4. Tony
FOUR
tony
“ W hat are you doing now?” I asked when Jaime gathered up the dishes and headed to the kitchen with them.
Why was I letting him was a better question. Jaime had—begrudgingly—gone back to eating earlier. There hadn’t been a lot of talking. He’d mentioned something else about Cece being back in the apartment—even though I hadn’t even known she was out of town to begin with. There was no exuberant explanation or rambling. No filling the silence with stories of the people around him or the silliest things that had happened to him. It was weirdly refreshing, a relief compared with most of the subs I’d been with, but it was disconcerting, too.
There wasn’t an easy script to follow. I didn’t know where I stood with Jaime, or if he knew where he stood with me, but I was more anxious with him than I should be, and I didn’t like the feeling.
All I knew was that he’d moved without asking and was now rinsing the dishes before setting them in the dishwasher.
“Um. Cleaning up?” The boy shrugged.
He wasn’t as unaffected and cool as he pretended. Did anyone buy the act?
“Well, stop.”
“What do you mean, stop?”
I moved to stand behind him at the sink. It was irresponsible. If I’d learned anything today, it was that being anywhere near him was a bad idea. A terrible one. My body was not quite my own, despite everything that said I should be the rational, collected one. Too many things had gone off the rail to start freezing over it now.
“I mean, grab your food, the book I gave you, and head home.”
Jaime whirled around. Somehow, it emphasized how close I was standing. It wasn’t as close as when he tried to frame me against the threshold to the living room, but it still made my heart race.
“Usually when someone wants me to head home, they don’t corner me against their kitchen counter.”
I huffed. Everything about him was infuriating. I was starting to regret all the curiosity that had made me focus on him. “I’d hope when people tell you to head home, you actually listen.”
Jaime just quirked an eyebrow. No, not just. He pushed forward until he was slotted between my thighs, only fabric separating us.
“Are you going to give me lessons on consent?”
My jaw ticked. “Imagine that.”
There was no way I’d fall for his taunts. He wasn’t trying to start a conversation about what went down with Sergio—when, almost a decade ago, I was a stupid TA and Sergio was a freshman, and I got him in my office for an incredibly misguided handjob that should’ve never happened. Jaime just wanted me angry.
He wanted a reaction.
That was the thing with brats.
Only problem was, he wasn’t my brat, and this wasn’t the right way to brat out. I didn’t point it out because I knew he was aware. After all, we both went to the same club, attended the same workshops. He wasn’t new, either. He hadn’t shown up at the club for the first time in that big-eyed way most new subs did, either. Jaime was the type who did his research before he did anything and then proceeded to wear it like an armor.
“You’re not getting rid of me.” He gritted his teeth. “You’re helping me with the email thing.”
He jutted his chin up. It was such a contrast—the harshness in his features versus the faint wobbling in his voice.
“Sure,” I drawled. “You know where to text me.”
I was ninety-nine percent sure he didn’t have my number, but he could reach me through the club’s app.
“Right.” Jaime nodded. “I’m going to go now. Because I finished loading up the dishwasher, not because you said so.”
“Right,” I repeated easily. If I only thought of him as a brat and not the infuriating person he was, or how he oozed masculinity in a way I wasn’t used to at all—handling him became the tiniest bit easier. “You should work on your manners.”
“I’m too angry with you to care about those.”
I leaned back. Jaime took advantage of the movement to slip away. I didn’t care. “Angry?”
I’d noticed he ran hot and cold, but what the fuck had I done to make him angry now?
“I’m angry with the both of us, to be fair.” He waved his hands around as he spoke, even when he was on the move. I trailed after him easily while he gathered everything from the living room. “You for rejecting me. Me for offering.”
I ignored the way that made me feel—the slap to the face I had no business feeling. “Doesn’t that make it a good thing that I rejected you then?”
Jaime tutted. He was careful when he stuffed the book into his already full backpack. He wasn’t so careful as he slung the bag over his shoulders. If I wanted to make myself feel better, I’d say his care for the book was out of reverence for something that was mine. In reality, it was probably just his respect for the book. Not that it was a bad thing. I’d been in the university library before, and the way some people treated the textbooks there made me want to give them an F out of spite.
Apparently, that was not a thing I could do.
“It would, except I’m still game.” Jaime stomped before he turned around and walked past me to grab his shoes from the entrance.
“Stop.”
The command had no place between us. I had no right to it, no business exerting it.
Jaime responded to it, regardless. He didn’t turn around, but he stopped mid-stride, his left foot landing slowly on the wooden planks.
I reached him before he could change his mind. If there was anyone who could do that in the blink of an eye, it would be him. That much, I was learning quickly.
I wrapped my hand around his wrist before I could overthink it. His pulse betrayed his stillness. The knowledge set something free in me, let me breathe in a way I hadn’t been able to before.
This was the kind of unbalanced ground I was used to, the one I’d sought out since I’d started dabbling in kink.
My chest brushed against his back. The zap of electricity zinged us both, but I was more focused on him and the way his lips parted. He’d been right in my not having any experience with bodies like his. I had experience holding control, though—taking and keeping it.
“Are you thinking straight now?”
“Huh?” The sound was breathy, barely there.
“It’s a simple question.”
If Jaime had shown me anything, it was that he could think on the spot. He didn’t need me to talk him through something because he was in subspace and too overwhelmed to make a connection or two.
I liked it more than I thought I would—the power that came with the knowledge that he was actively choosing to stay in that position. All subs did, of course, but there was something different about a sub who kept their wits around them.
Jaime cleared his throat. His arms tensed. My hold on his wrist didn’t ease up. “Yeah.”
That sounded like it hurt. It sounded like the kind of answer that should have my throat drying up and my heart rate spiking. There was some of that nervous reaction I couldn’t quite control, but it wasn’t all of it. I focused on the power surging through me instead.
“Lose the attitude, then, and come hump my leg like a good pup.”
Jaime snorted. He tried, at least. “Most people consider leg humping the opposite of good behavior.”
I hummed. I moved my other hand to splay over his abdomen. He was lean, but not ripped with muscles. I knew he was fit—the latex puppy gear he owned clung to his skin like a glove, leaving little to the imagination—but there was something visceral about touch.
“If you don’t want praise, you just have to say so.”
The pup spluttered. It was the most sub-like response he’d given ever since he stormed inside my space. “Why are you changing your mind?”
I grunted. He talked too much. “Let go of the backpack, pup. And the bag of food.”
He didn’t, not right away, but he turned around. There were so many questions in that hooded gaze of his. It didn’t matter that the description made no sense, that it wasn’t realistic—seeing questions in someone’s eyes. It fit the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the way he tried to keep eye contact without swaying.
“Okay.”I thought he was going to discard the backpack at his feet. Jaime surprised me again, moving to place it gently by the door. “What now?”
“Now, you take off your shoes again, put up the food in the fridge.” I smirked when he couldn’t hold in a huff of annoyance. “And you follow me upstairs.”
Upstairs was where I had a small playroom. It was nothing big or flashy, but it was there, and it beat filling my bedroom with memories and ghosts of touches that would haunt me at night.
“I have conditions.”
The words might have made me pause more if he wasn’t toeing off the shoes as he spoke.
“Name them.”
His body was turned away, but he glanced my way before speaking. “You sure?”
“In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not one for beating around the bush, pup. Say your piece, start obeying, or leave.”
I wasn’t keeping him here. Maybe it would be easier if I could blame myself for it later, but Jaime wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t naive, innocent, or someone who could even try to play that card. He was here because he wanted to be, and he was fully aware of the ramifications, even when those made his jaw set and a sort of heat that resembled hatred flash through his eyes.
He was more expressive than he probably liked.
Too bad that expressiveness was something I liked. Something I’d enjoy exploiting, if we got there.
“Safe words are red, yellow, green. Two barks for red, one for green. I don’t bother with yellow when I can’t use words.” He tried to scowl as he talked. The thick eyebrows added more shadowing to his face. “You don’t get to pretend it didn’t happen. And you don’t touch anything I haven’t explicitly said you can touch.”
I focused on my breathing, on not getting too lost in the sneaky part he’d added there in the middle. Safe words. Those were easy, familiar. I knew how the script went. Not touching was newer, but it wasn’t too out there. Negotiating a scene also involved negotiating what kind of touches were acceptable.
If I focused on those BDSM basics, if I deconstructed it into those pieces, it was easier to lean into the heat that had been building between us since he walked in. It was easier to push the next words through my mouth. “Why would I touch a pup humping my leg like a runt?”
Jaime’s eyelids fluttered. It was a hypnotic movement. He let out a soft gasp, his lips opened less than an inch. “Yeah, okay, that’s good. Upstairs, then?”
It was hard not to laugh as he pretended to be perfectly composed about it. I didn’t see the point in stopping him if he wanted to go ahead, though. I supposed that forwardness was very puppylike of him.
Then again, my only exposure to puppies, outside of porn, were Jaime and Cece at the club.
“First door to your right.”
“Copy.”
I snorted. While his back was turned to me, I let my eyes drift down his figure. He’d really been onto something with the comment about size difference.
It was one of those things I hadn’t needed a specific vocabulary for when I ran in straighter circles. I was naturally bigger than most of the women there, and whenever I’d hooked up with another professor? Attraction hadn’t been a factor. As crude as it sounded, hooking up in my office had only been about convenience. Scratching the itch meant I’d been fine not unpacking any of the reasons why that itch had been there in the first place.
That was the simplified reasoning.
I didn’t have time to delve into the more complex one with a pup running upstairs. I trusted him enough to believe he wouldn’t go around snooping, but I didn’t trust him enough to leave him alone long enough he could draw his own conclusions about the way I organized my space.