13. Ethan
THIRTEEN
Ethan
Levi sleeps a lot of the day. I know I wore him out and broke him down, but I think his long sleep is coming from more than that. I think there’s a deep, deep exhaustion in him.
His sleep is tugging at me, like maybe I could rest too, but I don’t. It’s enough to see him doing it. Besides, I have work to do. I have to deal with the message that I got a few hours ago.
I’m not going to reply, but I do need to find out everything I can about Daniel Jensen. I dig up a few articles he’s written, and what scares me is that none of them are significant. That means he’s hungry. He wants a big, juicy story—and he thinks he’s found one.
When I first got his message “inviting” me to talk about the High Castle Church and my absence from it, an awful, sickening suspicion rose up inside me. I squashed it quickly. There’s nothing Levi knows that he could have shared. There’s nothing anyone knows who would be likely to talk.
Besides, Jensen isn’t the first journalist to come sniffing around.
He’ll end up with some story about the hypocrisy of a wealthy megachurch.
What people on the outside don’t understand is that the wealth of the church is half its appeal for the congregation.
It’s a promise that the righteous path is a prosperous one.
Nothing will come of another article shining a light on the gilded face of the church.
But I still have to be prepared.
When I finally close the computer, I find Levi watching me from the bed.
I get up and walk over to him. I hold out my hand.
He sits up and takes it as he climbs out of bed.
I lead him out of the room and down the hallway to the living room, where I direct him to sit on the couch.
He draws his knees up, leaning against the arm of the couch.
I leave him there and go back to the guestroom to grab his book.
When I bring it to him, he takes it and puts it in his lap.
I’m a little worried about how quiet he is, but I guess I’m quiet too. I pet his hair and feel a warm, soft emotion move through me when his eyes close. Some of the tension from the last few hours of research melts away.
I go into the kitchen and put together a charcuterie board and some steak sandwiches, then I make a couple of gin and tonics. Levi watches me the whole time, but I’m not sure how focused he is.
I bring everything over on a big tray and set it on the coffee table, then I sit next to him. He shifts to face me.
I pick up the sweeter of the two gin and tonics. “Do you want to try it?”
“Okay.”
I hand it to him. As he sips, a little bit of life comes back into his eyes.
“Oh, that’s good,” he says, obviously surprised.
I pick up my own, stronger drink and sit back, propping my crossed ankles on the far edge of the coffee table. “So what are you reading?”
“Oh.” He looks embarrassed. “It’s kind of weird.”
“What’s it about?”
“Uh… it’s really hard to explain. It doesn’t exactly have a plot. It’s like… kind of short stories, but there are some characters that appear a lot. The lord of demons is kind of the main character. Azharan. But it’s more about the world.”
“That’s Book 3?” I ask.
When Levi nods, I pull my phone from my pocket and go into the ebook app. “What’s the series?”
“The Flat Earth. By Tanith Lee. Wait, are you… what are you doing?”
I buy the first book. “I’ll catch up to you.”
“You’re… gonna read it?”
“Yes. So get moving. I’m fast.”
Levi huffs a laugh, but it’s a choked one. He looks slightly dazed and when he lifts his glass to sip, his hand is shaky. I don’t want to break him down right now, so I set my glass in my lap and settle my hand on his knee without looking directly at him.
Levi opens his book. He’s about halfway through.
“Do you have the next one?” I ask. “It looked like there are five books.”
“I found the first three at a thrift store, but I don’t have the others.”
“You like paperback?”
Levi makes a face. “Better than a phone. I don’t know how you can read like that.”
“I left my Kindle… uh, somewhere.” I don’t want to tell him that I left it at my other place. I’m not sure why, but I feel slightly weird about explaining that I don’t really live here. “You don’t like e-readers?”
Levi shrugs. “I don’t have one.”
I don’t have to ask why. I’ve seen his apartment, and I saw how stressed he was about money when I met him.
I switch out of the app and order a new Kindle, keeping my screen tilted away from him so he doesn’t see. I want it to be a surprise. Then I go back to reading.
I squeeze his knee. “I’m seriously gonna pass you.”
“I’m halfway through Book 3. And what if you don’t like it? You might quit.”
“I don’t quit. And I told you I’m fast.”
He snorts because he thinks I’m just talking about reading speed, but what I really mean is that I need something to do at night when most people are sleeping.
I split my attention between the book and Levi, watching him read and sip his drink. When he’s down to ice, I take the glass from him.
“Eat,” I say as I get up, returning to the kitchen to make another round of drinks.
Levi splays the book face down on the arm of the couch and reaches for crackers and Roquefort. I love that he likes strong flavors.
I return with the drinks. We read, and for a while, I let him enjoy the charcuterie, then I tell him, “Have a sandwich.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“Then eat the meat from it. You need the protein.”
Levi stills. His expression is hard to read. I don’t know exactly what he’s feeling, but I can tell that he’s upset. When I reach out and pet his hair, tears spill down his cheeks.
He swipes at them. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
But as I keep petting his hair and more tears spill, I figure it out. And really, it’s pretty fucking obvious.
Taking his glass from him, I set it aside with mine. When I tug at him, he spills into me. He’s half in my lap with his face against my neck, shaking and trying to stop crying.
A weird mix of hot-cold sensations goes through me.
I feel sick and twisted up inside. I feel an echo of that strange, sad emotion I felt during our session in the playroom.
I feel like I want to scream. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and let Levi’s awful, desolate emotions seep into me, trickling down to the place where my own live, dormant and buried under other things.
For some reason, it feels terrible and soothing at the same time. Slowly, Levi relaxes, and so do I.
When he’s quiet, I ask, “Why has no one ever taken care of you?”
It startles him. He tries to pull back, but I don’t let him. If he fights me, I’ll overpower him and force him to answer.
But he doesn’t fight me. There’s no fight in him right now.
He settles against me and says, “I don’t have anyone.”
I pet his hair. “I know. I’m asking why.”
Levi is silent for a long time, but he’s not fighting, so I don’t force him. I let him drag up the words from whatever deep, dark place they live in.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet. “My mother couldn’t take care of me. She didn’t really want to.”
A dark, ugly feeling sweeps through my body so hard that I shudder. Images try to form, but I don’t let them. I make the feeling pass on and away before it can connect to anything.
This isn’t about me.
“And your father?” I ask.
“It was just me and her. Sometimes. When she was clean enough. Sometimes I was in homes. Back and forth. Then she died. Then I aged out.”
I pet his hair, feeling the bleakness of all the spaces between his words. From my own experiences, there’s a lot that I can fill in. My jaw starts clenching. My fingers curl, pressing into Levi, pulling his hair.
“God, I hate people,” I mutter.
Levi’s head lifts. He looks up at me. I can see that much at the edge of my vision, but I’m too upset to meet his gaze, so I’m not ready, not expecting it, when he kisses the underside of my jaw.
It startles me. It’s not the headspace I’m in.
But he kisses me again. He nuzzles me too, like he did with my chest earlier.
God, that fucked me up. This fucks me up too.
I don’t quite like it because I’m not initiating. He’s doing something that I haven’t commanded, and yet… I’m panting, and my cock is hardening.
I get hard a lot if I don’t wear a cage, but it’s not usually when something like this is happening—because things like this don’t happen. I don’t let them.
But I’m letting it happen now. I’m closing my eyes as Levi presses harder into my throat. He crawls more into my lap and straddles me. His hard cock rubs against mine. His fingers curl into me. He grinds on me.
It’s too much.
I grip his hair at his scalp and pull him away. My teeth are gritted as I tell him, “That’s not how this works.”
I pull his head back, exposing his throat, making a point. But there’s no point to make. His eyelashes flutter. His lips part. At his easy submission, my need to punish him recedes.
I tilt his head up and release his hair.
His gaze locks softly with my hard one. In spite of everything I did to him today, in spite of everything I could do right now, he isn’t afraid of me.
He’s comfortable with my darkness, even relieved by it.
He’s relaxing into his own darkness, like he’s never realized that it’s allowed.
I grab his chin and force my thumb into his mouth. I stroke his tongue until his eyes start to close, then I drag my thumb out slowly, pulling down his lower lip.
“Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to suck a cock.”
His thoughts gather slowly, then he says, “You could teach me now.”
“I’ve already given you an order, and you still haven’t followed it.”
He’s confused. He’s forgotten.
I remind him, “You’re supposed to be eating.”
“But—”
“Do as you’re told. Not all punishments are fun.”
Levi sighs. It’s a little bit sassy, but I let it go. His personality is just starting to emerge, and I’m not going to squash it. There are parts of him that are extremely tough—and other parts that are not.
He obeys me, and we go back to reading. I dread the prospect of dealing with my hard cock all evening, but my arousal fades to a low, comfortable heat.
When Levi finishes his second drink, I switch him to water.
He’s already tipsy, and I don’t want him to feel like shit tomorrow.
When he’s done eating, I eat what’s left.
Then, when he falls asleep on the couch, I scoop him up, grabbing his book too, and carry him to my room.
He wakes up enough that he wants to brush his teeth, so I go get the rest of his things from the guestroom, moving them into mine.
I’m aware, of course, that I’m acting really weird, and there’s a buzz of fear, deep down, about what will happen when all of this shatters.
It’s inevitable.
It’s the reason Patrick warned me last night.
But when I get back to Levi and watch him brushing his teeth, looking kind of shy about it because he’s not used to company, I realize that the fear is part of the appeal. I haven’t felt fear in a long time. I haven’t cared enough about anything.
I leave him alone for a few minutes while I go back to the kitchen to clean up and shut off the lights.
When I return, he’s in bed, reading again.
He glances at me, like he’s making sure that he’s allowed to be there, like he doesn’t understand that he’s required to be there.
To make that clear to him, I close the door.
He takes a deep breath and goes back to reading.
I finish getting ready for bed. Normally, I wouldn’t be getting in bed right now, but I want to watch him fall asleep again, so I sit up against the headboard and read on my phone.
It happens pretty quickly. Levi’s book drops softly onto his chest. As I watch the book rise and fall with his breathing, I realize how many things I wish I could’ve drawn today: Levi bound and blindfolded in the bondage chair, crying out at the sting of the whip.
Levi bent over in that apron. Levi watching me from the couch while I made the sandwiches.
But it wasn’t possible to capture those images because me stepping outside of them would’ve changed them.
I pluck the book from Levi’s chest and reach over him to set it on the nightstand. I turn off the lamp and go back to reading.
It’s a very strange book, dark and weird and subtly erotic. There’s an otherness to it that I really like. It’s kind of ugly too, ugly and beautiful at the same time. I didn’t know fantasy could be like this. I haven’t actually read much of it. It wasn’t allowed in the Castle household.
It’s almost midnight when a text comes through, interrupting my reading.
I’m in the middle of a sentence, so I don’t look at the preview that pops up.
But as soon as I finish the paragraph, I open the message thread because I’m worried that it’s Patrick.
I checked with his sponsor this morning, and she said he was with her, but shit can change in a day.
Hell, it can change in a second—and it does.
Heart jumping, I stare at the message, another from Daniel Jensen:
Why did everyone lie about Paul Castle’s death?