Page 39 of Burden of Proof

Lincoln turned and tilted his head back, tears dry but cheeks still splotchy. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I don’t bring men home.”

“Paying?”

“Ever.” I turned him back around and slid my arms around his waist, undoing the fly of his jeans and shoving them down to the floor. He stepped out of them and went for his underwear, but I stopped him. Both of our hands grazed over the warm bulge between his legs, and he pressed back against the thick erection between mine.

“Why me?” he asked quietly.

I didn’t have a real answer, so I settled with, “Why not you?”

The only light in my bedroom was the green glass banker’s lamp on my nightstand. It barely illuminated the book and the water glass in front of it, and I wondered what Lincoln’simpression of my otherwise dark bedroom was. The furniture was a combination of mid-century and Victorian, lots of wood and texture, a four-postered bed with an ornate headboard and matching nightstands on either side.

“I’m on PReP,” Lincoln said, and I buried my smile into the crook of his neck.

“So am I.”

He inhaled sharply, breath clicking, and I gave him a gentle push toward the bed. I wanted him, my body wanted him, but there was no way I was going to fuck him. We both reached the bed, and he looked from one nightstand to the other, correctly judging which side I preferred and climbing into the other one.

“I have clear test results,” he said.

I tugged the blankets until he lifted himself off the comforter and slipped his feet between the sheets.

“So do I,” I said.

Lincoln gave a little wiggle into the mattress and blinked so slowly I thought he’d fallen asleep. I sat down on the edge of the bed, one leg raised up and the other one hanging off the side. Reaching over, I brushed his hair back from his face, and he practically purred into my hand.

“I’m vers,” he murmured, the words disappearing into a yawn.

I couldn’t answer him in the affirmative to that because while I’d definitely enjoyed both placements before, it had been too many years to count since I’d bottomed.

“What about you?” he asked, when I didn’t reply.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“It always is.”

He rolled onto his side with a heavy sigh and gathered the blankets in his fists. He looked so small in my bed, almost weak, and I hated it as much as he would have if he could see himself.

“Roll over,” I said, finally committing to getting in bed myself.

Lincoln groaned and turned to face the side of the bed, and I pulled him into the middle, bringing our bodies flush. He pushed back against my erection, hips swirling. “I hope we can uncomplicate it.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Yes, Daddy,” he teased, but the words caught in his throat, and my breath caught in mine, and neither of us moved.

When it was impossible to hold my breath any longer, I let myself kiss the back of his head. “Get some rest, Lincoln. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

I wasn’t sure if he heard me because his answer was a quiet snore, and I was jealous that sleep had taken him so easily. TheYes, Daddyhad me up for at least another hour, my brain trying desperately to understand the intent and the implications. He hadn’t even meant it seriously, but he’d asked how it felt in my chest and hearing him call me that definitely made me feel some kind of way.

The whole kink thing wasn’t new to me. Beyond the roles I’d played for money, I’d watched more than my fair share of porn. Some of it was more fucked up than others, but I knew about dominance and submission, knew how to spank and where. I’d experimented with bondage and nipple clamps, and my favorite way to play involved drawing out and denying orgasms to the brink of tears. There was a heady kind of arousal in that sort of power, and it made me hungry for more.

Finally, sometime before sunrise, sleep took me alongside Lincoln, who hadn’t moved an inch since he’d passed out. His body still molded to mine, his fingers still tangled in the sheets. He was…God, he was gorgeous, and he was trusting and hurting and scared, and I wanted him.

Just after eight, Lincoln stretched and yawned, his toes reaching down toward the tops of my feet before he curled back into a ball against my front.

“Do you know about free use?” he asked sleepily.