Page 10 of The Barn: Frost and Q

“Thank you, love.” Frost smiled, and it was so damn beautiful that Quentin wanted to cry.

He couldn’t breathe, but he let it flow, finding his air.

“Let me show you the cuffs.” This was one of their little rituals.

Frost always showed him whatever equipment they might be using, because often he ended up blindfolded.

That way he knew ahead of time what things felt like and looked like, and he spent less time allowing his imagination to run wild.

Frost got into the bag and pulled out a pair of cuffs. They had a figure-eight style setup, so they would fasten to his wrists and then to the chair.

“They’re beautiful.” He just kept staring at the cuffs, waiting for Frost to close them.

“I don’t know how to do this anymore,” he admitted.

He was so caught up in a mixture of excitement and reluctance and worry and anticipation, that everything was wrong, he was in the chair, and they weren’t at home.

“We didn’t live here the last time we did this. ”

Frost simply said, “No, baby boy, we didn’t.”

Then Frost picked up the blindfold and showed it to him. It was supple black leather, and the inside was soft, covered in a cloudlike lining. He knew because he’d worn it again and again while Frost sent him to heaven.

“I don’t know if I can wear that.”

“Sir.” Frost winked at him and popped the end of his nose with the gentlest finger. “You don’t know if you can wear that, Sir.”

Asshole. “I don’t know if I can do the blindfold, Sir.”

“You have your words, baby boy. You know how to do this. It’s just been a while.”

A while? “Forever. We were different people. I was a different person.”

Frost nodded to him, calm as a still pond. “Everybody’s different. Everybody.”

Yeah, but his different was intense. His difference was visible.

Frost was doing that thing again where he was just watching. Waiting for him.

Quentin’s anxiety was steadily ramping up. He tried to push it away, because he didn’t want his worry to steal this. He wanted this to be real.

Frost put the blindfold to the side. “You’re okay, baby boy.”

“I don’t feel okay.”

Frost didn’t answer that. He just opened the cuffs and held them open for Quentin to put his wrists in. Simple as that.

His heart was beating so fast that he could barely breathe, and his soul hurt a little bit.

He watched himself put his wrists in the cuffs.

He saw his fingers curl at the little touch of cold on his skin.

It was as if he was somewhere else, because he was outside of his body, watching this whole thing happen.

“I haven’t had cuffs on since that day.” He hated himself for saying the words, because he knew this would stop everything.

He knew Frost would tug away from him, would back away and not give him what he needed because he had to bring up that awful day because he was a fuckup, and he wanted to fuck it up. He wanted to make this wrong and weird and prove to himself that his worst fears were right.

He waited for the fallout, for the look of disgust and worry and stress and guilt to cross Frost’s face, but basically Frost looked up at him with those hazel eyes and nodded. “I know, but those were zip ties, and this is done in love.”

Then Frost clicked the cuffs shut.

It took everything in Frost not to pull away. Not to drop the cuffs and just say, I can’t do this .

He understood what this was. It was easier for Q to believe in something bad than it was to risk getting hurt again. This was a test, just as sure as tugging on cuffs and cursing to get a spanking was one.

Q needed him to be what he promised he was. So, he closed the cuffs.

Quentin sat there with him, and they stared at each other for a moment. Quiet. Still.

Frost remembered what Scott, whose sub was in the wheelchair, had said to him on the phone.

It’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be just like it was before. You’re not looking for the same scene you’ve had a hundred times. You’re looking for today’s scene. Allow yourself to be in the moment. If you need to mourn the past, do it before you start the scene.

Then he had said something that resonated deep in Frost’s soul.

We’re all just meeting each other where we are. All of us. We’re meeting each other where we are.

“How do they feel?”

“Heavy.”

They looked perfect on Q. Solid.

This was going to be a simple scene—a little bondage, maybe the blindfold, although he wasn’t sure. It seemed like a lot to him, to be honest, but it also felt a little bit like a cop-out. If Q couldn’t see him, then he didn’t have to be strong. He didn’t have to be sure.

That was part of all this, wasn’t it? Part of this whole thing was him doing his job and being the Dom that he needed to be.

Because Q needed him to do it, and he required this in his life. It was why he’d played into that stupid hand of poker to begin with. So he could invest in a safe place for them to do this.

And the irony made him want to scream.

But he kept it in, reminding himself that he was, if not in control of the situation, in control of himself. He had to be, or he couldn’t be a Dom. No beer to work himself up to this. No excuses. A sub, his sub, was putting his trust in Frost, and he had to deserve that.

It made him a better damn man.

“Flex your hands. Show me how much you can move.”

“Yes, Sir.” Q moved his fingers, then tried to move his wrists side to side, but there wasn’t a lot of that kind of give. His blood flow would be fine. His motion? Not so much.

Panic flared for a moment. He could almost feel Q’s fear. Taste it. But then Quentin looked up at him, and one by one, his tense muscles relaxed. He shifted in his chair under Frost’s stare, his eyes going heavy-lidded.

“Good boy.” Frost picked up the blindfold again and began to stroke the plush padding on the inside.

He stood with a strong stance, legs planted wide, knowing Quentin would be able to see that his cock was rising hard and high in his black jeans.

“I debated long and hard about the blindfold. Do you want to know what I decided?”

Quentin licked his lips. “Yes, Sir.”

“I thought you might wonder if I was hiding from you instead of the other way around. And, while I can’t say anything will be perfect, because no scene is anyway, I don’t want to hide. I want us to see honest reactions from each other.”

He waited to see if Q would say anything, or if he would wait to be prompted. He reacted beautifully, lowering his gaze, his cheeks stained pink.

“What do you think, boy?”

“I would like to try without the blindfold.” Q lifted his head again. “For the same reason. It’s tempting to hide, but if this is going to work, or fail miserably, it’s better to do it now.”

“Good. That’s good.” He walked around Quentin in a circle, making sure the brakes were set on the chair, helping Q adjust his posture a tiny bit in half a dozen ways.

“What do you feel now that you’re bound to the chair?”

“I—It’s different than when I usually sit in it.”

He moved around to face Q, dragging his fingers over the back of that hot neck as he came about. “Why?”

“Because this is for you.” Quentin’s voice was hoarse, but his words were perfect. They were exactly what Frost wanted to hear, but he didn’t think they were just put on for his benefit. He thought Q meant them.

“They are for me. You’re bound because I want you to be. I’m not going to do your feet this time, because I need to know more about your comfort level with your legs.” He knew certain nerves were damaged, and that nerve damage could cause pain. So he would take that slow.

“O-okay.”

“And like I said, I think no blindfold this time. But I do want to try something else. Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes, Sir.” Quentin was watching him more avidly now, his interest clear.

So, Frost went back to his bag, pulling out a padded collar. Not the kind of sleek, going-out collar Q might wear all day for him. No, this was leather, with soft padding like the blindfold, and with a D ring at the front to clip things to.

Q watched him, lips parted, his body going back on alert.

“Are you worried?”

“No, Sir. Not the way you mean. I know it won’t hurt.”

“So, are you worried it will mean too much?”

“Maybe.” But the words weren’t coming out again, not even yellow.

“So tell me about it.” This scene was about feeling their way, not about nipple clamps or spreader bars or spankings. This was about finding tools they could use. About starting almost fresh. At least with Dom and sub.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Start with the truth, baby boy.”

Quentin inhaled deeply. “Collars are big. They mean something to me. They mean things like forever and—I’ve missed you. I don’t want you to put one on me unless you mean it. I don’t want to wear it unless you mean it. And I’m scared that you’ll change your mind.”

Damn, that hurt. Like deep down, it panged in the pit of his gut, but he couldn’t argue with it.

Because he had given Q reason to worry. He’d never ever felt more helpless than when he’d heard that Q had been shot in the head. Not when he’d discovered Q had been taken. Not when they’d gotten the ransom note. Never. He’d never felt so helpless and so ashamed and so angry.

This wasn’t the place for that though, because the simple fact was, he did mean it. On the very deepest, cellular level, he meant it. “You’re mine, boy.”

He realized suddenly, one of the weird things he was going to have to figure out was that it was really a challenge to do eye level with Q in the chair.

He either had to sit or squat in an incredibly awkward and thigh-murdering position or lean over and lean on the chair arms and basically loom over Q. That was good to know.

He went for crouching.