Bad Behavior

by K.A. Mitchell

  “Sorry.” David turned to Tai. “He’s usually less of a prick. It’s not like I haven’t done the same for him.”

  “Gone out of your way to be blown off?”

  “Exactly.”

  But in the car, David retreated again, off somewhere in his head. Tai replayed the conversation with Gavin, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you have sex with women?”

  “Yes.”

  Always looking for a good time and the fuck with anyone else. Gavin had been offering Tai a warning. Today it’s you, tomorrow it’s… who knows.

  “What about clowns?” His question didn’t come out as light as he’d meant it to.

  “No. Not really my thing. Is it yours? I didn’t see it on the checklist.” David abandoned the bantering tone. “I haven’t had sex with anyone else since we started this thing. Is that what you want to know?”

  What Tai wanted—needed—to know right now was whether this thing was like any other in a long line of fascinations for David.

  When Tai didn’t answer, David went on, “I realize that as”—he let out a long breath—“your submissive, it isn’t my business to set rules for you. But I want to tell you I wouldn’t expect you to only confine yourself to me. I mean, to have me as your only submissive.”

  “What if I wanted that from you?”

  “You want me to tell you not to be with other people?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” The word was clipped. Sharp. “Well, you’re the only Dominant I know.”

  Tai summed it up. “In other words, you want to keep your options open.”

  Silence poured into the space between them like morning fog off the harbor.

  Tai backed the car into a spot a few houses down from his door and was reaching for the ignition when David said, “I want this. It isn’t anything I ever spent time thinking of before, so excuse me if I screw it up sometimes.” More softly he added, “Or a lot. If you remember, I told you one of the things I like best is when you take away the responsibility of having to make choices.”

  Tai turned off the car. With the summer heat still pulsing around them, this conversation would be over soon one way or another. Neither of them could stay in the car long. “I can’t order you not to fuck around.”

  “Why not? You can order me to make an appointment. I’m not saying—I don’t mind that you do.”

  Tai pressed himself back against the seat. “I think you should want to not fuck around.”

  “I don’t know that I do.” David put his hand over Tai’s shoulder. Was that the first time he’d initiated a touch? “What I do know is that I want things with you, want you to do things with me, to me, I don’t even have the words for. And I don’t want that with anyone else. I like… submitting to you.” There was less of a hesitation on the word this time. “If that means only having sex with you, then I can do that. Hell, I’m hoping you keep me too worn-out for anything else.”

  Tai opened his door. “Before that, I’m going to have to take Jez out. Do you want to stay in my apartment?”

  David climbed out and tried a couple of steps. “My leg feels pretty good right now. Mind if I walk with you?” David’s phone went off with a generic ringtone. The uncharacteristic blandness was a brief warning for the tension that came into his face. “I have to take this.” He turned away before pulling the phone from his pocket. “Dad?”

  Tai wrestled with a desire to stay and find out the cause of that sudden tight jaw, but David’s back and the way he had dropped his voice to almost a murmur made it clear he wanted privacy. Tai left him to it and went upstairs, taking a quick sweep of the apartment after greeting Jez, then, leash in hand, peered through the blinds at the front of the apartment to see David still on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, unmoving. Keeping Jez to her usual routine, Tai walked her to the door and had her sit to get her focused. And to get himself focused.

  It should be as easy to control the environment out there as the one in here, but as he knew from training Jez, things never went that smoothly. One moment when his attention shifted and she felt it. One phone call from outside and then another and then it was back to the endless push and pull.

  He went down the stairs first, Jez following as she’d been trained, sitting again at the front door as Tai clipped the leash to her collar.

  David’s conversation was over by the time they approached, the phone gone. David crouched as he always did to greet Jez face-to-face, but she sensed the absence of something in him as Tai did, her tail stub twitching in concern rather than wriggling with joy. After a minute she looked back at him, as if in accusation.

  “Bad news?” Tai asked as they started down South Streeper. Might as well bring it up since even the dog knew.

  “Just news.”

  It was almost full dark. Tai decided they’d only do the block. David would have to leave to make his curfew soon enough.

  “Your daughter is very cute.”

  “She is. Though I guess my mother told you I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  David shrugged. “I think personality plays a lot into a person’s attractiveness. And that is nurture, not nature. She lights up a room because she knows she has a lot of people who love her. That happiness makes her beautiful.”

  All the things he told himself, that his mother and Gina had said about him still being part of Sammie’s life, none of it had the impact of David’s words. Sammie was who she was because Tai was there, not because he was her real father.

  David went on, “Broken wrists aside, she’s a lucky kid. Three parents. Security to spare.”

  “I guess. Though as she gets older, I’m sure she’ll be sick of it. I don’t think Josh and I will ever be ready to consider her old enough to date.”

  “She’ll need help from her mom and your mom when she gets there, then.”

  For a second there was a pause in the street noise of cars and stereos and TVs, enough for Tai to hear the tapping of David’s cane. He eased back on the pace. Both Sammie and Jez were energetic walking companions, and Tai had managed to forget about David’s scarred leg.

  The moment of quiet was swallowed up by an SUV with a sound system that echoed from pavement to skull. When the echoes died away, David said, “So why do you call your mom Tina if her name is Kara?”

  “It means mother in Samoan. She said my father called her tina la’ititi—little mother—all the time when she was pregnant with me. And he called me la’u tama when I was a baby. He died before I was one, so we use the words to remember him.”

  “Not a lot of security.” David’s voice was barely audible over the whine of car brakes from a sudden stop at the corner. They rounded the block.

  “No. But Mom was awesome. And I had my mom’s dad for a bit, until he died.”

  “Your father was from Samoa? Have you ever been there?”

  “American Samoa. And no.” After what had happened with Sammie, he understood now why his mom had cut them off from his father’s relatives, could relate to her fears about the pressure of losing him to his father’s huge, tight-knit family. But it still felt like half his identity was a shadow, waiting to come to light. “Maybe someday.” If he found which of the twelve hundred Tau Fonoti records he’d turned up would lead him to the right family.

  “And your mom—”

  Tai felt the corner of his lip curl in a smile. He’d take David’s hedging over people’s blunt What are yous any day.

  “Is black. You can say it. It’s not an insult.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “If you were curious, why didn’t you ask?”

  “Where I grew up, who you’re related to is the most important thing about you. I’ve only ever considered lineage a factor in picking a racehorse.”

  “So who are you related to?”

  “No one worth mentioning.” David’s voice was flat. They turned back onto South Streeper in silence. “And I thought the conversation in the car was awkward. Who do you think will win
the Davis Cup this year?”

  “Tennis isn’t really my sport.”

  “Damn.” David’s laugh was all air and no joy. “I’ll have you know I actually have a reputation for being good at this.”

  “At what?”

  “Small talk. Charm. I’ve been known to sweep people off their feet.”

  Tai didn’t know why delving into family history—which was apparently painful for both of them—would be considered small talk. But charm? David had that to spare. Thick hair and sun-creased eyes and dimpled chin and an ability to laugh at himself. Not to mention the sweet, yielding submissive under it all. They reached Tai’s door. “There’s plenty you’re damned good at, David.”

  Good wasn’t necessarily the word Tai would have chosen to describe things upstairs. Jez grabbed a nylon bone to chew on in her corner under the AC, but David bounced from hall to living room to kitchen.

  “Come here.” Tai sat on the couch and looked back at where David was scrutinizing the cabinet over the stove.

  “For?”

  “Because I asked you to.”

  “Oh. Are we—?” David’s tone shifted from uncertainty to lilting and sly. “What if I don’t?”

  Not What if I don’t want to, Tai noticed. He’d see how David intended to play this out. “Your curfew is in two hours, and I want to spend some time with my submissive.”

  David shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

  Another time, Tai might have enjoyed the challenge or even encouraged it with a teasing response, but after everything that had happened, he’d wanted to lose himself in the way David opened to him, let Tai reach in to take them both out of their heads and back into that space where the connection burned away everything else.

  Real resistance is always purposeful. And never convenient. Nic had had plenty to say on that subject. But for the subs Tai had played with for a few hours, it had only ever been part of the scene, a make-me attitude part of what got them off.

  Tai deepened his voice. “David, you will go into the bedroom, take off all your clothes, and wait for me.” After a moment of staring David down, Tai turned away, taking out his phone to stare blankly at the home screen.

  The air behind him was alive, full, swelling with the pressure of whatever was driving David so hard. The minute Tai had decided to wait ticked by, stretching, growing heavier. Then it crashed as David’s sandal flew to land in Tai’s range of vision, rolling to a stop under the coffee table. Jez jerked up her head. David’s other sandal landed sole down and skated under the couch.

  Jez shook her head until her ears flopped, then got stiffly to her feet and stalked into the bedroom, carrying her bone.

  In the silence that followed, Tai heard her settle in her crate.

  David’s shorts came next. Balled up, they sailed over Tai’s head to hit the coffee table and tumble off the end. The guy had excellent aim. His shirt landed on Tai’s shoulder, soft, rich with the smell of David’s body. Sweat and sex and the faint rain-sweet echo of his aftershave.

  Tai awaited the next move. David took the long way around, to the kitchen end of the sofa, and then strolled between the coffee table and the TV, around the side where Tai was sitting. Just as David was past him, Tai stood, snatched a wrist, and jerked him back. He was about to flip him over the couch arm and spank the brat out of him when he remembered. He sat back down, dragging David close, pinning him against chest and thighs so he sat on Tai’s lap.

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You said get naked. I got naked.” David didn’t struggle, but he held himself tense.

  “I told you to go into the bedroom first.”

  “Same result.”

  With one arm keeping David tight and close, Tai grabbed David’s chin, turning his head so their eyes met. “You are being disrespectful and challenging me.”

  “Yes.”

  At least it was clear David knew what he was doing. “Tell me why.”

  David shrugged as much as Tai’s hold permitted. “What are you going to do about it?” David yanked his chin out of Tai’s grip.

  If he knew David better, the punishment would be to deny him the punishment he was so sullenly demanding. But there was something different working here.

  An intensity inside him as still and weighted as the eye of a hurricane, breath held for the next explosion. It wasn’t difficult to track where the storm had started. Would the mention of his father drive David deeper inward or shatter the potential for them to get somewhere?

  “It sounds like you’re asking me to punish you.”

  “You keep talking about it. But you never do anything.”

  “And I told you I would decide when. Now I want you to tell me why you are acting like this.”

  David gave him a look, eyes half-lidded with boredom, mouth and nose pinched in contempt, as if it was all too difficult for Tai to understand. He dumped David onto the cushion. “Do you have any allergies? Anything your skin reacts to?”

  “No.”

  Tai went into his closet. Impact was out, but there were other sensations.

  He came back and put the empty burlap bag on the seat of his desk chair. David hadn’t moved, except to right himself into a slouch. Pulling a few sheets from the printer, Tai moved his keyboard out of the way and set up paper and pen on the desk. Rather than turn this part into a battle, he tugged David to his feet and led him to the chair.

  “You understand you still—”

  David cut him off with a sneered, “Have a safeword. I get it.”

  “Good. Sit down.” Tai pushed him onto the burlap. “We’ll start with one hundred.”

  “One hundred what?”

  Tai leaned over, picked up the pen, and wrote I trust and respect you, Sir. “One hundred times. The whole sentence at once. Both of your hands stay on the desk.” He took David’s wrists and lifted both onto the desk. “Start now.”

  David picked up the pen and moved it slowly through the first repetition. He looked up as if expecting something from Tai, but he only watched until David started the next one. As he wrote, Tai went into the kitchen and found the spray bottle he’d used to get Jez’s attention when he was training her, refilled it from the tap, and came back in.

  David twisted his head around to look.

  “Focus on your work.”

  David pressed the pen harder through the third line.

  “Spread your legs,” Tai said as he reached for the edge of the rough cloth on the seat. After David complied, Tai tucked the material over David’s balls and dick, then sprayed it with water to give it weight enough to stick. David jumped as the first round of drops hit. The cold and clammy part was a bonus. It should encourage him to complete his task in a hurry. And maybe help him think before asking for this again.

  Tai sat back on the couch. “Keep going. If you don’t finish before you have to leave, we’ll do this tomorrow. And we’ll start at number one.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  BEACH TRACED over the I in his next line, carving deeper into the paper. This was stupid. Uncomfortable, childish and stupid. Which was pretty much punishment in a nutshell. Wasn’t that the whole penal system too? You were naughty, you got caught, publicly scolded, and made to suffer in uncomfortable situations with fewer rights than a child.

  The penal system that Beach would be extremely familiar with if the DA was able to make the felony charge stick.

  Exactly how much fucking help do you think you’ll be able to give me from jail? his father had said on the phone. For once, I thought I could depend on you. That you could be the son I needed.

  Beach dashed off the rest of the pointless phrase. He should have known from the homework of a checklist that all this D/s stuff was too much like school.

  With the addition of a damp, itchy diaper. He knew exactly what he’d been doing, poking at Tai. Begging for something to stop the maddening urge to do the first thing Beach could think of that would violate the damned probation. Not that he needed t
he high from risk or drugs; he needed to know he was still who he’d always been. The life of the party, the man people wanted to be around. Not the complicated problem, a freak who showed up at the emergency room with a light bulb up his ass, the way he saw himself reflected in Gavin’s eyes. Or as incompetent and useless as his father saw him, until the man needed something.

  Just call your uncle. Is that too much fucking responsibility for you, David?

  He tilted his hips to press his balls harder against the scratchy fibers. If he ground down enough, focused on that unpleasant prickle, maybe he could stop feeling like his skin was on wrong. Tai was supposed to give Beach that. Hold him here. Shove him into a cold shower, force pain and pleasure into him with his hands, his cock, his mouth, and his strength.

  Even the wadded burlap, with the burn that spread from taint to ass to dick, would have been okay, good even, if he knew it was something for Tai. Beach could deal with the itch that had him squeezing his left hand hard against the desk to keep from digging and shoving the cloth away. Hell, maybe it would turn him on if he knew Tai was paying attention. If he seemed to care.

  But he moved around the apartment silently, as if he were alone. Puttering in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. How long had Beach been staring at the pointless words on the paper?

  He threw down the pen.

  “Finished?” Tai was immediately at Beach’s shoulder.

  “I can’t.”

  Tai looked down at him. “You already made your choice when you threw your shoes. You added to it by refusing to explain why. This is what you asked for.”

  Unless you ask for it. “No. It isn’t.” Beach moistened his suddenly dry lips and then said the words in a rush. “I want you to spank me.”

  The words hung there long enough for Beach’s lips to dry out. Tai studied him, as if waiting for Beach to take it back with a just kidding.

  When Beach licked his lips again, Tai lifted him out of the chair and the burlap and sat on the couch with Beach standing next to him.

  “Get over my lap.”