Bad Behavior (Bad in Baltimore) (19 page)

The pain had stopped, the timer was buzzing, and Tai was whispering “I know,” over and over. Beach realized it was because he kept whispering “I’m sorry” into the cushion.

Tai lifted Beach to place him on his lap. It was more childish than being across Tai’s knee, and Beach’s ass wasn’t at all happy about the pressure from Tai’s quads, but the hard arms around Beach made everything else bullshit.

“Feel better?”

It should have been an incredibly stupid question. But he did. He felt calm, light, energized, like standing on the fly bridge and opening the throttle on a perfect day at sea. No destination, open space all around him.

“Yes. Thank you, Sir.” Beach couldn’t help a smile as he added, “How’s your hand?”

Tai brushed a soft laugh into Beach’s ear. “Sore, thank you.” After a quick kiss, Tai took Beach’s chin in his hand. “We’re not done yet.”

Beach’s ass throbbed in time with his heart, but the rest of him felt so good he didn’t care. “Okay.”

“Tell me why we needed to do this.”

“I challenged you and was disrespectful.”

“That’s not what I asked you, David.”

A hard spanking must be better than Sodium Pentothal because Beach blurted, “My father,” before he had time to think about what he was going to say. The doubts slithered back in, filling him with the need to push it all someplace where he didn’t have to think about it.

He shifted his ass on Tai’s legs, settling more weight on it so pain echoed along his nerves. It gave him some of that floating feeling back.

Tai didn’t rush him.

“It’s complicated and boring. But my father is in some trouble. And he reminded me that since I may be in jail soon, I won’t be in a position to help him. I have to do him a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“My uncle isn’t returning my father’s calls. He wants me to call him.”

“Okay.”

Beach knew on the surface it sounded like an incredibly minor thing to have thrown a tantrum over. And it was obvious now that was what he’d done. It really wouldn’t be that awful to have to call Uncle Sinclair and find out why he’d stopped sending money to Dad. Not his favorite thing in the world, but not worth acting like an asshole over.

“So tomorrow, you need to make the appointment for your physical therapy and call your uncle.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good.” Tai kissed him.

Beach let out a long breath. “I’m ready.”

Tai tipped his head.

“You said we weren’t done. And you, uh, spanked me for challenging you and being disrespectful. And now for…” he remembered the words Tai had given him to write out, “…not trusting you with why I was being such a dick.”

Tai held Beach’s face and kissed him hard. “I’m proud of you, David.”

“But you’re going to spank me more.” Beach had to grin when he said it.

Tai eased Beach to his feet then led him to the back of the couch. “Bend over it until your feet come off the floor.”

A sensation like when the bottom dropped out of a wave hit Beach’s stomach as he hung suspended, ass burning from nothing but the flow of air.

“It’s going to be one spank at a time. And after each you need to tell me why you’re here.”

Beach nodded and bit his tongue to keep from asking how many. It was probably easier if he didn’t know.

He flinched when Tai rested his hand lightly just above Beach’s ass, then the stroke hit, reigniting every single inch of pain on his skin. As he blew out his air, he remembered he was supposed to say something. “I will trust you, Sir.”

He’d barely finished the words when the next blow forced the air out of his lungs. “I will trust you, Sir.”

“Good.” Tai’s hand on his back soothed and petted, but he still slammed the message into and out of Beach eight more times. It got harder and harder to put the words in the right order, and the requirement kept him coming back to process the pain every time.

Tai turned Beach around and hugged him, hands stroking his back and squeezing his ass. “Good boy. I’m so proud of you.”

Beach sagged against him, muscles shaking with exhaustion.

“Sit, or stand if you want while I get you some juice.”

Using the couch for balance, Beach made his way around and planted himself on the cushion, wincing as his weight pressed him down but still liking the way the echo of heat made him feel. Quiet. Free.

Tai sat next to him and handed over the juice. Beach raised his eyebrows at the cherry-bright reddened palm.

“Yes,” Tai said. “That’s about what color your ass is. But I don’t think it will bruise. I was going for more of a sting, so I didn’t hit you that hard until the last few.”

Beach didn’t want to think about what hard would mean. But after sucking down half the glass, curiosity got the better of him. “And was that as hard as you—I mean, full strength?”

There was a quirk, barely a twitch at the corner of Tai’s mouth and almost hidden by his goatee. “No.”

Not even close
was the implicit end to that statement. Beach shifted on the couch as he tried to find a comfortable spot. That corner of Tai’s mouth threatened a smile.

“Sadist.” Beach knocked back the rest of the juice with only a minor regret that there wasn’t any vodka in it. It was all he could do to handle himself with Tai sober. Who knew what kind of trouble he’d get into with a little fermented lubrication?

“Actually, no.” Tai spread his hands at his hips.

Beach looked over, down. Other than the usual ample evidence of Tai’s equipment, there was no bulge of arousal. Tai took the glass from Beach’s hand and then pulled Beach back onto those hard thighs. Beach winced, and Tai buried a chuckle in the skin of Beach’s neck.

“It turns me on that you let me. That you accept me being in charge. And yeah, handling your ass, looking at it getting red, that definitely lights a fire. But not the idea of dealing pain just as pain.”

“So pain with a purpose?” Beach shifted so he straddled Tai’s lap, and the ache from the shuddering down his shinbone was far worse than the heavy, hot feeling in his ass.

“Yes. And doing that to yourself doesn’t have a purpose.” Tai lifted Beach and spun him, dropping his ass back down over Tai’s lap, legs dangling to the sides. Tai tucked his chin over Beach’s shoulder as the strong arms wrapped around his waist, the hard chest pressed into his back and his ass throbbed and prickled from the solid weight of them together.

“You earned a sore butt, David.”

“Yes, Sir.” He wasn’t agreeing to avoid an argument. The echo of the pain, the promise in the strength holding him here, the strength that could make him take more, feel more. It was exactly why Dav—Beach felt so content to simply be here. He wasn’t anticipating anything, wishing he was anywhere else. He sank deeper into Tai’s hold, aware of every sensation and perfectly at peace with them.

He shut his eyes to block out the television, to concentrate more on the beat of Tai’s heart against Beach’s back.

The organ dirge of Beach’s curfew alarm made panic shoot through him. He jumped, mouth full of a sour, metallic taste, body shivering. Tai squeezed him and then slid him onto the couch.

“I’ll get it.”

As full and content as Beach had been a second ago, it was gone. He was hanging, stretched thin and empty across space, heart racing above a rolling stomach, pounding like the one time he’d tried one of Westie’s “study aids” and learned that speed and Beach were a bad match.

The funeral chords cut off. “David, what’s wrong? Are you dropping?”

“No.” Not unless you counted being wrapped up by those muscular, inked arms an addiction and this as a withdrawal. “But.” He was terrified to get through the rest of that sentence. He’d hit on more people than he wanted to count and had more than his fair share of polite or rude rejections. Yet pushing this simple request past his lips seemed like the biggest risk of his life. He rolled his ankles, staring down at them, then looked up to face Tai. “Would you spend the night with me?”

Chapter Fifteen

D
avid expected a no. Tai read it in the dip of David’s shoulders, the flicker at the corners of his eyes, the flatness of his smile.

Tai had been about to suggest David take a shower and slide into Tai’s bed where he could show how much he appreciated what David had given when the phone went off. The funeral music was a fitting choice.

Until the alarm sounded, it had been easy for Tai to forget about David’s curfew. Forget anything but how amazing it had been for David to offer himself, to push past his fear. Something had shifted in him, and Tai didn’t want to do anything but wrap himself around David, taste and touch every bit of this new connection between them. He didn’t know how he could possibly go to work the next day and not have David filling his head and his dick.

The chance to have him in bed all night wasn’t something Tai was going to turn down.

David sweetened the offer before Tai could respond. “Jez is welcome too, of course.”

Tai stepped forward and kissed him. “Then I guess I’ll come along to keep her company.”

In the semidark of David’s bedroom, Tai opened his throat and took David’s cock deeper, squeezing his ass, while David tried desperately to stay as quiet and still against his mattress as Tai had ordered him to be.

A ragged moan slipped past the fist David had crammed in his mouth, and Tai let David slide free with a last lick on the head. This groan was louder, provoking a sigh from Jez who had finally stopped pacing around her new surroundings and fallen asleep on the blanket David had put down for her.

Tai climbed up and straddled David’s waist. “Shhh. If she wakes up, she’ll need to go out and water the tires of the Mercedes that stole your spot again.”

David’s smothered laugh shook against Tai’s muscles. Jez wasn’t the only one they were trying to stay quiet for. David’s houseguest had slammed his way around the kitchen and living area twenty minutes ago. It wasn’t until the fourth hoarse whisper of “Beach, you still up?” went unanswered that Clayton gave up.

Rocking against David, cock enjoying the friction of the hair trail below his sternum, Tai murmured, “She’ll wake up and he’ll wake up and I’ll never finish what I was doing.”

“Please.” David breathed it out.

Tai leaned down. “Please what?”

“Please don’t stop.”

Tai pinched one of David’s nipples, hard.

“Sir,” David added quickly, a soft smile on his face.

God, he was so beautiful like that. Not only in the way he’d lucked out in the genetic lottery, but here, like this. Every time he got that blissed-out look of submission on his face. The harbor lights shone through the balcony doors, streaming across the bed, bands of brightness across David’s face and chest. He fought hard to keep his eyes open.

Because Tai had told David to watch.

The constant battle with his eyelids, focus fading and coming back into his eyes as Tai reached behind to stroke David’s cock, was such a small piece of surrender. Each time David’s eyes fixed on Tai’s, heat bloomed under his skin, flowing out from his chest like lava to catch heavy and thick in his throat. Until he was the one who wanted to look away, hide that he’d been stripped to nothing but the need to bury that heat inside David. To find belonging in the acceptance David’s obedience offered.

He yielded to it, dropping his full weight onto David, sucking a bite into his shoulder, working their dicks together with hard snaps from hips and thighs. David’s hands had stayed up by his head where Tai put them, but now they clenched into fists, tendons popping on the wrists. Tai circled his fingers around those bones and veins and muscles, tighter than a cuff. He wanted inside, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t wait for condom and lube, couldn’t stand all that time not touching, owning. He took David’s mouth, hard, deep tongue thrusts. David gave it, hips open, tilting and arching for more friction, a frantic, eager lick into Tai’s mouth, wrists jerking in Tai’s grip.

Tai lifted his head.

“Please, Sir. Please let me touch you.”

David’s fingers, his hands sliding all over Tai’s back, gripping his ass to drag up more pleasure from the grind. Yeah, he’d like that. But they both wanted this more.

“You’ll take what I give you.”

More than the whispered agreement, Tai felt the answer in the hot pulse of fluid from David’s dick as they moved together. David’s neck arched back, skull a bare inch from the wooden headboard. Tai licked up the exposed throat, teeth closing on the stubble-rough jaw still tasting of soap from their quick shower.

“Don’t close your eyes.”

David looked back at him, eyelids pinned open.

“That’s it. You want to be good for me, right, David?”

“Yes, Sir. Fuck me. Please.” David rocked up into the rut of Tai’s hips.

“No. You’re mine. You don’t get to decide. If I want to suck your cock or fuck your ass or grind off on you and leave you hungry, I will.”

David’s answer was a long hissed
s
, between tight teeth.

“Watch.” Tai humped, letting the heat and friction and power of it build.

David’s eyes flickered and then opened, mouth slack, panting. He had that look again. Absolute surrender, like he was drunk with it. It pushed Tai over the edge.

“God, yes.” He sprang to his knees. “Watch me come all over you, boy.” He took his cock in his hand to finish it, not needing much. A tight, hot pressure in his balls and then he went up and over, coating David’s chest with ropy shots. Long, shuddering blasts that emptied him and left him hunched and shaking.

David’s eyes stayed on him, tongue wetting his lips until they shone like the streaks on his chest in the light from the window, his dick hard, straining up against his stomach.

Tai squeezed out an aftershock, rubbing the head of his dick in a pool of come on David’s belly. “Good boy. So good.”

David’s tongue flickered back over his lips. Tai smiled and bent to lap come off one of David’s nipples. Licking and sucking up to his ear, Tai murmured, “You should get a reward.”

David’s mouth stayed closed, but a whine escaped his lips.

“And I’ll decide what that is.” Tai sucked another bite right behind David’s ear, earning an answering pant and tremble. After dropping a kiss on each of David’s wrists, Tai stroked his beard across them and kissed them again, teasing the throbbing vein with his tongue. “Leave your hands right there.”

Crouching between David’s legs, Tai palmed David’s ass and lifted him, shoulders keeping his legs open wide, fingers pulling his cheeks apart for a flick of tongue on his hole.

David’s muscles jumped, squeezing, and then he relaxed. Oh yeah, Tai had to put a spreader bar on the schedule, watch David’s face as he gave in to that helplessness. Tai swept his tongue along the crack, tasting the mix of shower damp and sex sweat. He teased the rim, over and over, until David’s legs shook, and then traced the shape of his balls, leaving his poor cock straining into the air.

Tai went back to the rough-edged hole, kissing and sucking, tiny stabs of his tongue that made David buck into Tai’s grip. He dug his fingers into David’s glutes and pushed harder against the ring of muscle. There was no sound in the room but the harsh grate of their breath and the wet noise from spit and flesh. Tai added a hum into David’s tight skin, and he bucked and jerked.

“I can’t take it.” David’s hoarse whisper curled low in Tai’s gut. He drank it in with more pressure, thumbs spreading David wide enough to let Tai barely scrape with his teeth.

The strangled sound in response made him raise his head to see David cram his fist into his mouth.

“You don’t have a choice, boy.” Tai lowered his head, losing himself in texture and taste and every attempt David made to control his body’s reactions to Tai’s mouth.

David’s muscles kept convulsing, even after Tai lowered him to the mattress.

“Open your eyes.” Tai demanded, pressing into David’s ass with one finger.

David managed for an instant, but it turned to a blink as Tai found the point inside he was looking for and started rubbing.

David’s hands went to his hair and tugged it, fingers twisting to hang on to something.

“You can come now, David.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.” Tai leaned in and swallowed David’s dick, pulled off and then down again to the root, working him between tongue and palate.

“Fuck. Shit. God.” The groan was loud, but David was coming and Tai wasn’t stopping until he’d sucked him dry.

David’s ass crushed Tai’s finger, then pulsed as the first spurt hit Tai’s throat, filling his mouth and spilling past his lips faster than he could drink it down. As soon as he released him, David curled into a little ball on his side and Tai wrapped himself around him. “Okay, baby?”

“Jesus yes.” David grabbed Tai’s arm, dragging him closer.

A shiver had Tai raising his head to look into David’s face.

“An aftershock.” David patted his cheek. “But I wouldn’t mind…”

“Go ahead.” Tai kissed David’s ear.

“Can we stay like this till I fall asleep?”

“Sure.” Every fucking night would be just fine with Tai.

T
ai still had an hour to sleep when his bladder forced him awake, out of David’s bed and into the bathroom. He was going to crawl back in to that warm, sleepy space when a human yelp and confused woof hit his ears at the same time.

“Holy shit. What the—Beach?”

Tai slid into the living area right as Jez skidded into his shins. Tai had to slap his hands onto the coffee table to keep from falling into David’s houseguest, who was clutching a blanket around his chest like a terrified virgin.

“Who the hell—Beach?” Clayton gripped the blanket tighter. His thin, dirty-blond hair stuck out from his scalp, but whether that was fear or just really obnoxious bedhead was hard to say.

Jez came back to butt Tai’s knees with her head with an anxious whine.

“What did you do to my dog?”

Clayton gathered the blanket tighter, eyes growing wider, the whites glowing in the dawn light. “N-nothing. I— He—stuck his nose in my face and— I would never hurt a dog.” He managed to sound indignant and frightened in the same breath. “Beach?” Clayton’s gaze shifted to scan Tai from head to foot, forcing the realization that he was towering over the man, tackle swinging in the breeze.

Tai straightened, but that only put his equipment at eye level, and damned if he was going to cover up like he’d done something wrong. He looked back at Jez. With Tai between her and the stranger, she was sitting, stub wriggling, jaw open. “It’s not funny,” Tai told her.

“Yeah. It kind of is.” David strolled out of his bedroom, and apparently he didn’t see the need to cover up either.

“Beach,” Clayton muttered and then stared down at his blanket-covered knees. “For Christ’s sake.”

“Clayton.” David put a hand on Tai’s back. “I see you’ve met Tai. And Jezebel.”

David’s matter-of-fact introduction made Tai feel he should offer his hand, but they’d kind of moved past that moment.

Clayton reached around to rub the back of his neck, adding more chaos to his hair. “You, uh, didn’t mention you’d be having another guest.”

“I didn’t know I would be.” David looked at Tai and grinned, and if they didn’t get back to the bedroom, Clayton was going to get more of an eyeful than he’d already had.

Clayton rooted around on the floor and came up with a T-shirt, which he jerked over his head, finally letting the blanket fall away. “So, is he—that is—is this your—?”

Was it possible Clayton didn’t know David was bisexual? Assuming that was what David meant when he said he had sex with women.

David’s grin got impossibly wide. “He’s my Dominant.”