Another way (15 page)

“I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow,” I said, part dejected, part overjoyed.

“If you stay home, then I’m staying with you,” Will said in his “firm” voice.

I nodded, turning to him and kissing him softly. “Thank you so much. I feel… unbelievable.”

“Enjoy it while you can. I’m never, ever going to make you safeword again.”

“Okay,” I whispered against his lips. “We should call Laura, let her know we’re okay.”

“It’s late. I’ll text her,” Will murmured, the movement of his lips caressing mine.

“Okay. If neither of us are going to work tomorrow, can we stay up and giggle like schoolgirls? Or make love like men?”

Will wrapped his arms loosely around my waist and laughed, the sound warm and deep. “I don’t think I can resist a naked man in my bathroom offering me things like that.” He leaned in and kissed the top of my nose. “But I want to give you time to heal. I’m going to put some more stuff on your back, and we can giggle like schoolgirls for a while first.”

“I can live with that,” I sighed dramatically and leaned in for his lips again.

“We need to talk about this session,” he warned me and I nodded. “Not tonight though. I’m going to give you a day to work through your thoughts, then we can talk tomorrow and see if you’re due any more punishment or discipline. How does that sound?”

“Good. That sounds good.”

After stretching out on Will’s bed again—or our bed, I supposed—Will’s cool hands worked another thick layer of salve into my back. There was no way of knowing what felt best—his hands or the ointment.

As I lay out, Will stripped out of his jeans and sat against the pillows in his boxers, his fingers laced together on his stomach while we talked of everything and nothing. My job. His family. The Seahawks game over the weekend. The best Chinese restaurant in Seattle. Why I love poppies. How Will’s obsession with Nikes began. Our mutual appreciation of Stephen Fry.

“Can I move yet?” I asked after some time. “My neck is getting stiff.”

Will raised an eyebrow and smirked at me. “Stiff?”

“Fuck off,” I laughed. “Help me get up.”

“Your choice of phrasing tonight is beautiful, Mr. Ross.” But he helped me to sit. “How’s your ass?”

“It’s fine,” I said as I settled myself at the foot of the bed, opposite him.

“Good,” he murmured. “You’re too far away.”

I scooted up on the bed until we were knee-to-knee. Will took my hand and brought it to his lips.

“I can’t really get my head around the fact that you’re really here,” Will said, softly stroking my knuckles. “I’ve dreamed of you being mine for so long, it doesn’t feel real.”

“I’m here,” I assured him. “I’m real. And I’m staying.”

He smiled, his eyes lighting up with it. “You can have the spare room, you know. You don’t have to live in here.”

“I’ll take the room,” I said. “But I want to sleep in your bed, if that’s okay. It would be nice to have a bit of space for myself though.”

“Of course,” he murmured. “Come closer.”

I was laughing as I climbed into his lap, sitting with my legs and arms wrapped around him in the same position we’d adopted earlier in the playroom. I sighed in deep, deep satisfaction as my head came to rest on his shoulder and he kissed my hair. Light, almost teasing fingers stroked the length of my back, at once soothing and comforting and deadly arousing.

My lips found Will’s neck, then his earlobe, then the angular point of his jaw.

“Jesse,” he warned in a low voice.

I kissed his cheek lovingly, then nibbled along to his lips. He met mine in a scorching kiss, one that made my naked cock hard against his stomach. Will’s hand flattened against my lower back, making me hiss in pain then grab his face in my hands, directing his mouth back to mine.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” I insisted against his lips. “Don’t stop kissing me, for God’s sake.”

I shifted closer to him, impossibly close as he chuckled against me and ran his thumbs against my sore, sensitive skin. Our kisses slowed but lost none of their passion; I felt that this was where our relationship became solid again, where the heat in my chest started to grow and expand.

“Closer, baby,” he whispered again and I chuckled.

“Any closer and you’ll be inside me,” I breathed into his neck.

“Maybe that’s the point,” he murmured back.

“Fuck,” I groaned. “You want that? You want me?”

“There is no better feeling,” he said, between kisses peppered all over my skin, “than being as deep inside you as I can possibly be, feeling you clench around me, hearing you gasp and moan and squirm because of the way I make you feel.”

“You have a wicked mouth,” I teased him. “I want it on me.”

I edged back on the bed, out of his lap. Without thinking I laid back, rolling down my spine, then arched up in pain as my deeply bruised flesh met the soft-brushed cotton of his comforter.

“Shit, Jesse,” Will exclaimed, grabbing hold of my hands and tugging me back up to sitting. “You need to be careful!”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m fine,” I muttered. “I just forgot….”

“You forgot I just whipped you bloody?” he said wryly.

“You were distracting me, if you forgot already,” I laughed. “It’s fine, Will. I promise.”

“Okay,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth. “Do you still want….”

“Yes. I really, really want.”

He reached over to the nightstand for a condom and his lube, rolling the first down his length then lubing himself up. He shifted down on the bed so just his shoulders were resting against the headboard, then beckoned for me to sit astride him again.

“Kneel over me,” he said. “And put your hands on my shoulders.”

“Bossy,” I teased him as I moved.

“Dominant, some might say,” he responded, his eyes twinkling with laughter.

Will’s hand cupped the back of my neck, drawing my face down to his lips. I may have been on top of him, but he possessed me in the most beautiful, innocent way; taking everything I had to offer him and giving so much more back in return. At the same time his fingers reached between my legs to gently stroke my anus, spreading the cool lubricant there and working it the first few inches inside me.

“I need you,” I told him, my eyes tightly screwed shut, my forehead pressed against his.

“God, I need
you
,” he said and removed his fingers.

Will lightly gripped my hips as I angled his cock so I could press him against my entrance. Being like this, above him, meant I could control the depth and speed of his penetration. I forced my eyes open so I could watch his expression as he took me. It was possibly one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

“Oh,” I breathed and his eyes flew open, connecting with mine.

He was smiling as the fingers of his right hand traced up over my chest to gently stroke my jaw and cheek, then tucked a strand of hair behind my ear in a strangely tender gesture. His left hand stayed on my hip, guiding me as I sank down the last inch so he was completely seated within me.

I held there for a few moments, allowing myself to stretch around him and become accommodated to his size. Then I rocked my hips, changing the angle of his cock inside me, making us both groan and cry out at the same time.

After everything that we’d put each other through over the course of the evening, it was the perfect way to reconnect. Will knew my body better than I did, meaning when we made love, he could manipulate me in ways I’d never felt before. He knew when to touch me, when to stop, when to kiss me and hold me close.

We found our rhythm, my thighs tensing as I lifted and lowered myself, over and over so his cock could massage me from the inside. We kept our faces close together, sometimes kissing slowly, passionately, and sometimes just pressing soft lips into pulse points, sharing something that was more than friendship. More than dominance. Something that could, maybe, in time, be called love.

Will reached for my cock, stroking it in time with his thrusts. Now I was angled into him, any pretense that I was controlling anything long forgotten as he played my body with practiced ease and skill. Our lips met, over and over in the sweetest, most desperate kisses until I was crying out my pleasure into his hand and mouth. He followed moments later, his hand almost painful on my neck as he held me close. Almost.

I groaned and laughed as I lifted myself free of all of the limbs tangling me to Will.

“My thighs hurt,” I told him.

“We should get in the shower,” he mumbled.

“’Kay,” I agreed easily.

He left the water far too cool for my liking, but insisted that anything warmer would only hurt my back. Will washed me gently with an antiseptic shower gel he’d pulled from the back of his cabinet; it stung a little, but I was sure most of the cuts would already have started to heal.

“More salve?” I asked sleepily as we dried off.

“No, we should let it dry out now,” Will yawned. “Don’t sleep with a shirt on though.”

“Oh, okay.” I tried to pretend that it was some kind of hardship. “But you too, then.”

“For you, anything,” he vowed.

There was no way I could sleep on my back, and I experimented rolling one way and the other until I found a comfortable position on my side that didn’t press against any sore spots. Will spooned up behind me, and I leaned back to share a kiss.

“Damn. Your back feels like a radiator.”

I laughed. “Do you still think it looks nice?”

“Mmm,” he mumbled, wrapping his arm around my waist and snuggling his face into my neck. “You’ll like it less in the morning when you can’t move.”

“That’s okay. I have you.”

“That you do.”

I pulled his arm tighter around me, until his hand was resting over my heart.

“I hope you can feel this too,” I whispered, the closest I could come to telling him how I really felt.

Will’s silence was his answer, but he pressed his hand tight against me and his lips worried the skin on my neck, telling me he was trying. He wanted to feel it too.

Chapter Eleven

I
WOKE
the next morning in an indescribable amount of pain.

The problem was, I couldn’t decide what hurt more. My head, my heart, or my back.

I must have made some sort of noise, because Will rolled over and gently stroked my hair back from my face.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice husky from sleep as his eyes cracked open.

“Hurts,” I managed to say, without specifying where.

He leaned in and carefully placed his lips on my temple, letting them linger there before rolling out of bed. I heard the taps start for the bath and Will banging around, and then he appeared at my side.

“Can you move?” he asked.

“I… I don’t think so,” I admitted. My muscles had seized up during the night, and I was aware that I was still in the same fetal position that I had fallen asleep in. I tried to arch my back as if I were stretching out an ache and cried out in pain. The bad sort of pain, not the good sort.

“Shh, shh, I’ve got you,” Will said. He crouched down and slid an arm under my neck and another under my knees, maneuvering me until I was cradled against his chest. I clung on around his neck, too mentally tired to even be embarrassed about being taken care of like this.

He settled us into the hot water while the bath was still filling. I’d never paid much attention to the sunken bath in the room before; Will seemed to go to the shower by force of habit, and I’d always joined him there. I tried to relax back against his chest as his arms wrapped around me once more.

“Any better?” he asked, kissing my shoulder.

“Getting there,” I told him.

Once the water had filled to our chests, Will turned off the taps and gently, incredibly gently, started to massage my shoulders. I had to grit my teeth against the pain at first, then slowly it started to ease. He had me shift forward, sloshing water about as his hands traveled down my back. I couldn’t help the occasional hiss or cry of pain as he caught a sore spot. He always stopped and kissed my shoulder when that happened, a silent apology.

“What time do you have to be at work?” he asked as he started to rub my upper arms. He hadn’t hit them, but seemed to know that they were hurting from the strain of hanging on to my restraints.

“Nine,” I told him. “Shit, what’s the time?”

“A little after seven,” he said softly. “It’s okay. Do you want me to call in for you?”

“No, it’s okay, I’ll do it,” I sighed.

Finally, the hot water and Will’s hands made me relax enough to be able to lean fully back into his chest. He wrapped his right arm around me, pinning my arm to my side, and I turned my head as I rested it on his shoulder.

“Can you talk to me yet?” he asked. His fingers splayed out over my skin, over my heart, his palm pressed gently against where I had held it as we fell asleep.

It was a long time before I could respond. “I’m really fucking scared right now.”

He mumbled something that sounded a lot like “Me too.”

My fingertips traced the strong muscles in his forearm between wrist and elbow. The water had turned the fine hairs on the back of his arm darker in color, standing out against his pale skin. As if that wasn’t enough, our legs tangled together in the water. I was touching him literally from head to toe.