Rachel Haimowitz & Cat Grant - [Power Play 1] (41 page)

to take Brandon down from his chains, hold him and kiss him and

praise him and wipe away his tears. “Have you had enough?” he asked

instead. “Do you want to go home?”

Brandon made no reply, just hung in his chains, chin to his chest,

panting fit to hyperventilate.

Jonathan made himself cross back over, grab Brandon by the hair

and jerk his head up. His face was streaked with tears, his lips slack

around the spit-soaked gag. “Answer me.”

Ever so slightly, Brandon shook his head.

“Then you’ll be taking care of
this
for me now,” Jonathan said,

shoving Brandon’s chin down with one hand and freeing his painfully

hard cock with the other. Brandon’s eyes widened, and the slight

headshake turned into a forceful one; Jonathan let go of him to pick

up the dropped handkerchief, stuffed it back in Brandon’s hand. “You

know the rules.”

Brandon’s fingers fisted tight around the cloth again, but he

hadn’t stopped shaking his head.

“You know what?” Jonathan said, grabbing Brandon by the chin.

“I’ve spent the last two weeks fretting over how to make it good for

you
, and you spit in my face. So now it’s
my
turn. You don’t want this?

Go home.
” He spat into his hand. “Speaking of . . .”

Brandon’s jaw tightened as Jonathan thrust a spit-slicked

finger inside him and twisted it. So tight he could barely move it,

but he pulled out and shoved back in with two fingers, purposely

avoiding Brandon’s prostate as he stretched the man. If Brandon was

determined not to enjoy this, Jonathan was happy to oblige him.

Tempted as he was to force his cock in with no further lubrication,

Jonathan wasn’t all that keen on causing
himself
pain—and besides,

he’d promised Brandon no blood. He spat into his palm again,

quickly coated his cock with it, and pressed the tip to Brandon’s hole.

“
Sure
you wouldn’t rather go home?”

Brandon wagged his head, grunting and thrashing in his chains.

For all the good it would do him.

“Fine.” Jonathan wrapped an arm around Brandon’s waist to hold

him still. “Then this one’s for me.”

In he thrust, balls-deep, with one merciless push. Brandon

immediately tensed, clenching so hard Jonathan felt it down to the

root of his cock. Brandon let out a tiny strangled noise as Jonathan

grabbed his hips and started to move, slamming into him hard

enough to rattle his chains. Every last drop of blood in Jonathan’s

body rushed to his cock, but still he glanced up, keeping an eye on the

handkerchief clutched in Brandon’s fist.

“Had enough now?” he whispered. “Or do you like it after al ?

Like my cock in your ass, like my chains around your wrists. Like it

when I
hurt
you”—he pulled out to the tip, thrust back in again hard

enough to slap skin against sweaty skin. Brandon cried out around his

gag, shook his head. “Like it when I use you like some cheap whore,

when I don’t even
touch
you, give a
shit
about your pleasure. Like

you’re just some collection of
holes
for me to come in.”

Another thrust, two, and the telltale pull of his balls told him

he was close. “On second thought, you’re not even good enough for

that.” One more deep stroke before he yanked his cock free, jacked it

in his fist—

And came all over Brandon’s back.

The rush made his head spin, made spots dance in front of his eyes.

He stepped back on unsteady legs, pulled up his zipper. Went over to

a toy rack to grab a rubber plug half again the size of his cock.

“So you won’t get lonely while I’m gone,” he said, giving it a

quick swipe through the jizz trickling down Brandon’s ass crack, then

shoving it deep inside him. Brandon groaned and shook his head, but

still the handkerchief didn’t fal . “You really are determined to make

this hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

When Brandon said nothing, Jonathan tracked behind him

again, touched the stun gun to Brandon’s ass. Brandon jerked as if

he’d pulled the trigger, but he hadn’t, not yet. Slid the stun gun down

to the plug, instead . . .
Shame it’s not a metal one.
Slid it further yet,

to that tender patch of skin between Brandon’s hole and his balls, and

said, “One for the road, then?”

He supposed it should’ve come as no surprise that Brandon lacked

the energy to protest, but the man’s plaintive, high-pitched whimper

tugged at his heart much more than he’d thought it would. He’d only

meant to frighten Brandon, anyway, not actually shock him again.

He suppressed the urge to grimace as he circled back to Brandon’s

front, laid the stun gun very deliberately on a shelf in Brandon’s direct

line of sight, and went to fetch a panic button and a roll of tape.

When he returned, he tried to tug the handkerchief from

Brandon’s hand, but the man didn’t want to give it up again. “Look,”

he said, and had to lift Brandon’s chin from his chest before he could

hold up the panic button in front of him. “You’ll be spending some

quiet time here today. I won’t. I can’t hear the handkerchief drop

from my office. I
can
hear this.”

Brandon blinked at him, long and slow, eyes heavy and glazed,

but his fingers loosened around the handkerchief. Jonathan replaced

it with the panic button, taped it right to Brandon’s hand so he

couldn’t drop it and made him press the button once while he was

standing there. He might want to chase Brandon out, but he wasn’t

willing to do it on the back of the man’s incapacity to consent. Not

even now.

“Good boy,” he said, patting Brandon twice on the cheek. “Now

you take some time to think about what you really want. Sabrina will

come in later to feed you. All that screaming you’ll be doing takes

energy, after al .”

Jonathan turned away then, the dark cold weight of Brandon’s

glare square between his shoulder blades as he let himself out of the

dungeon and shut the door.

CHAPTER
19

ran and the dungeon became close personal friends over the next

week or so. He and the cubby got practically intimate. Cold,

hunger, and constant pain joined in the fray. He’d thought Jonathan

had been sadistic before. He’d been
wrong
.

And truthfully, he didn’t know how much more of this he could

endure. Morning, noon, night . . . he could barely even sleep for fear

of waking to a flogger or a shock prod, the cubby floor cold and hard

as a fucking ice rink, the stifling confines of Jonathan’s various cages

even less forgiving than his live-in closet. And Jonathan had been

true to his word: he’d marked up every inch of Bran, and when he’d

run out of fresh inches to mark, he just started working his way back

over the old ones. Bran couldn’t even scream out his pain anymore;

he’d lost his voice so completely he could barely even whisper.

Strange, then, how hard it was to hold on to his fury. Maybe he

was just too worn out to waste what little energy he had on shit like

that.
Or maybe you brought this on yourself and you know it.

“Shut up,” he croaked, a scratchy near-whisper that tore at his

throat like Jonathan’s favorite cat-o-nine-tails. He hugged his knees

closer to his chest, rocked a little to conserve heat. Thought about

maybe doing some sit-ups and push-ups, jogging in place, but really,

he’d hurt too much for any of that for at least four days now. Or was

it five? Six? Fuck-all knew how long he’d been down here. How long

since he’d even been able to look out a window, see the sun.

He must’ve nodded off a sec, because next he knew he was jerking

his chin up, thrusting out a hand to stop himself from toppling

sideways. He’d been doing that a lot lately. What’d they call that . . .

micro-sleep? Something like that.

Who the fuck cares?

His stomach growled. Might’ve been the middle of the fucking

night, though, for all he knew. Probably was, or he’d be in chains or a

cage instead of the cubby. Sabrina came in pretty often, seemed to get

quite the kick out of making him beg to eat, and truth was, right now

he’d have done it happily. At least he didn’t feel quite so cold right

after he’d eaten. At least it was easier to sleep, then.

And just how had his life gotten miserable enough for him to

find patterns in the misery? Hadn’t been like that in over a decade,

barely surviving like some half-drowned little street rat scampering

around, praying no one would step on its tail. Why was he
doing
this

to himself?

So much for never trading your self-respect, Bran.
Fuck, even three

million dol ars wasn’t worth this kind of misery.

. . . Was it?

Who knew. Hard to think now about anything, let alone

something as big as that.

A door opened somewhere beyond the cubby, and the sharp dry

taste of adrenaline flooded his mouth. He hugged his knees tighter,

squeezed his eyes closed. Could be food, but could be pain, too. He

wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. Just wanted to curl into a little ball

in the corner, disappear right through the fucking floor
and sleep and

sleep and sleep until this all went away.

No choice, though. Never any choice.

Not true. You can stop this. You know how to stop this.

He started bodily as the cubby door opened, but didn’t back

away. Too tired, and anyway, what was the point? If Jonathan wanted

to hurt him, he’d hurt him no matter where he was.

Just Sabrina, though, carrying a tray. She flipped on the overhead

light, and Bran buried his face in his knees, blocking out the shock.

Relieved. So fucking
relieved
. Too much to feel even the slightest hint

of shame as he curled his arms tight round his head and wept into his

knees.

Jonathan kept toggling between his quarterly report and the

camera feed from downstairs. Brandon had held out far longer

than he’d expected. Days of torture—canings, floggings, a variety

of difficult confinements and cages. Back to the stun gun, which

invariably got him to safeword, but not leave.

Truth to tell, Jonathan admired his tenacity, even though it

made him grind his teeth. Just how far would he have to go to make

Brandon finally say
enough
?

Devon had told him to go medieval on his ass. Maybe it was time

to take that literally.

He watched as Sabrina entered the cubby, flicked on the light,

set down the tray. Usually Brandon put up a token protest before he

took food from her hand, but this morning he practically crawled

into her lap when she offered him a strawberry. As hungry as that,

or just desperate for human contact that didn’t hurt, some hint of

kindness? And was it Jonathan’s imagination, or were those
tears

rol ing down Brandon’s scruffy cheeks?

Perhaps he was finally ready.

Jonathan watched as Sabrina finished feeding him and sent him

to the bathroom for his morning ritual. He waited the thirty minutes

Brandon was permitted for washing, then stood from his desk and