Chapter 17
SMITH
It made me sad Riggs worried his asexuality would be a hard pass for me, but he was asexual on Saturday night, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since.
I was angry at anyone who had ever made him feel less than for his wants, and as I followed him up to the apartment, I silently promised us both I would do better.
I understood Riggs was offering me a gift, and I was not going to ruin that.
In his apartment, he straightened his shoulders when I closed the door behind me, like a wave of power came over him after getting everything off his chest.
“Another night then,” he said.
I nodded. “Ideally, uhm, more than one.”
“It’s important that you feel safe to ask for the things you want,” he told me, and for whatever reason, I decided to risk it all.
“I want to kiss you.”
Riggs’s throat bobbed when he swallowed, and I tracked the way his muscles tensed and relaxed.
He took a step toward me, then another, and another, until I had to move backward and when my shoulders were against his front door, his chest was pressed against mine.
He flattened one hand beside my head and dipped his face down until our noses brushed, until our breath was the same.
“Do you, now?”
“Very much,” I whispered.
“No one is stopping you,” he said.
I searched his face for more of an answer than that. In light of the confession he’d offered me down in the shop, I wanted to be mindful that nothing I wanted pushed past boundaries of things he didn’t want.
“Do you want to kiss me?” I asked.
In answer, he closed the space between us and slanted his mouth over mine.
The kiss was chaste at first, soft and warm, not much more than a gentle press, but as soon as I slipped my arms around Riggs’s waist and pulled him closer to me, it was like a switch flipped.
His tongue demanded entry and I opened for him, and everything after that was a blur.
He lifted me off my feet, and I hooked my legs around him so I didn’t fall.
The shift aligned my already half-hard cock with his hip, and I groaned into his mouth at the friction.
Riggs swirled his tongue around mine, dropped his hands to my ass to hold me up.
I grunted then, the pressure of his fingertips on my still fresh bruises a shock of pain that had me dizzy with want for him.
It hurt, and I immediately wanted to know what it would feel like to receive a fresh layer of marks over the ones from the weekend.
“Does that feel good, baby?” he whispered into my mouth, pulling me away from the door and walking us both into the bedroom. He dropped me onto the bed and laid himself over top of me, rutting down against me until I was near mindless with my need for him.
“Yes.” The sir was there again, right on the tip of my tongue, fighting to break free. “Hold on.”
Riggs stopped immediately, pulling away with knit brows, his eyes tracking my face with worry.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
“No.” I slipped my hands up his chest, around his neck and into his hair. “I really wanted to kiss you, and I would be happy to keep kissing you, but I want to talk about the rest of it first…so I understand.”
He climbed off of me and sat on the edge of the bed. I pushed into a seated position beside him, and we both ignored the bulge between my legs—and the absence of one between his.
“I want to call you Sir,” I told him, twisting my hands in my lap. He reached over and curled his tattooed fingers over mine until I went still, until I breathed. “I don’t think I understand what all of that means, or what it could mean. I just know it’s always right there when I’m with you.”
Riggs exhaled heavily, squeezing my hands. “You can call me Sir if you want to,” he said.
“And I can kiss you if I want to. What do you want? Doesn’t that count for anything here?”
He sucked in a sharp breath, drawing inward on himself like the question made him uncomfortable. “I would like to hear what it sounds like…coming from you.”
“I won’t stop myself next time,” I said.
We sat together in a longer silence, both of us waiting.
It gave me time to process some of the things he said to me in the shop.
I understood it had been viewed as a shortcoming by people in his past, but I struggled to make the connection of how anything about the mab beside me could be lacking or less than.
“I like when you call me baby,” I told him.
Riggs stood and paced toward the window, scrubbing his hands down his face before bracketing them on his hips. He turned toward me, eyes curious as he dragged them over me and over his rumpled bed.
“I don’t share well,” he finally said, scratching the side of his nostril and chasing the itch with a sniff. “If you’re with me. If you want to be with me. It’s just me.”
“That’s fine,” I rasped.
“Fine?”
“Good,” I corrected. “Preferred.”
“You don’t know a single thing about me,” he said.
He wasn’t wrong, I realized. I knew his name, knew where he lived and worked. I knew he was good with his hands, knew my cock felt good in his fist. But beyond that, Riggs was a closed book, a man I’d spent less than twenty-four hours with in total since the first day I met him.
“I can learn. I want to learn.”
“Dating, then.”
“If that’s what you want to call it,” I said.
I’d never dated a man before. I’d never done anything with a man besides the things I’d done with him and with Lincoln. I faced the very real possibility my dick had gotten me in over my head.
“What do you want to call it?” he bounced the question back to me, the same way I’d done twice to him.
“I just want to be with you more,” I answered. “The way we were on Saturday, the way you want to be after that. I don’t know what that means or how long it lasts. I figured I could get to know you during that. Through it.”
“You’ve got to forgive me, Smith.” Riggs worked his jaw back and forth. “I’m out of practice with this.”
“Nothing to forgive,” I assured him. “I’ve never done it before so I don’t have a basis for comparison.”
“You’ve never had a relationship?”
“Not with a man,” I said.
He nodded, clearing his throat. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve…since I’ve taken the dominant role in the long term. Normally it’s…I just…”
“If it makes you feel any better, like I said, I don’t have anyone to compare you to, and I’ve liked everything so far.”
He smiled then, the first time I’d seen him look relaxed since I’d come over. I stood and went toward him, again wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my forehead against the front of his shoulder.
“I’m overthinking this,” he said next. “I want to do right by you is all.”
“You have,” I said. “You did on Saturday.”
He growled, a low rumble in his throat like he’d somehow forgotten he’d colored my thighs purple and red with this hand less than a week before.
Some of the bruises had faded and some had turned yellowish green, especially the ones from the cane.
I’d taken great pleasure looking at them in the mirror every day, touching them with my own hands and tracing the outline of his fingers in my skin.
“Show me,” he demanded.
My mouth went dry, tongue stuck to the top of it. I managed a jerky nod of consent and stripped out of my clothes. I kicked everything to the side and stood in front of Riggs naked and already hard for him again.
“Turn around,” he said next, and I did.
He loosed another low rumble of approval at the sight before him, and a shiver danced through me at the sound of it.
“Bend over.”
I hinged at the hips and placed my fingers over the edge of his bed for balance. Riggs took two steps toward me, slowly dancing his fingertips across the small of my back and down over the globes of my ass. He wasn’t touching me hard enough to hurt, barely enough to tease.
“Is there something wrong with me?” I asked no one in particular.
“Why would something be wrong with you?”
“Because I want you to touch me harder,” I said. “I want you to hurt me.”
He groaned, obliging me and digging his nails into the tender strip of skin where my ass met my thigh. The pain was sharp and biting, drawing a gasp out of me that had my chest collapsing against the bed.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, twisting his fingers until I made another gasping moan. “Baby, I fear you’re actually fucking perfect.”
“I don’t—”
His hand cut me off, sliding between my legs and cupping my balls.
His palm was warm and calloused, and when he tightened his grip on me and pulled, my knees gave out.
Stars blinked to life in the corners of my darkening vision and my entire body came to life with a wave of vibrant arousal.
My heartbeat pulsed in my cock, precum leaking from the tip.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
“Yes,” I croaked, voice cracking. “Yes, Sir.”
It felt so right to call him that, to use the word. And he agreed, groaning and tugging my sac away from my body, pressing his body flush against mine.
“I like it too.”
He manipulated my balls until my cock could have hammered nails, until I whimpered and thrashed between his body and his bed.
My mind went pleasantly blank, no thoughts except for the length of his fingers and the strength of his hands.
He breathed hot against the back of my neck, dusting a kiss across my hairline before turning his attention from my tortured balls to my cock.
“Too much or not enough?” he asked, teeth bared against my skin.
“Not enough,” I answered.
“Interesting.”
Riggs pulled me off the bed until we were both standing, my back plastered against his chest, my erection in his fist. He turned until the bed was behind him and he walked us both into the bathroom.
There was a nightlight on the wall, offering enough illumination to make out the outline of our faces in the reflection of the medicine cabinet.
I leaned the back of my head against his shoulder, going limp against him as he stroked my cock in a tight fist. The only lubricant was my own precum, the rough drag of his hand over my skin almost abrasive.
Sucking in a quaking breath, Riggs stroked me until I was a trembling mess in his arms, my body on the verge of a monumental relief.
Everything with Riggs was amplified, and I didn’t know if it was because of the submission or the pain… .or both.
“Tell me,” he whispered, breath hot against the shell of my ear.
“I’m close.”
“Tell me,” he said again.
I screwed my eyes closed, feeling the mounting pressure of my orgasm build in every cell, every nerve. His other hand slid up my side and around my chest, stretching across my throat without holding me there.
I wanted him to do it.
Wanted him to tighten his grip, squeeze until it was hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to fight.
I wanted to tell him stop and have him keep going, wanted to trust he knew what was good for me even when I didn’t know what was best for myself.
There was some sort of power in that exchange, some trust.
“Sir.”
The honorific fell out of my mouth, and he ripped his hand away from my cock at the absolute last millisecond before the point of no return.
His chest heaved against my back and he braced us both against the sink, the room coming back into a focus as soon as he pulled me away from my orgasm.
I shouted in shock, even though I’d known it was coming.
I cried, buckled against him, and he used the arm around my front to hold me up.
“I know,” he murmured into my ear. “It hurts this way too, doesn’t it?”
I let out a watery sob, nodding.
“You’re doing so good,” he praised. “Look at yourself. Look how good you look when you deny your pleasure for me.”
His fingers pressed against the underside of my chin, and he pushed me up until I had no choice but to look at our reflections in the mirror.
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and it was the first time I’d seen myself like this.
With mussed hair and flushed cheeks, my lashes clumped and wet.
My mouth hung open as I breathed heavily through it, Riggs’s hand around my throat the only color against my skin.
“Do you like being denied?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, Sir.”
“I want to make sure we’re playing by the same rules,” he said next, eyes dark. “No doesn’t mean no. Stop doesn’t mean stop. Is that right?”
My denied dick spasmed between my legs, precum smearing across my stomach. “Right.”
“How do you stop this?”
“Red,” I rasped.
“Good.” He let his hand fall back toward my dick, his fingers encircling my shaft, and pulled down until it snapped back and slapped my stomach. “Let’s play, baby.”