Chapter Eight
He was not going to act like a nervous schoolboy called into the headmaster’s office to be caned. Franklin was a grown man who owned several very successful businesses. He’d proved to his father and everyone else that, gay or straight, he could hold his own in any boardroom on the planet.
He might now be a lion’s pet and a sub and a great many other things he hadn’t considered himself to be a few weeks ago. He might even be head over heels in love, which was probably even more unexpected than the rest of it. But he wasn’t a coward.
He’d asked to be punished, and Franklin was more than willing to be damned before he flinched now, no matter what Cameron might have in store for him.
He looked back across the room to where Arslan, Ellery and Cameron were deep in conversation. They were too far away for him to catch a single damn word. He couldn’t even try to lip read while their heads were bowed together.
There seemed to be some debate going on. Taking a deep breath, Franklin tried not to sigh as he let it out.
“They’ll make sure nothing happens that will bring any real harm to you,” Kefir offered from his seat on the hearth rug.
“I’m not scared.” The snap in his voice made him sound like he was lying. Franklin managed to scrape up a small apologetic smile that encompassed both Ryland and Kefir as he realised he was making a fool of himself.
“Ellery will be explaining human traditions. Arslan will be giving him advice on if it would be possible for a lion to adopt them without hurting his pet too badly,” Ryland expanded, from next to Franklin on the sofa.
Franklin nodded.
Ellery turned away from the group. “Kefir.” He beckoned the little lion across the room.
A moment later, Kefir left the den, closing the door neatly behind him. When he came back, he had a whip in one hand and a set of leather restraints in another.
Ellery took both from him without a word.
He looked down at the length of the whip, inspecting it very carefully.
Franklin was completely mesmerised by the sight of the implement until Cameron stepped forward to stand in the middle of the room.
Suddenly, both Ellery and the whip might as well have been invisible
“The punishment will be a whipping,” Cameron announced. “Twenty lashes.”
Franklin stood up. “Yes.” To his eternal relief, his voice remained perfectly level at the prospect.
“It will be administered by Ellery, at my request, since he is the only master present who knows what a human’s skin can tolerate.”
“Yes,” Franklin said again. It wasn’t his place to argue about the details of a punishment. He wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. He had no right to complain that he would prefer it if it were Cameron on the other end of the lash.
Cameron stepped forward again, his expression very serious as their eyes remained locked. “In here?” he asked.
No matter where Cameron was looking, Franklin knew the lion wasn’t speaking to him.
“No.” Ellery and Arslan said the word together.
“Somewhere where there’s more room,” Ellery said. “Somewhere he can be restrained.”
Cameron turned to Arslan, so did everyone else, except Franklin.
“The old green bedroom,” Arslan decided.
Cameron nodded.
“It’s at the top of the stairs, third door on the left.”
Cameron nodded again. He reached out to Franklin and took hold of his wrist. As Cameron led him from the room, catching the cuffs Ellery tossed to him on the way past, Franklin became aware that the others were hanging back and sent up silent thanks that he might have a moment alone with Cameron before it all started.
Maybe he didn’t deserve for his wish to be granted it, but he was still glad it had been.
The door leading into the bedroom Arslan had selected for the punishment swung open as Cameron turned the handle. Unable to look at his master right then, Franklin studied the room with ferocious intensity. Maybe it had been green once. Now, it was somewhat between colours.
Dustsheets covered every piece of furniture that had been too big or cumbersome to move out of the room. Patches of the walls had been daubed in different shades as someone tried out different samples. The whole space smelled of paint.
With his hand still wrapped around Franklin’s wrist, Cameron led him forward, to the base of a large four-poster bed.
Any curtains that might have hung there were long gone.
Only the bare length of wood remained. One deft movement and Cameron had the long chain connecting the cuffs looped over the rail above their heads.
The lion tugged on the cuffs, as if to check they would hold no matter how much someone struggled. Franklin swallowed. His palms turned slick with sweat.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Cameron suddenly asked, turning back to face him.
Franklin met Cameron’s eyes for a second. There was at least part of Cameron that wanted it, too. He could see it in his expression—at least part of Cameron knew he deserved it.
“Yes.”
Cameron nodded.
Franklin couldn’t claim to be any sort of expert on being whipped, but he was pretty sure the punishment was generally conducted on bare skin. He reached for the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up over his head.
If he had his way, that would have been enough. Being naked for a pride meeting where everyone else was naked was one thing. Being stripped down for a punishment would be nothing short of humiliating. But, Franklin reminded himself again, he wasn’t supposed to enjoy it.
He reached for the buckle on his belt.
“No.”
Franklin hesitated.
“It’s your back he’ll be whipping. That’s the only part of you he needs to see.”
All Franklin could do then was try not to look too relieved, or too flattered by the spike of jealousy in Cameron’s voice, as he stepped forward and offered his wrists up to the cuffs with all the confidence he could muster.
Cameron buckled them in place. A moment later, he stroked his fingertips down Franklin’s back very gently, inspecting the skin that was about to feel the full force of the punishment.
Franklin dragged a deep breath into his lungs as he looked up at his bound wrists.
The only important thing now was for him not to screw this up.
He just had to stand there and take his punishment.
He just had to accept a little bit of the pain he’d been so quick to dish out to others without a thought.
He might never have picked up a whip in his life, but he’d still hurt people; he couldn’t ignore that fact any longer. He closed his eyes, and the memory of the pain in Cameron’s eyes came flooding back to him.
He sensed Cameron move to stand behind him, then step closer.
Cameron’s hair trailed against the side of Franklin’s face, his shirt brushed across his back, and all Franklin wanted, more than anything in the world, was to turn around, to offer his mouth up to his master, and to feel his kiss against his lips.
Keeping his head bowed, Franklin stayed perfectly still. He had no right to ask for something like that.
A creak of the door hinges soon informed him that he and his master were no longer alone. Franklin swallowed down any inclination to protest at anyone else being present for this.
Cameron stepped away from him, and Franklin closed his eyes tighter than ever. He never remembered feeling so alone in his life, and the more footsteps he heard bringing other men into the room only made him feel more lost, more isolated than ever.
He felt…probably much the same as Cameron had up on that stage.
Words were spoken behind him, but he couldn’t focus on them. In his mind, he was back at the club, but he wasn’t staring up at the stage, his attention was on the audience, watching them as they all stared up at Cameron.
His stomach turned over as he tried to switch his point of focus, to imagine instead what it was like to be the man who was up there on the stage, knowing that at the end of the dance, one of the men watching him would want to—
“Franklin?”
Jerked out of his thoughts, Franklin opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on the dustsheets covering the bed. “Yes?”
“Are you ready for the punishment?” Cameron’s tone made it obvious that it wasn’t the first time he’d had to ask the question.
“Yes.” It was the only word it felt safe for him to say any more.
The room fell silent.
Franklin continued to stare fixedly at the dustsheet on the bed, not even allowing himself to glance over his shoulder.
He received no further warning before the whip struck his back for the first time.
The air rushed out of his lungs. A cry escaped with it as his body jerked and he pulled at the cuffs binding him to the bed frame.
Pain flared all the way across his back, harsher and more intense than anything he’d ever known. The strength rushed from Franklin’s legs, and suddenly, he knew why he’d had to be bound. It wasn’t about control. There was simply no way in hell he’d have stayed on his feet if he hadn’t been.
Franklin’s mind was still reeling from the first blow when the whip came down on him again. Sweat broke out on his skin. Franklin ground his teeth together to keep back a cry. The only sound that left him was a pain-filled groan.
Still cursing himself for his weakness, Franklin clenched his hands into tight fists above his head and frantically tried to keep it together, to stay strong and take his punishment.
His pain was nothing compared to Cameron’s. Franklin knew that. As the lash fell against his back for the third time, the knowledge wasn’t enough to give him the strength to remain silent.
*
Cameron flinched as the whip fell against Franklin’s back for what already felt like the hundredth time.
Franklin screamed out, a sound so raw, so agonised Cameron could barely stand to hear it.