Bound and Determined (23 page)

two points, the bruised nipples throbbing fiercely.

“Need to come—”

“Not yet,” Owen said, the two words enough to make Sterling hope that

eventually he'd be given permission, even if it wasn't that much comfort given

how close he was to losing it.

He should have known what was coming next, but he was so caught up in

the moment that he didn't. It honestly came as a surprise when the next line of

wax droplets started to fall at the base of his cock—he screamed and arched so

hard against the restraints that later, in retrospect, he might have expected to

learn that he'd sprained something. Thank goodness he'd had a little more play

in his lower body than in his upper, because that was probably what prevented

him from hurting his bad shoulder.

Sterling screamed a second time as another drop hit the center of his

shaft, the sound tearing at his throat. He was aware of enough time in which to

draw breath and exhale again—time Owen was deliberately giving him in which

to put a halt to this, probably, but maybe he didn't know Sterling as well as he

thought if that was the case, because there was no way Sterling was spitting

out either safe word. The pause became excruciating—he could feel the towel

underneath him sticking to his back, just soaked through with sweat—and

then exploded when what felt like a quarter-sized circle of wax hit the tip of his

cock.

Bound and Determined

95

God, it hurt like nothing else ever. He screamed so desperately that it

didn't even come out very loud; there just wasn't enough air behind it to create

volume. It was like his nerve endings were using up all his oxygen, and he

couldn't breathe or think through the searing pain.

He couldn't do anything. He was gone.

The scary part was how fucking
good
it felt, the bright agony ripping him

free of restraints that weren't made of rope or chain. He used the pain, just as

Owen had told him to, shaped it, loved it, let it take him. Dimly, distantly, he

felt his climax begin, lagging long moments behind his scream, an

afterthought, as if his body was trying to kill the pain with pleasure, which was

stupid, really, because they were both the same.

He lay languid, a washed-up piece of driftwood on an alien shore, and felt

Owen's hand slide into his. Owen didn't speak. If he had, Sterling wasn't sure

that he would have understood him. His brain was in free fall, splintered,

smashed. That would change; already he could feel himself groping back to

normal, but while it lasted, he floated, held in place by Owen's hand tight

against his.

It was probably a good ten minutes later when he finally managed to push

some words out. “S-sorry,” he whispered. “D-didn't have per-mission.”

“You did,” Owen corrected him, and that was good, that was what Owen

did—created boundaries, kept him in check. “I said you could. Don't you

remember?”

“No.” Sterling relaxed, relieved. Not that being punished would have been

a bad thing. He tightened his hand slightly, squeezing Owen's against his own;

he never wanted to let go.

Owen undid his blindfold, the bedroom lit dimly enough that Sterling only

had to blink once or twice to adjust to the light. “I want you to see yourself,”

Owen said, and idly scraped at a trickle of wax on Sterling's chest with his

fingernail. “Tell me when you're ready for the next part.”

Oh God, Sterling thought. There's a next part? He'd already come, which

in his head meant sex was over, but…this wasn't just about sex, was it? He

knew that. It was still a little hard to absorb, maybe, but he did know it.

Sterling took a deep breath and nodded. “I'm ready.”

96

Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

Chapter Eight

Owen gestured at the room. It was on the top floor, a corner room, with

some cheap paneling on the walls that looked subtly askew. Not that much of it

was visible; the room was a cluttered mess of furniture, each flat surface piled

high with random objects. “There's always one in every house, I guess. The

room you never quite get around to decorating; the one where you dump all the

stuff you don't want to throw away but don't want to keep. Except I
do
want to

throw a lot of this away—or donate it to charity—because this room would be

perfect as a library. I'm sick of having my books scattered around the house

where I can't find them.” He gave Sterling a sidelong look, noting the

unenthusiastic expression on the boy's face. “I meant it when I said I'd pay you

for helping me to renovate it. You're giving up an extra shift to help me today, I

know, and I don't want you to lose out.”

“You don't have to pay me,” Sterling said, somewhat unconvincingly. Not

for the first time, Owen thought that the boy probably had no experience at all

doing this kind of work; it was a thought that appealed to him because each

new thing he introduced Sterling to, no matter how inconsequential, belonged

to him.

Just like Sterling did.

“First, we'll have to clear everything out of here. I've got Goodwill coming

tomorrow to pick up the things I don't want to keep, so I'll have to figure out

what's what—you don't need to worry about that. Then, once there's room to

move, I'm going to have you pull down the old paneling, patch the walls, and

paint.” He gave Sterling a stern look. “I don't expect perfection, because it's an

old house and I doubt there's a single corner that actually forms a ninety

degree angle, but I do expect you to do your best.”

“I know. I will.” Sterling peeled off the sweatshirt he was wearing, revealing

the short-sleeved T-shirt he had on underneath, and put his hands on his hips,

surveying the chaos. “So how will I know what you want to keep?”

“Well, I'm not leaving you to do this all on your own,” Owen said, amused.

“Although I do have some things to do later today. For now, I'll help you sort

through everything. The trash can go in the driveway, and the things for

Goodwill on the porch. I guess the things I want to keep—there shouldn't be

many—can just go in the hallway for now.”

Sterling nodded. “Okay.”

Bound and Determined

97

“So for the rest of today, you belong to me, bought and paid for,” Owen

said with a smile. He was joking, but his body didn't care, reacting predictably

to that idea. God, January couldn't come soon enough. He hadn't jerked off

this much since he was a teenager, and it just wasn't enough to satisfy him.

Sterling probably felt the same way, but ironically, he had less to complain

about. Owen was letting him come at almost every session now, even if he

made Sterling work for it.

Before Sterling could reply—and by the gleam in his eyes, he had no

problem with the idea of being at Owen's beck and call and some suggestions

for a better use of their time than getting filthy and exhausted hauling trash—

Owen pointed at a corner. “You start there, I'll take the other side of the room,

and we'll meet in the middle. Oh, and if it's pink, it goes, no exceptions.”

They worked companionably for some time, Sterling occasionally asking

for Owen's opinion on one item or another. There were a few dozen china

statues scattered about—his mother had collected them for years, and

ironically enough, Owen had purchased some of them himself for various

birthdays and other holidays. Although they'd originally “decorated” the whole

house, Owen had gradually moved them all into this room as he'd needed to

clear up space for his own things. At the time, he hadn't been able to justify

disposing of them entirely—he knew they were moderately valuable—but last

night he'd finally made the decision to box them up and take them to the

antique dealer in the center of town to get an estimate on their worth.

Hopefully their sale would finance a weekend's vacation at a nice resort in the

Caribbean next year.

Or at the very least a new television, since his was threatening to give up

the ghost.

“What about this?” Sterling gestured at a small table with sides that folded

down. Its surface was damaged.

“Hmm. Goodwill, I guess. I like how it looks, but it would have to be

refinished, and I don't think I'm likely to get around to it anytime soon.”

Sterling took the table downstairs, the wooden steps creaking under his

sneakers as he went, and Owen heard the screen door to the porch open and

close. A few moments later the door opened and closed again, and then Owen

heard the fridge door before Sterling came back upstairs.

“Here.” Sterling handed him a water bottle from the flat of several dozen

he'd carted to Owen's house the week before. Sterling had tipped over a glass of

water a few days before that, then complained that it hadn't been his fault and

that Owen should have bottled water like everyone else.
That
little comment

had resulted in a spanking that had left Owen hard for hours, palm stinging.

“Thanks,” Owen said. He preferred tap water and had issues with the

ecological problem of bottled water, but he'd given that lecture already, and a

bottle was more practical in the dusty air. The water was refreshing—watching

Sterling gulp it down thirstily, throat muscles working, even more so. He

leaned against an armchair, springs poking up from its seat making it

98

Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

unusable, and studied Sterling. Hidden beneath the jeans, Sterling's ass and

the back of his thighs would still be showing marks from that spanking earlier

in the week, tiny bruises mottling the surface. Owen was careful with him,

never marking him anywhere that couldn't be covered, never leaving him too

stiff and sore, though he knew there had to be some days when sitting on the

wooden seats in the classrooms at the college would leave Sterling suffering.

“I suppose you're going home for Christmas?” he asked idly. Thanksgiving

had come and gone with Sterling remaining on campus, something that Owen

had selfishly been pleased about, but he'd resigned himself to a Christmas

spent without Sterling. He'd been invited to spend the day with a couple he'd

met at the local theater during a summer of volunteering there. Jake and Gary

ran the theater with a smiling, utterly ruthless efficiency, determined to make

it profitable and a cultural beacon in the town. Owen still pitched in now and

then behind the scenes, but if his interest in the theater had waned slightly,

his friendship with its owners hadn't.

“Yeah—my mom and Justine are counting on it. It'll be fun.” Sterling

didn't, Owen noticed, mention his father. “We'll do a tree and bake cookies—

Justine says Christmas isn't the same without those cookies that come out of

the gun thing.” This was a mystery, but Owen didn't comment, just let Sterling

continue as he gathered up a few books and set them in a pile he was making

against the wall. Sterling turned and gave Owen a guilty look. “I wish I could

stay here with you.”

“Another time,” Owen said lightly—the boy already felt bad enough about

having to go home. No point in making it worse. “Maybe you could come back a

day or two before the spring semester starts and spend the time here?”
That

would be something to look forward to, a few days in which neither of them

would have much in the way of work.

“Yeah, sure. I was figuring I'd bring my car back if I can get a parking

sticker for the lot near my dorm.”

“I didn't realize you had a car,” Owen said.

Sterling wriggled an elderly looking chair experimentally, then picked it up

and raised an eyebrow at Owen.

“Yard, I think,” Owen said, because it was both wobbly and moth-eaten.

“Present for my eighteenth birthday.” Sterling was obviously talking about

the car and not the chair. “Wouldn't do to see William Baker's son driving

around in an old clunker, even though he probably would have gotten a kick

out of it.”

“It would make your life easier,” Owen said, thinking of how Sterling had

to race from campus to work—and often from his house back to campus. “Gas

isn't cheap, of course, but you wouldn't be going far.”

“I wouldn't be able to bring it here, though,” Sterling said, testing. “I

mean, anyone could see it sitting in your driveway.”

Bound and Determined

99

Owen rolled his eyes. “Unless it's a bright red Porsche or something

equally eye-catching, I doubt it'll even register with anyone passing by, but I

could always make you park it a few blocks away, and I will if you give me any