the subs Tai had played with for a few hours, it had only ever been part of the scene, a make-me attitude part of what got them off.
Tai deepened his voice. “David, you will go into the bedroom, take off all your clothes, and wait for me.” After a moment of staring David down, Tai turned away, taking out his phone to stare blankly at the home screen.
The air behind him was alive, full, swelling with the pressure of whatever was driving David so hard. The minute Tai had decided to wait ticked by, stretching, growing heavier. Then it crashed as David’s sandal flew to land in Tai’s range of vision, rolling to a stop under the coffee table. Jez jerked up her head. David’s other sandal landed sole down and skated under the couch.
Jez shook her head until her ears flopped, then got stiffly to her feet and stalked into the bedroom, carrying her bone.
In the silence that followed, Tai heard her settle in her crate.
David’s shorts came next. Balled up, they sailed over Tai’s head to hit the coffee table and tumble off the end. The guy had excellent aim. His shirt landed on Tai’s shoulder, soft, rich with the smell of David’s body. Sweat and sex and the faint rain-sweet echo of his aftershave.
Tai awaited the next move. David took the long way around, to the kitchen end of the sofa, and then strolled between the coffee table and the TV, around the side where Tai was sitting. Just as David was past him, Tai stood, snatched a wrist, and jerked him back. He was about to flip him over the couch arm and spank the brat out of him when he remembered. He sat back down, dragging David close, pinning him against chest and thighs so he sat on Tai’s lap.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“You said get naked. I got naked.” David didn’t struggle, but he held himself tense.
“I told you to go into the bedroom first.”
“Same result.”
With one arm keeping David tight and close, Tai grabbed David’s chin, turning his head so their eyes met. “You are being disrespectful and challenging me.”
“Yes.”
At least it was clear David knew what he was doing. “Tell me why.”
David shrugged as much as Tai’s hold permitted. “What are you going to do about it?” David yanked his chin out of Tai’s grip.
If he knew David better, the punishment would be to deny him the punishment he was so sullenly demanding. But there was something different working here.
An intensity inside him as still and weighted as the eye of a hurricane, breath held for the next explosion. It wasn’t difficult to track where the storm had started. Would the mention of his father drive David deeper inward or shatter the potential for them to get somewhere?
“It sounds like you’re asking me to punish you.”
“You keep talking about it. But you never do anything.”
“And I told you I would decide when. Now I want you to tell me why you are acting like this.”
David gave him a look, eyes half-lidded with boredom, mouth and nose pinched in contempt, as if it was all too difficult for Tai to understand. He dumped David onto the cushion. “Do you have any allergies? Anything your skin reacts to?”
“No.”
Tai went into his closet. Impact was out, but there were other sensations.
He came back and put the empty burlap bag on the seat of his desk chair. David hadn’t moved, except to right himself into a slouch. Pulling a few sheets from the printer, Tai moved his keyboard out of the way and set up paper and pen on the desk. Rather than turn this part into a battle, he tugged David to his feet and led him to the chair.
“You understand you still—”
David cut him off with a sneered, “Have a safeword. I get it.”
“Good. Sit down.” Tai pushed him onto the burlap. “We’ll start with one hundred.”
“One hundred what?”
Tai leaned over, picked up the pen, and wrote I trust and respect you, Sir. “One hundred times. The whole sentence at once. Both of your hands stay on the desk.” He took David’s wrists and lifted both onto the desk. “Start now.”
David picked up the pen and moved it slowly through the first repetition. He looked up as if expecting something from Tai, but he only watched until David started the next one. As he wrote, Tai went into the kitchen and found the spray bottle he’d used to get Jez’s attention when he was training her, refilled it from the tap, and came back in.
David twisted his head around to look.
“Focus on your work.”
David pressed the pen harder through the third line.
“Spread your legs,” Tai said as he reached for the edge of the rough cloth on the seat. After David complied, Tai tucked the material over David’s balls and dick, then sprayed it with water to give it weight enough to stick. David jumped as the first round of drops hit. The cold and clammy part was a bonus. It should encourage him to complete his task in a hurry. And maybe help him think before asking for this again.
Tai sat back on the couch. “Keep going. If you don’t finish before you have to leave, we’ll do this tomorrow. And we’ll start at number one.”