“Come here.” #2
Caster used the hold on his elbow to pull Mark closer to the open drawer. It was then that he noticed the metal bar above his head, somehow secured to the ceiling. Caster rummaged through the drawer to produce leather cuffs, then gestured for Mark to hold out his hands.
He bound each wrist with the soft leather fastening and guided Mark to turn.
Then, he pressed the front of his body to Mark’s back as he raised his hands, securing the middle metal part of the cuffs to the bar above his head.
He pushed further against Mark’s body, the hardness of his obvious arousal inescapable. “Too tight?”
A soft moan escaped his lips when Caster ground his hips against his ass. He had to fortify himself to answer. “No.”
He missed the hard male form he longed for when Caster drew his body away. “Good.”
Facing away from the drawer, Mark closed his eyes and hoped that his choice of play partner would be rewarded by whatever the vampire prince planned.
The sound of Caster’s search filled the room. Silence signified he’d found what he needed, and despite his training, Mark’s body tensed in anticipation.
He jumped when Caster’s cool hand traced a path from his ass to his thigh and past his calf to his ankle. “Relax for me.”
He’d do anything for him if he asked in that tone.
He may have imagined the chuckle, but not the soft touch of leather bindings on one ankle, the stretch of what could only be a spreader bar, and then soft leather on the other ankle. He was stuck in this spread-eagled position with no way to get free.
He waited for the overwhelming fear that ended the play session the last time he’d tried this, but it didn’t come. In its place was calm, almost as if… No. This was a one-time thing, a way to satiate his needs so he could focus on more important matters.
When he opened eyes he hadn’t been aware were closed, Caster stood in front of him, studying him.
His hand pushed a few strands of his hair behind his ear.
“If this were a real play session and we knew each other better, I would gag you.” He glanced at Mark’s lips for a second, the movement of his hand now a gentle caress on Mark’s jaw.
“What will you say if you need me to stop?”
Mark hadn’t considered that. He didn’t want to use his usual safe word. The one he hadn’t uttered in ten years.
Caster gripped his hair, the pull hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “I will not stop once I start, and this will hurt more than anything you’ve experienced. So…” He pulled harder, and Mark’s head had no choice but to follow the movement. “Safe word. Now!”
“Train.” The single word exploded out of him, bringing with it the overwhelming sense of betrayal. He hadn’t spoken it in this context since...
Caster’s touch eased to a caress, his voice softening to almost a whisper. “You can choose another.”
Mark fortified his broken heart with a deep sigh. “No.”
His training instilled in him the need to use one safe word for all play sessions to avoid forgetting the new one.
Caster stared at him for a long moment, further deepening his discomfort, and then kissed him.
Mark laid himself bare, accepting the comfort he hadn’t known he needed.
Caster’s soft lips and the gentle press of his tongue released the tension in his body, his submissive nature surrendering to the dominance of the gentle but firm encounter.
This time, there were no sudden movements when the kiss ended. Caster slowed down, drawing away from Mark with a whisper of a peck on his lips. He had to restrain his need to chase the retreating lips.
Caster’s hand went through his hair, a sigh escaping both their lips at the same time. “Use it anytime.” He smiled, the genuineness of his joy making his already handsome face almost too beautiful. “Do we need a word for when you need me to slow down?”
He shook his head.
Caster’s smile brightened further, and Mark realized he wanted him to smile like that every day.
If he heard that thought, he didn’t show it. He stepped back and moved behind Mark. The spreader bar opened him up for Caster’s pleasure, and a tiny bit of insecurity threatened to bubble up. He pushed it back. This is what he needed.
The sound of objects knocking against each other reached his ears, but his thoughts of what to expect were broken by Caster’s cool hand against his ass. The caress made his skin tingle with pinpricks of anticipation and the beginnings of the pleasure he hoped for, drawing a moan from his soul.
The tickle of Caster’s breath against his ear broke that moan in half, stealing his breath. “We can stop anytime you want.”
His whispered reassurance was welcomed but unnecessary. Mark calmed his thudding heart with a deep breath, releasing the tension in his muscles with the exhale.
One more caress on his bare ass and Caster’s heat, the press of his body on his back, and the reassurance of his hand were gone.
He was mid-breath when the first of the blows landed across his ass, and he choked.
Fire spread across his flesh, the stinging pain broken for a brief moment by the cool balm of Caster’s palm.
The second blow of what he was certain was a paddle landed just where the first had been, and the flash of pain tore through his whole body. The third increased the conflagration of pain, the time between the gentle caress he craved and the pain he needed reducing.
He cried out with each blow, too aware of the shrill sound of his own voice. By the fifth, he’d lost the battle with his tears. Had Caster said how many there would be?
The sixth landed close to his hamstring, and the line between pain and pleasure blurred.
Caster’s cool hand eased some of the pain, and he was there, fighting every instinct to tumble over the line.
He wouldn’t do it, not without Caster’s permission.
The soft moan escaping his lips ripped out of him when Caster delivered another blow to his ass, pushing him closer to that line between pain and pleasure.
The line he’d spent a decade doing his best to avoid.
Every cell was ablaze with pain. His body throbbed with the need for release as the pain built higher, stronger, and more pleasurable with each blow.
It wasn’t long before he lost count, along with all his senses except one.
He didn’t hear his own cries, although he was certain he was now screaming.
All he did was feel. The fire each paddle blow sparked as it landed on his back, ass, back of his thighs, and to his back again to restart the rhythm and Caster’s cool touch.
He pushed against the touch every time it came, his focus on preventing the eruption of pleasure that threatened with each sting.
His hands went slack as he lost the ability to hold his body upright, and he could almost touch that line.
He tried to warn Caster of his impending disobedience, only to feel his arm around his waist, propping him up.
His feet found purchase, the spreader bar increasing his discomfort, and he burrowed deep inside himself for the strength to remain on his feet.
The cooling effect of Caster’s hand on his ass, his back, and his thighs increased his need to fall head-first into the abyss where more pleasure than he’d let himself have called to him.
He moaned his resistance, a new battle for control, throwing his battered body into even more confusion when Caster’s finger dipped into his ass.
He pushed against it, wishing it would go deeper, wishing for something bigger.
Caster rewarded him with what he needed, withdrawing the single finger and replacing it with two. “You’re so tight. It’s been a while, huh?” His smooth voice echoed through his pleasure-addled mind, wrapping him in a warmth he’d missed.
Mark may have nodded or moaned his answer; he couldn’t be sure, not when the need to hold his orgasm at bay took every ounce of his diminishing strength.
Caster pressed his body against him. The contact brought back his pain, and Mark pushed back, needing to hold on to the pain to keep the pleasure away a little longer.
The unmistakable sound of a zipper joined his harsh breaths, and a second later, the wet tip of Caster’s cock pressed against him. He tried to push back to draw him into his body, but Caster’s tight grip on his hip would not be thwarted.
The slow, gentle push as Caster breached his tight body was exasperating. In his impatience to feel his entire length in him, he tried to push back again, even as he willed his body to relax.
“Stop that, or I’ll stop.”
His body stilled at the command whispered into his ear. His own breath faded to the background as he became aware of Caster’s even, shallow breaths.
Their moans morphed into a chorus of pleasured sighs as soon as Caster was inside him.
He held still for a few seconds, and Mark almost begged him to move.
With the first thrust, the grip on his hip tightened further, and a moan escaped Caster’s lips into his ear, flooding his clouded mind with a promise, a vow of more pleasure.
He drew the top half of his body off Mark as the pace and intensity of his thrusts grew. Mark cried out, so far away from the pain and into the pleasure end of the equation, he was certain he would fall apart any second.
Caster groaned his pleasure, and pleas tumbled past Mark’s lips as he struggled to hold on.
The hand on the back of his head was new.
The pressure it exerted was only one of the myriad sensations he experienced.
He had to focus on one thing, or he would disappoint his dominant.
He chose the fullness of Caster’s cock inside him and regretted that choice when Caster angled his latest thrust to hit the right spot.
His pleas joined the constant jiggle of his restraints, intensifying the pleasure that was too close, but still out of reach. The hand at the back of his head tightened as the even rhythm of Caster’s thrusts grew more erratic.
He pulled out of him almost all the way, slammed back in with so much force Mark’s body rattled in its confines, and pressed his body into Mark’s. “Come. Now!”
Every cell responded to the command, like dominoes falling in quick succession, each one tearing a path of pleasure through his body as he touched and then crossed that line for the first time in a decade.
Pleasure overtook pain in all its forms, flooding his system.
He moaned through the experience, his body shuddering through it for what felt like an eternity.
Then he sighed as every muscle reveled in the pleasure hormones, as his body went limp with total relaxation.
He tried to crash to the floor in a heap, but the restraints held him in place.
He had a second to process the experience before his torn heart, the constant companion he’d carried with him for over a decade, imposed itself. He wouldn’t have restrained the broken sobs if he’d wanted to. They tore out of his battered heart, the dam around his grief broken beyond repair.
The sensation of another body, a hard male body holding him, reached his mind, but all he felt was the pain, a different kind of pain, the kind he’d held back for so long.
Soothing words crisscrossed the pain, but they only increased its intensity.
He held on to Caster, all too aware he wasn’t Zeke, but too tired of facing all this alone to care.
He didn’t remember how they got to the bed or how he ended up sobbing into Caster’s neck.
The real sound of his heartbreak filled the room as his sobs reduced his breathing to a few choked gasps.
His wolf’s mirroring painful howl filled the space in his mind, bringing with it a foreign pain that dragged him further into the oblivion he couldn’t hope to resist.