18. The King’s Mirror
The King’s Mirror
Asher
The cozy warmth wrapped around me dulls the pounding headache pulsing behind my eyes. I don’t want to get out of bed, so I attempt to doze off again just to keep myself in this pleasant bubble of comfort. I know the instant I let consciousness return it’ll be ripped from me, and I’m not ready.
Something soft slithers over my waist—a hand, or fingers, maybe—and my eyes snap open.
The warmth radiating from my back is, in fact, another person.
And judging by the hard rod poking me in the ass, it seems to be someone with a very large cock.
I roll away from the comfy body, and they let out a low, displeased groan. When I spin around to look down, ice slithers over my skin.
King is sleeping, his face relaxed, and his cock pressing against the tight, black material of his boxer briefs.
What the ? —
“Don’t freak out,” he murmurs, eyes still closed. “You fell asleep.”
I run a hand down my face. “Last night is fuzzy?—”
“I bet. We probably drank an entire distillery between the two of us.” King opens his eyes and looks at me with an expression I can’t decipher.
“Did we…” I look around the room for any clues. My pants and button-up are haphazardly strewn on the floor near the bed, and my boots are a few feet away from each other, like I kicked them off in the heat of the moment.
Oh god.
Did we have sex? I remember the blow job, but…
He throws the covers off. I avert my eyes away from his cock, and that’s when I realize I’m sporting my own morning wood. He sits up on the edge of the bed and looks at me over his shoulder.
“You don’t remember?” he asks, something unguarded and… hurt… in the way he asks.
And then it comes crashing back to me in hazy, distinct vignettes. Fighting. Him stuffing my boxers in my mouth. Getting off, feeling… incredible.
I can’t tell him I remember. I have to lie.
“What? No. I don’t— What happened?” I rub my eyes and sigh, wondering if this will ever get easier. If the shame of getting drunk and hooking up with a guy will ever feel normal.
The same familiar tightness in my chest makes me feel panicked, and I want to bolt.
Grab my clothes and call a taxi. If I grab everything and stuff it into my suitcase, I can probably get out of here before anyone wakes up.
And if I go back to New York today, I can resume my normal life—working out in the mornings, green smoothies, the mind-numbing spreadsheets and formulas and client meetings…
My breathing turns ragged as I walk over to my shirt.
Adrenaline courses through me as I pick it up, throwing it on.
Who needs caffeine when I have enough regret and self-loathing to last a lifetime?
I could laugh—at the idea of me panicking, at what happened, at the fact that I’m running away yet again.
Instead, I grab my pants and pull them on so quick that I break the zipper, and fuck, where are my other pairs, and why is it so goddamn hot in here ? —
“Asher.”
The single word has me turning to face King, who is sitting up in bed. He’s bare-chested, and I let my eyes peruse his chiseled abdomen for a second before I forget that I’m not breathing.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I grit out, stalking over to my suitcase.
I’m angry at myself, and I take it out on him.
I feel the mean words forming in my throat before they come out.
I want to hear his version of last night’s events, so I let them out in an angry rush of words.
“Which means either we fucked and that can’t happen, or you’re messing with me.
And honestly? I don’t know what’s worse?—”
“Asher.” The firmness of his voice slices through the haze of panic swirling around me like a knife.
“Breathe,” he says confidently. It’s an order, but for reasons I can’t explain, it’s reassuring…
in a new way. “Now. In for a count of five.” My lungs obey before I can protest, and I suck in a quavering breath, feeling the tension ease a bit. “Out for five.”
I exhale, and my jaw is clenched so tight that it aches. My hands are still shaking, knuckles white around the zipper of my suitcase. There’s a sense of grounding, as long as I can focus on my breathing and ignore the panic slowly dwindling inside of me.
“Come here,” he commands. There’s no softness or warmth in his tone.
I don’t move.
He shifts, bare feet hitting the floor with a soft thud , and when he stands, the sheer presence of him swallows the room whole. He doesn’t get close, not yet. He just waits, watching me with those dark, calculating eyes, waiting for me to remember who I am when he talks to me like that.
And then he reaches over to the bedside table, picking the collar up and holding it out for me. I vaguely remember removing it in the middle of the night, half asleep.
When he sees I’m teetering, he steps forward once, then twice.
“Asher,” he says lowly. “Knees.”
My body jerks like a puppet on string.
I want to run. I want to scream. I want to disappear. But more than any of that, more than the shame and confusion and fury churning in my gut, I want to drop and kneel for him.
I don’t know what else to do, and I also seem to be in the middle of an existential crisis.
So… I do.
Not because I’m weak. Not because I’m broken.
Because he asked, and something in me needed the order. Needed to be told what to do.
The tension bleeds out of me the moment my knees hit the rug. My breath slows. The fire behind my eyes begins to dim.
King exhales like he knew this would happen.
“That’s better,” he says, stepping in close enough to touch my hair, though he doesn’t. Instead, he clasps the collar around my throat, and the feel of it there further relaxes me. “You listen so well when you stop running.”
The words hit deeper than I expected.
“You don’t need to fight everything all the time,” he adds, voice like silk. “Look at you. Exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
Something in my chest aches, something raw and starved for permission.
“You make it so easy to want to take care of you,” he murmurs.
And fuck. That feels really good, like heaven and ruin all at the same time.
Just like that, the chaos inside my chest starts to settle.
“You’re talking to me like you’re already my Dominant,” I say, trying to give him a wry smile. The panic ebbs, and when King pulls his lower lip between his teeth to look down at me, I feel… something.
It shifts in my chest, and suddenly things feel like they might be okay.
“Aren’t I?” he asks, raising a hand and running his fingers through my hair.
My eyes flutter closed at the feel of his warm fingertips massaging my skull.
“It’s all fake,” I say, my voice barely audible. “This. Us. It’s all for show. I mean, I’m not a submissive.”
King narrows his eyes before removing his hand from my hair, and I almost ask him to keep going. He takes a step away, and I feel the physical loss of him. His eyes rove over my body slowly, and everything inside of me heats under his gaze.
“I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
I open my mouth to reply—something snarky on the edge of my tongue—but he turns and walks away. The bathroom door closes, and I let a long breath out before standing up.
I’m not panicked anymore, but that doesn’t mean I have to play this game with him. Just because he calmed me down doesn’t mean I have to pander to his whims.
The shower turns on in the bathroom, and steam begins to drift under the door a moment later, like the air itself is exhaling. I stand there, still shirtless, collared, and slightly disoriented—emotionally and existentially.
What the hell am I doing?
I turn toward the mirror above the dresser and catch my reflection.
My hair is a mess. My eyes are bloodshot. The black leather of the collar stands out against the skin of my throat, and I look… lost. Not just from the hangover. Not just from whatever happened last night.
I press the heels of my palms against my eyes. This is not who I am. I’ve never unraveled like this in my life. I don’t submit.
Except I just did.
And part of me liked it.
When the water shuts off a few minutes later, I’m still standing there, caught in that space between denial and some kind of revelation. The bathroom door opens with a soft creak.
King steps out with a towel slung low around his hips. Steam clings to his skin. His chest gleams in the light, and his eyes land on me with that same unreadable intensity.
He cocks his head slightly. “Still here? I thought you’d have run off by now.”
I don’t answer right away. My eyes skim over his muscles, catching on the tattoos. I swallow and look away.
“I should be gone by now.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
“I need to take a shower before my meeting with Walter.”
King steps away from the door and gestures for me to go into the bathroom. I do, grabbing a change of clothes before closing the door behind me. Once inside, I unclasp the collar and set it on the edge of the sink.
The shower is invigorating, and I can still smell King’s bodywash, the cinnamon scent that has somehow wrapped around my consciousness in a way that hardens my cock.
Fuck.
I squeeze some of the bodywash into my palm, using it to wash my body when I’m done with the shampoo. Now, I’ll get whiffs of his bodywash all day.
And probably an erection, too.
It’ll be like being inside a sensory prison designed by someone who knows exactly how to get under my skin.
Stepping out of the shower, I dry myself and brush my teeth, quickly getting dressed and ready for my day.
Bracing both hands on either side of the sink, I stare at my reflection, trying to find something in my own eyes. A clue, maybe. A sign that I’m still who I thought I was.
But all I can think about is the way his voice sounded against the shell of my ear last night. The way his hand wrapped around my throat. The press of his cock against mine, the unbearable slick friction of skin on skin, the heat, the weight, the ache.
Is that what you want to be? You want to be a good boy for me?
The way I came so hard I saw stars.
The way he didn’t immediately stop touching me after.
It should’ve been humiliating. It was humiliating. But somewhere between the filthy things he whispered and the way he looked at me afterward—like I was the center of his world for five seconds—I stopped caring about humiliation.
That’s what terrifies me the most about all of this.
My hand twitches toward the collar still sitting next to the sink.
No. No.
I shake my head once, hard, and straighten my shirt. I rebutton it with slightly trembling fingers just to kill some time, just to give my heart a chance to calm down.
Opening the door, I see King reading The Dominant’s Discourse in bed, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans.
“Itinerary for the day is on the bed,” he mutters, eyes not leaving his book.
COUPLES THERAPY - 10:30 AM
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING - 1 PM
HORSE-DRAWN SLEIGH RIDE - 6 PM
I crumple the paper and throw it into the trash. “I have my meeting with Walter. See you at therapy.”
“You’re wearing that?” King asks, looking at me over the top of his book.
I look down at my light blue chambray shirt and black slacks. “Yes?”
He climbs out of bed and walks over to the closet, and my brow furrows when he walks back out with a navy sweater. Holding it out to me, I stare down at the soft cashmere.
“Put this on over your shirt. It’s more casual. This isn’t a one-to-one in New York.”
Reaching out for the sweater, I pull it over my head. The softness is nice, as is the smell of King all over it.
Fuck, what is wrong with me?
Just as I start to walk away, King reaches out with both hands and flips my shirt collar over the neck of the sweater. His hands linger for a second, and then he pats my chest.
“Better.” I’m just about to thank him for the unsettlingly kind thing he just did, when he adds, “May the best man win, Harrison.”
I don’t bother saying goodbye before grabbing my coat, and I tell myself that’s for the best.
After all, I have a meeting to win.