Page 96 of Coiled Tight

Shit.

Lost track of time.

I blinked, that disorientation manifesting as a fog around my head.

My body burned.

I felt myself trembling, sweat beading down my hairline. My body convulsed when I parted my lips with the intent to give an answer.

It was fine.

I just needed another second. A deeper breath to get me back on track.

This wasn’t anything I hadn’t dealt with before.

As much as my body didn’t belong to me—not in the ways that mattered—I was in control here.

I cleared my throat. “Yellow, Daddy.”

I wanted to take more, wanted to swim deeper into the fogsurrounding me. But I knew my limits, too. I knew the responsible thing to say, even when it wasn’t necessarily the fun thing to say.

Saúl moved closer. Glancing backward showed him draping the flogger over the bench, a few inches beside me. He placed his hands on my lower back, massaging the area that hadn’t been hit but had taken a workout too from holding on to the position he’d placed us in.

“You’ve done amazing, darlin’ boy.” His voice was so raspy, so warm, so fucking soothing, it had a tear streaming down my cheek and falling to the floor. “You’re perfect.”

I gasped. Panted? I didn’t know.

It didn’t matter.

I didn’t think it did.

No one had ever said I was perfect.

No one had sounded so fucking honest when they praised me, either.

“Um. Daddy?”

I blinked hard. It was bad enough he’d already seen me cry more times than most people who had known me since I was in diapers that had nothing to do with kink. I had sort of made my peace with the fact that I cried more often and more easily than most men around me, even other queer men who pretended to have deconstructed themselves more than they’d actually had. It didn’t mean I was its biggest fan.

It was different when someone asked me for it, when it was someone’s kink, and I didn’t have to consume myself with thoughts on whether it was right or not. Too much or not.

I sucked in a lungful of air, shaking the thoughts away before this turned in the opposite direction of where I wanted it to go.

“I’m here, darlin’.”

He was.

I knew he was, and it wasn’t only because of the softpatterns he was drawing across my lower back. I didn’t think anyone could ever doubt that Saúl would be there for them no matter what.

If I focused too much on it, though, more waterworks would come.

“Fuck me?”

It was the most bare, but the most desperate I’d ever begged someone.

I sniffled and cleared my throat before too much was bottled up there.

“Lift up, darlin’. Slowly.”