It took Chenco a few swallows to be able to reply, and when he did, his voice shook. “You do know sometimes you nearly get me off by doing nothing more than talking to me?”
With a dark chuckle, Steve nipped lightly at Chenco’s ear. “Yes.”
Nobody was uneasy now. Steve seemed very relaxed, and having breached the most taboo and terrifying line item on the menu of permissive, kinky sex, Chenco filled out the rest of the form with ease. Soon they were finished with the contract, everything initialed but the last clause, which was about safe words. This was the only time Chenco argued, as he was upset he didn’t get to pick his own.
Steve wouldn’t budge. “Safe words are about being safe, not being cute. Yellow means slow down and red means stop universally in western culture. Why the fuck anybody needs to make safety complicated, I will never understand.”
Chenco wanted to argue choosing his own safe words would make it personal and give him a sense of ownership over his security, which was also pretty important from where he stood. However, not only did he not care as much about it as Steve seemed to, but he also suspected these remarks would be construed as backtalk.
As he hovered with a pen, ready to sign, he stopped when he realized what was missing. “There wasn’t anything about needles in the contract. You told me in the trailer those were your favorite, but they weren’t mentioned once.”
Whoa, but did this comment unleash big vulnerability. Only for a second, a cold, lonely shadow crossed Steve’s face, but then it was gone, Papi back in control. “That’s a different contract, and not for right now.”
Though Chenco was disappointed at being deliberately left out of Steve’s favorite kink, he put the thought out of his mind and concentrated on the fact that he was, finally, getting laid.
There were two contracts, one for Steve and one for Chenco—they each initialed and signed them both. When they were done, Steve handed Chenco his copy.
“What now?” Chenco asked as he tucked it into the drawer in the bureau Steve had cleared for his clothes.
Steve settled back on the pillows of Chenco’s bed. “Now you drop your towel, boy.”
Chapter Ten
FROM HIS POST at the head of the bed, Steve regarded Chenco with a lazy gaze promising danger and pleasure and infinitely expanding horizons. It was Caramela’s fantasy come to life, undressing for her man, but Chenco was the one here and now, and he was nervous.
Chenco let her slide into his skin, dropping the towel with grace and artistry, exposing his body with the confidence only she could grant. When she finished, when she returned to the shadows of his mind to watch how things played out, Chenco breathed heavily as he stood at the foot of the bed, wanting to demand Steve get this party started, knowing he couldn’t.
Steve regarded the landscape of Chenco’s nude body with a passionate rake of his gaze. “Come here.”
Chenco went where he was told, and Steve watched him, coaxing him with his finger to move closer.
Then he leaned forward and took firm possession of Chenco’s balls.
Chenco wanted to yelp and cover himself—the man had promised him exquisite pain, and he’d gone right for the part of him least interested in trying pain on. It wasn’t a painful grip—yet.
Though he didn’t flinch, Chenco had to breathe, focusing on Steve’s promise that he knew what he was doing, how all pain would end in pleasure. Chenco reminded himself Steve could navigate the dangerous waters to the land of delights. As Steve held his sac, Chenco did his best not to freak out.
Steve squeezed.
This had been the pain Chenco had wanted to brace against, soft and sharp and raw. Steve constricted nerves and pinched sensitive, delicate skin. This touch was dangerous and wrong and should be stopped, said Chenco’s balls. Yet even as the message arrived, it tangled with Steve’s contract, which challenged Chenco to let go of the urge to protect himself, to give it over in exchange for transformation.
Wait, Chenco told his balls. Let me sit with this for a bit, because I think if we hold out, we’re going to get something incredible.
Steve’s grip changed slowly, alternating between pain and massage, scrambling the signals to Chenco’s frantic brain until it didn’t know the difference. He wasn’t sure how long it went on—maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days—he only knew it began with his body tensed and ended with him breathing into the pain, riding it into waves of pleasure. While his cock never exactly got hard, he certainly began to understand what Steve had meant about getting off not necessarily being a physical thing. If he had a metaphorical cock, it was throbbing something serious right now.
He was so focused on his balls, he didn’t realize what was about to happen to his left nipple until it was too late.
It began as a lick, a quick flick of the tongue, but Chenco was so sensitized to pain he read the lick as a bite. Gasping, he started to draw away, then stopped. It had caught him off-guard—two fronts at once was a trick.
Steve grinned, his expression making it clear this was why he did it.
This was how Steve played him, always changing the assaults and sensations—as soon as Chenco got used to the lick-nip-lick-bite of his nipple, Steve pinched his backside. A hand stroked Chenco’s thigh, a loving gesture. Teeth scraped his abdomen.
Lips trailed over his foreskin—then teeth—
Fear getting the better of his determination to withstand the torment, Chenco jerked away from Steve’s grasp, then opened his eyes, ready to apologize.
The words died on his lips as he saw the delightful savagery on Steve’s face—right before he leapt at Chenco and pulled him, rolling, to the bed.
Everything happened so fast—Chenco went flat on his back, pinned, Steve’s heavy body pressing over his, rough hairy chest and thighs grinding along his wiry frame. The tormenting had him keyed up, jerking and startling at every touch, and just when he would get himself calmed down, Steve would tweak a nipple, nip at his chin, grind his pelvis.
Chenco tried to withstand it, tried to bear up, but he couldn’t hold on. It wasn’t about pain, which was what he’d readied himself for. It was that he never knew what was coming or from where. It had almost nothing to do with discomfort and everything to do with realizing Steve could and would hurt him, and he couldn’t anticipate it, couldn’t guard against it, not even in his mind. He had to hand over control, give Steve the power to decide what pain was and when and how it happened. It wasn’t long before Chenco felt himself sliding, leaking out of his composure.
“Please,” he said, first in a whisper and then in a whine. “Please—please—”
“Please what?” Steve sucked hard in the center of Chenco’s chest.
Crying out, Chenco arced into him. “Ngyh. Please—please, don’t…please stop…”
Steve chuckled at Chenco’s sternum, licking it like a popsicle. “You want me to stop?”
Chenco didn’t know what he wanted. He was starting to lose more and more of his mind every time Steve touched him. When Steve took Chenco’s nipples in his teeth, tugging at them as he moved his head back and forth in rapid motion, Chenco began to wail. Not because it hurt, but because he couldn’t stand to be lost anymore.
Steve slapped his thigh.
It was a sharp, stinging pain, and the shock of it brought Chenco up short. The second strike tingled. The third started to burn, and he gasped. On the fourth he cried out, and on the fifth he tried to wriggle away.
Laughing, a wicked purr making all the hair Chenco hadn’t waxed or shaved stand on end, Steve grabbed Chenco’s hips and flipped him over. Chenco had just enough time to acclimate to the new position when his thighs were wrenched open, knees apart, butt lifted. His libido pulsed as he imagined Steve looking at him, felt him tease Chenco’s opening with fingertips and tongue.
Then Steve’s lips brushed Chenco’s hole, and he clenched, entire body ready to bolt.
Holding him down, Steve spread him wide and took the edge of his opening gently in his teeth.
&
nbsp; Chenco screamed—it didn’t hurt, not yet, but it would, it would hurt, and it was all he could think about. When Steve thrust his tongue deep, Chenco cried out as if he’d been impaled roughly with a metal plug. His sensors were broken now, his brain short-circuited, and he couldn’t get away. When a real nip came, he shrieked and clawed at the sheets.
With almost no warning, he began to cry.
There wasn’t much pain, not really, only the uncertainty of when the pain would come and to what degree. His brain didn’t care. His brain spun and spit and made him howl, drew up every curdled bit of tension inside him and projected it out of his mouth. He cried, sobbed as if he were being beaten, no longer able to fake it, no longer able to be strong. He could pull the edge of his emotions back, keeping the tide at bay but only just.
As if this was what he’d been waiting for, Steve changed.
Oh, he still tortured Chenco, still teased and tormented his backside, his thighs, his hole—but he stroked Chenco’s skin reverently too. He nipped and poked and scrambled Chenco’s senses, but he petted too, and as Chenco tipped toward the edge, Steve crooned between tastes of Chenco.
“Let it go, baby. Let me have it. Don’t hold back. I want you undone all the way.” He licked, long and wicked, down Chenco’s crack. “I got you. I’ll catch you when you fall.”
Chenco tried to fight. He didn’t want to fall, not like this. This wasn’t part of the deal—he’d signed up for pain, but not for this, not to be exposed like this—
Steve kissed the crease of Chenco’s leg at his thigh, nuzzling the line of skin with his nose.
A deep, cracking sob broke out of Chenco, and his whole body went rigid as he resisted.
Steve sucked and nipped, dragging the flat of his tongue down Chenco’s taint. He thrust his tongue inside a few times, then whispered against Chenco’s wet, heated skin.
“Dance for your papi.”
Chenco danced.
It was a dance of pain, of loss, of sorrow—he slammed back into the memory of the trailer, when he realized he had to go, when he knew everything had changed and would stay changed forever. Steve had instructed him to put the pain away, but it all returned now. He was homeless. Even without the gangs, the trailer would go, and not to him. Cooper had promised to fuck him over in death, and he had. Chenco had worked hard for his life, sweat blood and tears, and yet it was gone. Taken by his father, the parent he had dreamed since he was a little boy would someday love him.
He cried. Oh, how Chenco cried.
When the physical pain returned—blows to his backside, his thighs, rough grips at his nipples—he sighed, relieved, because thank God, at least he had something to focus on other than how lost he was. As the pain went on it began to burn, a sweet, aching yaw lighting a tiny flame inside his darkness and spreading through him, grounding him, showing him the way. To what he wasn’t sure, but it was better than darkness, and he followed it.
All the while he struggled, Steve held him. Grounded him with whispers and with his touch, sometimes soft, sometimes sharp. When Chenco had agreed to step into Steve’s sadism, he’d expected floggers and benches and ropes, titillating games and kinky thrills. He had not expected this, to be drawn so into pain, to be fucked by it—not by blows or bonds but by the pain itself, his own pain.
To be released.
This was no game, no kinky giggle. This was more reverent than a church service, more personal than any priest-led confession. This was closer to the bone than putting on a dress and wig and makeup and releasing his inner queen.
This was only the first time of playing this way, the barest introduction to a whole new world.
When Chenco felt Steve move behind him, felt the cock nudging his hole, felt Steve’s hairy chest and thick pectorals rubbing along his back, his body crowding as he prepared to enter, Chenco shut his eyes. He reached back to clutch at Steve’s neck and released the deepest, heaviest breath he had in him. When Steve thrust inside, unleashing a new burn, Chenco sobbed, finding a new pit from which to pull the pain.
Steve bit down on the back of Chenco’s neck, holding him still like a dog beneath his thrusts, Chenco let go, and when Steve growled and laved the skin caught beneath his teeth with a rough, rude tongue, Chenco flew away.
There was pain, there was rough fucking, there was everything that had been, but now there was space and light and freedom. Oh God, so much freedom he started crying again, and he couldn’t stop. He exploded, he turned into light, he danced with stars.
He danced for his papi all across the pain, so happy, so grateful, so free.
He lost time, somehow—the shift was subtle, a fuzzy burn on his brain, a space between being fucked like a dog and lying tangled in Steve’s arms, surrounded by his heat and scent and strength, accepting soft kisses and strokes and the widest, brightest smiles he’d ever seen on the other man’s face.
“Oh, honey.” Steve nuzzled Chenco’s ear as he kept petting, never ceasing his gentle and grounding attentions. “Sweetheart, you were so amazing. So brave, so wonderful, so beautiful.”
It was amazing, Chenco tried to say, but he could only make a soft sound, his hand grasping weakly at Steve’s rough jaw.
“Shh. Take it easy. You went in hard, deeper than I’ve ever seen anybody go on their first try. Take a minute to find your feet, baby. Just rest. There’s no rush. I’ve got you, and I’m not going anywhere.” He pressed another kiss on Chenco’s forehead. “You’re safe, cariño. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Okay, Chenco tried to say, but still couldn’t. The rest, though, he fought for, swallowed several times and made his lips shape to say the words. “Thank you.”
This earned him a kiss on his lips, slow and full of tongue and teeth. “It was my pleasure.”
Chenco smiled.
Chapter Eleven
THE MORNING AFTER the contract and the best sex he’d ever had in his life, Steve offered to give Chenco his punishment for stabbing Randy. “If you still want it. It’s been a while, and it’s not usually good to leave things this long. I’m sorry I let you down in this regard.”
“You didn’t let me down, and yes, please, I do want it.” Chenco leaned into Steve’s warm, naked chest. “I don’t feel bad all the time, but sometimes I catch him wincing and holding his shoulder, and it eats me up.”
Steve tangled his fingers in Chenco’s hair. “If I do this, it means you have to stop punishing yourself. If his shoulder bugs him, you don’t get to be upset about it because you already paid. Got it?”
“Got it,” Chenco said, but he worried he’d have to work on following through.
“All right. Then your punishment is spending six and a half hours with Randy, one hour for each inch of the shoe heel you put into him.”
“That’s it?” Chenco sat up and glared at Steve. “I hang out with Randy all the time. This isn’t a punishment.”
Steve tweaked his nose. “You’ve never spent six straight hours with Jansen when he knows you’re his to command. It’ll be punishment enough.”
Uh-oh. “He can’t… I don’t want to have sex—”
“No sex. He won’t try.”
“Okay,” Chenco said, but he wasn’t sure it really was okay yet.
Steve laughed. “You don’t get to agree to the punishment, baby. You just have to take it.”
He rose from the bed, leaving Chenco to wonder whether or not this had been a very good idea after all.
A few days before his husband was supposed to arrive, Randy called in his hours, announcing he was kidnapping Chenco for a ride. “I need something to keep my mind off my man still being days away.”
Chenco tried not to let on how nervous he was, wondering what Randy would make him do, hoping it wasn’t too embarrassing, doing his best to trust Steve wouldn’t put him in such a position. “What do you have in mind?”
“I want a Chenco tour of the RGV, starting with the beautiful fucking flea market in Alamo. Please tell me it’s still there.”
Chenco r
elaxed. “That’s all you want?”
“I didn’t say it was all I wanted.” Randy linked his arm through Chenco’s and hollered down the hall toward Steve’s office. “Monk, I’m taking your truck and your boy, and I plan to get comfy.”
It was the first time someone had called Steve Chenco’s boy, and it made him feel slightly out of body. He said nothing all the way to the truck. As he settled into the lush seats, Randy adjusted the mirrors, wheel, and seat, and he plugged an MP3 player into the stereo. Captain & Tennille began to sing, and Chenco couldn’t help it, he laughed.
Randy flipped him off. “This is my day, so I get my music. Old school all the way, all the songs my uncle used to sing to me. C&T, Journey, AC/DC, Pat Benatar, Styx, and of course Queen.”
Chenco noticed the way Randy’s face softened as he spoke of his uncle. “Sorry. I won’t make fun.”
“Damn right you won’t.” Randy pulled onto the main highway. “It’s been a long fucking time since I went to Alamo. Direct me, Princess.”
It took a good forty minutes to get there, and by the time they parked, Chenco sang along with the golden oldies. In fact, as they crossed the parking lot to the main entrance, he hummed the chorus to “Open Arms”. He was excited to be back at la pulga. He hadn’t been in years, and it brought back good memories of when he’d sneak away with friends in high school.
The Alamo flea market was a mighty beast, sprawling ten aisles wide and probably a thousand feet long. Half of it was permanent, shops with wiring and even air conditioning in a few instances. Chenco drank it all in, letting it take him back. “My mom got so pissed when I came here. Once, on a dare, I got my hair cut in the barber shop. Mama pitched a fit, but the cut actually wasn’t too bad.”
Randy had been thumbing through some old vinyl albums, but he looked up when Chenco told him the story. “She flipped out? Why?”
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