Florentine

  “What did you think of the caning?” Mahiro asks him as he settles into a wingback chair in the corner of the room. Alex immediately sits in front of him, tucked in between his knees, his back to the seat of the chair. Mahiro hums quiet approval.

  Alex knows Mahiro was very interested in what he saw, knows that he mentioned working up to caning at some point, and now that Alex has seen it for himself, he might actually give it a try. Just once, to see what it is like.

  Painful, probably, but the idea doesn’t bother him as much now as it once did. Pain tends to focus him now, makes his blood sing, feeds a rush of endorphins straight to his brain, and makes his orgasms just that much more intense. And it would make Mahiro happy, too, to introduce Alex to something new.

  “Mmmm. Seems very intense. Do you work up to hitting that hard?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Just lightly at first. It’s definitely something you’ll either love or hate, but if you’re willing, we could give it a try.”

  “Of course, sir,” Alex says and tips his head so his temple is leaning against Mahiro’s knee. Mahiro wraps a hand around his neck and rubs circles into his nape with his thumb. Alex closes his eyes and almost purrs with pleasure at his touch.

  Mahiro leans forward to whisper in his ear, lips barely grazing the shell of it, and Alex melts. “Maybe after our drinks we could—” he says, before he’s interrupted by Chris sprawling dramatically on the floor next to Mahiro’s legs, clad in nothing but tiny purple latex shorts and polished black spike-heeled boots that come up to his knee. Christ.

  “Mind if I hide here for a minute?” he asks Mahiro.

  Mahiro nods, and Chris scoots closer and leans against his knee.

  Alex all but growls, and he can feel himself practically bare his teeth at his friend.

  “Claws in, kitten,” Chris says. “I’m just using him for a bit. No one will bother me if they think we’ve hooked up.”

  Alex subsides, but he watches every inch of Chris’s skin that’s in contact with Mahiro’s body and fights the irrational urge to shove him away.

  “Alex, stop. It’s fine. Chris knows where the line is drawn, as do I.” Mahiro places a hand on Alex’s neck again, and the light touch settles him somewhat.

  He feels a bit embarrassed now. “Sorry,” he mutters.

  Chris looks at him over Mahiro’s knee with a narrow-eyed, assessing gaze. “Never would have guessed. You, possessive.” His voice is low, so Mahiro can’t hear. “That’s new.”

  “I’ve never cared that much before,” Alex replies and hooks a hand around Mahiro’s lower leg. Mahiro is idly playing with his hair as they wait for Adam to reappear from wherever he disappeared to, and Alex sighs, content for the moment to be under his master’s care.

  “Lucky you,” Chris says, drawing patterns in the carpet with his finger. “I’m so tired of all this, honestly,” he says, his voice a bit louder.

  Mahiro turns his attention to that rather startling declaration. “Of all what? The scene?”

  “Oh no, just playing the field. I see the two of you so happy together, and it just….”

  “It just what?” Adam says as he walks up. “You’re tired of playing the field? You?”

  Chris looks down, blushing slightly. Alex has never seen his friend so disarmed before, so openly vulnerable in front of others. Himself, yes, they’ve talked about everything, but to Mahiro? Adam?

  “I’m getting old, cheri,” he says with an exaggerated wink. “My charms will fade, and I’ll be reduced to hoarding cats and drinking gin from the bottle to drown my loneliness.”

  Adam bites his bottom lip, and Alex can tell he’s not buying this melodramatic deflecting bullshit any more than Alex would.

  “Come on, Christopher,” Adam says and holds out his hand. “Why don’t you and I find a spot to talk? We’ve not really had the chance to have a good long chat in a few years. Besides, I heard Isabella safeworded on Dylan earlier and demanded the key to her collar.”

  Chris looks up at him, at lithe, pretty Adam with the liquid eyes, and Alex watches in amazement as his friend’s spine loosens and his shoulders relax, and he reaches up to take Adam’s offered hand.

  “Ah, sweet schadenfreude. You’re a catty bitch, Adam. I approve. Let’s go.” Adam points out a spot on the sofa nearby and settles them both in, Chris’s legs pulled over his lap. Chris leans in and says something with a sarcastic smirk and Adam giggles, making Chris grin and lean his chin on his hand, completely focused on Adam’s face.

  Alex glances up and sees Mahiro watching the same scene with a soft smile.

  “What?” Alex asks.

  “I think,” Mahiro begins, then pauses. “I think the two of them have finally grown up a little bit. I mean, Adam really is smart when it comes to relationships, more than I am. But it’s come from some pretty rotten experiences.”

  “Chris has too.”

  “Marco, for one,” Mahiro says with an annoyed twist of his lips.

  “Oh God, yes. Marco. I remember that breakup vividly. And since that’s the case, I can’t believe you and I haven’t met before now. I mean, we’re both Chris’s friends.”

  “Well, we do live half a world away from each other.”

  Alex sighs. He’s trying not to think about that right now, about the thousands of miles that separate his permanent home from this, the first person who’s felt like home, like he’s already where he belongs.

  “And Chris and I haven’t been a regular thing in years. I think he was seeing me at a time he wasn’t being quite so open, maybe even with you.”

  Alex nods again, reminded of the strange distance they developed about four years ago, when Chris was just in the beginning throes of his relationship with Marco, before it all went so wrong. But he watches as Adam runs a gentle hand up Chris’s calf, more comforting than seductive, and Chris looks happy and relaxed. He hopes he can at least enjoy the rest of the evening, and perhaps he’s seeing the beginning of something new for his friend, as well.

  Alex polishes off the rest of his sparkling water, and as he shifts around, he’s suddenly aware that he’s got to pee, like five minutes ago. Dammit.

  “As much as I’m enjoying creeping on our friends, I really need to find the restroom,” Alex says, and remembers his three-foot rule. “May I please, sir?”

  “Absolutely,” Mahiro says. “No water sports.”

  “Oh, gross,” Alex groans and uses Mahiro’s knees to lever himself off the floor. “I promise I’ll be right back,” he says and leans over to peck Mahiro’s mouth. He winds his way back through the salon and living room and kitchen to the small powder room he saw off the hall. Fortunately it’s open, and he slips inside, relieves himself, and washes up. He checks his makeup and adjusts his mask, and he’s out in less than three minutes. Maybe he can get Mahiro to expand a bit on his half-finished suggestion from earlier, when Chris sat down with them, he thinks as he opens the door.

  Only to find the blond who was staring at him earlier in the evening leaning against the wall opposite.

  “I’m so glad I caught you, darling,” he says, and all Alex’s internal alarms start blaring. “I’ve wanted to talk to you all night.”

  “Then you already know I’m here with someone,” Alex says, haughty, and tries to pass. The man steps in front of him and braces an arm on the wall, blocking Alex’s path. “Move, and let me leave.”

  “Oh yes, I know you’re here with Mahiro,” he says, and holds his hands up in a strange attempt to look nonthreatening. Little late for that, asshole. “But believe me when I say he’s not going to be around for much longer. I’ve asked around. I know you’re new to the scene. I also know that Mahiro never keeps a sub for more than a couple of weeks. He’ll get tired of you, pet. Someone as beautiful as you needs someone who can give you what you need.” He steps forward and drags a finger over Alex’s chin, and Alex pulls back instinctively, skin crawling.

  “Don’t you dare talk about him—” Alex starts.

  “Are you o
kay, my beauty?” Mahiro says and slides an arm around his waist. “I was starting to wonder what was taking you so long.” He looks across at the man standing there with his hands now in his pockets. “Something I can help you with, Kevin?” he asks politely.

  “I was just having a chat with your lovely boy here. Send him my way when he’s bored, will you? You know you don’t have what it takes to hold this beautiful creature.”

  Mahiro’s eyes go cold, his body rigid. “If by that you mean I choose not to beat my partners into safewording on me two times out of three, then yes, I suppose not. Come on, Alex.”

  Kevin holds out a card to Alex. “Take it. You’ll get bored, or he will. When that happens, give me a call.” Alex just stares at it until Mahiro snatches it out of Kevin’s hand, tears it up, and drops the pieces on the floor.

  “Goodbye, Kevin,” Mahiro snarls and drags Alex by the wrist out through the kitchen and back toward the front door.

  “Mahiro, I’m sorry,” Alex babbles. “I tried to get back to you, I swear I did.”

  Mahiro just turns left down a separate hall that has a few open rooms along it. He pulls Alex inside, and Alex gets a glimpse of a bed that’s been stripped down to the bottom sheet, towels stacked on a chair next to it. Mahiro bypasses the bed and pulls Alex inside the en suite bathroom and closes the door and locks it.

  Mahiro looks rattled, almost furious, and… turned on? “Are you mad? Please, Mahiro, I had no idea—”

  “No, Alex. I’m not mad at you. Kevin, on the other hand? He should have known better.” Mahiro’s hands are clenched at his sides, and his mouth is a thin line.

  Alex eyes him warily. “Are you sure? I swear, I just didn’t want to be rude. Please talk to me. Should I have done something differently?”

  Mahiro steps forward and kisses him roughly, his hands cupping Alex’s face. He pulls away and looks at him carefully, little darting glances over his face, and then kisses him again, more gently this time.

  “No. I should have made our relationship more clear to everyone,” Mahiro says, then spins Alex around and bends him over the countertop, his hands pinning Alex’s wrists to the cold marble on either side of the sink. Alex tries to stand up, wants to fall to his knees at Mahiro’s feet, anything to remind Mahiro that Alex is his, to get rid of that look he can see in the large vanity mirror in front of him.

  Mahiro growls into his neck and pushes his cock, already hard, into Alex’s clothed ass. “That whole situation was my own fault for not marking my claim. Come on, look at me, Alex. Look up in the mirror and look at me. Tell me you want this.”

  He does. He can see Mahiro’s naked desire in his face, feel the fierce need to claim in the grip on his wrists. His own desire is a flash fire that rakes over his skin, the need to be one with Mahiro, to reconnect, overtaking him.

  “Green,” he whispers.

  Mahiro nods and his jaw goes tight. He unsnaps Alex’s pants and yanks them over Alex’s hips until his ass is exposed to the cool air in the bathroom, before he unbuckles his own belt and drops his pants just enough to get his cock out.

  “I hope you prepared tonight,” is all he says, and Alex just nods, dumbfounded as Mahiro tears open a sachet of lube from his pocket, coats his fingers, and immediately pushes two inside of him, teetering on the rough edge of painful. Alex closes his eyes.

  “You’re mine,” Mahiro says and replaces his fingers with his cock in one long, smooth stroke, filling Alex completely, pushing in to the hilt. Alex throws his head back, the intrusion into his body shocking in its intensity, and he tries to ease the stretch by spreading his legs but he can’t, his pants still tight around his thighs. Mahiro grips his hips and digs in, his nails sharp, bright pinpricks of pain against the burn in his ass. “You’re mine,” he says again as he fucks hard, his hips pushing Alex’s stomach into the edge of the counter. “Your pain is mine, your pleasure is mine. Your body is mine,” he snarls.

  “Yes,” Alex cries, and he’s lost, overwhelmed, riding high on being taken like this, being owned and wanted and needed. Mahiro’s face is twisted in pleasure, his eyes holding Alex’s gaze as he snaps his hips, relentless.

  “I want you to understand one thing. You’re only mine, you will only be mine unless I hear it otherwise from your own mouth. No one else but me. Fuck. Tell me,” Mahiro gasps and twists the back of Alex’s beautiful shirt in his hands and rides him even harder, the cold marble seeping into Alex’s skin where he’s pinned, and he can see his own flushed face, eyes wet behind the mask he’s wearing. Mahiro slips his fingers under the strap holding it on and flips it off and onto the floor.

  Alex is getting close; he can feel it in the way his body tightens up, in the flare of heat every time Mahiro’s cock grazes his prostate, every tug on his rim. Every breath Mahiro ghosts across his neck.

  “Look at me,” Mahiro chokes out, “And say my name.”

  “Mahiro,” Alex whispers, breathless.

  “Louder, dammit,” Mahiro says and grabs Alex’s shoulder for more leverage.

  “Mahiro,” Alex says again. “Yes, please, I’m yours. Please. No one else. I just want to be yours.” He can feel tears starting to well up, his emotions overwhelming him, and when Mahiro reaches around to stroke his cock, fingers nimble and fast, he can’t help it—he comes with a hiccupping cry, all over the front of the sink, dripping down his legs into his beautiful white pants.

  Mahiro doesn’t stop fucking him, he keeps going, but Alex realizes by the way he sucks his breath in through his teeth he’s holding himself back. He’s going to make sure Alex remembers this, will make sure his body doesn’t forget for days. Alex just holds on for the ride and drops his head on his folded arms.

  “I’m not going to stop until you tell me,” Mahiro says. “Not until then.”

  “What?” Alex grinds out.

  “When you tell me you’ve had enough.” Mahiro snaps his hips hard enough Alex sees stars, pushing him farther up the sink until his head almost touches the mirror. “Tell me.”

  Alex realizes, somewhere in the haze, that Mahiro literally means he won’t stop fucking him until Alex tells him to. That he wants Alex to tell him when it’s too much, to stop him, to give him permission to come only when Alex is satisfied.

  And it is absolutely blowing Alex’s mind.

  He picks his head up and looks Mahiro dead in the eyes. “Keep going,” he says. “Keep fucking me until you’re ready to pass out. I want you to fuck me until I come again, until I have nothing left. Then I want you to come inside me and let it drip down my legs. I want to pull up my pants and walk back out there and feel it for the rest of the night.” Mahiro’s eyes go wide, and Alex can’t stop talking, the rush and tumble of words falling out faster than he can even process what he’s saying. He can feel himself building toward the peak again. “I want you to come home with me tonight and do it all again. And again. Until I’m full of you. Until I’m soaking in it. Come on, Mahiro, give it to me. Now.”

  Mahiro thrusts one last time and comes with a long, low moan, his arms wrapped around Alex’s hips and his face buried in Alex’s back. Alex comes again, almost immediately after, and around the shattered, shaking breaths that echo from the walls, Alex realizes what he was really trying to say.

  Come on, Mahiro.

  Love me.

  ALEX WAKES up slowly, like he’s dragging himself out of the fog.

  He’s hot, the thin blanket he’d been sleeping with almost too much, tucked up around his shoulders, but there’s another source of heat in bed with him. When Alex peeks, his eyes barely slit open, he can see the smooth expanse of Mahiro’s bare back and the messy fall of his dark hair.

  He blinks a few times and smiles to himself. Last night had been perfect. Amazing. They ducked out of the party and made out in the back of a cab all the way to Alex and Chris’s apartment, stumbled up the stairs, and fell into bed and didn’t leave until a slow, exhausted shower somewhere around four in the morning.

  His ass hurts.

&nb
sp; His shoulders hurt.

  Fuck, everything hurts.

  He brings his wrist up to his face and can see the beginnings of pale, barely there bruises where Mahiro pinned him down to the sink and claimed him, demanded his loyalty and commitment.

  Alex just watches Mahiro’s back where it rises and falls with his breath. He’s incandescently happy and, even more than that, ridiculously and stupidly in love.

  Mahiro shifts on the bed beside him, then quickly rolls over and faces Alex with a smile.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Morning.” Alex scoots forward and kisses him. Mahiro ducks his head and snuggles underneath Alex’s chin, against his chest. Alex throws an arm over his and holds him tight. Is it possible for this to be every morning?

  “Ugh, I don’t want to leave,” Mahiro complains.

  “So don’t. Get breakfast with me.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got an appointment at eleven, and it’s got to be close to ten.”

  “Ten oh six, actually. You really have to leave?”

  Mahiro rolls away and stretches. “Yes, I do. But we’ll set something up for dinner Monday, okay? I’ll see you after work.” He gets up on all fours and leans over to kiss Alex again. “Last night was possibly the most perfect night of my life. Thank you.”

  Alex hums and kisses him again, tries to draw him down into something deeper, to convince him to stay. But Mahiro just chuckles against his mouth.

  “No, my beauty,” he admonishes and then kisses Alex’s nose. Alex frowns, giving him an exaggerated pout. “No fair with the cute face. I’m not looking at the cute face, see, this is me, not looking,” Mahiro says, and rolls out of bed. He starts pulling on his clothes and then looks down. “Well, this is a definite walk of shame outfit,” he adds with a lifted eyebrow, his gorgeous abs clearly visible behind the lace panel.

  “No shame in leaving my bed,” Alex says, and finally gets up to pull on a pair of pajama pants. Oh Jesus. He needs a massage. A hot bath. Painkillers.

  “You okay?” Mahiro asks, concern furrowing his brow. “You’re looking pretty rough. Did I push too hard?” Mahiro looks him over, checking any bruises or scrapes he left, sighing if he finds something he’s not happy with.