“Very good,” he said, sending relief like cool water over my heated skin. He dragged the belt slowly over my ass, making the marks he’d left prickle with fresh pain. “Just one more. Can you take it? It’s going to be the hardest one yet.”
My breath shallow, my vision blurred, I nodded; I didn’t dare answer with words, in case that counted as making noise. Ellison didn’t seem like the type of Dom to try to trick me like that, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I needed him to fuck me.
He lifted the leather from my skin and laid it down again, soft as a breath, like he was lining up the blow. I should have been terrified, and my body was reacting in kind, but my mind was focused only on the fiery lash Ellison had promised.
The only thing that frightened me was how badly I wanted it.
The last blow was brilliant agony, shooting white-hot into my veins. My teeth dug into my lip, bright spots of pain ringing out in sharp counterpoint to the excruciating song roaring in my ears. My knees locked; my toes curled into the carpet. But I didn’t make a sound.
“Good boy.” Ellison’s voice was soft and reverent. The belt dropped to the floor with a thunk, abandoned, then Ellison’s hands were on me again, stroking down my back and over my throbbing ass and down the backs of my thighs. Every touch against my heated skin was pure ecstasy, a badge of my success and of his approval. “You did so well for me. You didn’t make a sound.”
“Please—” I choked out, my entire body consumed by the deepest hunger I’d ever felt.
“What do you want, River?”
My chest was heaving, my legs shaking with the effort of keeping me up. “I want you to fuck me. Please, sir—let me have your cock.”
“Get on your back on the bed. I’ll take care of you.”
My ass throbbed, bruises already forming and making my skin feel too hot and too tight. I realized that I would feel it even more when he fucked me, and the effect that had on my cock was shocking. I was already drenched in precum from the beating, and another surge of it pulsed out at the thought of him hurting me while he was inside me.
He prepped me with careful fingers and slow strokes, like he was trying to make up for the brutality he’d just inflicted on me. I would have been perfectly happy with rough and fast, but this was nice too. It was caring, tender—something he was doing with my pleasure, my comfort in mind.
When he slid into me, it felt like every last piece of me falling into place. All the uncertainty of the night, all the worry—none of it could reach me, because the last brick in the wall between me and my doubts was placed when Ellison claimed me.
At first he was slow and steady, testing what I could handle with measured strokes, but it didn’t take him long to pick up the pace and slam into me hard enough that my ass throbbed with fresh pain every time his hips met mine. It was a perfect blend of sensation—rapture and savagery and tenderness all wrapped up in one.
His hand came to rest on my throat, and I tipped my head back automatically, giving myself to him. He squeezed lightly, my pulse pounding under his fingers, and I gasped at the helplessness of it, of the power he held in his hands. I could die here, speared on his cock, and I would be happy.
“You make yourself so vulnerable to me. You don’t even think about it, do you? You just expose your throat at the slightest touch of my hand.” His voice was soft and wondering.
I lifted my chin higher, stretching my neck under his hand. He could do anything to me. “I trust you, sir.”
Ellison’s hand tightened just a bit. My breath dragged under his grip, a rough scrape on the inhale. His voice was dark and dangerous as brought his face closer to mine. “Are you sure you should?”
I dipped my chin only low enough to look him in the eye. Reflected back at me was something sinister, but not entirely cruel. He wanted to hurt me, yes. But he wanted me to like it.
“Yes.”
His hand released my throat and a long groan rattled up from his chest. He dropped his head to mine. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
I soared on the praise, lifted by it, caressed by it. I hadn’t realized I’d never wanted anything more than for him to tell me I was enough. That I was perfect.
As he moved within me, I couldn’t help myself anymore. Chances were I should probably ask for permission before touching him, but I knew with unfailing certainty that I couldn’t handle it if he said no. I lifted my arms from the bed and drank him in with my fingers, dragging them over his face, his shoulders, up and down the line of his back. I wanted to touch every inch of him, wanted to memorize the lines of that body I loved to look at and feel against mine but so rarely got to touch freely. I buried my hands in his hair, feeling the springy curl of it, and I raised my head, reaching my lips toward his.
The kiss he gave me was fierce and sweet and everything I wanted, his lips a solid weight against mine as his cock filled me. I was held up by it, by his tenderness and his care, and by the expression on his face—open and unguarded like I’d never seen it before. He reached down and wrapped his hand around my cock, pumping rough and almost too fast, and I realized he was hurrying because he was close—he wanted me to come first.
Somehow that was what did it—that little bit of desperation in his movements, the frantic scramble to make sure my needs were taken care of before his own. I let out a helpless little gasp as my balls drew up and my cock jerked in his hand, spattering both our chests with hot cum as he stroked me through it.
In that moment, everything was shining and real; everything was just what I wanted.
An instant later he was coming as my body clenched around him, his eyes wide and his mouth open in shock, like he hadn’t seen his orgasm coming or hadn’t expected it to be so hard. He finished with rough, stabbing strokes against my sensitive prostate that made a few more drops of liquid spurt from my cock, my body shuddering all over with the almost-too-much pleasure of it.
As I floated back down from the spectacular orgasm, Ellison kissed every inch of my face. He kissed each lip in turn, traced each swell and dip of my cheeks with his gentle lips, and pressed an achingly tender kiss on each eyelid that made me shiver as the dampness from his lips cooled.
He cleaned us up like usual, refusing my feeble attempt to help. It was a token effort anyway—I wasn’t sure my arms would hold up to such vigorous work as 15 seconds of gentle wiping. I’d been pretty effectively fucked into a pile of quivering jelly.
He lay down next to me, and before I could even assume my usual “plastered to Ellison” cuddling position, he pulled me to him instead, squeezing me hard as he pressed his lips tightly to my forehead. It was a small thing, but it just felt so fucking special, like he was admitting, in some small way, that he really did want me.
It was times like this, when the endorphins were starting to wear off, that I started to have Deep Thoughts about the state of my life and relationships. I wasn’t sure what other people usually thought about during these periods, but for me “Deep Thoughts” mostly involved re-analyzing every awkward social mistake I’d ever made, which was no fun no matter how many endorphins were still sticking around.
So I distracted myself with a sex question, since those were conveniently relevant. “Do you ever bottom? I mean, in the sex sense, not the Dom/sub sense. Although I guess that too.”
“I’m always dominant,” he said, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on my shoulder. “I’ve never felt the urge to submit to anyone. As for sex…yes, I occasionally bottom. But only on my terms.”
“What sort of terms are those?”
His voice was light and amused. “Why? Do you want to fuck me?”
I felt my cheeks heating up for no particular reason I could pinpoint. There was no reason to be ashamed of wanting to fuck someone you’re dating, but for some reason the admission was difficult. Wanting anything from him felt like too much. Like if I pushed him for any kind of affection or concession, he’d freak out and push me away.
Thanks a lot, Dan.
Well, I wasn�
�t about to let some asshole I used to date ruin my fun. “If you’d be into that, yes. I’d…like it a lot.”
“Then I would too.”
I snuggled in a little closer, all warm and bone-deep satisfied. I kind of wanted to press for his “terms,” but my mind was too fuzzy right now to hold too many details, and the truth was it didn’t really matter. If it meant I got to fuck him, I was pretty sure I’d jump through whatever hoops were necessary. Hell, I might even enjoy having to jump through some hoops first—apparently being ordered around was a thing I was into now.
I realized my hand was just kind of wandering idly over his chest and stomach, exploring the way I’d wanted to. Maybe I just had more courage because I’d touched him earlier and he hadn’t stopped me, or maybe I’d just realized somehow that it was allowed. I still wasn’t entirely sure it was, wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t just being indulgent because we were both swimming in the afterglow and he’d correct me later. But for now he wasn’t saying anything, and god, did it ever feel good to be touching bare skin.
As if he’d read my mind, his fingers started dragging whorls and lines over my forearm. Did that feel nearly as good for him as it did to me?
I watched my own fingers dancing over his chest for a while before I asked, voice kind of smaller than I’d have liked, “What about, um, barebacking? Is that something you’d consider doing?”
His hand stilled on my arm. “Is that a thing you want?”
“I mean…yeah, I kind of do. It’s not like…necessary or anything, but it’s kind of nice to, you know, feel everything. To be that close.”
He drummed his fingers on my arm like he was mulling it over, and my Dan-related anxiety came back in full force. I had a sudden mental image of Ellison as a spooked deer, head up and poised to run at the next mention of closeness. Which was absurd, of course, because if there was one thing Ellison did not resemble, it was skittish wildlife. But I couldn’t ignore the tightness in his jaw and the tap-tap-tap of his fingers on my skin.
“When were you last tested?”
I sighed. “A couple weeks ago. I get tested three weeks after every new partner, because I’m weirdly paranoid.”
“That’s not weirdly paranoid—everyone should be as rigorous.”
“Yeah, but no one is. Therefore it’s weird.”
He puffed out a laugh that tickled my hair, and immediately smoothed it down again. “Any new partners since that test?”
“Of course not—remember, I was the one who thought we were exclusive.”
“Right,” he said, and I thought I detected a hint of guilt in his voice, but maybe it was wishful thinking. “I was tested just before I met you. I haven’t had any other partners since then.”
I pushed away from him far enough to look him in the face. “Really? None?” I must have sounded completely astonished, and to be fair, I was. “Not even your regular sub?”
He shook his head. “Kayla is monogamous with her wife. Anything involving genitals is off-limits—not that she’d be likely to be interested anyway. She is, as she usually puts it, ‘super duper gay.’”
“God, that’s still so weird to me that people can do that. Put things in separate boxes like that,” I said, settling back down against him. “I know I’m pretty new at this, but I can’t imagine doing any of the stuff I do with you without getting seriously turned on.”
“It’s different for everyone. For me, it takes a little effort before a scene to separate dominance from sex in my head, but when I do, it’s still thoroughly enjoyable. I suppose it’s sort of…the difference between a hobby and a lifestyle.”
Ellison’s words were slow and thoughtful, like he was putting the pieces together as he spoke, and I found that I enjoyed the sound of it. The little pause felt like him peeling away a layer, producing an answer just for me, and I wondered if this was what he got out of examining me all the time. Maybe I needed to try the “loads of invasive questions” approach sometime.
I chewed on my lower lip as I considered his answers. “Well, if we’ve both got clear tests, does that mean barebacking is on the table?”
“It’s…yes, I suppose. With regular testing in the future.”
I snorted. “Why? Expecting me to cheat on you?”
His silence was deafening.
“Oh my god, you are, aren’t you?” I propped myself up on my elbow so he could properly experience my “righteously offended” face. “You don’t expect me to keep a promise, and you’re going to accept it anyway?”
“It’s not that. It’s—” He pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained sigh.
“It’s just that you’re going to go ahead and have a relationship with me without even the most basic foundation of trust that I won’t break, like, the primary rule of the relationship.” I flopped over onto my back with a huff. My heart stung like it had been slapped, and not in the sexy way. “I get it. That’s cool. Makes me feel really good.”
Ellison threaded his fingers together over his stomach and seemed to be pondering the mysteries of the ceiling while I stewed in a churning lake of indignation. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry—I know it’s unfair and irrational, but I have some hang ups about this. I had a partner cheat on me in the past, and I didn’t find out until I caught something.”
“Great, but how is that relevant to me?” I snapped. “I’m doing my best here to trust you—to trust that you’re not Dan, and you’re not going to push me away just because I like you too much. So maybe you could do me the courtesy of trusting me not to be whoever that asshole was.”
“I don’t…distrust you, but it would make me feel better to have that reassurance. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry that I did.”
Ugh, why did he have to sound so sincere? I blew out a long breath, dragging my hands down my face. “Okay, so I guess I’m sort of the king of irrational hang ups here, so…maybe allowing you this one is only fair since you’re putting up with all of mine. I could…probably agree to that, but I can tell you right now I’m not going to feel good about it. There’s always going to be that little voice in the back of my head telling me that you don’t trust me.” My eyes were dry, but if sheer disappointment could produce tears, I’d have been soaking the pillow. “Maybe we should just stick with condoms.”
“Would that make you feel better?”
I sighed. “Probably not.”
Ellison rolled over to half cover me with his body, his hand resting gently on my cheek as he regarded me with his sharp blue eyes. He had beautiful lashes—long, with a graceful, sweeping curve that softened the harsh edge of his gaze. How had I never noticed them before?
“You’re right,” he said, his hand soft on my cheek. He stroked me gently, and I couldn’t help but lean into it as he mapped the curves of my face, tracing his thumb over the ridge of my cheekbone, the rise of my nose, the divot over my upper lip. His hand slid down until the palm was resting carefully against my throat; I shuddered as he held me there, soft and tender. “You’re trusting me literally with your life. I should be able to trust you with my heart.”
He leaned in and kissed me as gently as he ever had, his lips the barest brush of skin over my own. His hand never left my throat, and the sweetness of it was almost too much to bear. I had no idea what to do with all this gentleness. Who was this man, who took such care with me?
“Does—is that a yes?” I gasped when he finally pulled away. “Are we going to do it? No security blanket testing?”
“Yes,” he said with a fond little smile. “I have to admit, the thought of fucking you bare is a strong motivator. Can you imagine how it’ll feel when I come inside you? When I put my fingers in you afterward, all wet and messy because I’m still in you?”
His cock twitched against my thigh, and I moaned as my own throbbed in response. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
He kissed me again, deeper and hungrier, and I opened to him as always. I’d never wanted so badly to have someone inside me—not just in the sex sense, but
every way possible. In my mouth with his kisses, in my heart, in my head, under my skin. I wanted him to know everything, every tiny detail that made up me. I wanted to give him all of my little pieces and show him how to put them together.
“Would you?” I whispered against his lips. “Please?”
He shifted, moving to lie full-length on top of me. His hands captured my wrists and pulled them over my head, pressing them into the bed as he gave me a little smirk. “I’ve got some other plans for you right now.”
An insidious sliver of doubt worked its way into my chest. Was he still hesitating? Was he blowing me off—putting off the act while he struggled with the trust he’d claimed he had in me?
My thoughts must have been plain on my face, because he leaned down to kiss me again. “Don’t worry—you’re going to like them.”
Nodding, I let myself be carried by his words into…maybe not full calm, but something close, where the doubt still hovered, but at a distance.
He released my wrists and straightened, looking down on me like he was surveying a piece of unremarkable property. “Put your hands up there,” he said, nodding to the headboard. “Hold onto the bars.”
I did as he asked, cool metal soothing my burning skin. My cock was already insistently hard, just from this—from a kiss and a single order. This man could take me apart so easily if he tried.
“Leave your hands where they are—don’t let go of the bars. Understand?”
I nodded, my throat bobbing as I swallowed. It was almost like being restrained, but without the panic of truly being trapped. Here I was held only by his voice and my own will, but it was more than enough. I would have stayed there forever to please him.
“I’m going to give you something you wanted, River, but you’re going to have to earn it. You wanted to put your cock in me, didn’t you?”
Truth By His Hand Page 19