14. Christian

Less than fiveminutes and all was right in the world. Kale's arms were around me, his cum was in my stomach, and I could have died happy. Even if Niko had chosen that exact moment to burst through the doors and re-kidnap me, I could have endured it. Kale's fingers in my hair quieted any residual noise that tried to take up space in my mind, and I adjusted myself on his lap, but it was too late. The initial post-orgasm haze had worn off and the clothes were uncomfortable, the sweat was cold and sticky. I groaned, rolling off of him and flopping onto the floor like a dead fish.

"I hope you're here to return my royal order." A hint of a smile flashed across my mouth, and Kale rolled his eyes, resting his head against the windowsill.

"If you're a very good boy while I'm here, I imagine you can earn it back."

"Are you on about the whole listening and doing what I'm told bit again?" I turned onto my stomach, pushed onto all fours, then rocked back into a seated position.

"I'm never not on that," he said, crooking a finger and beckoning me closer.

I'd already crawled for him, and I crawled again, going soft when he took my face into his hands and slanted our mouths together. The kiss tasted like hello, and I had to flatten my palms against his chest to hold myself up. I would have been content to spend the rest of his stay just like that, on my knees with his tongue in my mouth, but I also knew that would have been a waste when he had other body parts I had already become so fond of.

Kale ended the kiss, and I leaned back to study his face. He was handsome as I remembered, slim and angular in the face with a barely contained mop of dark hair on top of his head. He styled it well, but I liked how it looked after he was well-fucked the best. I threaded my fingers through the silky, chestnut strands, and felt myself slipping again. Forcing myself to untangle from him, I stood up and propped my hands on my waist. He gazed up at me, eyes still heavy with desire.

"I still don't understand what are you doing here." I said.

"Hopefully more of that," he answered.

"Obviously, but I think you know what I meant."

I wanted to know why he wasn't in America. Why he was half-dressed on my best friend's living room floor. I wanted to know why he had come back for me…

"Your emails were getting a little bratty and I figured you needed to get put back into line."

"You did not fly here just to spank me again."

"Didn't I?"

"It cannot be the only reason," I conceded, cheeks inexplicably burning with embarrassment.

"Why not?" Kale shifted and climbed onto his feet, facing me head on.

"That's ridiculous," I whispered.

"What's so ridiculous about it?"

"I'm sure there are a thousand men in New York for you to spank and fuck."

"But none of them are you," he said.

Spit lodged in my throat, making it impossible to swallow, and the cold sweat that had started to dry across my collarbone suddenly felt slick and wet all over again. I rubbed my clammy palms down the sides of my thighs and took a step away from him.

"No," I said weakly, "I imagine they're not."

"Is it so hard to believe that I wanted you?" Kale reached behind him and rucked up his undershirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it on the floor next to his dress shirt. He yanked off his belt next, then his pants and socks. I stood rigid and unsure in front of him, for once in my life feeling too far out of my element.

I cleared my throat and gestured vaguely toward the hallway across the room.

"Did you want to take a shower?"

"I want you to answer me," he said.

"Yes." I shrugged. "It's impossible to believe. Did you want to take a shower now?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Alright."

"You had your friend steal a phone for you," Kale said, holding up a finger, then another, counting off his points as he talked. "You created a fake email to talk to me so you wouldn't get caught, and before you argue that one, I know for a fact that Princess Christian is not a state email."

"Could be."

"His Royal Highness, Prince Christian Davenport-Spencer." Kale pressed his hand against the center of his chest and then bowed.

"Don't you fucking dare." I surged toward him, fisting his hair and yanking him upright again. His eyes flashed with a resistance which quickly turned to stubborn arrogance. It was the look he'd had on his face the first night I met him when he decided to take me to a hotel instead of leaving me to hide from Niko on my own.

"Why not?" He pulled against my hand, but I didn't let go. "Don't you deserve respect too?"

"Not like that," I rasped.

He chuckled, giving his head another tug, and I released his hair. "You find your respect at my feet, don't you?"

I managed a nod.

"You don't understand that," he said, not asking.

I shook my head.

"The first night I had you, I didn't think it was worth explaining," he said, smoothing back the strands I'd ruffled. "I figured you could put the pieces together on your own. It was just a one-time thing for us."

"And yet."

"Have you thought about it at all? Since then?" Kale's dick was hard again, tenting his briefs and smearing a dark wet spot across the front.

"Not the details of it," I said.

"Just the acts."

"Yes."

"Do you want to think about the rest of it? Do you want to understand it?"

I took a step back from him as if another foot between us would somehow make it easier to breathe.

"It was one night then and it's two nights now. What difference does it make?" I asked.

"A world of it."

"Did you want to shower?" I asked again.

I had no idea why a shower felt so imperative, but the idea had taken root in my head and I couldn't get away from it. I needed to get Kale out of his underwear and into the shower, and I needed to get soap on my hands and his skin. I needed to wash him, and…

I let out a harsh breath, puffing out my cheeks. Recognition flashed across his face, and his expression softened, just enough for me to notice it.

"We can shower," he agreed.

"Thank you."

I spun on my heel and went into Parrish's bathroom. I could feel Kale behind me, a looming presence despite his slender form, and I imagined that spoke volumes about why it felt so good in my chest when I got on my knees for him or when I bent over his lap and let him spank me. He demanded it without even using words.

Kale had been here awhile, I realized, seeing his toiletry bag on the edge of the sink. His toothbrush was still wet, and I leaned over and used two of my fingers to spread the zipper apart to peer inside. I found all the usual suspects—toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, moisturizer and eye cream, a decent size bottle of lubricant and a fresh box of condoms. I pulled my hand away from the bag and turned my attention to the shower.

"It's called submission," he said after I turned on the water.

I cracked my neck, not daring to look at him. "I know what it's called."

"Alright," he said.

I tested the water to make sure it was warm enough to turn our skin pink, but not hot enough to peel it off. Stepping back, I gestured weakly toward the spray, turning my attention to the ceiling when he shoved his briefs down and stepped out of them. Once he was under the water, I put two towels on Parrish's towel warmer, turned it on, then followed Kale into the shower.

He'd already put his soap on the sill, a white bottle that looked far too modern even for Parrish's tastes. I leaned around him and picked it up, flipping the cap open to take a sniff. The soap was surprisingly spicy and clean at the same time, like ginger and linen. I squirted some onto a cloth and lathered it up, not asking permission before I started to drag the lather across his shoulder blades.

"Tell me more," I said, half hoping the sound of the shower would wash the words right down the drain.

"In simplest terms, it's about making a choice."

"A choice to kneel?" I asked, working down his spine and over his ribs with the soapy washcloth.

"A choice to let someone else make the choices," he said.

Why was it so impossible to breathe around him? Why were the words always tangling in my throat and turning into things I didn't understand? That wasn't me; it wasn't who I was. If anything, it put me at a disadvantage to not be the smartest person in the room, something I loathed beyond comprehension. But with Kale, it didn't feel like a weakness. It wasn't that he was smarter than me, not even that he had more practical knowledge, just that…he was my elder in some way. In a very sexy and non-threatening way, thank God.

"Just like that?"

"You did it in New York."

I reached the round globes of his ass, using my finger to clean between them. I traced the tip of my first finger around his pucker, then moved to his balls and the insides of his thighs. It was hard to reach him standing, so again I went to my knees.

"What was the choice, then?" I asked. "I asked you for help, I hardly knew what I was getting myself into if that was it."

"You're overthinking it," he said, turning and bringing his erection flush with my face.

I blinked slowly, focusing on washing his thighs and his knees instead of the way his cock bobbed in front of my mouth, the way I could smell his cum and the musky sweat of our earlier exertion over the crisp scent of his soap.

"One choice to submit, then a series of choices to keep going."

"That sounds contradictory to your first point, Mr. Sheffield." I was at his feet, and I used my trembling fingers to wash his toes before working my way back to my feet so I could tend his chest and shoulders from the front.

"It's a living thing," he went on, raising his arms so I could get into his pits. The sight of the wet and curly hair beneath his arms made my own cock spring back to life, but I ignored the dizziness from when the blood left my brain and flooded my cock. "After the first one, it's more the illusion of control."

"How do you figure?"

"When we were at the hotel and I had you over my lap, for example."

We were very nearly eye level, and I couldn't look at him, even as I felt his stare roaming over my face. He put his arms back down at his sides, and I busied myself with the sharp slope of his collarbone.

"Go on," I coaxed.

He was clean, standing in front of me covered in soap and he made no move to rinse. I reached around him and pulled the detachable head off the wall, doing it for him. He huffed a low noise in the back of his throat and smiled, tracing his finger across my cheek as I tended him.

"If your choice would have been to stop, we would have."

"That's called consent," I reminded him.

"You're a quick study."

I put the shower head back onto the wall, waiting for him to finish his explanation.

"At home, I don't imagine you get to say no often," he said.

"I say it all the time."

"But no one listens."

I licked my lips.

"I would have listened. With me, that night, you were the one in control," he said.

"I was ass up over your lap with handprint-shaped bruises on my ass," I said. "I'd hardly consider that control."

"But that was what you wanted."

His hand was on my face again, his thumb this time stroking across my cheek while his fingers stretched past my ear and threaded into my hair.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Submission is getting what you want by asking for what you need," he said.

"What about punishments?" My voice cracked. "You talked about punishing me."

"You act out because you need to be punished." Kale tilted my head back and looked so deep into my eyes, I knew whatever he said next would be the truest observation anyone had ever made about me. "Because you're spinning out of control and you need that anchor again. You need to know that I'm a man of my word and I'll reel you back in, no matter how far away you drift."