Chapter 27
Samuel
The familiar hush of The Crimson Knot enveloped Samuel like a second skin now, rich with the scent of leather and clean sweat.
This was his third visit, and the initial, choking terror had been sanded down to a low, constant hum of awareness; a live wire strung through his veins.
Gael’s arm was a solid band around his waist, a grounding weight as they stood at the periphery of the main lounge, their booth forsaken for a better vantage point.
The central podium was occupied.
Two men. The Dominant was older, with a closely shaved head and wide shoulders. He wore simple black trousers and nothing else. The submissive was younger, slender, sitting on a chair before a table that held a silver bowl. His back was a pale, elegant curve, his head bowed.
“Ice play,” Gael murmured, his voice a low vibration against Samuel’s temple. “Sensation. Not pain. The shock of extreme cold, followed by the rush of blood returning.”
Samuel watched, mesmerized.
The Dom took a handful of glistening chips from the bowl.
He held his hand above the sub’s back, letting a few pieces scatter and skitter down the knobs of his spine.
The sub gasped, a sharp, visible shudder rippling through his shoulders.
The Dom’s other hand came up, a large palm splayed between his shoulder blades, holding him steady, anchoring him through the shock.
Then, methodically, the Dom began tracing patterns.
He dragged a single, melting cube along the sub’s flank, following the line of his ribs.
He pressed a cluster against the nape of his neck.
Each touch elicited a jerk, a hitched breath, a low whimper that was more surprise than distress.
The Dom’s face was a mask of intense observation, watching the skin bloom from pale to a vivid, reactive pink.
He would pause, lean close, and whisper something.
The sub would nod, his breathing ragged but his posture remaining willingly open, offered.
The ice melted, leaving wet, glistening trails.
The sub’s skin was flushed now, alive and sensitized.
The Dom ran a dry, warm hand over the cooled areas, and the sub arched into the touch with a soft, broken sound of relief.
The contrast was the entire point, Samuel understood.
The sharp, shocking cold, making the simple warmth of skin feel like a blessing.
Then the Dom’s hands moved to the sub’s waist, guiding him up from the chair. He turned him, bending him forward over the padded bench instead. The sub went willingly, his chest flat against the leather, his flushed back presented. The Dom unfastened his own trousers.
Samuel’s breath caught. He knew, intellectually, that sex happened here. But seeing the implicit become explicit, in the soft, public light of the podium, sent a jolt through him that was entirely different from watching impact play.
The Dom didn’t rush. He took a bottle of oil from the table, poured a generous amount into his palm.
Samuel watched, unable to look away, as those slick, strong fingers prepared the submissive, working him open slowly.
The sub’s face was turned to the side, his eyes screwed shut, lips parted on panting breaths.
A low, continuous moan spilled from him, a sound of profound need.
Gael’s arm tightened imperceptibly around Samuel’s waist. His lips were close to Samuel’s ear. “Being watched,” he whispered, the words a warm puff of air that made Samuel shiver. “It’s a kink for some. Exhibitionism. For them, the audience is part of the play. It heightens everything.”
The Dom positioned himself. He gripped the sub’s hips, and with a single, steady push, he sheathed himself inside him.
A punched-out cry tore from the sub’s throat, echoing softly in the quiet of the room.
And then he began to move.
It was not lovemaking. It was fucking. The Dom set a punishing pace from the start, each deep, driving thrust rocking the sub’s body forward against the bench.
The sound of skin meeting skin was a sharp, wet counterpoint to the music; a crisp, obscene clap that repeated, and repeated, filling the space between Samuel’s own heartbeats.
The submissive was lost. His moans were continuous now, ragged, desperate things that rose and fell with the rhythm of the thrusts.
He clutched at the edges of the bench, his knuckles white, his face a mask of ecstasy.
Tears tracked from the corners of his closed eyes, mingling with the sweat on his temples.
Samuel couldn’t breathe. The air in the club felt too thick, too hot.
Gael’s breath on his ear was a brand. The visuals were searing themselves into his brain: the flex of the Dom’s powerful back, the helpless, rocking jerk of the sub’s body, the sheer, unvarnished carnality of it.
The sounds were worse; the slick, driving rhythm, the choked, pleasured sobs, the low, guttural grunts of effort from the Dom.
His own body was a traitor. Arousal, hot and urgent, coiled tight in his gut, a throbbing, insistent pressure that made the fine wool of his trousers feel like sandpaper.
He was painfully, impossibly hard. He was glad for the dim light, for the shelter of Gael’s body beside him.
He felt exposed, as if the entire room could see the effect the scene was having on him, could see the want that was a physical ache between his legs.
He was transfixed. Horrified. And deeply, irrevocably aroused.
For a terrifying, exhilarating second, he wasn’t watching the slender submissive on the podium.
He was feeling the bite of the bench against his own cheek, the shocking, full stretch, the brutal, perfect rhythm that would erase every thought in his head.
And the man behind him, driving into him, wasn’t a stranger with a shaved head.
He didn’t dare look at Gael. He kept his eyes fixed on the podium, on the sweat-slicked bodies, on the beautiful, filthy truth of the act, while his own heart hammered a frantic, silent prayer against his ribs.
The sounds from the podium seemed to recede, folding into a dull, throbbing background noise. The only rhythm that mattered was the frantic one behind his own ribs, the only heat the one radiating from the man whose arm was a cage and a sanctuary around him.
The question left him without his permission. “What about you?”
Gael’s head turned slowly. In the shadowed light, his eyes were pools of ink, unreadable. “What about me?”
Samuel’s voice was a thread, almost lost beneath the wet slap of skin from the dais. “Do you like that? Being watched?”
They were so close. Samuel could feel the warmth of Gael’s breath on his lips, could see the faint, dark stubble along the hard line of his jaw.
The hand resting on Samuel’s hip twitched.
The fingers flexed, tightening their grip through the fabric of his shirt, a sudden, possessive spasm that sent a violent shiver straight down Samuel’s spine.
“No.”
Then Gael moved. He pulled, and Samuel stumbled forward, off-balance, until they stood chest to chest. The contact was electric, a full-length shock that short-circuited Samuel’s thoughts. He could feel the solid wall of Gael’s torso, the latent strength in his frame. Every nerve ending screamed.
Gael leaned in. He didn’t kiss him. He pushed his face into the hollow of Samuel’s neck, a slow, deliberate nuzzle.
The bridge of his nose rubbed against the sensitive skin there, a rough, intimate caress that made Samuel’s knees go weak.
His lips brushed the shell of his ear, and his whisper was a low, dark current that bypassed his ears and went straight to his core.
“I am a selfish man, Samuel. I don’t share what’s mine.”
He paused, letting the declaration hang in the air between them, thick and undeniable. His mouth drifted lower, finding the frantic beat of Samuel’s pulse at the base of his throat. His lips parted.
“And you are mine, aren’t you?”
The words were a hot breath against his skin. Then Gael’s mouth latched onto his pulse point and sucked.
The sensation was devastating. Sharp, claiming, a bolt of pure, undiluted pleasure-pain that arced through Samuel’s entire body.
A broken whimper escaped him, his eyes squeezing shut as his head fell back, offering more.
His hands, which had been limp at his sides, flew up, gripping Gael’s biceps for balance.
His arm slid up, over Gael’s shoulder, around the strong column of his neck. His fingers tangled in the short, soft hair at his nape. And he pulled.
He pulled Gael’s mouth from his throat and onto his own.
The kiss began in stillness.
Samuel’s lips met Gael’s, and for a terrifying, endless second, nothing happened.
He had initiated it, but he had no idea what to do next.
His mouth was soft, hesitant, a question mark pressed against a period.
He held them there, barely breathing, the world reduced to the surprising softness of Gael’s lips, the faint taste of whiskey, the utter silence of the man in his arms.
He was new to this. Unused to being the one to start anything. His courage faltered. A flush of humiliation started to burn its way up his neck.
This was a mistake. He’d overstepped. He...
Gael made a sound. A low, rough hum deep in his chest, a vibration Samuel felt where their bodies touched.
His mouth moved. It opened over Samuel’s, and the kiss transformed from a question into an answer.
It was slow at first. Deliberate. A warm, wet slide that mapped the shape of Samuel’s lips, that coaxed his own to part further.
Gael’s tongue touched his; a slick, hot stroke that tasted of dark intention.
Samuel’s fingers were tangled in the soft wool of Gael’s sweater, his world reduced to the heat of Gael’s mouth, the scratch of stubble against his skin, the solid reality of the body pressed against him in the shadowed alcove.