Chapter Nine
AJ
I’m going to seriously owe JJ for this. I never call off a shift, nor do I ever have anything come up, and he knows that. Which only cements the fact that I’m probably hitting some sort of mid-life crisis or something, because why else would I call out from my job to watch a grown man all day?
Ok, he’s not grown-grown, like me, but he’s still an adult.
Shadows wouldn’t have let him in if he wasn’t at least twenty-one, so I know he’s legal to drink, but that doesn’t make it any better.
Clearly he doesn’t know his limits, which I’ll have to talk to him about, just so he knows if he gets in a pinch, he has a way out.
Too many people think they’re a burden and would rather suffer than ask for help, even when it’s something as small as a ride because you’ve had too much to drink.
I don’t want Nate to feel like he doesn’t have options, if he needs them.
He’s new to town, and I don’t know if he plans on staying or not once everything gets settled with the Barrett Estate, but regardless, while he’s here, I’m sure he could use a friend.
Someone to look out for him. Someone to make sure he’s safe, and okay.
I do the same thing for Lacey and JJ, and the guys.
It’s not all that different from what I do for them.
It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.
Except there’s a part of me that wishes it could be.
I don’t exactly have sex on the brain when I’m pulling people out of burning buildings, so I’m not assuming anyone’s sexuality or preferences.
But after last night—after seeing Nate at the club with fucking Beck and seeing him hard beneath me, as I took his fucking pants off, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume Nate isn’t straight.
Or maybe he is, and last night was just a one off, but something tells me that’s not the case.
Which in reality, shouldn’t matter to me at all, but I can’t help the stupid little spark that wants to catch inside of me at the possibility that Nate could be into men, like me.
That he could be into me. Problem is, if I let that little spark go, it will get bigger and soon enough it’ll become something I can’t control.
I know that, and I can’t afford to go down that road again.
Though calling JJ and claiming I had a family emergency might have been a little too overkill, and I have a feeling JJ is going to demand some answers when I see him next.
I just don’t know what I’m going to say, because what can I say?
I rescued a guy from a fire, then saved him from an asshole dom and took him home, let him sleep in my bed and made him breakfast and didn’t want to let him out of my sight?
Even I know that sounds obsessive. And a little creepy, if you consider the…
other stuff. Like how Nate kept touching himself while moaning in my ear when I tried to tell him to stop, or how I found him this morning in my bathroom, half-naked, coming like a fucking firehose over my bathroom floor.
Yeah, those visuals are definitely not helping to quell the feverish spark that’s formed inside my damn chest when it comes to this man.
This young, attractive young man who I rescued and shouldn’t even be thinking about in any capacity because technically my job is done.
It was done the night I pulled him from that fire, and it damn well should be done now that I know he’s alright and not in danger of being taken advantage of by that asshole, Beck and his Daddy dom.
Nate’s young. Curious. Maybe even a little naive, judging by the way he didn’t seem to know much about kink, despite being at a sex club that specifies in it.
Which means he’s impressionable. Easy to mold; to manipulate.
I’ve never trained a sub before. My partners have always been well-versed in the lifestyle, which is what I prefer because it’s easier to negotiate with someone who knows what they want, what they like, and what they don’t, rather than someone who is just getting into the scene and hasn’t experienced things yet.
I’ve heard plenty of stories from the other doms in the workshops about how that never ends well for either party.
The crux of this dynamic is built on trust, and if you don’t know your limits or the power of a safeword or boundaries, you wind up putting yourself in dangerous situations.
Most of us know that because we’ve been there, and it’s why we prefer partners who are part of the lifestyle as opposed to fresh meat.
Unless, of course, taking advantage of the ill-informed is your kink, like some people.
Which is why I should keep my distance, for both our sakes.
Clearly Nate Barrett is dealing with enough shit in his life, that the last thing he needs is a fucked-up firefighter with daddy issues who can’t stop thinking inappropriate things about him to poison him with knowledge he’ll never be able to unknow that might fuck him up in the process.
So unprofessional.
Not to mention, the last thing I need is to mix business with pleasure again. That worked out so well the last time, and I more than learned my lesson, there and am not in any hurry to repeat it.
But as I brace my hands on the dryer, waiting for the cycle to finish up, I can’t help but think about JJ’s words; the advice he’d given the last time I saw him.
When he told me he was worried I was becoming a fucking hermit and encouraged me to get out more.
I brushed him off, of course. Told him I didn’t need to go out to have a good time, and I was fine with how things were.
I know he wanted to press me, but he didn’t.
Probably because he knew I’d tell him the same fucking thing.
So instead, we changed the subject, drank our beers, and went home to our too quiet houses, ignoring the truth for just a little while longer.
I glance up at the ceiling, the sound of the water rushing in the pipes above me drawing my attention.
I swore I wasn’t going to go back to Shadows after last week.
Not because my experience with Jackson was bad by any means; I mean, it was pretty normal stuff for us, considering how often we’ve worked together, and we both got what we wanted.
It felt good at the time. Good enough, anyway. I came.
But I didn’t feel the way I usually do after I come with a sub, and I’m a firm believer that if something isn’t working, you don’t force it.
Still, when Jackson asked me to sign off on his hours for his certification, I guess there was a part of me that felt guilty about everything, so I felt like helping out a friend was the least I could do, and now…
Now there’s a beautiful young man upstairs, naked in my bathroom, with hot water sluicing down his skin in my shower… and I don’t know what to do.
My cock twitches with excitement, my brain already forming a hundred scenes I could play out with him.
It would be so easy to just… walk upstairs, into the bathroom, and push the curtains aside and catch him by surprise.
I bet his eyes would go wide and he’d gasp; his cheeks would blush that perfect shade of pink that makes my cock jump just thinking about it.
Which makes me think about other places his skin might pink up and all the different ways I could make his blood rush to elicit that response.
Something tells me he wouldn’t mind one bit if I got in the shower and shoved him against the wall and ordered him to get on his knees and wrap those beautiful lips around my fat cock.
But that doesn’t mean I should.
I want to. Fuck, the thought of doing just that makes my cock throb, and I can already feel precum pebbling at my cockhead from the image of Nate on his knees before me, looking up at me with those big, blue-green eyes, biting that plump lower lip of his with a a look of hunger that echoes my own.
It shouldn’t be this hard to ignore my impulses, being as I’ve done it before, and up until recently, I’ve kept this part of my life locked down.
I thought I threw away the damn key when Cal broke my heart and my trust.
But Nate is… there’s something different about him, something I can’t quite put into words because it’s more of a feeling than something tangible; it’s something that plucks chords I haven’t had plucked in a long fucking time, and it’s really hard to resist.
I knew I was into kink long before I knew I was gay.
I just didn’t know that what I liked wasn’t typical.
I thought the restraint stuff was just interesting, and most of it centered around a certain theme—submission.
Men tied up and blindfolded. Men strapped to St. Andrew’s Crosses.
Men bound and gagged and stuffed full of cock, crying because it hurt or because it felt so good.
That changed all the time for me. Some days, I wanted the pain, and some days I wanted the pleasure.
I don’t remember when I chose the pain over the latter, but I guess it’s what I prefer when it comes to my desires.
Giving my subs the pleasure they crave is what brings me the most pleasure.
And the only way I can give them that, is if they submit to me—to my demands, my orders, my pleasure.
It wasn’t until my dad caught me watching porn and jacking off that I even realized that type of porn wasn’t the kind I was supposed to be watching.
At least, according to my dad, who tried to steer me to straight porn, which did not have the same effect. At all.
But even then, I knew the difference between domination and submission.
I understood that when I watched those men getting bound and gagged or ordered around and spanked that even as hot as it was—and it was hot—it wasn’t about the sex.
It was about being that close, trusting someone that much that you’d do anything they asked.
I wanted to feel that kind of intensity.
I wanted to make someone feel that good; to find the pleasure beyond the pain.
I wanted someone to make me feel that level of ecstasy, that rush, that high of complete exaltation.
But most of all, I wanted to trust someone enough that I could let them into my shadows, and know they’d understand me even if I couldn’t understand myself.
I’ve served enough subs that I know I like taking care of them, and that’s part of the draw for me.
Making decisions for them, cooking for them, buying them clothes and doing things for them.
Most of the subs I’ve had are pretty familiar with the dynamic of this type of power exchange, and those things are negotiated at the beginning of a contract of what sort of care will be given, what sort of language will be acceptable, and what sort of limits and boundaries will be set in place.
It’s all orchestrated, scripted. I know my role, and they know theirs, and I know what I can and can’t do.
It takes a lot of control and patience to lose control, and a lot of trust and faith that the person you give it to won’t hurt you, and if they do…
They’ll do whatever it takes to put you back together and make sure you’re okay. Not every scene ends with an orgasm, and not every orgasm makes you feel good, even if it’s what you wanted.
But Nate’s not a sub. He doesn’t seem to have that spark of wanting to obey, or needing to please like most of my ex-subs.
Even Cal, asshole that he was, needed to be broken to feel like he was whole.
Forced into submission by a strong hand.
The domination was what he needed to feel like he could breathe, because of his high-stress job—and the secrets he was keeping.
Which isn’t as uncommon as many people think.
But even on some level, Cal wanted to listen.
He wanted to obey me because that’s what made him feel in control.
Giving it up meant he could just sit back and let someone else take the wheel, someone else could call the shots, and someone else could do all the hard work.
All he had to do was listen. Obey. Do I as I said, and I would give him what he wanted more than anything.
But Nate doesn’t want to listen. I don’t think he knows how.
I swear, I must have told him at least three times to sit his ass down, and it wasn’t until I pulled out my dom voice that he obeyed me.
But it wasn’t just the fact he finally did what I asked.
It was the way his entire body went stiff like a board and his pupils dilated and his breath caught from just my fucking tone, and he became someone else instantly before my eyes.
It was like I cracked some code in his head that he didn’t know was there, and that is the number one reason I should not pursue Nate Barrett in any way, shape, or form.
He’s not part of this world that is embedded in my DNA.
He’s a vanilla baby. A total clean slate, a slab of clay waiting to be molded.
He wouldn’t be the first curious person to wind up at Shadows because they want to take a walk on the dark side, but seeing his reaction to me makes me a little worried that he could be easily taken advantage of.
Especially if someone else is able to crack that code and realizes he can be shaped so easily.
Which is why I need to do what I can to make sure he’s safe, and that’s why I’m doing this.
That’s why I’m folding his fucking clothes and driving him to the insurance company, and why I’m going to inform him about the importance of knowing the rules when engaging in kink, and it’s why I’m going to help him find a job that won’t put him at the center of the pit of sin.
And I think I know just the place.