Nolan slowly withdrew his cock until just the head still remained inside Kenny’s ass before taking another hard, pounding thrust into him.
In his hand, Kenny’s cock throbbed, close to exploding.
“Maybe I should just make you my little bitch for the week,” Nolan growled. “Keep you edging all week. Make you play with yourself at lunch but not come. Make you blow me every morning and every night.”
Another thrust, and he closed his fingers even more firmly around Kenny’s cock. “Make you present your ass to me for fucking, hands and knees and lubed, ready from having a butt plug in all day.”
“No, please let me come!”
Nolan started fucking him slowly, stroking Kenny’s cock in time with his thrusts. He wanted to time it just right, so he could feel Kenny coming, feel the way his ass fisted his cock just before he blew his own load.
“You come all over my hand, you’re going to have to lick it up. You know that, right?”
“Anything!”
He started stroking Kenny’s cock faster, a little twist around the head at the top of each stroke, gathering more of his juices with every swipe. He knew Kenny was close to exploding. He picked up the pace of his own fucking, now short, deep thrusts, hitting Kenny right in the sweet spot with each jab, driving him harder and closer to release.
“Then I guess you’d better come before I do if you don’t want to spend a week being tortured.”
He felt Kenny trying to rock his hips, but the way Nolan had him pinned, all he could do was lay there and look helpless and horny, out of his mind with need and desire.
When Nolan felt the first spurts of cum from Kenny’s cock, he picked up the pace of his strokes with his hand, struggling to hold back as Kenny’s ass started squeezing his cock. And then Kenny threw his head back, eyes closed, a long, satisfied moan escaping him and nearly triggering Nolan’s release as Kenny’s hot juices covered his hand.
As he started fucking him harder, faster now, long, pounding strokes, Kenny grabbed Nolan’s hand from his cock and started sucking on it, licking it, looking up into his eyes and that was when Nolan finally let loose. His balls throbbed, pumping, filling the condom even as Kenny stared up at him and licked his own juices from Nolan’s fingers.
Breathing heavy, Nolan fell still, curling his fingers around Kenny’s as he started laughing. “Damn, I needed that.”
Kenny grinned, even as he still had one of Nolan’s fingers between his lips. “Me, too,” he mumbled.
He finally managed to get Kenny to release his hand. After lowering the man’s legs, he leaned in and kissed him. “Shower?”
“Yeah.”
A minute later, they were holding each other under the warm spray, kissing, relaxing, coming down from their respective head spaces.
“Love you, man,” Kenny said. “And even if you never want to tell your parents—”
Nolan silenced him with a gentle finger pressed against his lips. “Love you, too.” He sighed. “And yeah, I am going to tell my parents. I have to. Because I’m not going to hold off marrying the guy I love just because I’m afraid of what they’re going to say. Life’s too damn short.”
Kenny slid his hand behind Nolan’s neck, cupping it, holding him in place for another long, tender kiss. Pressing his forehead to Nolan’s, he whispered, “Marry me.”
“Yes,” Nolan whispered back. “Marry me.”
Kenny kissed him. “Yes.”
Chapter Nine
Monday morning, Betsy laid in bed, her left eye open, her right eye barely able to squint just a little.
She’d take the win.
It was nearly seven in the morning, and she couldn’t believe she’d slept so late. Jack had to be up at 6:15 every morning to get ready for work, meaning she had to be up, too, fixing his lunch, cooking his breakfast.
Everything.
Failure to get up on time meant one cane stroke for every minute. The only time she was allowed to sleep in was on Saturdays and Sundays when he did.
Freedom.
And more than a little self-loathing settled within her as she stared at the strange furnishings belonging to the men, furnishings that she knew would quickly grow familiar.
No, she hadn’t been living a ritzy lifestyle before Jack. But she’d let Jack order her into getting rid of most of her belongings when she moved in with him.
Or he’d basically confiscated them, like her computer, and declared them his.
Once she moved into her own place, she would eventually start replacing the things she’d given up. And the things of Jack’s that the men had retrieved for her, like dishes, and pots and pans, that were Jack’s. Oh, she’d use them, all right, for now.
But eventually, everything she owned would be hers and hers alone. She’d be damned if she’d ever let another man do this to her.
What the hell was wrong with me? How did I get here?
It was something she’d asked herself a lot lately.
Especially over the past couple of weeks.
Usually as she’d sit there and stare at the damn chain on her ankle and try to figure out how the hell to get it off.
In the beginning, Jack had seemed like a nice guy. Said the right things. She’d trusted him, allowed a little more trust. She didn’t play with him alone. She met him in public. He never pressured her to play alone, encouraged her to talk to others. But since he was new to the area, and said he wasn’t really active in local groups up north, there hadn’t been much to ask about.
No one had anything bad to say about him down here, that she’d heard. It seemed like Tilly wasn’t fond of him, but to be honest, there were a few people who didn’t like Tilly. To her friends, she was fiercely loyal and protective, and that sometimes got lost in translation when dealing with someone like Jack. Someone who didn’t know her or her history.
That Tilly wasn’t fond of him should have been enough for Betsy. But he’d charmed several others, played with a few at the club, and no one seemed to have anything bad to say about him locally.
Tilly’s grumbles mostly quieted as he didn’t actually do anything that raised red flags.
So Betsy had allowed him into her life a little. First, just for play. At the club. Then orgasm play. Then they talked about maybe a training collar.
And then…
Then one day she found herself staring at a damn chain locked around her right ankle and trying to figure out how the hell she’d let that happen.
It was like a vicious carousel she’d managed to get on, but before she could get off, before she’d realized that it wasn’t populated by beautiful ponies and lions, and instead held horrific monsters, it was spinning too fast for her to jump off without risking her very life. At that point, she’d held on as best she could and prayed for a chance to get off the ride.
She’d had no doubts that if Jack had realized she’d gotten the chain off that afternoon, after beating her, the next step would have been him chaining it around her neck. He’d once “joked” about doing that.
Maybe that had been his plan all along, to see how she’d tolerate the thing at first and work his way up to that.
Why the hell did I tolerate it?
There were plenty of times she could have waited for him to go to work and then screamed for help until someone called 911 to report it.
But he’d said he had spies.
And she’d believed him. He was crazy enough.
And if one of them had called him instead of the cops…
Yes, fear. Flat-out fear.
And stupidity, but that had kicked in after the fact, once she knew she was finally safe.
I have to get up.
The rest of her life lay ahead of her. She was only thirty-two and had a lot of good years. Yes, she had some rebuilding to do, but she would do it.
To do it meant she needed to start now, be independent.
Including getting out of damn bed by herself.
At least her headache felt like maybe it had finally
abated. And she didn’t feel dizzy.
She just…hurt like fucking hell.
Slowly, she log-rolled onto her right side, pausing to breathe through the pain. It wouldn’t get any worse from this point out, only better. He would never beat her again. If she could take it now, it would get easier to take, day by day, until her injuries fully healed.
Working carefully, she pushed herself up into a sitting position with her legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
Hey, look at that!
It was a small accomplishment, but to her she might as well have finished a marathon.
Leaning carefully, she stretched and reached for one of the shopping bags still setting on the end of the bed, where she’d seen a bathrobe last night. Fishing it out, she yanked the tag off and pulled it on before forcing herself into a standing position. Yes, trying to brush her hair would suck. That was something she still wasn’t sure she could do by herself today.
Maybe Tilly can help me shave my legs.
Turning, she dug one of the two pairs of slippers out of the bag and dropped them onto the floor, then slid her feet into them.
Clothes. It felt good to have comfy clothes.
Fuck, it felt good to have clothes, period, to freely choose to wear them.
Jack had required her to be naked most of the time.
She’d forgotten the luxury of having comfy, cute clothes to wear. Nothing fancy, but PJs that made her feel good. Her new phone lay on the dresser, plugged in and charging. She slipped it into the pocket of her robe.
Just that simple act felt good. Freeing.
Shuffling, she made it to the bedroom door and got it opened. As if equipped with radar, Nolan and Kenny rushed down the hall from the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” Nolan asked.
“You didn’t call for us,” Kenny said.
They both wore shorts, no shirts, and looked adorable.
She managed a smile. “Thanks, guys. I’ve got to do this by myself eventually.”
“But are you okay?” Nolan asked.
“I’m vertical. Does that count?”
They moved aside for her as she started what felt like a forever journey across the hall toward the bathroom. “Oh, guys?”
“Yeah?” they said.
She made a half-turn so she could look at them. “Thank you for the PJs and stuff. They’re really cute. I love Hello Kitty.”
The broad, beaming smile that lit Kenny’s face sent off warning bells inside her. Not because of him, but because she knew it’d be too damn easy to fall into the trap of wanting to keep making him smile like that.
Sort of the way Jack had trapped her.
She wasn’t so stupid that she was going to lock the bathroom door. Just in case she had pushed herself too far, too fast, and got in trouble and couldn’t get back up again. Fortunately, she managed to use the bathroom by herself this time. The men were waiting for her outside when she emerged.
“Coffee’s ready,” Nolan said.
She smiled. “Can I have it in my Hello Kitty cup, please?”
“Absolutely. Ice?”
“Yes, please.”
“I was hoping you’d like that cup,” Kenny said. “I thought it was cute and fun.”
“Believe me, I need all the cute and fun I can get.”
“Are you okay to walk?” Kenny asked.
She took stock of her injuries. She still hurt. A lot. Including her right ankle. “I wouldn’t refuse holding onto your arm.”
He held it out for her, and it was nice to have the choice of whether to take it or not.
Well, not really a choice, because as she moved more, her pain was growing, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before she quickly hit her wall in terms of what she could do that day.
Kenny got her seated on the sofa and Nolan brought her water, ibuprofen, and then went back for her coffee.
“Can we make you breakfast?” Kenny said.
“When is Tilly getting here?”
“Any minute.”
“I don’t want to make you guys late for work.”
“It’s all right. We don’t mind.”
“How about some instant oatmeal?” Nolan called from the kitchen.
“All right. Thank you.”
“Your right eye looks a little less swollen today,” Kenny said.
She had avoided looking in the mirror again while in the bathroom. “I think it is. I can squint out of it a little bit.”
Outside, she heard a car drive up.
“And there’s Tilly,” Kenny said. He went to the front door and had it open by the time she swept up the walk and through the door, not even breaking stride to speak to Kenny.
“Good, you’re up. We have a lot to do today.” She had a computer case and a small tote bag slung over her shoulder.
“You look prepared for battle,” Betsy said.
“You have a shower yet?”
“No.”
Nolan brought Betsy a bowl of oatmeal. “Here you go. Let her eat first, Tilly.”
“Sorry. Eat first. Shower. Then we’re going to do some stuff and work on your resume.”
Kenny walked over. “The printer is on the desk in the office. We’ll turn it on and leave you the Wi-Fi password. It should show up as a networked printer.
“Excellent. Oh, and hi, Kenny. Hi, Nolan. Pardon my lack of manners, but I’m on a mission.”
Kenny smiled. “No problem. I could sort of tell.”
“And you two don’t worry. I’ll be here until you guys get home, at least.”
That meant one more person whose life she was interrupting.
Disrupting. “I’m sorry,” Betsy softly said.
Tilly frowned. “For what?”
“For getting myself into this mess in the first place.”
“Yeah, well, listen. We all do stupid shit from time to time. We’re human. Learning from it and not repeating it is the key there. Sometimes, we have to touch the stove.”
“I feel like I shoved my whole face against it,” she admitted.
Tilly put down her stuff and sat next to her on the couch, her tone now totally lacking snark.
“What we do,” she said, “isn’t exactly in the realm of the norm. We take risks. Sometimes, really big risks. The vanilla population doesn’t always take those same risks. Sometimes, they do. Sometimes there are vanilla guys who beat the crap out of—and even kill—their partners. This isn’t solely a kinky-person problem.
“But I want you to promise me that you won’t let this experience turn you hard and cold, either. To take away your ability to eventually trust again. I’ve been there, done that, and honey? Let me tell you something. That’s a cold, dark, lonely fucking place I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy into. Having come out on the other side of it, I can tell you, it was absolutely no fun. Unfortunately, at the time, it was the easier choice to make. So please, don’t make that easy choice to lock yourself away out of fear and regret and mistrust. Deal?”
Betsy had listened to all of this as her left eye stared down into her bowl of oatmeal. “I’ll try,” she whispered, “but I can’t promise.”
Right now, she felt torn between wanting to burn down the world and bury herself in a hole. She understood, logically, that those feelings, too, would pass. But for now, her emotions were freely pinballing around inside her, no longer restrained.
“All I’m asking is that you try,” Tilly said.
Betsy nodded.
Tilly left her alone for a few minutes to go talk to the men in the kitchen. Betsy didn’t turn when she heard them walk down the hall, followed by the sound of a bedroom door opening. The office, if she had to guess. She really hadn’t had a tour of their house.
Not that she’d been in much of a mental or physical condition to get one.
Tilly’s words still rang through her mind. When she thought back to her previous relationships, she’d guarded herself. Smartly, yes, in retrospect. Still, back then, she’d willingly stepped onto and off of a ve
ry slow-moving carousel filled with all the sweet and pretty—and safe, and boring—characters one would expect of such a ride.
Nothing with teeth that could bite, or claws that could rend.
Nothing like the monster she’d escaped from.
A kind of functional numbness had set in since she’d limped out the door of that apartment Saturday night. Instinctively, she wanted to cry, to scream, to rage, and yet she stared down at those emotions from some higher vantage point, as if looking at a different person.
She was a different person.
Damn sure wasn’t who she thought she was.
The others returned a few minutes later. “Well, I think I can work that thing,” Tilly joked as she reached for her computer bag and pulled her laptop out. “I’ll make sure I can access the Internet and printer while they’re still here, though.”
“Do you need anything else before we get our showers?” Kenny asked Betsy.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
Tilly had her laptop open and booting up. “They’re good men,” Tilly said, still in that non-snarky tone Betsy knew she’d need to get used to.
She suspected this was the real Tilly, the one Landry and Cris got to see, or some of her closest friends, but a side of her that Betsy had never experienced before this.
The Tilly she knew could be prickly, frank, snarky, and while never deliberately mean and on the offensive without damn good provocation, was someone who never hesitated to throw herself to the frontlines of the battle in defense of the people and friends she considered her responsibility.
“Yeah,” Betsy said. “I feel badly I’m putting them out.”
Tilly looked at her. “Stop. Now. We get it. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but we understand you feel badly about this. The next step is you need to move forward and not wallow. Show them your gratitude by kicking ass and taking names.”
“Is that your motivational speech?”
“Yeah, and I think it still needs some work.” She smiled. “Look, I’m not saying this is going to be easy. At all. I feel more than a little guilty that I didn’t push you harder to wait to get involved with that guy. I feel badly that I didn’t personally start looking into him sooner the way Tony did later on. I feel badly that I didn’t try to reach out to you more often after you ended up with the guy. I feel damned guilty that I could see the signs of abuse there and I didn’t step in a lot sooner and say whoa, what the fuck.”
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