The Wedding (Starting Over Book 3) Read online

  “I don’t know. Beat me. Fist me. Something that really hurts and makes me come apart at the seams.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific,” Aled drawled.

  “Fist me,” Gabriel said breathlessly. “And make it hurt. Really hurt. Like—like no preparation and open your hand inside and everything. Then when you’re fistfucking me, make me come. But like—like so I come, but I feel bad for doing it—”

  Aled chuckled. That was easy. Get buried to the wrist, then refuse to leave until Gabriel jerked himself off. There was no way he could get that much inside with absolutely no preparation, not without causing serious damage beyond the limits of any kink either of them had, but he could minimise it. Usually he used enough lube to grease a battleship when fisting and went about it like he wanted to set a record for the longest game ever played. But he could always scrimp on the oil and save a little time for other activities. Leave a good sting behind. And the longer he was there, the more it would hurt.

  “All right,” he said. “But let’s make something very clear. You asked for this. Literally asked. So one moan, one complaint, one protest, and I’ll cut you. Every time you pretend like you don’t love every second, I’ll cut you again. And I’ll use whatever I like to do it.”

  Gabriel sucked in a breath. Aled waited, the dangerous edge dissolving for a moment. He liked bloodplay. And Gabriel didn’t.

  “Colour?” Aled prompted softly when the silence echoed for too long.

  It echoed a little longer before Gabriel answered.

  “Yellow.”

  “Talk to me,” Aled murmured.

  Another pause.

  Then— “No knives.”

  “No knives,” Aled agreed. “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Colour?”

  “Green.”

  He could say more. Reassure. Coax. Talk about it.

  But Gabriel was still in the Lake District and was fucking himself in a grubby outhouse next to a random cafe because he wanted something wilder than Chris was prepared to give him. And it increasingly felt like Chris was becoming a part of Gabriel’s life, and—by default—part of Aled’s.

  There’d be plenty of words—some other time.

  Aled leaned forward, slammed the phone down in its cradle, then picked it up again and pressed a familiar five digits.

  “Hi, Sarah. Sorry about that, had Adams bending my ear about the budget. Pop back through and I’ll slap a signature on ’em.”

  * * * *

  Aled looped the belt over the coat hanger and shut the wardrobe door before turning back to the bed.

  Gabriel was spread-eagled on a layer of bloodstained towels. His back was slick with sweat. His cunt gaped from the damage Aled’s fist had done to it. His arse resembled hamburger meat—raw, pink and still bleeding. He was shivering faintly, eyes closed and fists screwed up in the pillows. Aled hadn’t bothered to tie him down. He’d been so eager for the pain that they’d had to stop for a spit-fuck on the way home from the train station and Aled hadn’t needed to so much as threaten to get the rope out to keep him in place.

  Carefully, he braced his weight with his hands either side of Gabriel’s ribs and leaned down to press a gentle kiss behind one exposed ear.

  “Game over.”

  The long, shuddering breath was more like a sob.

  “Cry,” Aled whispered.

  The sobs racked his slim frame and Aled let it. He was no stranger to the emotional fallout of an intense scene. He simply waited it out, stroking that unblemished back until they eased, then kissing Gabriel’s ear once more.

  “Stay right there for me, sweetheart, and let me get the first aid kit.”

  “Okay.”

  The kit was in the top drawer as always but Aled nipped to the linen closet for fresh towels. They were warm from the pipes that ran up the back of the cupboard, and he draped one over Gabriel’s back like a blanket before popping the lid on the kit and getting out the wipes and antiseptic cream.

  “Need to hold my hand?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The grip was tight and pained as Aled removed the blood from where he’d beaten Gabriel seventeen times with the taped-shut belt buckle for complaining about the fistfucking. Technically, he had owed twenty-one lashes, but he’d sensed a red coming from the grey tinge and gritted teeth by the time he’d reached seventeen. It wasn’t like Gabriel would have been in any state to count.

  “Okay?” he murmured as he started to smooth the antiseptic cream over the wounds.

  “Mm.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Safe. Looked after.”

  “How do I feel?”

  “You love me.”

  Aled squeezed his hand gently.

  “What brought that on?” he murmured as he worked, and Gabriel sighed.

  “Just—I needed to come like my brain was going to get ripped out of my head,” he croaked. “Chris fucked me once, but it was like foreplay almost. I was all pent-up.”

  “I could tell,” Aled chuckled. “Still sex-shy, is he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you needed heavy violence, why didn’t you call Kevin?”

  “He’s still in Spain with Judith and the kids.”

  “Ah,” Aled said.

  “Not—not too bad for you?”

  “No. About the limit, but not over,” Aled said.

  “G’d.”

  The blood had clotted neatly. Aled wiped his hands off on a spare hand towel then folded up the duvet to cover Gabriel’s legs. He was still looking faintly grey, so Aled made him promise to stay there before heading downstairs to make a cup of sweet tea.

  It had been about at Aled’s limit. He got off on violence in a big way, but there was only so far he could indulge it. He preferred mind games to an outright beating, using sex as a weapon rather than just a plain old weapon, and the beating had driven him to his own edge. He made a cup for himself as well as Gabriel and took a packet of biscuits back up with him on the side of the tray.

  Gabriel had turned on his side and turned the towels into the wrap for a human burrito. Aled coaxed the tea down him then slid down to lie on the bed with him and lifted his arm. The speed with which Gabriel slid into his hold and the easy weight that relaxed against his chest made the knot in Aled’s stomach release.

  “Okay?” Gabriel whispered.

  “Yep.” Aled squeezed gently. “Tell me again?”

  “I feel safe.”

  “Good.”

  “You love me.”

  “I do.”

  An arm was wound out of the towels and locked over Aled’s chest. A little kiss found the edge of his neck.

  “How far off was the red?” Aled asked.

  “About two more.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why?”

  “I knew you were heading for it. Wanted to make sure you would—”

  “You know I would have.”

  “Yeah. Just my brain being daft.”

  “Shut up, brain.”

  Aled laughed as his sternum was rapped by hard knuckles. He caught them, kissed them and tucked them under his chin.

  “The fisting was great,” Gabriel murmured sleepily.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mhmm. It’s so fucking hot when you wiggle your fingers inside me.”

  “Weirdo.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Aled laughed.

  “I like it,” Gabriel breathed. “An’ you’re not so big as Kevin. Kevin’s fists are like—like they’re good, but he rips his hand out like that too and it’s too wide. Like he’s gonna rip my tubes out too.”

  Aled winced. “Thanks for that imagery.”

  “S’true.”

  “So I have nicer hands?”

  “For fisting.”

  “I’ll take it,” Aled said. “Not too sure I want to be in that deep when you come again, mind.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought you were going to break my thum
b.”

  He felt Gabriel’s smirk against his neck. The truth was, it was usually hot as hell. Gabriel had incredibly powerful orgasms. If Aled watched carefully, he could sometimes see the uterine contractions through the planes of his stomach. Gabriel didn’t want a hysterectomy in case it made them less intense, and Aled couldn’t blame him. Having any part of him inside when Gabriel went off was like having his own climax ripped out of him, whether it was around his cock or his hand.

  Plus, it was pretty difficult to fake it, so Aled always knew if he was on the right track with a new game.

  “How was the Lake District, apart from sexually frustrating?”

  “Good. We should go sometime. Lots of cabins in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Oh aye?”

  “Mm. And tall hedges to hide behind. And woods. And—”

  “I get the idea. Lots of places to bend you over in the open air.”

  “Yup.”

  “Chris not into that either?”

  “Nope.”

  “Shame.”

  “Yeah, but it was fun,” Gabriel said. “I like him. He’s good company. He’s sweet. And he cuddles lovely.”

  “That’s not a sentence.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So what you need is a nice break with Chris, all romantic and sporty and nice cuddles, then along comes the monster in the night…”

  Gabriel tensed up beside him. “Oh my God. What happens?”

  “You heard a noise. Leave him sleeping. Go to look—because why not? Nothing dangerous in the Lake District. It’ll be an owl or a fox. Something cute and harmless. So you open the cabin door in the dark—”

  Gabriel curled up tight against his side.

  “He forces his way in. Gets a hand around your mouth and tells you to be quiet. If you shut up and do as you’re told, nobody gets hurt. If you don’t, everybody dies. No witnesses, see. Nobody will believe you if nobody hears anything, but he won’t have any witnesses screwing things up for him.”

  Gabriel whimpered.

  “He takes you out on the porch and tells you to strip. He likes your piercing. Sits you on his lap and plays with it while he fingers you. He plays you like a lover, and that’s why it goes wrong. Because you come. Sluts like you always come. And when you’re done gushing over him like a burst water main, he smiles and whispers to you. Do you know what he says?”

  “N-no—”

  “He says, ‘Now you owe me one.’”

  Despite the entire evening, Gabriel was wanking to Aled’s words. Aled smirked but made no move to take part.

  “He sits there and makes you treat him like a lover. Kiss him, touch him, act like you want to be there. And that’s the biggest betrayal, because the more you work to get him aroused, the more you like it. By the time you start riding his cock, you’re gagging for it. You come again without even touching yourself, and you’re begging for his cum before your climax is even over.”

  Gabriel groaned deeply in his ear. He was getting closer. Higher. Closer.

  “But he shoves you off,” Aled breathed, “and comes on your face and tits instead of inside you. And when you’re wiping it off with your fingers and sucking them clean, he grabs you by the hair and whispers in your ear—”

  He reached down. Leaned over. Brushed a kiss to Gabriel’s ear just as he touched the hot desperation rutting against his thigh.

  “‘Same time tomorrow, slut.’”

  Gabriel came with a shuddering gasp, and Aled caught the sound in his mouth. The orgasm shook the whole bed, then rattled away into the dusk like it had never been. A damp hand slid up Aled’s belly. A breathless mouth sucked a kiss into place over his nipple. Aled stroked back damp hair and smiled against Gabriel’s hairline.

  “Nice idea?”

  “Please. Please.”

  “Well, maybe when your Chris isn’t so wound up and you’re not bleeding from the arse.”

  “Whenever. Sooner. Just steal me. Please.”

  Aled chuckled and kissed his neck.

  “Maybe I’ll talk to Kevin sometime. See if we can’t work out a joint family holiday away, the whole lot of us.”

  He filed it away and turned on his neck to fold Gabriel up into a boneless kind of hug. There was plenty of time for new games and new boundaries. Aled wasn’t worried about them right now, or indeed anything at all.

  However things with Chris played out, it wouldn’t change these moments here, in the quiet serenity of their room.

  Chapter Twelve

  “No way,” Gabriel said.

  It was Saturday. He had another dominant to see. A great lunch to enjoy. Holiday photos to make fun of. Maybe a trip to a workshop to be put in his place after such a long break from the man who could kill him without even trying, and who had—bar Aled—the greatest grip on his life.

  And more to the point, he didn’t give a flying fuck about—

  “They’re flowers, Gabriel. I don’t want to go pick flowers.”

  “I’m not the best man.”

  It turned out that middle-aged marketing types could pout. Gabriel snickered at the beseeching look but wasn’t swayed

  “I don’t do weddings and I certainly don’t do wedding flowers,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got plans. Judith’s making her carbonara and I’m not missing out on that again.”

  “Going to play?”

  “Nah, just going for a catch-up. I haven’t seen them since before they went on holiday, and Kevin had that job in Huddersfield for a fortnight. It’s been too long and your best man duties are not trumping a visit to their house.” He leaned up on his toes for a kiss. “Enjoy finding bouquets and buttonholes.”

  “Tart. Come on, I’ll drop you off.”

  Kevin and Judith lived in Leeds with their ever-expanding brood of kids. Kevin was a kitchen fitter by public trade and a sadist by private one. He had three regular paying clients who essentially footed the bill for things like family holidays, one other part-time sub like Gabriel that he used for free and a sexual submissive who ruled the roost at home in the form of his wife, Judith.

  Gabriel had hooked up with Kevin within weeks of moving up from Sheffield and they had clicked from that very first meeting. They were friends, they were sometimes lovers, they were always family. Kevin was the only man who had rules outside of sex. He was one of only two men who Gabriel trusted completely. And Kevin was, in all ways, Gabriel’s safety net. If everything else failed, if absolutely everything else collapsed down around Gabriel’s ears, Kevin wouldn’t.

  Not that Gabriel needed a safety net right now.

  He was in a good mood and taunted Aled about flowers all the way into Leeds. It got him kicked out at the end of the street for his crimes, but it was worth it, despite the rain. He jogged up the drive to shelter in the lip of the garage roof that jutted out over the brickwork before rummaging for his key, knowing full well without looking over his shoulder that Aled wouldn’t drive off until he’d seen Gabriel go inside. But he wasn’t going to knock or dither on the doorstep. No doubt Judith would be busy cooking and Kevin would be busy wrangling the kids—and they were family. What did Gabriel have to knock for?

  But he had to find the right bloody key, first.

  They’d only just moved to Holbeck—a sorely-needed upgrade after the new baby was born—and Gabriel had had to label the identical keys. He found the silver star sticker for the back door and let himself into the kitchen, walking straight into the warm smell of fresh cream sauce, baking and talcum powder.

  “Hello, flower!”

  Judith beamed up at him from the table. She was breastfeeding the baby and Gabriel could hear cartoons in the next room. “Kev’s just with a client in the workshop. Could you do me a favour and get the pasta on?”

  Gabriel smirked, but toed off his shoes and made for the oven. The workshop was a large, soundproofed shed at the bottom of the garden and he and Judith were both here, then any client having any sort of meeting with Kevin in the workshop had to be Sophie. Gabriel had nev
er met her, but she was a high-flying barrister with prison rape fantasies, apparently.

  “Is he going to be long?”

  “No, it’s just a short consultation. Lily! Grace! Come and set your places, please.”

  The contented feeling of home wrapped around Gabriel’s shoulders as the family—his family, even if there was no common blood between them—bustled around him. Pans bubbled. The girls argued about the right way to wash their hands. He tucked his nose against the baby’s cheek as he burped her while Judith dished up. Kevin walked someone out to a car, then came in through the front door with his dreadlocks hanging down in thick, wet ropes and donning a huge, white smile when he saw Gabriel holding his youngest.

  “Nice to see you, stranger!”

  They were just friends in front of the kids. Judith knew exactly what they were and what they did sometimes. No doubt Sophie had heard Gabriel’s name as much as he’d heard hers. But in front of the children, who knew nothing about their father’s relationships, Gabriel was nothing more than a family friend who worked at fitting bathrooms and kitchens with Dad.

  Gabriel didn’t mind. In a way, he liked the simplicity. He liked the idea that he could just be Dad’s friend who helped screw flat-pack kitchens into walls. He was just another man, with no complicated history, nothing that needed explaining.

  The baby settled against his shoulder and he went upstairs to put her down for her nap. A couple of turns of the little nursery were all it took, and once she was safely down in her crib and sleeping deeply, he switched on the baby monitor and ducked into Kevin and Judith’s room to fetch its counterpart then walked out, and straight into Kevin’s hands.

  “Hello.”

  “Up.”

  Gabriel obediently tipped his head up and closed his eyes at the kiss. Kevin kissed like nobody else. Firm without being sharp. He didn’t linger, but it wasn’t a chaste peck either. And the hand that was raked through Gabriel’s hair made him shiver.

  “How you been?”

  “Good,” Gabriel murmured, then shook himself and gathered his senses again.