7. Kale

Seeing stars,I lifted Christian off of me. I was running on pure instinct and muscle memory because that orgasm had drained every ounce of sense and life right out of me. Christian's cock had throbbed so hot and heavy in my hand, the muscles of his channel gripping me tighter than I would have thought biologically possible, and the sounds he made when he came…I was a man possessed, and there was no way I was going to let this man out of my life without making good on my earlier promise.

Our clothes were in the lounge, and it took me almost a minute to find the strength in my legs to carry me there. My thigh muscles quaked with every step, but it was the pure determination borne from watching the glorious shake of Christian's ass as he preceded me out of the bedroom that kept me going. I'd had enough forethought to bring the lube with me, and Christian bent over to strip another condom off the three he'd found earlier in the pocket of my coat. He passed it to me without a word, studying me with a half-dazed look gracing his face.

"Are you with me?" I asked, sitting down on the couch and patting my lap.

His nostrils flared and he swayed on his feet, but nodded before coming toward me.

When he hesitated, I set the condom and lube down on the arm of the couch and asked him, "Do you want this?"

"I do," he whispered, licking his lips. Christian's eyes darted from my cock, which was still surprisingly hard, to the couch and then up to my face and back again. "I've just…"

He trailed off and I wrapped my fingers around my cock, giving it a stroke that sent a spark of fire up my spine. His attention narrowed in on the movement, mouth hanging open with the rest of the sentence dead somewhere in the back of his throat.

"You just?"

"No one has ever…"

"Told you what to do before?"

He scoffed at that, a tremor going through his whole body that somehow served to bring him back into the room with me.

"Spanked me," he said, lips pursed.

"Do you want to be spanked?"

Christian traced his tongue across the front of his teeth and I kept stroking my cock, sending prayers out into the universe that I hadn't somehow grossly misjudged the brat in front of me.

"I want you to spank me," he finally said, and I was careful to register the difference from the answer I'd expected and the one that he'd given.

"Then come here and get over my lap," I said, voice raspier than I'd intended. "Let me get my hands on you."

Christian shuffled to the couch and awkwardly arranged himself over the top of my lap. I was by no stretch of the imagination a large man. All of my friends dwarfed me when it came to muscle, but I was tall and strong enough to move a man into position. So, I did. Christian's breath rushed out of his lungs in a surprised huff, and I made sure his thickening cock was tucked securely between my thighs. I kept mine out, pressed hard against my stomach and his ribcage.

Tracing my fingers down the length of his arms, I stretched him out across the couch so he was mostly on the cushions. I bore as much of his weight as I could manage, stroking the opposite way up his arm and then over his back. When I reached the swell of his ass, I kneaded the soft flesh until he grunted, then worked my way down the backs of his thighs to the ditch of his knees.

Touching Christian was as much torment for me as I imagined it to be for him. He writhed against my lap, restrained and controlled, but still using his body to make sure I understood what he wanted from me. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to come. And, luckily, I wanted to make him come. But I was dedicated to keeping my word and figuring out how to do it without actually fucking him. Crossing my legs at the ankles to bring my thighs closer together, I reached for the lube and drizzled a few drops on my fingers, then I pressed them right into his asshole. Christian startled and jumped, but my muscles held him down by his cock. With a pained whine, he settled back onto my legs, arching into my hand.

"If you tell me to stop, I'll stop," I told him.

He managed a nod, fingers scrabbling against the couch and I hadn't even started in on him yet. His skin burned beneath my touch, his cock like a branding iron between my legs.

"Use your words, princess," I warned.

"I understand," he whispered, turning his head to the side and pressing his cheek against the couch cushion. "Mr. Sheffield."

"You're trouble."

"Punish me, then." Even through the haze from earlier, hints of the brat I'd met on the street still peeked out, and I wondered if it was intentional or reflexive. Something about his hesitance from the start of this whole little scene had me wondering if he'd ever done something like this before. The thought of him just naturally being this way with no one to bring him to heel suddenly felt like a real possibility and one of the greatest losses of the modern world. Christian would be beautiful when he was broken, but one night in a hotel room as strangers was not enough space or time to get him there. No matter how much he didn't even know he needed it.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I spanked him. Quick to draw my hand away from his skin so he could feel the whole sting of the impact, my cock leaked against my stomach when the red outline of my palm and fingers was almost immediately visible. He cursed under his breath, eyes going wide before slamming shut.

"Are you good?" I asked, stroking my fingertips over the imprint of my hand.

"Stop asking," he grunted, lips twisted defiantly. "I thought you said you were going to make me come like this."

"That wouldn't be much of a punishment," I said, taking my hands off of him completely. "And you can't have it both ways."

Christian muttered something, again in a language I couldn't decipher, then he squared himself up, at least as much as a man could while bent over another man's lap. "Punish me."

"Have you been very bad?" I asked.

"I've broken some rules," he murmured, licking his lips. I wondered if it was a nervous habit, but before I could ask, he spoke again, "I've acted out."

I spanked him again. Instead of grunting, he moaned, so I gave him another. His dick jerked between my legs, and I made a note to leave a more than decent tip for the housekeeping crew.

"By running away?"

Spank.

Spank.

Spank.

"I don't like being told I can't do something," he whispered.

"That's bad news for you," I said, spanking him four more times in quick succession, alternating which side of his ass I hit. "Because that's the kind of thing that makes me. Really. Fucking. Hard."

I punctuated the last few words of the sentence with sharper slaps, this time a little lower against the soft spot where his ass met his thighs. Christian cried out and turned himself face first into the couch, shouting as I landed another hard slap against him.

"You're going to need to keep it down, though," I warned. "Don't want the neighbors to call security."

At that suggestion, he tensed, and I knew I'd said the wrong thing. It was too close to the reality we were both currently pretending didn't exist. There were men after him, and I doubted they meant him any harm, but he was running from them nonetheless. Breaking rules and acting out.

"I can't help it," he whined, rolling his head back and forth against the couch. "I don't want you to stop, but I can't keep it inside."

Empathy unfurled in my chest, and I knew exactly what he was feeling. There was a point sometimes, in these games I liked to play, when something inside got knocked loose. It might be as small as a pebble in a giant wall, but it would start a chain reaction that let out larger rocks and then bricks and boulders, and then everything kept behind that wall would tumble out after. It was an overwhelming thing, and sometimes a scary one, but there was no point in fighting it.

Like most things in life, you had to just let it happen.

"Do I need to gag you, Christian?" I asked.

His ass was pink and red, with little dots of white poking up across the places where I'd hit him the most frequently. He wasn't anywhere near bruised yet, but I wanted to get him there.

"I've never…"

The closest thing to me besides the condom and lube was his discarded jacket on the floor, strip of blue ribbon sticking out from the inside pocket. Without thinking, I reached down and snatched it between my fingertips and balled it up in my fist.

"Open your mouth," I said.

He rolled his head to the side, eyes going wide when he saw what I had in my hand. I shoved the ball of material into his mouth and he looked at me a little scared and a little frenzied, but I teased his asshole with a lube-slicked finger and he settled down like a trained pony.

"Say stop," I demanded.

"Sthop." The word was garbled around the gag, but I could still hear him. He could hear himself too, and his lashes softly fluttered closed.

"Are you good?" I asked him again. I'd ask him a thousand times to make sure. I needed to be certain and I needed it to be good for him. More than good. The best he'd ever had, more like.

"I'm good," he managed, but he was already floating somewhere in space. I'd seen the look in his eyes when we fucked in the bedroom and it was almost poetic how easy it was to take him out of himself. He was a fucking sight to behold, and I wanted my fill before having to turn him back over to the obligations he'd been running so hard to escape.

"I'll make you better," I promised, and then I hit him again.

The next shout was muffled around the gag, and I had no intention of letting up until I'd spanked him absolutely mindless. It turned out Christian was just as stubborn as I was, because my hand ached from how many strikes I'd landed against his skin and the cherry red started to purple before I really heard the kind of noises I'd been after.

Against my stomach, my cock dripped a steady stream of precum on my belly, every time Christian's body jostled against mine it created enough friction to edge me closer to what was shaping up to be a technically hands-free orgasm. My thighs quivered from how hard I squeezed them around his cock, his hips pumping frenetically while he fucked the gap between my legs. His cries turned to moans, and then it was like a switch flipped and he turned on. The lower half of his body pumped hard against me, chasing after the orgasm I'd promised, and with every slap of my skin against his, I could feel him getting closer.

Christian's skin was burning hot, the color of a fiery sunset that I hadn't seen since I was a kid back in California. He moaned and gasped, panted. I pressed one of my hands against the back of his head, pushing his face into the cushions to further muffle the sound of him. There was no more controlling it, of that I was certain, and I felt his orgasm before I heard it.

A hot spurt of cum streaked across the inside of my leg and then he let out a desperately broken cry that shattered my heart and made me hard all at the same time. Jet after jet of cum poured out of his cock, against the couch and my legs, and his cry turned hoarse, voice cracking. The steady movement of his body against mine slowed and his wail turned once again into a whimper.

Keeping a steady hold on the back of his head, I closed my eyes long enough to enjoy the way his hair felt like silk against my hand. I threaded my fingers through the strands, and with the aching hand I'd used to spank him, I stroked the exposed head of my cock. I was closer to the edge than I'd thought, and it only took the slightest pressure against the crown of my dick to send cum flying out of me.

Gritting my teeth and bearing down through it, I fisted his hair and yanked his head to the side because, for some reason I couldn't make sense of, it was important for me that he see me come. I needed him to know that it was because of him every bone in my body had shattered and collapsed under the beauty of the surrender he'd given me.

My body shuddered, the release tearing through me long after I'd stopped coming, and with a shaking exhale, I forced myself to let go of how tightly I held his hair. He whimpered again, hand flailing behind him until he made contact with my arm. He smacked me and made an unhappy sound until I once again fisted the soft and silky hairs at the back of his head. That earned me a pleased noise and, with my free hand, I traced my way over the bruises that now colored the backs of his thighs and his ass.

"You needed that, didn't you?" I asked quietly.

He nodded, and I pulled the makeshift gag out of his mouth. It was creased and matted, soaking wet with his spit.

"Words."

"Yes," he croaked, voice as wet with tears as the rest of his face was. "Yes. Thank you."

"It's going to hurt to sit tomorrow," I warned him, pressing my fingertip down into the heart of one particularly dark bruise in the center of his left ass cheek.

"Thank you," he gasped. "So I won't forget."

"What aren't you going to forget?"

If he'd asked me the same question, my answer would have come quickly and simply. It wasn't more than three letters, a single word.

"What it's like to be free," he whispered.

Gently he angled his head back against my hand, and I released the hold I had on him. Smoothing the hair back into place, I helped him into a seated position, and then tucked him against my side. He curled into me like it was something we'd done a thousand times before, not just once.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"I could eat," he murmured against my skin.

"Can I take you into the shower first? Get you cleaned up?"

He leaned back and looked up at me, face damp and splotchy but eyes as clear as they'd been the first time I saw him.

"Will you fuck me again in there?"

"Can you take it?"

"I will," he vowed.

Something about the sincerity and the necessity of his tone brokered no argument from me. I helped him to his feet, waiting until he was steady enough to walk, then I grabbed the condom and lube and joined him upright. My own knees threatened to knock together for how unsteady my legs still were, but Christian had made it clear my duty to him was far from over.

And at the end of the day, that was what it meant to be a Dominant, wasn't it? It was a sense of duty, responsibility…obligation. But one that I willingly took on because it was moments like this that made me feel like I was doing good with my life. When I looked back at how it hurt my parents when I decided to leave California for New York, and how I'd hurt my best friend by being a prick to the man he loved…I couldn't be that bad of a person if I had moments like this.

Right?

I stopped at the small desk against the opposite wall and called in an order for room service, then walked Christian to the bathroom. He leaned shakily against the wall while I fussed with the water, then took my hand with ease when it was ready. Under the spray, I washed his body and his hair. I was gentle with the bruises on his backside, and I made sure to rinse all of the soap out of his ass before I put on the condom and got as much lube on it as I could manage.

I took Christian slowly against the wall, brushing his wet hair out of his face and hooking one of his legs around my waist. He kept his eyes trained on me and I called him a princess. I called him my princess. When he came, one valiant spurt of cum landed on his stomach, the rest dribbling down the length of his cock, making a mess between our freshly clean bodies.

It was going to take me ages to come, and I needed to get food and water in us both, so I kissed him gently, licking into his mouth and apologizing for falling short as I pinched my fingers around the condom and withdrew. He whined, but I swallowed it into my mouth and I rinsed the cum from our stomachs and his cock.

Something about the shower felt safe and sacred, but nothing good could last forever. With a shocking amount of reluctance, I turned off the spray and reached out for a towel. I made sure he was dry before I bothered with myself, then fetched the matching robes and slippers from the closet. Christian was quiet and pliable, but eager to be tended, his hands roaming over the top of my head and the side of my face as I tightened the belt around his middle.

"Are you good?" I asked him, an echo so constant and vital I could feel it in my pulse points as I said the words.

"Better than," he said with a small smile. "Just like you promised."

Pride swelled in my chest, and I kissed him again. My cock was tired, so far from being erect, but I would have used my fingers to tuck myself inside of him if it meant I could have continued on like that. In a very not creepy way, I wanted to unzip his skin and crawl inside of him. I wanted to consume him, in a near obsessive way. I'd known from the start that he was going to be too much for me, and still…

And still…

A knock on the door brought me back to the room, back to the reality that he was a separate being from me that I would have to take care of for only another few hours before we went our separate ways.

"Food," he murmured, a lazy and sated smile on his face. His lips were swollen from our kiss, and I wanted to kiss him again. Again. Again.

"Get into bed and I'll bring it in," I said, but he shook his head and followed me to the door.

"I'll help."

"What if I want to do this for you?"

"Too bad, Mr. Sheffield." Christian kissed the top of my shoulder, letting out a soft exhale of breath. There was the brat. There was my spoiled princess of a man.

"Alright."

I opened the door and didn't find a hotel employee on the other side, but a rather bedraggled-looking man in a suit with his finger pressed against a small black ear piece. Christian cursed and I turned, ready to ask him what was going on, but the question died in my throat. I was a smart man. I knew the answer.

"Your Royal Highness," the man said, looking utterly unimpressed at his own use of the title or my confusion over hearing it.

Turning my head slightly to the side, I caught Christian's profile in my peripheral. His fingers darted out, hooking against mine, even if the hold was obscured by the long sleeves of our robes.

"Your what?" I whispered the question, and Christian's face turned from one of perfect pleasure to apology.

"Not quite a princess," he said with a self-deprecating laugh, "but I am a prince."