The Other Man (Starting Over Book 2) Read online

  Aled finally took pity and agreed at twenty-five percent off their never-known, never-paid price. Gabriel was packaged up with duct tape, mouth and eyes bound to keep him blind and dumb, and dumped on the back seat of Aled’s car under a blanket like a large parcel. Kevin silently handed over a plastic bag with his clothes then loudly offered one last piece of advice well within Gabriel’s earshot.

  “It likes to touch itself. I’d recommend a chastity belt when you’re out, so it’s not tempted.”

  That finally elicited a whimper from the back seat, and Aled smirked.

  “What makes you think my toys get to keep their fingers?”

  Kevin grinned.

  Aled drove fast, deliberately jostling the back seat and braking too hard. He took the long route home and swung up into the garage nose-first rather than the usual reverse, just for the extra bounce and speed.

  Then he left Gabriel to wait in the car while he unlocked the house and fetched a knife.

  After all, removing duct tape from a new toy with scissors wouldn’t be as fun.

  He dragged Gabriel out of the car and onto the garage floor and let him feel the blade when cutting him out of the bonds. He left the blindfold and gag in place for the moment, leaving Gabriel exposed and vulnerable as he was steered, blind and naked, into the house and up the stairs into the master bedroom.

  Gabriel would be expecting to be shoved to his knees and face-fucked—so for that reason alone, Aled didn’t give it to him. Instead he lifted Gabriel up onto the bed, arranging him on his back with his arms folded up against his chest to secure and hide his breasts. Kevin had finally put Aled in the mood for something a little rougher, though, so rather than ribbon, he went for the wire. It was thin metal twine, gold, the sort used to hang pictures. Rough when rubbed against the skin, and an encouragement to keep as still as possible.

  Which meant, when being fucked against it, bearing down as hard as possible and meeting every thrust with tight resistance.

  Gabriel whined against the gag as Aled wound the gold tighter and tighter, digging it into the soft skin of his armpits and elbows, twisting it in patterns along his belly and back, looping it around his neck like a makeshift collar, ensuring that his nipples were surrounded in the cruel twists. With every cry, Aled slapped him, swatting over the wire to press it in harder, until the lesson was learned and quiet swept in again, broken only by Gabriel’s harsh breathing and the gentle creaks of the mattress as Aled worked.

  And when Gabriel was completely bound from waist to neck in wire, Aled took him by the knees and dragged him down the sheets.

  A yell.

  A squirm.

  Then another shuddering cry and sudden stillness.

  “I’m not much one for my toys moving around,” Aled said in a deceptively soft voice. “I like them to stay still while I use them.”

  He spread Gabriel’s knees wider and planted his hands on both feet to hold them down.

  “Very pretty,” he said and watched Gabriel’s muscles tighten in reply. “Do you understand what happened this evening? I’m your owner. Which means your body belongs to me now. Every single part of it. If you want to use it, then you ask my permission. When I want to use it, you obey. Understood?”

  He received a shaky nod.

  “Good. Stay still.”

  When he let go, Gabriel remained perfectly still. Aled smiled, admiring the picture, and took a quick snapshot with his phone. He texted it to Kevin before setting the device aside and stripping off his jeans and underwear. He left his shirt in place as protection from the wire.

  Then, without warning, he ripped the duct tape from Gabriel’s mouth.

  Gabriel yelled. His lips were flushed red and swollen and Aled leaned down to catch his chin in one hand and kiss them. They yielded instantly, opening up beneath his own, and Aled plundered, stealing air and sense, before climbing back onto the bed and dragging Gabriel down again until the swell of his arse was sitting pretty in Aled’s lap, open and ready for the taking.

  But Aled had other plans first.

  Gabriel was hard, his thighs shivering. His dick was swollen, flushed and red. Damp, when Aled touched his fingers to hot skin and began to rub.

  Gabriel’s cry was nothing short of desperate. He rutted, hips lifting in Aled’s lap, desperate for friction. The wire twisted and tightened and the cry turned to a sob. But the shuddering didn’t stop. He attempted to close his knees and grind. He begged in a stream of words for more. He cried, thrashing, then cried harder as the wire cut into his flesh. And Aled said nothing, merely held his knees down and touched him, rubbed him, jerked in short, sharp bursts with the pads of his fingers, massaged and squeezed and twisted—

  “If you come before I am inside you,” he said casually as Gabriel began to scream, “then I will strap you to the bed and fuck your arse completely dry.”

  The scream turned into a frantic sobbing. Begging. Aled was elevated to sir, master, even lord. He was offered permanent servitude, given the right to imprison Gabriel in his bed and on his cock for the rest of his life, permitted to keep him in chastity belts and chains if only he would let Gabriel come, if only, if only—

  “What are you?”

  “Yours!”

  Aled thrust home. He buried his dick in tight, hot heat. He clamped his mouth over bloody, abused lips. And with his other hand, holding Gabriel’s pleasure between finger and thumb—

  He pinched down.

  Gabriel came. That caught body shuddered and jerked, pinned on Aled’s cock and trussed in harsh wire. His heartbeat was bouncing out of his neck. His legs were clamps around Aled’s hips. He clung and was held down, and Aled fucked through the pressure, fucked the shivering mess of pleasure and pain beneath him, fucked into a grip so tight it hurt amid the helpless body of a man he had ripped apart, stripped down to nothing but flesh and pleasure, and—

  He barely pulled out in time. He came on Gabriel’s hips and thighs, arms shaking as he held himself up. He breathed, open-mouthed, over Gabriel’s tied belly, then sat back and stared at the mess before him, bound and helpless in wire and blood and cum. Legs open. Ready for more.

  Aled laughed breathlessly and began to smooth his seed into sweat-soaked skin.

  “Not bad, for such a new toy,” he murmured, and brushed his lips over Gabriel’s knee. “Now, let’s see what else you’ve learned.”

  * * * *

  Aled’s chest felt tight.

  He’d noticed that when ending the game and cleaning up, but it felt even tighter down in the kitchen. His fingers were shaking slightly on the knife as he chopped the parsley. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.

  His first wild thought was that the bacon butties had caught up to him and he was having a heart attack, but then he braced his arms against the counter and dropped his head to breathe. No, this was no heart attack. Panic, perhaps, but not heart.

  The way Gabriel had whimpered when Aled had—

  God.

  He swallowed spasmodically and had to put a hand over his mouth. Fuck. Oh, fuck. He’d just let a man beat his partner into a bloody mess, then taken him home and fucked him again. There was blood all over the bed from Gabriel’s back. And Aled had turned him over and rubbed his face in it, and—

  “Aled?”

  He closed his eyes at the soft voice. Then there were warm fingers on his arm.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Aled took a shaky breath. It was bullshit. It was. Gabriel had—he’d liked it, he had—

  “Aled.”

  He looked. Gabriel had showered, his hair wet and spiky. He had dark red marks on his throat where the wire had throttled him. He was drowning in Aled’s dressing gown, bare feet white splashes on the tiles, and he looked so bloody vulnerable—

  “Think maybe I need a bit of aftercare,” Aled croaked hoarsely and the fingers tightened slightly on his elbow.

  “Oh. Oh, okay. C’mere.”

  The hug was somehow both soft and hard at the same time. Gabriel’s s
kin was hot and damp. He was small and thin under the heavy robe and yet his grip was tight and reassuring. He held on. He opened up and clung. He didn’t shrink back, he didn’t—

  “Want to go to the chair?”

  Aled tightened his grip. “In a minute.”

  “No, c’mon. Chair. Then you can have a full-body hug. Legs and all.”

  Aled cracked a faint smile but still shook his head. “Just—”

  “Now, Aled.”

  The order scraped along the edges of the attack, cracking it, and Aled let go. He was towed by the wrist into the living room and found himself in the cuddle chair before he quite knew what had happened. Gabriel settled, legs slung over Aled’s lap, weight hot and hard against Aled’s ribs and arms, face pressed to Aled’s ear to kiss it. An arm locked around his shoulder and chest, the hug firm and blanketing, and Aled—

  Breathed.

  He took a deep breath, feeling as if it was the first since the scene had ended, and released it in a long, exhausted sigh.

  “Talk to me,” Gabriel murmured.

  Aled spread his hand over one bare thigh, sliding it down to tuck into the crook of Gabriel’s bent knee. There was a faint pulse there, too, plodding away without a care in the world. Slow. Calm.

  Aled tried to copy it.

  “C’mon, biscuit. What’s up?”

  The rarely used, usually mocking endearment surprised a chuckle from Aled’s chest. He sighed and turned his face into Gabriel’s, getting a kiss on the end of the nose for his efforts. It crackled on the surface of his fears, like a sparkler in the dark.

  “The usual,” he admitted finally. “I just came down, and that voice in the back of my head started up. That what I just did was—was no different to what abusers do.”

  “Except for the bit where nobody wants abusers to do it. I wanted you to do that.”

  Aled swallowed. “I know. I do.”

  “You’re just not feeling it very well right now, huh?”

  Aled smiled faintly. They both knew that headspace. Logic and emotion had very little to do with one another, and nowhere highlighted that more than kinky sex games. He knew he'd not done anything Gabriel hadn't wanted. He knew it. But—

  There was always a but, lurking in the back of his head, ready to attack at a moment's notice.

  And this was one of those moments.

  “Yeah.”

  A kiss was pressed to his temple and Aled buried his face in the warm expanse of Gabriel’s neck. He smelled of soap and sex. His fingers were gentle in Aled’s hair, stroking a pattern into the scalp.

  “I never thought I’d like having sex in picture wire, you know.”

  That surprised a laugh from Aled.

  “I know my safewords. And I’d have used them if I didn’t want you to do something.”

  “I know,” Aled murmured.

  “Did you need them?”

  “No. It’s just—just when I was making dinner. I was all right until then.”

  “Mm, maybe we should have cuddled in bed longer.”

  “Yeah,” Aled murmured.

  The bed had been ruined, and Gabriel’s back had gone from kinky hurt to actual hurt, so they’d only snuggled for a few minutes when the game was over. They usually stayed longer. They usually cuddled until they fell asleep, or one of them got too hungry to stay. And it was always for Aled. Gabriel very rarely needed it, but Aled always did. Maybe that had been it. Maybe that was why Aled felt so damn adrift.

  “You going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” Aled murmured. “I think I just tried to come down too quickly. I’m okay.”

  It was better, here. With Gabriel warm and heavy in his lap, cuddling into his shoulder as though he owned Aled’s soul. Playing with his hair and idly tracing patterns on him. He’d start making stupid jokes soon, trying to lighten the mood. And it would work, and eventually Aled would unlock enough to be able to laugh.

  Then it would be over. Just a stupid thought, like all the other stupid thoughts.

  It didn’t make them any less gut-wrenching in the split second when they felt like they weren’t stupid at all.

  “I love what we do,” Gabriel murmured softly. “I love what you and Kevin do. I love that he can rip me apart and you can take me home and put me back together, and when it’s over and we’re exhausted and fucked-out, you’ll spoon up against my back and we’ll cuddle and make fun of a TV show. And in the morning, he’ll have sent me a selfie with Gabby, and he’ll ask how we’re doing and call me a slob because I’ve left stains on his nice clean floor.”

  Aled chuckled weakly.

  “That floor wasn’t clean.”

  “It was when I got there.”

  “Dirty git.”

  Gabriel kissed his cheek and Aled smiled, finally opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling. The ragged edges were smoothing out. Tiredness was creeping in. He wanted to eat a horse, then sleep for a thousand years.

  Instead, he squeezed.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. “I needed that. And to be told off.”

  “Yeah, well, you need telling off sometimes. Your brain’s a twat.”

  “Oi!”

  “It is! Making shit up like that. Hey. How d’you feel?”

  The question caught Aled by surprise, and he huffed a laugh, nudging his nose against Gabriel’s.

  “Safe,” he said finally. “In control. Calmer.”

  “What’ll it take to get all the way to calm?”

  “You being a bossy bitch and making me wait on you hand and foot?”

  “Done. Pick me up, Jeeves, and take me to the kitchen. Bitch needs feeding.”

  Aled laughed, working an arm under Gabriel’s thighs and staggering up. The weight and angle were too much, but he forced his back the rest of the way and earned a kiss to the side of his head for the effort.

  “How do I feel?”

  The whisper was barely there.

  Aled swallowed.

  “You love me.”

  “Bingo.”

  The band around his chest dissolved, and Aled grinned. “What are you?”

  Gabriel laughed, wriggling. Aled tightened his grip, and Gabriel stilled again with a small, breathy noise.

  “Yours. Sir.”

  “Good.”

  “Always yours.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gabriel woke up on Christmas morning to find that his first gift was Aled’s erection digging into his hip.

  Aled was still asleep but stirred when Gabriel started to jack him. His eyes were muzzy with fatigue, his expression soft and adoring when Gabriel kissed him, and suddenly a quick Christmas morning hand job felt disappointing.

  The pleased noise Aled made when Gabriel straddled his lap sent a warm flush through Gabriel’s chest that was nothing to do with sex. He sank down onto Aled’s cock slowly but wasn’t allowed to sit proudly atop his conquest for long—Aled soon sat up against the pillows, and drew him in to gnaw at his neck and murmur sleepy endearments that Gabriel would ordinarily have rebelled against. It was idle, affectionate and took a long time to reach its conclusion. And the climax was more of a gentle hill than a mountain, more of a fall than a high to be chased. It swept over Aled silently, the rush of heat inside Gabriel the only clue it was over, and his own followed when Aled touched him, gentle as a sigh when settling down to sleep.

  If sex did have to be vanilla sometimes, Gabriel could accept a bit of sweetness to the flavour.

  The kisses weren’t nearly so sweet, though, and eventually he took himself off to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

  After a long shower and trimming his beard back down to stubble, Gabriel set out in his towel and rediscovered Aled in the kitchen making breakfast. They swapped much nicer kisses against the counter, and Gabriel fended off the attempted towel stealing until after they’d eaten, at which point he was pressed up against the fridge and insistent hands vanished under the Egyptian cotton.

  “You’ll be—fuck—late,” he said breathlessly as Aled sucke
d on his neck.

  “Well, I pride myself on never coming early…”

  “Tit—oh. I mean to visit your nan.”

  Aled chuckled in his ear. “That’s tomorrow.”

  Gabriel blinked, the lusty haze dissipating. He pushed. Aled stepped back, looking confused.

  “Everything okay? You usually like it when I pinch your—”

  “You’re not going to your nan’s today?”

  “No. Boxing Day. She’s going to my uncle’s for the day.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Er, yes? Her son? My dad’s brother? Do you want a family tree?”

  “I didn’t even know you had an uncle,” Gabriel said stupidly.

  “We don’t get on,” Aled said.

  “Define don’t get—”

  “In the same way you don’t get on with your mum.”

  Oh.

  Gabriel’s grandfather and uncles lived in Pudsey, but it was a coincidence. He was from down south. And all the rest of his family—headed by his die-hard transphobe of a mother—had stayed there. Two hundred odd miles was still uncomfortably close, in Gabriel’s opinion.

  “We take turns,” Aled said carefully. “I visited Nan last Christmas, so this time I’ll go tomorrow and Paul will go today.”

  “Oh. I thought—I thought you’d spend the day with her, like last year. And I’d just go up to Grandpa’s like usual.”

  “Well—” Aled lightly tweaked the towel opening. “If you want to go, I’ll drive you up there. But I was hoping to spread you out on the bed and pull my cum back out of you with my fist.”

  Blood shot to Gabriel’s groin.

  “Um—”

  “Up to you if we make it gentle.” Aled’s breath was hot on his ear and there was a single finger tracing Gabriel’s lips. And not the lips on his face. “Or not.”

  “I already showered,” Gabriel whispered. “It’s gone.”

  “I see.”

  The finger breached him. Gabriel sucked it a breath as it teased him with the dangerous, hard sensation of an uncut fingernail.

  “I’ll just have to put some more there instead, won’t I?”

  * * * *

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Gabriel promised as Aled padded back into the bedroom. “Yep. Merry Christmas, Grandpa. Bye.”