6. Ethan
SIX
Ethan
Levi does so well, better than I dared hope. God, the way he responds to touch… it does something to me, something I’m not quite ready to look at. But I’ll look at him all day long.
He’s gorgeous.
His body is perfectly structured, finer and more elegant than mine but still strong and masculine.
I love his hands. They’re wonderful to draw with their long, slender fingers.
I’ll do a closeup sometime, once the bandage is gone.
His hands would be beautiful wrapped around a wineglass or gripping a sheet or stroking my cock.
He’s not ready for that, but it’ll happen. He may not understand his own body right now, but I do. I know what he needs.
Right now though, what he needs is this. To be seen. I don’t think he’s ever been seen before. That’s why he’s so overwhelmed by it.
It’s so strange to me. I’ve been seen too much. But I can feel, through him, the frightening, tender pleasure of it.
The longer I work on my sketch, the more comfortable he is. He hasn’t moved. He’s an excellent model. He’s a very, very good boy.
I fill in some detail on his right leg, the one that’s drawn up. His limbs are lean and toned. I think he runs. Middle-distance would be my guess from his build. He runs as fast as he can for as long as he can.
What is he running from? Or toward? Probably from. I don’t think Levi knows enough about himself to run toward anything. Not yet.
Someone has hurt him. I need to know who. I stop my hand before I ruin the line with my anger. I close my eyes for a second, but I can’t keep them that way. I need to see him.
I indulge myself in what I’ve been avoiding.
I glimpsed his cock when I pushed his pants down.
I saw enough to know that he’s beautifully proportioned, perfectly formed.
But I haven’t studied that part of him. I’m not sure if I’ve been saving it…
or saving myself from it. My fixation on him is already bordering on obsession.
But I can’t resist any longer. My eyes drift down, and for a long while, my hand lies still on the paper.
Levi was so worried about not having shaved, but the light hair that trails down from his navel to his groin is beautiful to me. He’s cut, like I am, and his thick shaft lies softly over his balls.
To my knowledge, he hasn’t gotten aroused in any of our encounters. But his body is otherwise so responsive that I suspect he’s simply too repressed, or maybe so fully detached from his sexuality, that he doesn’t even register his reactions as sexual.
I do.
But then, everything is sexual to me. I respond constantly, whether I want to or not. There is no innocence left in me. My cock has been throbbing against the bars of its cage for the past hour. My balls are heavy and sore.
I finish drawing his cock and go back to his face, adding a little more detail. His eyes have softened over the past hour. His jaw has loosened. His lips are parted now.
I fill in the detail of his cheekbones and hair, but I don’t change the initial, wide-eyed expression that I captured. Instead, I start a new sketch to chronicle the change.
I want to do more. I want to pose him again, to open his body further. But I can hear his stomach grumbling, and he’s done enough for his first day.
He’s in such a flow state that he doesn’t seem to register me putting the sketchbook aside. Only when I get up from my chair does he blink, but he still stays where he is.
It’s hard to stop myself at the edge of the couch. I want to crawl over top of him, between his legs. I want him under me. I want this cage off.
I hold out my hand. “It’s dinner time.”
He looks confused, like my words don’t make sense to him, but he takes my hand. His fingers are so elegant. I help him up.
God, his eyes are soft. Would they stay that way if I kissed him?
Jesus, what am I thinking? I don’t kiss people.
I lead Levi back to his clothes, which are crumpled on the floor where we left them. As he gets dressed, the fluidity leaves his body. With each piece of clothing, he draws inward, and I don’t like it one fucking bit.
It would be so damn easy to get a collar on him, shackles even. I could put him in the bondage coffin, or maybe in one of the chairs on the other side of the curtain. I could keep him here.
I close my eyes, trying to empty my mind, but images are flashing. I can’t control them any more than I can control the way my dick is throbbing inside the cage. I don’t want him to leave.
“Ethan?”
My eyes fly open, locking instantly on Levi. He’s never said my name before. I want to make him say it again, but he said it so cautiously. His expression is cautious too. Something has alerted him. Does he know what I want to do to him?
I lied to him earlier about the chains. I told him they weren’t for him. I didn’t want to scare him too much. I still don’t want to. I need him to trust me first. I need him to want it.
Patience is required for perfect work.
I don’t trust myself to talk to Levi right now, not amid the temptation of this room and my darkening thoughts, so I lead him out. We pass through the vestibule into the living room, where I snag my phone from the coffee table.
I’m kind of pissed off because I intended to order dinner and have Levi eat here with me, but the images in my head are a warning. I need to send him home.
I order food for Patrick to pick up for Levi on their way to Levi’s apartment. Then I text Patrick the details. He confirms immediately. It won’t take him more than a minute to come up from his apartment. That’s good. I need Levi out of here before I change my mind about letting him go.
I hand Levi his phone from the coffee table. He has to take his hand from his jacket pocket to accept it. It upsets me. I don’t like seeing him closed up again, especially knowing that it’s my fault. But I don’t think I can fix it right now.
“Patrick will take you home,” I tell Levi as I lead him into the foyer, “and he’ll pick you up again tomorrow at four.”
“Oh.”
The surprise in Levi’s voice makes my own sharp. “Is that a problem?”
“No. I just—no, it’s not a problem.”
I halt in the middle of the foyer, making Levi stop too. “Just what? What were you going to say? I don’t like when you cut yourself off like that.”
Levi shifts uncomfortably. His eyes dart around like he doesn’t want to look at me. “I just… I couldn’t tell. I thought maybe you were… unhappy. With me. I didn’t know if you’d want me back.”
I don’t make a conscious decision to go stalking toward him, but that’s what I find myself doing. Levi backs away until he hits the wall. I cage him there, planting my hands on either side of him. His eyes are on me now, wide and alarmed.
“I’m very fucking happy with you,” I tell him in a low, rasping voice. “You were perfect in every way.”
His full lips part. The alarm fades from his eyes. It shouldn’t. His instincts were right. I’m dangerous right now. But this is the dark part of him that instinctively responds to the dark part of me.
“Say you’ll come back,” I demand.
“I’ll come back,” he says. His voice is breathy. I feel it as much as hear it, like a feathery touch. It makes me shiver. It makes me reach out and brush my thumb over his plump bottom lip. God, I loved drawing that.
He sucks in a startled breath. I think I could kiss him, I really do. I think he’s so close to recognizing the sexual nature of his response to me that I could show it to him right now with my lips against his. But I don’t think I could stop there.
This is going to take more control than I realized. It’s going to take more than a cock cage.
I push back from the wall and walk to the door, opening it to see Patrick in his suit, waiting by the elevator. As Levi walks out, hands in his pockets, he glances back at me. He’s confused and unsure.
He’ll simply have to be that way for now. I have to fix myself first.
So I close the door.
I walk back through the penthouse to the playroom, where I take off my clothes, leaving only the cock cage. My dick is swollen to the limits of it, and my balls are painfully full. The weight is heavy and awful as I duck around the curtain.
I walk past the benches and chairs, the ropes and chains and pulleys. I go to the corner and kneel on the prayer bench.
Then I pick up the flogger and teach myself a lesson in control.