Page 69

“More whining. Someone hasn’t learned their lesson.” His eyes gleam. “I’m not in the habit of giving out participation awards, Lucien. You’ll just have to do better next time.”

My eyes narrow on him.

First the spray paint, now this. I think I’m a bad influence on him—and Jasper’s idea of mischief is just cruel.

Smiling at my outrage, he turns off the water. “Now, shower and meet me in the inner room for bed.”

I know it’s only pitiful to ask at this point, but we’re desperate. I shift again, trying to ease the pressure in my cock.

“For bed?” I ask hopefully, handing him a towel, and he snorts as he steps out.

“For sleep,” he clarifies with way too much enjoyment, and I sigh.

Sadists .

“Look, do you maybe think that I’m not the one you’re really?—”

Wrapping his towel around his waist, Jasper gives me a forbidding, frosty look that warns of icebergs ahead, and I bite down on my protest.

He leaves to get dressed, and in rough, unhappy yanks, I pull my clothes off.

My stiff cock begs for attention, but even I’m not game to see what he’d do to me if I got myself off right now. If Jasper wanted me to come, I’d be turning the bedroom into a creamery by now.

“Yeah, I know, buddy,” I mutter to my dick.

I get clean as quickly as possible—and as thoroughly, since I’m a natural optimist—and hurry into his secret lair. He’s already in bed, his chest bare, and his long pajama bottoms sweep around his ankles. He’s reading under the amber lamplight, making notes in the margins of another book.

I stop inside the room, just looking at him, my chest aching.

Not just my chest.

My skin is still too hot—the cold shower barely did anything to cool me off—and seeing him like this, casual and in his reading glasses and waiting for me.. . it’s not helping.

Suppressing a tortured sigh, I throw my sleep shorts on the spanking bench and finish toweling myself off, tender around my rigid dick. I’ve been hard for too long, and it’s sensitive as fuck right now.

“Another book for Eden?” I ask, smiling at his intense focus despite my discomfort. “What’d you choose this time?”

Jasper doesn’t look up. “ Planet of the Apes . I’m hoping she might draw some parallels with her current roommate.”

I grin. “You do know how that ends, don’t you?”

His expression sours, and he abandons the book to his bedside table. Thoughtfully, he picks up a sheaf of papers, thumbing through them.

“The man is impossible,” he finally mutters.

“Yup,” I say agreeably, toweling myself off.

He flicks to another page, his expression darkening.

“It’s just ridiculous. I’ve done everything I can with him,” he hisses, his eyes scanning the page.

“At this point, I don’t care what he’s done for Bristlebrook, Lucien—Jaykob is a toddler, and the adults in the room have indulged his tantrums long enough. ”

I nod, my dick still aching. “Totally. Big jerk. No reasoning with him. Shouldn’t indulge it.”

Maybe if he gets mad enough, Jasper will join Dom, Beau, and me. Though those two are on my shit list, since they somehow scored uncontested mornings with Eden and didn’t throw me a single bone.

Alliance breakers.

As casually as I can, I shrug. “Shame you’re on the high road, though, right? Something about gentlemen and being the better person? Not being foolish ?”

Jasper’s lip curls. “She called me sweet .”

Oof.

No wonder I’m getting tortured.

Amused, I reach for my shorts.

“Don’t,” he tells me mildly, finally glancing up. He sets down the sheaf of papers, then removes his reading glasses. He nods at the sheets beside him. “Like that. You don’t put clothes on in this room unless I give you permission.”

My mouth goes dry, but I drop the pants, and Jasper’s gaze runs over me. The way he looks at me is a cock stroke in and of itself, and I suppress a groan as new heat shivers over my skin.

I walk over to the bed slowly, letting him look.

He loves my body, I know he does. Maybe I can make him break. Maybe the glory of my cock will convince him to take mercy on me. I am so not above a seduction.

Hell, I’m not above anything. Begging doesn’t seem to be cutting it.

When I slip onto the bed, I stretch out, as casually as I can, and the corner of his mouth lifts.

“Is this how you want me, then?” I ask thickly, pretending to scratch my chest, only to trail my hand down my abs. “You really should give me another chance, you know. Don’t hold me back. You should see what I can do with ten minutes and a squeeze of lube.”

He leans over me, and I shudder in shock as I stare at his mouth, full and pretty and inching closer.. . and closer... and closer. My dick strains toward him, my heartbeat scattering.

It worked? How the hell did that work?

He flicks off the bedside light next to me. “Get under the sheets, Lucien.”

The darkness is deep and enveloping, and I scowl.

I know this is what I get for falling in love with a sadist, but fuck me with a pool cue if I wouldn’t take his worst whip over this any day of the week.

This is deprivation . Is this how poor Dom feels?

No wonder he’s miserable. In fact, I’m going to talk to Eden about it.

The building trust thing is cute, but my guy is going to blow—in one way or another—and then where will she be?

I climb between the sheets, rolling over onto my side.

My cock bobs despondently, and I’m glad it’s dark because Jasper doesn’t deserve to get off on this.

There should be an appeals process for this—and damn it, a petition to rewire my own stupid, masochistic brain too, because there shouldn’t be any part of me that finds this a turn on, and yet here I am with a hard on that could punch a new hole in the wall at the idea of him smirking in the bed next to me.

Stupid sadist.

Stupider masochist.

He wraps himself around my back a moment later, and I grit my teeth.

His skin is hot against mine, and his breath stirs the hairs at the back of my neck in a way that makes gooseflesh ripple down my spine.

He’s half-hard, lazily hard, because he’s fucking come already, but he presses his cock against my ass anyway.

Casually greedy, Jasper runs his hand up my thigh, his palm brushing over the coarse hairs, and I shiver again. He traces my abs lazily, the back of his hand brushing against my dick like it doesn’t make my teeth punch together every fucking time.

Toying with me.

Torturing me.

Damn it, I’ve been good !

“My Lucien,” he murmurs. “Is there anything you would like to say to me?

I bite down on every groan and whimper that wants to rise, refusing to give him the satisfaction, but there’s no hiding how ragged my breathing turns.

Then he chuckles sleepily and wraps his hand around my cock. Hard.

“Goodnight, darling boy.”

Blood roars in my ears. Or something does. At this point I’m pretty sure everything has rushed south. But he isn’t moving. His hand just rests, still and punishingly tight around my swollen cock. Just rests for long enough that his peaceful breaths start to slow.

And for me to go silently mad.

He doesn’t understand; I need to move. Not to fuck into his hand, exactly. If he asks, that’s not what I’m doing. I can’t even shift in his grip because of how tightly he’s wrapped around me.

It’s just snuggling.

Filthy, delicious snuggling.

“Stop squirming.”

“I can’t sleep like this, Jasper.”

Against my neck, he hums. “Unfortunate. I’d advise against making that my problem.”

My head tips back into him. I can feel the pulse of my cock in his palm.

Ah, fuck it.

“Okay, okay, I do have something to say.”

“Oh, do you?” he taunts sleepily. His hand pumps my cock once, and my hands fist in the sheets as pleasure nearly makes me black out. “Is that what you want? Me to play with this silly little cock I own?”

“Well yes, and, not to play an Uno reverse on you or anything, but don’t you think we should really get to the bottom of why you feel the need to leave me miserable and sleepless tonight?

” Jasper’s grip tightens in warning, and I gasp, squirming.

“I think you’re really mad at Jayk, and the noble thing was great and all, but maybe it’s time you call it quits and stop torturing the poor, desperate love of your life and maybe take your frustration out on the person who deserves it. ”

There’s a cold, terrifying beat of silence.

But in for a penny . . .

“And you should give me lots of orgasms. For being honest. And because I love you,” I add.

“Hmm,” he hums, and there’s something dark and dangerous in the sound.

Oh, shit.

“Are you feeling shafted, my darling?” he asks.

“Funny,” I mutter.

He pulls my hair free of its tie and kisses the curve between my neck and shoulder. I shudder, gasping at the gentle, heated press.

“Remember how Jayk’s a toddler?” I say desperately, panicking. “Remember she called you sweet?”

Suddenly, Jasper bites my shoulder hard enough to break skin, and I cry out as scorching, liquid pain lashes through me.

He shoves me onto my stomach and begins kissing his way down my spine.

His hand slips out from around my cock, and he grasps my ass in both hands, squeezing.

The bite on my shoulder pulses through me.

He licks the small of my back. “Do you not think I’m sweet?”

My brain has short circuited.

He parts my ass with his hands, holding me apart, and his mouth kisses squirmingly close. I leak onto the sheets, but he has me pinned, and I don’t move, too afraid he’ll stop.

He bites my ass cheek, hard. Then slaps it sharply enough that I flinch, and I can’t help the way I fuck into his silk this time.

The little pains make me dizzy. Desperate.

When I’ve come back from the edge just enough, he strokes his thumb over the side of my cock, and I shudder.

“Am I sweet , Lucien?” he snaps.

Danger, danger !

There’s no right answer here. He’s setting me up to fail— again .

“You . . . you can be . . .”

His mouth presses into the cleft of my ass.

With his fingers holding me open, his tongue slicks along my tight hole.

Brutal pleasure punches through me, and I spill more precum into his sheets.

He lavishes me with scorching, sucking kisses.

With wet, laving licks and fingers that force their way into me with squeezing, brutal insistence.

“Am I sweet right now, my Lucien?” he taunts, his voice hoarse. “Is this what you wanted to do to me earlier? Do you want to fuck me?”

There’s a high, urgent ringing in my ears, like the sing of a bell, demanding that I come.

He kisses over the bite he left on my ass, toying with my balls, his finger slowly pumping my hole with small, slick movements.

“Why stop there? Don’t you want my mouth on your cock, too? Do you want me to let you come on my tongue?” he croons.

I arch my back, begging, choking out gasps into his mattress.

“I don’t appreciate the attempted manipulations, Lucien.” His voice turns wry. “Or you fibbing to me—white lie or not.”

With one last, filthy kiss where he sinks his tongue deep into my ass, he pulls back completely, abandoning me to the stained sheets.

My frantic, panicked heart beats against the mattress, my brain scorched to ash.

I didn’t think my need could get any more painful, but I’ve had whipping sessions that have ravaged me less.

I flip over to see Jasper in the bathroom, washing his hands and picking up a toothbrush.

Right then, my panic snaps, and I slap the bedsheets.

“You’re sweet as the pit of a fucking peach, Jasper.

You’re not a gentleman. It’s time you just admitted you’re an asshole like the rest of us.

You’re—” Jasper raises a brow in the mirror at me over his toothbrush, and I glower at him.

“You’re a fucking sadist , babe. My sadist. You take what you want, even if it hurts.

” I shove a hand into my hair, my whole body trembling.

“No wonder Eden was worried. You’re treating her like glass when she wants you to treat her like a?—”

“A prize? Something to be fought over and passed around?” His voice is terse. “She deserves more. She dislikes the infighting, Lucien. She wants peace between us.”

“Like a woman . She wants to be fucked, Jasper. She wants you to fuck her.” My body aches—for him, for her. I’m so done. Done and desperate. “If you want peace, you need to speak a language Jayk is going to understand. And if you want Eden, it’s about time you damn well prove it.”

Jasper’s toothbrush hits the counter with a cold clatter, and he turns, his face frigid and intent. For a marrow-freezing moment, I’m sure I’ve gone too far, that I’ve actually said something that might hurt him.

Then his eyes drift to his bedside table, lingering on the sheaf of papers.

For a long, long time, he stares at them, lost in himself.

Finally, he smiles, and it’s nothing short of terrifying.

“Lucien, it’s time to fetch the grappling hooks.”