Author's Note: This scene contains extremely graphic sexual content, including negotiated infidelity, unsafe sexual practices and some BDSM and Dom/sub themes. If that's not your kink, feel free to click away from this page at any time.
Reckless Chapter Twenty-Two: Bonus Scene
Jamie Goldwyn
It’s as difficult to tease as it is to be teased. That’s the thing that Garen doesn’t understand. Right now, I’d like nothing more than to be out there in the living room, doing as many horrific, unspeakable things to the midget as I can manage to accomplish in one night, but I can’t, because it’s not time for that yet. I’m beginning to realize that sex with Ben McCutcheon is so much more complicated than I’d anticipated, not because he expects some eyeroll-inducing level of commitment I’d be disinclined to give him, but because there are parts of him that are just… different. What I’m beginning to realize is that he wants things, likes things, needs things that other people don’t. He wants whispers that sound like curses and kisses that feel like bites. He likes to be denied and tested and pushed to the very edge of what he can take. But perhaps more than anything else, he needs to be handled. He needs to be given orders, pressed into position, held down, tied up, punished when he does something wrong, and praised with sugar-sweet words when he does something almost unbearably good.
And, of course, he wants, and likes, and needs to be teased.
If only to keep myself occupied, I spend a few minutes picking up my room, fixing all the things Garen has managed to fuck up in the few hours he’s been here. Three years of sharing a dormitory room have taught him not to mess around with my clothing, my books, my computer—anything that I’ve taken the time to organize properly—but it apparently hasn’t taught him to clean up his own goddamn mess. In all fairness to him, however, that’s an overall theme of his life, and I suppose I should give him points for consistency.
I pick up both of the coats he carried in from the cab and then saw fit to dump on my floor. And really, what sort of person just throws someone else’s belongings around? I brush off my coat and hang it up in my closet, then repeat the brush-off with his leather jacket before draping it over the back of my desk chair. My own things are already situated in their proper places, because unlike my best friend, I’m an adult.
With nothing left to fix, I settle myself into my desk chair so that I can open my computer and click lazily through the few emails I’ve received since this afternoon. Nothing there is enough to hold my attention, not when I know that there’s a body on my sofa that’s craving to be touched. My dick is uncomfortably hard in my sleep pants, but when I check the time, it’s only three nineteen. Barely more than half an hour has passed, and it’s been close to long enough, but not quite. I resolve to go at three thirty-two, when it’s been exactly forty-five minutes—enough time for him to be desperate and aching. Enough time for him to have earned a reward, if he’s managed to last this long without giving up on me and deciding to jerk off or go to sleep instead of waiting.
At three twenty-eight, I close out of the game of Solitaire I’ve been screwing around with. I stand, stretch, contemplate sitting back down, but mostly just stare at the clock. My hands are almost twitching, for want of touching someone else’s skin. All I can say is that this kid had better appreciate the restraint it takes for me to stay here and drag this out in the way I know—without knowing how I know—he wants me to. At three thirty, I open my nightstand drawer and grab a bottle of slick and, as an afterthought, a couple of condoms, just in case he suddenly gets a bug up his ass and decides he doesn’t like going bareback anymore. I slip the supplies into the pocket of my pants and move to stand in front of the door, though my eyes never leave the clock. I wait, my spine perfectly straight, my hands stuffed into my pockets.
The clock clicks over to three thirty-two, and I open my door. The apartment is utterly silent. I pass the guest room, but hear no voices, no moans, no crashing of the headboard against the wall. I almost laugh; a few years ago, the idea of Garen spending the night with his lover but not having sex would have floored me. Since he first got involved with Travis, however, I’ve had to reevaluate my expectations of his behavior. I continue down the hallway and stop just inside the living room, slipping my hands into my pockets and leaning my shoulder against the wall.
Ben is awake, not even pretending to be otherwise. He’s spread out over the couch, blankets still folded and stacked on the edge of the coffee table. The lamp on the end table behind the couch arm he’s using as a pillow is turned on, illuminating the book he’s reading, but casting his face into shadow. I can’t tell if he’s noticed me, but I’m going to assume that he has; his body is too tense for him to think he’s alone.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
Rather than simply answering, or angling the cover towards me so that I can see for myself, he flips to the next page and reads aloud, “When you go out with a drunk, you’ll notice how a drunk fills your glass so he can empty his own. As long as you’re drinking, drinking is okay. Two’s company. Drinking is fun. If there’s a bottle, even if your glass isn’t empty, a drunk, he’ll pour a little in your glass before he fills his own. This only looks like generosity.”
Of all the paragraphs in that entire novel, I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or cruelty that makes him read me something I’m already aware of. Three and a half years with Garen have taught me exactly what drinking with a drunk is like, and the last six months have given me a nice glimpse of the guilt I’m sure I’ll always feel for not putting a stop to it. I don’t need a reminder of this right now. I cross the room and nudge Ben’s legs apart so that I can climb onto the couch and kneel between them. “Sounds like a delightful read.”
“I don’t like happy books. They bore me,” he says. “Same goes for happy people.”
“Could’ve guessed that from your taste in boyfriends,” I reply, tilting my head towards the guest room.
Ben turns to the next page. “You can feel free to get the fuck off me any time now. I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Aren’t you?” I say mildly, skimming a hand up his thigh. He catches me by the wrist before I can even reach his hip. Frowning, I shake him off and lean over him to snatch a coaster from the stack on the end table. I take his book from him, slip the coaster between the pages to mark his place, and set it down on the coffee table. He glares up at me, but voices no protest. I hook my hands under his slightly bent knees and yank him closer; his head slips off the armrest and onto the cushions. He looks good like this, flat on his back and staring up at me, but I’m not about to tell him so. At least, not aloud. I slip my fingertips under the hem of his shirt and push it slowly upward as I say, “I was under the impression that you understood that, when I said ‘be patient and you’ll be rewarded,’ what I meant was that I wanted you to wait for me out here and think of all the things you want me to do to you. Then, once I was sure you were desperately, painfully hard, I’d come out here and fuck you into the floor. Or let you fuck me, whichever struck my fancy at the time.” His shirt is tucked right up under his arms, baring his chest and all the perfectly-shaped marks my teeth left in the alley. I lean down to make another, and the movement nudges my stomach against the hardness in his sleep pants. “And I see that you’ve followed at least part of my plan.”
“I might have followed all of it, if you hadn’t left me someplace where I’ve got a perfect view of a picture of you and your girlfriend,” he says, jerking his head towards the entertainment unit that holds my television and most of my books.
Someone had taken a photograph of Rachael and me at a party a few weeks ago, and for some baffling reason, she’d thought that I would appreciate receiving a silver-framed copy of it as a Christmas present. I didn’t appreciate it, and every time I look at the delicate, rounded corners of the frame, I find myself increasingly annoyed at how blatantly it clashes with all the sharp edges and clean lines of the rest of my decor. But the rest of my Christmas present had involved her giving me a lapdance while wearing a red satin negligee, and I have extremely high hopes for a repeat performance on Valentine’s Day, so I have dutifully allowed the frame to retain a residence on the middle shelf of the entertainment unit.
I roll my eyes back towards Ben. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re jealous.”
He sneers. “Don’t flatter yourself, asshole. I’m disgusted.”
“Yes, you certainly seem to be,” I say, bracing my hands against his shoulders to pin him in place while I slowly grind down against him once more. He is the king of mixed signals, fisting his hands around my shirt to push me away even as he cants his hips up to meet mine, biting back what I’m sure is equal parts an admonishment and a moan. I like how much he dislikes me, but I can’t make myself touch any other part of him until I’m sure he’s more willing. I flick my eyes towards the framed photograph and say, “You know she doesn’t mind. She’s said as much right in front of you.”
“That was a month ago,” he says. “She might have reconsidered her position on the issue.”
“She hasn’t,” I say. He doesn’t look reassured, and he doesn’t look as if he plans to let me touch him yet. I sigh. “What do you want from me? Would you like me to just go back to bed? Or would you like me to text her so that she can tell you herself?” He arches a brow at me, a plain request for me to do just that. Rolling my eyes and praying for patience, I heave myself off him and drag him upright. “My phone’s in my room. Come on.”
He allows me to tow him down the hall by the front of his shirt, though he wriggles free the moment we’ve crossed the threshold to my bedroom. I snatch my iPhone off the nightstand and open a new message to Rachael, tapping out the words, The midget is standing next to my bed. I would prefer for him to be lying in it, or possibly bending over it. He is withholding consent until he receives confirmation of your approval. Please respond at your earliest convenience. As proof that I’ve really asked her, I step too far into Ben’s space and turn the screen to face him as soon as the message has sent. His brow creases.
“Do you always speak to her so formally?” he asks.
“How I speak to my other lovers is none of your business,” I say, tossing the phone onto my bed.
He slumps back against the door, shutting it with a click, and says, “I’d really appreciate it if you could phrase that differently.” His words make no sense; I gesture for him to clarify. “How you speak to your ‘other lovers.’ I’m not—that’s not what I am. Don’t say it like that. I’m not your goddamn lover.”
Despite his words, he doesn’t resist when I close the small amount of distance between us to align my body with his. He doesn’t resist when I curve a hand over his jaw and tip his head back. I doubt he would resist anything I did to him now, even though his instincts seem to always be screaming at him to deny me. All I do is cock my head to the side, smile ever so slightly, and say, for the second time tonight, “Aren’t you?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s cut off by my phone chiming with Rachael’s reply. My hand is still brushing over his jaw; I let it drop to his throat, curling over it for a brief second. He had let me hold him in place like this in the alley earlier tonight, let me choke the hell out of him in the car a few weeks ago. Feeling his pulse fluttering, quickening under my fingers is enough to send another spark of desire through me. To clear my head—and, of course, to get my answer—I turn, stride across the room, and fling myself down onto the edge of the bed, sweeping a hand over my sheets to locate the phone.
I read aloud, “‘That’s fine, but tonight’s the last night, okay? I don’t want him to become a habit, I think three is a good cut-off number. Have fun, I’ll text you tomorrow.’ And then she’s included a little heart—”
It might actually be two hearts, but I don’t have a chance to double-check before Ben knocks my phone right out of my hand, onto the floor, and crawls into my lap, bracketing my hips with his knees. The rebuke I attempt to voice doesn’t actually make it past my lips, because his mouth is already there to catch it, swallowing any sound I try to make. For a moment, I’m too stunned to move. This is the first time we’ve kissed, not counting that biting, humiliating mistake I’d been too turned on to stop myself from making in Garen’s car. So, technically, I suppose it’s just the first time we’ve kissed without his response being to throw himself out of a vehicle and into the snow in a shoeless panic immediately afterward.
To prevent him from attempting to repeat that graceless reaction, I wind an arm around his waist to hold him in place as I press up against him. Rather than attempt to escape, he meets my thrusts with his own, grinding down onto my lap like his very life depends on it. Truthfully, he’s a better kisser than I had expected him to be, though I’m not sure if that’s because he’s actually skilled, or simply because I tend to expect the worst of him, no matter the subject. It’s a dangerous train of thought to let myself entertain; I cover it by twisting around to shove him flat onto his back on the bed. He goes with the motion and shoves the hem of my shirt up, laughs when I strip it off in reply. “God, you’re so fucking easy.”
I glare down at him, careful to maintain eye contact so that he might not notice my shaking my shirt out and giving it a quick fold before I toss it off to the side; my bedfellows always seem to make fun of me for that, if they notice, though I still don’t understand why. Shirt out of the way, I hitch one of Ben’s legs up over my hip and do my best to crush him with my weight as I duck down to sink my teeth into his throat. He moans, bucks up against me, and I try to be certain that he can feel my smirk against his skin.
“Doesn’t seem like you’ve got much room to talk, does it?” I say. He shoves me halfway off him, and I smack his hand aside. “If you’re quite fucking finished, you can take yours off as well.”
He exaggerates an eyeroll at me, but obeys regardless. This is the third time I’ve seen him stripped of a shirt, and the scars on his arms still throw me. I do my best not to look at them, focusing instead on the bites on his chest. I smooth a hand over them, admiring them, counting them. He hisses when I press my fingertips against one of the darker ones, and I smile. “That hurt?”
“Yeah,” he says, and, in the same breath, “Feels good.”
“Turn over,” I say.
His eyebrows twitch upward. “When did I agree to let you top?”
“Please, McCutcheon. We both prefer getting fucked, and we both know you were hoping I’d offer to top anyway,” I say. He grins, not even bothering to deny it. Smiles look strange on his face, like they’re too infrequent to belong. I shove at his shoulder to get him to turn onto his front so I won’t have to look at him anymore. “Besides, not going to fuck you. Not yet, anyway. I’m just admiring these pretty marks you’ve got on you, and it occurs to me…” I curl my fingers just enough to dig my nails into his skin, not scratching, just hurting enough to make him inhale shakily. I smile. “I haven’t done a damned thing to your back just yet.”
He shoves me off of him so that he can roll over, tossing over his shoulder, “Well, get to it, then.”
He’s eager as hell, and nothing gives me joy like denying him; I take my time running a fingertip along the drawstring of his sweatpants, hooking my thumbs over the waistband and slowly peeling them off him. He lifts up just enough for me to pull them completely off, then squirms a little when I sling a leg over him so that I’m sitting back comfortably on his thighs.
“This would be more interesting if we were in Savannah right now,” I say.
“Is this some Georgia version of ‘everything’s bigger in Texas’? Because it doesn’t really roll off the tongue in the same—”
“If we were in Savannah, at my family’s house, I could take you out to my stables and tie you to the wall in my tack room with a set of reins,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even and conversational. “Maybe get a bit in your mouth so you’ll finally shut the fuck up.”
He has gone completely still underneath me. He doesn’t speak, but I can be patient. Besides, it’s almost funny to watch him try not to react to my words, to hear how much effort it takes for him to maintain that dry, bored tone when he finally swallows and says, “Should I assume that you’d be wearing some sort of assless chaps in this scenario?”
That’s enough to win a laugh from me. “I did show jumping, not rodeo, so no, there are no chaps.” I lean down and nip the back of his neck, though he’s so goddamn skinny that it takes a lot of effort to get a little pinch of skin between my teeth. He lets his head roll forward, exposing more of his neck for me to bite, but I’ve already moved on, slowly making my way down his spine. After a few inches of progress, I say, “There would be riding breeches, though.” Another pause, another bite. “You know, the tan ones that are practically skintight?” Bite. I’m halfway down his back now. “Riding boots, too.” Further and further down I go. “Mine are tall, almost to the knee.” Another inch, and now I’m at the small of his back. “Black leather.”
I lean back, fully intending to turn him over so that I can see his face, his cock, his reaction, but he’s lying so perfectly still, and all at once, I’m overcome with the impulse to do something that will provoke the sort of response he won’t be able to hide. He is hungry for the sting of another bite, but I want to see what he looks like when he’s starved. I want another glimpse of what he looks like when he starts to come undone. I settle one palm in the small of his back to brace either him or myself—I have no idea which—and bring the other down hard against his ass. I don’t know which sound is loudest in the relative silence of the room: the slap itself, the stuttering gasp he lets out, or the pulsing of blood in my ears.
“Now might be a good time for me to mention,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut in the hope that it might stave off some of the embarrassment I’m feeling over the plainly audible hoarseness in my voice, “that there is also a riding crop involved in this scenario.”
Neither of us moves; I can’t even breathe, and I find myself thankful for the fact that he’s still facedown and unable to see my expression, because I have no idea what it might be revealing, and I hate that. I hate not knowing. I hate not being in control. All I can do now is wait and see if I’ve somehow misread this situation, taken things too far. He likes pain, but does he like being slapped? Likes having his hair pulled, likes being bitten and scratched, likes being choked, likes restraints, but unless I’ve got a much kinkier cousin than I ever realized, this must be the first time anyone’s ever held him down on a bed and spanked him. Travis isn’t the type; Garen would never hit someone he was sleeping with, and Ben would never ask him to.
Finally, I hear him moving, and my eyes snap open again. He tips his head forward again to bare his neck, not in hope of receiving another bite, but in a clear act of submission. “Again,” he breathes, barely audible with his face still aimed at the pillow. “Do that again.”
My hand is already raised by the time I realize that instant obedience would be a mistake. I force myself to freeze. I need to keep control of this situation, and there’s only one way I know how to do that right now. I ask, “How many times?”
“I don’t care,” he snaps, flinging a hand behind himself and digging his fingers into my hip, fumbling over and downward until he can get beneath the waistband of my pajamas and wrap his hand around my aching cock. “Until your fucking hand is numb. As many times as you can stand.”
“Put your hands on the bed, level with your shoulders,” I say coldly. I refuse to be the one who falls apart first, and he already has me starting to unravel. He doesn’t stop stroking me until I grab his forearm and drag him away. “I’m going to choose to believe that you didn’t hear me. Because if you did hear me, but intentionally ignored me, that would be a problem.”
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. I can’t remember ever hearing him say that to me before; I’m not sure which of us is more surprised by it. There’s no chance for me to dwell on that, though, because he flattens his palms to the mattress, and I’m taken aback by how good he looks, arms bent like I’d asked, whole body taut with anticipation.
“Nine times,” I say, not knowing where the number comes from, but liking it anyway. It’s a nice, square number. It fits. “I’m going to hit you three times for giving me that greedy, barbaric answer when I asked how many you wanted. Three times for not listening to me when I told you to move. And three times for grabbing at my cock like a desperate slut. Is that fair?”
He nods into the mattress and says, “That’s perfect.”
“Not quite,” I admit, because square numbers are nice, but even ones are better. I stretch out over him, bracing an elbow on the mattress above his shoulder so that I might duck down and brush my lips over his ear as I say quietly, “Let’s stick with that number, though. Three. Keep it in mind, because by the time you’ve gotten your last slap, that’s the number of fingers I intend to be fucking you with.”
He nods again, but doesn’t speak. Can’t speak, perhaps.
I straighten up and shift off of him, nudging his legs apart so that I can kneel between them properly. The lubricant and the condom are still in my pocket from earlier; I flick the condom towards the pillow, because Ben hasn’t requested it, but he might, later. I palm his ass for a moment, spreading him a little more to drip some of the lube over his opening. He shudders at the cold, but his discomfort with the temperature isn’t really my problem, so I ignore it, replace the cap on the bottle, and drop it next to his knee. My middle finger drifts lazily down between his cheeks, rubbing over his hole but not yet pushing inside, just applying a little pressure. “If you want to back out, you should do so now, because I’m not going to be gentle, and I’m not going to start slowly,” I say. “This is going to hurt.”
He twists to look at me over his shoulder, eyes on fire, and says, “Promise?”
And I hit him as hard as I can.
He jerks back into my touch, his movement forcing the tip of my finger into him, though I’m not sure that was his intention. His head has snapped back around so that his face is buried in my sheets, and I can see that his fingers are clenched tight around the comforter. My palm stings from the contact, and when I lift my hand, there’s a pink imprint of it on his skin right where I’ve struck him. It might be the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Again,” I say, and it is not by any means a question, but he nods anyway. My next slap falls to the other cheek and earns another thrust backward, and I respond with a third slap before he can prepare himself for it. “Stay still. Or you’ll get another three.”
“That’s the most counterproductive threat I’ve ever heard,” he breathes. “Come on, do it again, I want--oh,” he trails off as I press my finger the rest of the way into him. That holds my attention for several long, torturous minutes; I don’t want to bring him off like this, but I don’t want him to be able to anticipate the strikes, either. That would ruin all my fun. It would take away my control.
He’s so tight—I’d probably think he was still a goddamn virgin, if I hadn’t already fucked him myself—that I have to add another generous helping of lube to work even a second finger into him. I time my next slap to coincide with the exact moment I curve my fingers to touch him right where he needs me to, then watch him go rigid as the pleasure/pain sends sparks up his spine. Part of me hopes that whatever he is feeling will distract him from the way I have shifted to rut up against the back of his thigh, but the rest of me couldn’t care less if he notices.
“In the cab, you said you could be patient for me. Did you mean it?” I ask. He nods jerkily. Fifth slap. “Use your fucking words, McCutcheon. Everyone’s always telling me how good you are with them, so come on. Speak.”
His words tumble out all at once. “I meant it. I did. I’m patient, I can be patient.”
“Good,” I say, unable to find a good reason not to lean down and kiss the back of his trembling shoulder, “because when I fuck you, I want you to wait to come until I give you permission to do so.”
“Oh, fuck off, no,” he says, then makes a noise of protest when I immediately pull both fingers out of him and sit back on my heels. “No, no, no, don’t. Please, come back, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I ask, though I couldn’t give a fuck what he says in response. I’m too busy flicking the bottle of lube back open and slicking up my fingers some more. The liquid is so silky against my skin that I can’t stop myself from pushing off my sleep pants and sneaking a few languid strokes of my cock, still making sure not to touch any part of Ben.
He pushes back towards me, like he’s hoping that my fingers are just out of reach and he’ll be able to get them back inside if he tries hard enough. Or like he’s hoping that moving around too much will get him slapped again. When my only response is to continue working my own cock, he finally tips his head forward again and says, “For telling you to fuck off.”
“Speak in complete sentences, my little English major,” I say, and it’s as if my whole body is buzzing with power when he says quietly, obediently, “I’m sorry for telling you to fuck off.”
I stretch out over him, even though it means that I’m pressed right up against his ass, even though it’s so, so tempting to just push inside before he’s received all nine of the slaps he has earned and asked for. He shoves back against me eagerly, and I bite down on the back of his neck until he goes still. I hook my chin over his shoulder so that my mouth is next to his jaw when I murmur, “Are you going to hold off until I tell you it’s okay for you to come, then?”
Before I can move out of reach, one of his hands comes up to tangle in my hair, anchoring me in place as he turns his head to kiss me over his shoulder. It’s a sloppier kiss than those we’ve had earlier in the night, more desperate, more purposeful. I bite down on his bottom lip, and he shudders before pulling back just enough to say, “I will do whatever the hell you want me to, as long as you stop touching yourself and go back to touching me instead.”
“Greedy little bitch,” I chastise him, but regardless of my words, I shift my hand around to push back into him, now with three fingers. It’s so impossibly tight that, at first, I can only get them in about halfway. He groans and moves in to kiss me again, presumably to show his approval, but I lean out of reach, because there is a much more pressing matter at hand. My dick is unbearably hard, leaking precome against the curve of his ass, and I’d like to get to fuck him sometime tonight. I pour more lube onto the exposed halves of my fingers and carefully, methodically work them the rest of the way into him. When I’m in up to my last knuckle, I give him his sixth slap. I vary the placement of the seventh and eighth, because that’s half the thrill—him not knowing where or when they’ll come, and twitching in surprise when they do.
“Good Lord, I hope you can still feel this later today, when you’re driving yourself back home,” I say quietly, dragging my nails over the pinked flesh. “Two hours sitting in that van, feeling this sting on your skin and remembering exactly what I did to you to put it there. I bet you’ll be rock-hard all the way back to Connecticut. Do you think you’ll still have the marks when you wake up? I hope you do. God, I really fucking hope you do, I told you, your skin looks so fucking gorgeous when it’s marked up like this.”
He whimpers. This is bad. I can feel myself starting to lose it, falling too far into this moment, and I need to fix that, get my head on straight. Get back the upper hand. I twitch my fingers against the spot inside him that makes him go crazy and say, “One more. Do you want it?” He nods frantically. “Ask me for it.”
“Please hit me again,” he says.
The final slap is as hard as the first one. He shoves back into it and lets out a wild, strangled noise that shakes me in ways I hadn’t planned for. I fumble for the lube with one hand, spilling it onto my cock even though there’s already so much of it that more must be unnecessary, and tug impatiently at his hip with the other hand. “Get up on your knees, now.”
He scrambles up onto his hands and knees, eager as anything, and I fit my hands against his waist, but don’t push inside just yet. He huffs out a frustrated gust of air and snaps, “Is there a reason you’re just sitting there like a goddamn moron?”
I reach past him and pluck the condom off the pillow, waving it just within his line of sight. “Do you want me to use this? Or do you not give a damn?”
That’s enough to put a halt to his whorish, desperate thrusts backward; he looks over his shoulder at me. “Are you still getting tested regularly enough to be sure you’re clean?”
“Yes. And I don’t go bare with anyone but you.” I regret the words immediately. Somehow, I’ve managed to make it sound as if this matters—as if he matters, and he doesn’t. To reassure both of us, I work my expression into a smirk, a sneer, whatever this ugly twist of my mouth is meant to be, and add, “You’re the only person I know who’s dumb enough to want me to do it without a condom. And it feels a little illogical to suddenly insist that we use one for the last time we do this, considering we haven’t before.”
“If you give me anything, I will cut your balls off,” he warns. “And then I’ll tell Garen, and he’ll beat the shit out of you. You know he will.”
I make a show of rolling my eyes, but yes, Garen would break at least one of my bones if I was responsible for perfect, pious Ben contracting a disease. He doesn’t look reassured. I take myself in hand and rub the tip of my cock over his hole. It’s a glorious tease of a touch, and for half a second, I wonder if I could get myself to come from this alone, from thrusting against his bare, slicked-up ass and running my hands over skin that’s been warmed by blood rising to the surface under my strikes. But then his hips grind back once more at exactly the right moment to press the head inside, and he groans out, “God, fuck, just do it, okay? I believe you, I trust you, do whatever you want to me—”
Those words are enough to break me. He shoves back just as I’m pressing forward, and I sink into the tight, slick heat of him in one fine movement. I’m unable to hold back a cry that I’m sure must wake Garen and Travis in the next room, but Ben makes no attempt to silence me, too busy babbling a stream of curses under his breath. He drops to brace his weight on one elbow so that he can reach for his cock, but I make a disapproving noise and catch his wrists. “Not just yet, sweetheart. Might let you do that a bit later, but right now, I just want you to focus on this. Tell me how it feels.” He lets out a moan that sure as hell does not count as an answer, and I pull back so that only the very tip of my cock is left in him, dig my nails into his skin and drag them up the length of his spine until I can reach his hair. I knot both hands in it and yank, using that force to thrust back into him. Thankfully, I don’t think he can hear my appreciative groan over the pitiful whine he lets out at that. I grit my teeth and say, “I swear to God, McCutcheon, if you don’t start answering me when I speak to you, I’m not going to fuck you anymore. Doesn’t matter to me—I could call any one of half a dozen people, have someone here in ten minutes to get me off, but what about you? What would you do? Finger yourself in my living room? That’s the only option you’ll have, if you don’t—”
“Good,” he chokes out, rocking back hard against me. “Feels really good. I hate you so much that sometimes just hearing your voice makes me feel like I’m going to be sick, hate you so much that looking at you drives me insane, but my god, you’ve got a fucking perfect cock. Just big enough to hurt like—”
“—like you need it to,” I supply, and he nods jerkily.
“Exactly. God. Can you—” He breaks off without finishing, but he’s arching his back, trying to twist into my thrusts in a way that speaks of something less than satisfaction. I let one of my hands slip from his hair to press between his shoulder blades, shoving his upper half down onto the mattress and driving into him at a new angle that makes him shudder. That is how it goes on, both of us shoving and thrusting and grinding at each other, movements desperate to the point of brutality. I’m shocked that I last even as long as I do—I can drag my encounters out for ages, but I generally prefer not to; someone who sleeps with as many people as I do has a need for a certain degree of efficiency. When I feel myself getting close, I give another quick tug to the midget’s hair to be certain I have his attention.
“You remember what you agreed to, don’t you?” I say. “You’re not going to come until I tell you that it’s—”
“I know. I know, I know, fuck, I’m going to punch you in the mouth the second I’ve gotten off,” he snaps. I notice he’s got a hand wedged under himself, and for a moment, I think he’s stroking himself off, even though I explicitly told him not to. I’m opening my mouth to yell at him for it when I realize that he’s not jerking off; he’s squeezing down hard on the base of his cock, doing everything he can to hold off his own orgasm.
That’s enough for me.
“Turn over,” I order, and he obeys instantly. He moves as if to lie on his back, but I throw an arm around his shoulders, keeping him upright so that I can kiss him roughly, sloppily, while I stroke myself. It only takes a few more pulls before I’m coming in long spurts over his stomach, his cock, the tops of his thighs. He breaks off the kiss and drops his forehead to my shoulder to watch me push shakily into my fist, but I only allow him a few moments of the view before I sit back and beckon him in. “Come here. Still going to be hard for another minute or so, and it’d be a shame to waste it.”
“Waste it? It’s a hard-on, not food for the fucking homeless—”
I drag him onto my lap, then drag my palm over the streaks of cum I’ve just left on his stomach. He jolts at the touch, but it’s nothing compared to the way he shivers when I smear the stickiness over his cock like it’s lube and begin to work him over. I press a hard, closed-mouthed kiss to his lips, and say, “Ride me.”
He lines me up with his ass and sinks down onto me again, and it feels good, but it’s the sort of too good that borders on painful. That sparks a whole new line of thought in me—I wonder how close I could get him to coming without ever letting him do so; I wonder if how much he’d let me edge him before he couldn’t take it anymore. Or, perhaps I could do the opposite, spread him out on my bed and spend an entire afternoon getting him off over and over, as many times as I possibly could, until he was shaking and gasping and just couldn’t anymore, until it stopped feeling good. He’d let me, too, I think, I hope. Now, he shoves me flat onto my back, and all I can do is stare up at him, a bit stunned.
The truth is, it’s usually so hard for me to find Ben attractive. His bright blue eyes can be mildly disarming, and that mouth of his is distracting as all hell, but he is pale and small, and tries to look even smaller. When he stands, he shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders like he’s hoping to disappear into himself, and when he sits, he nearly always draws his legs up to his chest, curling himself into a ball like a child would. He moves through his life like he’s apologizing for existing, like he thinks he has no right to be here, and he’s so very sorry for intruding. Most of his friends seem to think it’s endearing, but I think it’s pathetic, because how could I ever respect someone who’s so incapable of respecting himself?
But then I see him like this. I see him with his spine straight, his head thrown back. I see his legs spread wide, one hand braced against my chest as he fucks himself on my cock, the other hand raking his dark hair back from his forehead, unafraid of taking up space. I see him finally seeming his proper age under that stubble, his pupils blown, his lips parted and quirked up into a barely-present half-smile. I see him looking open and raw and more sure of himself and his movements than he ever is when clothed.
I see him like this, and he is fucking radiant.
“Come,” I say, sitting up so suddenly that he has no time to move back before I’m right there kissing him. “Now.”
It’s not immediate, but nearly—a few more strokes, one more sharp tug of his hair, and then he comes, fingers laced together at the nape of my neck, mouth open against mine, but not quite kissing. The moment he stops spurting against my stomach, I have to pull him off of my now much too oversensitive cock. He is too sex-stupid to be of any real use in moving himself properly, so I dump him on the bed next to me. For a minute, we both just lie there, staring at the ceiling and breathing hard, neither of us saying a word.
I contemplate asking him if he’d like to spend the rest of the night in my bed, rather than on the couch. It’s not something I particularly want, but it seems like it would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But just as I’m opening my mouth to speak, he stretches out a trembling hand towards his discarded shirt and tugs it back on. It strikes me as funny that he’s more interested in covering up his top half than his bottom half, but then I realize that it’s not his chest he’s worried about; it’s his arms. He wriggles back into his boxers and sweatpants, all without meeting my eyes. I still haven’t moved a muscle.
“I’m going to, uh—go back to the couch,” he mutters. “See you in the morning.”
It’s a sudden, depressing transition back to the boy with the hunched shoulders, the boy who feels guilty for breathing, the boy I can’t stand. I don’t even consider trying to stop him when he heads for the door, because this shame-faced, apologetic boy looks absolutely nothing like the man I just slept with. That man earned his place in my bed, and this boy… truly just needs to get the fuck out of my face.
And, of course, he wants, and likes, and needs to be teased.
If only to keep myself occupied, I spend a few minutes picking up my room, fixing all the things Garen has managed to fuck up in the few hours he’s been here. Three years of sharing a dormitory room have taught him not to mess around with my clothing, my books, my computer—anything that I’ve taken the time to organize properly—but it apparently hasn’t taught him to clean up his own goddamn mess. In all fairness to him, however, that’s an overall theme of his life, and I suppose I should give him points for consistency.
I pick up both of the coats he carried in from the cab and then saw fit to dump on my floor. And really, what sort of person just throws someone else’s belongings around? I brush off my coat and hang it up in my closet, then repeat the brush-off with his leather jacket before draping it over the back of my desk chair. My own things are already situated in their proper places, because unlike my best friend, I’m an adult.
With nothing left to fix, I settle myself into my desk chair so that I can open my computer and click lazily through the few emails I’ve received since this afternoon. Nothing there is enough to hold my attention, not when I know that there’s a body on my sofa that’s craving to be touched. My dick is uncomfortably hard in my sleep pants, but when I check the time, it’s only three nineteen. Barely more than half an hour has passed, and it’s been close to long enough, but not quite. I resolve to go at three thirty-two, when it’s been exactly forty-five minutes—enough time for him to be desperate and aching. Enough time for him to have earned a reward, if he’s managed to last this long without giving up on me and deciding to jerk off or go to sleep instead of waiting.
At three twenty-eight, I close out of the game of Solitaire I’ve been screwing around with. I stand, stretch, contemplate sitting back down, but mostly just stare at the clock. My hands are almost twitching, for want of touching someone else’s skin. All I can say is that this kid had better appreciate the restraint it takes for me to stay here and drag this out in the way I know—without knowing how I know—he wants me to. At three thirty, I open my nightstand drawer and grab a bottle of slick and, as an afterthought, a couple of condoms, just in case he suddenly gets a bug up his ass and decides he doesn’t like going bareback anymore. I slip the supplies into the pocket of my pants and move to stand in front of the door, though my eyes never leave the clock. I wait, my spine perfectly straight, my hands stuffed into my pockets.
The clock clicks over to three thirty-two, and I open my door. The apartment is utterly silent. I pass the guest room, but hear no voices, no moans, no crashing of the headboard against the wall. I almost laugh; a few years ago, the idea of Garen spending the night with his lover but not having sex would have floored me. Since he first got involved with Travis, however, I’ve had to reevaluate my expectations of his behavior. I continue down the hallway and stop just inside the living room, slipping my hands into my pockets and leaning my shoulder against the wall.
Ben is awake, not even pretending to be otherwise. He’s spread out over the couch, blankets still folded and stacked on the edge of the coffee table. The lamp on the end table behind the couch arm he’s using as a pillow is turned on, illuminating the book he’s reading, but casting his face into shadow. I can’t tell if he’s noticed me, but I’m going to assume that he has; his body is too tense for him to think he’s alone.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
Rather than simply answering, or angling the cover towards me so that I can see for myself, he flips to the next page and reads aloud, “When you go out with a drunk, you’ll notice how a drunk fills your glass so he can empty his own. As long as you’re drinking, drinking is okay. Two’s company. Drinking is fun. If there’s a bottle, even if your glass isn’t empty, a drunk, he’ll pour a little in your glass before he fills his own. This only looks like generosity.”
Of all the paragraphs in that entire novel, I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or cruelty that makes him read me something I’m already aware of. Three and a half years with Garen have taught me exactly what drinking with a drunk is like, and the last six months have given me a nice glimpse of the guilt I’m sure I’ll always feel for not putting a stop to it. I don’t need a reminder of this right now. I cross the room and nudge Ben’s legs apart so that I can climb onto the couch and kneel between them. “Sounds like a delightful read.”
“I don’t like happy books. They bore me,” he says. “Same goes for happy people.”
“Could’ve guessed that from your taste in boyfriends,” I reply, tilting my head towards the guest room.
Ben turns to the next page. “You can feel free to get the fuck off me any time now. I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Aren’t you?” I say mildly, skimming a hand up his thigh. He catches me by the wrist before I can even reach his hip. Frowning, I shake him off and lean over him to snatch a coaster from the stack on the end table. I take his book from him, slip the coaster between the pages to mark his place, and set it down on the coffee table. He glares up at me, but voices no protest. I hook my hands under his slightly bent knees and yank him closer; his head slips off the armrest and onto the cushions. He looks good like this, flat on his back and staring up at me, but I’m not about to tell him so. At least, not aloud. I slip my fingertips under the hem of his shirt and push it slowly upward as I say, “I was under the impression that you understood that, when I said ‘be patient and you’ll be rewarded,’ what I meant was that I wanted you to wait for me out here and think of all the things you want me to do to you. Then, once I was sure you were desperately, painfully hard, I’d come out here and fuck you into the floor. Or let you fuck me, whichever struck my fancy at the time.” His shirt is tucked right up under his arms, baring his chest and all the perfectly-shaped marks my teeth left in the alley. I lean down to make another, and the movement nudges my stomach against the hardness in his sleep pants. “And I see that you’ve followed at least part of my plan.”
“I might have followed all of it, if you hadn’t left me someplace where I’ve got a perfect view of a picture of you and your girlfriend,” he says, jerking his head towards the entertainment unit that holds my television and most of my books.
Someone had taken a photograph of Rachael and me at a party a few weeks ago, and for some baffling reason, she’d thought that I would appreciate receiving a silver-framed copy of it as a Christmas present. I didn’t appreciate it, and every time I look at the delicate, rounded corners of the frame, I find myself increasingly annoyed at how blatantly it clashes with all the sharp edges and clean lines of the rest of my decor. But the rest of my Christmas present had involved her giving me a lapdance while wearing a red satin negligee, and I have extremely high hopes for a repeat performance on Valentine’s Day, so I have dutifully allowed the frame to retain a residence on the middle shelf of the entertainment unit.
I roll my eyes back towards Ben. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re jealous.”
He sneers. “Don’t flatter yourself, asshole. I’m disgusted.”
“Yes, you certainly seem to be,” I say, bracing my hands against his shoulders to pin him in place while I slowly grind down against him once more. He is the king of mixed signals, fisting his hands around my shirt to push me away even as he cants his hips up to meet mine, biting back what I’m sure is equal parts an admonishment and a moan. I like how much he dislikes me, but I can’t make myself touch any other part of him until I’m sure he’s more willing. I flick my eyes towards the framed photograph and say, “You know she doesn’t mind. She’s said as much right in front of you.”
“That was a month ago,” he says. “She might have reconsidered her position on the issue.”
“She hasn’t,” I say. He doesn’t look reassured, and he doesn’t look as if he plans to let me touch him yet. I sigh. “What do you want from me? Would you like me to just go back to bed? Or would you like me to text her so that she can tell you herself?” He arches a brow at me, a plain request for me to do just that. Rolling my eyes and praying for patience, I heave myself off him and drag him upright. “My phone’s in my room. Come on.”
He allows me to tow him down the hall by the front of his shirt, though he wriggles free the moment we’ve crossed the threshold to my bedroom. I snatch my iPhone off the nightstand and open a new message to Rachael, tapping out the words, The midget is standing next to my bed. I would prefer for him to be lying in it, or possibly bending over it. He is withholding consent until he receives confirmation of your approval. Please respond at your earliest convenience. As proof that I’ve really asked her, I step too far into Ben’s space and turn the screen to face him as soon as the message has sent. His brow creases.
“Do you always speak to her so formally?” he asks.
“How I speak to my other lovers is none of your business,” I say, tossing the phone onto my bed.
He slumps back against the door, shutting it with a click, and says, “I’d really appreciate it if you could phrase that differently.” His words make no sense; I gesture for him to clarify. “How you speak to your ‘other lovers.’ I’m not—that’s not what I am. Don’t say it like that. I’m not your goddamn lover.”
Despite his words, he doesn’t resist when I close the small amount of distance between us to align my body with his. He doesn’t resist when I curve a hand over his jaw and tip his head back. I doubt he would resist anything I did to him now, even though his instincts seem to always be screaming at him to deny me. All I do is cock my head to the side, smile ever so slightly, and say, for the second time tonight, “Aren’t you?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s cut off by my phone chiming with Rachael’s reply. My hand is still brushing over his jaw; I let it drop to his throat, curling over it for a brief second. He had let me hold him in place like this in the alley earlier tonight, let me choke the hell out of him in the car a few weeks ago. Feeling his pulse fluttering, quickening under my fingers is enough to send another spark of desire through me. To clear my head—and, of course, to get my answer—I turn, stride across the room, and fling myself down onto the edge of the bed, sweeping a hand over my sheets to locate the phone.
I read aloud, “‘That’s fine, but tonight’s the last night, okay? I don’t want him to become a habit, I think three is a good cut-off number. Have fun, I’ll text you tomorrow.’ And then she’s included a little heart—”
It might actually be two hearts, but I don’t have a chance to double-check before Ben knocks my phone right out of my hand, onto the floor, and crawls into my lap, bracketing my hips with his knees. The rebuke I attempt to voice doesn’t actually make it past my lips, because his mouth is already there to catch it, swallowing any sound I try to make. For a moment, I’m too stunned to move. This is the first time we’ve kissed, not counting that biting, humiliating mistake I’d been too turned on to stop myself from making in Garen’s car. So, technically, I suppose it’s just the first time we’ve kissed without his response being to throw himself out of a vehicle and into the snow in a shoeless panic immediately afterward.
To prevent him from attempting to repeat that graceless reaction, I wind an arm around his waist to hold him in place as I press up against him. Rather than attempt to escape, he meets my thrusts with his own, grinding down onto my lap like his very life depends on it. Truthfully, he’s a better kisser than I had expected him to be, though I’m not sure if that’s because he’s actually skilled, or simply because I tend to expect the worst of him, no matter the subject. It’s a dangerous train of thought to let myself entertain; I cover it by twisting around to shove him flat onto his back on the bed. He goes with the motion and shoves the hem of my shirt up, laughs when I strip it off in reply. “God, you’re so fucking easy.”
I glare down at him, careful to maintain eye contact so that he might not notice my shaking my shirt out and giving it a quick fold before I toss it off to the side; my bedfellows always seem to make fun of me for that, if they notice, though I still don’t understand why. Shirt out of the way, I hitch one of Ben’s legs up over my hip and do my best to crush him with my weight as I duck down to sink my teeth into his throat. He moans, bucks up against me, and I try to be certain that he can feel my smirk against his skin.
“Doesn’t seem like you’ve got much room to talk, does it?” I say. He shoves me halfway off him, and I smack his hand aside. “If you’re quite fucking finished, you can take yours off as well.”
He exaggerates an eyeroll at me, but obeys regardless. This is the third time I’ve seen him stripped of a shirt, and the scars on his arms still throw me. I do my best not to look at them, focusing instead on the bites on his chest. I smooth a hand over them, admiring them, counting them. He hisses when I press my fingertips against one of the darker ones, and I smile. “That hurt?”
“Yeah,” he says, and, in the same breath, “Feels good.”
“Turn over,” I say.
His eyebrows twitch upward. “When did I agree to let you top?”
“Please, McCutcheon. We both prefer getting fucked, and we both know you were hoping I’d offer to top anyway,” I say. He grins, not even bothering to deny it. Smiles look strange on his face, like they’re too infrequent to belong. I shove at his shoulder to get him to turn onto his front so I won’t have to look at him anymore. “Besides, not going to fuck you. Not yet, anyway. I’m just admiring these pretty marks you’ve got on you, and it occurs to me…” I curl my fingers just enough to dig my nails into his skin, not scratching, just hurting enough to make him inhale shakily. I smile. “I haven’t done a damned thing to your back just yet.”
He shoves me off of him so that he can roll over, tossing over his shoulder, “Well, get to it, then.”
He’s eager as hell, and nothing gives me joy like denying him; I take my time running a fingertip along the drawstring of his sweatpants, hooking my thumbs over the waistband and slowly peeling them off him. He lifts up just enough for me to pull them completely off, then squirms a little when I sling a leg over him so that I’m sitting back comfortably on his thighs.
“This would be more interesting if we were in Savannah right now,” I say.
“Is this some Georgia version of ‘everything’s bigger in Texas’? Because it doesn’t really roll off the tongue in the same—”
“If we were in Savannah, at my family’s house, I could take you out to my stables and tie you to the wall in my tack room with a set of reins,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even and conversational. “Maybe get a bit in your mouth so you’ll finally shut the fuck up.”
He has gone completely still underneath me. He doesn’t speak, but I can be patient. Besides, it’s almost funny to watch him try not to react to my words, to hear how much effort it takes for him to maintain that dry, bored tone when he finally swallows and says, “Should I assume that you’d be wearing some sort of assless chaps in this scenario?”
That’s enough to win a laugh from me. “I did show jumping, not rodeo, so no, there are no chaps.” I lean down and nip the back of his neck, though he’s so goddamn skinny that it takes a lot of effort to get a little pinch of skin between my teeth. He lets his head roll forward, exposing more of his neck for me to bite, but I’ve already moved on, slowly making my way down his spine. After a few inches of progress, I say, “There would be riding breeches, though.” Another pause, another bite. “You know, the tan ones that are practically skintight?” Bite. I’m halfway down his back now. “Riding boots, too.” Further and further down I go. “Mine are tall, almost to the knee.” Another inch, and now I’m at the small of his back. “Black leather.”
I lean back, fully intending to turn him over so that I can see his face, his cock, his reaction, but he’s lying so perfectly still, and all at once, I’m overcome with the impulse to do something that will provoke the sort of response he won’t be able to hide. He is hungry for the sting of another bite, but I want to see what he looks like when he’s starved. I want another glimpse of what he looks like when he starts to come undone. I settle one palm in the small of his back to brace either him or myself—I have no idea which—and bring the other down hard against his ass. I don’t know which sound is loudest in the relative silence of the room: the slap itself, the stuttering gasp he lets out, or the pulsing of blood in my ears.
“Now might be a good time for me to mention,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut in the hope that it might stave off some of the embarrassment I’m feeling over the plainly audible hoarseness in my voice, “that there is also a riding crop involved in this scenario.”
Neither of us moves; I can’t even breathe, and I find myself thankful for the fact that he’s still facedown and unable to see my expression, because I have no idea what it might be revealing, and I hate that. I hate not knowing. I hate not being in control. All I can do now is wait and see if I’ve somehow misread this situation, taken things too far. He likes pain, but does he like being slapped? Likes having his hair pulled, likes being bitten and scratched, likes being choked, likes restraints, but unless I’ve got a much kinkier cousin than I ever realized, this must be the first time anyone’s ever held him down on a bed and spanked him. Travis isn’t the type; Garen would never hit someone he was sleeping with, and Ben would never ask him to.
Finally, I hear him moving, and my eyes snap open again. He tips his head forward again to bare his neck, not in hope of receiving another bite, but in a clear act of submission. “Again,” he breathes, barely audible with his face still aimed at the pillow. “Do that again.”
My hand is already raised by the time I realize that instant obedience would be a mistake. I force myself to freeze. I need to keep control of this situation, and there’s only one way I know how to do that right now. I ask, “How many times?”
“I don’t care,” he snaps, flinging a hand behind himself and digging his fingers into my hip, fumbling over and downward until he can get beneath the waistband of my pajamas and wrap his hand around my aching cock. “Until your fucking hand is numb. As many times as you can stand.”
“Put your hands on the bed, level with your shoulders,” I say coldly. I refuse to be the one who falls apart first, and he already has me starting to unravel. He doesn’t stop stroking me until I grab his forearm and drag him away. “I’m going to choose to believe that you didn’t hear me. Because if you did hear me, but intentionally ignored me, that would be a problem.”
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. I can’t remember ever hearing him say that to me before; I’m not sure which of us is more surprised by it. There’s no chance for me to dwell on that, though, because he flattens his palms to the mattress, and I’m taken aback by how good he looks, arms bent like I’d asked, whole body taut with anticipation.
“Nine times,” I say, not knowing where the number comes from, but liking it anyway. It’s a nice, square number. It fits. “I’m going to hit you three times for giving me that greedy, barbaric answer when I asked how many you wanted. Three times for not listening to me when I told you to move. And three times for grabbing at my cock like a desperate slut. Is that fair?”
He nods into the mattress and says, “That’s perfect.”
“Not quite,” I admit, because square numbers are nice, but even ones are better. I stretch out over him, bracing an elbow on the mattress above his shoulder so that I might duck down and brush my lips over his ear as I say quietly, “Let’s stick with that number, though. Three. Keep it in mind, because by the time you’ve gotten your last slap, that’s the number of fingers I intend to be fucking you with.”
He nods again, but doesn’t speak. Can’t speak, perhaps.
I straighten up and shift off of him, nudging his legs apart so that I can kneel between them properly. The lubricant and the condom are still in my pocket from earlier; I flick the condom towards the pillow, because Ben hasn’t requested it, but he might, later. I palm his ass for a moment, spreading him a little more to drip some of the lube over his opening. He shudders at the cold, but his discomfort with the temperature isn’t really my problem, so I ignore it, replace the cap on the bottle, and drop it next to his knee. My middle finger drifts lazily down between his cheeks, rubbing over his hole but not yet pushing inside, just applying a little pressure. “If you want to back out, you should do so now, because I’m not going to be gentle, and I’m not going to start slowly,” I say. “This is going to hurt.”
He twists to look at me over his shoulder, eyes on fire, and says, “Promise?”
And I hit him as hard as I can.
He jerks back into my touch, his movement forcing the tip of my finger into him, though I’m not sure that was his intention. His head has snapped back around so that his face is buried in my sheets, and I can see that his fingers are clenched tight around the comforter. My palm stings from the contact, and when I lift my hand, there’s a pink imprint of it on his skin right where I’ve struck him. It might be the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Again,” I say, and it is not by any means a question, but he nods anyway. My next slap falls to the other cheek and earns another thrust backward, and I respond with a third slap before he can prepare himself for it. “Stay still. Or you’ll get another three.”
“That’s the most counterproductive threat I’ve ever heard,” he breathes. “Come on, do it again, I want--oh,” he trails off as I press my finger the rest of the way into him. That holds my attention for several long, torturous minutes; I don’t want to bring him off like this, but I don’t want him to be able to anticipate the strikes, either. That would ruin all my fun. It would take away my control.
He’s so tight—I’d probably think he was still a goddamn virgin, if I hadn’t already fucked him myself—that I have to add another generous helping of lube to work even a second finger into him. I time my next slap to coincide with the exact moment I curve my fingers to touch him right where he needs me to, then watch him go rigid as the pleasure/pain sends sparks up his spine. Part of me hopes that whatever he is feeling will distract him from the way I have shifted to rut up against the back of his thigh, but the rest of me couldn’t care less if he notices.
“In the cab, you said you could be patient for me. Did you mean it?” I ask. He nods jerkily. Fifth slap. “Use your fucking words, McCutcheon. Everyone’s always telling me how good you are with them, so come on. Speak.”
His words tumble out all at once. “I meant it. I did. I’m patient, I can be patient.”
“Good,” I say, unable to find a good reason not to lean down and kiss the back of his trembling shoulder, “because when I fuck you, I want you to wait to come until I give you permission to do so.”
“Oh, fuck off, no,” he says, then makes a noise of protest when I immediately pull both fingers out of him and sit back on my heels. “No, no, no, don’t. Please, come back, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I ask, though I couldn’t give a fuck what he says in response. I’m too busy flicking the bottle of lube back open and slicking up my fingers some more. The liquid is so silky against my skin that I can’t stop myself from pushing off my sleep pants and sneaking a few languid strokes of my cock, still making sure not to touch any part of Ben.
He pushes back towards me, like he’s hoping that my fingers are just out of reach and he’ll be able to get them back inside if he tries hard enough. Or like he’s hoping that moving around too much will get him slapped again. When my only response is to continue working my own cock, he finally tips his head forward again and says, “For telling you to fuck off.”
“Speak in complete sentences, my little English major,” I say, and it’s as if my whole body is buzzing with power when he says quietly, obediently, “I’m sorry for telling you to fuck off.”
I stretch out over him, even though it means that I’m pressed right up against his ass, even though it’s so, so tempting to just push inside before he’s received all nine of the slaps he has earned and asked for. He shoves back against me eagerly, and I bite down on the back of his neck until he goes still. I hook my chin over his shoulder so that my mouth is next to his jaw when I murmur, “Are you going to hold off until I tell you it’s okay for you to come, then?”
Before I can move out of reach, one of his hands comes up to tangle in my hair, anchoring me in place as he turns his head to kiss me over his shoulder. It’s a sloppier kiss than those we’ve had earlier in the night, more desperate, more purposeful. I bite down on his bottom lip, and he shudders before pulling back just enough to say, “I will do whatever the hell you want me to, as long as you stop touching yourself and go back to touching me instead.”
“Greedy little bitch,” I chastise him, but regardless of my words, I shift my hand around to push back into him, now with three fingers. It’s so impossibly tight that, at first, I can only get them in about halfway. He groans and moves in to kiss me again, presumably to show his approval, but I lean out of reach, because there is a much more pressing matter at hand. My dick is unbearably hard, leaking precome against the curve of his ass, and I’d like to get to fuck him sometime tonight. I pour more lube onto the exposed halves of my fingers and carefully, methodically work them the rest of the way into him. When I’m in up to my last knuckle, I give him his sixth slap. I vary the placement of the seventh and eighth, because that’s half the thrill—him not knowing where or when they’ll come, and twitching in surprise when they do.
“Good Lord, I hope you can still feel this later today, when you’re driving yourself back home,” I say quietly, dragging my nails over the pinked flesh. “Two hours sitting in that van, feeling this sting on your skin and remembering exactly what I did to you to put it there. I bet you’ll be rock-hard all the way back to Connecticut. Do you think you’ll still have the marks when you wake up? I hope you do. God, I really fucking hope you do, I told you, your skin looks so fucking gorgeous when it’s marked up like this.”
He whimpers. This is bad. I can feel myself starting to lose it, falling too far into this moment, and I need to fix that, get my head on straight. Get back the upper hand. I twitch my fingers against the spot inside him that makes him go crazy and say, “One more. Do you want it?” He nods frantically. “Ask me for it.”
“Please hit me again,” he says.
The final slap is as hard as the first one. He shoves back into it and lets out a wild, strangled noise that shakes me in ways I hadn’t planned for. I fumble for the lube with one hand, spilling it onto my cock even though there’s already so much of it that more must be unnecessary, and tug impatiently at his hip with the other hand. “Get up on your knees, now.”
He scrambles up onto his hands and knees, eager as anything, and I fit my hands against his waist, but don’t push inside just yet. He huffs out a frustrated gust of air and snaps, “Is there a reason you’re just sitting there like a goddamn moron?”
I reach past him and pluck the condom off the pillow, waving it just within his line of sight. “Do you want me to use this? Or do you not give a damn?”
That’s enough to put a halt to his whorish, desperate thrusts backward; he looks over his shoulder at me. “Are you still getting tested regularly enough to be sure you’re clean?”
“Yes. And I don’t go bare with anyone but you.” I regret the words immediately. Somehow, I’ve managed to make it sound as if this matters—as if he matters, and he doesn’t. To reassure both of us, I work my expression into a smirk, a sneer, whatever this ugly twist of my mouth is meant to be, and add, “You’re the only person I know who’s dumb enough to want me to do it without a condom. And it feels a little illogical to suddenly insist that we use one for the last time we do this, considering we haven’t before.”
“If you give me anything, I will cut your balls off,” he warns. “And then I’ll tell Garen, and he’ll beat the shit out of you. You know he will.”
I make a show of rolling my eyes, but yes, Garen would break at least one of my bones if I was responsible for perfect, pious Ben contracting a disease. He doesn’t look reassured. I take myself in hand and rub the tip of my cock over his hole. It’s a glorious tease of a touch, and for half a second, I wonder if I could get myself to come from this alone, from thrusting against his bare, slicked-up ass and running my hands over skin that’s been warmed by blood rising to the surface under my strikes. But then his hips grind back once more at exactly the right moment to press the head inside, and he groans out, “God, fuck, just do it, okay? I believe you, I trust you, do whatever you want to me—”
Those words are enough to break me. He shoves back just as I’m pressing forward, and I sink into the tight, slick heat of him in one fine movement. I’m unable to hold back a cry that I’m sure must wake Garen and Travis in the next room, but Ben makes no attempt to silence me, too busy babbling a stream of curses under his breath. He drops to brace his weight on one elbow so that he can reach for his cock, but I make a disapproving noise and catch his wrists. “Not just yet, sweetheart. Might let you do that a bit later, but right now, I just want you to focus on this. Tell me how it feels.” He lets out a moan that sure as hell does not count as an answer, and I pull back so that only the very tip of my cock is left in him, dig my nails into his skin and drag them up the length of his spine until I can reach his hair. I knot both hands in it and yank, using that force to thrust back into him. Thankfully, I don’t think he can hear my appreciative groan over the pitiful whine he lets out at that. I grit my teeth and say, “I swear to God, McCutcheon, if you don’t start answering me when I speak to you, I’m not going to fuck you anymore. Doesn’t matter to me—I could call any one of half a dozen people, have someone here in ten minutes to get me off, but what about you? What would you do? Finger yourself in my living room? That’s the only option you’ll have, if you don’t—”
“Good,” he chokes out, rocking back hard against me. “Feels really good. I hate you so much that sometimes just hearing your voice makes me feel like I’m going to be sick, hate you so much that looking at you drives me insane, but my god, you’ve got a fucking perfect cock. Just big enough to hurt like—”
“—like you need it to,” I supply, and he nods jerkily.
“Exactly. God. Can you—” He breaks off without finishing, but he’s arching his back, trying to twist into my thrusts in a way that speaks of something less than satisfaction. I let one of my hands slip from his hair to press between his shoulder blades, shoving his upper half down onto the mattress and driving into him at a new angle that makes him shudder. That is how it goes on, both of us shoving and thrusting and grinding at each other, movements desperate to the point of brutality. I’m shocked that I last even as long as I do—I can drag my encounters out for ages, but I generally prefer not to; someone who sleeps with as many people as I do has a need for a certain degree of efficiency. When I feel myself getting close, I give another quick tug to the midget’s hair to be certain I have his attention.
“You remember what you agreed to, don’t you?” I say. “You’re not going to come until I tell you that it’s—”
“I know. I know, I know, fuck, I’m going to punch you in the mouth the second I’ve gotten off,” he snaps. I notice he’s got a hand wedged under himself, and for a moment, I think he’s stroking himself off, even though I explicitly told him not to. I’m opening my mouth to yell at him for it when I realize that he’s not jerking off; he’s squeezing down hard on the base of his cock, doing everything he can to hold off his own orgasm.
That’s enough for me.
“Turn over,” I order, and he obeys instantly. He moves as if to lie on his back, but I throw an arm around his shoulders, keeping him upright so that I can kiss him roughly, sloppily, while I stroke myself. It only takes a few more pulls before I’m coming in long spurts over his stomach, his cock, the tops of his thighs. He breaks off the kiss and drops his forehead to my shoulder to watch me push shakily into my fist, but I only allow him a few moments of the view before I sit back and beckon him in. “Come here. Still going to be hard for another minute or so, and it’d be a shame to waste it.”
“Waste it? It’s a hard-on, not food for the fucking homeless—”
I drag him onto my lap, then drag my palm over the streaks of cum I’ve just left on his stomach. He jolts at the touch, but it’s nothing compared to the way he shivers when I smear the stickiness over his cock like it’s lube and begin to work him over. I press a hard, closed-mouthed kiss to his lips, and say, “Ride me.”
He lines me up with his ass and sinks down onto me again, and it feels good, but it’s the sort of too good that borders on painful. That sparks a whole new line of thought in me—I wonder how close I could get him to coming without ever letting him do so; I wonder if how much he’d let me edge him before he couldn’t take it anymore. Or, perhaps I could do the opposite, spread him out on my bed and spend an entire afternoon getting him off over and over, as many times as I possibly could, until he was shaking and gasping and just couldn’t anymore, until it stopped feeling good. He’d let me, too, I think, I hope. Now, he shoves me flat onto my back, and all I can do is stare up at him, a bit stunned.
The truth is, it’s usually so hard for me to find Ben attractive. His bright blue eyes can be mildly disarming, and that mouth of his is distracting as all hell, but he is pale and small, and tries to look even smaller. When he stands, he shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders like he’s hoping to disappear into himself, and when he sits, he nearly always draws his legs up to his chest, curling himself into a ball like a child would. He moves through his life like he’s apologizing for existing, like he thinks he has no right to be here, and he’s so very sorry for intruding. Most of his friends seem to think it’s endearing, but I think it’s pathetic, because how could I ever respect someone who’s so incapable of respecting himself?
But then I see him like this. I see him with his spine straight, his head thrown back. I see his legs spread wide, one hand braced against my chest as he fucks himself on my cock, the other hand raking his dark hair back from his forehead, unafraid of taking up space. I see him finally seeming his proper age under that stubble, his pupils blown, his lips parted and quirked up into a barely-present half-smile. I see him looking open and raw and more sure of himself and his movements than he ever is when clothed.
I see him like this, and he is fucking radiant.
“Come,” I say, sitting up so suddenly that he has no time to move back before I’m right there kissing him. “Now.”
It’s not immediate, but nearly—a few more strokes, one more sharp tug of his hair, and then he comes, fingers laced together at the nape of my neck, mouth open against mine, but not quite kissing. The moment he stops spurting against my stomach, I have to pull him off of my now much too oversensitive cock. He is too sex-stupid to be of any real use in moving himself properly, so I dump him on the bed next to me. For a minute, we both just lie there, staring at the ceiling and breathing hard, neither of us saying a word.
I contemplate asking him if he’d like to spend the rest of the night in my bed, rather than on the couch. It’s not something I particularly want, but it seems like it would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But just as I’m opening my mouth to speak, he stretches out a trembling hand towards his discarded shirt and tugs it back on. It strikes me as funny that he’s more interested in covering up his top half than his bottom half, but then I realize that it’s not his chest he’s worried about; it’s his arms. He wriggles back into his boxers and sweatpants, all without meeting my eyes. I still haven’t moved a muscle.
“I’m going to, uh—go back to the couch,” he mutters. “See you in the morning.”
It’s a sudden, depressing transition back to the boy with the hunched shoulders, the boy who feels guilty for breathing, the boy I can’t stand. I don’t even consider trying to stop him when he heads for the door, because this shame-faced, apologetic boy looks absolutely nothing like the man I just slept with. That man earned his place in my bed, and this boy… truly just needs to get the fuck out of my face.