Chapter 33
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
“Can I kiss you?”
He backs up a step and runs a hand through his hair.
“Don’t fucking ask me, Marcus.” Then he groans.
“This is what I was afraid of. Fuck. This is a bad idea.” He starts pacing like I had, but I’m still trying to understand how I got this wrong.
“I always fall for guys who are already half a step from running. I’m not judging you. I’m telling you the truth about me.”
He stops and holds my gaze too long. “Fuck it. I can’t help what I feel.
I want to be yours—totally. Whenever I’m not running my fucking company, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of time, by the way.
But when I’m with you?” His face goes red.
“I want you in charge. I want rules. I want to feel you there even when you’re not touching me.
My head is a bad neighborhood, Marcus. Control like this turns the lights on.
I know you barely know what any of this means, but I’d love to teach you. ”
How is this what he wants? How is this what I want?
The darkness inside me doesn’t care. It takes the shape of my father’s fist closing around my entire life, and it’s his voice that comes out of me.
“I want that.”
“Yeah. I got that.” He laughs. “Here’s the thing. There have to be ground rules. For me, I can do surrender, pain, devotion, whatever.” His voice catches. “What I absolutely cannot do is be discarded. I can’t have you waking up with regret and disappearing like I was a mistake you can just delete.”
I reach for him, and this time he lets me pull him closer.
“If we do this,” he says against my chest, “promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“If you need space, just say it. If you’re scared, you can tell me. Just don’t fucking vanish on me.”
I want to promise him the world, but my mouth is too practiced at saying things that aren’t true.
“I won’t vanish,” I say. “Not on purpose.”
He snorts. “Well, that’s not very reassuring.”
“You really want this?” I ask, still waiting for his answer to change.
“I fucking need this, Marky.”
Wanting this feels wrong. But—
“Get on the bed.” The sound of my own voice scares me.
Jake sits at the edge of the bed without hesitation, excitement bright across his face, as the thrill of his obedience silences all my own warnings.
“You know I can’t do—”
“I’m not going to push you after what that monster did,” I say, walking over to where he’s seated. “I think you’ve earned this.”
I lift my forearm between us, close enough he can feel my heat. “Open your mouth.”
When he does, I tighten slowly, flexing until the vein pops and the muscle almost touches his lips.
“Oh, fuck me. Okay,” he says, breath hot on my arm. “Yes. This is it. This is what I want.”
“What is it?”
He lunges for my arm, and I pull it away.
“I asked you a question,” I say, smiling, riding the buzz he’s set under my skin.
He’s grinning so wide it takes all of my restraint to keep from crashing into him.
“Your…” His eyes sweep over me like he’s starving. “Your fucking gorgeous body.”
I hook my fingers under my shirt and lift it just enough to show him what he’s asking for. “This?”
His whole body surges forward again, then he catches himself, shaking with the effort. “Yes. Please. Let me worship you. I—” His voice slips. “I’ve been thinking about you. When I’m alone.”
“Do it.”
Jake wraps his hands around my back to pull us as close together as we can get while I stand over him.
His tongue tracks between my abs while his hands bunch my shirt higher.
I strip it off, and his touch travels up my chest to my biceps.
I flex beneath his stare. He grips my arm the way I gripped Brad’s. Except that was theater, and this—
I don’t know what this is, but it’s exactly what I want, even if it’s horrible.
My cock strains against my zipper, only this time Jake’s face is inches away, and his hands are on my body instead of in Alistair’s restraints. It’s way too good to be true, so I label it as bad, and cup his face anyway.
“Take my pants off.”
Jake opens my belt and eases the linen down until it pools around my feet. I step clear, but he doesn’t reach for my cock. His palms close around my calves instead, thumbs pressing into the ridges that tighten when I shift my weight.
He leans in and kisses just below my knee, then follows the inside of my thigh upward. One hand stays curled around my lower leg while the other follows his mouth, the backs of his fingers brushing beneath my balls. My hips jump, and he smiles against my skin.
When he looks up from between my legs, there’s something almost reverent in his expression. Seeing him like this softens my next command. I slide my fingers into his hair and tilt his face toward mine.
“Kiss me.”
The order comes out soft enough to betray how badly I need it.
He reaches for me. I bend, and our lips touch, part, then meet again. On the second kiss, his arms close around my back and pull me down over him until my cock settles against his thigh.
I want to ravage him. Instead, I peel off his towel with a gentleness that surprises me.
“Good. Now”—I brace over him and lift my bicep between us again—“take your time appreciating your reward.”
I tighten beneath his palms, letting the muscle swell into his grip.
Jake whimpers as he kisses it.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“Say what you’re doing.”
His hands slide, tracing the shape, thumbs pressing into the hardest part like he wants to leave an imprint of his touch.
“I’m—” He swallows. “I’m worshipping you.”
“Louder.”
“I’m worshipping you, Marky.”
Mine. He wants to be mine.
“Good boy,” I say. I hate the way my voice sounds like my father’s even though I love the way it makes Jake shiver.
“Yes,” he gasps. “Don’t stop saying that. Please.”
I close my eyes, fighting the urge to be cruel just to see if he’ll still look at me like I’m holy. When I open them, I choose control instead.
“Then keep at it,” I tell him. “Like you mean it.”
Jake is moving before I finish, so eager to obey that wanting this becomes louder than being afraid of it.
He takes his time with one arm, then the other, before returning to my chest and stomach. His hand slides beneath the last ridge of my abs, and I realize he’s doing all the work, which can’t be right after everything he’s been through.
“No.” I catch him before he can go lower. “Let me. Tell me if anything changes.”
Jake pauses, his gaze fixed on my cock like stopping now would be its own kind of failure.
“Maybe we should… flip around?” he suggests, breathless. “Please?”
Of course that’s his compromise. He’ll let me take care of him only if receiving becomes another way to serve me.
I roll onto my back and guide him over me until his thighs bracket my head and his mouth hovers above my cock.
His dick hangs inches from my face, thick and flushed, the head darker than the shaft and shining with a bead of precum.
A vein pulses along the underside, close enough that I could trace it with my tongue.
I’ve seen plenty of dicks in locker rooms, but never one offered to me like this.
Hard for me. Waiting for me to decide what happens next.
Suddenly, I don’t know how to do this the way he deserves. I only know I want to.
Jake pauses with his mouth an inch from my cock and looks back over his shoulder. The reckless trust in that look scares me more than being this close to his dick.
“What should I do?” he asks.
I choose a simple command. Anything else risks sounding like what I’ve spent a lifetime trying to escape. “Suck me slow and easy.” Then something more slips out. “Don’t stop until I come down your throat.”
Jake obeys with a groan.
I take him into my mouth, caught off guard by my own eagerness to suck my first dick.
When his thighs tense around my head, I swallow another inch.
And fuck, he’s doing far worse to me. His lips are warm around me, every slow draw sending a tremor through my body.
I match his pace while keeping hold of the darkness I’ve started letting loose.
Don’t stop until I come down your throat? That’s no way to start a happily ever after.
I work him faster with my hand and mouth while pressing deeper between his lips. So long as my mouth is full, there’s no way for me to give any more orders.
Jake releases me just long enough to gasp, “Marky, I’m close,” then closes his lips around me again.
“Me too.” I almost undo my order and tell him I want to finish somewhere other than his throat. But my toes are curling. He’s not slowing down. And—
Jake’s cock jerks between my lips and fist, hot cum flooding my mouth and spilling over my knuckles as a relieved grunt vibrates around me.
Before I can move, he reaches back, catches my wrist, and guides my slick palm down to my stomach, spreading himself across my abs as they tense beneath our joined hands.
Watching him lose control because of me—because of this body he can’t stop worshipping—snaps mine. Every muscle clenches as I come down his throat, with nothing left but the obscene sweetness of him wanting this as badly as I do.
Jake lets out a broken laugh, unwinds from above me, and drops onto the pillow beside mine.
“Hi,” he says, like we’re meeting for the first time.
We barely know each other. This can’t be real. So how can he look at me like that? Like I’m safe?
“You still here?” he whispers, joking, except it’s not funny. “Because that was shockingly good for your first time.”
My face burns. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Impressive learning curve.” A yawn breaks through as he pulls my arm around himself and rolls onto his side, scooting back until we fit with his spine tucked to my chest. “For future reference, I like cuddles after. I also like Skittles, but we can discuss my many needs later. I’m sorry, Marky. I’m exhausted.”
“Don’t apologize,” I say, holding him carefully, afraid that if I breathe wrong I’ll break whatever spell let this happen.
“You can breathe, Marky.”
I exhale and lose more than air. I lose the moment. In the darkness of Alistair’s bungalow, the world seeps back in through all my cracks.
My own voice echoes loudest. Get on the bed. Open your mouth. Good boy. I’d said those words. And the thing that got out in the playroom had loved every second of Jake obeying them.
It has my father’s voice. Alistair’s hands.
Jake hums again, content.
Can I give him what he asked for? The answer arrives with cold righteousness. If he needs control to feel safe, he’s already damaged. And if I enjoy wielding it this much, I’m exactly the kind of man who could damage him further.
Jake shifts, half-asleep, pressing into me to make sure I’m still here.
“Don’t vanish,” he murmurs, barely conscious.
I hold him tighter, because his warmth almost lets me forget that I’m the wrong man to be holding anyone. I don’t know how to be what he wants without becoming what I hate.
So in the dark, while he drifts toward sleep, my mind begins to do what it always does when something is true.
It starts building a lie.