I didn’t stop.
Whatever restraint and resentment had been corking the heat between us finally crumbled into the dark wine of our need, and it spilled everywhere. Stained everything with heat and urgency and a love that I’d never been able to quench, not even after a decade, not even after a war, not even after my wedding to someone else.
Let’s go public, I’d murmur to him. Let’s tell everyone. Because I wanted that, had wanted it before, had never stopped wanting it. It was stupid to deny ourselves a second time around—now when it was legal, now when I was already elected. Who cared? Jenny’s death had taught me in the most vicious, sawing way that no one had forever with the people they loved, there were no promises, there was only holding tight to what you had.
I just wanted to be able to hold tight to him in public finally, finally, finally.
But he’d flush and fidget and change the subject, pain thorny and defensive in his eyes, and I decided I wouldn’t push him yet. Because I was going to marry him, but I could be patient…for a while. Even if it meant sneaking around like our old Army days, with secret fucks and private smiles and hidden hearts. Every day and every night, any moment we could steal, any yank of his tie to bring his mouth to mine, any press of a thigh on a shared couch, any nip of an earlobe to tide us over until we were alone, and then when we were alone, nothing remained undiscovered, nothing remained undone.
Save one thing.
“Relax,” Mark said.
I nodded and pressed my eyes closed, trying to breathe, trying to stir up my sense of mastery over my own body, but it was difficult while I was flat on my back with my hands cuffed above my head and my knees pulled up to my chest.
I opened my eyes. Took a breath. Grounded myself in my surroundings—opulent, familiar, crowded with every imaginable tool for pain and pleasure imaginable. One of the rooms at Lyonesse, Mark’s private room in fact. The décor reflected his tastes: luxurious, careful, decadent. Like the court of a king of old.
“Okay,” I said. “I think I’m ready.”
Mark ran an appreciative hand over my naked body, smirking a little as I tensed. His hand lingered over my flaccid cock, rolling it against my stomach and giving it a teasing squeeze. It gave a half-hearted jolt—Mark was an incredibly handsome man, after all—but both the cold toy pressing against my pucker and the condescending dominance of his touch kept me mostly soft.
He was hard though, and I couldn’t help but take a small amount of masculine pride in that. Even if I currently felt no desire and just wanted this lesson over with.
“It’s a shame you’re not submissive, or even a switch,” he sighed, giving my testicles a longing little fondle. “You are a very beautiful man. I’d like to fuck you very much. And how many men can say they’ve gotten to fuck the President?”
“Even if I were submissive, I’m afraid the Vice President keeps me too busy to share,” I said with a smile.
Mark smiled too, although his expression was still edged with hunger. “One day,” he murmured, hand gripping the heavy muscles of my thigh, “I’ll have to find a male submissive that reminds me of you. Get it out of my system.”
He cradled my testicles once more, pulling them gently upwards to keep my hole exposed. “With your own subs, you’ll want to dedicate some time throughout the week to anal play,” he said, back into teacher mode now. “I like to make my own subs wear plugs for the first part of a scene—or even in public or at home before we play, to heighten anticipation—but be careful not to plug them for more than an hour or two, even if they tell you they can do more. Otherwise you risk injury or ulcers, or compromising sphincter control. Speaking of, I’m going to press in again with the toy, so push back against me as I do.”
It was cold and hard and unpleasant, and even as I felt it slide in, I still felt like I was doing something wrong. “I thought it would feel better,” I said.
“It’s barely inside you,” Mark said. “We haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”
“There’s going to be a good part?”
His mouth quirked up at my words, and once again his gaze snagged on my soft penis, on my tense body. “Actually, wait a moment, will you?”
He pulled the toy out, and I heaved a giant sigh of relief as he left the room. For the last seven months, I’d been training at the club, learning how to channel my desires into safe, structured play. Not everyone agreed with Mark’s philosophy that a Dom should be willing to experience anything he or she would put a sub through, but I did, and frankly, most of it was fairly easy to endure. Maybe I couldn’t find release in pain as a sub could, but I enjoyed the strength and discipline it forced to the surface. Maybe I didn’t feel a dizzy sense of freedom while I was bound, but every moment in bondage was worth learning for all the ways I could later tease and torture Embry.
But this—this was the first time I was actively disliking my training, and despite how intensely I tried to peer at why, the answer wouldn’t show itself to me.
Was it the domination? Was I that fundamentally incapable of submitting to a man like Mark?
Or was it the penetration? God knew I’d only just started to pick apart the ways I’d internalized messages about masculinity and sex. But when I thought of Embry inside me, there was none of this cold tension, this gritting of teeth. There was only warmth and excitement, and oh fuck, how much it would mean to him, how much it would mean to me, to still have this first between us, a first that wouldn’t have to happen with blood and bullets, but with clear, open eyes and assenting hearts and with as much time as we wanted.
The door opened and then Embry walked in with Mark, obviously having come straight from his office, stress-tousled hair, flag pin, and all.
“I called him here earlier,” Mark said, “because I thought you might want the extra nudge. But of course, you can tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to do this in front of your sub.”
Embry had stopped right in front of the door, and as Mark was talking, I watched my lover’s face process what he was seeing. Me, stretched out and hands bound, legs parted. Toy, towel, lube.
I could see the minute his mouth went dry.
“No,” I said softly. “I want him to stay.”
Mark glanced between us and then smiled to himself. “You know, I think this might go better if I leave the two of you alone. Can I trust that you’ll carry out his lesson thoroughly?” This last he directed to Embry, who looked at Mark as if Mark had just asked him if blowjobs were any fun at all.
“Uh, yeah,” Embry mumbled. “Real thorough.”
“He needs to try both toys,” Mark said, canting his head toward the table next to the bed. There was the plug he’d been using on me earlier and a full sized dildo, veined and lifelike.
Embry swallowed. Hard.
“And in a few different positions,” Mark added, “although make sure he’s still bound for one or two of them, so he can experience it while being restrained.”
“Breathe, Embry,” I said from the bed, amused.
Embry’s voice was choked when he finally managed speech. “Okay. Okay. Yes—restrained. Toys. Positions. I can do that.”
“I thought so. See you two later,” Mark laughed, and then he left us alone.
Embry drifted over to the side of the bed, pulling absent-mindedly at his tie knot and blinking fast as his eyes moved between my naked thighs and the table of toys. I was having so much fun watching him that I’d almost forgotten to be unhappy about my upcoming lesson.
“Stop dimpling at me,” he grumbled. “This is hard enough to handle as it is.”
I couldn’t stop dimpling at him, though. He was just so fucking cute, stripping off his tie and jacket with shaking hands, his teeth digging into his bottom lip as if he couldn’t trust himself even to speak. It was like watching a child glimpse the presents under the tree at Christmas, except a thousand times better because it was a grown, vigorous man who was glowing with uncontrollable excitement.
Embry finally managed to pull
off his jacket and tie, and after dropping them in a crumpled and expensive mess on a nearby chair, he rolled up his sleeves and managed his first real breath since he walked in. He put a knee between my spread legs to climb onto the bed, and I never thought I’d enjoy the sight of him crawling toward me fully clothed—especially not while I was naked and bound—but my breath caught regardless. Maybe with Embry it didn’t matter what we were doing. Or maybe it was because it all felt like something I was allowing, something I was giving, rather than something he was taking. Either way, my cock was stiffening, going thick. The moment he saw it, he froze.
“Shit,” he muttered, closing his eyes. He appeared to be counting to ten. Even from down the bed, I could see the ridge of his own erection shoving hard against his pants.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “Okay.”
He finished climbing onto the bed and knelt fully between my legs, close enough that I could feel the fabric over his knees brushing against my inner thighs. He put his hands on the tops of my legs, his thumbs brushing the sensitive skin where my adductor muscles creased into my groin, and my cock stirred, giving a lazy bounce up before coming back to rest on my belly. Embry’s head dropped between his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “This is just a lot to take in.”
“Me tied up? Or that you get to use toys on me?”
“Don’t forget your stupid dimple, you asshole. Okay. I can do this. Without coming in my pants. I think.” He reached for the plug and a little more lube.
“Have you done this before?” I asked, watching him. “The toys, I mean?”
He flushed a little again. “There’s not a lot I haven’t done, I guess. Yes, I’ve used toys on someone before.”
“Does it always get you this hot?” I asked curiously. I would definitely be filing away this information for later.
He gave a very cosmopolitan shrug, at least as much as he could shrug while expertly swirling a dab of lube around the end of a butt plug. “It’s always fun, but—” he leveled a look at me “—you know this is different.”
I dropped my head back on the pillow. “I’m glad. It’s different for me too.”
“Ash, I…”
I looked back up to see him swallowing again, this time from something other than unabashed lust. My own throat tightened, and I wanted all of a sudden to beg him again—no matter how ridiculous it was with me naked and tied up and him with a butt plug in his hand—just to marry me, just to fucking marry me, and to hell with everything else.
“Thank you,” he continued. “For trusting me enough to do this. For giving me this.”
“Of course.”
“No,” he said, closing his eyes again. “I mean it. I…don’t feel worthy of it.” He opened his eyes and it felt like there was no other color in the room. Just blue, blue, blue, and it would be the only color I’d ever be able to see again.
“I want you to have all of me,” I said simply. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like you’re still my little prince as we do it; I do. All it means is that I want to allow you everything, I want to share everything, I want nothing left undone between us.”
Embry gave me a hopeful look. “Does this mean I’ve earned it?”
I couldn’t help but smile again at his eager expression. “No,” I teased, not because no was the real answer, but because I decided right then and there that he’d earn it the minute he said yes to me. The minute he let me marry him, we’d mark that minute with our last first. Him inside me.
My cock surged at the thought, and he laughed. “It turns you on to say no to me?”
“No,” I said seriously. “It turns me on to think about when I’ll say yes to you.”
Embry froze again. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “You can’t say shit like that right now, or it’s just going to be embarrassing for me.” Then he managed this thing where he peered up at me through his eyelashes somehow, even despite being above me. “So you know what I’ll have to do to earn it? What will make you say yes?”
“I do.” It’s you saying yes to me, say yes, Embry, be mine, be my husband and I’ll make sure you never regret it. I’ll make sure you’re the happiest man alive, just say yes.
He kept doing the peering thing, the Jane Austen hero glancing sidelong across the ballroom thing—if an Austen hero had been obsessed with fucking another man in the ass. “Are you going to tell me what it is I have to do?” he asked. “Or will we be in our nineties before I get to top you?”
“First of all, fucking is not the same as topping, which you’ll find out when the time comes. Second of all, I’ve just decided that I’m not going to tell you.” I grinned at him. “I think you’ll figure it out for yourself fairly quickly though.”
And God, I did think that. I was so certain of it. He’d realize when I proposed how vulnerable I’d been with him always, how willing I was to surrender myself and my pride and my heart and how it had been that way for fourteen years and how it would never change. How I wasn’t asking for anything but a yes. Just agree, just agree, and I would turn over everything to him.
Embry narrowed his eyes at me. “You are being coy tonight,” he said. “Somehow, even with a butt plug in the equation, you are managing to be coy. This must be some kind of skill they teach at the G8.”
“Just do it,” I said, spreading my legs farther apart, and the way Embry’s gaze hooded as I did that was worth every heartbreak it took to get to this moment.
“Okay,” he said, one hand dropping to my inner thigh. A single thumb stroked up my seam and I shuddered, fluid leaking out of my flared, needy tip and onto my stomach. “Breathe out and bear down against it.”
“Okay.”
The hard tip of the toy pressed against me, cold and alien, and then Embry said quietly, “Look at me.”
I looked at him.
Eyes like the sky, lips on the aristocratic side of thin, refined cheekbones and nose, that almost-curly Regency hair that just begged to swoop over his forehead in the most endearing manner. And his expression was everything—rapt, awed, eager, desperate. He wanted this as much as I did, if not more, and that fact transformed everything. It made this for him, about him, and the moment it became about him, it could be about me. Even now I can’t articulate precisely what that meant or how it happened, just that his pleasure allowed me to take pleasure. Suddenly, like a switch had been flipped, it began to feel good. The tip probing at the aperture of my body warmed, pushed against the nerve endings in the pleated skin there in all the right ways, and when it finally penetrated me, the feeling was so breathtakingly dirty that I moaned.
“Fuck,” Embry breathed, watching my face. “Yes. Holy shit, Ash. Yes.”
He moved the plug with expert care—enough strokes not to force the issue and slow enough that there was no pain, but fast enough that I was chasing the edge of discomfort the whole time. And the discomfort itself was fascinating, the way it forced openness, the way it forced trust, the way it made me feel a kind of shame I hadn’t felt in years.
Then the plug was fully seated and Embry sat back on his heels, his eyes glued to my ass. “How does it feel?” he asked.
I squirmed in response. “Full.” As I squirmed, my cock slapped against my stomach, veined and rigid and wet at the head.
Embry groaned. “I don’t know if I can watch you wiggle around like this.”
“Do you need to touch yourself?”
“Oh god, yes please,” he moaned, hand already yanking at his belt, and then I had the double stimulation of his plug in my ass and his beautiful cock on display. He gave it a few rough tugs as he watched me.
“Do you want to try a few positions?” he asked, once he’d tamed the urgent edge of his need.
“I suppose we’d better,” I managed, even though at this point it was hard to fathom how I could breathe, much less move with this fullness. But move I did, with his helpful thumb keeping the plug seated as I flipped over onto my elbows and knees with my wrists still cuffed.
Embry made a noise behind me, and again I felt a flash of masculine pride. That I could make a man as handsome, as charming, as sought after as him moan simply by presenting my body to him.
“You can touch me,” I told him over my shoulder. “In fact, it might help me if you did.”
He was on me like he’d been barely holding himself back before. His knees on the inside of my knees, his hands trailing up the sides of my hips, the crown of his unguided cock bumping clumsily into the backs of my thighs.
“Can I do the bigger toy now?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yes.”
The plug slid out and then I felt the adept twirl and crook of his finger. “More lube,” he explained. “Just a bit more.” And then the new toy was there and I felt a sudden tension ripple through me as I realized how much bigger this felt against my asshole than the plug, and Embry was running a calming hand down my back. “It may feel like pain at first,” he told me, “but you just have to keep reminding your body that it’s not pain. It’s pressure. It’s pressure and remind yourself that you want it.”
“I want it because you’re the one giving it to me,” I told him honestly, and he groaned a little.
“Please stop saying stuff like that or I’m going to come all over the back of your legs,” he said a bit irritably. “Okay, breathe out and push against me and remember that it might take your mind a moment to rewrite the feeling.”
He pushed the dildo against me, and I did as he said, and he was right. It did hurt a little at first, and I found myself having to force back against the pain, having to breathe into my stomach to move past it. But then I looked over my shoulder at him, at his face as he slowly fucked my ass with this toy, and the pain shimmered into a brighter version of itself. A more interesting version of itself. Until the moment the crown of the silicone cock grazed against a place deep inside and I let out a shattered moan, and Embry exhaled as if he’d been struck.
American King (New Camelot #3) Page 30