by Alexis Hall
He withdrew and his touch became soothing again, which I was pretty sure I didn’t want at all. “We can stop at any time. You’ve already given me more than—”
“No.” I flattened my forearms to the sofa and shoved my hips up. “Take it all. Take everything.”
For a moment, he was so still I thought he was going to say no or something. But then he shifted his grip from my neck, laying his palm flat across my shoulders in a way that felt both ominous and reassuring. And when he hit me this time, it hurt in such a real way that I heard myself say “Ow” in a ridiculously surprised tone of voice. It would have been funny—pain hurts, no shit Sherlock—but it was like his hand had knocked everything out of me except the capacity to respond. A few strikes later and even “ow” was gone. Instead, these breathy cries were being jolted out of me. Sort of like being expertly fucked. But not. But yes.
And it was relentless. His hand coming down on me to the rhythm of his choosing. This pain that was both in my control and out of it. I knew with a faith I thought I’d put aside when I no longer believed in fairy tales that if I told him to stop—if I really meant it—he would. And, sometimes, I almost wanted to. Not so much because what was happening was unbearable but because it was simply overwhelming. The pure physicality of it. The way he had me all pinned down and splayed out. The sweat and tears—oh wow, I was actually crying—stinging my lips. The sound of each strike, loud and clear and undeniable. A question demanding an answer given in suffering and submission.
And, God, did I give it. Gasping and sobbing and writhing under his hands. Begging incoherently for him to…fuck, I didn’t know what I wanted, only that I wanted to beg for the simple pleasure of begging. Knowing it would make no difference. That I could scream and cry and struggle and he’d use me however he wanted. And, for some reason, in my slutty little brain that wasn’t bad at all. It was awesome.
Liberating and sexy and scary and exactly what I’d longed for. It wasn’t like my fantasies—it was a lot messier and my reactions were more complicated—but it was way better. And weirdly, something I never would have imagined: how peaceful it would be, right at the heart of all that tumult. How safe I would feel. How cherished.
It made me arch into the blows, not welcoming the pain so much as everything it brought with it: adrenaline and intimacy and this deep sense of acceptance. Of being beyond strength or weakness or shame. And trusting it was okay to be there. That Caspian was with me.
That he had me.
I was so blissfully lost that it took me a moment or two to realize it was over. That the roaring in my ears was my own heartbeat. My knees slid out from under me I flopped into Caspian’s lap like a fish.
“Ohmigod.”
I didn’t know how long I lay there. Minutes, hours, ages of the world, while the sun tarnished and the stars fell.
Wow I was floaty.
When my breathing had steadied, and the sweat dried on my back, Caspian drew me up and gathered me to him. He arranged me so I was straddling him, my weight distributed away from my arse, which was a relief because even the air moving against it felt rough. But he could have knotted me into a pretzel for all I was capable of resisting right then. I was mercury between his hands.
Well, for the most part. My cock was very much the opposite of mercury. Granite or marble or iron. Something really fucking hard. I blinked down at myself, slightly bewildered at the sight I presented: impressively large and shiny-slick with precome, straining pleadingly from between my spread-wide thighs.
Caspian caught me gently by the chin and made me look at him. Maybe it was my state of befuddlement or the way the light was…doing something, but his eyes looked wet.
“Was I okay?” I asked, voice coming out all hoarse and excitingly abused.
For a moment, we were just gazing at each other, intense and awkward at the same time. If anything, he seemed shocked—a flush of arousal staining those flawlessly sculpted cheekbones of his.
“You…you’re perfect. Absolutely perfect. God, you have no idea.”
He leaned in and kissed me gently, almost reverently. I fully intended to be graceful about it but for some reason his lips on mine triggered a cry havoc reaction and I …attacked him. Turned what I’m sure could have been a beautiful moment into a tongue-tangling, teeth-clashing mess.
But he let me. He let me eat his face like a clueless teenager until everything was hot and slick and our mouths tasted coppery with too much kissing. The world was still kind of distant—out of focus even, a little bit photoshopped—but Caspian was everything real.
I clung to him, dug my fingers into him and my teeth, and he held me tight and didn’t flinch or try to calm me. I realized I was making desperate, throaty little mewls, almost as if he was spanking me again, but he took those too, giving me in return these soft, dazed gasps.
It was a bit shocking, actually. I’d got used to him being miserly with his sounds and restrained in his pleasure. But this was different. A glimpse of the man who had fucked my throat that night on a balcony in Oxford.
The man I had always known was there.
And wanted. Wanted to call mine.
It was me, in the end, who broke the kiss. Any more and I would probably have died of ever-increasing lust: a moth hurling myself repeatedly into Caspian’s, er, flame. I collapsed against him, panting.
He was also breathing hard, his heart thundering under mine. And his mouth looked all ravaged, which gave me a filthy, possessive thrill.
“Y’know,” I said, “I’m really super horny right now.”
He laughed and, while making someone laugh had never been high on my sexual agenda before, just then it was absolutely right. He sounded so…happy. And also a little wicked, his eyes alight with that touch of cruelty I found inexpressibly enticing.
He urged me upright on my knees and pushed a hand between our bodies, fumbling with his belt and his zipper. An arch and a shimmy and, a moment later, his cock—his ever-gorgeous, flatteringly hard cock—was free.
I think I might have actually licked my lips. And I would definitely have said a friendly hello, with my hand if nothing else, if Caspian hadn’t distracted me by easing a sachet of lube out of the pocket of his jeans.
He’d just been carrying that?
I couldn’t tell if the forward-fuck-planning was flattering or arrogant. Or maybe it was both, and that was why I liked it.
He tore it open with his teeth—if I’d tried to do that, I’d have ended up with a mouthful of lube—and slicked up his cock. And, oh wow, I could have watched him do that forever: his long, elegant fingers working his long, elegant cock until everything glistened.
He tangled his free hand in my hair and yanked my head up, drawing an excited gasp out of me.
“You want it,” he told me, steadying himself by the base, “you take it.”
“Fuck yes I want it.”
He was not…unchallenging, but I was a hundred percent on the case. Honestly, I was so turned on, I could probably have fucked a butternut squash. I eased myself into a good position, adjusted my angle, and sank down upon him—for about two seconds, and then I almost hit the ceiling, howling.
“Oh Jesusfuckingchrist.”
My arse had lit up like Rudolph’s nose.
How the fuck had I…forgotten? Yet somehow, in the haze of greedy kissing, the hot ache of spanking had become background and I had.
Though from Caspian’s glittery smirk he absolutely hadn’t.
I blinked the tears out of my eyes. “You bastard.”
He smiled and kissed my nose.
I tried it a bunch of ways, getting freshly sweaty and whimpery the more I struggled, but it was like one of the punishments in Tartarus: this perfect prize of a cock I couldn’t fuck. I was driving myself wild with frustration, and God knows how he was managing to stay so calm, but I could have done with about three more hands. I simply couldn’t brace myself and angle myself and guide his cock past the inferno he’d made of my arse all at the same ti
me. I wanted him so much—I was fucking dying from lack of him inside me—but I just didn’t know how.
Eventually, I surrendered. Rested my brow against his and gave a broken little sob.
“I can’t. Please.”
His arms came around me. “Let me help you.”
“Wait.” I jerked upright. “Was that an option?”
“You didn’t ask.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, so I sort of did both and smacked him in the arm. “You bastard.”
“You already called me that.”
“I’m out of my mind with lust. I’m sorry my insults aren’t living up to your exacting standards. But, yes. Please. For the love of God. Please help me.”
His hands slid down my back and pulled my buttocks apart. It still hurt but for some reason it hurt differently when he did it. And I shuddered with a kind of weird hurty pleasure and the vague knowledge that my arsehole was on full display to incalculable miles of sky.
Not that it was looking.
But I still felt pretty exposed.
And I loved it.
“So”—I nipped at the side of his jaw, squirming between his hands—“did it turn you on? Watching me totally failing to fuck you?”
His eyes flashed. “It turned me on watching you try.”
“You’d better not be trying to teach me a life lesson right now.”
He gave me a mean squeeze, starbursts of sensation flaring beneath his fingers, and I squeaked. “The key to success, Arden, is the realization that failure is a temporary condition.”
“What’s that supposed to mea—”
Before I could finish, he pulled me down upon his cock and the rest of my question vanished into a strangled shriek. I flailed wildly, clutching at his shoulders, shock and excitement and a splash of panic blending into a unique and special cocktail. But he only breached me. He didn’t force me. He left the descent under my control—that sweet-harsh glide that burned so very beautifully.
I took him all—took the pain and the pleasure, the stretch and the pressure, the whole gorgeous invasion of it—and he let me see. For once he let me see. The helpless flutter of his eyelashes. The creep of heat across his cheeks. The way his lips parted on a soundless groan. He looked…vulnerable, and a little bit wrecked, softness in his eyes along with the haze of passion.
I threw back my head, full of savage triumph, because I’d made this happen. And this flawless, unreachable man—with all his mysteries and his sadness and his strength—was mine.
He pressed his mouth to my throat, warm and wet, with the scrape of teeth, and I rode him like a rodeo cowboy. Yee-fucking-haw. I was alive with small hurts, aches inside and out, but they felt like fireflies in my skin, barely recognizable as hurt at all. Because everything was igniting into bliss. His hands, his lips, his cock driving into me, rough and hard and fucking perfect. The noises he was making against my skin: reciprocal ecstasy shuddering out of him. And, oh, words. Fierce, tender, slightly muffled words becoming their own prayer: “Arden, oh Arden, my Arden.”
I didn’t really have breath or brain to reply but my answer was everywhere: in the pulse that beat for him and the body that yielded to him and the pain I’d borne for him. Yours yours yours yours yours.
Sweat was slicking down me, gathering in the creases of my groin and behind my knees. And I was probably going to have to take up yoga again or do something about my core strength because—as much as my arse was loving the adventure—the pace was getting punishing. But then Caspian gave this harsh and shattered cry, his hands dragging me down and pinning me in place, his cock so deep in me it felt practically embedded. I screamed, my prostate launching its own little hallelujah chorus as Caspian’s teeth plunged into the bit where my neck met my shoulder.
It was the aggression that undid me—seeing him so lost to it, so utterly out of control—the final riff in my sex-rock anthem of rapture. Next thing I knew was a full-body-shaking, mind-obliterating orgasmic white-out—static snowflakes behind my eyes, every nerve I had electric—and my cock went off like a party popper, extravagant ribbons of come shooting between us.
When I was next capable of anything, I said: “Ow ow ow ow ow.”
Because suddenly everything that had hurt in a good way was starting to hurt in a bad way. Particularly my arse, which was sore and sticky and throbby, and had a cock in it.
Caspian, who was still trembling, gentled me before I could freak out, since the need to not be in pain had become really rather urgent but my coordination wasn’t up to the task. And then he very carefully eased himself out of me.
I tried to stand, only to discover I was head-to-toe spaghetti.
Thankfully Caspian caught me before the floor did, wrapped me up in the scarily pristine cream blanket that had previously been draped over the arm of the sofa, and drew me back onto his lap, somehow managing to position me so I wasn’t resting too much weight on my poor bum.
I meant to protest because I was a mess and the blanket was lovely, but it was all soft and cozy, I couldn’t quite muster the will. I tucked my head under Caspian’s chin and he brushed his fingers against the nape of my neck, so lightly I thought it was an accident at first. But, no, it was a caress. One that carefully roused my sensation-battered flesh to shivers of softly tingling pleasure. If he’d been holding me less tightly I’d have arched greedily into his touch…and probably made a million bits of me immediately start hurting again. But he didn’t let me. Just kept me safe and helpless, his kindness as ruthless as his cruelty, and the sweetness of his touch running in rivulets across my skin.
Since my mouth was the only bit of me capable of movement, it opened and emitted a weird, drunken purring.
Caspian’s breath stirred the damply curling hair at my brow in a nearly-kiss. “You’re as delightful in pleasure as you are in pain.”
“I’m good with both,” I mumbled.
“You are good.” He pushed his hand into my hair, his palm curving to fit the base of my skull. “So good.”
I was vaguely aware we were talking nonsense to each other. But it didn’t matter. The words were less important than the exchange of them. Frankly, he could have been telling me “wibble kerplunk gargle blip” as long as he did it in that tone of dazed admiration.
My brain was cottage cheese at this point so I stopped trying to make it do things. And let myself float off on the magic carpet of his care.
“Arden?” he asked, after a moment or two. At least, I thought it was a moment or two. I might have been asleep. “You are…you are all right, aren’t you?”
“Whu?”
“You aren’t…” He cleared a trace of huskiness from his voice. “I mean, I didn’t…”
“You hurt me, then fucked me, now you’re holding me. What more could a boy want?”
He laughed—or made some shaky sound close to a laugh, anyway—partially muffling it against the side of my head.
“And you had fun too, right?”
“You gave yourself to me like a gift. Offered without restraint things I would never have dared ask or hope for. And you were so beautiful I could hardly believe that you would do this for me. So yes, Arden. I had fun.”
Some of the heat accumulated in my arse redistributed itself, giving me a serious case of the warm fuzzies. “I’m not…you know. I’m not beautiful.”
“Do you want me to turn you over my lap and spank you again?”
“Not right now.”
“Then be quiet.”
Nestling close, I hid my smile in his neck. Then be quiet was hardly the three-word declaration of my dreams. But, right then, it fell upon my ears as tenderly as if it were. He was, after all, Caspian Hart. Not some tamer beast.
And, anyway, I wasn’t very into princes.
Chapter 4
I wasn’t really aware of being awake or not awake but I guess I must have been not-awake, because I was woken up by Caspian whispering to me: “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we’ll be landing soon.”
&
nbsp; I whimpered. “Do we have to? Can’t we live here forever?”
“On the plane?”
“Yes.” I curled into him stubbornly. “We can spend all our time having sex and cuddling”
“We can also do those things on the ground. And with a smaller carbon footprint.”
It should have been reassuring—well, it was reassuring, since I hadn’t seriously expected we’d become joint founders of a flying and fucking commune—but I was feeling fragile. In a way that was completely unlike the raw vulnerability of writhing naked and sobbing over Caspian’s knee, and a lot less fun.
“Arden? What’s the matter? You haven’t…haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
He sounded so genuinely anxious that I came in immediately with a “No.” And, anyway, it was true.
Well. Mostly.
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked.
I stared at my toes. The polish needed touching up. Also maybe Sally Bowles green hadn’t been the best color choice—I looked a little gangrenous down there. “I don’t know. I think maybe I’m failing London.”
“How could you possibly be failing London?”
“Same way I failed Oxford.”
“You have no idea whether you failed Oxford.” He curled a comforting hand over my knee. “Your results haven’t even been released yet. And, when they are, you’ll get a 2.1, exactly like everyone else.”
He was probably right. You had to fuck up super hard to get out of Oxford with anything less than a 2.2. But that led to a situation in which a lower pass was as good as an admission of failure anyway. “Even if I do get a 2.1, I won’t deserve it.”
“It’s hardly an assessment of your moral character, Arden.”
“But I got offered this incredible opportunity. And I squandered it.”
Caspian sighed. I thought he was about to tell me to grow up and stop whining but, instead, he just drew me closer. “Oxford is only a university,” he murmured. “And there are many things besides the academic to learn at university.”
“What, like how to go six weeks without doing any laundry?”