Page 37 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

Stroking slowly, I nipped at Silas’s throat. He trembled, entire body alert and on edge as I stroked our dicks together. Precum slicked and smeared around my fingers, and it was so far away from being enough. I wanted Silas sweaty and ravished and bleary from it all.

“Tell me when you’re close,” I whispered.

I hoped it was soon because I was on the edge.

“Sir,” he rasped, hips thrusting against mine. “Close.”

I unfurled my fingers enough to let his dick fall out of my grasp, and when he cried out in absolute agony, I shot my load all over his violently throbbing cock. Silas’s entire body swayed, and he slapped his hands against the wall, on the verge of a tantrum that only made me come harder.

“Jesus fuck,” I cursed under my breath, letting go of myself before the sensation turned overpowering.

Silas pulled his lips between his teeth, and he blinked up at me, a hard press of eyelids that looked like they were working overtime to hold back tears.

“Strip,” I told him, taking a step back so I could watch the show.

His fingers fought him every step of the way, but he managed to get out of his clothes.

Leaving them in a pile by the door, I next ordered him to his knees, and then lower, and then I told him to crawl.

He followed behind me like an obedient—if not slutty—dog, ass in the air and cock jutting out between his legs.

He crawled without protest all the way through my house and into the bedroom, and when I stopped, he stopped.

Together, we waited.

When I could hear my heartbeat back in my ears instead of feeling it in my cock, I went to the dresser to retrieve cuffs and a collar, some rope, an anal hook, and my favorite bamboo cane.

I dropped all the items on the bed for Silas to see, then I pulled a bottle of lube from the nightstand and added it to the pile.

“Is any of this a no?”

We’d talked about caning before, and it wasn’t a no, but it was also far from the enthusiastic yes I normally preferred.

“No, Sir,” he said, voice slightly hoarse.

“Stand up. Maybe just a little penetration.”

He climbed to his feet, standing tall as I fastened the thick leather collar around his neck.

I loved the look of it, the way the supple leather contrasted against the smooth heat of his skin.

I slipped rope through the O-ring on the collar and flipped the ends off his shoulders and let them tickle the small of his back.

Next, the cuffs. Around his wrists with gentle kisses, and then I walked him into the closet.

It was a walk-in with a full-length mirror, and Silas had been in my closet plenty of times, but he’d never noticed the bolts—or the spreader bar—in the ceiling.

Lifting his arms over his head, I hooked him up and stepped back.

Admiring the way he was lifted onto his toes just enough to keep him off-balance but not enough to make him tired.

“Still good?” I asked.

“Yes, Sir.”

Then, the hook. I lubed it, eased it into him and groaned at the way it made him sigh like a well-tended cat. I notched the curve of the hook against his ass and threaded the rope through the ring at the end, pulling it all taut and ensuring his head was held straight.

“Look down,” I told him, and he tried, but the rope tugged the hook, the ball on the hook pushed against his prostate, and Silas was very close to crying about it.

His cock was still hard, looking like it was about to burst. I pressed my finger against the underside of his chin and righted his face so he stared at our reflection, head on .

“Just like this, alright?” I asked. “Don’t move from here. Keep your eyes open. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He shifted his weight, and the cuffs clanked against the bar.

“I’m going to start gentle, but I won’t stay gentle.”

He managed a nod.

“My intent is to hurt you, Silas. I want to decorate your thighs with stripes so dark they’ll last for weeks.”

He whimpered, swaying on his toes.

“Ready?”

“Yes, Sir.”

I situated myself behind him with the cane.

The position was far from ideal, but with his cock hard enough to stay out of the way, I reached around and tested the bamboo against the front of his thighs.

A few gentle taps at first to check the angle.

I adjusted as necessary, shifting a little to the side so I could have better access, then I landed a few test strikes.

Silas’s cock cried before his eyes did.

And I wanted to taste the mess from both sides of him.

“Sweetheart,” I whispered, rubbing my cheek against his, watching him watch us in the reflection of the mirror. I wondered what he saw when he looked at himself, if he saw the gorgeous man that I saw or if he only saw his own shortcomings. I’d ask him sometime, but not tonight.

“Sir.”

“I do love you,” I told him.

The cane whooshed as it cut through the air, and then thwap as it landed hard against his skin.

His knees buckled, and he jerked forward.

All his angling shifted, the hook curled into him deeper, and I watched him alternate between trying to fight against the pain in his ass and the pain on his thighs.

I waited while he settled himself, one thin bruise already blooming across his legs.

“How many years did you work for your father?” I asked .

“Eight, Sir.”

“Eight, then. Eight years of wasted potential.” I swung the cane again and again. Two times in rapid succession, very close to the first strike. He still jerked against the impact but brought himself back to center much faster.

Four.

Five.

Six.

I don’t think Silas knew he’d started to cry, but after I licked the tears from his cheek, he understood. Lower, his cock streaked wet smears across his stomach, precum pulsing out of his slit with every breath.

“You like this,” I murmured.

Tucking the cane under my arm, I slid my hand down the front of his thighs and pushed my fingertips into the bruises that marked his otherwise blemish-free thighs.

He was a goddamn work of art.

A masterpiece.

“Very much, Sir,” he said softly.

“Two more,” I warned. “But first.”

Returning the cane to my hand, I tapped the tip of it against his balls, against his shaft. He dropped his head back before remembering himself and forcing his head straight, prying his own eyes open with nothing more than willpower and the need to serve.

“What do you see?” I asked, continuing to pepper taps against his most sensitive areas.

“The bruises you promised,” he answered, groaning. “I see the man I love.”

“Silas.”

“I love you,” he said, and I looked up until I caught his stare in the mirror.

He was flushed and tearstained, but earnest as ever.

“I love you,” I said back to him for the first time, then popped the fronts of his thighs two more times, harder than any of the other strikes had been.

His skin bloomed and cracked, pinpricks of blood appearing beneath the cane.

I let it fall to the floor, then I loosened the rope around his collar, slid the hook out, and dropped it beside the cane.

I stepped in front of him, blocking his view, and I slanted our mouths together and kissed him.

Spearing my tongue into his mouth, chasing after the high his confession made me feel, I took his thicker than usual dick into my hand and stroked him until he screamed out my name and painted streaks of spend across my knuckles.

Silas cried out, whimpered, babbled, and I was careful to undo his wrists from the spreader bar, to take his weight against my chest before he fell.

Slowly, I eased us both down to the floor and cradled him in my lap, brushing damp hair back from his face and leaving kisses in the wake of my fingers.

“I love you,” he mumbled against my chest, arms limp but halfway around me. “I dunno why I didn’t say it earlier.”

There were a lot of reasons, I was sure.

But those were his, and rightfully so. It didn’t matter he hadn’t delivered the response immediately.

The only thing that mattered was he felt the same.

He’d let me love him on my own, and he’d let me remind him of his worth.

He let me show him that as long as he was with me, his potential would never be wasted.

And I needed to know that for myself just as much—if not more—as I needed him to know it.