Chapter 20
Adriel
A few days after the spanking. Adriel was at Landen's apartment again, as it was becoming a habit now, one he hadn't examined too closely because examining it would mean naming it, and naming it would mean admitting how much he needed it.
They'd had dinner. The dishes were cleared. Landen was on the sofa with a manuscript, one arm stretched along the back, and Adriel was curled at the other end with a book he'd stopped reading twenty minutes ago.
The apartment was quiet. The city hummed distantly beyond the windows. It should have felt peaceful. Safe. The kind of evening Adriel had never let himself imagine having.
Instead, his mind was circling something he couldn't leave alone.
Maybe it started with the way Landen spoke to him in bed; the commands that didn't sound like requests, the praise that landed like a reward, the particular tone his voice dropped into when he said good boy. The first time Adriel had heard it, something in him had unlocked.
Maybe it started with the possessiveness.
The hand on his throat that didn't squeeze, just rested there, a reminder of who was in control. The fingers gripping his jaw to hold his gaze, forcing him to look up, even when he didn’t want to.
Or maybe it was the tie around his wrists.
The knots careful. The checking of circulation automatic.
The way Landen had looked at him afterward, asking without words if he was okay, if it was too much, if he needed to stop.
The aftercare too thorough to be instinct alone; the way Landen had held him, touched him, whispered to him until the shaking stopped.
And then came the spanking.
Not just rough sex. Something with structure. Something with rules.
Whatever it was, Adriel had been cataloguing these things without fully realizing it.
Individually, they could be anything. A dominant personality. A preference for control. A natural skill at reading people in bed.
Together, they formed a pattern.
A pattern Adriel didn't have the vocabulary to name precisely, but that he recognized in the vague, half-formed way of someone who had read enough and seen enough to know that what Landen did in bed had a name. A world attached to it.
He just didn't know how deep it went.
And he didn't know if what Landen had shown him was the surface of something much larger, something Landen had been holding back.
That thought was the one he couldn't leave alone.
Not because it scared him, exactly. He'd learned by now that Landen would never hurt him, would never push past what Adriel could handle, or do anything without checking first. The fear wasn't about safety.
It was about inadequacy.
Because if Landen was... whatever he was, then Adriel was the furthest thing from a match. He was clumsy and new and unsure and held together by want and not much else. He didn't know the rules. He didn't know how to be what someone like Landen might need.
And the question that kept circling, sharp-edged and relentless, was: how long before that stopped being enough?
How long before Landen got tired of teaching, of guiding, of waiting for Adriel to catch up? How long before he started wanting someone who already knew, who could meet him where he was without fumbling, who didn't need to be handled so carefully?
Adriel set his book down.
His heart was hammering. He could feel it in his throat, in his temples, in the places where his pulse beat close to the surface. His palms were damp. His mouth dry.
He didn't know how to start this. Didn't know how to say I see you without also saying I'm terrified I'm not enough.
But the question wouldn't leave him alone. It had been circling for days, growing sharper, more insistent. He couldn't keep ignoring it.
"Can I ask you something?" Adriel said.
Landen looked up from the manuscript. His reading glasses caught the light, and for a moment Adriel could see his own reflection in them; small and soft, curled at the end of the sofa, knees pulled up, heart pounding.
"Always," Landen said.
Adriel pulled his knees closer to his chest. Wrapped his arms around them. Stared at the book in his lap without seeing it; a paperback he'd picked up from Landen's shelf.
"The things you do," he said slowly. "When we're... together."
He paused. Swallowed. His cheeks were already heating; he could feel the warmth spreading, could feel the flush climbing up his neck, staining his ears.
"The way you talk to me. The way you... hold me down. The tying. The…"
He stopped. The word spanking caught in his throat, too raw and specific to say out loud in the quiet of the living room.
"All of it," he said instead. "It's not just... you're not just being rough. Are you?"
Landen set the manuscript down, took off his glasses, and gave Adriel his full attention.
"No," Landen said quietly. "It's not just that."
Adriel nodded. His throat was tight. "I thought so."
A silence stretched between them.
"So what is it?"
∞∞∞
Landen
The question was not a surprise. He'd been waiting for it, dreading it, if he was honest, ever since the first time his hands touched Adriel.
He looked at him now, knees pulled to his chest, eyes too bright, and felt something crack open in his chest. The awareness that whatever he said next would determine whether Adriel stayed or ran, and that both outcomes felt equally possible.
He moved. Sat on the carpet so that he was looking up at Adriel rather than down.
It was instinct; the Dom in him understanding that Adriel needed to feel like he had the higher ground right now, needed to not feel cornered or talked down to.
Adriel blinked at the gesture, confused, and the confusion on his face made Landen's chest ache.
"Adriel," Landen said, voice low. "Look at me."
Adriel did. Reluctantly. His eyes were guarded, already bracing for the confirmation of everything he feared.
Landen told him the truth. Plainly, without softening it into something easier to hear.
He told him that what Adriel had noticed was part of something larger.
He told him it was called dominance and submission, and that he had been part of that world for a long time.
That he was a Dom; that this wasn't a preference or a phase but a fundamental part of how he connected with people intimately.
He told him about the lifestyle; not in exhaustive detail, but enough.
The structure of it. The trust required.
He watched Adriel's face as he spoke; reading micro-expressions, tracking the shifts in breathing, the tension in his hands, the way his jaw tightened and released.
He could see the information landing in stages: recognition first, then unease, then the rapid calculation happening behind Adriel's eyes.
He told him about his past partners. He didn't minimize it and he didn't romanticize it. They were experienced. They knew the rules. They could meet him in that space without hesitation. He was honest about what it gave him; control, connection, pleasure.
And then he told Adriel what none of it gave him.
"I was going through the motions," Landen said. "For a long time before I met you, I was performing. Every scene was technically right and emotionally hollow. I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't feel it anymore. The wanting was gone."
He paused, choosing the next words with care, because they mattered more than anything he had said in a long time.
"You brought it back. Not because you know the rules or you are experienced; because you aren't. But because everything with you is real. It's not going through the motions to reach some goal. It's you. That is worth more to me than every scene I've ever done with anyone else combined."
Adriel's breath hitched. He shook his head, and Landen felt something sharp move through him, half anger, half grief.
"Won’t you miss it?" Adriel said, voice cracking.
"The things they can give you. The things I can't…
I don't even know what I'm doing, Landen.
I didn't even know what it was called until you just told me.
You have this whole... world, this whole part of yourself, and I'm just…
I'm stumbling around in the dark hoping I don't disappoint you. "
His voice broke on the last word. He pressed his hand against his mouth, and Landen could see the tears starting, could see the humiliation Adriel felt at crying in front of him, at being this exposed.
"Eventually, you're going to want someone who knows what they're doing," Adriel whispered. "Someone who can actually be what you need. And I'm going to be the thing you settled for while you waited."
"Stop." Landen's voice was gentle but firm.
He reached up and took Adriel's hand. "The only thing I need is you.
Everything else is negotiable. Everything.
We go at your pace. We do only what feels right to you.
If that's nothing beyond what we already have, then that is more than enough.
If you want to explore, we explore together, slowly, and you have a voice in every single part of it.
You say stop, we stop. You say slow down, we slow down.
You say no, we don't. That's it. That's the only rule that matters. "
Adriel was crying. Quietly, tears spilling before he could stop them, his free hand pressing against his mouth as if he could hold it in.
"I'm scared," Adriel whispered.
"I know," Landen said. "That's okay."
A long pause. Adriel's fingers tightened around Landen's.
"I want to try," Adriel said finally. "I don't want to lose this because I was too afraid."
Landen lifted Adriel's hand and pressed his lips to the knuckles.
"You're not going to lose me," he said. "Not over this. Not over anything."
Adriel was still crying when the silence settled. Small, hitching breaths, tears tracking down his cheeks, his hand still gripping Landen's like an anchor.
He looked wrung out; the conversation had cost him everything, and Landen could see it in the tremor of his shoulders, the tight set of his jaw, the way his body had curled inward as if trying to make itself smaller.