Tamed

by T M Chris

  They went back out onto the floor, and this time Sammy kept it pretty PG. They danced through a few songs before Eduardo tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, willing to bump and grind with Eduardo all night long, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

  “I was thinking of doing a scene,” he said when he’d got Jake away from the dance floor. “But only if you can be good for me.”

  When was the last time he hadn’t been good? He frowned at what seemed like an unfair rebuke.

  “Sorry.” Eduardo came up on his toes to give him a kiss. “I didn’t mean it that way. I want to put on a show, something completely different from our usual style of play. Can you be a princess for me? Teacher’s pet, the perfect little sub? If it’ll be too much, we won’t do it.”

  Jake considered. The reason he liked role playing was because he got to push back without really doing anything wrong. Playing the perfect sub would be a whole different thing. But he loved Eduardo, and if this was what Eduardo wanted from him, he’d do it.

  Jake noticed a few raised eyebrows as Eduardo led him into the center of the public play area. Jake never played publicly. It was bad enough one person finding out what a shitty sub he was. No need to make a public point of it, though of course everyone already knew. His reputation proceeded him.

  Eduardo pitched his voice low enough that Jake knew it was meant just for him. “Please tell me if you’re yellow. Understand?”

  He understood. If the brat inside him got too loud, he could say yellow and Eduardo would get him out of there. Eduardo wouldn’t let him fail.

  “Understand?” Eduardo repeated, a hard edge to his voice that meant Jake had already fucked something up.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good boy.” Eduardo raised his voice to a volume the gathering crowd would be able to hear. “Now, what should I do with you today, Jake?”

  “Anything you like, sir.”

  “Mm.” Eduardo ran his hands over Jake’s chest, stopping to tweak each nipple into hardness with quick, painful plucks. “I love how responsive your nipples are. Look at them, like pretty pink eraser heads.”

  Jake took a quick glance down. They were just nipples. “If it pleases you, sir.” That was what imaginary Earl would’ve said, that perfect sub Jake had once dreamed up for Eduardo.

  “It does please me. I like showing you off. All these people are watching you, Jake. They’re here to see what a good boy you are. Are you going to make me proud?”

  “I hope so, sir.” Being humble wasn’t Jake’s favorite thing. It was too close to how he often felt, which was humiliated. But he did hope to make Eduardo proud, so he forced the words out.

  “On your knees, Jake.” Eduardo said it softly, almost like it wasn’t an order, demonstrating how little command he needed to exert, and Jake obeyed, lowering himself smoothly to his knees and folding his hands behind his back, his neck bent in a standard submissive posture. Eduardo moved behind him, and then his hands closed lightly around his neck.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Green, sir.” He wasn’t too itchy, not yet. Eduardo was telling him to do things, and he was doing them. Simple commands, easy to obey. It reminded him of the night they met, of the time he’d spent on his knees then, how he’d found peace there. He checked his posture, making it perfect. If there was one thing being a Marine had taught him, it was how to maintain a rigid posture.

  “I’m going to blindfold you now, Jake. How do you feel about that?”

  “Green, sir.” Actually kind of yellow, but he swallowed it down, not wanting to fail Eduardo so early in their scene.

  He knew people were watching. He couldn’t see them, because his eyes were respectfully lowered, but with a blindfold he wouldn’t even have the option of seeing them. They might be sneering at him or coming at him with a knife, and he’d never know. He’d have to trust Eduardo to keep him safe, to show him off in the best possible light. Realizing that he’d clenched his hands, he relaxed them again, letting one fall easily into the other in that ritual display of complete submission.

  “Good boy,” Eduardo said into his ear. “You please me so much.”

  Eduardo’s praise softened the ball of nerves growing in his gut, made him a little dizzy with anticipation. He mentally followed Eduardo’s footsteps, wondering what he intended to do. At home, they played pretty hard. He liked it hard, could take it. But could he take it here, like this, without resistance, not even the pretend kind?

  The silky material of a blindfold draped over his eyes—a swath of cloth thick enough that he couldn’t make out anything except a sense of light and shadow. He closed his eyes, accepting the darkness Eduardo had dropped him into. Trust. He didn’t know what was about to happen, but he trusted.

  “Can you guess what this is?” Something trailed up his back as Eduardo’s voice tickled in his ear. Leather, supple, a small surface area. Jake was good at this game.

  “A crop, sir?”

  “Very good. I’m going to give you ten strokes, and I want you to count them for me. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir.” He could do that. Probably. The first blow hit him unexpectedly, a swipe to his right shoulder. He jumped, flinching from the surprise, not the pain, and almost forgot what he’d just promised to do. “One, sir.”

  “One, sir, what?” Eduardo’s smooth velvet voice came in from his left side.

  “One, sir. Thank you, sir.” Fuck. How could he have forgotten that? Suck-up subs always said thank you. The crop whistled again, and he was better prepared for it this time. “Two, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Eduardo made him wait so long in between. The whole ritual of it. It was another man’s game, one Jake had always failed at. Three. He wasn’t even bound. Nothing at all preventing him from standing up and putting an end to it. The only thing keeping him on his knees was obedience. Four.

  He wasn’t hard either. The strokes weren’t fast enough or hard enough to hurt, not the way he wanted them to. He wished Eduardo would go harder, but a good sub didn’t ask. Five. He was just supposed to take what he got.

  “How are you doing there, Jake?”

  He hesitated, on the verge of calling yellow, not sure he could hold it together long enough to eke out five more but wanting to so badly.

  “I’m green, sir.”

  “There’s my good boy.” Eduardo dropped a kiss against the back of his neck, bringing his familiar scent with it.

  Jake shivered. He was a good boy. He was being good. He was doing well. Eduardo had said so. He could trust his master who would never put him in a position to fail. Eduardo had always known what he was capable of, had always set him up for success from the very first night.

  Six. Seven. There was a burn now—Eduardo plying the crop harder, striking skin that was already sensitive. Eight. Nine. The rhythm of it was nice, settling. Counting. Saying thank you. It drew him into a place where being well-behaved felt like a pleasure.

  “Ten, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Eduardo’s hand stroked welcome fire across his shoulders. “What would you like as a reward?”

  “Your cock, sir?”

  “Mm, my sweet little cocksucker.” Eduardo came around in front of him. The blindfold was still in place, but Jake could smell the richness of his groin. He waited patiently, trying not to shift or seek, as the whisper of fabric rustling told him Eduardo was taking himself out.

  “Open up, big boy.”

  He opened his mouth, making himself into a vessel designed to receive. The weight of Eduardo’s cock settled on his tongue. Eduardo wasn’t hard, but neither was Jake—too many people, such a calm and unheated scene—but Jake worked him over with his mouth, careful to keep his hands behind his back, and they both grew harder. His own cock swelled uncomfortably in the tight confines of his leather shorts, and Eduardo’s grew thick in his mouth until it was steely-hard. The sweet tang of pre-come tickled Jake’s taste buds.

  “Such a good cocksucker,” Eduardo moaned. “So g
ood for me.”

  Jake redoubled his efforts, sucking harder, moving faster, wishing for his hands but not shifting them in the slightest, the darkness behind the blindfold sinking him deeper into a place where it was only the two of them, whether the others still watched or not. He gave himself wholly to Eduardo, and Eduardo gave himself back, squirting down his throat with a hearty moan, one hand tangled in Jake’s hair for balance.

  “Give me a moment,” Eduardo mumbled.

  “I’m all yours, sir.” And it felt less like a lie than anything in the scene so far. He was all Eduardo’s. He didn’t mind being down on his knees to him, here or anywhere.

  Eduardo straightened up, the scratch of a zipper telling Jake he’d tucked himself away again. Then he pulled the blindfold from Jake’s eyes and helped him to his feet and over to a couch at the side of the play area.

  “I don’t need aftercare for that.” He snuggled into Eduardo’s side nonetheless.

  “I’ll decide what you need.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, only a little cheekily. Eduardo gave him a tap on the ass for it.

  “That was a lot for you to handle tonight. Not the crop—I know you can take much more—but the obedience. Your submission tonight was a gift, and I thank you for it.” He wrapped Jake up tight, making him feel cared for and loved and protected and cherished. He’d done good tonight. But was this what Eduardo wanted from him all the time? And if it was, could Jake give it to him?

  Chapter 9

  “You could’ve handled this better, Jake.”

  “I know.” He sat right on the edge of the guest chair in his boss’s office, wishing she would just fire him if she was going to fire him.

  “Kandler might be a pain in the ass, but he’s our client. Which means he pays your salary, which means the tone you took in this email can’t be tolerated, no matter how much he deserved it.”

  “I know.” He knew. Fuck, he knew. But the anxiety caused by this particular asshat had been scrambling in his brain like a cage of squirrels for days. It’d been inevitable that he would eventually blow. Shannon was lucky he’d only used a tone in the email, not the curses and insults he’d really wanted to.

  “I’m going to offer them a discount on next month’s billing,” she said with a displeased scowl, “but the apology needs to come directly from you. Write something up for me. And, Jake? Make it good. Own up to what you did, acknowledge it was wrong, promise to do better. Have it on my desk by the end of the day.”

  “Um, Shannon?” The brat in him had no interest in apologizing to Kandler. It wanted to tell Kandler to go fuck himself, right after telling Shannon to go fuck herself. “I’m kind of wound up right now. Maybe it would be better if I did it in the morning, after I’ve had time to cool off?”

  “All right. Not a bad idea. Stay off email for the rest of the day, and have your apology in my inbox first thing tomorrow.” She swiveled around to face her computer, dismissing him so easily it burned, until he reminded himself that his issue was probably only one of a dozen shitshows she had to deal with today. He used to think he was the only person who ever fucked up, that he was the worst loser ever, but he knew better now. Shannon was usually really happy with his work, and everyone fucked up sometimes.

  He avoided his co-workers for the rest of the day and didn’t make any stops on the way home. He showered and changed at top speed, then picked up some fast food on the way to Eduardo’s because fuck it. He needed to get there before he snapped completely.

  Eduardo must’ve only just come home, because he was still in dress slacks and a button-up shirt when he answered the door. Jake pushed past him, undressing as soon as he got inside without even bothering to give Earl a hello head-scruff.

  “Something you’ve done?” Eduardo asked.

  “It’s more what I could do.”

  “All right.” Eduardo snapped his fingers at the floor, and Jake dropped to his knees. He followed Eduardo into the living room on all fours. They hadn’t done this in quite a while, but he liked the ritual of it, liked nosing into Eduardo’s groin to tell him what’d happened with Kandler.

  “So that would be ten for talking back,” Eduardo said when Jake had finished.

  Jake shook his head.

  “No?”

  “It’s not enough. I need punishment. Real punishment. I can’t—” He thumped his chest where the anxiety lay like a hard lump, taking up so much room he couldn’t breathe around it.

  “Tell me how many, then. But Jake, I warn you: I’m going to give you what you ask for.”

  Jake cocked his head. How much was too much? He didn’t know. He only knew that his rage was strong and he couldn’t afford to take it out on his boss or his clients or on Eduardo either. He could only take it out on himself.

  “A hundred.” He’d never started with a number that high, but he’d never been so jammed up and desperate to get unjammed either.

  “A hundred then,” Eduardo said, not showing any surprise at the number. He merely tapped his lap with his gloved hand and gave Jake an encouraging smile. “This is going to take a while, so let’s get started.”

  And of course, Jake didn’t want to. He wanted Eduardo to make him, even though he knew Eduardo wouldn’t make him, not physically. Eduardo would just keep adding to the number, and shit—

  He’d already let himself in for a hundred. He couldn’t afford to be rebellious, so he got to his feet, shaky from the adrenaline pooling up inside him, and laid himself over Eduardo’s lap, making his ass a target. The first ten were at warm-up strength. Sometimes, when he was only owed ten, Eduardo gave them harder. No point warming him up when it would all be over in a minute. But today he got a warm-up, followed by the next ten at full strength.

  And they were full strength. If he’d thought Eduardo would go easy on him because he’d asked for punishment himself, well, that wasn’t what happened. Eduardo delivered with his normal intensity—the solid, rhythmic smack of his gloved hand striking over and over in a pattern Jake had come to know very well, one that left every inch of his ass and upper thighs evenly hot, evenly sensitive.

  With seventy remaining, Jake felt sure he could take them, was wondering if seventy would be enough. The rage in his heart hadn’t died down even though the fire in his ass was burning bright. Another twenty, and his attitude started to change. The smacks hurt. Really hurt. What had he gotten himself into? He was always like this—all fuck-you about the consequences until he was living the consequences. A hundred? Really? He’d thought he was so tough, but he was a long way from tough. The tears started falling somewhere around sixty. Hardly halfway there, and he wasn’t going to make it.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said gruffly, sweeping an arm back in an attempt to intercede.

  “Then don’t make me add more.” Eduardo pinned his arm by his side with his other hand and kept swinging.

  “I said stop.” Jake kicked his legs, drumming his feet against the cushions.

  “Still forty to go.” Eduardo said as he began the next set. “You know you’re not getting any less than the hundred I promised you.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “I’d better start getting some sirs or the number’s going up.”

  “I changed my mind, sir.” He reached back to still Eduardo’s hand, and Eduardo let him.

  Jake felt a flash of physical relief followed immediately by a crashing disappointment. He’d thought he could count on Eduardo, but Eduardo was like every other Dom. He backed down when pushed, got intimidated by the fight, couldn’t follow through, couldn’t make it real, couldn’t give him what he really needed, which was to be thoroughly and ruthlessly punished until all the brat was gone from him.

  “I was being patient because you asked for this yourself,” Eduardo said, “but I should’ve known better. A brat doesn’t behave better when he gets leniency. He behaves worse. So ten for talking back and ten for making me add strokes when I specifically told you not to.”

  “Nooooo,” Jake how
led.

  “Try me,” Eduardo said, not a hint of patience in his voice now. He flicked his wrist out of Jake’s grasp and started hitting him again.

  Jake tried to remember what number they’d been on, how many had been added, what was left, but the math got swept away in a flood of pain and the complete and utter abandon with which he turned himself over to his master. He stopped fighting Eduardo, stopped fighting the tears. Eduardo had him. Eduardo wouldn’t let him get away with anything less than what he deserved. He’d be punished until he was clean again.

  “Almost done, big guy.” Eduardo’s hands stroked him soothingly, petting him from shoulder to hip. “You’re being so good for me now. I’m so proud of you. Little more, okay, baby?”

  Jake nodded into his crossed arms, too choked with tears to answer in words. But then— “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s it. Here we go. I’m going to give you all twenty at once, and then we’ll be done.”

  Eduardo didn’t skimp—adding one more layer of pain, stripping one more layer of tension—until Jake’s mind was as empty as his ass was red. Even the last smack landed with a resounding sharpness, at exactly the intended angle.

  “Such a sweet thing,” Eduardo murmured when he’d finished, his voice full of a tenderness that was at odds with the severity of the punishment he’d just delivered. But Jake knew. He knew it was love he’d been given—caring attention and a steely determination to do what was best for him.

  He was too emotional to get up right then, so Eduardo let him stay where he was, petting him and cooing to him until the tears stopped falling. Then he sat up, wincing as his ass made contact with the cushion beneath him, and Eduardo got him cuddled into a blanket.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No apologies. You don’t need to be remorseful today. I’m proud of you for asking for what you needed, and I’m proud of you for taking it. I’m so grateful I found you, Jake. Grateful every day.”