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  “It certainly isn’t your charming demeanor.” Another crack. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re the bossiest sub alive?”

  “Gimme another strawberry.”

  “Carrot first.”

  David accepted the morsel from Sean’s fingertips, catching them lightly with his teeth.

  “Good. That’s all you have to do, understand? No more words.”

  David nodded, opening his mouth again when a bit of strawberry was pressed to his lips. A panicked voice told him to review his presentation again, but he ignored it. He knew the material. He’d run through it twenty times since last night, every time flawlessly, only to have that same panicked voice whisper you’re going to forget. You’re going to fuck it up.

  Sean’s hand stroked along the side of his jaw and David leaned into it, giving himself over to Sean’s control. He wasn’t going anywhere. He could let himself relax.

  “I like you like this,” Sean told him, and David almost said something sassy before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be talking. He accepted a piece of cucumber, eating it silently. He wondered if Sean was watching him, and what David might look like, to him.

  He felt his face warming up. Who cared if Sean was watching him? Sean wasn’t his dom. They weren’t…involved. They just had a string of ongoing one-time things. Sean was helping him out. Totally casual.

  David heard a desk drawer opening, and he ran a quick inventory of the stuff he kept in there, trying to figure out what Sean was going for.

  Another piece of fruit was pressed to his mouth, the juice cool against his tongue.

  A moment later, he felt Sean’s hands at his throat, unbuttoning his shirt. He shifted slightly, as much as the bindings would allow, but Sean didn’t react. He worked his way slowly down David’s body, baring him to the air inch by inch.

  “I want you to stay very still,” Sean directed.

  David nodded. A moment later, something sharp scraped across his skin, just above his belly button.

  Letter opener, he concluded, and shivered. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut him, but the pointed tip was doing an excellent job of diverting his attention.

  “Open,” Sean commanded, and David opened his mouth, taking in another slice of cucumber.

  The letter opener flicked across his nipple and David winced. His body was tensed, trying to predict where the next scrape would come— but Sean was utterly silent.

  He’d wear himself out soon enough, David knew. His body would give up anticipating, and simply accept things as they came.

  He was looking forward to it.

  Sean spent the next twenty minutes of their break alternating between the lunchbox and the letter opener, and by the time he was done, David was half leaning against one of his knees, too spaced to hold himself up properly.

  David knew he was a mess, his shirt shoved down around his arms, his skin criss-crossed with thin red scratches. He didn’t care. In this moment he was utterly content.

  Sean’s fingertips rested against his jaw, turning his face up, and David let himself be moved. His lips parted, to accept whatever Sean had to offer.

  The cool flesh of the strawberry mixed with the warm pressure of Sean’s mouth as the dom kissed him, offering him the fruit held between his teeth. David took it eagerly, licking the remnants of the juice from Sean’s lips.

  Sean’s lips vanished with the blindfold, leaving David blinking in the sudden light. Sean’s palm cupped his face, smoothing back his ruffled hair.

  “Welcome back,” the dom told him. “Ready for your meeting?”

  David expected the voice, then — the dark one that told him he was weak and pathetic. It didn’t come. He had this, and he knew it.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, and Sean smiled.

  Chapter Eight

  Sean wasn’t his dom.

  It was getting harder to tell himself that.

  For one thing, his coworkers had begun to greet Sean by name. It embarrassed David to no end, but Sean took it in stride, returning their smiles and greetings and giving no indication that he was about to take his belt off and strap one of their officemates bright red.

  They were happy for David, too. His work was improving and more than one person had remarked that he looked happier.

  Which, okay, was probably because of Sean.

  But it was only because Sean was domming him on the regular. They’d been meeting at Sean’s place after work a couple times a week for the last…what, eight months? Maybe? David wasn’t happier because of Sean specifically, though. He probably could have gotten the exact same effect from random scenes, if he’d had them this often.

  The wire brush slipped up the side of his thigh, dragging David back to the present…back to Sean’s bedroom. He writhed in the suspension bond, biting down on the thick leather gag. The muscles tensed and relaxed under the brush, the whole area lost in static as the electrical current slipped along his skin. Sean was talking, and it took David a moment to realize that there was a question in there.

  “Gr-green, sir,” David mumbled through the gag. He tensed his hand, ensuring that the heavy metal weight still rested in his palm. The sound of the weight clattering to the floor served as his current safeword.

  The brush touched him again, trailing fire along the curve of his iliac crest. David realized he was sweating, his entire body struggling against the ropes that bound him. They offered little leeway.

  Sean continued up his body, dabbing here and there— across his belly, his ribs, his nipples, the thin skin of his underarms. He moved up David’s arms and back down, brushing along his sides and hips. David could feel the brush getting closer to his cock— he wasn’t sure if Sean would go there. He couldn’t decide which prospect he feared more.

  The brush slipped up the seam of his groin and David screamed, clamping his teeth down onto the gag. The brush withdrew and David waited for it to come down again, his body flushed and trembling, anticipating the pain. Tears leaked from his eyes and he whimpered, knowing what was coming, powerless to stop it.

  The estim unit clicked off and David broke, collapsing into the rope’s embrace. His breath came slow and heavy as he waited.

  “I’d like to try something,” Sean said. David nodded mutely, unable to ignore the nervous flutter in his stomach.It strengthened when he felt Sean’s hands on him, huge and firm, stroking down over his belly. His cock had half-softened under the onslaught from the brush, but now it twitched, filling again when Sean got dangerously close.

  David could imagine those fingers inside him, slick and cool, working him open, and he couldn’t pretend any more that he didn’t want it.

  “Do you know what you have in your hand?” Sean asked quietly, and David whimpered. He turned the metal weight over in his palm, trying to recognize the shape. He felt a metal cylinder, an inch in diameter, a little longer than the length of his hand.

  David shook his head. A moment later, he felt Sean’s hands at the nape of his neck, unfastening the gag.

  “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

  David frowned beneath the blindfold. He had a guess, but if he guessed wrong, he was going to look very, very stupid. Stupid and needy.

  Sean’s lips ghosted against his mouth and David used the distraction, leaning into the dom and kissing him, deep and hungry. Sean was close enough that David’s aching cock was pressed to his belly, leaving streaks of precome on the clean cotton of his shirt. David didn’t care, he wanted.

  Sean broke the kiss, pulling back and leaving David to the ropes that bound him.

  “What would you guess, David?”

  David took a breath.

  “A…a plug, sir?”

  “Very good.”

  David felt Sean’s fingers on his palm and he relaxed, lettin
g Sean take the plug from him.

  “And you know what it’s made of?”

  “Metal, sir.”

  “Good. Care to venture a guess as to why?”

  The pieces connected in David’s fuzzy brain, and he groaned, straightening in his restraints.

  “Because it…it’s electrified, sir.”

  Sean leaned in, kissing him again. David let him, a little light-headed with the prospect of what Sean was proposing.

  “What do you think, David?” the dom whispered in his ear, and David’s cock twitched back to attention. “Think you could handle that for me?”

  “Yes,” David breathed. “Yes, master, I want it, please.”

  For a moment, the anticipation of being plugged kept his brain hazy, and he didn’t realize what he’d said.

  Sean didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge the slip, but David’s stomach dropped.

  Sean wasn’t his dom. Wasn’t his master. This…wasn’t that. They’d been pretty clear about that, both of them, from the start.

  The thoughts disappeared from David’s mind when he felt Sean’s hand between his legs, long fingers delving into the crease between his half-spread thighs. There was something slick, too, easing his way. His fingertips found David’s puckered entrance, rubbing softly at the ring of muscle.

  “This is where you want it?” Sean asked him quietly.

  “Yes,” David moaned. He tried to roll his hips, to push Sean’s fingers deeper inside him, but he didn’t have the slack. The ropes held him tight and secure.

  Sean withdrew a moment later, leaving David hanging and unable to follow. He could hear the dom moving, but couldn’t tell what he was doing.

  And then, just a moment later, Sean was there, one arm around the back of David’s waist, his lips almost pressed to David’s ear. The hard tip of the plug nudged against David’s hole.

  “Think you can take this for me?” Sean asked, and David nodded. He tried to spread his legs wider, but the rope kept him immobile, just as Sean had promised.

  The blunt tip pushed inside of him and David moaned, relishing the stretch of it.

  “Relax, David. Let it in.”

  David did, letting the ropes take his weight as his body went slack. The plug widened, then narrowed, until the base was nestled right up against his hole. David expected Sean to pull away, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he eased the plug back out, only part of the way, and David realized that it was actually ridged. He moaned low as Sean repeated the motion, plunging it in before slowly withdrawing. He whimpered at the thought, at the feeling, and his cock was rock hard against his belly because Sean was fucking him with this toy. No two ways about it.

  “May I have the gag back, sir?”

  Sean hesitated, stilling with the plug half out of David’s body.

  “Of course,” he answered, and then the plug was seated deep inside David again, and the thick leather bar was being fastened between his teeth. David was grateful. Another minute and he would have been begging Sean to fuck him, and he wasn’t ready to go there.

  Not yet.

  He began to tremble as Sean knelt between his legs, fastening the wire leads to the flared base of the plug. A set of adhesive pads adhered to the inside of David’s thighs. David didn’t know what those were for, but he could guess.

  Sean stepped back, and David began to breathe hard. Any second now, Sean was going to turn on the power and he had no idea how that was going to feel.

  “Beg me for it,” Sean told him, and David realized that there were tears running down his cheeks. He hung helpless, the ropes holding him like a lover’s embrace.

  “Please,” David mumbled through the gag. “Please, sir.”

  The current turned on with a click.

  David’s back arched, his teeth gritting tight on the gag, the sensation of the electricity amplified as he came.

  Chapter Nine

  David came down slowly, like drifting through a cloud.

  Sean had really outdone himself this time, and David had spent the last hour in a complicated suspension tie. Sean used a fine red nylon, and it supported David as comfortably as a hammock.

  Or at least, it would have been comfortable, except that David had been damn near upside-down, knees hooked around a hanging spreader bar, arms bound crossed behind his back. Some kind of rig encircled his chest, forcing his back to arch sharply when Sean drew it tight.

  David wasn’t quite sure how all of it had worked, but Sean had taken pictures. He’d figure it out later.

  For now, he was content to lay on Sean’s bed, letting Sean rub aloe into the bruising strap marks on his chest and belly. The pressure stung, but the pain was reassuring, like the deep ache accompanying a good workout. It let him know he was strong. He’d done it.

  He’d hit yellow about 80% of the way through the scene and Sean had held perfectly, laying the flog across David’s front in coordinated, overlapping stripes.

  Sean used his hands to soothe, now, stroking across his shoulders, and David felt the dom’s weight above him. He blinked in the sudden light as Sean lifted the blindfold, peeking beneath.

  “Hi,” he said, grinning.

  “Hi,” David answered. Sean’s face was only inches away, David could just lean up and—

  “I don’t like this flogger,” Sean said, interrupting his train of thought. “It’s too long, it’s wrapping around. Could you feel it?”

  Sean withdrew and David sat up, blinking. Now that he was paying attention, he could see the deep red marks where the ends of the tails had flicked across his ribs.

  “No, I didn’t…it felt fine,” David said absently, staring at the marks. The welts were raised and angry, obscuring even the stunted designation pattern. They shone with aloe, but beneath that, some of them were bleeding sluggishly.

  “I think I can trim them back, so they won’t do that,” Sean said, but he was watching David’s face closely. “Or I can throw it out, if you’d rather not take the risk.”

  “No,” David said. The rope marks on his wrist was still visible when he lifted his hand to probe gently at the wounds. “No, I liked it. I like the marks.”

  They’re perfect, he thought. They’re punishment and they belong there.

  He imagined being marked like that all the time, the welts and scabs of a whipping obscuring the ugly high-sub marks. His designation would still be obvious, but at least it would be clear he wasn’t proud of it. Not like Sean was.

  “Do it again,” David said suddenly, looking Sean in the eye. “We don’t need the rope, just, just that.”

  He gestured to the flog, lying discarded near the frame they’d been using.

  Sean frowned.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, mostly,” David answered, sitting up and indicating the wound. “Except, look. Look how fucking good this looks. You can do it again, right?”

  David slid off the bed, crossing the room to retrieve the flog. He turned, handing it back to Sean.

  “I want you to cover me. Just, go as hard as you can, until it’s raised all, all…”

  He gestured across his chest and arms, all the places where his designation marred his skin. He knew how hard Sean could hit. It’d hurt like a bitch but he needed it, he deserved it. If he was going to crave this, to love it, then he was going to do it right—

  He pushed the flog into Sean’s hands, backing up and lacing his hands behind his neck.

  “C’mon. Please.”

  Sean stood, approaching him slowly. The flog remained discarded on the bed.

  Sean’s fingers traced over the sore welts, making David wince.

  “I’m going to trim the tails,” Sean said firmly.

  “Why?” David asked, “Why, don’t you like it? Kno
wing you did that to me, that you can do that to me? That’s what does it for you, right?”

  “Not like this. David, sit down. I’m going to get some water and a protein bar, and I want you to stay here until I get back with it.”

  David stared at him for a long moment, and then dropped to the bed. His fingers twitched over the flog, but he didn’t pick it up.

  Sean disappeared out into the hallway, and David watched him go, suddenly angry. David was holding up his end of the arrangement. He’d at least tried everything Sean had come up with. The payoff was that David was supposed to be able to set the boundaries.

  Regardless of the fantasies David had conjured in the time they’d spent together, Sean wasn’t his dom. It wasn’t his damn responsibility to determine what David needed.

  David scowled, standing again and casting around the room for his discarded clothes. He didn’t need this. He’d handled himself just fine for years before Sean showed up. The flog was great, but if he wanted this done right, wanted to be punished like he deserved, he was apparently going to need to do it himself.

  He pulled his boxers on, letting his hands linger over the parallel scars above his knee. They looked like the high-sub markings, but in the wrong place. These had come after, they’d been put there on purpose when David had needed to be punished and couldn’t find anyone who could do it for him.

  He’d done it before.

  He could do it again.

  David closed his eyes, picturing the straight razor, the way it would feel as it opened him. It would hurt for days, itch and pull for weeks, reminding him that he was a fuckup, that he’d gotten weak.

  “David?”

  Sean’s voice came from somewhere he couldn’t see, and David realized he was on his knees. His shirt was clutched between his fists, and he vaguely remembered leaning down to pick it up.