Vanilla Licks
A Sun, Sea and Submission Story
By Kim Dare
Resplendence Publishing, LLC
http://www.resplendencepublishing.com
Vanilla Licks
Copyright © 2013 Kim Dare
Edited by Christine Allen-Riley and Jason Huffman
Cover Art by Les Byerley
Published by Resplendence Publishing, LLC
2665 N Atlantic Avenue, #349
Daytona Beach, FL 32118
Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-630-1
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including
infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable
by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Electronic Release: February 2013
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product
of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.
Chapter One
“Can I tempt you?” Darrell Hogarth called out, raising his voice to ensure that his
walking, talking wet dream would hear him.
The serious-looking black man stopped in the middle of the path leading from Pendragon
Bay hotel’s grounds and past the ramshackle ice cream shop where Darrell worked. He turned
slowly and looked in Darrell’s direction.
It was impossible to read the guy’s expression while his sunglasses did such an awesome
job of hiding his eyes. The only thing Darrell saw there was his own face mirrored back at him.
He watched his reflection pin its most flirtatious smile onto its lips, then peek through its lashes
as he dropped his gaze.
At least, only a little of the man’s body was hidden. A pair of skin tight, black shorts left
little to anyone’s imagination. Mile upon mile of smooth dark skin called out to Darrell, making
him desperate to run his hands over the other man’s broad chest and caress his strong, sculptured
thighs. The sun highlighted each line of muscle the guy possessed—and there were certainly
plenty of those.
Darrell wanted to snatch away the glasses, stroke his hands over the guy’s head and feel
the tightly cropped black hair against his palms. He wanted to lick every bit of him. His cock
hardened as more and more possibilities occurred to him.
Darrell eventually turned his attention back to those sunglasses, wondering if his fantasy
man had taken the opportunity to check him out in return. The guy hadn’t bowed his head to
study the ice creams displayed within the counter in front of Darrell—that much was certain.
The guy’s chin had stayed up; his shoulders remained back, still presenting the perfect
image of the perfect dominant for Darrell to admire. He’d seen more than his fair share of fit
guys come and go from Pendragon Bay, but this guy left even the best of those men lounging in
the shade, while he stood in the sun, apparently unaffected by its heat.
Darrell smiled more widely than ever. “Hi?”
Nothing.
“Any flavor you want,” Darrell suggested. “On the house.”
The guy still didn’t look down or twitch any of those perfect muscles. “Vanilla.”
Darrell’s cock jerked behind his apron as the deepest, sexiest voice he’d ever heard
reached into his soul and snapped handcuffs on his deepest, darkest fantasies. He swallowed
rapidly. “Can’t I tempt you into a little bit of something sweeter? Or maybe fresher?
Something…kinkier?”
“Vanilla.” It wasn’t said in a tone that encouraged further debate.
Darrell shrugged slightly. If the guy really was vanilla, it would be the most criminal
waste he’d ever seen in his life. That voice was made for issuing orders, those muscles designed
for holding down a willing volunteer.
Darrell automatically grabbed a cone and selected one of his many ice cream related chat
up lines at random. “Do you like it hard or soft?”
“Hard.”
Darrell saw the man’s lips twitch, just slightly.
Got you!
Darrell rinsed the ice cream scoop in a tub of warm water before reaching into the deep
chest-style freezer and filling it with the best Cornish, double-cream ice cream money could buy.
He crammed two and a half scoops into the cone then held it out.
“Can I find out who I’m buying an ice cream for?”
“Fulton.”
Darrell held out his hand again, this time empty. “I’m Darrell.”
“I’d never have guessed.”
Darrell blinked and dropped his hand to rest on the freezer. He had, on occasions, been
known to suffer an IQ nose-dive when all the blood from his brain was diverted straight to his
cock. But surely, it was a bit too early in proceedings for him to miss entire sections of a
conversation.
Fulton indicated Darrell’s chest with a dip of his ice cream cone.
Darrell looked down and chuckled at his own foolishness. He had a name badge pinned
to his apron. “Fair point.” He stared at those mirrored lenses again. “Can I get you anything else
to go with the cone? Strawberry sauce, chocolate sprinkles, a blow job?”
“Just this,” Fulton said. “For now.”
Darrell grinned. “Oh, so when do you think you’ll want more?”
Fulton tilted his head slightly as he blatantly looked Darrell up and down. “I’ll let you
know.” Lifting the cone to his lips, he ran his tongue across the ice cream, leaving a smooth,
glistening surface in its wake.
In that moment, Darrell would have given a month’s wages to be the cream in Fulton’s
cone.
“It’s a great workout for your tongue,” Darrell said. “Licking an ice cream, I mean.”
Fulton said nothing. He just stood there, apparently oblivious to the sun beating down
upon him, and licked his treat again.
“I eat a lot of it, you know,” Darrell babbled on, never taking his eyes off the way
Fulton’s mouth worked over the ice cream cone. “It’s one of the perks of the job, and I’ve
worked here for two years.” Dark lips, light ice cream, and just to highlight the contrast, the
occasional hint of deep pink as Fulton’s tongue licked its way into view—it was mesmerizing.
“So, I give really great head,” Darrell said, in case Fulton hadn’t put the facts together by
himself.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Fulton turned and marched away before Darrell had a chance
to respond.
Desperate to watch Fulton, Darrell leaned so far across the freezer counter, his feet lifted
off the floor and he risked getting frostbite on his hard-on. Every second, he expected Fulton to
turn and come back, but no. Fulton kept going past Hot Shots, the new mini-club on the end of
the row of shops, and out of sight.
A polite little cough pulled Darrell’s attention back to the section of path directly in front
of the shop counter. Judging by his grin, the man standing there patiently waiting to order his ice
cream had heard most of what passed between Darrell and Fulton.
Darrell wasn’t the type to blush. He put on, if not his best smile, then at least one that
generally made his customers inclined to offer him a generous tip when paying for a cone.
He’d served ice cream for over ten percent of his life. Muscle memory kept him going
through the proper motions. Flirty comments fell from his lips automatically. His apron did a
fantastic job of hiding his erection. Routine hid his thoughts.
But, like a duck paddling like hell beneath the calm surface of the pond, Darrell’s mind
whirled with possibilities that were hot enough to melt every drop of ice in the place. Even the
new club with its fire dancers and bartenders who liked to put matches to shots couldn’t have
competed with his imagination when he had raw material like Fulton to work with. I’ll be the
judge of that.
Pity Fulton hadn’t been a bit more specific about when he intended to invite Darrell to the
auditions for that particular talent show.
His cock ached as he imagined kneeling in front of Fulton, gazing past rippling abs and
looking into eyes he’d never actually seen. The day dragged on. Darrell arranged Fulton and
himself in every blow-job position he could think of.
He breathed a sigh of relief as the hands on the clock finally hit the right numbers and
gave him permission to close up for the night. With his boss away, Darrell was solely in charge
of closing up. His hands shook as he brought in the A-frame sign that stood next to the path,
advertising the various flavors of ice cream on offer.
Soon, he promised himself as he rushed back out and grabbed one of the old plastic
chairs arranged in groups outside the shop. He’d be able to take important, orgasm-related,
matters in hand soon.
It only took him a few minutes to stack the rest of the picnic chairs and tables inside the
shop.
There were advantages to camping out in the little flat above the ice cream shop while his
boss was away. That night, the possibility of racing upstairs and jacking himself off less than ten
minutes after he finished for the day was right at the top of his list.
I’ll be the judge of that.
Darrell didn’t need Fulton’s presence. The memory of their encounter that morning
would be more than enough to make him yell as he came.
He grinned as he made his way toward the counter and—
And, there he was. Fulton was standing in the doorway, outlined by the evening sunlight.
His shorts were gone, replaced by a pair of asset-hugging, black leather trousers.
Darrell’s mouth watered at the sight. When he saw the tall lace-up leather boots that
completed Fulton’s outfit, he damn near whimpered.
Fulton came closer, until he was barely two feet away. Darrell had stopped in his tracks
long before he reached the counter. For the first time, nothing stood between them.
Darrell felt himself lean forward. His weight moved onto the balls of his feet and—
“Get on with it.”
Darrell jerked out of his lust induced stupor and swayed back. “What?”
“You were closing the shop. Get on with it.”
“I was?” Darrell pushed his hand through his hair and fought to make his mind work in
spite of the sudden rush of desire. Closing the shop? Of course—privacy! That was a great idea.
“No problem.”
Darrell stepped around Fulton, pulled down the serving hatch, locked the door and turned
over the closed sign, all in quick succession.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fulton sit at one of the tables that had just been
brought in from outside. Tossing his keys on the counter, Darrell rushed across to him.
“Do you want to come upstairs? I’m staying—”
“Have you completed all your usual duties?” Fulton demanded.
Darrell hesitated. “Well, I usually tidy up a bit, but nothing that—”
“Do it.”
The freezers housing the ice cream constantly pumped out warm air. The place always
became uncomfortably hot once the doors and serving hatches were closed. Regardless of all
that, a shiver ran down Darrell’s spine.
The order was made to be obeyed. Darrell met Fulton’s eyes for a moment, wondering if
this was a game he wanted to play. Thoughts quickly became irrelevant. His cock made the
decision before his brain had a chance to weigh the pros and cons of it all.
“Do you want an ice cream while you wait?” Darrell asked, already heading for the
counter.
Fulton dipped his head just once, in acceptance.
“Great. What can I get you?” Darrell asked, already standing next to the freezer.
“I don’t repeat myself. Once I state my preferences, I expect a sub to remember them.”
Darrell took a deep breath, surprised at just how much part of him loved that statement.
“Vanilla it is,” he murmured, as he grabbed a fresh cone.
Vanilla.
Yes, that was probably a subject he needed to broach sooner rather than later…
As he handed Fulton his ice cream a few moments later, Darrell made sure he caught his
eye.
“I don’t have that much experience with…” he trailed off, not sure what to call the kind
of stuff he was sure Fulton was obviously into. The last thing he wanted to do was offend the
guy. “I mean, I’m game to try pretty much anything, but—”
“Finish your work.”
Darrell waited for Fulton to add something. Maybe something along the lines of we’ll
discuss this when you’re finished.
Nothing.
Lacking any noticeable alternatives, Darrell turned his back on Fulton and set about
wiping down the surfaces and doing all the other little jobs that were required of him at the end
of the day.
It was bloody difficult to remember his usual routine when he was aware of Fulton
studying his every movement. Everything Darrell touched had a life of its own—it all wanted to
slide out of his hands and crash to the floor.
Finally finished with the worktops, Darrell came to a complete halt. Was there something
else he usually did? He had no idea. And anyway, he’d had enough of this particular kink. If
Fulton was that into watching another man work his arse off, he could find another guy to stare
at.
Darrell wanted more.
He walked purposefully across the cramped, overheated room and positioned himself
directly in front of Fulton. The ice cream cone was long gone. Fulton leaned back in his chair,
resting one forearm on the table alongside him. He looked so perfectly relaxed and at ease. Even
cheap picnic furniture looked like a king’s throne beneath him.
It wasn’t fair. Darrell shrugged his shoulders, all too aware that the back of his shirt stuck
to his skin with perspiration. He pushed his hand through his hair and wished like hell that he
hadn’t cut off all ventilation into the room before he set to work.
Slowly, all his thoughts drained away. The temperature wasn’t important. Ice cream
prices were irrelevant. Fulton was the beginning and end of everything now.
Without any way of predicting what Fulton might do or want done next, Darrell’s only
option was to live in each moment that passed and wait for Fulton to make his wishes clear.
“Kneel.”
Darrell glanced at the blue and white checkerboard tiles beneath his trainers. His knees
would hurt like hell if he stayed down there more than a minute or two. For better or worse, his
libido had little consideration for his knees. Unable to overrule the part of him that loved the way
his evening seemed be heading, he put himself on his knees in front of Fulton.
For the first time, Fulton removed his sunglasses. “You’re aware you are a submissive?”
Darrell stared into Fulton’s eyes. It was easy to believe he was a mutant who had to wear
those shades to protect men from the power of his stare. His gaze was mesmerizing. Worse still,
his expression demanded the truth. Damn.
“I’m definitely sub-curious,” Darrell offered, hoping that would be enough to keep the
other man interested at least long enough for them to enjoy their evening.
“So you don’t understand much about kink.” Fulton seemed to ponder that fact for a
moment or two before turning his attention back to Darrell. “Do you understand sex?”
“Hell, yeah!” Darrell grinned.
Fulton’s expression didn’t change a jot. “Show me what licking all those ice creams has
done for your tongue.”
Darrell had his hands halfway to Fulton’s fly before the end of the order hit the air. He
paused for a moment and stroked the zipped up leather, glorying in the feel of the hard shaft
beneath it. Then, locating the tab he carefully drew down Fulton’s fly.
The zipper was longer than it would have been on a conventional pair of trousers. By the
time Darrell let go of the tab, the opening he’d created extended all the way down to the seam
joining the front of the trouser legs to the seat at the back.
No boxers or briefs impeded Darrell. He immediately gazed upon bare skin—and it was
entirely bare. Not a single strand of hair lay between Darrell and the surface of Fulton’s skin.
Everything around the base of his shaft and over his balls was shaved away, but that fact was
merely interesting. It was Fulton’s cock that truly fascinated Darrell.
He wrapped his fingers around the long, stiff shaft. His fingers appeared pale against
Fulton’s darker skin. Compared to how it had looked when he’d touched other men the same
way, his hand seemed strangely small.
Fulton was seriously well hung.
Darrell pumped the long, thick shaft as he brought his other hand up to cup Fulton’s low
hanging balls. Fulton didn’t complain—he didn’t need to, because Darrell suddenly realized that
he wasn’t just staring at Fulton’s crotch like a guy who’d never seen a cock before, he was also
doing a bloody awful job of showing off his oral skills. Fulton wanted head not a hand job!
Leaning forward, Darrell quickly wrapped his lips around the tip of Fulton’s erection.
The taste of him immediately filled Darrell’s senses. In the hot confines of the little ice cream
shop, his thoughts spun with sudden sensory overload—like a coin tossed in the air, he had no
idea how it would land.
Moaning his approval, Darrell closed his eyes and lowered his head, taking a little more
of the shaft between his lips with each second that passed. He couldn’t take Fulton’s whole
erection—he wasn’t sure any man could have, but he made it down far enough to touch his lips
to the edge of his fist before he had to retreat. Sliding his mouth over the shaft a few times, he let
himself enjoy the way Fulton’s cock stretched his lips and filled his world. Then, he forced
himself to pull back and let the tip leave his mouth completely.
If Fulton wanted to be licked like an ice cream, he’d come to the right place.
Darrell ran his tongue the full length of Fulton’s shaft, from base to tip, tracing the vein
on the underside of his penis as if it was the most fascinating route on any map.
Altering the shape of his tongue and occasionally humming his enjoyment to add a bit of
vibration into the mix, Darrell didn’t just lick Fulton’s cock, he worshipped it. Every beautiful
inch of shaft received the focused and committed attention of his tongue over and over again.
Fulton’s balls weren’t to be left out either. Darrell pressed kiss after kiss and lick after
lick against the smooth, hairless sac, before finally taking each testicle into his mouth in turn.
Keeping his teeth covered, he mouthed the sensitive flesh and rolled it against his tongue.
There was no rush—not on his side at least. He hadn’t been lying about how licking ice
creams was a wonderful workout for the tongue. He had enough oral stamina to stay there all
night. His lips grew sensitive and tingled, but that only egged Darrell on.
Fulton’s hands had remained exactly where they’d been when Darrell first unzipped him,
but now Fulton moved one hand toward him. Sliding his fingers through Darrell’s hair, he didn’t
stop until his palm rested on the back of Darrell’s neck.
Darrell looked up, momentarily unable to hide his surprise.
Fulton hadn’t given any sign of being anywhere near coming, or hinted that he was
frustrated with the slow approach Darrell was taking.
Hell, Fulton hadn’t even rocked his hips. If it weren’t for the fact he was unflinchingly
hard and leaking pre-cum across Darrell’s tongue, he wouldn’t even have been sure that Fulton
was enjoying himself.
As their eyes met, all other available evidence became irrelevant. Fulton no longer
wished to play. He wanted to come, and that was his right.
Darrell dropped his gaze and took his tactics through a complete one-eighty. He guided
the head of Fulton’s cock into his mouth and quickly began to slide his lips as far down the shaft
as he could. Setting a rapid rhythm, he did exactly what he thought would bring Fulton to orgasm
as quickly as possible.
He felt no annoyance at his tongue’s fun being cut short, no inclination to do anything but
precisely what Fulton wanted from him. Darrell was once more in the moment, and loving being
under the control of an intrinsically dominant man.
Sucking firmly on the upstroke, moaning his pleasure as he dipped his head, Darrell
steadied Fulton’s cock with one hand and cradled his balls with the other, offering him as many
sensations as he could.
Fulton’s sac was drawn up tight against his body now. He was close.
His hand moved with Darrell, resting on the back of his head, but offering no orders, or
even suggestions, about what he might like to do.
The decisions were all Darrell’s to make, yet he’d never felt more thoroughly under
another man’s influence. His brain raced, searching for ways in which he could please Fulton. He
whimpered around his lover’s shaft, begging him to come and show him he’d succeeded in his
efforts.
Without warning, Fulton granted that request. He came suddenly, catching Darrell
entirely off guard. He spluttered as he did his damnedest to catch up with events and take
everything Fulton had to give with grace and gratitude.
Fulton’s hips pumped fast and hard. Darrell held on to Fulton’s thighs and rode out his
movements as best he could. It didn’t even occur to him to pull back and finish Fulton off with
his hand.
Fulton wasn’t just any casual hookup.
Darrell was far too busy swallowing and trying to coordinate his movements with
Fulton’s rhythm to pause and wonder why this man seemed more important than the other
visitors to Pendragon Bay he’d entertained over the last two years.
Darrell simply took it as a given that Fulton deserved the best, that he warranted special
treatment. Not doing his best for Fulton was out of the question.
As suddenly as Fulton’s orgasm had taken possession of him, it ended. His hips stilled.
He closed his eyes for a moment, but little expression showed on his face. He was so bloody
controlled. Right there and then, Darrell became enthralled by the idea of being so wonderful at
whatever it was that Fulton asked him to do, that he could break through the icy exterior, and get
a real reaction from him.
The whole time these thoughts raced through Darrell’s head, his lips remained wrapped
around Fulton’s cock. He stayed there until a nudge against his cheek prompted him to lean back
and let the softening shaft slip out of his mouth.
Darrell automatically licked lips, making sure no drop had escaped—but that didn’t
prevent him from staring at Fulton in blatant fascination.
When his new lover failed to speak up within the first ten seconds, Darrell was incapable
of allowing the silence to continue. The prospect of Fulton leaving the shop was bad enough. The
idea that he might leave the bay without meeting with him again was almost horrifying enough to
kill Darrell’s aching erection—almost. He was reasonably sure a full scale hurricane wouldn’t
have blown away the tent in his jeans.
“How long are you staying at the hotel for?” he blurted out.
Fulton’s expression didn’t change. Maybe it was just the way a few of his muscles
tightened, but Darrell got the sense that the question had surprised the hell out of the dom.
“Are you here alone?” Darrell tried, hoping that might get a better reception.
“Yes.”
Darrell grinned; that was all he needed to know. “Want to come upstairs with me—I’m
staying here while…”
Fulton didn’t answer. He stood and did up his fly. Darrell remained on his knees, not sure
if that meant Fulton didn’t want to walk upstairs with his cock hanging out, or if it meant he
disliked the question enough to march out of the ice cream shop, never to be seen again.
Fulton turned toward the door at the front of the shop.
Darrell closed his eyes. Did he really do that bad a job? Maybe he should have—?
“Darrell.”
He looked up. Fulton was standing by the shop entrance, one hand resting on the handle.
“Two weeks.”
Darrell blinked. “Pardon?”
“I arrived two days ago; I’m staying at the hotel for another twelve days.”
The door swung shut in Fulton’s wake, the keys Darrell had used to lock up still jangling
in their place. Darrell stared at them for several seconds, a slight smile playing around his lips.
There could be no doubt about it now. Fulton wasn’t a man who would be easily
impressed, or someone who’d find it difficult to have a different guy every hour on the hour.
Still kneeling on the shop floor, Darrell didn’t think he was being immodest when he
declared that he’d obviously just given Fulton the best blow job in the history of the universe.
Chapter Two
Two days later, Fulton Hollingsworth made his way briskly along the smooth, flagstone
pathway that ran parallel to the beach, all the way from one end of the bay to the other.
The view across soft sand and lapping waves was probably breathtaking. Fulton was far
more interested in admiring a rather different view. He didn’t even glance toward the sea, or
toward any of the shops that lined that particular stretch of path.
The dilapidated buildings offered the men who stayed in Pendragon Bay Hotel a whole
host of treats and treasures, from some sort of fire breathing stripper, which sounded like a
seriously masochistic endeavor to Fulton, to the more usual but far safer indulgences of palm
readings and henna art. But, only one of them held anything of interest to him.
Fulton stopped outside the ice cream shop and glanced at the sign hanging above its door.
Vanilla Licks.
It was time to see if Darrell could cope with something of a more interesting flavor.
“You’ve got a whip hanging from your belt.”
“A flogger,” Fulton automatically corrected, dropping his attention to the view through
the shop doorway.
Golden blond hair—worn too long to be considered neat. Tanned skin. Blue eyes. Young
and pretty. He was just as tempting as the first time Fulton saw him. There was one difference
though. The sleeveless shirt Fulton had glimpsed before was gone. Every part of Darrell’s body
visible past his apron was nude. It was tempting to imagine that the boy really didn’t wear a
stitch of clothing behind the short white apron, that if he turned around, he’d display a bare arse
that was ready to be spanked, flogged and screwed—quite possibly in that order.
“Are you coming inside?” Darrell asked. He turned to make his way deeper into the
shadowy interior of the shop. He wore cut-off jeans—they wouldn’t take long to remove.
Fulton stepped forward, but he stopped just short of entering the shop. “I’ll be in play
room twelve at ten o’clock tonight.”
Darrell froze. Several seconds passed before he turned, but he lifted his gaze and met
Fulton’s eyes as soon as he faced him. “Alone?” he asked.
“If you don’t show up, I will be,” Fulton said, making sure he sounded completely okay
with that possibility; despite the way it made him want to grind his teeth. “I doubt it would take
me long to find someone who is willing to share the room with me, if I need to.” Half the men
who’d attended the classes he’d come to Pendragon Bay to teach had either implied or downright
told him that they’d be more than happy to turn up for some private instruction any time he
wanted.
Of course, as Fulton was all too uncomfortably aware, acknowledging that fact brought
forward a question he wasn’t yet ready to answer: why, when there were so many willing
submissives around, would he choose to invest all his time and attention in an ice-cream boy
who didn’t even know the difference between two pretty basic bits of kinky equipment.
“Will you have your flogger with you?” Darrell asked.
“Yes.” Fulton turned on his heel and walked back toward the hotel, without giving
Darrell any time to ask more questions.
Your “flogger” with you.
Fulton nodded to himself as he strode back to the hotel. He’d only had to correct
Darrell’s terminology once, and he’d remembered it. That was definitely a tick in a good box for
Darrell. Perhaps there was something in him that made him worth the investment.
Everyone loved a quick learner, didn’t they?
Everyone was also rumored to love a guy who turned up on time.
At precisely ten o’clock that evening, a knock fell on playroom twelve’s door. Fulton
nodded his approval once more. Darrell was on a roll, scoring two for two.
“Enter.”
Fulton refused to turn toward the door. His attention remained on the black canvas hold-
all he’d been staring into for the last fifteen minutes. He’d debated the various possibilities ever
since he’d invited Darrell to join him in one of the hotel’s playrooms.
The door swung open and clicked closed. Whether for the right or the wrong reasons,
Darrell didn’t speak and interrupt Fulton’s contemplations.
A full minute had ticked past while Fulton tested Darrell’s resolve. Not one word.
Another promising sign.
He turned to face Darrell.
The younger man was standing just inside the door. He’d obviously kept his wits about
him for long enough to close the playroom door behind him, but that seemed to have been as far
as he’d gone before completely shutting down. His silence had apparently had more to do with
shock than submission. He stared at the room as if he’d never seen a dungeon before.
“Darrell,” Fulton prompted.
The boy turned toward him. “Hi.” He smiled nervously. “Why do I get the feeling I’m
supposed to call you “sir” in here?”
“Because you have reasonably good instincts,” Fulton said. He leaned back against the
edge of the room’s workbench and folded his arms across his chest, curious to see what this
strange, untrained creature might do when placed in a new world of kinky possibilities.
“Thank you, sir.” Darrell’s smile widened. He kept his attention on Fulton and not on the
toys that surrounded them.
Another tick in a positive box.
“Do you know what a safe word is?” Fulton asked.
“I have put at least a little bit of chocolate sauce on my ice cream cone in the past, sir,”
Darrell said. He glanced around the room again. “Not this much sauce, I’ll admit. I mean, I never
skipped the ice cream entirely and just drank the sauce straight from the bottle.”
Fulton’s lips twitched. He couldn’t help but wonder how much ice cream the boy actually
ate. If nothing else, it might explain why he seemed to be on a permanent sugar high and entirely
unable to control his mouth.
“Leave your clothes on the stool by the door,” Fulton ordered.
Darrell seemed only too happy to get naked. He reached for the edge of his T-shirt. “I
have stripped off in front of a guy before. Just in case you’re keeping track of my vanilla-y-ness
or something, sir…”
Fulton raised an eyebrow. Confidence was a pleasing quality in a sub; too much
cheekiness wasn’t. On which side of that delicate line did the boy stand?
Fulton waited until Darrell placed his watch on top of the pile, rendering every inch of his
skin completely bare, before he gave his next order.
“Move to the middle of the room.”
Darrell obeyed. He stood in the center of the space, but he didn’t remain still for long.
Barely a second passed before he looked over each of his shoulders in turn, studying the various
pieces of play equipment the room had to offer, perhaps trying to work out what Fulton intended
to tie him to. The box that ticked wasn’t so appealing.
“Put your hands on top of your head.”
“Why?”
Fulton just glared at him.
“Why, sir?” Darrell hazarded.
“Because I want to know if you can obey a simple order without asking me twenty
questions about it.”
“Oh…” Darrell offered Fulton a sheepish smile—one that probably got him out of a lot
of trouble with vanilla guys in the past.
Fulton ignored the expression. Pushing himself away from the workbench, he walked
slowly around Darrell.
The boy turned, trying to remain facing Fulton, as if he was afraid to let Fulton behind
him.
“Remain still until I give you permission to move.”
Darrell stilled. “Sorry, sir.”
Finally, Fulton was able to circle him properly. He narrowed his gaze and allowed
himself a few moments to take stock of what he had to work with—and to admire it, of course.
His cock grew even harder as he ran his eyes over the boy.
Darrell evidently liked the sun—a lot. All his skin was still far paler than Fulton’s natural
skin tone, but those parts of him that hadn’t been in the sun so often were paler still.
His natural, milky white skin tone was only visible where his watch had covered his
wrist. Everywhere else had obviously enjoyed the sun at different intervals. His arse was a few
shades paler than his back and his legs, neatly delineating where his cut offs usually began and
ended, but he clearly didn’t wear his shorts all the time. There was a lot of naked sunbathing in
his past.
Fulton walked farther around Darrell. No longer obliged to keep his gaze on Darrell’s
face and study his reactions in the same way he had when Darrell first entered the room, Fulton
kept his attention lower.
Darrell’s erection was standing proudly away from his body—the deeper pink of his
glans peeking past his foreskin. He was trimmed, but hadn’t shaved himself clean. Short blond
hairs covered his balls and formed a neat triangle above his shaft.
“You know, this would all be a lot less intimidating if you mentioned that you liked
something you saw, sir,” Darrell said. “Or even if you said you didn’t like something. The
silence is killing me.”
“No, it’s not.” Fulton gradually lifted his gaze. “I have no interest in killing you.”
Darrell swallowed three times in quick succession, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a
yoyo.
“That doesn’t mean you’ll find everything about the time you spend with me
comfortable. In fact, I can guarantee you won’t. Your comfort won’t be my first concern.”
Darrell didn’t look away. Fulton was impressed by that, if not by Darrell’s tendency to
blurt out whatever thoughts entered his head.
He completed another two laps around Darrell, taking in every detail of the boy’s naked
body, from the way he clenched his buttocks with nervous energy, to the way his nipples
hardened into peaks when another man’s attention fell on them.
Now, Fulton was ready to start the game in earnest. He took his favorite flogger from his
belt and ran the long leather strands through his fingers. He stepped in front of Darrell as he
automatically checked the toy for any damage or loose tails before he set to work with it.
He felt Darrell’s eyes on him but, this time at least; Darrell managed to hold his tongue.
“A flogger and a whip feel very different,” Fulton said, his attention still completely on
the implement in his hand.
“They do, sir?”
“The only way to understand that is by experience,” Fulton went on, as if he hadn’t heard
a word Darrell said.
“That sounds logical, sir…”
Fulton had no doubt that Darrell’s focus was all on the flogger now. The wariness in his
voice went straight to Fulton’s cock. For a man to be on edge, nervous and uncertain about what
would happen next, and yet to still submit; for someone to put himself in Fulton’s hands and trust
him, it was the hottest feeling in the world.
In that moment, it didn’t matter if Darrell was far less experienced than any man Fulton
had played with in the last ten years. The fact the scene was mild by his standards was irrelevant.
Seeing it through Darrell’s eyes changed everything for Fulton. He’d forgotten how heightened
that feeling became when the submissive was a novice.
He looked up. Darrell seemed to sense that. His eyes only lingered on the whip for half a
second, before he lifted his gaze too.
“Pick your safe word.”
“Sarsaparilla.”
Fulton raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve just always liked the sound of the word, sir.”
Fulton made no comment. He circled Darrell again, running the strands of the flogger
through his hand as he went. He’d almost completed another lap when he flicked the tails against
Darrell’s calf.
“What the—?”
Darrell pulled his leg away. His hands left his head.
Fulton came to a complete halt.
Their eyes locked.
“Resume your position.”
Chapter Three
Darrell stood on one leg in the middle of the playroom. He knew he looked like an idiot,
but he couldn’t convince his muscles to cooperate and put his foot down on the floor. His gaze
remained locked with Fulton’s as he tried to make his brain work.
He knew what had happened. Flogger plus leg. It wasn’t complicated. And it hadn’t hurt.
His calf felt mildly warm, but there hadn’t been any weight behind the blow, no pain. So why the
hell was it so hard to put his foot back where it belonged?
He took a deep breath.
It required all his self-control to finally force his leg to do his bidding. His arms weren’t
sure if they wanted to do as they were told either. He slowly replaced his hands on his head, but
his limbs fought him every inch of the way.
The only part of him that was certain it loved every single thing Fulton had done since
Darrell entered the room was his cock. That particular part of his anatomy was also convinced
he’d love everything that happened once Fulton started to wield his whip, his flogger Darrell
carefully corrected, in earnest.
For better or worse, it was Darrell’s cock that seemed to have the casting vote in the
playroom.
“Legs farther apart.”
Darrell inched his feet across the cold wooden floorboards, leaving himself more
vulnerable than ever.
Fulton started to walk around him again.
Darrell tensed every muscle, forcing himself not to look over his shoulder and track
Fulton’s progress. The sheer effort involved made him dizzy.
The sound of leather moving rapidly through the air broke the silence just a second
before Darrell felt the sting of the flogger upon his buttocks. He gasped, but he managed not to
make quite so much of an idiot out of himself this time.
Heat radiated through his arse, sinking deep into his flesh and warming him all the way to
the bone. He couldn’t help but murmur his approval as the effects of the leather reached his cock.
Suddenly, he began to understand why guys liked this so much. It didn’t hurt at all!
Darrell grinned to himself. Rolling his shoulders while still keeping his hands on his
head, he relaxed a little. He’d been stupid to worry. This was going to be fun!
Fulton moved another few paces around Darrell, stepping into his field of vision again.
There were so many things to admire about Fulton; Darrell hardly knew which bit of him to stare
at first.
His gaze flickered from one point to another, barely able to focus on one thing before he
was drawn somewhere else. Fulton’s confident grip on the flogger. His bare chest and arms,
displaying lines of muscle so perfect that Darrell wanted to whimper at the sight of them, and
lick them as soon as he had the chance. Fulton’s hard cock was barely restrained behind those
same well-worn leather trousers he’d unzipped two days earlier.
Darrell jerked. His attention snapped up to Fulton’s face as another point of warmth
spread through his thigh at the flogger’s command.
Holding Darrell’s gaze, Fulton flicked his wrist again. Darrell saw a movement out of the
corner of his eye just in time to know something was coming. He still let out a groan as the
flogger tails collided firmly with his abs. His eyelids dropped.
He’d never thought of his stomach as an erogenous zone before. Now, he knew he was a
fool for failing to notice how much potential existed within the stretch of skin between his
nipples and his cock.
When Darrell opened his eyes, he found Fulton still standing in exactly the same place,
taking in every detail of his reaction with all the visible emotion of a scientist conducting a
mildly interesting experiment.
Darrell automatically stood up a little straighter. He’d never done anything “mildly” or in
any way halfheartedly in his life. He wasn’t about to start now. He had no idea when impressing
Fulton became so important to him, only that it was suddenly as essential to his survival as the
air he breathed and the ice cream he sold to pay his rent.
It felt as if he had mild sunburn across his torso, or perhaps as if he had his abs pressed
against a warm radiator. His brain wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation but it knew what it
thought of Fulton—he was perfect.
Fulton only seemed to twitch his wrist and the flogger danced in whatever way he
pleased. It fell against Darrell’s chest. His nipples tingled and pebbled into tight buds—begging
for more attention.
If Fulton noticed that, he didn’t do anything about it. He continued his dizzying journey
around Darrell and brought the flogger down again, this time against Darrell’s back. Its touch
was still light, almost delicate. Darrell had no doubt it took far more skill to wield a flogger like
that, than to just beat someone with it.
Fulton knew what he was doing, and he thought Darrell important enough to use that
knowledge to make his first flogging a glorious experience. Darrell found both parts of that idea
equally reassuring. Knowledge and care, it was almost as fantastic a combination as leather
against skin.
The flogger kissed each bit of Darrell’s body, making him aware of each new piece of
flesh it touched. His whole body soon throbbed, sensitive from tip to toe, as Fulton brought every
nerve ending to life for him. By the time he’d received a dozen kisses from the long leather tails,
Darrell had no choice but to correct his original opinion of Fulton.
Fulton wasn’t just hot. He was a god.
There was no other reasonable explanation for the power he exerted over Darrell. It was
superhuman in a way that didn’t need a flashy cape or underpants worn over tights.
Darrell closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Urgent messages raced through his body,
bombarding his brain with information. The warmth disappeared, and heat took its place. The
flogger came down harder now, but still it brought no pain with it, only pleasure.
A sharp flick of the tails against his buttocks, made Darrell snap his teeth together. The
sharp, metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He’d bitten his tongue. It was only when he
registered the sudden silence that he realized he’d been talking up until that point.
Darrell opened his eyes. Fulton was standing directly in front of him, a new intensity
coloring his expression.
“What did I say,” Darrell blurted out. “Sir?” He only just remembered the honorific
quickly enough to make it sound as if he might have intended to say it all along.
“Hold out your hands, palms up.”
Darrell’s body obeyed without bothering to consult his mind. He put out his hands, his
forearms parallel to the floor and extended away from his body at about waist height.
Fulton moved to stand to one side of him.
“What are you—?”
The flogger smacked against his palms. Darrell gasped and stared down at his hands.
They looked no different.
It felt as if he held out his hands toward a roaring fire, warming them after being out in
the crisp coldness of a winter’s morning.
It didn’t occur to him to pull back his hands or protect them. The flogger fell upon them
again. Darrell stared at his palms, completely mesmerized. A faint pink color spread across his
skin.
He wondered in a strange, detached way, if all his body blushed in the same hue. The
flogger had landed in all sorts of unexpected places. He could easily be bright pink all over.
Again.
The heat built up with each collision of leather against skin. Darrell’s hands moved closer
and closer to a blaze. He had no idea how near he could safely go. Did he already risk getting
burned? Was it even his choice?
Fulton held the flogger. More than that, he possessed complete authority over the scene.
Darrell peered down at his hands just in time to watch the leather land. It snapped more
loudly against his skin this time. The air caught in Darrell’s throat.
He was now only just on the right side of genuine pain. Although he wasn’t entirely
certain which side the right side was in that moment.
“Wrap your hands around your cock. Don’t jack off; just put your hands there.”
Darrell looked up rather than down, but that was fine—he didn’t need to watch what he
was doing.
His hands knew the way to his cock. His fingers encircled his shaft with the coordination
that only came with a great deal of practice. He moaned as intense heat completely surrounded
his erection. He wanted to stroke himself so badly, but Fulton’s order kept his hands motionless,
pushing him closer to the edge without offering him any chance of relief.
He stared across at Fulton, his eyes begging for permission to bring himself off. He
needed to come so badly. He had to come. The necessity of it hit him like lightning from a
cloudless sky. He’d been so focused on the flogger and his skin; his cock had been neglected and
untouched.
Now, his erection had his full attention and the need to come almost brought him to his
knees.
“Move your hand.”
Darrell barely dared to believe it.
Fulton nodded, just the tiniest dip of his head, to confirm the order.
Darrell’s hand moved of its own volition. Pre-cum leaked down his shaft, smearing
across his scalding hot palm and slicking his strokes. His fist pumped faster and faster, until it
blurred and broke all sorts of posh records. Nothing mattered, nothing existed apart from his
need no come.
He was aware of Fulton’s presence, but in that moment, the dominant existed only as a
means for the world to grant him permission to come.
Darrell’s heart raced. He pushed his hips forward, thrusting his cock into his hand. He
tightened his grip until he stumbled upon a new path to that wonderful point between pain and
pleasure. He’d never even known that extra sexual dimension existed before Fulton introduced
him to the flogger, now it seemed impossible to remember a time when it wasn’t the be all, the
end all, and the everything else all, too.
Darrell cried out as he came. Cum landed in long ropey lines across the dark floorboards.
His hand kept moving until Darrell ran out of the energy to operate a single muscle.
His legs buckled. He landed hard on the cold floor, barely even able to keep himself on
his hands and knees to stop his face from hitting the boards.
Head bowed, he sucked in great lungfuls of air. Very slowly, as his pleasure faded away,
so did his dizziness. Darrell sat back on his heels. Lifting a hand, he pushed his hair back from
his face, not caring if his fingers were smeared with both cum and dust from the floor.
Fulton’s boots came within Darrell’s line of sight first, followed by his legs, then his
crotch. Fulton was still turned on. That was a huge relief. Darrell had never been so reassured by
a bulge in the front of a man’s trousers.
Since he was down on his knees anyway, it seemed pointless to stand. He had no doubt
that he’d just be ordered back down there soon enough.
Shuffling forward, Darrell reached up to undo Fulton’s fly, eager to please him.
“No.”
Darrell hesitated, his fingers an inch away from the zipper tab. “Sir?”
“Take a few minutes to pull yourself together, clean up, then you can leave.”
A bowlful of ice water being dumped on him couldn’t have jerked Darrell out of the
happy, sated place he occupied more quickly. “If I screwed up, you can just tell me. You don’t
need to be a jerk about it.”
Fulton raised an eyebrow. “If you’d screwed up, I’d have told you.”
“So, the jerk thing just comes naturally to you?” Darrell asked. He still knelt in front of
the other man. He made no attempt to pull himself to his feet, and that was only partially because
he wasn’t sure his knees would hold him.
“You came here hoping to get off, correct?” Fulton asked.
“Expecting both of us to get off,” Darrell corrected, tipping his head back to glare at
Fulton as he folded his arms across his chest.
Fulton stared down at him, completely unmoved by Darrell’s annoyance. “With the
intention of submitting to me?” he asked.
Darrell frowned. “Okay, so I’ll give you that one,” he muttered.
“So, what’s changed?”
Darrell narrowed his gaze. Fulton looked even taller and more intimidating from that
angle, but lots of doms came to get ice cream from the shop and a lot of them were as scary as
hell. Darrell forcefully reminded himself that he knew how to deal with any kind of kinky guy.
That didn’t have to alter just because he happened to be on his knees.
“Nothing has changed,” Darrell said, evenly. Did it sound as if he had to force himself to
sound that calm? He really hoped not.
“Sometimes submitting to a man means doing nothing. If that’s what he wants from you,
it’s exactly what you should give him.”
Darrell was sure there was some sort of clue that would enable him to make sense of
Fulton. He just had to find it. He barely dared blink in case some expression might cross Fulton’s
face and cause the pieces of the puzzle to fall neatly into place.
Fulton’s lips twitched and thinned out slightly, but left Darrell no wiser.
“It’s not a riddle,” Fulton said. “It’s a simple statement of fact. Submitting to what
another person wants means not getting your own way all the time.”
“I know that,” Darrell snapped, completely unnerved.
“So, I’m quite entitled to tell you to leave this room without doing anything to get me off,
or—”
“You’re turned on, sir,” Darrell cut in.
“Yes.”
Darrell let out a huff and pushed his hand through his hair—his fingers really were quite
sticky now. “Fine. Have it your way. No skin off any bit of me.” He pulled himself to his feet.
Striding across to his clothes, he turned his back on Fulton as if it could ever be that easy
for him to put the dom out of his mind. As Darrell dressed himself on automatic pilot, his mind
whirled in an effort to work out what the hell was going on.
It was a test. It had to be. Fulton was screwing his mind rather than his arse. Some guys
got off on stuff like that. It was no big deal.
Darrell swallowed, desperately trying to convince himself that he hadn’t actually done
anything completely unforgiveable, he wasn’t really being sent away in disgrace.
It was only when each bit of Darrell’s clothing was in place and he’d pinned a socially
acceptable mask over his face that he turned around.
Fulton once more rested against the workbench on the other side of the room, watching
him.
“So,” Darrell said, aiming for a friendly, conversational tone—one that a man might use
with someone he considered to be his equal. “Are you going to tell me what all that bollocks at
the end of the scene was in aid of?”
Fulton always made a point of giving credit where it was due, even if he wasn’t in the
habit of offering immediate rewards for good behavior. He smiled slightly.
Darrell wasn’t stupid, and he was persistent. It was a combination that was difficult to
resist—especially when he’d have loved to have bent the boy over the nearest surface and laid
claim to every bit of him.
“As far as I can tell from your response to mild pain, you have a strong instinct toward
masochism,” Fulton said. Hell, Darrell’s response to the flogger was nothing short of glorious.
“And that’s a bad thing?” Darrell asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
“That depends who you’re having sex with,” Fulton forced himself to say, even though
the thought of anyone else touching Darrell made him fit to murder. “And, since you made a
point of asking, the final part of the scene was designed to work out if you had the same instinct
toward submission as you have toward pain.”
Darrell’s expression turned more wary. “And?”
“Possibly,” Fulton said. “You didn’t like the idea of leaving your hookup hanging—you
wanted to please me even after you’d come, that’s a definite point in your favor. On the other
hand, your ability to give up control and accept a dominant partner’s decisions or instructions
without questioning them—that needs work.” A lecturer at a kinky workshop was pretty much
Fulton’s default state, it should have been an easy mode to slip into, but he’d had to fight for
every word.
Darrell slowly closed the gap between them. Fulton was willing to bet the boy hadn’t
even realized that he’d moved forward. He was still floating through sub-space, acting
exclusively on instinct. It was a great look on him.
It took all of Fulton’s self-control to remain where he was and keep his expression
impassive. “Knowing all that will come in handy, if you ever decide to proceed past the point of
doing an occasional, mild scene with a stranger.”
“Mild?” Darrell echoed. His slow approach toward Fulton came to a complete halt. A
frown furrowed his brow.
“You’re not ready for anything more intense yet.” Fulton wasn’t sure who he needed to
remind the most—Darrell or himself. It was the truth, but it was bloody hard to remember the
reality of their respective situations.
It was equally difficult to recall the fact that he’d been booked to do a demonstration later
that night. Getting off on what they did now was bound to drain his intensity before the lesson. It
would be unprofessional to let his personal life get in the way of doing his job.
Fulton met Darrell’s eyes. He’d never been so tempted to be unprofessional in his life.
“You’re wrong, sir.”
Fulton couldn’t help but notice the reappearance of the honorific. “One scene, and you’re
an expert?”
“You shouldn’t have held back on my account. I wouldn’t have said my safe word if
you’d gone hardcore.”
“I’m the one who makes the rules for a scene for good reason,” Fulton informed him.
“Especially when the sub in question doesn’t have a clue what hardcore would really mean for
him.”
Darrell’s chin came up. “I could have taken it.” He paused for a moment. His gaze
dropped to Fulton’s crotch. “I can still take it.”
Do whatever you need to do to me to get yourself off.
His readiness to put himself in another man’s hands that way was as terrifying as it was
erotic. There were as many kinky amateurs staying at Pendragon Bay as there were true
connoisseurs of the lifestyle. Enthusiasm didn’t make up for experience—not when it came to
holding another man’s life in the palm of someone’s hand.
“Don’t get carried away,” Fulton ordered. “Mild isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“Do it, sir.” Darrell stepped forward, his words halfway between a plea and a demand.
“No.” There was nothing halfhearted about Fulton’s refusal.
Darrell dropped his gaze, this time it didn’t seem to be about checking out Fulton’s
erection. His body language changed. He suddenly looked even younger and far less cocky.
“Go back to your flat. Get some rest. Even the most experienced man needs time to relax
after a scene.”
“That’s what you’re going to do, sir?”
It was none of the boy’s business what Fulton intended to do. The scene was over—or at
least it should have been. Still, there was something about him…
“I have a class to get to on the other side of the hotel.”
Darrell’s eyebrows went up. “What could anyone teach you?”
Fulton smiled slightly. “Everyone can learn more, but in this case I’m teaching the class.”
Darrell’s gaze locked with Fulton’s, he stared at him for several long seconds. It was
impossible to guess what Darrell thought about during that time, but as soon as he looked away,
he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, forgetting all about cleaning the room before
he went.
Fulton remained exactly where he was for several minutes, deep in thought. It had been a
long time since he took on a man and trained him from scratch. Too long, perhaps. Fulton rubbed
at his neck and arched his back in an effort to stretch out his spine. He felt old—not so much in
years but in cynicism. He was thirty-two. If they’d both hit the bars at eighteen that would mean
he had about seven times the amount of experience as the boy.
Darrell was too young for him, too new to leather, too…
Fulton didn’t know what Darrell was altogether, he just knew he’d have to find another
route to walk whenever his journeys around the bay threatened to take him past the ice cream
shop.
Yes, that was another thing Darrell was—dangerous. Fulton had no intention of risking
his peace of mind over him.
Chapter Four
“Do I have a volunteer?”
A sea of hands shot up around Darrell.
Damn it, there were far too many other men who were desperate to play with Fulton. No
one would guarantee getting Fulton’s attention by staying in his seat and merely waving at him.
Darrell stood; making damn sure Fulton couldn’t miss him, even if he had been in the
back row of his audience.
One moment Fulton scanned the crowd of men who sat in the neat rows of chairs facing
his stage, not yet focusing his attention on any one man. The next second, Darrell felt everything
change.
When their eyes met, Fulton’s expression altered.
Around Darrell, men began to put down their hands, sensing that something that wasn’t
on the syllabus was about to take place in their midst.
A thick silence stretched out until it filled the demonstration hall. All at once, Darrell
knew that Fulton intended to cut him down to size with a few sharp words, that Fulton would
send him scurrying back to his room above the shop, too humiliated to ever show his face within
the hotel grounds again.
“Come here, Darrell.”
The order didn’t exactly confirm Fulton’s willingness to do the scene with him. He could
still refuse to accept him as an appropriate choice. He could still make it excruciatingly obvious
that he felt it necessary to change the scene to accommodate a complete novice.
Darrell’s knees shook as he climbed the five steps leading onto the stage. He knew
everyone’s eyes were trained on him, wondering who he was and what the hell he was up to.
Everyone wanted to be in his shoes.
Darrell swallowed, suddenly nervous about what might happen, wondering if he should
have taken Fulton’s warning more seriously.
Fulton pointed to a spot on the floor. “Front and center.”
The painted boards were slightly worn there. Submissives must have stood in that
position time after time, waiting for a dominant’s commands, displayed to the men in front of
them, unable to tell what would happen next.
Darrell wasn’t entirely sure what possessed him, but he lifted his hands and placed them
on top of his head, just as he had in the private playroom. Sliding his feet apart, he offered Fulton
the version of himself that seemed most likely to win favor with the dom.
Fulton’s hand wrapped around one of his wrists; the next thing Darrell knew, his arm was
twisted behind his back. His other wrist soon received the same harsh treatment.
Fulton stood directly behind him as he deftly snapped a pair of handcuffs into place.
Dipping his head, he put his lips close to Darrell’s ear.
“Your safe word is the same as it was earlier. Say it if you need to—there’s no shame in
that. But don’t you dare say that I didn’t warn you about how stupid you’d be to try to run before
you can walk.”
Fulton stepped away, releasing the tension he’d placed on Darrell’s hands so suddenly, he
only just remained on his feet.
Darrell heard other words leave Fulton’s mouth then, but they were addressed to the
crowd rather than him. Every syllable went straight over Darrell’s head. It had taken him what
seemed like hours to track down which room Fulton’s demonstration was scheduled to take place
in.
The damn thing had already started by the time he’d reached the heavy wooden door at
the back of the room. Slipping discreetly in during a short break in proceedings had brought him
one step closer to Fulton, but it hadn’t allowed him time to work out what the topic of today’s
lesson was before he’d volunteered to be part of it.
Fulton’s hand landed heavily Darrell’s shoulder. He nodded toward another man who
was standing toward the back corner of the stage. Darrell had been far too absorbed in staring at
Fulton to notice the guy before.
Darrell tensed.
He’d wanted to get kinky with Fulton and prove that he could keep up with whatever he
wanted to do with him. Other guys hadn’t been—
“There’s only one dom on this stage,” Fulton growled in Darrell’s ear, low enough so that
only he would hear him. “Only one man you’ll submit to.”
Darrell tried to look over his shoulder, but Fulton pushed him toward the other man
before he had a chance.
The guy was nothing like Fulton. He was white, shorter than Fulton, but built like a brick
outhouse, all muscle and tats with a shaved head. He pointed to a chair set next to him. Darrell
sat. Fulton’s assistant, or whatever he was, knelt in front of Darrell. Fulton’s words reverberated
in Darrell’s head, keeping him from voicing any protest. But, no, the guy didn’t reach for
Darrell’s fly, he reached for his trainers.
Darrell’s attention slid back to Fulton. He was nothing short of mesmerizing. Half the
crowd had probably come there just to stare at him, dressed as he was in nothing but those
trousers and his high laced-up leather boots.
Darrell had heard the expression ‘he owned the stage’. Suddenly, he knew what it really
meant, and he knew no mere actor had ever really done it—not like this. Fulton’s energy
expanded to fill the entire hall. No one in the audience fidgeted. No one looked anywhere except
straight at Fulton.
While Darrell stared at Fulton’s back, watching the way his muscles rippled with every
gesture he made, he was vaguely aware of the assistant guiding his feet into leather boots. They
weren’t exactly like Fulton’s. They didn’t come as high up his calf, and they weren’t as highly
polished.
One thing the boots were was bloody uncomfortable. The guy had laced them far too
tightly. Darrell kept his complaints to himself, not about to make a fuss just because he’d lost the
circulation in his toes—not when Fulton was in earshot. Darrell even left his feet where the
assistant stubbornly held them, eighteen inches apart and pointing straight forward.
Fulton turned to face Darrell’s corner of the stage. He strode across to them, but he didn’t
look Darrell in the eye. His attention was all on Darrell’s feet. He made a serious point of
checking that the boots were properly laced.
Lots of guys wore boots when they visited the ice cream shop—no matter what the
weather. Even in the current heat wave there was barely a flip-flop in sight. Leather guys were
serious about boots. It was a kink Darrell could work with. Hell, he’d wear boots twenty-four
hours a day if they turned Fulton on this much.
With a nod to his assistant, Fulton took several paces back.
Darrell pulled himself to his feet when prompted to do so. It wasn’t easy. His feet seemed
to be stuck in place, as if the boots were nailed to the floor. He frowned down at them; sure that
kind of thing only happened in weird dreams. No one’s feet actually stuck to the floor and
prevented them taking a step in any direction.
Chains rattled somewhere on the other side of the stage.
“Lay on the floor.”
The assistant reappeared and helped Darrell obey Fulton’s order. There was no way in
hell he could have done it on his own. His feet weren’t so much stuck to the floor as his boots
were attached to a thick wooden plank. For the first time, Darrell realized that the piece of wood
his boots were stuck to had chains running from it.
Darrell gawped at the setup, incapable of wrapping his head around it. Most of what he’d
been trying to comprehend disappeared out of his line of sight as the assistant eased him down
onto his back, not giving a damn that his cuffed hands dug into his spine.
Fulton appeared, looming over Darrell.
He opened his mouth to ask what the hell the boot thing was all about, but the sound of
heavy chain rattled, and completely obliterated his train of thought. Again metal clattered against
metal. The boots pulled unexpectedly at Darrell’s feet, as if someone was trying to pull them off.
He tried to sit up.
Fulton’s boot, polished so perfectly it damn near glittered, immediately pressed down
against Darrell’s chest.
“This is a suitable point to ask your sub if he remembers what his safe word is,” Fulton
informed the crowd. He looked down at Darrell.
“Yes, sir,” Darrell whispered, staring into deep brown eyes so perfect a man could easily
get lost in them and not find his way out for an entire lifetime.
“Speak up. There are men in the back who want to hear your answer.”
Darrell cleared his throat. “I remember my safe word, sir.” He did his best to project his
voice.
Fulton didn’t even blink.
Darrell wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. His safe word was irrelevant. The orders
might be weird, but there was nothing scary about anything. It wasn’t even as if—
Someone somewhere did that thing with the chains again.
Darrell’s feet jerked six inches into the air as the tightly knotted laces held him securely
into his boots. Fulton’s own boot remained on Darrell’s chest, making it damn difficult for him
to get a clear view, but he caught a glimpse of the plank of wood, and the boots attached to it,
hanging suspended from chains.
The thick metal links ran from the plank to within a foot of the ceiling. Darrell had a far
better view of what was going on up there. Chains slid around pulleys in a complicated
arrangement that made his brain ache as he tried to decipher it.
Another tug at the boots and Darrell’s legs rose higher, until he formed a perfect right
angle. The soles of the boots pointed straight to the sky. His arse just about brushed the stage, but
his back and shoulders remained as flat on the hard wooden boards as his cuffed wrists
allowed—Fulton’s boot saw to that.
“Again.” Fulton’s eyes didn’t leave Darrell’s face, even when he gave orders to another
man, presumably his assistant.
It had never occurred to Darrell that the sound of chains rattling around on some
complicated bit of industrial metalwork could be erotic, but the noise rushed straight to his cock.
The chains moved according to Fulton’s wishes, that knowledge in itself made them hot as hell.
Fulton removed his boot from Darrell’s chest. This tug on the wooden plank lasted
longer. Without Fulton’s foot pinning him down, Darrell’s torso left the floor. Within seconds,
he hung entirely upside down, his head swinging back and forth just an inch from the stage floor.
He closed his eyes, but that just made the dizziness worse. He opened them and looked at
the room, spinning past him, wavering up and down as well as going around and around.
There was nothing he could do. He was completely powerless to escape. It was worse
than being on a plane in a thunderstorm, but there was one important similarity. Darrell was
completely dependent on another man to pilot him safely through it all.
The realization sent a huge spike of adrenaline through him. He pulled at the cuffs behind
his back, as if having his hands free would somehow help him feel less queasy in his upside-
down state. The metal held strong, just as every sensible part of Darrell knew it would. Fulton
wasn’t the type to accept shoddy workmanship. All Darrell did was set the chains swinging more
wildly than ever.
Fulton was standing next to him. Darrell saw the dominant’s legs appear and disappear
from view as he swung back and forth. For some reason, Fulton’s presence kept Darrell from
descending into complete inverted panic.
“Higher.”
Darrell closed his eyes as he was jerked farther into the air and swung more wildly. He
had to stop himself from throwing up—he just knew it would be a really bad idea to do that
while he was stuck upside down.
He put all his effort into focusing on Fulton’s words. There was something about safety
and never leaving a sub unattended while inverted. Darrell agreed with that bit wholeheartedly.
He didn’t want Fulton wandering off and leaving him there. That would be like the pilot on that
turbulence-struck plane grabbing a parachute and launching himself out of the emergency exit.
Then, there was something else—all about gags and blindfolds. Darrell definitely wasn’t
in favor of either of those, especially not the gag. He clamped his lips together at the idea. Being
unable to speak scared him even more than being unable to see. He’d rarely seen a way out of a
sticky situation, but he’d talked his way out of lots!
Remaining perfectly still paid dividends. By focusing on Fulton’s deep, powerful voice
and tensing every muscle in his body, Darrell managed to convince the world to stop moving
around him. He took a careful breath, blinked and attempted to take in a few more pertinent
details.
His head was at about waist height. That meant his mouth was about cock height. As
clues went, it was a convincing one. An erection could be sucked upside down. Darrell relaxed
slightly—spotting familiar ground, rushing toward it, dropping to his knees and kissing it like an
exile returning home after a decade in disgrace.
Fulton hadn’t stopped talking yet. Apparently, it was a bad idea to give a guy an enema
when he was upside down. Darrell was bloody glad to hear it—that wasn’t something he wanted
to see on Fulton’s to-do list any time soon, not with him. Not with anyone else either, come to
that. The possibility of Fulton replacing him with another submissive was worse than anything
Fulton could do to him.
Finally, after it seemed as though several years had passed, Fulton turned to Darrell.
The dominant’s flogger still hung on his belt. Darrell was perfectly positioned to see it,
and to notice when Fulton took it from his belt and swished it through the air.
Darrell whimpered, unexpectedly deprived of the blow job he’d been so sure he was
about to give. Even though he’d loved the way the flogger caressed his skin earlier that day,
knowing there’d be a difference between what they’d done in private and what happened on
stage, made him try to sway away from the flogger.
Fulton turned his attention back to his audience. Darrell frowned. That was even worse
than Fulton wielding the flogger at him with all his might. In the playroom it had been so
different. So intense, so personal. There’d been a connection there that Darrell had never felt
with any vanilla flavored lover.
Here, Darrell suddenly realized, he was nothing but a prop. Fulton was no more
interested in him than he was in the whip. Hell, make that even less interested in him than the
whip. At least the whip received Fulton’s caress—he pulled the tails of the damn thing through
his fingers again and again as he spoke, petting it as if it were the other man in the scene and
Darrell was the inanimate object.
Darrell gradually stopped swaying. The world beyond the stage came into something
close to focus. He took a shallow breath and slowly let it back out. Ninety percent of his blood
supply seemed to have pooled in his head. He probably looked like a bright red cherry—how
appropriate, since Fulton seemed to think he was little better than a virgin when it came to kink!
The remaining ten percent of his blood lingered in his cock, keeping him hard as the
proverbial tree trunk. Was his erection obvious? Darrell didn’t dare try to move his head and
look. The motion would have sent him spinning in circles again. A bright red cherry sporting a
hard-on. No doubt it was a look that even the most stunning male model would have struggled to
pull off.
By the time Fulton finally turned back to face him, Darrell knew that he had to look like a
fool, but the hard-on stretching Fulton’s leather trousers hinted that even idiocy could appear hot
in the right circumstances. Placing a hand on Darrell’s leg Fulton gave him a push. The world
twirled around Darrell at a nausea inducing speed. Fulton babbled on about party games and
pinning the tail on the submissive.
Laughter filled the air at one point—the kind that only occurred when someone told a
really great joke. Darrell wasn’t sure if he should be glad or worried that he hadn’t been in any
condition to catch the punch line.
Without warning, the flogger struck Darrell’s arse. His jerky reaction produced what he’d
already come to think of as the inevitable result of damn near anything that could happen on the
stage—he swung like a really bad Tarzan imitator.
Behind his back, Darrell opened and closed his hands, searching for something, anything
that he could grab hold of to stabilize himself. He mentally cursed.
He tried closing his eyes again. This time he threw in the idea of counting down from one
thousand, on the basis that anything had to be worth a try.
He’d reached four hundred and fifty three when he realized that not only had he stopped
twisting about wildly above the stage, but that the hall had gone completely silent. He thought
about opening his eyes, but chickened out.
Chapter Five
Darrell’s eyes moved behind their lids, although he didn’t open them.
“If I wasn’t so damn sure I know exactly what I’m doing, I’d have assumed you’d passed
out,” Fulton said, careful to keep his tone casual.
It took several moments for Darrell to actually open his eyes. Fulton allowed him a few
more seconds to focus on his surroundings after that.
“Yes,” Fulton said, as Darrell squinted at the rows of empty chairs. “They’ve all gone.
It’s just you and me now.”
Darrell didn’t immediately demand to be turned upright. Fulton was quietly impressed.
Rising from the chair he’d made use of while waiting for the boy to return from whatever sort of
sub-space he’d placed himself in during the public portion of their scene, Fulton walked across to
Darrell.
“I’m going to lower you down. Don’t struggle or you’ll risk hurting yourself. Just let
yourself settle onto the floor naturally.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fulton didn’t praise him for using the honorific, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed
the natural way it fell from Darrell’s lips.
Moving to the pulleys, Fulton tugged at the chains. They rattled magnificently—certainly
far more than was needed to get the job done. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to
make sure the arrangement added all possible drama to the suspension scenes carried out in that
hall.
Darrell inched toward the floor. In tiny, clattering increments, Fulton guided him down.
Eventually, the boy lay flat on the stage, his feet still fastened to the boot board. He didn’t move
a muscle until Fulton returned to him.
“I’m impressed,” Fulton admitted as he went down onto one knee and met Darrell’s gaze.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not still a bloody idiot to volunteer to take part in a demonstration
when you obviously didn’t even know what it involved.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me get hurt, sir.” Darrell frowned as if less than sure of that. “I
mean, not hurt in ways you didn’t intend, sir.”
That was a fine insight for a novice to have so soon after taking his first stumbling steps
onto the scene. Fulton smiled his approval as he turned his attention to the boot laces.
“Your feet will hurt when they’re first released. That’s normal. Suck it up and deal with
it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Within a minute, Fulton had freed both of Darrell’s feet from the boots. He looked up,
knowing the pins and needles shooting through Darrell’s feet as normal circulation returned to
the flesh would be intense.
Darrell had closed his eyes. His teeth bit down on his bottom lip, but he didn’t even
murmur.
“How do you feel about wax play?” Fulton asked, telling himself that he wasn’t
interested in distracting the boy from his discomfort, even when that was blatantly a lie.
Darrell opened his eyes, but he was wise enough not to lift his head without being
specifically told to do so. “Sir?”
“What about Japanese rope work? Bullwhips? Role play? The complete master and slave
lifestyle? How about puppy and pony play? Outdoor scenes? Pervertables?”
Darrell seemed to forget the pain in his feet as he gawped up at Fulton. He stopped biting
his lip. His jaw actually dropped.
“Do you like the idea of being put in stocks?” Fulton asked. “Public nudity? Fisting?
Chastity belts? How about being thrown into a scene where twenty different men can do
whatever they want with you?”
Fulton altered his position so he could stare straight down at Darrell’s face. Their eyes
met. Fulton made a point of keeping his expression completely serious.
“I’d try them all if you want me to, sir.”
Fulton couldn’t have been more shocked than Darrell appeared to be himself. Panic filled
the boy’s eyes as he realized what he’d just said, the sum total of what he’d just offered to do. He
squirmed and tried to sit up, hindered by his bound wrists at every turn.
Fulton pressed his hand against Darrell’s chest and pushed him back down. “Calm down.
Give your body time to get all of your blood back to where it belongs.”
“But, I—”
“That was just your sub-space talking,” Fulton cut in. “You’d have freaked out if I did
damn near any of those things to you—and the rest of your brain bloody well knows it.”
Darrell swallowed. “So you’re not going to…” More than a touch of disappointment
tinged his words.
“My point is that you were an idiot to volunteer here tonight—I could have been teaching
a class about any of those things. You’re bloody lucky not to be sobbing your heart out right
now.” He huffed, as exasperated with himself as he was with Darrell, knowing he would never
have let that happen to the boy if he could have avoided it. “As it turned out, I suppose you
didn’t do too badly.”
“Thank you, sir.” Darrell murmured the words very quietly, as if his mind was
somewhere else. His gaze left Fulton’s face.
When Darrell spoke, it was obvious where his attention had wandered off to. “You still
haven’t come, sir.”
“And you’re still volunteering to do things without thinking it through, aren’t you?”
Fulton asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy.
“I want to get you off.” He sounded bloody sure of that, if nothing else.
Fulton peered down at him for several seconds, trying to work out exactly what kind of
sub he had on his hands. Without thinking, he reached out and ran a fingertip across Darrell’s
bottom lip. His normal pallor had returned. One label was easy to apply to him. Darrell was a
submissive with a very pretty mouth.
“Yes, sir.”
Fulton caught Darrell’s bottom lip between his fingers when the boy answered the
unspoken inclination to be sucked off. He pinched down on the tender flesh before releasing it. “I
don’t like to play nice.”
Darrell swallowed several times. “That doesn’t change my answer, sir. It’s still yes. I
want to make you come.”
Several seconds ticked passed. Fulton made himself wait, made himself make sure it
wasn’t just his cock calling the shots. He went through each part of his decision very carefully
until he was sure his brain was in complete agreement with his balls.
In one lithe movement, Fulton straddled the boy’s chest. Darrell’s eyes opened very wide.
It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that the scene would continue before he was back on his feet.
But Fulton’s decision had already been made. There would be no standing up. He liked Darrell
exactly where he was, with his hands still cuffed behind his back and the vulnerability he’d felt
while suspended still in the forefront of his mind.
Darrell blinked rapidly. Things weren’t going entirely how he’d anticipated. On the
positive side, staying on the stage floor meant that he didn’t worry about getting dizzy and
falling over while trying to give head.
He licked his lips and parted them in invitation. Fulton did nothing, making Darrell
remain like that for what felt like hours, unable to react to his offer in any way.
Darrell longed to scream and shout, to demand that their roles reverse and that Fulton do
what he wanted instead. But no, something inside him demanded that he keep all that to himself.
If he offered a man his submission, Darrell would be damned if he didn’t do it properly.
He doubted anything except his safe word would have any effect on Fulton’s decision making
process anyway. Play or don’t play, that was Darrell’s only choice. Every other detail remained
at Fulton’s discretion; deep down Darrell knew he’d hate for it to be any other way.
He kept his mouth open.
Finally—movement!
Fulton pulled down his fly and released his cock. The scent of leather and raw male
desire filled the air. Darrell whimpered, in between breathing in as much of that gorgeous aroma
as possible.
Fulton wrapped one hand around his shaft and stroked himself firmly. His other hand, he
slid behind Darrell’s head. He took a tight grip on his hair and positioned his mouth at just the
right angle. Darrell swallowed rapidly, half in nerves and half in anticipation.
For once, Fulton didn’t make him wait. He pushed his hips forward, sliding the tip of his
cock past Darrell’s lips.
Perhaps it was the angle that made it feel so different. Or, maybe it was the way Fulton’s
body loomed over Darrell, making him feel small and insignificant. Whatever the reason,
Fulton’s cock felt twice the size it had before.
Fulton thrust forward, invading Darrell’s mouth farther. There was no real technique
Darrell could employ. He could just about apply clumsy caresses to the shaft as it moved above
his tongue. He could try to keep his teeth covered. But every trick and skill he’d learned about
how to please another man’s cock was effectively useless.
The only thing Darrell could do was accept what Fulton gave him. The only thing he
could offer Fulton was a space into which he could thrust as deeply and as often as he chose.
The lengthened zipper allowed Fulton’s balls to hang free beneath his body. With each
movement of Fulton’s hips, his sac swung forward and bounced against Darrell’s chin.
Darrell stared up at Fulton as the dominant’s movements sped up. The only way Fulton
could have sheathed himself to the hilt in Darrell’s mouth was by using his throat, but he made
no attempt to do that. But, the muscles in his torso still tensed and relaxed as he rode both the
moment and Darrell’s mouth with apparent pleasure. Behind his back, Darrell’s fingers twitched
in time with Fulton’s abs.
It was impossible to tell if Fulton thought about anything, or if he was held firmly in the
moment, glorying in the sensations that surrounded the topmost section of his cock as he rapidly
approached his climax.
No warning, verbal or physical, reached Darrell before Fulton came. Even if Darrell had
wanted to pull away, it would have been impossible. He was trapped between Fulton’s cock and
his hand, completely at his mercy—except Darrell had no interest in any kind of lenient
treatment.
Semen landed on his tongue. He swallowed it down, relishing the sweet saltiness all the
more because Fulton demanded rather than requested that he should swallow it.
All too soon, Fulton fell still, his orgasm at an end. He breathed more rapidly; more of his
weight came to rest on Darrell’s chest as he recovered his composure.
Darrell swallowed once more for luck. He’d barely moved a muscle, but he was just as
out of breath as his lover. He gasped around Fulton’s shaft as it gradually softened within his
mouth. Fulton didn’t show any inclination to withdraw or move away. He continued to straddle
Darrell’s chest for several minutes—perhaps to make sure Darrell knew that his ownership of
him hadn’t ended the moment he came, or maybe because he just liked it where he was and saw
no reason to hurry away.
No longer entirely focused on witnessing Fulton’s pleasure, Darrell realized just how
uncomfortable he was, laying on the hard stage boards with his hands trapped behind him. His
feet were cold now that the boots were gone. Oh, and, he really wanted to come—although that
seemed to be a rather permanent condition for Darrell whenever he was around Fulton.
Last time he’d gone down on Fulton, the dominant had sent him on his way without
returning the favor. The sensible side of Darrell knew that this night would probably end the
same way, but the more optimistic side of his personality couldn’t help but hope. It was always
possible that Fulton would be so pleased with him he’d change his usual M.O.
Fulton didn’t say a word as he pulled himself to his feet. With his boots planted firmly on
either side of Darrell’s body, Fulton took his time tidying himself up and tucking himself away.
He showed no inclination to untie Darrell.
A tiny rush of pride made Darrell smile at that realization. Perhaps that meant there was
something about him that Fulton liked. Maybe the other man wanted to keep him around and tie
him up more often. It could be that Fulton didn’t want to let him go, any more than he wanted to
be released.
The moment that possibility occurred to Darrell, it became essential that Fulton want to
possess him for far longer than a single scene. Securing that was more important than being
untied. It was even more important than coming—and Darrell had never thought anything would
be that!
“Sit up.”
Darrell immediately fought to obey. It wasn’t easy without his hands, and Fulton offered
no assistance. Darrell was once more out of breath by the time he managed to obey.
“Dizzy?” Fulton asked.
“No, sir. I’m fine.” To Darrell’s surprise, he found it was true. All that time lying flat on
his back had apparently helped redistribute the blood around his body. “I’ve never felt better.”
“Stand up.”
In hindsight, Darrell realized that he should probably have asked for permission to sit
quietly in the middle of the stage for a little longer, just to have been on the safe side. He got his
knees under him and pushed himself to his feet easily enough, but the head rush damn near put
him back on the floor with one hell of a crash.
Fulton sprang forward, his reactions faster than a rattlesnake as he wrapped his arms
around Darrell and held him tightly against bare chest. He supported him there, making sure
Darrell couldn’t tumble anywhere.
Darrell closed his eyes. He only needed to dip his head a little to rest his temple against
the other man’s shoulder. Fulton’s skin was warm against Darrell’s cheek. His embrace heated
Darrell right through to the core.
It seemed to take forever for the dizziness to pass. Darrell kept his eyes shut and leaned
into Fulton’s strength, unable to do anything but wait it out and enjoy the sensation of being
completely wrapped in Fulton’s presence. By the time he felt able to open his eyes, he had lost
any inclination to do anything of the kind. Resting in Fulton’s arms was far too nice a sensation
for him to willingly bring it to an end.
“You must think I’m an idiot, sir,” Darrell murmured, tucking his face a little more firmly
into Fulton’s neck.
“Yes, I do,” Fulton said. “But not because you had a head rush.”
Darrell smiled, his lips moving against Fulton’s skin in something close to a kiss.
Fulton lifted his hands to Darrell’s shoulders. He pushed him back a pace, but still kept a
tight grip on him.
Darrell forced himself to look up and meet Fulton’s eyes. The room didn’t spin; Fulton
didn’t blur. Darrell could focus without any trouble. He had no excuse to lean on his dominant
any longer.
Fulton seemed to realize that. He released Darrell’s shoulders and dropped his arms to his
side, but his attention never wavered from him. Darrell knew that the slightest wobble would see
him back in Fulton’s arms. He was tempted to wobble, just to make that happen. It was only the
possibility of Fulton’s anger when he realized he’d been duped that made Darrell resist.
“I think I’m okay now. Thank you, sir.” His words came out as an unexpectedly mild
whisper.
“A sub doesn’t need to thank a dom for keeping him safe during a scene,” Fulton said,
gruffly, as he moved around Darrell to undo the handcuffs. “He only needs to mention such
things when a dom fails to do his duty by him.”
Darrell drew his arms forward. Pain burned down his shoulders. He winced then wished
like hell that he’d checked the impulse. Fulton might have spotted that expression. He might take
it as a sign that Darrell couldn’t hack it.
“I guess my joints will get used to it after a while,” Darrell said, smiling to let Fulton
know he didn’t mind having his limbs set on fire on a regular basis until they became
acclimatized to the situation.
“I couldn’t say,” Fulton said, dropping the cuffs into the bag placed on a chair at the edge
of the stage. “I’ve never made a habit of letting other men tie me up.”
No, Darrell doubted anyone would dare try something like that with Fulton. If they did,
they certainly wouldn’t be around to tell the tale afterward. Darrell had seen enough kinky guys
come through the ice cream shop to know there were men who switched, and men who didn’t.
Fulton was one of those that definitely wouldn’t.
“Put your shoes on.”
Darrell shoved his sore feet into his trainers as quickly as he could.
“Come on.” Fulton picked up his bag of toys and led the way off the stage. At the bottom
of the steps, he paused, and watched Darrell descend.
Darrell chuckled, as if he found being fussed over amusing. He’d have cut out his tongue
before admitting how hot he actually found it. A large part of him loved the idea that Fulton
wanted to make him vulnerable, and to protect him at the same time. Somehow it was far harder
to admit that to one man, than it was to tell the whole world that he loved being tied up and
flogged.
“Do you have any plans for tomorrow, sir?” Darrell said, as they stepped out into the
surprisingly chilly night air. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to make the gesture
look casual rather than temperature inspired.
“I have plans for tonight.”
“Oh…” Darrell suddenly decided the view between the buildings, where he could just
make out the moon glistening on the sea, was fascinating.
Fulton’s plans weren’t important anyway. Why should he care if Fulton wanted to go
screw someone else? It would hardly make him the first man in the history of Pendragon Bay
who worked his way through more than one lover in a night.
“With you,” Fulton added.
“Oh!” Darrell turned back to face Fulton, his expression morphing into a grin.
“I don’t leave a man wandering around on his own when he still has one foot as deeply
lodged in sub-space as you have right now.”
“That’s the zone thing subs go into when they’re in a scene, right?” Darrell said, rather
pleased to be able to show off his casually accumulated knowledge.
“Something like that,” Fulton muttered. “This way.”
He led Darrell toward what he presumed would turn out to be his room at the hotel.
Following along just half a step behind Fulton, Darrell admired the dominant’s profile each time
they passed under one of the lamps that lit the hotel grounds.
Fulton’s brow was down, his generous lips thinned into a taut line. He looked so serious.
His expression didn’t change a jot, not even when they stepped into his room.
Darrell turned away from Fulton before he was caught staring and glanced around the
room.
“I take it you know where everything is,” Fulton said, dropping his bag of tricks on the
luggage holder and indicating the rest of the room with a wave of his hand.
“Why?”
Fulton stopped halfway between the door and the bed and turned to face him.
Darrell forced himself to meet Fulton’s eyes and hold his gaze. “I don’t screw every guy
who books a room at the hotel,” he said, annunciating each word very carefully. “I’m not part of
the package deal.”
Fulton gave no sign of either disappointment or relief.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Darrell added, unable to bear the silence. “I’m no blushing
virgin—but I don’t make a habit of screwing guys who’re on holiday here either.” Holiday
romances aren’t my thing. He managed to stop those last words leaving his mouth, but only
because the idea of Fulton knowing how special he was to him made Darrell’s heart want to leap
out of his chest and run all the way back to Vanilla Licks.
Fulton still hadn’t blinked. “The mini-bar is there.” He pointed to a cabinet in the corner
of the room. “The room service menu is on the table.” He indicated the desk, set against the
opposite wall. “If you’re hungry. Eat. If you’re not, sleep.”
Fulton turned away and opened the wardrobe. Grabbing a pair of shorts, he tossed them
on the corner of the bed. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he took off his
trousers.
If his mind had been working a little more clearly Darrell would have had to admit, in the
normal course of things, a bedroom was a perfectly reasonable place for a man to get dressed.
But none of the normal rules applied when Fulton was part of the equation.
Any attempt to make his observations subtle was out of the question—especially when
trying to be discreet might have meant Darrell missing even a single detail of Fulton’s body as it
was unveiled to him. Boots, socks, leather trousers, Fulton tossed everything aside and stood
completely naked in front of Darrell.
He wasn’t a bashful dom. He didn’t order Darrell not to look, or try to cover up his cock.
For the first time, Darrell saw Fulton’s shaft from a distance greater than a couple of inches.
Even soft, he was glorious.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Darrell clenched his fists around the blankets; his desire to
rush across the room and run his hands over every inch of Fulton’s body was almost
uncontrollable.
“I told you to rest,” Fulton said, as he walked past Darrell into the en-suite.
Darrell heard the shower run and imagined water cascading over Fulton’s body. He
whimpered, but he also obeyed. Moving up the bed, he lay on his stomach and placed his head
against the pillow. Rest. He closed his eyes, making sure the first thing Fulton saw when he left
the bathroom was his submissive obeying his order.
Yes. Darrell smiled. His submissive. Fulton’s submissive. He liked the sound of that.
* * * *
Fulton pushed open the door and stepped into the bedroom. Darrell lay stretched out on
the bed, already fast asleep. Fulton moved closer and stared down at him.
He had the distinct feeling that if he had any sense, he’d turn on his heel and run for any
hills that happened to be in the vicinity.
Bloody hell. Fulton knew he had no business playing with a novice—not as anything
other than a completely impartial teacher or mentor. Darrell had to be at least ten years his
junior, he reminded himself. And—
Fulton turned away from Darrell, cutting that train of thought dead, and pulled on his
shorts. There were loads of reasons why he shouldn’t have anything to do with the boy, and only
one reason why he should. He wanted him.
There was nothing intellectual or reasonable about it. He wanted Darrell. He wanted the
boy kneeling at his feet, sleeping in his bed, obeying his orders and wearing his collar. Fulton
hadn’t felt anything like it for years. He walked around the bed and settled himself carefully on
the other side of the mattress, making sure he didn’t wake his companion.
Darrell had said he didn’t screw men who came to the bay on holiday. Fulton had never
made a habit of screwing around when he visited somewhere to conduct demonstrations either.
That implied an intensity of attraction that was unusual for both of them, he reasoned. A certain
sort of “something at first sight”. Interlacing his fingers and resting them against his stomach,
Fulton stared up at the ceiling.
Why Darrell? His brain came up with no satisfactory answer.
What had made Darrell call him into the shop? What had made Fulton respond to the
summons for that matter?
Fulton took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. What kind of fool tried to apply reason
to decisions made by his cock, anyway?
Chapter Six
“What are you doing tonight?” Darrell couldn’t summon up the confidence to ask Fulton
that question face to face, but it was much easier to ask the reflection of the dominant in the
mirror.
The bathroom door was open. Darrell stood in front of the sink, his hands resting on the
cold porcelain, staring into the slightly steam misted glass above it. Fulton was too busy tying his
boot laces, his foot braced against a clean polishing cloth thrown across the end of the bed, to
bother looking at anyone’s reflection.
Fulton’s fingers kept working, tying a complicated knot with so much care and attention
to detail, anyone would think he expected someone to nail them to a board and suspend him
above a stage. “I’m running a workshop. It will go until late,” he finally said.
“I could—”
“It’s a couples’ workshop. I won’t be playing with anyone, just advising the men there on
some things they can do with their lovers to make sure their dynamic doesn’t slide toward a
vanilla relationship in ways they didn’t intend.”
“No problem,” Darrell said, running his fingers through his hair and making tiny
adjustments to the long blond strands—pretending he’d been looking at his own reflection the
entire time.
He hoped like hell his disappointment didn’t show in his expression, and it felt as if those
knots Fulton applied to his bootlaces actually wound themselves around his stomach. They
tightened painfully at the idea of never seeing Fulton again, of this just being a one night thing.
He really had no reason to expect it to be anything more than that but—
“However, I am free this afternoon, if you’re not working,” Fulton added.
Darrell’s gaze jerked up to stare at Fulton in the mirror. The dominant still hadn’t lifted
his attention away from those damn boots. Apparently he didn’t consider the matter anywhere
near as important as running a cloth over the highly polished surfaces.
Biting back both his first ecstatic response to the invitation and his annoyance at Fulton
for not taking the prospect as seriously as he did, Darrell forced himself to shrug. “I should be
free around that time.” All he’d have to do was beg, borrow or kidnap someone to take his shift
at the shop—no problem at all.
Behind him, Fulton chuckled. Darrell turned to face him. There was no way the other
man could have guessed what went on inside his head, could he?
“If you decide to keep playing with me, the last thing you’ll be is free,” Fulton said.
Their eyes met. All the air rushed out of the room. Darrell’s knees went weak, as if his
newly developed submissive side only had to look at Fulton to remember how much he’d loved
every moment he spent on the floor worshiping his cock.
“Oh?” Darrell managed to say.
“I don’t make a habit of leaving my play partners free to do anything I don’t specifically
order them to do,” Fulton informed him.
“That works for me, sir,” Darrell murmured, unable to force anything louder past his
vocal cords.
Fulton nodded, as if he never expected to receive any other answer. He led the way out,
waited for Darrell to leave the room, and locked the door in their wake.
“On the beach, by the rocks at the end of the cove at one o’clock.”
There was no “is that convenient for you?”, or “would you like to…?” Even that fact
made Darrell’s cock harden.
“Yes, sir!” he said, no longer able to hide his enthusiasm. Roll on one o’clock!
* * * *
Fulton leaned against one of the big boulders that separated the cove from the main bay
and watched with pleasure as Darrell ran across the sand toward him. The boy wasn’t actually
late, but he’d cut it fine.
Forcing himself to turn away from the approaching figure, Fulton looked out across the
sea. The tide was on its way in. The sun was still warm, but the rising wind caught each wave as
the sea rolled in.
If Fulton’s calculations were correct, and he knew damn well that they were, they’d have
about half an hour before the little cove behind him was cut off by the sea. Perfect.
Fulton breathed in, relishing the fresh sea air after a morning spent in the close confines
of a playroom. He heard Darrell reach him, but he didn’t look away from the view. Counting
slowly inside his head, he waited for Darrell to speak first.
“Hello, sir.”
Seven seconds. Long enough to show Darrell had made an effort to remain silent, short
enough to show the boy was eager. Even if he wasn’t inclined to show it, Fulton was just as
impatient to begin the scene. He’d been distracted by thoughts of the boy all the way through his
talk that morning.
Every time he’d spoken about a method of restraint, the image of Darrell bound that way
had pushed to the front of his mind. Every time he’d addressed the group regarding various
protocols that could be used subtly in public, Darrell’s voice had echoed in his head, repeating
them back to him—rules, promises, honorifics. He’d heard Darrell say them all. Now, Fulton
wanted to make Darrell mean them—to make him live them. His heart beat faster at the
possibility, adrenaline rushed through his veins in a way it hadn’t done for years.
No matter what he wanted to do, Fulton stayed leaning against the huge rock. This was
no time to give in to over-enthusiastic inclinations. He turned his head toward Darrell and ran his
gaze over him, from top to toe in a quick but thorough inspection.
Darrell carried his trainers in his hand, apparently finding it easier to run barefoot on the
soft sand. His only clothing was a pair of denim cut-offs that hung low on his hips, making it
obvious to the whole world that he wore nothing beneath them. His erection already pressed
against the denim, creating a very obvious bulge. Yes, he was very enthusiastic.
Darrell cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure if you’d booked a playroom, sir, so I checked at
the front desk on my way here. There are still four available for this afternoon—two dungeons, a
medical-fetish room and um, a water sports place. I can—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Fulton cut in.
Darrell stepped closer, but he made no attempt to perch next to Fulton on the rock, or to
lower himself onto the sand at his boots. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“You’ve already booked one, sir?”
“No.”
A faint frown furrowed Darrell’s forehead, appearing then vanishing from sight as the
wind tossed his shaggy blond fringe.
“A room isn’t necessary,” Fulton clarified.
Darrell actually took a step back. “It is if we’re going to play properly.”
Fulton was shocked enough to blink at him. The boy looked as if he’d been slapped.
“I don’t want a vanilla hookup, I want to play for real,” Darrell’s voice grew louder and
his tone more defiant by the moment. “I thought I proved that to you last night!”
Fulton observed the way Darrell’s body language changed with great interest. Anyone
would have thought he’d threatened the boy with a fate far worse than even the most horror-
movie-worthy death.
“You’ve proved you have the survival instincts of a hedgehog on a six lane motorway,”
Fulton corrected.
“I didn’t say my safe word.”
But you are still at the stage where you think that saying it would mean you failed. Fulton
didn’t say that out loud. The correction wouldn’t mean anything to Darrell at this point. It was
far too soon for him to understand just how little he understood, how much he still had to learn.
That would come later.
Darrell planted his feet firmly in the sand, shoulder width apart. “I want to play hardcore,
sir.”
“Then you’re out of luck. I don’t do hardcore.” Fulton allowed his distaste for the term to
drip off each syllable. “If you and I are to play seriously, I’d tell you that you should know better
than to issue demands in that tone of voice. It makes you sound more like a brat than the kind of
submissive I’d wish to do a scene with.”
Darrell glared at him in silence for several seconds. Fulton waited for the angry retort, but
it never came. Gradually, the boy’s expression changed. He dropped his gaze. Then, without
saying another word, Darrell lowered himself slowly to his knees in the sand. Setting his shoes
down at his side, he folded his hands behind his back and bowed his head.
Fulton’s cock was rock hard within a second of Darrell’s knees hitting the sand. Every
muscle in his body tensed as he fought against the urge to reach out and catch hold of Darrell,
pull him closer and claim both the man and the submission he offered.
“That’s better,” he said instead. “Get up; you can reach out to pick up your shoes, but
that’s the only time you may take your hands from behind your back. As soon as you’ve got your
shoes, your hands go straight back where they belong. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Darrell did exactly as he was told, no more no less, and stood in front of him
with his posture perfect and his gaze lowered.
Fulton nodded his approval. “Disobey once, and you won’t get the chance to do it twice.”
Head still bowed, Darrell glanced up at him through his fringe, his eyes bright with
excitement. “Yes, sir.” No hint of fear or uncertainty clouded the words.
Fulton pushed himself away from the rock and nodded toward the cove. “Walk.” He
didn’t bother to order Darrell not to lift his gaze and hold his chin up high to show that he was
proud of his submission rather than ashamed of it. It wouldn’t hurt the boy to watch where he
stepped for now.
Walking behind Darrell allowed Fulton to watch the way Darrell’s arse moved with each
step he took. There were no restrictions regarding where Fulton could put his hands. He brought
them both up in front of him and massaged his right palm with his opposite thumb,
absentmindedly warming the muscles and readying them for action. Darrell’s arse was made for
spanking—among a few other things, of course…
Darrell followed the rocks around the outcrop, traipsing across the soft sand that bridged
the gap between the rough stone at the bottom of the cliff top and the rapidly approaching tide.
He was almost halfway across the cove when the sand shifted beneath him and his balance
deserted him.
Nothing that he could land on would do him any harm. Fulton clenched his hands into
fists and overruled every instinct to dive forward and catch the boy.
Darrell apparently had no such reservations. He reached out with both hands and easily
prevented himself from falling face first into the sand. Muttering curses he had no permission to
say, he twisted around, sat on the sand and checked himself for injuries, all apparently on
automatic pilot.
Darrell looked up as Fulton’s shadow fell across his face.
“I’m fine, sir.”
“That wasn’t going to be my first question,” Fulton corrected.
Darrell looked up at him in palpable confusion. “It wasn’t?”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing with your hands? Did I give you permission to
move them?” Fulton demanded, squaring his stance as he loomed over the prone submissive.
Darrell looked down at his hands as if he’d never seen them before. His mouth formed a
pretty little O as he realized his mistake.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Darrell began to move his hands behind him.
“It’s too late for that.” Fulton caught hold of one of Darrell’s wrists and pulled him
roughly to his feet.
Darrell let out a startled cry as Fulton twisted him around and pinned his wrist in the
center of his back. Marching Darrell the last few yards, he pushed him down across one of the
large smooth stones at the back of the cove.
Nature seemed to know what sort of resort occupied the bay. The stones were rounded
with no sharp edges, and they reached about waist height—as if they’d been designed
specifically for submissives to be bent over.
It was the work of a moment for Fulton to catch hold of Darrell’s other hand and pin that
behind the boy, too. Grabbing a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, he snapped them around
Darrell’s wrists.
“I told you that you wouldn’t have the chance to disobey me twice,” Fulton said. “Your
hands will now stay behind your back until the end of the scene, no matter how bad your
memory turns out to be.”
Darrell turned his head so his cheek rested against the rock. “Yes, sir.” Shock made the
words curt, but there was no true panic in his tone. Fulton was as proud as hell of him, but now
was not the time to mention that.
“You remember your safe word?” he checked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Fulton growled the word into Darrell’s ear as he leaned forward, reached around
Darrell’s body and undid the fly on those sinfully tempting shorts.
The denim would have slid to the ground on its own, but Fulton tugged it down anyway,
making damn sure that Darrell knew it was his dom who stripped him, not gravity.
Fulton stepped back. The sun shone over his shoulder, perfectly illuminating Darrell’s
bare buttocks. As Fulton reached out to run his palm across the boy’s pale skin, his shadow
rushed ahead of him. Even that strange sight made Fulton tense with an unfamiliar twinge of
jealousy. Darrell was his; no one else could touch him—not even Fulton’s own shadow.
Frowning, Fulton pushed the inappropriate thought out of his head and concentrated on
the sight in front of him. Darrell obviously hadn’t kept his backside hidden from the sun all the
time. But the much lighter tan on his buttocks implied he didn’t get his arse out at every
opportunity. Now, his only chance of covering himself lay in his safe word.
Fulton ran his hand from the small of Darrell’s back, all the way down to the inside of his
knees, one on each side of his body, inspecting him thoroughly for injuries, and for the pure
pleasure of doing so.
“May I ask a question, sir?” Darrell asked.
Fulton glanced up at his profile view of Darrell’s face. “What is it?”
“Are you going to punish me for moving my hands, sir?”
Silence.
The waves, continued to roll and crash. A seagull made one hell of a racket somewhere in
the direction of the hotel. If Darrell had been inclined to strain his hearing, he knew he’d
probably even be able to make out the sound of the music playing in Hot Shots as the club
opened for business.
None of that made the slightest bit of difference. All Darrell actually heard was the deep,
all pervading silence of Fulton not answering his question.
Had it been the wrong thing to ask? Should the answer have been obvious? Maybe he
shouldn’t have cared what the dominant intended to do to him?
But it wasn’t obvious to Darrell, he did care, and he’d wanted to know so badly he’d been
incapable of keeping the question back.
“I’m not going to punish you,” Fulton eventually said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t
intend to spank you just because you belong to me for the rest of this scene, and that’s what I
want to do with you.”
Darrell closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d held the whole time Fulton had failed
to answer him. His mind swirled, but he wasn’t sure if that was down to lack of oxygen, or
simple relief at discovering Fulton wouldn’t be extra pissed off with him for enjoying the
spanking when he was supposed to have hated being punished.
“I understand, sir,” Darrell murmured, and he did. Deep down in the hitherto unexplored
depths of his soul, he understood that his dominant’s mood would make a huge difference to the
way Fulton’s hand felt against his arse.
Fulton didn’t say anything more. Perhaps he knew that he’d said all the words that could
ever be necessary. It was now time for action.
Fulton brought his hand down hard on Darrell’s right buttock. Before Darrell had time to
process any of the heat and confused sensations that rushed through his body, Fulton brought his
hand down again, this time on Darrell’s other arse cheek.
Apparently Fulton didn’t care if Darrell’s brain was several spanks behind reality. He’d
picked the rhythm he liked and he kept with it. Darrell gasped for breath. His fists clenched and
unclenched behind his back, but he had no idea what he wanted to grasp hold of, unless it was
simply the moment.
Grains of sand still stuck to his hands from when he’d stumbled. He hadn’t even had time
to brush his palms together before Fulton had caught hold of him.
Darrell now knew how the sand must feel, the tide crashing down on it day after day;
unfathomable, unrelenting, pounding and perfect. Fulton was the wave to his sand, and Darrell
was truly helpless beneath his onslaught.
Physically, Darrell was still capable of resisting. He could have struggled or yelled his
safe word. Mentally, he was already lost. The moment Fulton showed his body how to make pain
feel like pleasure; there had been no possibility of escape from him—and no desire to be
anywhere other than exactly where he was.
Darrell was Fulton’s now, and he wouldn’t have denied him anything.
It wasn’t just about proving he had the balls to survive a hardcore scene, not anymore.
Darrell had to prove to them both that he was submissive enough to achieve the standard Fulton
required of him, that he was man enough to completely satisfy his dominant. The idea of not
coming up to scratch made him feel like a grain of sand once more, but now he was being
tumbled by the waves and swept out to sea.
He was helpless, adrift in an ocean of inexperience and unexpected feelings. Only one
solid point of reference existed for Darrell now. Fulton’s hand—nothing could be more solid and
reassuring than that.
Darrell gasped as Fulton’s palm connected with his bare backside once again. Arching his
back, Darrell pushed his arse out for more. He had to be spanked by Fulton for the rest of his life.
All other ambitions faded away. Screw selling ice cream, this, this—was his purpose. It was
what he’d been born to do.
Silence descended again. Darrell’s ears buzzed with the lack of sounds. His arse
throbbed. Darrell closed his eyes as the sea breeze brushed against his arse. He felt as if he’d lain
unprotected in the mid-summer sun for several years and the heat had roasted his buttocks, while
somehow leaving the rest of his body untouched.
He rocked his hips, not sure if he wanted to escape the breeze or join in its gentle dance.
He whimpered as his cock rubbed against the smooth, frictionless surface of the rock beneath
him, begging for that one touch that would take him over the edge.
“Sir?” Darrell mumbled, as Fulton failed to fill the silence.
“Unless you intend to say your safe word, be quiet,” Fulton ordered.
Darrell fell silent, reassured by Fulton’s voice, even if the words might not have been
intended to cause that effect.
Fulton’s hand found him again. Darrell let out a startled cry as Fulton’s fingers slid
between his cheeks and stroked across his hole without any warning. The digits were slicked
with a generous coating of lube and hot from the spanking they’d just delivered.
Fulton didn’t tell him to shut up. Darrell wasn’t sure if that meant he was only expected
to avoid uttering actual words. Either way, the matter soon became irrelevant. There was no way
in hell he could stop himself whimpering, moaning and groaning as Fulton worked his fingers
deeper inside him and found his prostate.
Darrell was vaguely aware that they were on the beach and the tide was on its way in. He
knew the waves probably made some sort of noise, but he and Fulton occupied their own private
bubble now. The sound of a condom packet being torn open was louder than any ocean’s roar.
Darrell bit his lip, silently reciting every pleading prayer he could remember, even though
he was sure he didn’t deserve to have his supplications answered.
Something kissed against Darrell’s hole. He switched to a prayer of thanks. He’d never
been more grateful to feel a hard cock push inside him and stretch him open.
Once more Darrell opened his fists and sought for anything within his reach. Again, he
found nothing but the fresh sea air. For now at least, Fulton’s body was too far away. Fulton
hadn’t decided to offer him that pleasure as well as all the others he’d granted.
Fulton paused, buried as far inside Darrell as possible. His hips pressed against Darrell’s
spanked arse, making him groan and writhe. Only Fulton’s tight grip on Darrell’s waist stopped
him squirming with impatience as Fulton insisted on remaining completely stationary for long
enough to drive any man insane.
Finally, Fulton relented. Pulling back, he thrust into Darrell again, then again. Darrell
soon lost trace of time, space and anything else that might exist in the universe.
“Please.” Darrell had no idea if begging Fulton would convince him to reach around and
lend him a hand, but he had to try. Even the remotest possibility had to be worth a shot.
His shot missed. Fulton completely ignored his begging. Just like when he’d spanked
him, Fulton had found a rhythm he liked, and he stuck to it. The only thing he changed now was
the angle. Perhaps it wasn’t intended for Darrell’s benefit, but the slight alteration moved
Darrell’s whole world onto another heavenly cloud.
The pressure against his prostate on each thrust stopped being great and turned into
something truly awesome. Darrell screamed as he came against the curve of the rock.
No matter how long he’d been screwing a guy, or how much he cared about his lover;
every time Darrell had ever come, he’d found himself cut off from the world around him—his
partner included.
This time, Fulton went with him. Perhaps it was his grip on Darrell’s waist, perhaps it
was the sheer presence of the man, but he was inescapable. Even when ecstasy took possession
of Darrell, Fulton remained front and center, right in the crosshairs of his mind.
When Darrell opened his eyes, he was more breathless from shock than he was from
pleasure—and that was no insignificant benchmark. He looked over his shoulder, just in time to
see Fulton pull away from him and separate their bodies.
Right in the corner of Darrell’s field of vision, he saw Fulton tidy himself up. With his
hands stuck behind his back and his shorts down around his ankles, Darrell had very little choice
but to remain where he was, bent over the rock.
A lifetime seemed to pass before Fulton turned his attention toward him. Then, for
several minutes, he did nothing except admire the view.
Darrell, of all the stupid things to do, blushed. The cheeks on his face quickly heated up
until he was sure they were just as red as the skin covering his buttocks. He’d been to a dozen
naked barbeques at the hotel, and he’d never felt this exposed—he doubted that it had anything
to do with his habit of wearing an apron to those events to avoid the horrible possibility of cold
ice cream dropping onto his unprotected cock.
“Stand up.”
With a bit of squirming, Darrell managed to obey. He stared down at the rock. His cum
had left an impressive sized stain on it. A glance at his cock and the skin on his stomach made
him realize that, even if the stone was washed by the sea twice a day, that didn’t necessarily
mean it was clean. Cum, sweat and dirt covered his torso, all the way down to the tops of his
thighs.
“Turn around.”
Shuffling his feet, trying not to trip over his shorts, Darrell obeyed.
Fulton stared at him some more. The blush on Darrell’s cheeks darkened, even as his
cock tried to stir for an encore. Then, at long last, Fulton stepped forward. Bending down, he
caught hold of Darrell’s shorts and pulled them up his legs.
They were old. The fabric had been washed and worn so many times; it had become soft
and pliable. That was before he’d been spanked. Now, Darrell knew that denim was the roughest
substance on the planet, made out of a mixture of barbed wire and sandpaper.
As soon as Fulton undid the handcuffs, Darrell gave in to the temptation to rub at his sore
backside, even though it seemed to make the sensation worse rather than better.
“You took your first spanking very well,” Fulton announced as he took half a step back.
Darrell looked up at him. “Does that mean you’ll trust me to do hardcore in the future,
sir?”
Chapter Seven
It wasn’t a serious question. Fulton knew damn well that the boy was just high on getting
off and was flirting with him. The appropriate response was either to flirt back just as
lightheartedly, or to ensure that Darrell realized that it wasn’t the most appropriate way to talk to
a dominant, no matter how happy he was to come.
Somehow, neither of those options seemed viable in that moment. Fulton had never felt
more serious about an answer in his life, and he knew that came through loud and clear in his
tone. “No.”
Darrell blinked at him. “No?”
“No, I don’t think you’re ready for hardcore yet—not even close,” Fulton said.
Darrell frowned.
They stood close together on the sand and, while Darrell didn’t actually step away, Fulton
sensed that the submissive was on the verge of turning around and running for the hills.
Fulton was taking this whole thing far too seriously—he knew that. They were both
treating what happened between them as far more significant than it could possibly be. One of
them had to nip it in the bud. As the oldest, the most experienced, and most importantly of all, as
the dom, Fulton knew it fell to him to bring them back down to earth before one of them got
hurt—and not in the way that could be a lot of fun for a masochist.
“You need to find a suitable club and play around at the lighter end of the scene for a
while. There are plenty of guys your own age who are in the same boat as you. Make some
friends and practice your skills with them.” Fulton managed to get the words out of his mouth,
but the idea of Darrell getting kinky with anyone else left a bitter taste on his tongue—one that
he doubted any amount of alcohol would wash away.
“If you don’t want to screw me again, you don’t need to make excuses, you can just spit
it out,” Darrell snapped.
“I didn’t say I don’t want—” Fulton cut himself short, turned and walked toward the sea.
The tide had come in while they’d been focused on other things. He couldn’t go far unless he
wanted to subject the polish on his boots to the ravages of salt water.
“Then what?” Darrell demanded. “You don’t think I can take whatever it is that you want
to do with me?”
Fulton faced Darrell once more. “I don’t think it’s in either of our best interests to get
carried away over a holiday fling. We did a few scenes together. They went well. Making a clean
break now, before…”
He couldn’t say before we start believing it’s possible to feel serious about someone after
knowing him for just a few days.
He couldn’t say before we start believing in stupid things like love at first sight either,
even though that felt even closer to the truth.
“Before someone gets hurt,” Fulton settled for, knowing how weak it sounded, and hating
himself for not coming up with something better.
“I liked it.” Darrell sounded so calm compared to the way Fulton felt, it was dangerously
close to humiliating.
Fulton met the boy’s eyes across the few yards of sand that separated them. “What?”
“I liked it when you spanked me, I liked it when you flogged me,” Darrell said. “Hell, I
even liked it when you hung me upside down.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of discomfort,” Fulton bit out.
“Then what?” Darrell demanded. “What do you want to do to me that’s so horrifying,
you think I’ll run away screaming if you so much as mention it?”
A giant iron fist tightened around Fulton’s torso, squeezing until his lungs screamed and
his heart ceased to beat. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
Darrell’s frown deepened.
If Fulton were to guess, he’d put Darrell at just over twenty—still plenty young enough to
want to run and hide his blushes if an older man treated him like a child who was still too young
to play with the grownups.
Fulton folded his arms across his chest. “If you’re still around next time I give a series of
lectures here, we’ll see what happens then.”
“Bull,” Darrell strode forward until he stood less than a foot away from Fulton. “If you
haven’t got the balls to play out your kinky little fantasy with a guy who’s willing to do it, that’s
your problem, not mine.” His words were full of pride and anger, but the color on his cheeks was
all about embarrassment.
Turning on his heel, Darrell stomped toward the path leading up to the cliff top.
Fulton watched him go. Darrell’s denim shorts didn’t cover much. The marks from the
spanking were clearly visible both below the ragged hem and above the low-slung waist.
All alone in the cove, Fulton rubbed a hand over his head. A few days growth of hair
passed beneath his fingers, scrubbing a palm that was already sore after the spanking he’d
delivered.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have the courage. He just wanted to protect Darrell from getting
hurt in ways he hadn’t signed up for, didn’t he? It was a dom’s job to make sure there were no
unintentional injuries, right?
Fulton was just being responsible, making sure a kid didn’t get out of his depth during his
first foray into the kinky world. His own emotions had nothing to do with it. He certainly wasn’t
scared on his own behalf or in any way afraid that he was already starting to care for the boy. He
was only worried that Darrell would start believing in something at first sight, he’d never do
anything that stupid himself.
The third time Fulton repeated those facts to himself, he almost believed them. Almost.
Darrell thought about walking, that was all he thought about, the only subject he could
allow into his mind. Keep walking. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Don’t stop. Don’t
let the anger out, not here, not in public. Somehow, if he broke down and cursed the world out
here in the big wide world, it would mean that Fulton had won.
Ten minutes ago, Darrell hadn’t thought that the kind of games he’d play with Fulton
wouldn’t have a winner or a loser, but now he wasn’t sure. Nothing else he’d believed then had
turned out to be true, why should that idea be the exception to the rule?
Darrell gritted his teeth. It felt as if a lifetime had passed since he ran across the beach
toward Fulton, grinning with hope and hard with excitement.
Darrell reached up irritably and shoved his hair out of his eyes. A mark around his wrist
left by the handcuffs almost succeeded in distracting him with thoughts of how wonderful it had
felt to be helpless under Fulton’s control again. He pushed the topic away.
Keep walking.
It was no use. Even as he marched back to the shop, he had to close his eyes; wishing
emotions could be pushed away as easily as a lock of hair that blew in the breeze.
Luck was on his side, he didn’t crash into anyone while his eyes were shut.
Luck! Ha!
He opened his eyes again, not feeling lucky at all.
Unable to face going back into the shop immediately, more relieved than ever that he’d
arranged for someone to take the entire afternoon shift for him, Darrell hurried behind the little
row of shops and bars, and climbed up the fire escape that led to the rooms above the shop.
Slamming his door behind him, he flung himself down on the sofa bed that he hadn’t got
around to folding away that morning.
His spanked buttocks sent flames roaring through his nervous system, calling him every
kind of idiot for letting Fulton lay a fingertip on him, let alone a cupped hand. He remained on
his back, refusing to acknowledge how painfully his arse throbbed or wonder how long that
sensation would last.
What the hell was wrong with him? That was the important question.
If Fulton didn’t want to screw him, there were still lots of men who would happily fill his
place. Why should he care about one grumpy old git who didn’t have the balls to play with him?
The hotel was full of hot, young, kinky guys who would be more than happy to tie him up, whip
him or do anything else a man could do with leather and chains.
But, it wouldn’t be the same…
Darrell closed his eyes, hating the little whispered voice that insisted on being honest,
when the rest of him was trying to be sensible and dive into denial.
He told himself that he didn’t give a damn about Fulton, but the voice contradicted him.
Giving up on being stubborn, Darrell rolled over onto his stomach and pulled a pillow
under his head. He had the horrible suspicion that he didn’t just like Fulton. The pain in his
buttocks eased somewhat now that his weight had been removed from them, but that only made
him sad. It wouldn’t be long before every sign of Fulton ever having passed through his life
would disappear.
Darrell sighed into the pillow.
He’d never been in love before. That annoying little voice said that he should have told
Fulton how he felt, that he should have got down on his knees and begged Fulton to take him on
as his submissive. Perhaps if he’d promised to be Fulton’s slave and do anything he wanted for
the rest of his life, Fulton would have been willing to reconsider his decision.
Maybe if he…
Darrell closed his eyes tightly. Was he a coward for turning and walking away or was it
the most sensible thing he’d ever done? The question went around and around in Darrell’s head
until he was dizzy with it.
They still raced through his mind as the hours passed by. They kept him distracted when
he went down to close up the shop and thank his friend for stepping in and taking the shift for
him.
The same thoughts were still circling through his brain after darkness fell, only to be
broken by the fire dancers from Hot Shots. Nothing had changed by the time he crawled into his
sofa bed, lay down on his stomach and achieved a restless, dream-filled sleep.
* * * *
Fulton had received all kinds of complimentary accommodation from the various hotels
and clubs he visited to give talks and demonstrations to the patrons. His sea-view room on the
third floor of the Pendragon Bay Hotel was one of the best rooms he’d been offered, but tonight
it felt more like a prison than a luxury.
Holding a bottle of beer in his hand, he paced out onto the small balcony overlooking the
beach. A few rooms along, two of the guests were having a great time. One man leaned over the
railings as another pounded into him, hard and fast—apparently intent on getting them both off
as quickly and as loudly as possible.
Fulton glanced in their direction before turning his attention to the sea. Yes, that’s what
he’d come out there to look at—the sea. With the moon high in the sky, shining down prettily on
the water, it should have been the kind of view it was easy to admire. It wasn’t.
He’d barely been on the balcony for a few minutes, before he looked down toward the
little row of shops that lined the cliff path. This wasn’t a damn movie. He knew he wouldn’t spot
Darrell standing down there, staring up at him and warbling some overly sentimental song about
a summer on the beach. For one thing, he’d have needed a pair of binoculars to make him out.
For another, that kind of song required a duet, and there was no way in hell he’d lower himself to
that. Maybe he’d lost his mind, but he still had standards.
The moans from two balconies down grew more frantic. Fulton retreated into his room
and closed the door tightly before laying on his bed, his legs hanging over the end, his boots
resting on the floor. He was in no mood to listen to men who’d obviously got their love lives
sorted out to their complete satisfaction.
Sex lives, he automatically corrected himself, and shook his head at his own idiocy. He
was too old to get sentimental now.
He should go and play. He didn’t have to mope in his room like a sulky teenager. There
was never a shortage of willing partners in the kinky areas of the hotel. Somehow, the idea didn’t
appeal.
Fulton cursed, just as loudly as the men two doors down might have yelled out his
pleasure.
Then, closing his eyes, he forced himself to simply lay there and let time pass. He had no
idea how long he’d remained on the bed, pushing down his desire to rush across the hotel
complex and break down the door to Darrell’s temporary accommodation.
The sudden wail of a siren made him sit up. Frowning, he headed out onto the balcony
again, wondering what the hotel was putting on tonight and if it would prove to be a worthy
distraction. Damn, but he’d probably take an unworthy one. It was almost certainly a siren.
Would it be strippers dressed, albeit quite temporarily, as firemen or policemen?
The hotel never did things by halves, that was true, but—
“Fire!” The word rushed up from the seating around on the terrace directly below
Fulton’s room. A man didn’t shout like that unless he was serious. The guy pointed. Fulton’s
pulse-rate doubled. His attention was once more drawn to that little row of shops and clubs.
It couldn’t be; but it was.
Flames leapt along the rooftops from one end of the row to the other.
The memory of the heat all those freezers had pumped out into the shop hit Fulton so
hard he almost doubled over. A tiny electrical fault was all it would take.
This time, Fulton didn’t curse when he turned away from the balcony railings and went
back inside—that would have meant wasting breath that could be better used for running straight
through his room, along the corridor and toward the stairs.
Chapter Eight
“Have you seen Darrell? The boy from the ice cream shop—have you seen him?” Fulton
grabbed yet another stranger by the shoulder and demanded an answer from him. The guy shook
his head and hastily apologized for his ignorance. Every guy Fulton had asked said much the
same. One by one, they’d all shaken their heads.
Fulton forced down his panic and pushed his way through the crowd of men who’d
gathered at one end of the path leading past the shops. Maybe they were there to offer help. It
seemed equally likely they were simply there to gawp. They were no use to him. Leaving behind
the onlookers, Fulton kept going, fueled by complete desperation.
A fireman turned toward him. He held a clipboard in his hand and had the air of a man in
charge. “Get back to the—”
“There’s a guy staying in the room above the ice cream shop—the fourth building from
the left,” Fulton cut in impatiently. “His name’s Darrell, he’s—”
“Young, blond guy?” the fireman asked. He looked down at a clipboard.
“Darrell…Hogarth?”
“Yes!”
One more frown at the clipboard and the man turned his attention back to the battle
between the flames and the men under his command. “He’s been checked out. He’s fine.”
“Where is he?” Fulton only realized he had a death grip on the other man’s arm when the
guy winced and tried to shake him off.
“He’s not in the building.” Therefore, he is no longer my problem.
Fulton turned away from him in disgust. Darrell wasn’t someone to be carried out of a
burning building then discarded. The fireman walked away. Fulton rubbed his hand over the top
of his head and tried to think through his unaccustomed state of panic.
Not dead.
Not trapped in a burning building.
Not badly injured in the fire.
There were lots of horrifying possibilities that Fulton could cross off his list of concerns.
All he had to do now was find Darrell in this chaos. Then, he might be able to take a breath.
Dark smoke plumed high into the air. The noise of the firemen putting out the last of the
blaze and rendering the situation entirely under control, along with the chatter of the hotel’s
guests and employees, made it as difficult to hear as it was to see.
Smoke stung Fulton’s eyes as he made his way back toward the crowd, staring at each
soot-stained face, making sure he didn’t dismiss the man he was searching for in his haste.
Shoving his way between a guy in a suit and a completely nude sub, Fulton marched on.
He glanced down along the beach in passing and stopped short. Narrowing his eyes, he
tried to make out a small shape some twenty yards away.
The next moment, Fulton realized he’d already stormed halfway across the shifting sands.
He was just about to demand to know what the hell Darrell thought he was doing, scaring the
hell out of him like that, when his inner dom registered the boy’s body language.
Darrell sat statue-still, his knees pulled up in front of him. He’d wrapped his arms around
his calves and held his head bowed. It was hard to tell if he stared at the sand in front of him or if
some less than pleasant memory had hold of his senses.
Fulton slowed his approach, taking care not to spook Darrell. When he was close enough,
Fulton lowered himself carefully onto the sand next to him.
There didn’t seem to be any physical injuries, and while he still only wore those cut-offs
it would be difficult to miss anything serious, but the boy was almost certainly suffering from
some sort of shock. The urge to pick him up and carry him across to a paramedic welled up
inside Fulton like the biggest storm surge on the planet.
“I promised.”
“What?” Fulton studied Darrell’s face in the insufficient light from the commotion
behind them, but Darrell stared at the horizon like a man who’d just realized all his hopes had
been lost at sea.
“Mr. McArthur, my boss. He left me in charge for the whole week. Before he left, he told
me not to burn the shop down when he was away. I promised.”
Fulton’s stomach turned over. “The fire started in—”
Darrell shook his head. “In Hot Shots—I always said the place was a fire hazard. By the
time I got out, the end three were all on fire. I…” He shook his head again, as if that would
somehow change what had happened.
“Are you hurt?” Fulton demanded, unable to keep the question back a moment longer. To
hell with what he could see, he wanted more than that.
Darrell still seemed incapable of keeping his head still. He shook it again. “I’m fine, sir.”
“Are you sure? Have you been checked out? Was it by someone who knows what he’s
doing?”
“Claude, he runs the hotel for his father, he made me see one of the paramedics. She said
I’m fine,” Darrell whispered.
His words did nothing to quell the terror lodged in the center of Fulton’s chest. The
Darrell he’d come to know over the last few days damn near bounced off the walls with pent up
energy and enthusiasm for life, if he wasn’t tied down. This soot-stained version was barely a
shadow of that boy.
“Nothing hurts at all?” Fulton checked one more time.
“My arse throbs like a toothache.” He seemed to attempt a smile. “The sand’s a lot harder
than it looks.”
That settled everything in Fulton’s mind. “Come on.” He stood up and held out his hand.
Darrell stared at it as if he genuinely had no idea what was expected of him.
“Give me your hand,” Fulton ordered.
The clear command seemed to cut through the shock. Darrell did as he was told.
Fulton tugged Darrell to his feet. Sliding an arm around the boy’s shoulders, he turned
them around and piloted them toward the hotel.
“Where are we going?” Darrell mumbled.
Fulton kept their feet moving. “My hotel room.”
“Oh.” That was it. Darrell didn’t say another word until Fulton closed the door behind
them.
Darrell stared at his surroundings as if he’d never seen them before—as if he’d never
seen any hotel room before. Fulton was sure Darrell didn’t really see one now—just as he hadn’t
really seen the sea while he’d sat on the beach. He was lost inside his own head. There was little
Fulton could do about that, but there were practical things he could do.
Taking him by the hand, Fulton led Darrell into the bathroom. Short, simple orders,
broken down and given to him one by one, seemed to do the trick.
Fulton supported Darrell’s arm as the boy obediently dropped his shorts and stepped into
a bath half-filled with warm water. Grabbing a big fluffy towel off the rail above the bath, Fulton
tossed it into the water in front of him.
“Kneel on it. It’ll be more comfortable than sitting on a spanking.”
Darrell knelt.
Fulton lowered himself onto the mat alongside the bath, bringing them to the same
height. Grabbing a sponge, Fulton soaked it in water and swiped at some of the worst soot marks.
Darrell looked down at his body and watched with a detached kind of interest as his skin
became cleaner and the bath water grayer.
“Sir?” Darrell whispered, after what seemed like years of silence.
Fulton was far too relieved to hear the boy speak of his own volition to care what words
he uttered, or what tone he used now. “Yes?” he encouraged.
“I don’t think I can…I mean, I want to, but I really can’t…”
“Spit it out,” Fulton ordered.
“I don’t think I’m any use for submission at the moment,” Darrell mumbled, his head
bowed and water dripping off his hair to run down his cheeks.
Fulton tensed. “That’s not what I brought you here for.”
“Oh… Okay.” There was no emotion in Darrell’s voice. He went back to staring vacantly
at the tiles in front of him while Fulton gently washed him.
The idea of screwing him when he was so out of it was the most un-erotic prospect
Fulton had ever heard of. Fulton mentally fumed at a world that taught a submissive he needed to
worry about something like that, but he made sure none of that anger was visible to his sub.
In time, it became obvious that Darrell was as clean as he would get that night. Fulton let
the water out of the bath and grabbed a fresh towel. Still checking for any sign of pain or injury
as he worked, Fulton patted and rubbed the boy dry.
He helped Darrell out of the bath and held out one of the hotel’s complimentary
bathrobes.
Darrell looked up again. Their eyes met.
“Why are you being nice to me, sir?”
“Because, right now, you need someone to be nice to you,” Fulton said briskly.
The simplicity of that statement seemed to meet with Darrell’s approval. He meekly
allowed Fulton to wrap him in the big fluffy robe.
Back in the bedroom, Fulton led Darrell around to the left side of the bed. “Lie down—on
your stomach is fine.” He watched to make sure Darrell obeyed before turning his attention to
the next item on his mental to-do list.
A small tea set sat on the cabinet above the mini bar. While Darrell lay in silence, Fulton
brewed a mug of strong tea and added several little packets of sugar. Topping up the cup with a
little cold water to make it immediately drinkable, he carried it across to the bed.
“Drink this.” Fulton helped Darrell to roll onto his side and supported his hand, guiding
the mug to his lips.
One sip and Darrell pulled his head back, almost spilling his tea all over the bed in the
process. He wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips. “No offense, sir, but that’s really disgusting.”
“It’s good for you.”
“But I don’t take sugar, I—”
“Drink it.” Fulton was in no mood for disobedience. He was going to look after the boy,
whether he liked it or not.
Darrell made another face, much like a child ordered to eat his greens but, under Fulton’s
watchful eye, he also drank the entire mugful.
“Good boy.”
Fulton sat on the edge of the bed. Maybe it was the tea, maybe it was simply being away
from the immediate vicinity of the fire, but Darrell seemed to be a little bit more like himself.
“Do you always give a submissive what he needs, sir?” he asked, his voice still hoarse
from the smoke, but far stronger than it had been on the beach, or even in the bath.
Fulton raised an eyebrow at the question.
“You said you were being kind to me because that’s what I needed. Did you think I
needed you to be a complete bastard earlier on the beach?”
Darrell’s brain seemed reluctant to operate in the way he was used to. Fluffy silver clouds
filled large parts of his mind. Apparently, fluffiness was a great conductor because those clouds
took every thought he managed to assemble within any of the slow, lumbering sections of his
brain that were willing to operate, straight to his mouth, without giving him any chance to edit
them on route.
On the other hand, the tiny part of his consciousness that sparkled like expensive crystal
seemed able to think inordinately clearly, indeed pointed out, that being in shock could also be a
wonderful excuse. It could let him get away with a hell of a lot.
He watched Fulton carefully, and Fulton stared back at him in return, but Darrell was
sure that the other man didn’t really see him.
Fulton’s mind was back in the little cove, standing right next to that cum-stained rock. “It
was exactly what you needed,” he finally said, his voice more gruff than ever.
“Why, sir?”
Fulton stood up and took Darrell’s empty mug into the bathroom to rinse it out. It didn’t
strike Darrell as the kind of task that had to be carried out at that particular moment. He stared at
Fulton’s back, wondering what the hell was going on with him.
“You were getting carried away, getting ahead of yourself, starting to believe in lust at
first sight—or worse.” Turning, Fulton leaned against the edge of the sink. The expression in his
eyes changed. He seemed to refocus his thoughts entirely on the present moment. “I was right
when I said you’ll be better off with a man closer to your own level of experience.”
The breath caught in Darrell’s throat. Maybe they would both be better off with someone
who could easily play at their own level, but Darrell suddenly realized that that wasn’t the only
thing they had in common.
A firework went off inside his mind, but it wasn’t the kind that might topple over and set
fire to a club. Suddenly Darrell realized that he wasn’t the only one in danger of falling head
over heels for a man he’d barely met. Fulton wasn’t just trying to make sure Darrell got what he
needed. Fulton was scared as hell and running for the hills.
Very slowly, Darrell dragged himself off the bed and stood up.
Fulton frowned. “If you fall flat on your face—”
“You won’t let that happen,” Darrell said.
Fulton huffed. “You’re bloody sure of yourself all of a sudden.”
Darrell was pretty sure it was only the sink digging into Fulton’s spine that stopped the
man backing off as he approached.
“I’m sure of you, sir,” Darrell corrected. He couldn’t ever remember feeling so confident
about anything, or anyone, in his life. “You’d always make sure that any man who submitted to
you got whatever he needed.”
“And?” Fulton folded his arms across his chest.
“And I’m submitting to you, sir,” Darrell whispered, now less than a yard away from
him.
“And what do you think you need?” he demanded.
“You, sir,” Darrell said simply. “I need you.” He’d never uttered a more honest phrase in
his life.
Fulton frowned at him for what seemed like forever. Darrell’s heart counted out the
moments, beating faster and faster as time dragged on.
Finally Fulton found his tongue. “You said yourself that you’re not in any condition to do
a scene.”
“I guess that depends on what you decide the scene should involve, sir.”
Fulton reached out and cupped Darrell’s cheek in his hand, his touch now so tender it was
hard to believe he’d used that same hand to spank Darrell that same day.
Darrell remained perfectly still, giving all control over to Fulton without the slightest
hesitation. Fulton would give him whatever he needed, and right then, he needed to be under the
dominance of the man he was well on his way to falling for.
Dipping his head, Fulton brought their lips together. It was a surprisingly gentle kiss.
Fulton didn’t demand anything; perhaps because Darrell didn’t try to keep anything back from
his dom.
Fulton moved both of his hands to Darrell’s waist now, his touch light and almost chaste.
Closing his eyes, Darrell’s only response was to savor the kiss all the more thoroughly. His
hands hung idly at his sides. He had no intention of doing anything unless he received an order.
Very slowly, without issuing a single command, Fulton walked Darrell backward, taking
them from the bathroom into the bedroom. He didn’t break the kiss until they stood next to the
bed.
Darrell looked up and met Fulton’s gaze. The smoke had irritated Darrell’s eyes. He
couldn’t help but blink, but he never looked away.
His movements deft and confident, Fulton undid Darrell’s borrowed bathrobe and slid his
hands beneath the soft fabric. Darrell gasped as Fulton ran his palms over his body, stroking and
caressing, stoking a new fire within him—one that was all about pleasure rather than destruction.
Within a few moments of offering Fulton his complete submission, Darrell was hard, his
cock pointing up toward the top button on Fulton’s fly. He hadn’t been sure if he’d be able to get
turned on so soon after waking up in a room rank with smoke—but it seemed as if not even the
most frightening event of his life could dent his attraction to Fulton. He reacted as strongly to
Fulton’s dominance over him as he had to any fight or flight response.
Stepping away, Fulton left Darrell standing naked next to the bed while he stripped off
his own clothes. He was even more gorgeous bare than he was dressed. Tan lines weren’t a
problem for him. The same rich dark shade covered almost every part of Fulton’s body.
Darrell would have given anything to be able to reach out and touch him, but he didn’t
dare. Doing anything without a clear order from Fulton simply wasn’t an option.
Fulton held out a hand. As easily as he saw it, Darrell unfroze to put his wrist within
Fulton’s grip. Fulton guided him to kneel comfortably on the bed and sat beside him. He took
Darrell’s hand and placed it on his chest.
Permission to touch—granted.
Darrell glanced up, checking he hadn’t imagined that silent message.
Fulton nodded and released Darrell’s wrist.
Free to do whatever he wanted, protected by the simple fact that Fulton could stop him
and impose any limits he desired at any moment, Darrell trailed his fingertips over Fulton’s bare
skin slowly, taking pleasure from each bit of flesh he touched. A few minutes passed before
Fulton reached out to him in return.
They were like teenagers, groping each other in the back of a car, fascinated with
exploring another person’s body—unfamiliar with any anatomy that wasn’t their own. Except,
there was nothing rushed or frantic about their actions. Darrell had no idea how long he spent
getting to know Fulton’s form, while Fulton examined his in return. There was no panic now, no
need to leave a playroom because it had only been booked for an hour, no requirement to walk
out of the cove before night fell. It genuinely felt as if they had their whole lives to look forward
to.
Hours, days, maybe even weeks later, their lips met. Darrell helplessly whimpered into
Fulton’s mouth. His cock ached. He never remembered needing another man so badly. Their
glacial speed was sweet, but it had become a sweet torture. His desperation to feel Fulton buried
inside him made his eyes blur and his ears ring.
Fulton’s explorations finally moved to Darrell’s cock. He tightened his fingers around his
shaft and started to jack him in painfully slow strokes, never giving Darrell the kind of caress he
needed to be able to come.
Without any warning, Fulton’s touch disappeared—not just from Darrell’s cock, but from
his whole world.
Darrell was shocked enough to jerk back. His lips were swollen and sensitive from the
kiss, but he didn’t have a chance to hear a word leave them.
A nudge against Darrell’s hip ordered him to lie down and roll over onto his side. No
longer needing to say anything, he obeyed as quickly as his limbs would allow. He needed to
please, needed to regain Fulton’s touch. Behind him, Darrell heard his dominant retrieve
something from the hotel’s bedside cabinet and held his breath in anticipation.
A moment later, well lubed fingers slid between Darrell’s buttocks and stroked his hole.
Darrell let out a sigh of relief. Despite the soreness in his buttocks, he was so relaxed it didn’t
take long for Fulton to have him ready and Fulton didn’t waste any time sheathing himself with
latex, then lining up their bodies.
Darrell bit the inside of his cheek, wanting to beg, but at the same time not actually
wanting to influence Fulton in any way. He needed his submission to be complete in a way it
never had before.
Eons came and went. Finally, Fulton thrust forward and brought them together. Darrell
instantly ground back against him, rocking his hips and trying to move around Fulton’s cock.
Reaching around him, Fulton placed his hand low down on Darrell’s stomach. He spread out his
fingers, covering as much of Darrell’s torso as he could.
Fulton could have demanded that Darrell fall still—it was his right. But the gentle request
reached deeper into Darrell than any shouted order could have. He obeyed. He tensed every
muscle in his body, trying to please his lover and whimpered under the strain of temptation.
Fulton made a noise in the back of his throat, deep and reassuring. The strength Darrell
felt in his dominant wound through his body. Darrell had never felt safer, more submissive, or
more in need of the mother of all orgasms.
When Fulton began to move and set his rhythm, Darrell did his best to remain still and
merely accept what he was given. Taking twenty lashes would have been a far easier test to pass.
When Fulton slid his hand down to Darrell’s cock, it became impossible for Darrell to remain
either still or silent.
“Come for me.” Not an order, but a whispered invitation, and one that Darrell was more
than happy to accept. He’d been on edge for so long, the moment his concentration wavered, his
climax crashed through him, carrying him along like a surfer on a wave. The only difference
was, Darrell didn’t have to try to hold his balance. There was no danger of him falling or
drowning. Fulton wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.
It was only after the tide had receded and Darrell lay in post-orgasmic bliss, that he
became aware that he wasn’t the only man who’d come. Fulton lay behind him, perfectly still,
and apparently, as little inclined to move as Darrell.
He made that back of the throat, reassuring sound again, and pulled Darrell in more
tightly against his body. The warmth of bare skin against bare skin soothed every part of Darrell,
all except his spanked arse. The skin there burned; the muscle beneath it smoldered. Darrell
smiled and lethargically tugged a pillow down the bed, to rest his head upon it.
Sometime later, Fulton moved. Darrell didn’t, he remained still, letting Fulton fit his
body back against him after he’d dispensed with the condom and pulled the blankets up over
them.
As much as he resisted the idea, there came a time when they were no longer day
dreaming or floating on afterglow. Darrell was increasingly certain that they were both so wide
awake that something needed to be said.
If Fulton wasn’t going to break the silence because he wanted to be nice to a sub who’d
had a rough day then there was only one man would could alter the stalemate.
“I’m not usually this soppy, sir,” Darrell whispered.
Lying behind Darrell, Fulton knew the boy couldn’t see his expression. He still lifted an
eyebrow in skepticism. “Oh?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t usually even think about being so…vanilla about things,” Darrell
said.
Fulton smiled. “What the hell makes you think anything we just did was in any way,
shape, or form vanilla?”
Darrell hesitated and tensed within Fulton’s arms.
Fulton forced himself not to hug the boy tighter to reassure him. That wasn’t what Darrell
needed. Being coddled would only take him so far. Fulton took a deep breath and tried to work
out where to start.
“Kink isn’t just leather and chains,” he finally said, speaking slowly, working out what to
say as he went along. “It can be a look in a guy’s eye, a word. It can be what passes between two
men when there isn’t a need for words. When it comes down to it, all the rest is just window
dressing.” He thought for a moment. “Window dressing that it’s lots of fun to play with, but still
not the essential core of it all.”
They were pressed together so tightly, Fulton could feel every tiny movement Darrell
made. It felt so wonderful to hold him that way. It was reassuring for himself, too. Hell, it was
only knowing that Darrell was safe that would make it possible for Fulton to sleep that night.
“So, when we were…?”
“When I was screwing you, I had no doubt you were submitting to me. I had complete
control, didn’t I?” Fulton prompted.
“Yes, sir.” The words were only whispered, but there was no hiding the honesty in them.
“I’d go as far to say it’s the deepest form of submission you’ve ever offered me.”
“I was scared,” Darrell whispered. “Not of sex. I’m really glad we did it. But…”
“Scared of how quickly you’ve found yourself surrendering complete control to a relative
stranger,” Fulton suggested.
Darrell nodded.
Fulton opened his mouth to speak.
“Please don’t say that’s one of the reasons you think I should go back to the minor
leagues and mess around with guys who aren’t as serious about all this as you are, sir.
Everything is going so well tonight. I’d really hate to have to be pissed off with you right now.”
Fulton chuckled under his breath. “Fair enough. Since we both know I’m right, I won’t
crow about it.”
Rolling onto his back, Fulton nudged Darrell to turn over and curl comfortably into his
side so his spanked skin wasn’t pressed against anything.
“I’m still glad we did this, sir,” Darrell said, stubborn as a mule despite everything he’d
gone through that day.
Fulton murmured a vague answer in the back of his throat, but his attention had already
moved away from things that had happened that day, onto things that might happen in the future.
“You said your boss was away?” Fulton asked.
Darrell nodded, his chin rubbing against Fulton’s shoulder with every movement of his
head.
“Are you worried about what will happen when he comes back?”
“At least I can say the fire didn’t start in our shop,” Darrell muttered. He sighed and
curled in closer to Fulton’s side.
“How much of your stuff was destroyed?”
“Not much. I was only staying there for the week, while Mr. McArthur’s away. Pretty
much everything except my uniform is back at my flat.” Darrell was silent for a few seconds. “I
don’t live far away.”
Fulton counted out the seconds of silence until Darrell spoke again.
“Claude said I could have a job working in the hotel bar, since my former place of
employment is currently a little pile of ash and everything.”
Fulton stared up at the ceiling, carefully fitting each new piece of information into his
view of the future.
“Unless you’re looking for an assistant that is, sir?”
“What?”
“You go from place to place, teaching guys about kink, don’t you?” Darrell didn’t give
Fulton time to answer before rushing on. “It occurred to me that you might find it useful to have
a sub on hand, so you could, sort of, demonstrate stuff on me—there’d be no need to ask for
volunteers then.”
The silence was heavy and cloying, but Fulton didn’t hurry to break it. There would be no
rushing. Perhaps he wasn’t going to order Darrel to take things as slowly as he should, but there
would be no hasty decision making, Fulton was determined about that.
More and more tension crept into Darrell’s muscles, until Fulton thought the other man
might explode from the sheer amount of force filling each limb. Somehow, he survived until
Fulton cleared his throat.
“Claude offered me a job, too—teaching classes at the hotel.”
“What?” Darrell pushed himself up. With his forearms resting on Fulton’s chest, he
stared down at him. “He did? When, sir?”
“It’s been a standing offer for the last two years; he re-stated it when I arrived this week.”
“Are you going to take it, sir?” Darrell asked, his eyes bright, his expression hopeful.
Part of Fulton wanted to tell the boy to back off and give him some room to breathe, but
tonight wasn’t just about, it couldn’t just be about, what Fulton wanted. It had to be about what
Darrell needed, too.
“I don’t know,” Fulton said, with simple honesty. “It never even occurred to me that I’d
want to stay in one place for more than a fortnight until today.” It had never occurred to him that
he could be so frantic at the idea of a relative stranger—even one that he’d had sex with—being
hurt in an event completely unrelated to him.
Darrell stared down at Fulton, a little furrow between his brows. Whatever he usually put
on his hair had been washed away during his bath. His hair was now fluffed up and surrounding
his head like a halo that had found its way onto the head of someone who was far more suited to
a collar than angel’s wings.
Fulton took a deep breath, aware that he was lifting and lowering Darrell’s torso in the
process.
“Six months,” he said.
Darrell’s eyes narrowed. His fingers scratched at Fulton’s skin as he tried to grab hold of
him, regardless of whether his hands were in anywhere near a convenient place to gain a
purchase.
“I’ll tell Claude that I’ll sign a six month contract with him,” Fulton specified. “I’ll work
here for six months. If we’re still together at the end of that time, we’ll work out what our next
step should be.”
“You mean that, sir?” Darrell asked.
“I never say anything I don’t mean.” The unaccustomed feeling that came with making
such an unprecedented offer, made Fulton’s stomach knot with tension, and his words come out
more sharply than he intended.
Apparently, Darrell couldn’t have cared less if the words were snarled, yelled or issued in
Morse code. He grinned as if his world had just been burned to the ground, but the phoenix that
arose from its ashes was far more magnificent that he’d ever have believed possible.
“Thank you, sir.”
Fulton suddenly found himself in the strange position of not knowing what to say to a
submissive, to his submissive.
“Get some sleep,” he finally came out with. “If you can avoid burning the building to the
ground while you do that, all the better.”
Darrell just beamed all the more and curled into Fulton’s side again. “I’ll do my best,
sir.” A few seconds later, he spoke again, this time his words far closer to a whisper. “I’ll always
do my best for you, sir.”
Fulton smiled, knowing that that was no less than he’d do for his new submissive.
About the Author
Kim Dare is a twenty-nine year old, full time writer from Wales (UK). First published in 2008,
she has since released close to eighty BDSM erotic romance titles.
While most of Kim’s stories follow male/male relationships, she also writes about characters that
enjoy male/female, female/male (female dominant), female/female and all kinds of ménage
relationships. Kim’s titles have included contemporary stories, fairy-tale re-tellings, vampires,
time travelers, werewolves and werelions—not to mention the occasional wereduck.
Regardless of the gender of her characters or the different genres they inhabit, from short stories
to full-length novels, there are three things Kim always wants to give her characters—kink, love
and a happy ending.
Kim loves to talk to her readers and can be found at www.kimdare.com.
Also Available from
Resplendence Publishing
Learning the Ropes by Kim Dare
Sex Sells Series, Book 4
Working for a company whose slogan is ‘Sex sells and we’re very good at sex’ isn’t easy for a
man with an apparently inexhaustible ability to blush. Things only get more embarrassing for
Floyd when he’s sent to construct an advertising campaign for a BDSM club.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the owner of the club is Peter Ingram, the silent partner in SKIN
designs, which technically makes him Floyd’s boss. If he screws this up, Floyd’s going to be
looking for a new job. His only option is to set aside his embarrassment and throw himself into
learning everything there is to know about leather.
But, when Peter agrees to teach Floyd what submission really means, suddenly it’s not only his
job that’s at risk.
Hot Rivals by Cheryl Dragon
All Male Nudes Series, Book One
Jay and Robbie both bare their bodies at the most popular strip club in Vegas. Pleasing the
customer is their main job. However, Jay isn’t going to let the new guy knock him out of the top
spot without playing dirty. Dating another stripper is asking for trouble, but in the end Jay finds
himself being seduced by the sexiest cowboy in Vegas!
Virgin Studies by Mia Watts
Claybourne College Series, Book Two
Owen Jackson has the hots for his biology teacher’s assistant, Carter Mason. The man is
smokin’. He’s all hard body and dreamy golden eyes, with a smile that can wet the panties of
men and women alike. So when he has the opportunity to follow the TA to a second science
class, he doesn’t care that the course is a well beyond his capabilities.
Carter Mason barely made it through a semester of assisting in a chemistry class because a
certain student who haunts his erotic dreams. Now Owen is in his biology class and Carter
doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He wants him, but a relationship could be tricky. And just
when he thinks Owen wants him back, a mistaken identity leaves him in the dark with a horny
virgin.
In Time of Need by Sean Michael
Handcuffs and Lace Series
Chip McMullen has always wanted to know what it was like to really bottom, but has never
voiced his desires to anyone until the evening he’s nursing a beer after a shot to his shoulder that
was stopped by his vest. He runs into Dawson Sorenson at the bar and the two of them get to
talking.
Chip knows Dawson is gay like him, out but not loud about it. Maybe that’s why he finds
himself confessing a few of his desires to the man. Dawson suggests Chip check out the Bloody
Rose if that’s the kind of thing Chip wants.
Can Chip admit just how far his needs go to himself and make the trek to the Bloody Rose?
Love in La Terraza by Ethan Day
Cain Elliott is a desperate man. On the brink of losing La Terraza, the 1920’s Spanish style
courtyard apartment complex his grandmother left him in her will, he’s faced with the option of
selling to a real estate developer or losing the building outright, due to the costs of upkeep that
have now left him teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. One setback after another has slowly
whittled away any hope he’d been harboring to turn the tides. Having time for little else in life,
Cain’s guilt over his failure to protect the home of those who reside within the walls of La
Terraza has crippled his spirit.
On the partnership fast-track at the flashy architectural firm of Hamilton-Bach, Henry Abrams is
new in town, a little lonely and looking for inspiration. Tired of games and longing for
something real, Henry discovers the road to happiness could lie in the arms of the sad,
uncomplicated Cain Elliott.
Discovering that Hamilton-Bach represents the mysterious entrepreneur attempting to purchase
La Terraza, combined with the self-doubt and mistrust over a love that develops too fast, leave
both men struggling to decide whether or not they can truly find… Love in La Terraza.
The Pit Boss by Dakota Rebel
Derek Sikes has always had a nice, boring life complete with a normal office job and weekly
dinner at his parent's house. His brother was always the crazy, unreliable, wild child in the
family. So Derek isn't really surprised when his brother ends up engaged to a Las Vegas show
girl and begs him to come be the best man at the wedding.
Derek's plan of flying to Nevada, watching his brother make a huge mistake, and making it back
to work by Monday gets sidetracked when he meets a handsome pit boss named Joel his first
night in town. Falling harder and faster than he ever has before, Derek can't help but wonder
what's going to happen when he has to go home to his simple life in Nebraska. Because
unfortunately, what happens in Vegas usually stays in Vegas.
Romero and Julian by Brynn Paulin
Stay away from them!
Wesley Romero and Micah Julian have heard the admonitions their entire lives, but when
lightning-fast attraction strikes them one night, they can’t deny the connection that binds them.
Their families may be engaged in a long-standing feud, but Wes and Micah want to solve their
differences in a more civilized manner—in bed and in each other’s embrace, where arm-to-arm
combat has never been so good.
www.resplendencepublishing.com
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