The Other Man (Starting Over Book 2) Read online

  Then, without a word, began to thrust.

  It was indescribable. Aled fucked in short, sharp movements, making Gabriel’s entire body rock with the motion. His skin strained at the ribbons but couldn’t break free. He wriggled and wrenched at Aled’s grip with every withdrawal, only to shudder and gasp with every thrust back inside. As Aled’s grip on those narrow hips tightened to the point of bruising, Gabriel’s teeth ground down on the ribbon until it frayed and gave way.

  The gasp—the high, reedy gasp, punctuated by Aled’s thrusts until it turned into a panting whine—was shockingly loud in the otherwise quiet room.

  Aled clamped a hand roughly over Gabriel’s mouth and silenced him. He moved up that trussed body, still fucking it so hard that the bed was shaking, and spread his weight across the ribbons. Their pattern rubbed into his skin in ridges until he fought to breathe and fuck at the same time. As everything began to narrow and the room darkened around the corners, Aled forced his arms under Gabriel’s back and crushed him close, pinning him so that he could do nothing but be fucked open, plundered, destroyed, ruined—

  When Aled came, it was terrifyingly sudden.

  He left bruises, he was sure of it. For a long moment, all he knew was the slick grip on his dick and the ragged gasps under him. The catch of ribbon and the shivering body in his arms. Used. Soaked. Debauched and defiled.

  Fucking beautiful.

  Aled caught both hands in Gabriel’s hair to kiss that gasping mouth, licking into it and swallowing the noise. Gabriel whined and tried to pull away, but Aled took what he wanted regardless then finally pulled his soft cock out in a slippery rush and climbed off the bed.

  “Please—” Gabriel whimpered.

  Aled ignored him, opening the bedside drawers and retrieving a few toys. He was careless, turning Gabriel over by the hips without a word to slick up a plug and bury it in his arse, too hard and too big, ignoring the cry and the breathless plea for it to be removed. A new gag found its way between those teeth, silencing the desperation, and Aled took his time teasing pink lips out around the ball. The silk at his ankles was cut away with scissors and replaced with more ribbons to bind his feet together, leaving only his knees free.

  Aled parted them with firm hands, ignoring the twitch in his dick when Gabriel squirmed and tried to pull away, and pushed a vibrator into the space he’d left behind.

  And switched it on.

  Gabriel howled.

  His back arched powerfully, the ribbons straining against the jolt, and Aled had to hold him down with a firm hand on his belly, the other fucking him almost casually with the vibrator. Gabriel’s skin was slippery with sweat and he yelled as Aled rubbed a thumb over his shaft with every thrust—then his knees and thighs twisted together, ground tight around Aled’s wrist and he came shuddering and twitching like a butterfly on a pin.

  He looked exhausted. His skin was flushed, fingerprint bruises mottling the pink to purple where Aled had held him down. The ribbon was near-black, damp with sweat and lube and cum. His nipples were peaks through the wet cotton of his T-shirt and Aled idly rubbed his thumb over one before seizing Gabriel by the shoulders and hauling him roughly off the bed and over Aled’s shoulder. Gabriel hung limply, whimpering around the gag, and Aled smirked as he carefully carried him downstairs, rubbing a hand teasingly over that bare, exposed arse. The silence would be as torturous as the ribbons, he knew. Gabriel wouldn’t know what Aled had in mind or what was going to happen next—and that would be as bad as whatever physical punishments Aled could come up with.

  So he still said nothing, dumping Gabriel unceremoniously on the carpet and arranging him over the coffee table like an ornament. Zip ties, this time. Harsher on the skin and less forgiving than ribbon. He was strung face-down, tied to the table top by the neck, shoulders and waist then both thighs lashed to the wrought-iron table legs. Leaving that pretty backside perfectly exposed and Gabriel completely and utterly immobilised.

  And Aled was a patient man.

  He stroked Gabriel’s thumbs one by one, barely visible under his neck, silently checking the colour, then—when they stayed exposed—walked away.

  Just walked away.

  And stayed away.

  He was well-suited to torturing submissives via time. When he’d first started playing in his late teens, it had been a lot harder—mostly because his dick could get a lot harder a lot quicker. But Aled was going to be thirty-six in a few weeks and time was taking its toll. He wouldn’t be ready to fuck again for a little while.

  And that had made him patient.

  Very patient.

  After breakfast—which he ate with his feet up on Gabriel’s back, watching the news—he put headphones over Gabriel’s ears, simply playing him rain noises so loud that he would be rendered effectively deaf to Aled walking around the house, and left him in that sensory limbo. Unable to move, unable to see and unable to hear. And the result? Gabriel’s sense of touch would go—did go—into overdrive.

  Aled yielded to temptation midway through the morning, reaching between those bound thighs and massaging Gabriel to climax with just finger and thumb. It was possibly the fastest Gabriel had ever gotten off and he cried when Aled removed his hand and walked away again, straining against the zip ties until tiny lines of blood beaded along their edges.

  Aled opened up that pretty little arse around lunchtime, with a liberal amount of lube and a ribbed dildo that had Gabriel screaming around the gag—and just as he began to clench and the zip ties twitched around his attempts to rut the table, Aled removed the rubber cock and left him again, open, empty and sobbing.

  When he did eventually fuck it—as a reward to himself for finally cleaning out the fridge—Aled braced both hands on the coffee table and refused to allow an inch of skin to touch aside from his cock buried balls-deep and the crash of his hips into Gabriel’s arse with every thrust. Gabriel begged and pleaded, clear as day even around the rubber between his teeth, but Aled was unmerciful. When he came, he didn’t even replace himself with another plug.

  He yielded enough as the evening drew in to remove the headphones and allow Gabriel to hear his place in the house, although he still said nothing and sat in their cuddle chair on the other side of the room, typing on his laptop. Gabriel’s head twisted towards him and he occasionally tried to call out or cry, but after an hour of non-response, he seemed to sag and lie limply in his bonds again.

  And Aled wasn’t sure what to do next.

  His usual ending would be to tear Gabriel free and fuck him as brutally as possible on the kitchen or conservatory floors—hard surfaces, hold him down until the bruises turned black, force him to beg for the fuck and call him a whore when he did. They would both come so hard that they’d black out for a moment or two, then Aled could ramp up the aftercare and reward Gabriel with all the attention he could muster for playing so beautifully well.

  But that white hand on the flat doorframe hadn’t dissipated.

  To make it worse, Aled had seen the messages. Gabriel’s phone had been singing in the kitchen most of the day and Aled had looked at the messages. Amongst the usual—Kevin sending funny memes, strangers on Grindr asking if he sucked cock, his neighbour complaining about the bloke on the ground floor—were nearly thirty-five texts from Michael. All sent today.

  And they were—

  Michael: I’m just looking out for you, angel.

  Michael: Can’t you see this is him trying to pull that abuser shit on you?

  Michael: It’s bullshit.

  Michael: You need to call me.

  Michael: Call me, angel.

  Michael: Are you out with him?

  Michael: You’re not answering your door. I’ll keep coming round until we sort this out, angel.

  Michael: Call me.

  Michael: I don’t make demands on you like this, what’s he got to do it? Dump him.

  Michael: Last Friday was amazing, you want to give up last Friday for some jealous ginger cunt?

  Michael: I�
��m not having this, angel, this is bullshit.

  They were both aggressive and weirdly manipulative. Trying to plant ideas in Gabriel’s head, almost.

  And after reading the mixture of abuse, aggression and coercive reasoning, Aled felt oddly uneasy about doing anything that might play into Michael’s hands. Doing anything that might make Gabriel second-guess his intentions—even if he had done those things under a verbal and physical green light.

  So as the evening drew in, he decided instead to skip further punishment and head right for the reward.

  He didn’t say anything as he pulled the vibrator roughly free and ignored the temptation to smear his fingers into the mess and rub it into cool skin. Gabriel whimpered, muscles bunching, but Aled ignored that, too. He retrieved the scissors and began to cut away the zip ties. Gabriel lay still, although tense, as they were peeled away. He whined when Aled ran the blade of the scissors up his back and began to shiver when he was hauled back on his knees and the T-shirt deftly stripped off. The ribbon around his ankles was hacked free in rough strokes and Aled hauled at those bruised, stiff shoulders and dragged Gabriel up onto the sofa.

  Then he removed the gag and kissed the mouth behind it.

  For a brief second, Gabriel lay entirely still beneath him. Then, as though a switch had been tripped, he moved. Limbs clamped down. His legs hooked over Aled’s calves. His arms came up around Aled’s shoulders, one hand fisting in his hair. He clutched with fingers and knees and teeth, scratching when Aled broke the kiss, begging a simple and unclear no-no-no-no when Aled planted a hand on his chest and forced him down into the cushions.

  Then he twitched the blindfold free and caught that face in both hands.

  “Colour?”

  Gabriel stilled. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. His fingers still clutched at Aled’s shoulders. But he froze, like a deer in the headlights.

  “Green.”

  Aled nodded, satisfied. “You’re mine.”

  Gabriel swallowed.

  “What are you?” Aled prompted

  “Yours.”

  The whisper was reed-thin. Barely audible.

  “Say it again.”

  “Yours—oh!”

  Gabriel arched, chest shuddering, and bit down on his lip so hard that blood bubbled over as Aled slowly pushed inside. In one long, relentless stroke, he pushed his way back into that tight heat and settled like he owned it.

  “Again.”

  “Y—yours.”

  Aled withdrew and slammed home again. And Gabriel got the idea, clutching hard again and burying his mouth against Aled’s ear.

  “Yours,” he whispered. “Oh, God. Yours. Yours. Yours!”

  It was brutal. It was messy. It was all limbs and breathless voices, fingernails and blood and tight, wet, maddening heat. And when Gabriel lost the ability to form words and just yelled with every hit, Aled drew out entirely and flipped him over.

  “No! No, please—!”

  Aled held him down by the back of the neck and leaned in close.

  “Say it.”

  “Please, I can’t—please, hold me, please, please—”

  “Why would I hold you?” Aled prompted softly.

  “Because—because I’m yours. Yours.”

  Aled rammed home. Gabriel yelled, but then his hands scrabbled at Aled’s arms and when Aled dropped his weight, Gabriel simply pushed back into it, forcing Aled to hug him, to hold him, to crush him close.

  “Yours,” Gabriel stammered, even as he flinched from the resulting thrust. “Oh, God—yours, yours—more, please!—yours—”

  A hand left Aled’s wrist. He stopped it.

  “That’s mine, too,” he whispered, pushing his fingers down into the crop of hair and finding wet, hot pleasure. Gabriel cried and clutched at his arms, the breathless pleading dissolving into mere vowels, until—

  He came apart violently under Aled’s weight. Shaking. Gasping. His chest heaved and Aled could do nothing but press his lips to an exposed ear and groan as the pressure brought him to completion, his heart skipping a beat at the ruined wreck of a man under him.

  Then he shifted and the wreck moved.

  “Stay.”

  Fingers closed tight around Aled’s wrist.

  “Please.”

  Gabriel’s voice was destroyed, and Aled kissed his neck, his ear, his jaw, his cheek.

  “Please stay.”

  Aled smoothed back sweat-soaked hair, kissed the very corner of his mouth—and stayed.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabriel blinked.

  Dark. Warm. Really warm.

  He turned over, burying his face in the heat. There was a drum beating nearby, but dulled, as though he was underwater. The softness around his back contracted. The murmur of voices, like the come and go of an idle tide, ceased.

  “Hey.”

  The whisper brushed his ear, followed by fingers. Gabriel nudged his face into them and the drums were disguised under a gentle laugh. He blinked muzzily. Not drums. Heart. Heartbeat.

  Aled’s heartbeat.

  His brain finally came back online. They were curled up in the cuddle chair. He was dressed in Aled’s pyjama bottoms, and the TARDIS fleece was wrapped around the pair of them, but Gabriel didn’t remember getting there.

  He didn’t remember anything after that final fuck.

  And he didn’t want to. It had been amazing. So he burrowed his face into Aled’s neck and huffed.

  “Okay?”

  He hummed.

  “Gabriel—”

  An alarm bell went off in his head. Gabriel rummaged for thoughts. For sense. He knew that tone and it wasn’t a good one. Why wasn’t it a good one?

  Oh.

  He found some muscle strength and looped both arms around Aled’s neck, clumsily kissed his ear and nuzzled his nose into the damp spot that his lips left behind.

  “Was ‘mazing.”

  A soft sigh was his only answer and Gabriel squeezed. He’d spaced. He knew it—could feel the haze around his thoughts, stronger than any drink he’d ever had—but he could also hear the slight edge in Aled’s tone. Feel the hesitance in his touch.

  Aled was worried he’d gone too far.

  So Gabriel squeezed, burrowed blindly at the side of his face and tried to awkwardly project his contentment while his brain was still too foggy to string much more than a few words together at a time. Tried to push his own pleasure off to the side for five minutes, when it was the only thing he was capable of really processing.

  “‘Mazing,” he repeated.

  “Yeah, I got that, sweetheart. Anything—anything hurt?”

  “Nope.”

  Well, almost. He felt a bit like he’d been fucked with a traffic bollard. Fucked hollow. But it was a good kind of fucked hollow, and every time he moved, a little burst of contentment radiated outwards, singing along his tired muscles and sinking into bone like the happiness wanted to be part of his DNA. It felt like sinking into a Jacuzzi after a long, hard workout. It felt like running a marathon—barefoot and unprepared—but then collapsing into a sauna with the world’s fluffiest towel between him and the boards.

  It felt like fucking paradise.

  “K’p me.”

  “What?”

  “Keep me.”

  Aled chuckled. “Keep you?”

  “Mm. Christmas soon. Be a present.”

  “For you or for me?”

  “Both.”

  A hand dipped below the fleece blanket and stroked his bare back. Gabriel hummed again, then shifted until he could sling his legs over Aled’s lap.

  “You okay?”

  Aled ducked his face into Gabriel’s elbow and kissed it. “I am now.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah. This helps.”

  “I spaced. Twice.”

  Gabriel felt the relaxation sweep through Aled’s upper body. Gabriel could be slow as hell after he’d spaced. And it was the slow that triggered Aled’s worries the worst. The failure to respond quickly when th
e game was over. The failure to always recognise that the game was done and dusted. Aled wanted some instant reassurance—and sometimes, when he’d spaced, Gabriel felt like he was moving through treacle to give it.

  “Was awesome, though.”

  “Good.”

  “Hungry.”

  Aled laughed quietly and patted Gabriel’s knees. “All right, all right. Home cooking or takeaway?”

  “What’s in the freezer?”

  “Probably some bolognese.”

  “That,” Gabriel said, but hung on. “Um, who said you could leave?”

  “Jesus, all right—”

  It was all a ploy. If Gabriel was a demanding bitch, Aled’s issues disappeared like water in a desert. And Gabriel knew that Aled knew it was a ploy, but the game was over so there was no master in the room anymore. He bitched until Aled slid an arm below his knees and lifted, then called him an old man when Aled breathlessly complained about his back.

  “Call me that again and I’ll drop you on the floor.”

  He wouldn’t and they both knew it. And Gabriel put on a show, blowing in his ear and calling him decrepit until he was deposited—fleece blanket and all—on the kitchen counter.

  “I’ll cut you up and put you in the bolognese,” Aled grumbled as he rummaged around for the boxes in the freezer.

  “Okay, sure, get back to me with when that’s ever going to happen.”

  He kept it up until Aled had got the spaghetti on and the boxes in the microwave to defrost, then lifted his arms and beckoned with wiggling fingers until Aled stepped between his knees and kissed him. Not gentle, not hard—just kissed him. Like normal. Gabriel smiled into it and slid his fingers through Aled’s red hair until it stood up in spikes.

  “Better?”

  “Better,” Aled agreed. “Thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  “After dinner, will you let me get the first-aid kit out?”

  Gabriel blinked. “Why?”

  “You don’t feel it yet because you’re still riding the high, but your back is a mess.”