Chapter 31
thirty-one
saúl
Getting two handfuls of Cam as soon as I got through the doors hadn’t been in my plans for the day.
Keeping in mind I’d expected to find him hiding in his room, or maybe with the pups or at the horses’ with Mercury, I wasn’t complaining.
I did grunt under the force of his weight before I could widen my stance and root down.
“Hey, darlin’.” I adjusted my hands around him, cupping the bubble butt he had. “Maybe you wanna wait until I take a shower before feeling me all up?”
I had to stink. I spent all day teaching some of the new hands my dad hired—again without consulting me—to clean out the sleeping areas for the animals.
It wasn’t usually my task, but a few of our regulars were down with the flu, and I was the boss.
One of them. Stepping up was part of the job as far as I was concerned.
“Don’t care,” the little fiend mumbled against my throat before he started trying to get my neck full of hickeys.
His hands were everywhere, moving so fast it was a challenge to keep him steady.
Not that I could stop him. I just groaned and moved us until my back was leaning against the wall. “I need you, Daddy.”
“How did it go with Kara, baby boy?”
It was hard to get a read on him when he’d been little more than a blur when I walked in. I’d opted to not text him in case it had gone badly. I’d thought it best to let him get to the vet lair and distract himself with the animals while we got everything cleared for them.
“Good.” Cam huffed. “Talk later, Daddy. Need to thank you.”
“You need to thank me?” I frowned. “What for?”
As far as I was concerned, I was the one who needed to thank him. It was new, but I could already feel it, my brain rewiring to adjust to not hiding from absolutely everyone and everything.
“I wanted to make you proud,” Cam said. “Still do. But, um, I would’ve never gone through the call on my own. Or lots of other things.”
This boy…
I sighed. I needed to see him, needed to cup his stupidly attractive face in my hands and make him aware of exactly how proud of him I was.
My thoughts ran at a hundred miles per hour, listing all the ways I could show him that pride.
Maybe I didn’t have to choose.
I was used to getting to work with only a few hours of sleep. Cam had a busy day tomorrow, but he started out later than I did, and he had a team.
“Meet me in my office, darlin’,” I forced my voice to sound commanding instead of just desperately filled with lust. “Do what you want to do before.”
Cam pulled back, studying my face before the meaning registered. I might be processing, but I remembered what he had said about douching. Maybe one day I’d take over that duty for him, too, but for now, he could use it as a routine to get his head in the game.
It gave me time, too—to cool down, and sort out exactly what the plan was. What I wanted to start with.
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good boy.” I cupped his jaw with more force than necessary and pressed my lips to his mouth.
My office was the space I kept tidiest in the house.
It made it easier to clear up the desk and get to the shelf covered by a thin glass where I kept the toys I made for myself, and the ones I would sell, but only to a close friend.
The ones I wasn’t doing a good job of keeping in touch with.
It was sheer luck that Damian still pestered me to go visit him, or that I had returning customers every year when I posted in the leather forums that I was taking commissions.
Mouth-to-mouth was the biggest promotional tool for these things, and that meant a lot of PR.
I hated PR.
I didn’t hate running my fingers through the different floggers and paddles while I pictured what would leave the best marks on Cam. All that unblemished skin deserved a few bruises and welts.
In the end, I grabbed a selection. He had mentioned something about the play he had engaged with in the past, but I wasn’t going to assume.
Besides, splaying the selection of floggers, paddles, and one riding crop for good measure on the cleared desk for him to choose added an element of psychological fuckery that had my head fully in the game.
As I studied the implements and checked that nothing had peeled, that there weren’t any rough edges that hadn’t been placed on purpose, I heard the water running in the bathroom upstairs.
Impatience reared up its head. I didn’t contend with it often, but it had been a long time since I had a willing body to play hard with. The fact that it was Cam’s body?
I could vibrate from excitement alone.
It was weird. When I’d first spotted him, sure, I’d thought he was attractive, but those thoughts were cut short when I noticed his struggle.
His anxiety for simply existing in the same space as me and every other worker here.
My focus had been on making him comfortable, on getting him to open up.
Now that the dam had opened? My body seemed to be on a deadline to catch up with all the repressed feelings that had surrounded him. It was a new sort of sensation.
Not attraction.
I was more than familiar with the tendrils of lust and desire. The newness came from the almost predatory study of every inch of skin, every part of him I wanted to bite and stake my claim on.
The water stopped, footsteps following. I shouldn’t be surprised he’d be running to me. He lost a lot of his self-consciousness when it came to kink, that layer that enveloped him and made him question his place in the world.
Here, it didn’t take him more than five seconds to sneak into the office and stand proudly before me, a few stray droplets of water streaking down his bare torso and pooling around the waistband of a pair of gray sweatpants.
I grunted as I pushed off the desk. “Fuck me if you don’t look good enough to eat, darlin’.”
I was on him in two long strides, crashing our mouths together before I could say anything else. Anything that would feel more intense. More predatory when primal was not something we’d discussed.
Cam panted simply from that kiss. It spoke of how far he’d worked himself—while douching, or while imagining everything I had planned for him.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Cam licked his lip, leaning forward in that swaying, instinctual way that had me roaring to pick him up and keep him glued to my front. “Can we lose clothes now? I didn’t want to walk around the house naked, but clothes get in the way, Daddy. Respectfully.”
I snorted. “You need to work on your manners. But yes, darlin’.”
The minx didn’t even thank me. No, he just bent down and dragged the offensive fabric down until there was nothing keeping me from pawing all over him. Until I could see his cock thickening and jutting out proudly against his skin from the perusal I was giving him.
I hummed. “Such a good, responsive boy.”
My clothes went next, falling against an old chair I kept near the front door simply because I didn’t want to get rid of it and its history, but it didn’t fit anywhere else, so it had become a spot to place anything I was working on and didn’t have the storage for.
“Daddy?”
I looked up, noting the questioning tilt to the honorific. I’d expected Cam’s eyes to be on me, to struggle to stay away from my cock the way he always did when I disrobed in front of him. Of course, he had noticed the toys on the desk.
I gauged his reaction before I gave him an answer. He didn’t look scared or even tentative. No, if I had to describe the glint in his eyes, it would be excitement.
It was the most arousing sight I’d had in a while.
“Pick one, and present it to me on your knees.”
Cam glanced sideways at me for a mere second. “How?”
I tucked him back to my chest and nipped his earlobe. “Get on your knees and hold it over your head with both hands.”
Protocols weren’t a core kink, but there were some that really did it for me. The mind games that came with this particular ritual were one of them.
His throat bobbed up and down. It was the only evidence of his nerves—nerves I couldn’t quite fault him for when I felt them myself.
“Got it.”
He didn’t need any further encouragement, quickly stepping out of my hold to peruse the items on the desk.
It was a generous description. He spared the others a quick glance, but his whole body was fully attuned to a cat-of-nine-tails flogger I’d placed in the middle.
It was made of braided, twisted leather, with a steel handle and knotted balls of black leather at the end of each tail.
Aesthetically, it was one of the creations I felt proudest of.
It was also the heaviest toy I’d placed on the desk. And the one he grabbed.
With how much lip he gave about playing heavy, I should’ve expected it. I still stood tall, unaffected, with my feet spread wide below my shoulders, as Cam walked back to me and, very sweetly, tried not to bounce on his feet.
He was fucking gorgeous sliding down to his knees. It wasn’t the first time he did it, but I doubted I’d get tired of the sight anytime soon.
A slight tremble in his arms as he lifted them over his head belied the confidence and playfulness.
“Why did you pick this one, darlin’?”
I almost called him baby boy, but stopped. I’d rather keep the endearment exclusive to his Little self. He might call me Daddy regardless of where his mind was, but marking a difference in how I engaged with him when he was regressing and when he wasn’t felt right.
“Um.” Cam’s eyelashes fluttered. I bet he was trying to decide if he should keep his eyes trained on the floor or if looking up was allowed. “It’s pretty.”
Yeah… That tracked with everything I was coming to learn about him on a kink front.
“Have you been hit with anything like this before?”
There were no excuses, but I hadn’t been the most extensive when discussing his experience. I supposed I’d always been more interested in a sub’s present reactions to stimuli than anything else.
“Braided flogger? Yeah.” Cam shivered. “Not as heavy as this one, though.”
I grabbed it from him and let the leather caress down his shoulder to his torso, studied the way he straightened his spine and opened himself up to it.
“Tell me how you want to leave this room.”
Cam squirmed, intertwining his hands together behind his back, more of his chest on display for the leather to tease. His cock perked up when I focused the strands there, shifting the angle of my wrist so that they teased more of the sensitive area.
“Uh?”
I grimaced.
Yeah, not the best choice of word.
“How hard do you want me to go, Cam?”
“Oh!” Understanding the question had him forgetting his reserves from earlier, looking up at me while leaning forward.
I didn’t think it was a coincidence that his mouth ended up so close to my cock.
“I haven’t played with you, Daddy. I don’t know what you understand by hard.
But, um, I wouldn’t mind it if I couldn’t sit comfortably for a week. ”
I groaned. He really had a way with words, didn’t he?
Forgetting that I was portraying the image of an unaffected Dom, I tugged at his hair with my free hand, nostrils flaring.
“Every five lashes, I want you to give me your color. With someone I have more experience with, not giving me the color on their own signifies a stop. Because it’s the first time I’m flogging you, I will offer reminders. That’s all the leeway you’re getting.”
Cam’s lips parted. I could see his pulse skyrocketing. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Good boy.” I eased the hold on his hair to run a more soothing caress through it before tugging once more. “A pity I can’t keep you on your knees if I want to leave your ass purple.”
Cam mewled. “Can I suck you first, Daddy? For warmup reasons. Obviously.”
There was nothing innocent about the big eyes he gave me, nothing that belied the desire pooling in his gaze and overtaking every rational thought.
“Get to it, then.”
I clenched my fingers to fight the urge to tug him down my cock.
One day, I could test the waters—see how aggressive I could go with him.
Today was not the day for it. Definitely not when the boy deserved to be rewarded for how willingly he opened his mouth, flattening his tongue, and sticking out the tip.
Cam was many things—one of them was a fast learner. And a pleaser.
“That’s a good boy,” I groaned as I dragged my cock across his tongue, teasing the nerve endings there.
Cam breathed heavily through his nose, his eyes rolling back for a second. I ran a thumb across his jaw. There were so many questions that didn’t quite have an answer yet, so many pieces of the puzzle that made up who he was but that I didn’t have yet.
They didn’t matter. Not when he kneeled like this, when he looked up at me like that, with so much trust, so much desire for what was to come.
“Make me come, darlin’.” I grunted. “You don’t want me distracted when I’m marking the skin all over your ass and thighs, do you?”
The response Cam tried to give was muffled, choked by my own cock hitting the back of his throat. I paused, but there was no need; all his efforts redoubled to suck me in as hard as humanly possible.
I didn’t fight it when the waves of orgasm grabbed hold of me, when everything in my body warned me of the impending release.
I just held him tighter and kept him there until he’d swallowed every last drop.
Part of it was possessiveness I’d only admit to during sex.
Part of it was being mesmerized by the way his fingers curled against my thighs as if he was actively fighting to stay there, to be the good boy I wanted him to be.