What He Needs

by E. M. Denning

  Alan took his time exploring Craig’s body. He loved his soft skin and his trim figure. Craig wasn’t too thin, or too muscled. He was that perfect combination of hard muscle and soft angles.

  Craig’s hands twitched at his sides. “Daddy, please.”

  Alan cupped Craig’s cheek. When Craig leaned into his touch, Alan’s heart did a kick-flip. Socially acceptable time lines of how soon you could fall in love with someone could rot. Craig was his. He was so earnest in everything he said and did, and Alan loved him for it. “Yes, Baby. What do you need?”

  Craig exhaled and if possible, relaxed even more. “I need to please you.”

  Alan stroked Craig’s cheek. “You do please me.”

  Craig’s twitching fingers reached for Alan. They tickled their way up Alan’s side. “Let me please you. I want to.”

  Desperate to see all of Craig, Alan removed the blindfold. Craig blinked a couple times and Alan couldn’t resist stealing a kiss. Alan cupped his cheek, his thumb stroked along Craig’s cheekbone. Alan’s heart flooded with warmth when Craig leaned into the touch.

  “I want those beautiful lips around my cock.”

  Craig’s eyes fluttered shut and he exhaled. “God, yes. Please.”

  Alan stroked his hand down the side of Craig’s neck. He let his fingers trace the slant of his collarbone before they ventured lower. His hand came to a stop right above Craig’s heart, the part of the man he really wanted to own. “Stay still.”

  Alan leaned down and stole a fleeting kiss then shimmied up the bed. He gripped the headboard with one hand as he straddled Craig’s chest. He wrapped the fingers of his free hand around his cock. He didn’t need to command Craig to open for him, his eyes were already glassy with lust and his lips were parted. Slowly, Alan lowered his cock to Craig’s lips and slid the head across Craig’s lower lip.

  Craig’s mouth opened farther, and Alan accepted the wordless invitation. He slid his cock into Craig’s mouth, then let go of his cock to grip the headboard. “Fuck yes.” Craig didn’t move while Alan thrust his hips, gently stroking his cock in and out of Craig’s mouth.

  Craig remained motionless. Their gazes locked, and it was all Alan could do not to ram his cock deep into Craig’s throat, but he didn’t want to gag him. Craig was too beautiful like this. Though he rode lust’s razor edge, he looked blissed out. Alan liked knowing that he didn’t have to go hardcore Dom to get a reaction out of Craig.

  “God, you’re so fucking perfect.” Alan groaned and thrust a little deeper. Craig winced, but didn’t gag. “Suck me. Now.”

  Craig got a wicked look in his eyes. His lips closed around Alan’s throbbing cock. His tongue swirled around the head, caressing every curve and igniting every nerve ending. Alan’s body told him to close his eyes and throw his head back, but he fought. He kept his eyes open. He wanted to watch Craig. He wanted to memorize the way his eyes gleamed with pleasure when Alan hissed or the way he almost smiled when Alan moaned.

  “Your mouth.” Alan gripped the headboard until his knuckles turned white. “Fuck. Your mouth. So good.”

  Craig’s hands slid up Alan’s legs. He glanced at one, then looked back at Craig, who raised an eyebrow. Then Craig’s hands gripped Alan’s ass and Craig sucked Alan harder, deeper.

  “Oh shit. Fuck.” Alan bucked. Craig gagged, but recovered quickly. Alan’s control was on the ragged edge. The way Craig’s tongue caressed his cock, the way his hands felt as they kneaded his ass, his fingers igniting fires of lust as they grazed his crease, it was too much. It consumed Alan. He squeezed his eyes shut as ecstasy unfurled inside him. “Oh. Fuck. Baby. Oh shit.” Alan barked as his orgasm slammed into him. His whole body shook and trembled as he came down Craig’s throat. His head flopped forward, and he panted. Craig had totally wrecked him.

  He opened his eyes and Craig stared up at him. Craig blinked, and a few tears slipped away from the corner of his eyes. “God, Sweetheart.” He panted as he gently pulled out. “That was fucking amazing.”

  A smile spread across Craig’s face. Alan thought Craig was beautiful to begin with, but like this, beneath him, smiling, red faced with his swollen lips, Craig lit Alan up. Craig was his and he wasn’t ever going to let him go.

  Craig licked his lips and tucked his hands behind his head. “You really think so, daddy?”

  Alan couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I do. But now it’s your turn.”

  Craig’s cheeks pinked. “Actually, Daddy…um…”

  Alan glanced down and sure enough, Craig’s formerly jutting cock looked as sated as Alan’s was, though it did give a valiant little kick when Alan looked at it. His stomach was coated in cum. Alan glanced back at Craig. “You came?” More realizations piled on and Alan moved so that he was laying next to Craig. “You came without touching yourself, and without permission.” Alan raised an eyebrow and Craig immediately dropped his gaze. His face paled slightly.

  “Sorry, Daddy.”

  Alan leaned over and kissed Craig on the cheek. “That’s fucking hot.” He laughed and pulled Craig closer to him. He tossed a leg over Craig’s and an arm around his waist. “What’s the matter?”

  Craig was quiet for a while and Alan didn’t pressure him. He let Craig gather his thoughts and catch his breath. Craig sighed. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  Alan pulled Craig closer and kissed the top of his head. “You couldn’t possibly disappoint me.”

  Craig tensed. “I begged you. You wanted to edge me into oblivion and I begged for more. Then I came without permission.”

  Alan resisted the urge to squeeze Craig any tighter than he already was. “And I enjoyed every single moment with you, Little One.” Alan took a deep breath. “We’re connected, you and me. We’re connected in ways that I’ve never felt before.”

  “But you’re my Dom. My Daddy. There’s like…rules and stuff…for me, for submissives, and I feel like I keep breaking them.”

  Alan carded his fingers through Craig’s hair. “The last time I was in a scene with a submissive was more than half a year ago.” Craig twitched in his arms, but stayed quiet, as if he sensed that this was a story Alan needed to tell. “I’d been in scenes with other subs since Mike and I broke up, but I was falling out of love with the whole thing, to be honest. I didn’t realize it until I had him, the submissive I was with, strapped to a cross. He was naked and waiting for me to pick up my flogger and work him over. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even pick it up. I stood there, and I realized that I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was totally empty. I let the submissive down from the cross and went home and I haven’t even so much as glanced at a sub since. Until you.”

  Craig pulled away a little and looked at Alan. His brown eyes were round and large and full of hope. “Me?”

  “When you walked into my club and you knelt that first time, God, Sweetheart, it was like you turned all my lights back on. I’ve been a Dom for a lot of years, and yeah, it’s amazing to have you kneel at my feet and call me Daddy. It’s thrilling to command you and your submission is the most beautiful thing in the world. But you, Craig, you are what I want. You are what am connected to, not your submission, not the rules we create in our relationship. You. You’re what’s important to me. Besides, you wanted to take things slow and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with going slow and earning your trust.”

  Craig looked at him with shining eyes and a tear tracked down his cheek. “I do trust you.”

  “Then trust me when I say this. You are enough. You’re absolutely everything I need, and I don’t want you to ever doubt that, okay?”

  Craig wiggled around and buried his face against Alan’s chest. He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  ***

  “Are you sure I look okay?” Alan smoothed his black polo shirt down. “You said not to dress up, but I can’t imagine meeting your uncle in jeans and a T-shirt.”

  Craig shook his head as he laughed. “Relax. You look fine.” Craig eyed Alan appreciatively.

  “
But you want him to like me. It’s important to you that he does, so it’s important to me, too.”

  Craig entwined their fingers and led Alan toward the dining room. “I do want him to like you, but I realized something recently.”

  “What’s that?”

  Craig turned and pressed a kiss to Alan’s lips in front of the whole dining room. “I don’t give a shit. I like you and that’s all that really matters.”

  “Oh, you like me, do you?” Alan wrapped an arm around Craig’s wait and hauled him close.

  “Maybe a little.”

  Craig practically sparkled today, and Alan couldn’t get over the change in him. From the moment Alan met him, he knew that Craig wore his heart on his sleeve. It was never hard to guess exactly how he was feeling. When he met Craig, he could see that the way he’d been hurt weighed him down. Alan saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice and even noticed it in the way he moved. This morning Craig woke him up with a blow job. He washed Alan in the shower and sang the whole time. When they made breakfast this morning, Craig turned on music and shook his tight ass all over Alan’s kitchen.

  Alan broke away from his thoughts to capture Craig in a kiss. “You are absolutely wonderful did you know that?”

  “I’ve been telling him that for years, but if you saying it puts that dopey look on his face, then I like you already.” Craig’s eyes widened at the sound of the voice. Alan turned around and greeted the smiling man. He was clearly related to Craig, and if Alan hadn’t have known better, he’d have guessed that this was Craig’s father, not his uncle. “I’m Hank, and you must be Alan. Craig’s told me a lot about you.” Hank winked at Craig. “Not willingly, mind you. I had to drag it out of him.”

  Hank was a little taller than Craig, and a little thicker in the middle, greyer on top, but there was a strong family resemblance. They had the same cheekbones and the same eyes. “It’s good to meet you, Hank.” Alan shook his hand, then watched as Hank pulled Craig into a quick hug.

  Hank pulled away and clapped Craig on the arm. “Let’s eat.”

  They followed Hank to a table on the fringe of the dining room where they were immediately greeted by a server. Conversation stuck to small talk until the coffee they’d ordered had arrived. Hank spooned some sugar into his cup, then lifted his gaze and trained it on Alan. “So, what have you done to my boy here?”

  Alan raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” Alan knew this conversation could go many ways and he doubted that many of them were good. Then Hank grinned over top of his cup.

  “I only asked because Craig is actually smiling. And this is the first time in months that I haven’t had to chase him out of here on his day off.”

  “I’m not that bad.” Craig’s protest was weak, and Hank immediately quashed it.

  “Not that bad? Please, Craig. I might not be here all the time, but I hear things. You’ve been a pain in the ass around here. You work yourself sick. You don’t delegate anything unless you absolutely must, and I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that they’ve had to toss you out on your day off.”

  Craig’s cheeks flushed, and he stared into his coffee. “I guess I was sort of bad, huh?”

  Hank reached over and patted Craig on the back. “Worse.” Hank shot Alan a knowing glance. “It looks like you’ve found yourself a nice distraction. Tell me about yourself, Alan. What do you do?”

  “Well, I run a club down town, but I’m actually in the process of selling it. After that,” Alan shrugged. “I don’t actually know.” Alan’s cheeks burned with a hint of embarrassment, but he’d never hid what he did for a living and he wasn’t about to start now.

  Hank regarded him with curiosity. “Why are you selling?

  “In the beginning, it was a lot of fun, actually. The club was run down and failing. Every month ended in the red. It took a while to turn it around completely, but the challenge of making it successful was, frankly, exhilarating.” Alan took a sip of his coffee. “I’m selling it to a friend of mine. He has big plans for it.”

  “So you took a dying business, turned it around, and are selling it for a tidy little profit and you have no idea what you’re doing next?” Hank leaned back in his chair. He tilted his head slightly, as if he were a curious dog.

  Alan shrugged a shoulder. “The club will sell for a profit, and I have some money saved. I don’t need to decide right away.”

  Hank leaned forward. “But if an opportunity presented itself, you’d consider it?”

  Alan raised an eyebrow. Hank was on a fishing expedition and Alan took the bait. “What kind of opportunity?”

  “I have the opportunity to invest in a failing chain of smaller hotels. I toyed with the idea of buying them out and rolling them into this chain, but I have too much on my plate. I’d need someone who was up to the task. Someone who was familiar in bailing out failing companies. Someone who was up to the challenge.”

  Alan’s heart sped up, but he forced himself to remain sceptical. If it sounded too good to be true, it often was. “That sounds like an ambitious endeavour.”

  Hank nodded. “It would be, and I think you’re the right man for the job.”

  Alan eyebrows scrunched together.

  “Uncle Hank, are you seriously offering my boyfriend a job?” Craig looked incredulous.

  Alan reached under the table and put his hand on Craig’s thigh. Craig put his hand on top of Alan’s. “How do you know I’m the man for the job? We’ve spent all of five minutes together.”

  Hank grinned slyly at Alan, then took a sip of his coffee. “I have friends who frequent your establishment. I’ve heard stories about the place. From what I hear you’ve achieved the impossible. It used to be a cesspool and a money pit, but you managed to pull it out of the gutter. I’m impressed.”

  Alan hadn’t been expecting that. Clearly, neither had Craig, who closed his mouth so hard his teeth clacked together.

  Hank shrugged a shoulder. “We can talk about all that later.” Hank’s eyes skirted from Alan to Craig. “You look well, better than you have in a long time.”

  Alan watched Craig bristle slightly at his uncle’s words, but then Craig shot Alan a look from the corner of his eye before he grinned at his Uncle. “I’m actually pretty great, but you didn’t force me to bring Alan here, so you could fawn all over me.”

  Hank set his cup down. “Actually, Craig, I did. I know I probably came on a little strong yesterday, but you know me. When I get hot under the collar like that, there’s no reasoning with me. I was upset that you had a problem here at work with that slimy son-of-a-bitch you call an ex-boyfriend. No matter my feelings about Tim, you’re an adult. I didn’t have a right to show up out of the blue, pull you off the floor and interrogate you like a child. You handled the situation perfectly, and I knew that when security made me aware of the incident. I’m not sorry I checked on you though. I can see now that you’re a lot happier,” Hank winked at Craig. “I’m not sorry to see you happy.”

  The food arrived, breaking up the conversation. Alan eyed Hank. From what Craig said, Hank could be a tough nut to crack, but he’d yet to show any animosity toward Alan, and had even offered him a job…potentially. Alan still hadn’t come to terms with that tid-bit of information.

  The rest of lunch seemed to flow a bit smoother now that the topics of work and Craig’s shitty ex had been dropped. Alan found that he like Craig’s uncle. He was quick witted and had a million stories to tell about his various adventures around the country. What Alan enjoyed the most was watching Craig hang off his uncle’s every word.

  Alan pushed his empty plate away and looked at Craig. “Did you ever want to travel?”

  Craig shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve entertained the idea.”

  “Why don’t you?” asked Alan. From the corner of his eye he watched Hank, who had his full attention trained onto Craig.

  Craig poked at the last of his food with his fork. “To me, travel would be great, but I’d like to stay places long enough to actually expe
rience them.” Craig shrugged again and loaded his fork. “I wouldn’t want to go alone either. Travelling, to me, it seems like something I’d want to share with someone.” Craig shoved the fork in his mouth as Hank’s phone rang.

  Hank answered his phone and informed whoever was on the other end that he’d call them back in ten minutes. He rose from the table. “I hate to run out on the two of you, but I really do have to return that call.” He shook Alan’s hand then yanked Craig into a hug and clapped him on the back. “I have to leave town week after next, get in touch with me before then.” Hank glanced at Alan before letting go of Craig. “You too. I’d like to discuss that ambitious endeavour of mine in more detail.”

  Hank walked away as he dialled his phone.

  Alan sighed with relief. He turned to Craig and offered a weak smile. “So. I don’t think he hates me.” Alan expected Craig to show some relief, but he seemed to be stressed more now than he had been earlier. He grabbed Craig’s hand and threaded their fingers together. “I have to go see my lawyer in a bit and get the paperwork going for the sale of the club. We can meet for dinner if you’d like.”

  Craig squeezed his hand. “I haven’t really seen Everett in a while. I should check on him.”

  “Everett?”

  Craig laughed. He sounded awkward and a little nervous. “He’s my neighbor. He’s the one who let me know Tim had stopped by. We met when I moved into the building. We hang out a lot, but I haven’t really been around recently.” Craig glanced at Alan.

  “Ah. Point taken. You feel like you’ve been ditching your friend?”

  “A little.” Craig’s shoulders slumped a little when he sighed.

  When the exited the hotel, Alan pulled Craig off to the side and yanked him into his arms. “Go see your friend.” He kissed the shell of Craig’s ear and relished the little shiver that rocketed through Craig. “I’ll call you later tonight, okay.”