Hollywood 5:

NUMBERS GAME

Tibby Armstrong

www.loose-id.com

Hollywood 5: Numbers Game

Copyright © April 2014 by Tibby Armstrong

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

eISBN 9781623007911

Editor: Kierstin Cherry

Cover Artist: April Martinez

Published in the United States of America

Loose Id LLC

PO Box 806

San Francisco CA 94104-0806

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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning

This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

* * * *

DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

Dedication

To Slick, for her continuing support of the Hollywood series. We in the romance community owe her so much!

Acknowledgment

Lisa Trejo, I can’t thank you enough for championing the Hollywood series and for your beta read of the rough copy of this book. You are a wonderful, amazing lady, and I’m privileged to know you.

Denise J. Tompkins, thank you for making me find Aaron’s story in all this. The book is richer because of your willingness to harangue me into doing the right thing. Only a true friend would put up with my antics!

Catharine Lindsey White, you saved my sanity yet again with your insights on Greg and Aaron. You’re an incredible woman and a dear friend.

Many thanks to the readers who asked to see behind Greg and Aaron’s sensual curtain more clearly. Greg fought me harder than usual on this one, but your enthusiasm prevailed. I’m glad it did, because rather than becoming the shallow sexual romp he and I were leery of, his and Aaron’s journey in this story brings them full circle and leaves Greg, especially, right where he needed to be.

Prologue

May, 2008

Aaron shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets and paced six feet of weed-infested sidewalk in front of the black door. Muffled music thudded through the walls of the club in one of LA’s seedier districts. A quick glance down the street showed pockets of darkness broken only by two working lights. Despite his black belt, the area made the hair on Aaron’s arms stand on end.

Gravel crunched, and he spun, his hands automatically jerking from his pockets. He scanned the parking lot. A red glow lit the night, and he relaxed. It was just someone out for a cigarette. Then that someone stepped from the shadows and approached.

“Aaron Blake?” The man blew smoke out of the side of his mouth and flicked the cigarette to the ground, where it glowed like a tiny hell mouth.

Aaron tore his gaze from the butt and approached the man. His dark hair and strong jaw matched the shadowed picture from the website where he advertised his services. “Master Dex?”

“Yeah. Sorry if you were waiting long.”

“Not too long.” Aaron shrugged and attempted to muster nonchalance, though he knew the guy had to have been observing him from the lot for the last twenty minutes. No cars had gone in or out since Aaron had arrived.

Dex jerked his head toward the black door. “Want to go in?”

The crawling feeling worked its way up Aaron’s shoulder blades to his nape. “Do you mind if we talk out here for a few?”

It was Dex’s turn to shrug. “Your dime.”

Aaron cleared his throat. “I just wanted to be clear about some ground rules.”

Leaning against the building facade, Dex kicked up a heel. “Sure.”

Aaron launched into his prepared speech. “I’m here to watch. I’m not interested in cheating on Greg, and I consider anything but learning to be cheating.”

Dex raised both brows. “You are aware there’re things I can’t teach without you doing them or feeling them—rigging, how to handle a cat, for instance.”

He was cognizant of those facts, but it was something they’d have to work around.

“I know. We’ll just have to take it as it comes.” He faced off with Dex, waiting to see what the professional Dom would say. The terms were nonnegotiable. If Dex balked, Aaron would leave right now and not look back.

Pulling a pack of cigarettes from the inner pocket of his leather jacket, Dex seemed to consider the problem. He bent his head, and his inky hair fell forward to obscure his face. When he looked up again, he spoke around the cigarette. “You could bring Greg. I can teach him too.”

A vision of Greg kneeling at Dex’s booted feet in sublime submission, his torso naked, and his eyes lowered, sent a hot surge of anger from Aaron’s middle to his extremities. Only years of practice kept him calm on the outside. Even breaths in and out cooled his blood. He listened to each one and found his center.

“Greg won’t ever play in public or with anyone but me,” Aaron said, the levelness of his voice surprising him. “Trust me on this.”

Even if Greg were the type of person to obviously display his sexual proclivities in public—which Aaron knew he was not—Aaron wouldn’t be able to withstand anyone leering at his lover. There was only so much vulnerability either of them could tolerate.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling him about our arrangement?” The cigarette flared red as Dex inhaled, casting a fiery glow across his black-painted fingernails.

Aaron shifted his gaze and stared at gray, weathered concrete, and he forced himself to reply to a question he’d been asking himself ever since he’d emailed Dex over two weeks ago.

“I don’t want to bring it up until I’m sure it’s something I can do without losing control.” There could be no more truthful answer, but fuck Dex if he thought Aaron was going into more detail than that.

When he looked up again, he found Dex eyeing him shrewdly.

“Someday, you’re going to go hard-core,” Dex said, as if the fact were even debatable.

Before tonight Aaron would’ve said he’d find the idea of being labeled a sadist distasteful. Instead, Dex’s assessment sent an unexpected surge of power up his spine. His cock hardened, though there was not a hint of sex on the air or in Dex’s statement.

“Well, that was a non sequitur,” Aaron said, not a little shaken. “Not to be rude, but you can’t possibly know who I am based on a five-minute conversation in a parking lot.”

“Unless you lied on your questionnaire, I’m betting I know quite a bit more than you think,” Dex said blandly, then nodded at the door. “Ready to go in?”

“Sure.” Aaron cleared his throat. “As long as we’re in agreement, about me and Greg that is.”

“Your show,” Dex answered with the confidence of someone who knew when, where, and how to take control.

“Then lead the way,” Aaron said, handing the figurative reins to his new mentor.

Six months, he figured. They’d work together for that long, and then he’d consider going to Greg with his plan to take their already kinky sex play to the next level. Aaron had never done anything behind Greg’s back before—especially not something so potentially life altering. As Dex held open the door, the music swelled—a gritty alternative tune Greg would love but that Aaron didn’t know in the slightest. He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders before stepping over the threshold.

One way or another, he was going to face down his demons and find out if the beast inside him could be allowed out of its cage. He hoped it could, because whether he liked it or not, he didn’t know how much longer it could be contained.

Chapter One

November, 2008

Aaron had been sitting in the car, watching the restaurant and the parking lot for over forty minutes. Greg had been known to be tardy while on a project, but not showing up at all wasn’t unusual for him either.

“He’s not coming.” Anyone watching from outside the vehicle would have thought Aaron spoke to himself.

Dex’s answer came from car speakers that were Bluetooth-connected to Aaron’s cell. “Then the game is on.”

Aaron gripped the steering wheel and scanned the parking area one more time. The restaurant lot had been steadily filling for the past half hour, but Greg’s black SUV hadn’t been among the stream of arrivals.

“I’m waiting another ten minutes.”

“Go now.” Dex’s reply sounded muffled as if he held the receiver under his chin and focused on something other than a conversation Aaron was paying good money to have. “He’s already late enough for you to trip him up.”

The steering wheel squeaked as Aaron wrung the leather in indecision. “I don’t want to play that kind of game with him. It’s dishonest.”

“You know all about mind fucks. They’re not dishonest. They’re part of the thrill for the sub.”

Aaron made a doubtful sound in the back of his throat.

Dex sighed. “You wanted to take the next step, see if he’s ready for heavier play. So take it.”

Six months ago when Aaron had wandered into that infamous LA club with Dex, he hadn’t truly pictured this moment of truth. His stomach churned with an uncharacteristic display of nerves. Against all reason, he pressed the Ignition button, and the car purred to life. The drive along the winding roads at sunset would be beautiful, but he doubted he’d notice a single detail.

“He’s going to be pissed,” Aaron muttered and pictured Greg’s dark scowl.

Dex snorted. “From what you say, pissed is his default.”

“He’s going to have a right to be pissed.” There was a difference between handling Greg’s anger and handling his righteous anger. For one, when someone else caused the emotion, Aaron knew how to defuse a hurting and confused Greg. When Aaron caused the pain, however, it was another story. “I haven’t lied to him. Ever.”

“Too late, sweetheart,” Dex said. “I told you to tell him at the beginning.”

“I wanted to be ready.” The words ran together in a guilty muddle.

“No, you didn’t.” Footsteps and the creak of a swinging door said Dex went somewhere, probably to his play space. “You wanted to control something you weren’t supposed to control. You were afraid he’d say no to this new you, and Greg isn’t allowed to say no the way you have things set up. Before you met me, you’d never even heard of a safe word.”

If he wasn’t driving, Aaron would have closed his eyes. Dex might be a professional Dom, but he was also a licensed psychologist, and he’d figured out the combination lock to the inside of Aaron’s skull six months ago. Hell, six months ago, Aaron hadn’t even been sure what kind of games he and Greg had been playing. It had all started as a way to give his lover some badly needed boundaries and had turned into something murkier where lines of sex and power blurred.

“So, tell me, Dr. Valenti,” Aaron demanded, his tone more acerbic than he normally allowed. “Why did you let me keep seeing you if you knew I would end up here?”

“And where, exactly, is here?” Dex asked.

Aaron blew out an exaggerated breath. “Here is me having all this knowledge but unable to tell Greg how I gained it without losing his trust. Trust, which you’ve made abundantly clear is a required component of this…this…game.”

Dex chuckled darkly, and six months of being tutored in bondage and beatings worked the dials of Aaron’s Pavlovian response. He shivered and navigated the next curve in the road by rote, seeing in his mind’s eye a man at Dex’s feet, his head cranked back and a large red ball gag in his mouth. Next, Greg’s face swam before Aaron, the same gag spreading his lips. Aaron’s cock awakened.

“You were supposed to end up here, Mr. Blake, so you could learn from your mistakes,” Dex said, then whispered, “Next time I tell you to heel, you’ll heel, won’t you?”

A moan reverberated across Aaron’s car speakers, and Aaron realized Dex hadn’t intended the last statement for him. He pictured that moan coming from Greg’s compliant lips and swallowed down a flood of saliva. Shifting in his seat, he adjusted the legroom in his trousers. Ultimately he’d learned all this so he could safely pleasure Greg and keep their relationship fresh. This was all about taking their sexual relationship to the next level. He had nothing to feel guilty for. Not really.

“I let you keep seeing me because we all have to work through our own shit—No. On your knees. You know better.” A sharp crack rent the air, and Aaron winced. He’d never slap Greg. Ever. That act would damage Greg’s sense of self-worth—and if there was one place Greg couldn’t take any more damage, it was to his ego. At one time Aaron might not have known why he wouldn’t do it, but he’d always known not to, even before Dex showed him the literal and figurative ropes. “If nothing else, you weren’t playing safe. You need to be safe, even if your games involve silk ropes and rose petals.”

Thinking of all the years he’d engaged in a pseudo Dominant/submissive relationship with Greg without really knowing what it was or what they were doing, Aaron shuddered. How many times had they done things where Aaron could’ve hurt Greg mentally or physically? This time, guilt wormed its way into Aaron’s middle unhindered.

“You know,” Aaron said, “I never thought of it in that way. It’s the way we are together. The way Greg expects me to be. How I’m comfortable being.”

“You know what I mean.” Heavy breathing and shallow cries formed the backdrop to Dex’s reply. “Slavery went out almost two centuries ago. You can’t own Greg. He has the right to say no.”

“And I always respected that. Even if I didn’t know what we were doing.”

“Did you?”

It was difficult to explain how the relationship with Greg worked. “I just know him. He likes the boundaries. Half the time I think he’s the one who’s setting them, not me.”

“You’re a self-centered fuck.” There was no passion to the insult, just matter-of-fact reality. “You let him top from the bottom because it keeps you from having to take responsibility for the relationship. For any consequences to your actions.”

Aaron’s gut clenched. How many times had his inner judge said the exact same thing? If there’d been a place to pull over, he would have. Instead he took calming, meditative breaths and tried to grasp for words that he’d been unable to find the entire time he’d been working with Dex.

“We went through hell together. It forms a bond. I’ve known him for over fifteen years. I’d never hurt him. He knows it.”

A rhythmic slapping took up in the background. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on what you’re doing?” Aaron asked.

“My assistant is taking care of him. You have my full attention,” Dex answered. “But how do you know you’ve never hurt him? What about that scene in the graveyard when you were kids?”

“That wasn’t a fucking scene. That was a brawl.” Bile rose in Aaron’s throat at mention of the long-ago fistfight that had almost gotten Greg killed. “And if I’d known you were going to take it out of context and hold it over my head like an emotional ransom note, I never would have told you about it.”

Dex harrumphed. “From what you say, I’m betting Greg fetishized that moment and even pushed you into it. He wanted it, and you weren’t aware he was topping from the bottom. You nearly killed him because you couldn’t keep your cool with a pushy sub.”

“We were teenagers! I didn’t even know what submission was.” Despite his bid to remain calm, anger crept into his tone. “That’s the most half-assed theory I ever heard.”

“Oh? Do you really think S and M is only something we do after we join Fet Life? Or do you think it’s something we gravitate toward much earlier? Way before we have all the pretty little labels to affix?” Dex had gotten on his soapbox, and Aaron pressed his lips together to refrain from shoving him off it. “Even you just said Greg still controls most of your scenes—pushing you in unexpected ways. Ways that could end up making you lose control. Just like you did back then.”

Aaron let out a frustrated growl as he turned onto the road to his and Greg’s house. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“If I ever put something in your mouth, Aaron, you’ll know it.” Dex’s smile was evident in his tone. “We’re done tonight. Good luck.”

“But—” The dead air on the other end of the line shut Aaron up.

He swiped a palm down his face and inhaled deep through his nostrils, trying to push thoughts of Dex and his training out of his mind. He usually looked forward to having downtime with Greg and being able to relax and enjoy some hot, sweaty sex. Now that he’d been training under Dex, however? He knew too much. Too much that Greg didn’t know, and needed to know. Every time they’d had sex lately, all Aaron could focus on was choreographing the steps in his head. It was awful, and he wanted it to stop—to be like it once had been. They might’ve had a BDSM-lite relationship—or whatever the community called it—but it hadn’t been so fucking labeled and restrictive. Once upon a time, it had been natural and easy.

In the past six months, sex had become an ever-increasing minefield Aaron was less and less sure he knew how to navigate. If it weren’t for his and Greg’s outrageously conflicting schedules, Aaron was fairly certain Greg would have noticed the physical and mental distance between them. Tonight, Aaron had to man up and put the intimacy back into their relationship. He owed it to them both. Besides, he was ready, and it was time.

He pulled the car into the driveway and left it running as he stared at the front of the house. Greg’s SUV was in the drive. He was home. No movement came from the upper story. Either he was in the shower, or he was writing at the kitchen table instead of the office.

Aaron clenched his jaw in a bid for determination and shoved his way out of the car. The door closed with a heavy thunk, and Aaron pushed away from the vehicle. He forced his feet to take him up the front steps, opened the front door, and stood for a moment in the foyer. Silence greeted him.

“Greg?”

No answer came, and erotic tension stretched along Aaron’s spine, locking his vertebrae. The shower wasn’t running, which meant Greg was working. The setup couldn’t have been more perfect. Arousal and the comfort of a familiar and predictable dance—Aaron having told Greg to be on time, and Greg defying him, perhaps even on purpose with the whole topping-from-the-bottom thing—softened Aaron’s worries, bleeding some of the anxiety from him. This situation wasn’t so different from a thousand other nights that had played out over the course of their relationship.

Aaron stepped into the kitchen. Bent over his black notebook, scribbling furiously in the waning light, Greg was wholly unaware of anything but the screenplay he created. The sun cast a pink glow over his pale skin, and the line of his shoulders curved protectively over the pages. One arm rested on the table as he hugged the notebook to him. The scratch of the pen and movement of his lips with the dialog he wrote showed him transfixed with the scene. He was so deep. No wonder he’d missed the time.

The simplicity of his relationship with Greg struck Aaron in that moment. He knew this man in a way Dex would never understand. Maybe they hadn’t always been so close, but more than a decade and a half into their relationship, reading Greg’s reactions and moods was as easy to Aaron as spelling his own name. He didn’t have to think about what Greg needed, he just became what Greg needed. Now Aaron prayed Greg would understand that Aaron desperately needed something more in return.

Chapter Two

“You’re late.” Aaron’s tone registered as a placid breeze, drifting toward Greg like a caress. It was the calm before the storm.

Greg snapped his head up as erotic panic bunched his abs and made him suck in a breath. He’d only meant to sit for a minute after he’d showered and dressed at four this afternoon. The red digits on the microwave clock read 6:41, telling him he’d gotten lost in his latest project.

“Shit.” Greg gripped his fountain pen a little harder and awaited Aaron’s numbered penalty, loving the moment but hating himself for the failure.

“How’s the screenplay coming?” Aaron settled his hip on the edge of the table and twisted to look at Greg’s notebook. His tanned hand covered a portion of one page.

Apparently no number was forthcoming. Irritated with the deviation, Greg scowled at Aaron’s hand. “You’re going to smear the ink.”

“Sorry.” Aaron took his hand away. “Ready for dinner?”

“Yeah.” Greg settled the black leather cover over the pages he’d been laboring to get right for the past two days. They formed the beginnings of a project he and Aaron had undertaken with actors Kit Harris and Jeremy Ash to turn their favorite manga into a star vehicle. Now that Aaron had finally secured financing based off the treatment, buzz was building, adding to the pressure Greg already felt to do right by his friends—as if he weren’t enough of a perfectionist already. He stared at the notebook, realized where he’d gone wrong, and opened it again to scribble a few notes.

Aaron gently slipped the pen from Greg’s fingers. “Car’s still running. Let’s go.”

Greg hesitated, the notebook and Aaron calling to him equally.

Aaron placed a hand on Greg’s shoulder. “Eat first. I’ll be gone for three weeks. Soon you can work all you want.”

Greg stood. Even if he wasn’t hungry, Aaron deserved to have a nice dinner and a break. He’d been going nonstop for months to negotiate financing for the film, and his trip to Japan to meet with key investors would be no cakewalk.

“Didn’t we miss our reservation?” Greg asked, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket.

“When you didn’t show, I changed the time,” Aaron said pleasantly as he opened the coat closet.

Greg glanced at the clock again. He had kept Aaron waiting for over fifty minutes, and it wasn’t like Aaron didn’t know it. Even if Aaron wasn’t annoyed, there was always a penalty for lateness. Inhaling, Greg gathered breath to ask if Aaron was forgetting something, then he swallowed down his question. No sense waking the dragon. If Aaron had meant to give him a penalty, he would have. It was just…he had never forgotten before. It was part of their relationship that Greg relied on—a pressure relief valve that had seemed to erode more and more of late until he had begun to feel as if he and Aaron were the proverbial ships passing in the night. Greg frowned at his bare feet. Had the passion gone out of their marriage so soon?

“Greg?” Aaron arched one blond eyebrow.

Shaking off tendrils of worry and confusion, Greg slipped his feet into his loafers. He left the house as Aaron set the alarm and locked up. Outside, the sun had just disappeared, its last streaks across the Pacific melting to rose-tinted whitecaps rushing toward the visible slice of beach.

The screenplay still clouded Greg’s head, making everything unnaturally distant as if he glimpsed the world from behind a magical veil. Even the scuff of his footsteps along the paved path to Aaron’s car seemed otherworldly. He had just enough contact with the terrestrial plane to notice the top on the convertible was down.

“I need my coat,” he said, turning to go back inside.

Aaron chuckled. “It’s in your hand, Greg. I gave it to you in the hall.”

Greg looked down and noted the weight of the brown leather bomber draped from his fingertips. “Oh.”

He bet Aaron had tried to call him on his cell too, and he hadn’t noticed that either. In the zone totally and completely, he wouldn’t have registered anything less than a seven-point earthquake or, eventually, the steady and annoying buzz of the kitchen timer. Attempting to shove thoughts of the manuscript, his and Aaron’s unraveling sexual connection, and his own tardiness aside, he buckled his seatbelt as Aaron slid into the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going again?” Though forming words took all his mental faculties, he made an effort at conversation, knowing it would please Aaron.

“Dora Flora.”

Greg tried not to groan. “The place with the flowered wallpaper?”

“One and the same.” Aaron slung one arm around Greg’s headrest and turned to look out the rear window as he backed out of the driveway.

Always overbooked, not to mention overpriced, the trendy restaurant had a floral theme. Everything including the salt and pepper shakers was either covered in or made of flowers, even the cuisine. Though he’d never been, Greg had heard reports from enough acquaintances to never want to set foot in the place.

“If it’s a face full of flowers you want,” Greg muttered, “I can oblige for free.”

Aaron’s grin was both feral and triumphant, and a tiny shiver slithered down Greg’s spine as if Aaron had skimmed a nail from nape to tailbone with deliberate care. “Open the glove box.”

“What?” Greg managed.

“If I have to say it again, we’ll be at five.” Drawl soft, Aaron delivered the warning as if he were discussing the weather or a late-afternoon traffic report.

Greg sucked in a short, sharp breath. They were at four? Since when? Had Aaron counted three earlier? Maybe he had missed it. And when had Aaron said they were at four? Despite Greg’s confusion, heat rushed to his cock, and he swore he got a nasty case of chafing from the rapid rise of tender flesh against his zipper.

If we’re at four, that means…

He fumbled for the latch on the glove box, and the little door fell open. A silicone cock cage shone white against the dark interior, its brass lock and key an indication of the device’s purpose. Greg gaped. Aaron had planned this? And since when did he buy things like cock cages?

Aaron’s smile widened, his polite veneer cracking so Greg could see the dark eroticism beneath his normally Zen-like demeanor. “Put it on.”

Realization dawned. The rat bastard hadn’t counted three out loud, so Greg would let down his guard and get to four. Usually Greg was very careful about letting things progress to this point. This aspect of the numbers game could be fun, but Greg liked to choose the time and place, because not only was Greg usually on orgasm restriction at four, but tonight Aaron had apparently decided he had to wear this medieval device as part of the punishment. Yes, this was precisely why Greg made good and goddamned sure not to reach four without a lot of careful planning. His cock thumped in protest, and he bit back the urge to swear.

“Want to know what I have planned for ‘five,’ Greggie?” Aaron reached over to ruffle his hair, a little aggressive.

In a bid not to smack Aaron’s hand away, Greg clenched his fist around the sensual torture device. If the cage was the way Aaron planned to carry out four, five would be unreal.

“No.” The word wasn’t supposed to come out hoarse, but it did anyway.

Idling the car at a stoplight, Aaron gripped Greg’s hair and tugged. A little twist exposed Greg’s neck and forced Greg to meet Aaron’s eyes. Lips curved into a sensually cruel smile, polite mask fully abandoned, Aaron dominated him with his gaze in the red glow of the stoplight. Greg’s cock tried to punch a hole through his jeans as he absorbed the raw, sensual power.

“Then put on the cage,” Aaron said, his high cheekbones and chiseled features marking him as a predator in the shadowed night.

The yes, sir stuck in his throat, and Greg glanced away.

Aaron let go of his hair and put up the car’s top while Greg undid his leather belt. His trembling fingers seemed to belong to someone else. If he thought he’d been high on writing, this surreal separation from his body sent him soaring. Fiction had nothing on what Aaron made him feel during sex.

In the back of Greg’s mind, he knew he was supposed to feel remorse for his lateness, but all he felt was turned on. Somehow he managed to work his button open and zipper down before he pushed his jeans and briefs around his thighs. His cock sprang free. Fiercely red, it bobbed with each jostle to the car’s suspension.

God, he hoped they didn’t get pulled over.

Examining the device in his hand, Greg surmised he was supposed to push his cock into the tube and stretch his balls through a series of rings. The bottommost ring he’d lock shut, securing the entire diabolical contraption. Hot flesh met his chilled palm as he grasped his cock to steady it. He bit his lip and focused on stuffing his too-hard, too-wide member into the tight silicone. Precum leaked, easing his way only slightly. At one-third length, his cock hit something flexible and pointy. The bite of the silicone surprised more than hurt, but he yelped and pulled the thing off.

He glowered at Aaron. “What the fuck?”

Aaron’s eyes widened as a small smile flitted about his mouth. “Something wrong?”

Greg held up the evil piece of plastic. “There are spikes in this thing.”

He squeezed the sensual torture device, crumpling it. When he released, the thing sprang back to its original shape.

Aaron had returned his gaze to the road. “Wait until you feel the ball separator.”

Greg choked back a laugh. “You tried it on?”

Frowning, Aaron shot him a look. “You don’t think I’d do something to you that I haven’t done to myself first, do you?”

This time Greg did laugh.

“What?” Aaron asked.

“You haven’t done quite everything to yourself that you’ve done to me.” Aaron raised his brows, and Greg flashed him a grin. “You can’t go fuck yourself, can you?”

“Wiseass.” Aaron’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and he glanced at Greg’s cock. “Let’s see if you’re still cracking jokes in a minute. Put on the cage.”

Greg groaned but set about doing as Aaron bade. Struggling for several minutes, he attempted to push his cock through the gauntlet of flexible protrusions into the tube. The gel fingers inside weren’t so much sharp as they were a combination of lightly irritating and arousing. He just about managed, but with his hard-on still raging, he couldn’t feed the length of his cock entirely into the tube. If he couldn’t get the rings closer to his balls, he wouldn’t be able to close the fucker—at least not without stretching his presently tight nuts into taffy. While he could get off on some types of pain where Aaron was concerned, Greg drew the line at torturing his balls.

He stilled, sweat breaking out on his brow. “Um, Aaron?”

They’d navigated into a parking spot at the back of the restaurant lot, and Aaron lifted the hand brake with what Greg had come to recognize as casually deceptive calm.

“I can’t make this…” He lifted his chin and forced himself to meet Aaron’s gaze. Blue eyes that normally reminded him of a lazy summer day had taken on a stormier hue. “The rings… I’m too hard.”

A mirage of a smile played over Aaron’s lips. “My help will cost you.”

Darkness briefly wrapped Greg in a floating cocoon before he opened his eyes again. When he did, the halo of a parking lot security light fucked with his night vision, making him blink at what now appeared to be an outline of Aaron—more wraith than solid substance.

“What’s the price?” Greg asked, knowing he would say yes no matter what. If he didn’t, he’d reach five. Worse, he’d disappoint Aaron.

“Yes or no.” Apparently, details weren’t part of Aaron’s offer.

Greg cleared his throat to make room for his “Yes.”

“Take it off then.” Aaron nodded at Greg’s crotch. “And lean your seat back.”

When Greg ripped the silicone off his cock, flexible spikes abraded tender flesh with tiny bites. He pressed a button, and the creak of leather accompanied the whir of the seat motor. As if in slow motion, a drop of precum slid down the side of his shaft in a teasing trail. Aaron swooped after it with his tongue, and Greg simultaneously gripped the door strap and palmed the back of Aaron’s head.

Aaron focused on Greg’s visible hand. “You know the rules.”

Not daring to groan, Greg laced the fingers of both hands together behind his head. Skin against skin, Aaron palmed Greg’s cock and gently squeezed, massaging and kneading. If he’d thought himself aroused before, he’d been greatly mistaken. His initial cock stand had only been a prelude to the real deal.

“Put your ass on the edge of the seat and spread your legs,” Aaron ordered.

Greg complied, and Aaron sucked on his own finger, then released the digit with an audible slurp. He pressed his finger to Greg’s hole and shoved it third-knuckle deep. Without preamble, he found that sweet spot deep inside Greg’s ass and pressed. Greg cried out, his orgasm racing him toward a cliff he’d never avoid. Then, as suddenly as the promise of bliss appeared, Aaron withdrew his finger, and pleasure burst like a soap bubble, leaving nothing but a moist spray of disappointment in its wake. The prickling, squeezing returned as Aaron began working the cage onto Greg’s cock.

Greg opened his mouth to protest, his biceps tensing as he almost removed his hands from behind his head.

“Ah-ah.” Brow furrowed in concentration, Aaron spared him a glance. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Greg didn’t know if the admonition had to do with the protest still lodged in his throat or the hands he now clasped more tightly, but he decided to play it safe and shut his mouth while Aaron worked the silicone chastity device lower. Behind Greg’s lids, colors he couldn’t name sparked and died like Fourth of July duds as Aaron found an angle that created maximum friction and fit. Greg breathed through his nostrils and fought the surreal feeling that he might come anyway. Even from this. What would Aaron do then?

Sweat trickled behind his knees as recollections of whispered promises and sensual threats from interludes long past broke through his brain’s checkpoints, wreaking havoc with muscle memory. He moaned and earned Aaron’s murmur of approval. Tightness ringed his balls as Aaron gently lifted his overfilled ball sac using the cool strip of silicone to stretch the skin around each testicle. A quiet snick said the lock had been fastened. Greg surfed the long-since-inseparable twin agonies of pain and arousal, searching for the wherewithal to open his eyes and tug up his jeans.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Aaron said, more than patient.

When Greg opened his eyes, his lashes stuck together wetly. He’d been crying? Holy shit. He almost smiled. So far transported and freed from himself that he felt reborn—recast and made anew at Aaron’s hands—he’d take this sort of mind fuck over an orgasm any day, and it had been so long since they’d done anything like this.

“Ready,” Greg said, hoarse from cries he barely recalled uttering.

Aaron helped him tuck himself away and adjusted his package with a little squeeze that sent sparklers of sensation along Greg’s oversensitized nerves.

“I hope you like that thing,” Aaron said.

Halfway out of the car, Greg paused and looked over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

Looking at his watch, Aaron appeared to do a quick mental calculation before he met Greg’s stare. “You made me wait for an hour and a half for my dinner.”

Greg’s mouth went dry. How many minutes was that? He scrounged around in the murkier areas of his brain for his mathematical abilities. Those cells were apparently devoid of blood, and he had to wait until his erection went down a little so he could call some up from his cock before he realized the number equaled ninety.

“Ninety…minutes?” Greg asked hopefully because there was no way Aaron meant to make him wait ninety days before he let him come again.

Aaron arched one brow.

Dismayed, Greg shook his head.

“Don’t worry, Greggie,” Aaron said, his lips curving upward as a genuine smile reached his eyes. “I’ll help you.”

And that, Greg realized as they crossed the parking lot to the restaurant, was precisely what he was afraid of.

Chapter Three

As he walked, shifted, breathed, Greg’s stubbornly aroused cock bobbed against the cage Aaron had stuffed it into. Greg resisted the urge to glare at his own crotch. Traitorous bastard. It could at least deflate.

Aaron held open the restaurant door, and mellow light played over the glow of his tan, shimmering through the fall of golden hair about his broad shoulders. Cheeks pink, eyes glittering, he appeared to hum with sexual energy.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Greg asked, knowing very well Aaron was. And why shouldn’t he be? He’d obviously been planning this for some time.

“I bought a version without the spikes too.” Aaron placed a kiss on the tip of Greg’s ear. “Behave, and you might get to see it before the night is through.”

Greg tried to remember the last time he hadn’t played it safe.

Too long.

“And if I don’t?” He scrutinized Aaron.

Aaron’s eyes flashed with his appreciation as he apparently realized Greg was thinking about playing along. “Then I’m willing to tack another penalty onto that very uncomfortable four you’ve already earned.”

“A five?” Greg shook his head in an attempt to clear it of what had to be misunderstanding born of idiocy. “You’re not resetting the counter to zero?”

Aaron shrugged casually as he peered upside down at the seating chart on the maître d’ podium. “Guess not.”

“But you enforced the punishment at four. That’s not how it works.” Greg shifted against the double restriction of his jeans and the cock cage.

Aaron laced their left hands together, turning them this way and that so first his and then Greg’s wedding bands glinted in the violet-hued overhead lights. “I figured we’d try something new.”

The maître d’ arrived to seat them. Aaron squeezed Greg’s hand, then let go to follow their host to the table. As they entered the main dining room, it dawned on Greg that Aaron was fucking with the rules, not counting or resetting the numbers when he should have, even bartering with Greg on his sensual punishment, because he wanted to have some fun. This wasn’t their usual numbers game—the one that kept Greg’s behavior in check. This was about sex and sex only.

As Greg walked among the tables packed with diners, he swore everyone’s eyes were on him. He’d never worn anything like the silicone cage, and in his imagination his cock glowed red. Every step squeezed his flesh, reminding him he was bound, and that everyone here must be able to see right through him to Aaron’s control over him. He felt owned in body, mind, and soul.

He made himself keep moving. Years later, they arrived at the table. The maître d’ hovered, menus in hand, while Aaron looked on like he hadn’t a clue about what took Greg so long to lower himself into his chair. People were eating and talking, the hum of conversation overlaid with the clink of glasses and table wear, but Greg mostly registered the pulse of his blood. He stared at the menu and saw only black lines against a white background.

“Five is the remote-controlled vibrator in my pocket,” Aaron said quietly.

A remote-controlled…

Greg peered over the top of his menu and blinked Aaron into focus. God, he was so high on this he’d be lucky if he could walk when Aaron finished. Somehow, he knew he was supposed to answer—to help Aaron escalate the game. The next step depended upon him. If he wanted what Aaron offered, he would signal his acquiescence by playing along.

It took him a moment to formulate a properly snarky response. “Why, Aaron, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Oh, but I do.” Aaron’s smile was sly as he glanced around the room before meeting Greg’s gaze again. “How many husbands do you know who would go to such great lengths to make their fella happy?”

Truly? None. However, Greg didn’t dare blow the head of steam on their banter by saying so. Instead he built his frown into a glower. “Happy? I feel like I’m fucking a fistful of stinging nettles.”

Aaron gestured at the room with his water glass. “But you haven’t noticed the decor at all. I’d call that a win.”

The moment Aaron mentioned the gaudy explosion of flowers, Greg saw them. Everywhere. His visual cortex kicked into gear and went on overdrive.

He didn’t have to fake his glare this time. “Fuck. Thanks a lot.”

Saluting Greg with two fingers, Aaron said, “You’re welcome.”

Their waiter appeared, and Greg balled his hands in his lap as Aaron ordered them violet-flavored water, plum wine, soup and salad, as well as a main course littered with things that belonged in a still life.

“FTD must love this place,” Greg muttered after the waiter left.

Aaron ignored him, pretending interest instead in punk rock’s answer to Monet’s Water Lilies. The impressionist painting danced across an LED screen in the far corner with an accompaniment of flashing lights and distortions that made Greg’s head ache. Irritation and a need for distraction drove him to his next act of inspired disobedience. He toed off his shoe and flexed his bare foot, then snaked it up until he found Aaron’s crotch. Even if they hadn’t been playing this more overtly sexual version of their game, Aaron’s gasp alone was worth the penalty.

Aaron clenched the table edge while Greg inched a toe along his cock from base to tip. At the more sensitive ridge, Greg brushed side to side until Aaron hissed through his teeth. Jaw clenched, Adam’s apple bobbing with a hard swallow, he visibly struggled to maintain his composure. Greg curled his toes, and Aaron’s nostrils flared as he opened his eyes and their gazes met.

“Five,” Aaron said through gritted teeth.

Though Greg’s fight-or-flight response reacted appropriately, sending adrenaline swooping through his system, he didn’t drop his foot. Often, mention of a penalty alone was enough to make him compliant. Not tonight. Not when Aaron so clearly wanted him to push.

Aaron raised his brows as if to ask, Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?

Greg sipped his violet-flavored water and pressed the heel of his foot harder against the base of Aaron’s shaft, high enough not to abuse his balls but low enough to make Aaron jump. Aaron pushed his seat back, and Greg’s foot dropped to the floor.

Aaron stood and said, “With me. Now.”

Heart fluttering against his rib cage, Greg placed his glass on the table and slid his foot back into his shoe. All the way to the men’s room, he felt the heat from Aaron’s cock still permeating the bottom of his foot. Aaron held the door open, and Greg ducked inside. The lock slid home with an ominous click.

Mouth dry, shoulders tight, Greg forced himself to keep his back to Aaron. Aaron rewarded his self-restraint, crowding him face-first against the wall and kicking his legs wide.

“I can’t decide whether to fuck your mouth or whip your ass for that.”

Greg closed his eyes and enjoyed the somersault of nerves in his stomach.

“Tell me what you did,” Aaron demanded, thrusting his cock against Greg’s ass.

Moaning, Greg arched closer to Aaron.

“I’m waiting.” Aaron palmed the cage around Greg’s cock.

Steadily increasing pressure focused Greg’s attention to the bite of silicone and the ache in his balls. He held out until his legs began to tremble and sweat broke out on his upper lip. “I touched your cock without permission.”

Aaron nipped Greg’s neck and pressed harder along his crack. “And can you feel what it did to me?”

Bracing his palms against cool ridges of stucco, Greg held himself steady. “Yes, sir.”

“Kneel facing me. Open your mouth, hands behind your back,” Aaron said, giving a final thrust and squeeze.

A heated pulse raced up Greg’s shaft from his balls, the rhythm sluggish but constant under the constricting rings. He turned and knelt, clasping his hands behind his back, his mouth open and chin tilted up.

“Touch my cock again before I tell you, and that whipping is a promise,” Aaron said, unzipping his pants and pushing them below his hips.

Heat shot up Greg’s shaft in a painful surge at Aaron’s words, and he gasped against the thwarted orgasm. Mouth open, he couldn’t reply, but he nodded his understanding. Aaron curled his fingers around Greg’s chin, holding him immobile with one hand and fisting his cock with his other.

Aaron’s hand danced over his cock, up and down, the slide of his fingers creating a fleshy music in the small space. “God, you’re sexy.”

Greg blinked, surprised to hear the compliment applied to him. He rarely felt anything but ugly and angry—a jumble of fucked-up emotion and bottomless self-hatred—except when Aaron looked at him like this, as if the sight of Greg alone could make him come.

“Watch me,” Aaron said, his breath labored. “I want you to see what you do to me. How goddamned gorgeous you are.”

Keeping his gaze locked on Aaron’s—seeing the love and steady reassurance there—was both the easiest and most difficult thing Greg had ever done. Part of him wanted to run away, certain he didn’t deserve Aaron’s love but craving it so badly it hurt. Sex had never seemed like such a promising minefield.

Ridged tile dug into Greg’s knees, and his jaw ached from holding his mouth open, but eventually with Aaron hypnotizing him, drowning self-doubt with immeasurable devotion, Greg ceased to care or notice. He’d endure anything, be anything, do anything as long as Aaron kept looking at him like that.

“Going to…” Aaron trailed off into a groan and bit his lip. His lids fluttered closed, then shot open again. He gasped. “Wider. Open wider.”

Greg complied.

Hot and silky, Aaron’s cock slid over Greg’s tongue. He accepted what Aaron gave him, asking nothing and receiving everything in return. The rhythm of Aaron’s thrusts grew increasingly erratic. His grip tightened on Greg’s jaw, and with one final thrust, he froze and cried out.

Sticky, salty fluid filled Greg’s throat and mouth, threatening to overflow onto his lips and down his chin. He swallowed as rapidly as he could and just managed to keep himself tidy. Minutes later but still too soon, Aaron pulled his softening cock from Greg’s mouth. Instinctively, Greg kept his mouth open and his hands at the base of his spine while Aaron tucked himself away and zipped up.

Finished righting himself, Aaron tapped two fingers under Greg’s chin. “Close.” Then lifted him by one arm. “Up.”

On shaky limbs, Greg stood with Aaron’s assistance, arms still behind his back.

“Very nice,” Aaron said, giving him a brief kiss. “Very, very nice.”

Greg preened, drawing himself up straighter. Aaron’s praise was never given lightly, and Greg rarely found himself in a headspace to earn it.

A jerk to his waistband drew his attention downward. He watched as Aaron unbuckled his pants and shoved his jeans and briefs to his ankles. Though Greg’s face heated, he didn’t complain. This new edgier game was far too compelling for him to want to stop now. Aaron dug in his pocket and held up a silver egg-shaped object. Greg breathed deep, filling his lungs completely. He willed himself to relax as Aaron reached around him and parted his ass cheeks with one hand before pressing the small vibrator to his hole.

“Head on my shoulder,” Aaron said.

Greg complied, resting his cheek on the soft fabric of Aaron’s dress shirt. Cocoa-butter sunblock and the scent of the ocean relaxed him on his next breath, and Aaron pressed the egg past the tight ring of muscle. Greg shifted, adjusting to the intrusion.

“You’re being so good.” Aaron gave his ass a firm squeeze. “Maybe we should stop with the counting and just give you a session like this every day.”

Greg shivered but remained silent. He didn’t bother to point out that he was compliant because he was relaxed. Knowing Aaron had control—that there was nothing for him to do or worry about while Aaron was in the driver’s seat—allowed Greg to release the iron grip on his brain and emotions and just be. It was lovely and rare and real. Greg had contrived to force this dynamic between them as often as possible, but it had never resulted in such sublime sex before tonight. Sex sometimes yes, but not such thoroughly dominating, lose-yourself-to-your-baser-nature sex.

“C’mon,” Aaron said, tugging up Greg’s clothes and putting him to rights. “Let’s eat.”

In reality, they’d probably been in the men’s room for five minutes, but it felt like days. When they returned to the dining room, Greg was defenseless against the loud noises and gaudy colors. Blinking rapidly, he inhaled as if cut. For the first time since Aaron had caged him, his cock softened.

They sat as the waiter arrived with their salad course. A ring of nasturtiums surrounded a bowl shaped like a huge lily. Greg’s left eye throbbed. He opened his mouth to say something rude and surly, but a buzzing hit his prostate. The strangest sound came out of his mouth, half yelp, half choke. He clenched the table edge and gasped, trying to breathe evenly as the vibrations cycled over and over, ramping up and slowing down, then ramping up again.

“Is everything all right?” the waiter asked.

Greg looked helplessly at Aaron, whose teeth flashed white. “He’s fine. Just overwhelmed with the beauty of the salad.”

The pulsing amplified, and Greg nodded, unable to speak. The waiter left, and the buzzing stopped. Greg collapsed against his chair with a whimper. His cock had hardened again. It ached where the silicone rubbed, the sensation a reminder he wasn’t allowed to come.

“Aaron?” He put everything he felt—every ounce of desperation—into that one word.

Fork dripping with pink and orange flowers, Aaron cast him an arch glance. “You should have been on time.”

If Greg had thought it would help, he’d have babbled and begged, promised never to be late again. Instead he kept his mouth closed and pretended interest in his salad. They’d played the orgasm-restriction game before. It was a game Greg loved, but it had never been so thoroughly consuming. So electrifying and, well, potently real.

“So. How’s the screenplay coming?” Aaron asked.

Greg’s head shot up. He couldn’t talk, much less have a normal conversation. When he didn’t answer, the buzzing started—merely tickling, steady vibrations this time. Eventually they would be enough to send him over, as hard as he’d become.

He rode the waves of sensation for as long as he could without writhing in his chair. Finally he spoke through clenched teeth. “Stop. Please.”

“Then talk.” Aaron pushed some petals out of the way to get at the leafy greens underneath.

Somehow Greg managed to find enough spit to moisten his mouth.

“I’m having trouble with the characters and mythology.” There. That sounded intelligent. He hoped. “It doesn’t make sense from a Western storytelling perspective.”

The buzzing stopped. Greg grabbed for his water and downed it in three gulps, not caring that it tasted like elf piss.

“Could that be because it’s Japanese?” Aaron teased, studying a flower-shaped radish on his fork.

“Cute.”

Did Aaron understand how difficult it was to carry on a normal conversation with a vibrator shoved up one’s ass and a silicone-covered hard-on drilling a hole in one’s too-tight underwear? Of course he did. Greg scrounged for more words before Aaron could press another button on the evil controls in his pocket.

“They have this way of explaining character motivation in three sentences at the beginning of the story. There’s no slow reveal, and the focus isn’t on the character arc. It’s”—Greg waved his fork around—”maddening.”

Aaron shrugged. “So, give them an arc.”

“It’s not like that.” He chewed a mouthful of flower-strewn lettuce as he thought about how to explain. “I think I’m missing something in the symbolism that makes it a richer story, but to my Western eyes it appears superficial and juvenile.” He grimaced at memories of classmates poring over flimsy pages that always left a dry residue on his fingers when he tried to read them. “I never liked comic books as a kid, and that’s how this strikes me. How can I work with that?”

The waiter whisked away Greg’s salad and replaced it with squash blossom soup. He left after refilling their water glasses.

Aaron addressed Greg’s comment. “I think you’re being close-minded because it is essentially a comic book. They can have pretty deep layers you know.”

“Maybe.” Greg frowned at a flower stamen hanging limply over his spoon and wondered how to eat it without choking. “But I think the problem is more cultural.”

“Let me get someone to help you. A cowriter,” Aaron said with all the casualness of someone who didn’t know he was stepping on a live mine. “You need an advisor who knows what the audience will be looking for, and who can guide you.”

Twin waves of anger at Aaron’s lack of faith in him and panic at the idea of giving someone else a measure of creative control over his work swept Greg in a riptide of emotion, pulling him under so quickly he didn’t have time to form a polite response.

“No fu—” The vibrator shook like a maraca in his ass, and his teeth clacked shut. He gripped his spoon so hard the metal edge bit into his finger, and gasped when an intermittent pulse joined the rattle and hum.

“A simple yes or no will suffice.” Aaron made appreciative noises over his soup while Greg tried to remember what those vowels and consonants meant.

The fire began in his thigh muscles first as they tried to bunch up toward his tailbone. He shifted his hips, and the silicone abraded the ridge under his cockhead, sending shocks down his shaft to his balls. The signal to his brain said come. His balls tightened, poised to obey the command. God, if he came, Aaron would have a field day on his ass. He’d reach six.

Chapter Four

“No,” Greg said, though whether to the idea of coming without Aaron’s permission or to the idea of Aaron hiring him a cowriter, he didn’t know.

The vibration softened, lowering the threat of immediate explosion to DEFCON 2. Greg surfed the sensation, dreading and enjoying the sublime ache pulsating from his balls into sweet spots along his cock.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nostrils before pinning Aaron with a desperate look. “Please.”

Aaron leaned in and patted Greg’s fist on top of the flowered tablecloth. “When I want you to beg, I’ll let you know.”

The vibrator fell still, but Greg felt it pressing against his prostate, its mechanical heat a ghostly promise of the exquisite torture to come. The mind fuck inherent in Aaron’s sympathetic stare bowled Greg over. Aaron was getting a real kick out of this. Greg hadn’t seen such a razor-sharp edge to him since…since the graveyard incident.

Greg paused, spoon halfway to his mouth, and gaped at Aaron. As if the years peeled away, he sat across from his classmate, his roommate, his first love, and watched the layers come together. Kind Aaron. Calm Aaron. Arrogant Aaron. Dominant Aaron. They were all the same, and all dangerously his.

Aaron spooned up the last of his soup.

Greg blinked. Aaron had just asked him a question. What was it? Something about writing.

“Eat your soup, Greg.” Aaron nodded to Greg’s bowl.

Greg complied, going through the motions. Aaron had asked why he didn’t want a cowriter. Greg made a small, self-deprecating sound, almost a laugh as all the insecurity that had accompanied him throughout high school crashed through his surly defenses.

“Have you ever known me to play well with others?” he asked.

“I think you’ve gotten a lot better.” A poppy-seed roll occupied Aaron’s attention as he seemed to consider Greg’s words. “You have an outdated idea of yourself and what you can handle. You’re different.”

Visions of opening his creative veins and spilling his blood in front of another writer turned Greg’s stomach. He didn’t want that and wouldn’t do it, no matter what Aaron thought. It might take a little longer to get the words right, but he’d get there.

“No,” Greg repeated, ignoring for the moment that he seemed to have a live rattler sitting across from him. “I’ve got this.”

Aaron’s lips thinned, but he nodded. “Let’s not get caught up in work tonight.”

Greg wanted to point out he wasn’t the one who had brought up the stupid subject, but Aaron still held the key to his chains. If Greg wanted any hope of coming out unscathed, he’d have to play nice…or not. Visions of the graveyard—of being at Aaron’s feet—resurfaced. Of the sweet fear and humiliation he’d experienced. All the real panic and real feeling that had poured through him. He’d felt something that night. Something so potent and life affirming even in its terror that he still craved it in every fiber of his being. He poked at his soup, murkier emotions overtaking him, before meeting Aaron’s calm gaze.

Aaron stared steadily back at him as if he read every thought Greg hadn’t voiced. Greg’s brain took a left turn at Aaron’s display of edgy confidence. A dark playfulness threaded through Greg’s teenage memories, twining around his shoulders and pulling him forward until he leaned across the table to close the distance between himself and Aaron.

Aaron held his gaze, the barest hint of a puzzled frown marring the smooth skin between his brows.

“I want to come,” Greg whispered and bit Aaron’s lip in a flash of movement. “And I’m willing to pay the price.”

He sat back and attacked his soup. When he looked up, Aaron dropped his hand from the puffy mark welling on his bottom lip. The thunder in his gaze said Greg had successfully awakened the dragon that had been slumbering all these years. Now that he was ready for the fire, it was going to be so much fun getting singed. Greg could count only a handful of times that he’d reached six with Aaron. The highest they’d ever gone was seven, and that had only happened once. He shuddered involuntarily at the memory.

“All right,” Aaron said. “But are you sure? Because you will pay the penalty, no matter what you think about the reward.”

“The reward?” Did Aaron mean Greg’s orgasm? Technically, Greg wasn’t at six until he orgasmed, so how could his orgasm be a punishment for something he hadn’t done yet? He shook his head and decided to broach the more important topic of his pleasure. “I don’t see how even you could make”—he looked around to confirm there were no waitstaff hovering nearby—”an orgasm into a punishment.” He shrugged, confident he had the situation under control or as under his control as he wanted it to be. “I’ll pay to play this new game of yours. Sure.”

Teeth flashing with his evil smile, Aaron showed his feral side. Greg ran over the possibilities Aaron might be contemplating and didn’t arrive at anything worse than the ass whipping he’d gotten the last time he’d come while under restriction. Except Aaron hadn’t been in this mood—he’d been his always too-collected, Zen-like self.

“Just so’s we’re clear,” Aaron said. “You’re not allowed to come. I’m just going to make you do it anyway, and it’s a punishment for even asking to go there when you know you’re under restriction.”

“Okay.” Greg drew out the word.

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in what I’m going to do to you,” Aaron mused. “But I doubt you’ll be asking for it again.”

So fucked up with arousal-tinged anticipation he no longer had an appetite, Greg pushed away his bowl. “Do you really want dinner?”

The waiter chose the inopportune moment to arrive with their main course.

“I suggest you eat,” Aaron said, cutting into his jade flower chicken. “You’ll need your strength.”

How the hell was he expected to eat with the butterflies currently taking up any spare room in his stomach?

“You’re actually an evil bastard, you know that?” Greg asked with no little admiration. “I never knew you had it in you. Well, maybe I did, but…” He played with his food before looking up. “Do you ever get flustered?”

Aaron paused, fork hovering over his green beans. Whatever the flowers were in that dish, Greg couldn’t tell. “Of course.”

Surprise coursed through him. “You do?”

“You think I’m not human?”

Greg laid down his fork and knife. “I just figured. You know. I’ve never seen you anything but confident during sex.”

“I just have a good poker face.” Aaron smiled at some private thought. “And you make it easy.”

Now that might be a comment for the record books. Greg laughed at the absurd idea that he made anything easy, even for Aaron. “Yeah. Right.”

“Aw, don’t do that.” Aaron’s face fell, though he winked playfully.

“Do what?” Could they reach the dessert course already?

“Make me go soft on you because you’re being self-deprecating.”

Now that would be a real shame.

The waiter returned with some water and left, giving Greg inspiration. “Would it help you to know that earlier I almost told the waiter I enjoy my pansies more with a side of cock?”

Aaron did an honest-to-goodness spit take that had Greg wiping water droplets from his sleeve. Suddenly they were seventeen again in the dining hall at their boarding school on one of the rare occasions they’d actually sat together. Everyone had been joking about Mr. Feldman’s new haircut, and Greg had spoken—one of the few times he could remember doing so where the exchange wasn’t filled with rancor. Whatever he’d said had made Aaron laugh. Really laugh.

Then Aaron had said, “You’re all right, Falkner,” and Greg had never felt such real, true light-up-your-soul happiness. For a shining moment, he’d almost liked himself.

“I think that’ll do,” Aaron said, still smiling. “But you wouldn’t be sitting down to eat your dinner.”

“You saved me with the vibrator of doom,” Greg quipped, knowing Aaron would’ve been right to beat his ass if he’d been so rude to the waiter.

“I knew you were about to get yourself in hot water.” Aaron ate a bite of chicken and placed his knife and fork parallel on the side, though he clearly hadn’t cleaned his plate. “There’s a look you get when you’re particularly inspired.”

“Apparently I’m not the only one,” Greg said, thinking of the intense flashes of sexual power Aaron had been giving off all night. He tried to pretend interest in his chicken, but like Aaron, he gave up after another bite. “Please tell me we don’t have to stay for dessert.”

A woman wearing a flowered skirt and carrying a camera with a large daisy around the lens wandered the joint, snapping pictures of couples and attempting to get them to buy flowered photo frames from the restaurant gift shop. The woman approached, and Greg gave her his best death stare. She hightailed it to the opposite side of the room.

Aaron considered his wine with a barely concealed grimace. “This is the strangest place I’ve ever eaten.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you criticize something outside a business contract or my sexual performance.”

Aaron gaped. “I have never criticized your sexual performance.”

“You know what I mean.” Waving his hand, Greg attempted to change the subject. “So what made you think to pick this place?”

“I can’t believe you just said I’ve been critical of your sexual performance.”

Apparently they wouldn’t be moving on from the topic. Greg sipped his water and washed it down with a slug of the too-sweet plum wine. “I just mean when we were younger. When I used to…go off the mark before you said to come.”

“Ah.” Aaron pulled out a credit card, the play of his muscles along his collarbones exquisite at the open throat of his shirt. The leather neck thong he always wore emphasized the beauty of his tan skin. “That’s not criticism.”

“Then what is it?”

“Feedback.” The waiter arrived with their check, and Aaron handed the card to him without looking at the bill, sending the man away again as quickly as possible. “So you’d become a better…” Aaron colored and looked away.

Greg frowned. “A better what?”

“Never mind. I get what you mean.” Tightness around Aaron’s eyes and jaw told Greg not to push the subject if they wanted to have a good time tonight. It wasn’t often Aaron became flustered, and right now he was at the very least distinctly uncomfortable.

The waiter returned with the check, and Aaron signed the receipt, drawing Greg’s attention to Aaron’s yellow-and-white-gold wedding band. Greg fiddled with the matching band on his own left hand, cherishing his connection with this man. Whatever it was that had made Aaron blind enough to choose to be with Greg out of the thousands of other guys he could have had, Greg was grateful.

Aaron stood, and Greg followed two steps behind him to the door, sexual energy humming along his spine and zinging from nerve to nerve until he felt as if he could light up the dark. Silent all the way to the car, Aaron didn’t turn around to look at him. He dug in his pocket. Greg tensed, but Aaron only withdrew the car’s ignition fob.

“Get in the car,” Aaron said, transferring the fob to his other pocket where it would apparently be less crowded.

Greg complied. When Aaron climbed in, the driver’s side leather creaked. Then Greg’s vision was filled with Aaron—his arms, shoulders, and handsome face. The opening kiss was gentle, an almost brush of lips that pulled a moan from deep in Greg’s throat. He clenched his fists at his sides, wanting to weave his fingers into Aaron’s hair but not daring to indulge. Aaron liked it when Greg kept his hands to himself until given permission to do otherwise.

“Open,” Aaron whispered.

Greg opened his mouth, and Aaron swept his tongue around Greg’s lips before delving inside. The kiss deepened. Aaron palmed the base of Greg’s skull to bring them closer, so close he felt the beat of Aaron’s heart against his chest. A breeze had cooled Greg’s skin as he walked across the lot, and he’d thought about grabbing his coat from the back and throwing it on. Now Aaron warmed him thoroughly, and the chills running up and down his arms had nothing to do with the nighttime desert air.

“Touch me. However you want.” Aaron brushed the backs of his fingers along Greg’s cheek. “Touch me.”

Greg didn’t hesitate to indulge in the treat. Aaron had a thing about being restrained in any way—a raw panic that seemed to overcome him, often when Greg was on top during sex. The occasions when Greg got to assume any type of control were so rare he often didn’t know what to do with them. Hands on either side of Aaron’s face, Greg held him immobile and tongue fucked him in return.

Aaron gasped into his mouth, and Greg gave him a moment to breathe, lifting his head to make sure Aaron was all right.

“Can you move your seat back?” Greg dipped his head, murmuring his request against the pulse point along Aaron’s neck.

Aaron slid his seat as far from the steering wheel as it would go. Greg claimed another kiss and tasted plum wine, the sweetness so much more welcome when sampled from his lover’s skin. Questing with his hands, he slid them over Aaron’s shoulders, down his chest, to the beaded points of his nipples, and lingered there. Aaron shifted his hips in a thrusting motion that rippled his pecs under Greg’s fingers.

“If you ever reach eight—” Aaron paused to groan as Greg bent and scraped one nipple through the fabric with his teeth.

Greg lifted his head. “You’ll do what?”

Aaron’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m piercing your nipples so I can play with the rings.”

Everything, including the pulse of blood to Greg’s cock, seemed to freeze for a split second before starting up again in a rush. “I—”

A mixture of fucked-up arousal and adrenaline-fed fear pounded in his veins, creating light and sound where there should’ve been none in the dimly lit vehicle.

Aaron traced a thumb over Greg’s lower lip. “Would you like that?”

Like it? Greg’s mind began to race over ways he could reach eight. He’d never even flirted with the idea before tonight.

“I think so.” As soon as Greg made the admission, Aaron flipped him, fast and hard, so Greg’s skull hit the padded seat rest with force. At some point they’d leaned the seats back—Greg couldn’t remember when—giving Aaron ample room to play.

Aaron claimed Greg’s wrists and his lips, pinning his arms to his sides and seizing the air from his lungs with a kiss.

“You think so? Wait till after this punishment. Then we’ll see if you’re so keen to disobey again.”

Greg whimpered, his body going limp from lack of oxygen and blood supply to his brain. He still doubted even Aaron could make an orgasm unpleasant.

“I might reach eight on purpose if you keep this up,” he said, breathless. “I like you like this.”

An evil laugh ripped from Aaron’s chest, shredding Greg’s confidence but not his arousal. “Undo your pants and present your cock.”

Heart thumping, sex-high on dominant dirty talk, Greg adjusted his seat and lay back. Aaron pushed Greg’s fingers away to finish undoing his jeans when Greg’s clumsy hands couldn’t work the button loose. The snick of the lock coming undone and the release of pressure around Greg’s balls made him sigh. He shifted his hips upward, relieving the tension of the separator as Aaron used miniscule tugs to remove the cage. The slow, repetitive scrape of silicone over the ridge of Greg’s cock made his abdominals ripple. He gasped and threaded his fingers behind his head.

“Good boy,” Aaron said and jerked the tube away.

“Fuck!” Greg’s hips surged in an involuntary yet belated bid to prevent the trail of fire that raked its way up his shaft and over his prick. “You bastard.”

“That’s right. Let it all out.” A flinty edge lay beneath Aaron’s gentle words.

Oh, God. Aaron was in full-blown mind-fuck mode.

“What are you going—”

“Don’t make me gag you.” Using only his gaze, Aaron pinned Greg like a butterfly to a mounting board.

Eyes wide, he nodded. He couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to. Not when Aaron looked at him like that. Apparently tonight he was allowed to curse all he wanted as long as he complied with and didn’t question Aaron’s actions and commands. The rattle and hum of the vibrator pulsed against Greg’s prostate in an uneven stop-start rhythm while Aaron rummaged in his pocket. He held up a leather cock ring and a clothespin. Greg frowned, momentarily distracted from the vibrations.

“Ever heard of edging?” Aaron asked.

He dared a sardonic look. Of course he had.

Aaron stilled the vibrator. “You know the times you’ve orgasmed with a cock ring on?”

Greg tilted his head. Where exactly was Aaron going with this?

Not waiting for an answer, Aaron pressed on with his questioning. “Do you like it?”

Did he like it? Good question. Greg supposed the burning that sometimes happened when the orgasm backed up would be worth the ultimate release. He found his voice, answering with a throaty yes.

Aaron’s eyes turned to catlike slits. “We’ll see if you do this time.”

Chapter Five

Aaron lifted the heated weight of Greg’s balls and fastened the leather ring around them and the base of his cock.

“I want you to talk to me while I do this,” Aaron said.

“While you do wh—”

Aaron gave him a look, and Greg snapped his mouth shut.

“Care to rephrase that?” Aaron asked.

Greg’s hard swallow convulsed his throat muscles.

Aaron drank in Greg’s lust-laden fear, letting the emotions run over his skin like water. To be able to control a man like Greg—to make him slow down and feel rather than rushing through life, that was power.

“Talk to you about what?” Greg asked, barely above a whisper.

“Fair question.” Aaron ran his knuckles over the silky head of Greg’s cock, considering. “I want you to tell me how you feel, especially when you’re about to come.”

One sooty brow lifted, and Aaron felt Greg’s sarcasm coming on even before he heard his response. “If anyone, even you, can talk through an orgasm, I’ll suck your cock every morning, noon, and night for a week.”

Aaron gave a wry snort. “You’ll suck my cock anytime I want, and you know it.”

A flush crept from the neckline of Greg’s polo-style shirt and deepened the shadows along his classically handsome face. Aaron smiled as he leaned in to graze Greg’s ear with the tip of his nose.

“Bet taken.” He nipped Greg’s lobe. “And if you honestly can’t? I’ll blow you.”

Knowing Greg wouldn’t cheat—he’d talk if he could—Aaron sat back and thumbed the vibrator remote. Greg’s cock bobbed, and his forearms tensed.

“Feels like hot little tongues licking at my gland,” he said through gritted teeth.

“How long before it gets to be too much?” Aaron asked as clinical objectivity settled his nerves.

Greg shook his head. He sucked in a rapid breath, closed his eyes, and lifted his hips from the seat. “Now.”

Aaron backed off on the speed of the vibrations but kept the rhythm the same. Greg gasped and slowly resumed a normal position. Chest rising and falling on deep breaths, he seemed to gather himself. Eventually he opened his eyes.

“I could come from this, but it’d take a while,” Greg said, sounding as if he’d sprinted a mile or more. He eyed his cock. “Especially with the ring.”

Power cradled Aaron in a sense of well-being. He was in control of his lover and the moment. He decided who felt pleasure and pain, when and how. Nothing would happen that he didn’t want to happen, and everything—good or bad—would come from him. Greg recognized this, and by extension Aaron recognized it as well. It was as if Greg trusting him allowed Aaron to trust himself. He could let go and be the dark, awe-inspiring god he’d always wanted to find inside himself, as long as Greg kept this door open to his soul. He leaned in to caress Greg’s lips in a light kiss.

“You’re goddamned gorgeous like this.” When Aaron pulled back, a smile ghosted Greg’s mouth, and his expression said Aaron had just fed him emotional heroin. Undoubtedly he floated on a sea of lust and love. Time for the mind fuck. “Pity you have a punishment coming.”

Greg’s pupils blew, and his breath hitched. Aaron’s cock hardened. No way could Aaron ever put himself in the position Greg had willingly leaped into tonight, but Aaron could experience it by extension through him. This was what he had been looking for—what he needed from their play—to feel Greg’s vulnerability through the safe veil of his own power.

Time to up the game.

With a flick of his thumb, Aaron changed the vibration.

Greg whimpered and wiggled his ass. “Feels like you’re sending cum up my dick in little bursts, but it can’t quite get there.”

“Good boy,” Aaron whispered.

He flicked his thumb again, and a spurt of precum popped out Greg’s slit. Just a taste of the ecstasy he’d ultimately be denied.

“God, Aaron,” Greg said, his hips pumping in earnest now, his cock fucking nothing but air. “Please.”

“Tell me how this feels.” Aaron dipped his head and tongued the drop of moisture from the tip of Greg’s cock.

“Wet. Hot. Want more,” Greg answered, lifting his hips in a silent request for Aaron’s mouth.

Blatant power arced from Greg’s skin onto Aaron’s tongue, feeding him what he craved. Submission. Need. Despair. Hope. Using his teeth, Aaron raked the hard ridge of Greg’s corona and thumbed the remote to increase the vibrations again.

“Spinning. Feels like you’re spinning your fist against my gland. Like you’re pounding into me.” Greg’s hands popped out from beneath his head as he arched and gripped the headrest. “Going to—”

Aaron snatched his mouth away from Greg’s cock and stopped the vibrations altogether. Greg’s back remained bowed, suspended for long seconds before he slowly brought himself back down.

“Aaron?” Greg’s question shredded the silence with ragged claws. “Please.”

“Next time, be on time. Obey me. And above all?” Brushing the tips of his fingers over Greg’s brow, Aaron smiled softly. “Don’t assume you can bargain your way out of a punishment.”

A tear leaked from one eye and trailed down Greg’s face. Aaron caught it and kissed it from the pad of his thumb. Salt spiked his tongue with the sweet taste of pain and submission. Joy made his heart soar as he realized only he could command this depth of emotion from the man lying here, but Dex was right. Greg needed to learn that he couldn’t expect to control the outcome—or even the start of—a scene. Greg was far too clever, and this time Aaron intended to outwit him.

“I’m going to let you come now,” Aaron said. “Ready?”

Greg sucked air through his nostrils and nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Ready.”

“First, tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Um.” Greg licked his lips. Swallowed. The vibrator wasn’t running. “You mean emotionally?”

Aaron studied him, gaze steady, letting Greg absorb his confidence and strength, hoping it would carry him through the difficulty of the confession. “Yes.”

“Will you do me a favor?” Searching Aaron’s face, Greg seemed to be looking for something, but Aaron couldn’t fathom what.

Unused to being in the dark where Greg was concerned, he took the bait. “Sure. If it won’t stop your punishment.”

Greg lifted his head and returned his hands to the required position. “Tell me what you’re feeling too?”

Surprise lifted Aaron’s stomach. Then a sense of being marooned on some lonely shore blanketed him. What was he feeling? He supposed he was feeling what Greg was feeling, because other than that heady sense of power, he only ever felt what Greg did. Everything else was always a serene blank. He controlled Greg’s anger so it wouldn’t feed the anger he knew lurked, hot and dark, beneath the surface of his own psyche. Ultimately, Greg’s pleasure was Aaron’s own.

“Jesus,” Aaron whispered, sucker punched by the cascade of thoughts and emotions. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Um, yeah. I can do that.”

Greg watched him, clearly expectant.

“I feel connected to you.” He paused. Tried to think of how else to describe what topping Greg tonight felt like. “I feel all the power and emotion you give to me, and it makes me strong. It makes me into the person you need me to be.”

Silence, save for the sound of their breathing, covered the air like an invisible layer of plastic wrap. The flimsy barrier insulated them from the outside world but allowed light and air into the little bubble he and Greg shared.

“Is that it?” Greg asked.

Shock kicked at Aaron’s solar plexus, propelling a scoff past his lips. “What do you mean is that it? I tell you I feel like a god with you, and you ask if that’s it?”

“You just seem…” Shrugging, Greg looked away and frowned. “Removed.”

“Removed?” Aaron’s erection flagged, and he realized it was the first time he’d really noticed his cock in the past five minutes. Maybe he was feeling removed, but not from Greg. He had to control this scene, though, and make sure it turned out right.

The scene…

Before meeting Dex, Aaron had never really thought about what he and Greg did in their little forays into D/s as scenes. He’d always thought of it as relating to each another—getting and giving what they both needed in order to love, live, and sometimes even survive. Maybe he was more removed tonight than he’d thought.

“I’m sorry. I guess I have some things on my mind.” Aaron studied the vibrator remote in his hand. He’d lost the thread of the moment and had allowed Greg to take control. “We need to focus on you.” He gave Greg his most piercing stare. “Unless you’re up for earning a seven?”

Greg snapped his hands behind his head on his no.

“Then what are you feeling?” Aaron asked.

“A little scared. Ashamed I guess. Like I ruined tonight and whatever you had planned for us by being late.”

Aaron smiled. “You can relax.”

“Relax?”

“I’m punishing you because I want to. I was pretty sure you would be late.”

Gaze turning soft, Greg seemed to look inward as if he replayed the evening in his mind. “That’s why you didn’t count?”

“That’s why I didn’t count,” Aaron affirmed, delighting in the surprised look Greg leveled at him. “I wanted you to relax and get to four.”

“But…”

“Just lie back and enjoy your punishment, Greggie,” Aaron teased when Greg trailed off into confused silence. “I know I will.”

Greg tugged his full lower lip between his teeth and nodded, appearing as emotionally exposed as Aaron could desire.

“Thank you.” Aaron whispered the words against Greg’s forehead and hit the topmost button on the remote.

Even through flesh and muscle, the cycles of vibrations were heavy and audible. Greg thrust his chin upward, and the tendons in his neck stood out like great gnarled roots stemming from the base of a sturdy oak.

“Talk to me,” Aaron said.

“Want you. Please. Fuck me.” The demand couldn’t have been choppier if it had been issued from between a wood chipper’s grinding teeth.

“No. What you’re feeling.” Aaron poked at the controls again. “Not what you want.”

“Want you to punish me. Want to feel cleansed. Good. Clean. Like you. Good… New… Whole… Good enough…” Greg sobbed out the last, his speech becoming an incoherent babbling Aaron no longer understood. What he’d heard, however, was enough, even if Greg hadn’t exactly followed instructions.

Holy hell. Could Aaron’s understanding of the sexual path he had started them on get any more snarled? He thumbed the cycles to something gentler. The lowered vibrations seemed to bring Greg to some kind of suspended state. He lengthened in his seat, fists at his sides, and remained bowed upward. Hovering.

Aaron didn’t bother to say anything about Greg’s hands. He merely gloried in the state of otherness Greg appeared to enter. Aaron’s cock throbbed, fully erect and leaking precum. He pushed the button to amp the vibration just a tad, just enough. Bliss coursed over Greg in shuddering waves, a prelude to his orgasm.

Greg’s mouth opened, and his hips jerked once before Aaron shut off the device altogether and clamped a clothespin he’d taken from his pocket onto the seam of Greg’s balls. Cum dribbled in halfhearted spurts from Greg’s cock, trailing down his shaft to coat the cock ring in a visual display that marked his ruined orgasm. Eyes open, Greg stared down at himself, breath coming in little gasps.

When the semen stopped flowing, he looked up at Aaron, aghast. “I didn’t. I came, but I didn’t.”

Aaron smiled as Greg’s confusion seemed to flutter helplessly against the arousal still steaming the car windows. “It’s interesting how you can have half an orgasm, isn’t it?”

Greg widened his palms and stretched out his fingers as he seemed to grasp for understanding. “But…”

The leather cock ring stuck to Aaron’s fingers as he removed it from Greg’s shaft, then pulled off the clothespin.

“You took it like a man,” he praised.

If there was one thing that got Greg off emotionally—and Aaron in return—it was being denied an orgasm. Tonight, he’d been denied in spades. Aaron cleaned off the ring, ignoring Greg’s quietly spinning wheels until his brain apparently came back online and he spoke.

“It was like…” Greg shook his head. “I felt it coming on. The ecstasy. That pinnacle you reach right before the drop off the cliff.” He looked to Aaron for understanding, and Aaron gave a slow nod. Greg continued. “I jumped, and the ground was right…fucking…there. It was like I stood up instead of flying.”

“I know. I’ve done it to myself.” Palming the back of Greg’s neck, Aaron brought their lips close. “Just to see what it’d feel like for you.”

Aaron kissed him.

“You like it.” Greg’s words came out a mumbled mash of syllables. Still Aaron understood them.

Aaron drew back. “Punishing you?”

Greg nodded and glanced away.

Nerves getting the better of him, Aaron forced himself to focus. He needed to get Greg’s agreement before they went any further and he took Greg somewhere he wasn’t prepared to go. With six months of growth with Dex, it dawned on Aaron that tonight Greg had blindly followed Aaron’s guidance with a trust that hadn’t been earned. The dishonesty between them burned a hole in his gut, compelling him to make a full confession.

“Yes. I like it.” He took Greg’s chin and forced him to meet his gaze. “I like everything about it. And I want to do it more. A lot more. Even if I have to orchestrate stuff like I did tonight.”

Chapter Six

In the dim light, the razor stubble on Greg’s chin became a touchstone to Aaron’s reality. They’d been ensconced in the car for so long the outside world seemed unsettlingly unreal. He cupped Greg’s chin and swiped his thumb back and forth, listening to the susurrations.

“You actually want me to fuck up?” Greg’s lips barely moved, but his breath brushed Aaron’s cheek, sending alcohol-tinged puffs of cherry-blossom sweetness into the air between them. “So you can have at my ass?”

Aaron drew away. He returned fully to his seat and raked his fingers through his hair, untangling the strands. “It’s not like that. I probably shouldn’t have used the term punish.”

But all the other terms that came to mind seemed so cold. What Aaron wanted from Greg—wanted to give to Greg as well as be given by him—was so much more intimate than orchestrating situations where Aaron could explore a fetish for sadism.

“I get off on controlling you.” Afraid to look at Greg, fearful he might see disgust or horror distorting his features, Aaron fiddled with the compartment on the vibrator remote until the batteries dumped into his hand. “It’s sexy to watch you struggle against your natural tendencies to want to be on top.” He pocketed the batteries and put the remote back together. Curling his fingers around the plastic controller, he shrugged. “That I can make you bend when no one else can? It’s a huge trip.”

Feeling Greg’s stare Aaron glanced up, but he couldn’t read the emotion behind his lover’s squint-eyed expression.

“Buckle up,” Aaron said, needing to break the silence. Maybe going home—being on familiar territory—would put things back in balance.

“No.”

“I suppose you probably should put your cock away first,” Aaron said, making a joke both of Greg’s flatline response to his confession and the oversight on Aaron’s part.

At least Greg obeyed the second command, tucking himself away and zipping up his jeans with angry jerks. “Ow, fuck.”

Aaron winced. “Be careful.”

“No shit.” Greg stared out the windshield, his jaw working hard enough to grind glass.

Sighing, Aaron said, “We’re not going anywhere until you’re buckled in.”

“Buckle this.” A solitary middle finger waved in Aaron’s face as Greg shoved his way out of the vehicle and slammed the door.

It took Aaron all of three seconds and a view of Greg’s backside in the mirror to realize he intended to walk home.

“Fuck.” He released his shoulder strap and fumbled his way out of the car. “Greg!” he called. “Getcha ass back here!”

Greg kept walking, his shoulders broader and back straighter than Aaron had ever seen.

“Sonofabitch.” Aaron broke into a jog. “Don’t make me come after you.”

When he reached Greg, he grabbed him by the arm and spun him around so they stood face-to-face.

“What the fuck? Got your period much?” Aaron snarled.

Greg’s eyes flew wide. Aaron registered his own rudeness a little too late.

“Kick my ass all you want, Aaron.” Greg’s expression morphed to one of disdain. “You’re not going to get off on making me suck your cock this time.”

Horror and humiliation burned a hole in Aaron’s stomach lining as his world threatened to bottom out. How had he managed to mangle his version of a sexual coming-out speech to Greg so badly? His mind raced over the possibilities as he tried to grasp what Greg might be angry about. Lost, Aaron found himself badly in need of a map and compass to navigate this new uncharted territory.

“Why are you pissed at me?” he asked finally.

“Because I—” Seeming to deflate a little, Greg looked at his feet, kicked at a loose stone, then jammed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Well, that was progress of a sort if you knew Greg. Aaron ran a hand up Greg’s arm to squeeze his shoulder. Greg didn’t look up. Maybe if Aaron told him the whole story, it would help.

“Can I tell you about something?” Aaron asked.

Perhaps the half-truths were making his delivery awkward and Greg mistrustful. There was no way to live a lie and have an honest relationship at the same time, and wasn’t that what Aaron had been trying to do for the past six months? Or maybe even for their entire relationship?

Greg shrugged. “If you want.”

Headlights cut through the night as a car came around the bend in the road and roared past. Greg’s hair lifted from his forehead in the breeze, and he shivered.

“Can we at least go back to the car?” Aaron was past giving orders at this point, past trying to manage a situation he had a sneaking suspicion he had lost control over about ten minutes ago. Greg didn’t reply, and Aaron tried again. “Let’s just get away from the road. We don’t have to get in if you don’t want.”

Greg pivoted and stalked to the car. When he reached the rear fender, he leaned against it. The car sank under his muscled weight. Aaron pursed his lips, determined not to say anything about jeans rivets marring the paint.

Aaron paced a line in front of Greg. How to begin? What to reveal first? “I think you’re mad at me because I said I enjoy—” He cleared his throat and tried to think of an inoffensive way to say this next bit. “Um. Rough sex.”

Greg snorted. “I like rough sex.”

“True.” Nodding, he paced some more. “But you like it when I make you have rough sex. And”—he cast a sidelong glance at Greg—”I like it when I’m in control of the rough sex.”

“So?” One word sure as hell could hold a world of bitterness.

Getting Greg to discuss their sex life was going to be like pulling teeth. Aaron couldn’t fathom how a man he’d known for close to two decades could say the word “cock” more often in a day than he breathed and then clam up when it came to discussing the actual act.

Aaron sighed and dove in again. “I like BDSM.”

Hands still jammed in his pockets, Greg didn’t look up. “So I gathered from your Google cache.”

“What were you doing on my—” Aaron shook his head, knowing now wasn’t the time. Greg didn’t snoop. He’d probably just needed to look something up, and Aaron’s laptop was more convenient at the time. “Never mind. Isn’t that what you like? What we do?” Aaron prodded, trying to get an indication—even the smallest inkling—of the direction in which Greg’s thoughts headed.

Greg shrugged.

Aaron’s heart clenched. What if all this time he’d been forcing Greg to do things he didn’t want to do? What if this was some fucked-up version of the scenario they’d played out in the graveyard as teens, and Aaron was somehow Greg’s abuser? Or a way for Greg to flagellate himself for his perceived shortcomings? Raking both hands through his hair, Aaron pushed the strands from his face and clutched the sides of his head in frustration.

Finally, Aaron said the only thing he could think to say. “Your safe word is graveyard. From now on, all you have to do is say it, and everything stops. You have a choice.”

A bark of laughter rent the air. Greg pushed away from the car. “I don’t need a fucking safe word, Aaron.”

“Yes. You do.” Aaron stood his ground when Greg stepped toward him. “And you have my apologies for going this long without one. I never knew what we were doing until Dex told me and assigned me all that reading.”

“Dex?” Greg asked, fists balled.

A couple exited the restaurant and approached. Aaron looked at his feet to gather his thoughts and listened as their car started. His mind a jumble of thoughts and confessions, he braced himself for the hardest moment of his life, starkly aware that he was the one who had looked away first, not Greg. Aaron lifted his chin, seeking a now-elusive inner strength. Greg continued to stare at him steadily. Aaron had never felt so small.

“I’ve been seeing someone,” Aaron finally managed. Admission hovering, he paused to find his next words. In that brief span, Greg’s face went ghostly white, then mottled purple. Stuttering realization overtook him, and Aaron held up one hand. “I—it’s not like that. We met six months ago when—”

Greg’s fist seemed to come at Aaron in slow motion.

Shock froze Aaron’s brain, but not his limbs. Years of martial arts training kicked in, and he blocked the punch. Fear, anger, sadness. Three potent emotions he usually kept walled off broke through his carefully erected barriers.

Just like all those years ago in the graveyard, Greg didn’t stand a chance, and Aaron found himself looking down at his lover and best friend, his shoe pressed to Greg’s windpipe.

Their gazes locked and held.

Greg gasped, lifting clawing fingers toward Aaron’s ankle. Pain, then defeat registered in his eyes, and he dropped his hands. He wouldn’t fight what he plainly perceived as a punishment for trying to hit Aaron. If anything, the way Greg exposed his throat now said he’d let Aaron kill him before he defended himself.

Nausea welled, and Aaron stumbled back as he realized what he’d done. How he’d likely made Greg feel—unworthy, lost, lower than low by lashing out at him. At the sight of Greg choking and gasping as he raised himself to his hands and knees, Aaron retched and spun away. He spied a leafy plant at the back of the lot. It was the most private place he could find to lose what little he’d eaten that evening.

When the dry heaves subsided, Aaron brushed his mouth with the back of his sleeve and straightened. He peered around the parking lot. Finding it empty, he searched again. Greg was gone. Panic replaced self-hatred, crowding out everything but thoughts for Greg’s safety and well-being. As Aaron got into the car, he cursed himself for seven kinds of fool. What had he been thinking having this discussion here in a public place where he couldn’t control the setting? And what was wrong with him that he’d gone and provoked Greg that way? He knew—absolutely knew—how delicate this situation had been, and damn him if he could think of a single thing he’d said or done right.

Somehow he was racing toward home, scanning the side of the road for lonely, coatless figures with dark hair and broad shoulders. His hands shook, and he wished for a cigarette for the first time since he was seventeen. Right now, seventeen seemed a lifetime away. He and Greg hadn’t even been roommates yet. They were barely on civil terms. Sort of like now.

“Shut up. You’ll fix it,” Aaron muttered to himself.

Twenty long minutes later, he reached the house and was contemplating turning around to see if Greg had walked in the other direction, when he noticed the downstairs lights were on.

“How the…” Aaron shut off the car and hopped out. Strides long, fists clenched, he tried and failed to shove the anger, fear, and self-loathing into the pit he usually kept them locked in.

Visions of Greg in that graveyard next to their prep school sprang up like a cork and bobbed on the choppy waters of Aaron’s conscience. Greg kneeling, his lip puffy and his cheek cut. Greg holding his arm around his middle so his ribs wouldn’t shift. Most of all, though, Aaron remembered the look in those dark eyes that said, Do your worst. I might hate everyone, but I’ll never hate you.

It was that trust and adoration he craved, Aaron realized as he keyed open the door. He’d been placing Greg in that same position, kneeling at his feet, ever since. Sure, he’d taught his lover a lot about self-control and self-acceptance, but in reality it had all been for himself—one selfish act after another perpetrated to feed his perversions.

No wonder Greg wanted to hit him. Was angry with him. Maybe even hated him.

Aaron took the stairs to the upper floor and their shared office two at a time, determined to apologize and help Greg find an outlet for the dark emotions Aaron had fed off so he didn’t have to feel them for himself for far too long.

In the office he flicked on the light and rummaged in his bottom desk drawer. At the back he found the item he sought. Clenching the cold metal in his fist so his hand wouldn’t shake, Aaron went downstairs to the bedroom to give Greg the one thing he’d never offered in their relationship: complete control.

When Aaron entered the bedroom, Greg’s back was to him. Wearing only his navy-blue sweats, his reading glasses, and a pair of earbuds connected to his MP3 player, Greg shoved his jeans into a dresser drawer and slammed it shut. The grating rhythm and screaming vocals of Shinedown’s “Sound of Madness” effectively shut Aaron out, but the defiant lyrics about isolation and pain gave him a pretty good idea as to Greg’s headspace.

Aaron closed his eyes. He had two choices. Play the relationship the way they always had, or not. Tonight Aaron had been fucking with things without getting Greg’s buy-in on the changes, and it hadn’t worked out so well, but what he contemplated now constituted another break from tradition. Unsure whether to step back into the hall and let Greg have the bedroom for the night, or to move forward, Aaron hovered in indecision until he noticed Greg fiddling with his wedding ring.

Oh, hell no. They’d gone through enough of that shit.

“Greg!” Aaron shouted.

Greg kept his back to him but met Aaron’s gaze in the dresser mirror.

Ten, Aaron mouthed.

First Greg’s brows lifted in surprise; then a crease formed as he drew them together. Apparently he thought he hadn’t read Aaron’s lips correctly.

Aaron held up both hands, all ten fingers splayed.

Muscled shoulders turned first, and Greg’s body followed. Emotions cascaded in rapid-fire flickers over his face like an expressive aurora borealis. Despite the knowledge he shouldn’t be getting off on the secondhand emotions, Aaron drank in the anger, fear, and finally, arousal. Greg’s emotional abandon struck Aaron as sublime, and not for the first time he envied the ability to let go and just be.

Greg pulled his earbuds from his ears one at a time and laid the MP3 player carefully on the nightstand. His hands fell to his sides, the lyrics to the song still blaring in tinny defiance. Aaron remained poised in the doorway. Greg blinked at him from the bedside. Some part of Aaron had always known this moment would come, but he’d though it would be for different reasons and that he’d have a different result in mind. Though Greg didn’t realize it yet, this was Aaron’s penalty, not his.

“You tried to hit me,” Aaron said, his voice catching. He cleared his throat. He paused, but Greg didn’t speak. “You haven’t tried to pick a fight with me since high school.”

Greg swallowed hard, and the sound of saliva grating against constricted throat muscles crackled through the silence of the bedroom. He took a faltering step back, and that was when Aaron knew—absolutely knew—that in a very small part of his soul, it wasn’t just lust that drove Greg to his knees when Aaron commanded him to kneel.

Fuck Dex. He didn’t know a thing. Greg had knelt before Aaron in that graveyard not because he wanted to control Aaron or to make Aaron top him. He’d done it to prove he trusted Aaron not to hurt him beyond what he could endure. Aaron had failed that night, and Greg’s fear had been the consequence ever since. The incident had almost broken them both, and the reverberations would continue to haunt their relationship until Aaron did something to balance the scales.

The snick of the metal police cuffs opening precipitated the flutter of muscles and skin along Greg’s abdomen. Aaron approached Greg as he might a feral animal, one hand held up as he spoke in quiet, soothing tones. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Greg dropped to his knees like someone had taken a bat to the backs of his legs.

“These are for me.” Aaron knelt in front of Greg, bringing them face-to-face. “It’s so I can’t stop you.” Aaron held up the cuffs and one wrist, securing the metal ring with a click that sounded more final than a jail cell slamming shut. “Not this time.”

Chapter Seven

Greg hardly heard Aaron’s words. He knew Aaron spoke, but the meaning behind them wasn’t important. What was important was explaining himself and making sure Aaron forgave his impetuous, temperamental behavior, not the other way around. On the way home, Greg had figured out Aaron hadn’t been confessing to an affair.

Jesus Christ. A ten.

He’d always figured Aaron would divorce him for a ten.

“I hitched home.” The inane confession tumbled from Greg’s mouth, but no other topic presented itself as safe.

Aaron, his normally tan skin as pale as the ghosts of their boyhoods past, nodded and licked his lips. “I figured.”

On the drive back, Greg had taken the time to think through his emotions—like Aaron had taught him—and parsed what Aaron had been trying to tell him. Apparently, Aaron had been talking with someone about BDSM—some kind of therapist—so he could explore how to play safely. Aaron wanted to do more as a dominant, and tonight he had been telling Greg he enjoyed the dynamic.

“I’m sorry.” The least Greg figured he could do was apologize for lashing out and for making Aaron worry. “I know you’d never cheat on me.”

And he did know it. Aaron was good and true. Kind and pure. Anything he did was always with the best of intentions for them both.

“For what?” Eyes wide, Aaron sat back on his heels. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I always thought you were counting because I needed to be kept in check, and it helped me face going out and being with people.” Memories of social events where only a lift of Aaron’s brow or a subtle point of a finger kept Greg from making a faux pas flashed like silent movies against his mental backdrop. “Plus, the sex we have after… It’s…” He glanced away. “You know? Hot. I like that part too.” Shifting from one knee to the other, he mumbled, “But then…then you said…” Greg swallowed down the bitterness that came with the admission. “Well, what you said about arranging things so I’d mess up.” He studied the navy and cream threads in the bedroom carpet, unable to cushion himself against his raw humiliation. “And I got confused. Essentially, I forgot who you are, and I figured that all this time when I thought you’d been loving me and helping me, maybe you’d just been waiting for me to screw up, or you were trying to trip me up so you could knock me down.” He involuntarily lowered his voice to a whisper and finished with, “Like my father.”

Aaron scrambled to his feet. Greg’s stomach lurched as if it tried to follow.

“Get up,” Aaron said.

Unable to believe how badly he’d managed to insult the man he loved, Greg closed his eyes and rose unsteadily. They both stood by the bed now. Why Aaron wore the one cuff Greg failed to comprehend, unless he intended to manacle them together so Greg couldn’t get away from whatever Aaron had in store.

“I’d never abuse you,” Aaron said, and Greg nodded, wishing he could take the words back.

Of course Aaron would never hurt him. Not deliberately. Not without provocation. Both times he’d found himself under Aaron’s boot, Aaron had been provoked. Greg had always thrown the first punch—tonight, and that night in the graveyard. He might as well have mea culpa tattooed on his forehead. Gentle fingers touched Greg’s face, cupping his cheek. He leaned into the caress, though he knew he didn’t deserve it.

Thumb sweeping Greg’s cheekbone, Aaron said, “I’ve never intentionally done something to you I didn’t think you were enjoying in some part.” Aaron’s voice wavered, and Greg spared him a glance. Fine lines marred his brow. “I definitely enjoy the game we play, but some of what I do…it’s to keep you safe from me. Because when you lash out at me physically? I get ugly. I can’t help it any more than you can. We’re more alike than you think, Greg, for good and for bad. I’ve told you all along.”

Greg shook his head. Aaron was nothing like him. Nothing at all. Greg would’ve said so, but even vocalizing the comparison seemed alien enough to require a different kind of air. Instead, Greg focused on the one thing that had worried him most since he’d found himself on his back in the parking lot, Aaron looming above him, stark against a seemingly starless sky.

“Are you leaving me?” Greg asked, certain that could be the only logical penalty to pay for reaching ten. “I heard what you said and thought you were having an affair. But I know you’re not. You wouldn’t.” Then as an afterthought, he added, “I’ve known what we do is BDSM, or D and S for a while, and I like it. I like it a lot.”

Aaron’s smile failed to banish the clouds from his eyes.

“I know. I mean I know you thought I was having an affair. I wasn’t sure about the S and M part.” Aaron dropped his hand from Greg’s face and sat on the edge of the bed. He nodded toward the dresser. “Grab the strap from the top drawer.”

A whipping? Surely a ten was worth more than something so common and, frankly, potentially arousing as a whipping. A ten was serious business.

“Trust me?” Aaron asked when Greg hesitated.

With a heavy heart, Greg retrieved the implement. Somehow this would end up the way it should. It always did when he let Aaron take the lead. He turned from the dresser, the warm weight of the wide leather strap in his hand. His balls grew heavy as heat rushed to them and his cock. Humiliation and arousal creating a sickly sweet pleasure in his middle, Greg approached the bed and Aaron, who was unbuttoning his shirt.

“Ten strokes,” Aaron said, shrugging off the garment. “Don’t listen to anything I say. Just…trust this is what we both need.”

Greg barely listened, certain he deserved the beating he had coming from Aaron, though he knew the strap couldn’t be the entire punishment. Not for a ten. Flitting from thought to thought, leather biting into his fingers, Greg clenched the strap until it creased along the center. Aaron had never really talked to him during a punishment like this before. He couldn’t imagine what Aaron might say that would need to ignored, but nodded his agreement anyway.

Aaron lay back and tilted his head to glance at the sturdy metal bars forming the headboard’s Gothic framework. They’d bought the piece more for its handholds than beauty, but after clutching the thing countless times during ass-pounding sex, Greg had certain affection for the monstrosity.

“What are you doing?” Greg asked as Aaron flipped over and looped the free cuff through one of the more slender pieces of iron.

Without answering, Aaron fastened the second cuff around his other wrist so he was secured to the bed. Greg opened his mouth and closed it again.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a better position.” Aaron settled his head on one of the pillows. “I have a weird inability to let anyone hit me when I’m not restrained.” He snorted, somehow finding humor in a moment Greg rapidly viewed as horrifying. “You might have noticed.”

“No.” Greg retreated a step, bringing the tanned skin of Aaron’s muscled back into full view. “I am not hitting you.”

Aaron turned his head to the right. “You have to, Greg.”

Though his lover’s mouth formed words, Greg had no understanding of them. Punishing Aaron was like punishing a god. It was something Greg couldn’t attempt with rational thought on his side. Mouth dry, stomach sour, he let the strap slide from his fingers. The leather hit the floor in a series of thumps.

“Where’s the key?” Greg made a visual search of the room for the handcuff key.

Aaron faced away again. “I’m not telling you until you do it.”

Past caring if he came across as an emotional train wreck, Greg ran around the room, throwing open drawers and doors, flinging clothes into a heap in a desperate bid to find the key. It had to be here somewhere. When had they last used it? He glanced toward the hall. The cuffs had been upstairs—

“Greg!”

Greg whirled, flinging the wad of socks he held to the floor. “Why are you doing this?”

“You need to do this.” Aaron met his gaze with steady reassurance, his voice serene. “Greg. Please.”

Though Aaron’s plea tugged at his conscience, Greg couldn’t fathom how Aaron could need this ugly act from him. Then it occurred to him: he hated the idea of hurting Aaron almost as much as Aaron loved giving Greg the punishments he craved. The fact that this would hurt Greg worse than anything Aaron had ever done to him was likely the entire point. That was why this was a ten.

“Oh fuck,” Greg whispered.

Like a reluctant marionette, he shuffled toward the bed and Aaron. Not knowing how or where he found the will, he bent to grope blindly for the strap. If this was his punishment, he had to do it. Didn’t he?

An invisible garrote tightening around his throat, Greg rubbed his neck with his free hand. Aaron lay prone on the bed, his face turned away. Deep breaths pushed his ribs outward, stretching muscle and skin impossibly taut.

“Is this because I tried to hit you?” Greg asked. “Because I swear I’ll never do it again.”

He heard his voice as if from a distance and noted its tinny smallness. God, he was begging, and it wasn’t even his beating. Aaron didn’t belong here, figuratively at Greg’s feet. It had always been the other way around, and Greg didn’t want it any other way. Why had Aaron taken the safety of submission away from him?

“Just do it, Greg,” Aaron finally answered, his voice strained.

Twin tears escaped over Greg’s lashes and made hot trails down his cheeks. The strap dangled limply, almost benign in its fluidity, from his fingers. Before he could strike the first blow, Greg’s vision darkened, then widened, seeming to suck him into memories he’d held back for over a decade. His psychological fortress crumbled until only dust motes stood between him and his father’s remembered snarling face. In memory, his father held a crop and brought it down on Greg’s back again and again and again.

Every evil, dark emotion that had wormed inside Greg’s heart and eaten away at his soul during eighteen years of homespun torture laid him bare now until he was nothing but a pile of refuse. He crumpled to the ground, Aaron forgotten. Greg hugged himself and rocked, face hidden, strap flung to the far corner of the room. Through a veil of terror, he clutched at the only word he could find.

“Graveyard.”

He rocked harder, curling into a ball, making himself as small as possible.

“Graveyard.”

Rock. Rock.

“Jesus, please. Graveyard.”

Rock.

“Graveyard, graveyard, graveyard.”

The ring of metal hitting metal intruded on Greg’s chanting. Then Aaron’s shouts.

“Greg! Goddammit!”

Aaron twisted on the bed, his arms crossed above him as he repeatedly crashed the headboard into the wall. Sheetrock powder and paint chips scattered everywhere. Several items rolled off the nightstand, pelting Greg’s shoulders. He managed to take a steadier breath, though to tremulous effect. Finally he met Aaron’s wild eyes.

“Get the handcuff key out of my pocket,” Aaron said, stilling.

When Greg stared at him blankly, Aaron jerked up, snarling, muscles visibly straining. “Now!”

Hyperventilation had taken its toll, starving Greg’s muscles of oxygen. Movements weak, he pawed his way up the side of the bed using the comforter for leverage until he could dig into Aaron’s pants pocket. Heated metal, slick with sweat, slipped against his fingers. He held up the key, not quite understanding what Aaron meant him to do with the object.

“Hand it to me,” Aaron said with calm command.

Greg pressed the key into Aaron’s open palm and watched blankly as Aaron released the cuffs and sat up. Bits of paint cascaded to the bed, pattering like soft-blue-tinted rain to the white comforter. Like an idiot, Greg began hiccupping, each pulse of his diaphragm jerking his torso in an approximation of a mini-earthquake.

Handcuffs clattered onto the nightstand, and suddenly Aaron was there, his arms wrapped tightly around Greg’s middle. He breathed deep between hiccups and caught Aaron’s ocean scent.

“Why?” Greg’s question welled on a tide of unrelenting pressure.

Aaron kissed his forehead. Greg had ended up in Aaron’s lap. They sat on the floor, Aaron’s back pressed to the side of the bed.

“Because I wanted to experience my own fear for once,” Aaron said. “And I thought you deserved a chance to be on top.”

Greg’s head throbbed along the point where surgeons had drained fluid from his brain after a head injury several years ago. He didn’t want to think about Aaron afraid or out of control. Yet an old, grainy memory of handing Aaron the leather neck thong he now wore reared. Greg pulled away and fingered the jewelry.

“What?” Aaron looked down at Greg’s hand.

“I gave you that necklace when I figured out I loved you,” Greg said, dropping his hand.

With a puzzled expression, Aaron explored the leather thong. “This?”

“Yes.” Biting his lower lip, Greg debated whether teasing Aaron with this admission was such a good idea. Especially right now. Seeing no way back now that he’d started, he finally grinned, a bit sheepish, and said, “I know who really wears the collar in this relationship.”

A beat passed before Aaron’s fingers tightened around the thong. Greg watched as comprehension dawned, and red splashed across Aaron’s cheeks.

“You—”

Greg pressed his fingers to Aaron’s sputtering lips.

“The only thing that comes as a surprise to me with you, Aaron, is what evil thing you’re going to come up with to do to me next. I’ve always known what flips your switch and earns me your skilled attention.”

Aaron tugged Greg’s hand away, and Greg let him.

“Dex was right.” Aaron canted his head to one side and considered Greg for a long moment. “You’ve always topped from the bottom. Even when we didn’t know what we were doing was sexual. I’m just so used to it I can’t even see it.”

Power licked at Greg’s spine. He sat up straighter. “I’m not so easy to control as you seem to think.”

Confidence. Strength. Safety. Trust. Peace. The paradox was, Aaron’s dominance allowed Greg to feel all these emotions. Then there was freedom, happiness too. All the things he hated himself too much to experience, he could feel when Aaron took control. However, even when Aaron was guiding him Greg mostly chose the manner in which he gave Aaron the reins. It had always been that way.

“I know you’re not easy to control,” Aaron muttered, shifting his hips. “Get off. My legs are falling asleep.”

Greg slid to the carpet and sat cross-legged opposite Aaron, who continued to fidget with the collar, his fingers zipping back and forth along the woven length as if the leather itched.

“You’ve never actually really given yourself over to me?” Aaron asked, though the question was spoken so quietly it might have been unintended for Greg’s ears.

Searching his memory, Greg remembered the graveyard and skimmed over every other notable moment with Aaron in rapid-fire succession. In all that time, he’d never needed a safe word with Aaron. Not until tonight.

“Tonight.” He met Aaron’s gaze. “You had total control tonight.”

Aaron’s stare painted him haunted.

“And that’s why you needed to use that safe word?” Aaron asked. “Because you actually gave me control?”

“No.” Throat tight, Greg struggled for honesty, though it might cost Aaron his pride. “I didn’t give it to you. You took it. You cuffed yourself and didn’t give me a choice about getting you out of the bondage.” Anger bubbled forth at the idea Aaron would ever think to take Greg’s place in their relationship. The mind fuck and irony was, Greg had been bottomed from the top, and the manipulation didn’t sit well. “I couldn’t release you unless I did what you said.”

Rubbing both hands down his face, Aaron seemed to shield himself briefly from Greg’s stare. When his arms dropped to his sides, he appeared flummoxed.

“So, if I ever take control…really take control…you’ll safe word?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really want a safe word. It seems artificial. I’ve never had trouble before, but maybe it’s because you never really held all the cards before.” Greg stared at his hands, wondering at the disconnectedness that made them seem to belong to someone else. “But after tonight? If you’re going to pull this shit where I have to hurt you? I’m on board because I’m never, ever going to do that to you while I’m in my right mind. If only a safe word will prevent that, then I’ll chant one morning, noon, and night.”

Aaron blinked at him as if he were trying to reboot his brain. Finally he stood and brushed his hands on his slacks. He went into the next room, where Greg heard him opening and closing drawers. Maybe he wanted to be alone?

Greg pushed to his feet, a hollow feeling in his chest. Had he disappointed Aaron with his honesty about the incident with the strap? Or was Aaron angry about Greg’s admission that he’d never truly given up control in their relationship? What a fucked-up night. They were so at odds, with Aaron needing control and Greg historically not giving it up in the way Aaron wanted. They’d had this dynamic going between them for so long Greg had no idea how to change it so he could give Aaron what he craved: true submission.

Left with nothing more substantial than a shifting pile of sand under his figurative feet, Greg wandered out the back slider. The moon had risen high, and silver shimmered over the waves. He leaned against the railing and stared at shadows, trying to make sense of his thoughts and a relationship he’d mistakenly thought he had figured out years ago.

Chapter Eight

Aaron let the click of the slider latch announce his presence as he stepped out onto the deck, but Greg didn’t turn from his perch against the rail. Letting his gaze scan the line of Greg’s back, Aaron imagined him naked and tied, bent to receive a well-lubed dildo, cock jutting toward the sea. If things had gone differently tonight, perhaps that was where they’d be now. It would’ve been sunrise before Aaron allowed Greg to jet his spunk all over the sand below.

“I want to do things to you, Greg. Dark things. Dirty things,” Aaron said, barely recognizing his own voice.

A visible shiver went down Greg’s spine.

Aaron stepped in behind him and launched into the next part of his prepared speech. “I want real control, and I need to know if I’m taking it too far—taking us too far. And you have to have a way to tell me.”

“You wouldn’t—” Greg began to turn.

Aaron leaned in to prevent the motion, one palm over Greg’s mouth, and imprisoned him against the deck rail. He left just enough room for Greg to breathe from his nose. Breath play was not on the agenda tonight—not with Greg resisting the idea of regularly employing a safe word—but someday Aaron wanted it to be.

With the moist heat of Greg’s breath puffing over the back of his hand, Aaron pressed even closer to whisper. “I want to control you, Greg—everything about you—from the way you piss to how you take my cock up your ass. And I don’t want your say-so in how or when I do it. I never want you to see it coming, and I sure as hell don’t want you directing the show. And I’m betting that you’d get off on submitting to me that way.”

Greg’s hard swallow forced Aaron to bite back a triumphant grin. He dropped his hand and leaned away to give Greg some space.

“I don’t want to leave you any room to hide from me…or to top from the bottom. I want to break you of that.”

Greg turned and stared pointedly at the thong around Aaron’s neck before he met his eyes again. “How do you propose to change the dynamic?”

“You’re willing?” The strong night breeze blew stinging sand into Aaron’s calves, reminding him of the scourging both he and Greg seemed to need.

“I think—”

“You can’t think,” Aaron said. “You have to know.”

Greg inhaled deep. “Fine, but I need to know something first.”

“Sure.” Aaron indicated the patio table, and Greg preceded him there.

They sat, and a still-shirtless Greg huddled in on himself, drawing his knees to his chest to wrap his arms around them. Though the night wasn’t terribly cold, the wind blew from the west, bringing with it the damp chill of the ocean.

“Do you think it’s because of your dad?” Greg asked.

Open emotion—empathy and pain—lined Greg’s forehead and tightened his mouth. Unused to seeing such honest compassion on Greg’s face, Aaron almost didn’t register the question. When he did, he was unprepared for the kick to his abdomen. His breath came out in a rush he belatedly disguised with a pass of his palm down his face.

“You mean do I like being in control because of his death?” Aaron cleared his throat and played with the edge of the table, running his fingertips along a rougher portion of the metallic paint.

“Yeah.” Greg didn’t lift his chin from his knees as he spoke.

Aaron had been away at a friend’s house when his father had died. There’d been a call to his friend’s mother, and he wasn’t allowed to go home until it was all over. The last memory he had of his dad was the spanking he’d received for rudeness to his mother earlier that day. At twelve years old, getting your ass whipped wasn’t such an uncommon experience where he was from, so perhaps the memory shouldn’t still make his cheeks color, but it did. He’d never told Greg that detail—nobody but his mother knew it or ever would. Some things were just too painful to share.

While the chain of events—the spanking, his bad behavior, his father’s death—all seemed highly suspect and might have been a tipping point for him where control was concerned, the situation hadn’t seemed sexual either then or now. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a psychologist would have a field day with the story. Possibly it was why he couldn’t stand being hit—because physical pain did tend to make him feral in the same way he’d felt when he’d arrived home to a house devoid of his father’s presence. That was when he’d started breaking things all the time. His mother had sent him to martial arts class a few months later to help him learn to direct and control his “rambunctious energy,” as she termed his outbursts.

“I don’t know if his death has anything to do with why I like control,” Aaron answered, realizing it wasn’t until he met Greg that sexual control had become fetishized. “I think it has more to do with wanting to protect you and our relationship than wanting to control life in general. And”—the roughness in the paint became particularly absorbing at this point—”like I said, I feel stuff through you. When you submit or cry…sometimes even laugh…it breaks me open. I feel safe feeling what you’re feeling. Especially anger.” Aaron shrugged. “You let me exist in a way that’s safe and sexy. Cathartic too.”

“Huh. I always wondered what you got out of it.”

Aarons looked up. “Out of what?”

Greg’s gaze seemed to go inward like it always did when he was feeling particularly down on himself. “Putting so much work into me.”

“Into us, Greg.” Aaron paused in his perusal of the bubbled paint. “It’s us I’m into. How we fit. I’m not sure I’d be like this with someone else. You let me be me, but I’m a different me with you than with anyone else. And I think that’s a good thing. A healthy thing. At least for us.”

Greg rested his cheek on his knees and gazed out at the inky stretch of the Pacific. “You don’t think what we do is broken? Weird?”

“How do you feel after?” Aaron held his breath. Greg’s answer would determine a lot for them both.

A smile flitted over Greg’s countenance, his expression lightening so Aaron noticed the moonlight reflected in his dark eyes.

“I feel cleansed. Free.” Full lips curved into a beautiful smile. “Earlier tonight was euphoric.”

“Good,” Aaron whispered. “It was for me too.”

Aaron stood and moved to the other side of the table. He held out a hand to Greg. Uncurling his posture, Greg gave him his palm, and Aaron tugged him to his feet. He brushed a thumb over Greg’s lower lip before leaning in to nip the tender flesh. Greg welcomed the kiss, and Aaron wrapped his arms around his lover’s torso to pull him close. After so many years together, they had worn a reflexive groove that allowed their bodies to fit together perfectly. Not a millimeter of space remained between them from thigh to chest by the time the kiss ended.

“Will you try?” Aaron asked, lifting his head.

Greg licked his lips. “Try what?”

“To really let me take the helm, at least in our game?” Though he wanted to close his eyes, Aaron forced himself to keep his gaze steady. “Even when there’s no counting?”

Greg shrugged. “Yeah. Sure.”

“I need you to say it, Greg.”

“Yes,” Greg said. “I’ll try to give you control. Real control.”

Aaron’s pulse quickened.

Greg’s arms tightened around Aaron’s ribs. “You want this to just be in bed?”

“Are you asking for 24-7?” Aaron brushed Greg’s hair from his forehead, trying to get inside his lover’s walls—a place he’d always thought he’d managed to breach before. After tonight he couldn’t be sure, and he had to be sure.

Greg nodded. “I’ve been out here thinking about it.”

“Wow. And you’re sure you’d want that?” Aaron asked, surprised that Greg would exhibit so much trust after the evening they’d had together.

“Logically? I don’t know.” Heat caressed Aaron’s cheek as Greg let out a breath. “But my cock likes the idea, and I think it might be easier in a way.”

Aaron laughed along with Greg, who settled more firmly into the embrace.

“Thanks for being honest.” This shift wouldn’t actually be easy for either of them, Aaron suspected. “Why don’t we negotiate the rules on paper later? Then we’ll renegotiate as we go.”

“Sounds good.” Greg’s reply was too perfunctory, but at least he asked, “And if we need a break?”

“We’ll take one,” Aaron reassured him. “Nothing is written in stone.”

“Okay.” Greg said, his tone a little more certain. “I’ll try to really give you control and not top from the bottom.”

“Thank you.” Placing another whisper of a kiss against Greg’s lips, Aaron dropped his arms, then stepped away. “Before we go any further, I need you to tell me what you want to get out of this. It’s not all about me.”

Backing up a pace, Greg folded his arms. Aaron saw his emotional walls go up, and he braced himself for Greg’s demands.

“I need to know whatever we have going won’t mess with my professional independence. If we’re on a project together, all this is put on the back burner. No using your power to force me into having a cowriter or some other shit like that. We’re equals, at least on the job.”

Surprise hitched Aaron’s breath. “Whoa. Whoa, whoa,” he said, holding up both hands and taking a halting step back. “Wait a minute.”

“If you’re not going to agree to that, this discussion is over.” Greg’s chin jutted.

“No! I absolutely agree with you.” Aaron sank into his chair, completely kneecapped by the realization Greg would think submitting to him meant inequality by any measure. “And for the record, I’ve always thought of us as equals. Professionally and personally.”

Greg blinked and shook his head. “Um— Thank you.”

Elbow on the table, Aaron propped his chin on his open palm. The casual position allowed him to appear calmer than he felt. The idea that Greg somehow equated kneeling with slavery wasn’t what Aaron had envisioned at all. This was give-and-take. Greg had to be made whole through his submission just as Aaron was made whole through taking care of him and assuming control. Otherwise this would never work other than as a recipe to their relationship’s ruin.

“Do you mind if I ask why you thought I felt any other way?”

Greg, shoulders lowered, almost appeared to deflate.

“I always feel less than, Aaron.” he answered. “And I especially can’t help feeling less than you. You’re my…” He indicated Aaron with a head-to-toe sweep of his hand. “You’re who I wish I was.”

Aaron pushed out of his chair and closed the distance between them, the weathered boards under his feet creaking as he stepped a little too hard around the table.

“How can you not know how much you mean to me? How much I admire your strength? Your grit?”

Greg slid his gaze away, but Aaron placed his hands on the armrests and bent low, forcing his attention.

“I know what your father did to you,” Aaron said. “He tried to break you, and you didn’t let him. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” What horrors Greg’s father hadn’t put him through, Aaron and his classmates had undertaken to complete. Yet this man trusted him and let him in, made sure not a day went by when Aaron didn’t feel loved and whole. Sure, they’d had their struggles, but Greg had always come through. “And you have a heart one hundred times the size of mine. You just hide it a lot so it won’t get broken.” Aaron pulled Greg close and smiled into his hair. “Kit and Jeremy know it too. We all know it.”

“Now,” Aaron said, straightening with intent, and Greg looked up, expectant. Though Dex would’ve said this wasn’t the time, Aaron knew better and pressed his previous question. “If you want to wear my collar, you’re going to tell me what you want out of this arrangement.”

Greg looked out at the ocean, and Aaron didn’t push as silence, broken only by the rush of the water and the sound of a neighbor’s flag flapping on a nearby deck, stretched between them. Greg’s next words were spoken so softly into the wind, Aaron almost didn’t hear them.

“I want,” he said, “to stop hating myself.”

Chapter Nine

The moment the confession left his mouth, Greg wished he could take it back. Too vulnerable! his brain screamed, and he briefly considered vaulting over the deck rail and onto the beach below.

Aaron gripped the back of a chair and stared at him for several moments, unblinking. “You really still hate yourself? Like you did in high school?”

Greg stood, if only to release some of the tension coiling in his limbs, and backed away so he leaned against the railing. In the distance, he could hear the rush of cars and the drone of a television through an open slider. Better to focus on those sounds than his panic-driven heartbeat.

“Most of the time, no. I guess it’s different. It’s not that bad.” He shrugged, picking at his nails, then lifted one to his mouth for a nibble. “But it’s there, always waiting to pounce,” he said, speaking around his fingernail.

“Stop chewing on yourself”—Aaron barely flicked a glance at Greg’s hand, and Greg dropped it on command—”and tell me what it’s like. How it’s different.”

“I guess it’s some of the same stuff. I mess up and feel ugly and weak. Now I have successes too—the film awards and all that—but there’s this second voice in my head that says it’s all a fluke.” He brought his hand to his mouth again, but Aaron pushed his arm down. Greg’s cheeks heated, but he kept talking through the embarrassment. “I figure I only won the awards because people find it politically advantageous to give a gay guy a golden statue.”

Aaron breathed deep and nodded, seemingly to himself. “All right. I can work with that.” He gave Greg’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll see if we can help you like yourself a little more. Or barring that, at least not be so mean to yourself.”

Not really wanting to hear what Aaron had to say on the subject, Greg looked longingly to the sand and water. He needed to go for a run, a swim. Anything that would get his brain to quiet down and his body to relax. He’d been on edge ever since that ruined orgasm.

“Want to walk on the beach while we talk?” Greg asked.

Aaron glanced to the water and back to Greg. “Sure. But we need some shoes.”

“Okay.” He waited as Aaron ducked into the house and came out with their boat shoes bundled in his arms and a couple of hoodies slung over his shoulder. He held out a pair of shoes, and Greg caught them mid-drop. “Thanks.” Greg slid his feet into the shoes and tugged a hoodie off Aaron’s shoulder. “It’s kind of chilly, I guess.”

Funny how he could be out here for an hour and not notice the cold until Aaron brought it to his attention by bringing the clothes out for them. Greg had always been that way—prone to starving or freezing because he simply didn’t recognize his body’s signals. He’d read somewhere it was a hallmark of an abuse survivor, but he preferred to think he was just stupid. The idea his father could have that kind of a lingering effect on him from six feet under was too much to contemplate. As they stepped onto the sand, the strangest question came out of his mouth.

“Why do you think I love what you do to me so much?” As Aaron grabbed his hand and they began to walk, Greg kept talking. “I mean, my father tried to control me for almost twenty years, and I hated him for it. Your hoops? I want to jump through them just to see you smile or nod your approval. I’ve been beaten all my life, but when you lay into me, I get high off it. And my cock gets hard enough to pound nails.”

Truly, his wires were so crossed he could probably short out the entire California electrical grid if someone bothered to plug him in.

“I’m no therapist, but I’ve always guessed you’re so hypervigilant about everyone and everything around you that it gets exhausting. You want to give up control in a safe way. Your father never made you feel loved or safe. His boundaries were all about hurting you, not loving you.” They walked north in silence for several more minutes before Aaron spoke again. “I also wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you want to live out some of your darker fears in a controlled way so you can examine them safely and release some of the pressure. Third? You’re an adrenaline junkie. And don’t deny it. I’ve seen you surf.”

“Huh.” Sand had begun to leak into the sides of Greg’s shoes, abrading his ankles as he walked. He stopped and tugged off one shoe to dump out the grit. “How about you, then? Why do you like controlling me and the pleasure and pain?”

“Does what I do arouse you?” Aaron held on to his elbow, keeping Greg steady as he shook out his shoe before slipping it back on.

“It’s more the control and fear of pain than the pain itself. The pleasure, definitely.” Straightening, he brushed his hands off on his thighs. “But when you do it right? Yes. The pain arouses me too.”

“I kind of told you before that I think it’s the only way I feel safe experiencing intense emotion—I experience it through you, so it’s once removed.” Aaron tightened his grip on Greg’s fingers. “I don’t allow my anger and fear free rein anymore. Not since…”

Since the night in the graveyard.

It was true there had been a fundamental shift in Aaron after that night. He withdrew from his clique, became less popular and less jocular. He seemed more at peace with being quiet—not sullen, but an island unto himself. Even later in life, Aaron had kept his easy charm. Underneath it all was a wisdom Greg hated to admit hadn’t been present when they’d first met.

Oddly, the brawl in the graveyard was one of Greg’s favorite memories. Despite all the pain, it was the first time he connected with Aaron. The first time he felt truly noticed and part of Aaron’s world. Even being his roommate hadn’t afforded the kind of intimacy the violence of that exchange had wrought.

“Wow. That’s totally fucked up,” Greg said.

Bending, Aaron scooped a rare seashell from the beach and dropped Greg’s hand to brush the sand from the pearlescent surface.

“What’s messed up?” Aaron asked, almost absent-minded.

“I totally got off on you beating the shit out of me that night in school.”

Aaron’s chin shot up, and he pierced Greg with his stare. Dark emotions slithered palpably from him and dropped to the sand, where they wound around Greg’s ankles, holding him immobile.

“I know.” Aaron said, his voice low. “But unlike you, I hate myself for that night. I hate that I hurt you in that way. There was nothing sexy about it for me. I’ve spent the rest of our relationship always making sure I was in control of my emotions so I wouldn’t do it to you again. But you know what?” Aaron stepped close and cupped Greg’s chin before sliding his hand down so it rested against his throat. “I think it’s sexy that you like kneeling at my feet. If I can create that for you in a safe way, a responsible way? I’m happy to go there anytime you want.”

Heat flamed across Greg’s cheeks, and jelly ran into his kneecaps, turning them insubstantial. He dipped a little, but Aaron’s hand at his throat held him steady.

“Tell me what you like. Tell me what scares you for real and what brings a blush to your face.” One thumb caressing Greg’s jugular, Aaron leaned in to growl, “I like making you blush.”

Hot breath caressed Greg’s cheek and rushed into his ear. He moaned, soaking in the eroticism of Aaron’s hand wrapped lightly around his throat. Cock lengthening, groin flooding with tension, he inhaled deeply and fought for the wherewithal to answer.

“I like what you’re doing now. The hand on my throat. The—the threat of breath play. And I like the orgasm restriction.” Breathing harder, Greg surfed a tide of arousal. “All that new stuff you did with the toys tonight? I want to know what else you have in your evil bag of tricks. I love when you control my body and mind. And the mind fucks. Knowing I can try to outwit you but that I might fail. It’s all sexy as hell.”

Aaron tightened his hand a fraction, sex thick on the air. “Might fail?”

Greg’s stomach gave a welcome flip. He trod a delicate line here. One wobble and he was going to find himself plummeting into the seductive darkness below.

“I only have previous experience to go on. Topping from the bottom is a specialty,” he risked pointing out. “Remember?”

“Just so’s we’re clear?” Aaron dropped his hand and moved around Greg to shove his sweats low before pushing him forward so he touched his toes. “This is what’s going to happen wherever and whenever you try that in the future.”

Greg gasped, his cock hardening even before the first fall of Aaron’s hand. The initial stroke brought his head up with its penetrating burn. “Fuck.”

“Language,” Aaron said, his hand rising and falling again to mark Greg’s other cheek with enough heat to register on a satellite image.

Greg grunted and clenched his fists in an effort to withstand the rain of successive slaps that echoed louder than the waves rushing toward his feet.

“I don’t care where we are. What we’re doing. If we’re not working, and you top me?” Several more spanks fell on his already stinging ass. “I’m taking you over my knee without explanation or warning. Act like a brat. Get treated like a brat.”

Gasping, Greg attempted to fill his lungs with air but choked on the deep inhale. Aaron’s arm came over his back, circling his waist, making sure he didn’t stand up to avoid the remainder of his punishment. When the spanking ceased, Greg’s pride hurt less than his ass, but not by much. He tried and failed to bring a hand to his nose to wipe the moisture from its tip as Aaron made slow, circular passes with his hand over Greg’s flaming ass cheeks.

He didn’t dare stand until Aaron stepped away and said, “Get up. Pull up your pants.”

Turning away, Greg did as Aaron instructed and tried to compose himself. He took a few more shaking breaths as Aaron wrapped sturdy arms around him from behind.

“All right?” Aaron asked.

Greg nodded.

“Words,” Aaron said. “I need to know what you’re feeling and that you’re okay.”

“Good. I’m good.” Greg’s voice wobbled, and he cursed quietly. “I’m fine. I just hate that. And I love it. It’s fucked up. Hard to explain.”

“You like having the boundary but hate the humiliation of that punishment,” Aaron clarified for him.

“Yeah.” Greg rested his arms on top of Aaron’s, hugging him closer. The brush of fabric against his freshly spanked ass flooded his body with heat. “That’s right.”

“Okay. That gives me something to go on. That’s good.” Aaron shifted, pressing his erection along the seam of Greg’s cheeks, and pumped his hips in a playful imitation of fucking. “So, what makes you feel most vulnerable? You’re aroused ninety-nine percent of the time when we do this. What would be a real punishment for you?”

Greg stiffened reflexively, putting centimeters of distance between himself and Aaron that might as well have been miles.

“Oh no,” Greg said. “No way. I’m not giving you that. If you don’t know, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Maybe you’re just really good at hiding from me.” Aaron propped his chin on Greg’s shoulder. Though his voice was quiet when he spoke, the vibration tickled Greg’s ear. “You say you trust me, but you won’t give me this part of yourself.”

Swallowing down a sick feeling born of an all too familiar panic, Greg forced his reply. “I’d give you anything.”

“Then give me this. Give me this last piece.” Aaron, who never really asked for anything, pleaded with him. “To be constantly in pursuit of what you need from your partner and never getting it? It’s exhausting.”

Greg opened and closed his mouth several times before he found the courage to give Aaron what he sought. Lungs burning, he pushed air past his voice box.

“Losing you. That’d be a real punishment.” If Aaron’s arms hadn’t wrapped around him, Greg’s knees would’ve met sand at the first word. “I can take anything else, Aaron. Just, not that.”

Aaron jerked his arms so tight for a moment Greg couldn’t breathe for reasons entirely physical rather than emotional.

“Christ, Greg.” Aaron pressed his cheek to Greg’s, and their stubble rasped in a warm sound that sent some of the blood back to Greg’s extremities. “I’m not gonna go anywhere. You hear me?”

Greg could only nod. Seconds ticked by before he found his voice again. “I guess—” He cleared his throat. “I guess anything nonsexual is a real punishment. I mean, spanking is sort of sexual, so while it’s a punishment, it’s not, um, something I totally dread. I can float away on the endorphins, you know? I suppose pain without sexual contact would be a real bitch. We’d have to take that slow, though. I’m not sure how I’d handle it.”

“Thanks.” Aaron’s chin bobbed against Greg’s shoulder. “Now tell me what else you enjoy.”

Relief lightened Greg’s limbs at the change in topic. Still, it took him a moment to find the right response.

“I liked the counting. It was sexy. I’ll miss it if we drop it,” Greg confessed eventually. “It was a touchstone. Something to remind me where the boundaries are.”

Unfortunately, they both knew it was also a crutch. Something on to which Greg could grab for a sense of control. Not to mention it was fun to push Aaron until he said ”One.” Though Greg had a feeling after that spanking, he’d have to find another way to have fun, or he wouldn’t be sitting down much.

“Maybe that can be a reward,” Aaron mused. “When we’re just playing, you can tease me all you want.”

“Sounds good.” Greg frowned. “You’re not going to, like, make me into your bitch or something? I’m not going to be too happy if you decide I’m responsible for all the laundry or cooking.”

Aaron’s chuckle reverberated through Greg’s back.

“No.” Palming Greg’s cock, Aaron gripped him through his sweats and stroked in a rhythmic, hypnotic motion. “It’s all negotiable and what we want to make of it. We’ll figure out what we both need as we go along, and we’ll adjust.”

Greg let his head fall back so it rested on Aaron’s shoulder, and thrust in time to Aaron’s languid strokes. Moonlight glistened above, bathing the world in an alabaster glow. His breaths became more labored as the press of Aaron’s fingers over his cock stuck fabric and flesh together. Recalling the ninety-day orgasm restriction from earlier in the night, he groaned.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron asked.

“Not allowed to come,” Greg lamented.

Aaron’s hand stilled. “Topping so soon?”

The icy chill in Aaron’s voice froze Greg’s brain. “What? N-no! You said ninety days.”

It was Aaron’s turn to choke. “What the hell, Greg?”

Facing Aaron, Greg ran both hands through his hair in frustration—sexual and otherwise. “You said because I made you wait an hour and a half for your dinner, I was on restriction for ninety days.”

“I—” Mouth open, appearing more than a little flummoxed, Aaron shook his head. “I never said any such thing.”

“Yes. You. Did.” Greg got in Aaron’s face. Submitting was one thing. Being told he was crazy was another. “I asked, and you…” He ran the exchange over in his head again. When he hit the part where Aaron had walked away, he shrank back. “Never answered.”

Folding his arms, Aaron raised both brows. Greg closed his eyes and breathed evenly through his nostrils. He knew he’d blown his opportunity for an orgasm tonight.

“I’m sorry,” Greg said, opening his eyes. “I assumed. You’re right. You never said it.”

“Thank you.” Aaron looked pointedly at the bumpy stretch of ungroomed sand at his feet.

Greg knelt and tried not to sigh. If he couldn’t get his act together, it was going to be a long damned night and a long damned life. Part of him just wanted some intimacy right now. No games and no punishments. He simply wanted Aaron’s arms wrapped around him while they made love and found joy in each other’s company. Maybe this lifestyle thing wasn’t such a good—

Warm fingers caressed his chin, tipping his face up. Aaron stood above him, the woven leather neck thong he’d worn for almost as long as Greg had known him dangling from his other hand.

“I’d like you to wear this,” Aaron said. “Will you?”

Aaron’s throat looked so bare without the piece of modest jewelry, Greg at first shook his head. “You don’t look right without it.”

“If you don’t like it, I’ll take it off you,” Aaron offered.

Greg hesitated, then nodded.

Kneeling to face him, Aaron slipped the cord around Greg’s neck and fastened it before running his fingers underneath, ostensibly checking for fit.

“How does it feel?” Aaron asked, leaning back to regard him.

Lifting tentative fingers, Greg caressed the buttery-soft thong and played with the fastening in back. It almost felt like Aaron’s essence seeped from the leather.

“It feels,” Greg began, more than a little awed. “It feels like I’m wearing you.” His voice dropped to a low, sexy rumble he couldn’t have prevented if he’d wanted to. “Right up next to my skin.”

“Good.” Smiling triumphantly, Aaron knelt to press him back into the sand. “Now shut up, and let me love you.”

Chapter Ten

Aaron combed his fingers through Greg’s hair. The dark strands shimmered with black highlights. He paused to meet Greg’s eyes. Not much remained unsaid between them, but what couldn’t be put into words, Aaron communicated with his stare. Love, deep and unchanging, radiated back at him, mirroring his own emotions. A smile touched Aaron’s lips, an unspoken acknowledgment of the unbreakable bond between himself and Greg. Reaching toward the waistband of Greg’s sweats, Aaron ran his hands along muscled abs and smooth skin. At the ruched band of cotton, he paused. If only he could teach Greg to love himself as much as he was loved, the universe would be perfect.

“I love you,” Aaron whispered, dipping in for a kiss.

Sooty lashes fluttered, and Greg sighed. Aaron lay down beside Greg and deepened the kiss with a gentle push of his tongue. Greg opened to him, raising his arms to pull Aaron closer even as he seemed to melt into the sand—so relaxed and trusting it made Aaron’s heart skip a beat. After all the cruelty life had shown Greg, the faith this man put in him seemed miraculous. It was a gift to be cherished, and cherish it Aaron would.

Alternating tiny nips with plundering sweeps, Aaron focused on stealing Greg’s breath and giving it back to him in little sips. Palm flattened low on Greg’s abs, he used the pressure of his hand as a reminder of where he intended to go next.

Whimpering a wordless plea, Greg shifted his hips, asking for—not demanding—what he desired. Aaron smiled against Greg’s mouth and bore down with his hand. Greg’s hips immediately ceased their dance, and his arms dropped to the sand.

“Good boy,” Aaron murmured, lifting his head.

Lying in the sand, his chest heaving and his cock tenting his sweats, Greg looked the picture of pained arousal. A stain darkened the cotton close to his waistband, marking the spot where no doubt successive spurts of precum had dampened the material. He appeared more marble perfection than flesh and bone with his jaw clenched and neck exposed to the moonlit sky.

Aaron explored the flat of Greg’s s stomach to the dip of his solar plexus, then the bellows of his chest, where Aaron absorbed the hammer beat of his heart.

“Shhh…” Knowing Greg liked it when he put on the Southern, Aaron let a thick drawl seep into his words. “Relax. Enjoy. There’s no rush.”

Greg drew a breath. Aaron waited him out, gifting each beaded nipple with a mild caress. Despite the chill in the air, damp tendrils curled and stuck to Greg’s brow. Bending, Aaron kissed Greg’s forehead and cheeks. Tasting salt, Aaron raised his head. Silver rivers ran from the corners of Greg’s eyes toward the sand.

Aaron opened his mouth to speak, but Greg cut in. “I never felt this before. Never.”

“Felt what?” Aaron pushed a hand through Greg’s hair, lifting it away from his forehead.

“Love. I can feel how much you love me.”

A horse’s kick couldn’t have separated the air from Aaron’s body with more expediency, but somehow he found the words he knew he needed to say. “I love you more than life.” Loosening his grip on Greg’s hair, Aaron brushed away Greg’s tears. “More than anything.”

Greg swallowed convulsively and nodded.

Aaron ran his hand down Greg’s side to his hip where he made slow circles with his thumb. Inching ever closer to his target, he swept along the muscled indentation where thigh met groin. Greg gasped, the hoarse catch in his voice earning him the tighter grip of Aaron’s hand.

“That’s right,” Aaron murmured. “Let me show you how much I love you.”

Greg moaned.

Aaron bit back a smile, happy to make love to Greg after the emotional turbulence of the night. “Widen your legs for me, Greggie.”

The shuffle of cotton against sand accompanied Greg’s compliance.

“I’m going to make you feel so good,” Aaron promised, cupping Greg’s balls and massaging them through his sweats.

Greg sighed, and Aaron glanced up to see him nod, eyes closed and head tilted back at a gentle angle. With his alabaster skin and wine-red lips shaded by night, he looked like an angel. So innocent in his repose.

Releasing Greg’s balls, Aaron guided the heel of his palm northward up Greg’s shaft. Greg arched, then quickly fell back again. Using the flat of his hand, Aaron shifted the thick material of Greg’s sweats back and forth in a slow, sensual caress.

Subtle, involuntary thrusts of Greg’s hips marked him as entranced. Power, heady and bright, coursed through Aaron’s veins, making his extremities tingle and his blood sing. Stoking Greg’s ardor higher, he found balance in the universe and within himself.

GREG WAS PRETTY SURE he was no longer on the shore. Sand ceased to chafe his skin, and he floated on a sea of tranquility. He’d heard some people call sex like this tantric. Both revered and reverent, he found a state of spiritual self-awareness that included not only his own body but Aaron’s. He didn’t know where he had gone, or what Aaron was doing to make him feel so good, but whatever it was, Greg never wanted it to stop.

Each brush of Aaron’s fingers and inhalation of breath felt like a complete erotic cycle. Yet each moment built on the previous, taking him to a higher state of bliss until he felt if he opened his eyes, he’d look down upon the entire universe sparkling beneath.

Cool air rushed over Greg’s skin, and he imagined he saw the pattern of the airflow behind his lids, fingers of sensation emanating from every molecule. Wet heat spiraled over him next, pulsing with energy. He knew it was his cock that throbbed with pleasure, but that one part of him seemed to encompass everything, bringing bliss to his entire being.

Suction and slippery abrasion from Aaron’s tongue and mouth brought him to the precipice, the point where the universe began and where it would end. Like the tide, the ecstasy receded and brought him with it before rushing forward once more. Higher and higher, he climbed with the ever-increasing waves of his orgasm until he knew he’d reached the pinnacle of pleasure and could go no higher.

Aaron’s grip tightened, seeming to hold him suspended above the world where they both drifted. Light and sound rushed in with sudden ferocity, bringing with it a tidal wave of personal and physical revelation Greg couldn’t deny. He existed. He was worthy. He was loved.

The moon was low on the horizon, a long time later, when Greg shivered involuntarily.

Aaron lifted his head. Voice husky and lips puffy from kisses and sex, he asked, “Ready to go back?”

Unwilling to let go of the last magic tendrils of their lovemaking, Greg only nodded. They sat up and brushed clinging sand from clothes and skin. The sounds of their movement infiltrated air that had previously been filled with heartbeats, shallow breaths, and the incessant rush of ocean waves.

“C’mon.” Aaron took Greg’s hand, stopping him from wearing a hole in his sweats. “You’re not going to get it all off.”

They held hands on the way back to the house, neither one of them speaking. The walk seemed longer this time. Or maybe Greg’s feet were dragging. The closer they got to home, the more the reality of everyday life sank in. Bubbles of self-awareness popped or floated to where he couldn’t reach.

“You’re liable to cut off the circulation in my hand,” Aaron teased, pulling his fingers away.

Greg watched Aaron flex his fingers, an odd detachment settling into place.

Aaron eyed him carefully, then mounted the steps to their back deck. Opening the slider, he said over his shoulder, “I want you to find that gold statue you won and bring it to the bedroom.”

Greg gave him a puzzled look, but went upstairs to do Aaron’s bidding. In the back corner of the office closet where he’d stowed a bunch of the boxes from their move over two years ago, he found a box marked STUFF. Popping the lid off with one hand, he rummaged blindly with the other until his fingers curled around cold metal. His biceps flexed with the weight of the thing as he drew it out and sat back on his heels.

On the cylindrical base, his name was engraved along with the name of the film, Upside, for which he’d won Best Original Screenplay almost ten years ago. Part of him resented that the industry had seen fit to award him with the golden statue for his work on a “straight” film, whereas they’d passed him over for his autobiographical and most decidedly nonmainstream project, No Apologies. Still, that Kit had won Best Actor for the gay film seemed a minor miracle.

With a harrumph worthy of his grandfather, Greg stood and made his way downstairs, the statue dangling negligently from one hand. Aaron, already in bed with his reading glasses propped on the end of his nose, looked up from his e-reader. While Greg was upstairs, Aaron had apparently cleaned up the bits of dust and paint from the handcuff incident and placed everything back in the closet and drawers. The wall behind the headboard was dented and marred with black scuffs from the headboard. Greg skipped his attention over the marks and focused on Aaron once more.

“I got it.” He briefly held up the award before letting it drop awkwardly to his side.

Aaron lifted the covers on his side of the bed. “Take off your shoes and get in.”

Greg leaned to place the statue on the bedside table, but before he could put it down, Aaron shot out a hand to stay his motion. Greg met his serious gaze.

Aaron’s brows went up, and his glasses rose along with them. “What were my instructions?”

“Uh…” Anger bubbled to the surface, but Greg tamped it down, unwilling to create further unpleasant memories in their bed. He frowned at the place where Aaron’s hand wrapped around his wrist. “To take off my shoes and get into bed.”

Aaron glanced pointedly at the award and back to Greg’s face. Taking the hint, Greg slowly straightened, statue in hand. Aaron let go. As instructed and more than curious, Greg used his feet to kick off first one deck shoe and then the other.

Sand pooled on the floor, and Greg wiggled his toes to rid them of the worst of the grit. He noted Aaron’s damp hair and the scent of cocoa butter lotion. Apparently Greg had been upstairs contemplating the nature of all things Hollywood long enough for Aaron to clean up both the bedroom and himself.

Truthfully, though he would’ve enjoyed a shower, Greg was too tired to care about the sand. His lids drooped heavily even before he slid between the sheets with the statue and its steroid-proud pectorals. Turning on his side, he fluffed his pillow one-handed and settled under the covers, the statue propped next to him.

“What’d you want me to do with that thing?” he mumbled as he closed his eyes.

“Sleep,” Aaron said.

Greg’s eyes flew open, all traces of fatigue gone. If this was some new kink of Aaron’s, Greg was going to put his foot down. “If you think I’m going to—”

Aaron leaned in, cutting him off with a minty kiss. When he drew away, he was grinning like the cat that drank the cream and figured out how to operate the tin opener. “I don’t want to fuck you with it. I want you to make friends with it.”

Greg pushed himself up against the headboard. The statue fell over onto his pinkie. He snatched his hand away and reflexively sucked on his injured digit. He glared at the misshapen approximation of a knight, overcome with a desire to have it melted down into living room coasters. The thing was surprisingly heavy for a hunk of junk.

“Make friends with it?” he asked, pulling his finger from his mouth. “Are you fucking delusional?”

In the past Aaron would have uttered a ”one” for the snark and ”two” for the swear. As it was, the raised brow told Greg he was about five seconds from having his mouth washed out with soap. He snapped the offending part of his anatomy shut but failed to wipe the glare from his face.

“Yes. Friends.” Apparently mollified, Aaron took off his glasses and laid them on his nightstand. He turned back to Greg and pointed to the statue. “While I’m in Japan, you’re taking him everywhere with you. When I get back, we’ll talk about the future. But for now at least, he stays with you until you realize exactly what you’ve accomplished with your life and that you’re worth every ounce of metal in that statue, and more.”

“What—” His the fuck was lost in Aaron’s palm.

Covering half Greg’s face including his nose, Aaron leaned in. Greg’s nostrils flared as he tried to take in a breath and failed. His eyes went wide, and his cock reared, eager to join in this new game.

“Bed. Shower. Mealtimes. When you use the toilet.” Aaron tilted his head toward the statue glinting against the sheets. “That thing is living with you. Your new best friend. Until I say so.”

Focused on the lack of ability to draw in oxygen, Greg would have agreed to rob Fort Knox. Nothing mattered but pleasing Aaron enough to gain that next breath. As if he knew what a monumental mind fuck the moment presented, Aaron pressed his hand more firmly against Greg’s mouth and nose. “Clear?”

Greg nodded. Emphatically. Aaron’s hand bobbed along with Greg’s head.

When Aaron dropped his hand, Greg inhaled deeply, secretly disappointed the game had ended so soon. Wanting to play some more, he contemplated goading Aaron into action.

Aaron’s brows lowered, and his expression darkened. “Don’t even think about it.”

Swallowing hard, Greg fell back against the headboard and whispered a genuinely contrite, “Yes, sir.”

A smile crept across Aaron’s face, turning night to day in a dazzling display of flashing white teeth and sparkling eyes.

“Be good, and we’ll play tomorrow after I pack for Japan,” Aaron said, settling under the covers.

Grumbling to himself Greg rolled over and presented his back to the statue. Aaron blithely plucked the fucker from the mattress and plunked it down on the pillow in front of Greg’s face. Aaron apparently intended to make sure Greg saw himself not in the spotlight, but in a better light.

As he drifted off to sleep, an insidious voice asked, And what’s so wrong about that?

Perhaps it was fatigue. Perhaps it was that he’d discovered tonight that giving up control wasn’t such a bad thing after all, but for the first time in his life, he found himself answering the question with raw, undefended honesty. He could like himself, and there was nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

Chapter Eleven

Aaron flicked his gaze to the dashboard’s digital display. Three weeks, two days, seven hours, and fifty-eight minutes he’d been away from home. Now only two stop lights and a stretch of Malibu road separated him from Greg. As if pointing the way, his cock leaped. Aaron stepped on the gas, spurring the sports car into showing off the kind of maneuverability it had been made for—twisty roads and heart-clutching speeds.

While he’d spoken with Greg every day since leaving, the conversations had been mostly focused on business. Last night they’d discussed Aaron’s securing the final pieces of financing for Kit and Jeremy’s Tadashi and Ryuu project. With the almost finished script effectively green lit, they only needed Greg’s final touches. Locations had been scouted for several key scenes, and casting was well underway.

Worry gnawed at Aaron’s belly as he navigated the last curve. If Greg continued to doubt himself— He shook his head. No. He had to believe in Greg. No matter his self-doubt, Greg had what it took to iron out this project and be a huge part of its success. The only thing that remained for Aaron to do was support him to the finish line.

Navigating the car into the driveway, Aaron frowned. A rapid, pulsing rhythm seemed to shake the steering wheel under his hands. His gaze shot to the front of the house where the windows visibly rattled. Earthquakes weren’t this consistent. What in the world?

Loud music… Shit.

His stomach heavy with dread, Aaron climbed out of the car. Greg and music were never a good combination. Either he was working off a temper with a favorite song better suited to a mosh pit, or he’d hit a wall with the end of the screenplay and was trying to bust his way through it with the sonic vibrations.

After an eleven-hour flight and a rush-hour drive from LAX to Malibu, at the very least Aaron wanted a glass of wine and a shoulder massage. Instead he had to contend with his and Greg’s new 24-7 project. Maybe this whole lifestyle thing hadn’t been such a good idea. Even if the care and feeding of Greg’s moods had always been one of Aaron’s main focuses, he had only been obligated to pay attention when he chose. As a full-time Dom he had to strive to be consistent.

Travel worn and weary, he loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt with one hand and gripped his suitcase with the other. Three steps to the front door shouldn’t have seemed like a mountain. It wasn’t until he entered the foyer that he noticed the upbeat tempo of the tune shaking the rafters of their home.

An electronic warble accompanied by a tinny guitar and playful bass rhythm brought Aaron up short. Dropping his suitcase in the foyer, he crept forward, certain he’d fallen asleep on the plane and not yet awakened. Since when did Greg listen to cheerful music?

On his way down the hall, the first thing that caught Aaron’s attention other than the rattling of his molars in his head was the sound of Greg’s voice. It had to be Greg’s voice because Aaron had never heard that range coming from The Postal Service and their hit, Such Great Heights.

Aaron peered into the kitchen and gaped. Greg, golden statue in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other, sang into the little man’s head while he danced around on the balls of his feet. Too transfixed to laugh at the ridiculous sight, Aaron simply watched. Butt bouncing, feet tapping, Greg sang his heart out, bending into his faux microphone in a fervent display.

In all the time they’d been together, in all the time Aaron had known Greg, he’d never heard Greg sing. And God, he had a lovely voice. Happiness shone in every note, making Aaron feel as if he were flying. The notes soared, and so did Aaron’s heart. Greg had found his joy.

Travel and traffic-induced weariness fell away. Aaron stepped into the kitchen to place a hand on Greg’s shoulder. Greg started, freezing momentarily before placing the statue on the table and grabbing Aaron into a hug.

“Keep singing.” It wasn’t an order, but a request.

In his arms, voice quieter but no less awe inspiring, Greg sang lyrics about mirror images, connected souls, and success. When the music thrummed to a stop, Aaron pulled back. He and Greg kissed. Tentative at first, then more deeply. Kisses turned to caresses, and from there to a flurry of clothing that dropped to the floor. Greg snapped his shirt over his head and whipped it away. It fluttered over Aaron’s head to land on the kitchen faucet. Pale skin, ruddy nipples, and the most striking expanse of muscled perfection greeted Aaron’s eyes. Straight and proud, his lover’s wide cock jutted from his body in invitation.

Pushing him back, he spread Greg like a feast on the table, knees bent and heels resting on the edge. Reaching blindly, Aaron fumbled for improvisational lube and closed his fingers around a bottle of hand lotion they kept on the edge of the sink.

Aaron pumped the lever on the bottle until cold white lotion pooled in his palm. “Open for me.”

Legs falling wide, Greg gripped Aaron’s shoulder and gave Aaron all the access he needed. With first one finger and then two he prepped Greg’s entrance. Slowly the muscles obeyed, relaxing to accept three fingers.

“Good thing it’s scentless,” Greg joked, grunting when Aaron shoved a little harder. “I wouldn’t want them to hire me at Dora Flora because my ass smelled like flowers.”

Laughter made Aaron withdraw his fingers. He leaned over Greg, his lips still twitching with his mirth. “You’re a bastard to try to dominate, you know that?”

Greg pulled his knees back, and Aaron’s cock brushed the now heated lube at Greg’s entrance. Gaze locked with Aaron’s, he said, “Well, I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to stop trying.”

In response, Aaron took hold of his cock and guided the tip to Greg’s hole. “You think you can defeat me that easily, huh?”

“Don’t—” Greg’s gasp cut off the rest of his sentence.

“Don’t what?” Pressing slowly into Greg, Aaron teased him with his cock. “Don’t fuck you?”

Hands a flurry of motion, Greg grabbed Aaron’s shoulders. “No. Don’t know. I was going to say I don’t know.”

Aaron shoved his hips forward. Pages of Greg’s script slid, then fluttered to the floor as the table rocked along the tiles. Greg let out a shout and dug his fingers into Aaron’s skin.

“That’s right. You’d better hang on,” Aaron said, pounding into Greg again.

Lube squelched, and the table screeched. Aaron grabbed Greg’s hips and drew him into each thrust until the staccato rhythm of slapping skin overwhelmed everything else. Setting a bruising pace, Aaron nailed Greg’s prostate on each stroke, taking the table on a journey to the far wall, where it finally stayed put.

“I love you,” Greg said, gasping, and Aaron stilled before lifting his head.

In the past several years, Greg had said those three words countless times. More than Aaron had in fact, perhaps to make up for their going unsaid for so long before that. In all those utterances, the emotion had never rung so sincere. Aaron met Greg’s fervid gaze. Something had changed. Everything had changed. Greg had found a way to love himself.

“I love you too,” Aaron said and began to move again.

GREG ACCEPTED AARON into his body, noting every hard slap of muscle and skin, the crisp rasp of hair, and labored breath that marked Aaron as present. Here. Not in Tokyo or on an airplane hurtling toward him at hundreds of miles an hour. They were together, and now he could tell Aaron what he’d discovered. He could tell him everything.

Aaron’s hand quested for and found Greg’s cock. Securely gripped, Greg thrust, confident in Aaron’s intent. Aaron wanted him to come. Greg deserved to come. He deserved every pleasure his lover offered.

Joy surged through Greg’s heart outward to his limbs, cascading through newly constructed and rarely fired neurons, pushing the thrill of physical pleasure higher. He surfed the swells toward his orgasm as he rocked his body and encouraged Aaron deeper. The quickening of breath and unsteady pressure of Aaron’s fingers said he was close. As close as Greg.

“Come!” Aaron demanded.

Two more thrusts saw them both arching into each other, losing their grips and finding them again. They came together, Greg shouting “Love you!” as Aaron cried, “My Greg.” The moment formed a mutual and unguarded display that left Greg’s lungs burning, his limbs quivering, and every ounce of energy spent. He and Aaron lay together, sticky and sated, against the table until Greg’s feet slid from the edge, his legs no longer able to withstand the fatigue.

Aaron stood, separating their sweat-slick skin, and Greg wobbled to his feet. The screenplay lay in a scattered heap, the printed pages a jumble, and Aaron’s hair was so tangled he might never be able to comb it out. A glint of gold caught Greg’s eye, and he bent to retrieve his new friend from the floor.

Pulling on his shirt, Greg wandered half-naked into the living room, where Aaron already waited on the sofa. His own personal if slightly odd-looking knight in hand, Greg pulled on his pants a little ungracefully before he flopped down on the pristine white cushions. He regarded Aaron from two feet away.

Aaron in turn regarded the statue, then nodded to the coffee table.

Surprisingly reluctant to let the thing go, Greg placed it carefully down on the polished teak table. They’d been having a lot of conversations, Greg and “Oscar” over the past few weeks. The nice thing about the guy was he didn’t talk back. Whenever Greg got stuck on a part of the script, he and the golden dude had a nice long talk about motivations and structure, culture and authorial intent. Things that would have had Aaron’s eyes rolling back into his head never fazed the statue, and Greg rattled on to his heart’s content.

“You’re happy,” Aaron said.

Greg straightened. An easy smile slid across his face. “Yeah. I am.”

Aaron smiled back. “What changed?”

Giving a small, slightly embarrassed shrug, Greg looked away. “Me.”

“You?” Aaron bobbed forward to catch his eye.

Greg sat back and gave up trying to hide. After all, he had nothing to be ashamed of. “Me.”

Aaron folded his hands and gave Greg an encouraging nod.

Fingering the hem of the white linen shirt he’d borrowed from Aaron’s closet just to feel close to him, Greg thought about what he wanted to say. It was so simple he was afraid it’d sound lame.

“I realized…” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “I realized that you like me, and you’re the person I like most in the world. So why shouldn’t I like me?”

Aaron blushed, and he blinked a little fast, but he gave no other sign that Greg’s observation had discomfited him. “It was really that easy?”

“I got a phone call while you were gone,” Greg said, leading into his answer.

Aaron frowned. “From who?”

“Dex.” Saying the name in front of Aaron felt oddly sexual. It was Greg’s turn to blush.

“Dex?” Sitting back, Aaron crossed his arms, and Greg could almost hear the unspoken question, What did the bastard want?

Oh, they were on dangerous ground. Aaron was jealous. Greg cocked his head to the side, considering. Had he ever known Aaron to be jealous? To what dangerous places might this conversation take them? The prospect of reaching a few of those exotic shores didn’t seem so bad, but first Greg needed to make sure they weren’t going to end up in the realm of misunderstanding.

“He forgot you were going to Japan, and we got to talking about you and me,” Greg explained, laying a hand on Aaron’s arm. “I told him about the statue.”

Aaron relaxed a fraction. “What did he say?”

“He asked why didn’t I realize that someone like you could have anyone.” Greg laughed, remembering how angry he’d gotten. “I called him Dr. Dumbfuck, and he told me the statue would do more good up my ass because then I’d be able to take my head out and get some air.”

Letting out a low whistle, Aaron shook his head slowly. “And you didn’t hang up on him?”

“Of course I did.” Greg leaned in for a kiss that Aaron obligingly returned and pulled away to study Aaron’s bemused expression. He couldn’t resist teasing. “Did you really think I would stop being me?”

“But all this because you talked with Dex, and I made you carry around an 8.5 pound statue for a little over three weeks?” Aaron returned them to the original point of the conversation. He was good at that, keeping things on track.

Greg shook his head. It was hard to explain. A culmination of things that had happened over time. So slowly he hadn’t even noticed. All of it depended on Aaron’s love, though. Of that he was certain. Had always been certain. No matter what games they played in or out of the bedroom, Aaron’s love had been present in every corner of Greg’s life for as long as he could remember, steadily melting the glacier around his heart.

“I think it’s more that I realized you’re always with me, no matter what.” Greg’s fingers went to the leather thong around his neck. “I recognized that if I respect you, then I respect your opinion of me. You didn’t leave me any more room for denial.”

Aaron nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“Over the last few weeks, without you here?” Greg gestured around the room vaguely. “I had only the voice in my own head. I heard all the horrible things it says to me, and they were so unlike anything you’d ever say to me. The void? Without you here?” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I had to fill it, and I knew I had a choice.”

Aaron’s hand, warm and dry, clasped his. “What was the choice?”

“I could fill it with my father’s voice… Or I could fill it with yours.” He looked into Aaron’s eyes and squeezed his hand. “I filled it with yours.”

Aaron leaned in for another kiss and murmured against Greg’s lips, “Good choice.”

“I suppose I should admit your ploy worked as well.” Drawing back, Greg glanced to the statue that returned his regard with its now familiar placid stare. After over a month in its constant company, he could detail every scratch and every contour with his eyes closed. “Oscar’s a really good therapist. Better than Dex.”

Aaron choked back a laugh. “Oh?”

“Not bad in bed either,” Greg mused, clearly teasing.

This time Aaron did laugh. He stood, and Greg followed on instinct. Casting the statue a backward glance, Greg wondered if it would be lonely without him. Easy enough to resolve, he decided on the way to the bedroom to make love again to his own living, breathing knight. He’d just have to win another.

Loose Id Titles by Tibby Armstrong

Public Relations

* * * *

The HOLLYWOOD Series

No Apologies

Acting Out

Full Disclosure

Outtakes

Numbers Game

Tibby Armstrong

Tibby Armstrong has a lust for books and a love of travel. On the terrestrial plane, she dreams of springtime in a Paris flat, and summer at a cottage in Oxford. She travels more extensively, through worlds both strange and familiar, via romance, mystery, urban fantasy, and biography.

Having recently completed her Master of Library Science, when she’s not writing, Tibby works toward defying librarian stereotypes; yet, she lives with three cats, seven computers, and enough books to collapse a poorly engineered house.

Tibby loves hearing from kindred bibliophiles like you wherever she travels. More the armchair type? Stop by her Goodreads author page at https://www.goodreads.com/Tibby_Armstrong. You never know where she’ll turn up next.