Bad Behavior

by K.A. Mitchell

  Beach wasn’t sure how he’d expected it would go down when his brain seized on something that would guarantee Tai couldn’t ignore him. It wasn’t as if Beach had never been spanked. There had been a few bruising encounters with fraternity paddles during hazing, but the alcohol blurred the edges of those memories. Probably more familiar was the occasional swat on the ass during sex. Women had done it from a missionary position, and men from doggy style. He hadn’t minded the sting, the spread of warmth. But this was different from either. First, there was the whole idea of punishment versus sex, emphasized by Tai being dressed and Beach naked. But there was a huge gap between sex slaps and his other understanding of corporal punishment, which involved a peach tree and bending over a back-porch railing.

  Staring at the dark green material of Tai’s cargo shorts, Beach tried to will himself to comply with Tai’s demand. This would be much easier if Tai dragged Beach where he was supposed to be. He glanced up at Tai’s face. No anger there, no distance either, his eyes alight with whatever it was that made Beach yearn toward him, want to get back to that place where being open and ready was easy. Not this gut-knotting tangle of fear and frustration.

  “You need to show me this is what you want. That you accept what’s going to happen.”

  When Beach didn’t move, Tai’s deep, dominant voice solved the problem. “Now, David.”

  It was more awkward than Beach could have imagined, leaning down and climbing across Tai’s lap. Beach’s junk was in the way until he got it dangling in the space between Tai’s concrete-hard thighs. Beach’s feet stayed on the floor, his torso and sweaty hands stretched across the seat cushions, pulse loud as the bass of a club speaker in his ears, heart so high and swollen in his chest he was surprised he could still breathe. “What about sound? Neighbors?” he had to ask.

  Over Beach’s shoulder, the television buzzed to life. A few clicks and it landed on something with a laugh track rolling every few seconds.

  Beach strained to hear the dialogue, to figure out what it was, but the blood in his ears was too loud. No matter how he tried to distract himself, all his senses kept focusing on his ass. On the way Tai had raised his knee so Beach’s ass was tilted up higher for whatever Tai was about to do.

  Spank him. Get your head around that, Beach. He’s going to hit you. And you asked him to do it.

  Hyperawareness warned him, a shift in air currents across his ass had him tensing, but all Tai did was place a warm palm on Beach’s cheeks and start rubbing. The massage went down under the curve that met his thighs, fingers dipping lightly into the crack, and Beach’s dick woke up to notice the friction of a fold in the cotton of Tai’s shorts.

  “Do you feel secure?”

  For an instant Beach had thought Tai was going to ask if he was comfortable, and a nervous laugh blew past his lips. Comfortable, no. Secure? Tai’s non-ass-massaging hand held Beach tight at the waist, close to Tai’s hips. He didn’t feel like he was going to fall, so he guessed secure was the right answer.

  “Yes.”

  A smack landed hard and sharp, the imprint of Tai’s hand written in sizzling nerve endings. “Yes what?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Tai’s hand rubbed the site of impact, turning the burn pleasant.

  But that wasn’t what Beach was here for, though he could see what Eli had been talking about. Under the right circumstances it wouldn’t be a bad warm-up for sex. The way Tai’s hand spread out the sensation made Beach’s dick strain for more friction.

  But as his body started to shift into arousal, shame coiled around his guts. What was wrong with him that something that scared him as much as this did made him want to get off? And sex, even as amazing as it was with Tai, wasn’t going to be enough to fix this crazy urge rising in his chest. The need to tear free of everything holding him here.

  “So is this foreplay or punishment? Sir.”

  The sound from Tai might have been a laugh or a growl. Beach felt the vibration more than heard it. Then Tai’s grip tightened around Beach’s waist, and it started.

  No rhythm or pattern, only the slam of Tai’s palm into Beach’s ass. Some slaps stung, some thudded, and always more. Heat spreading into his skin, aching deep underneath.

  It hurt, but not in a way Beach couldn’t handle. Every so often Tai would nail the same spot three or four times with enough force to make Beach wince, but right when Beach felt like he had to jerk away from it, Tai would leave that spot alone. All the tension in Beach’s stomach melted. This was nothing like slices of skin being stripped away by the switch, his silent, disgusted uncle behind him. It was Tai. His strength everywhere, pushing the sensation Beach craved into him while keeping him safe and anchored.

  Much better than the stupid burlap diaper and the dull repetition of words on a page. “Good,” Tai murmured, barely audible over the background noise of one-liners and laugh tracks. He pressed his forearm against the small of Beach’s back. “That’s it.” Beach let the pressure tip his hips, his ass lifting toward Tai’s hand.

  “Yes,” Tai encouraged, landing a few smacks near the tops of Beach’s thighs, a new kind of sting, but also one that made his dick fill.

  Tai stopped spanking and rubbed. It made the burn and sting spread out, the flesh absorbing the pain until it didn’t hurt anymore, leaving a tingle like arousal over tight, hot skin. Beach would love to get fucked now, transfer that ache into the scrape and stretch of Tai’s dick driving in, his hips smacking into Beach’s ass. He wouldn’t even mind a few more cracks of Tai’s hand to keep the warmth lasting longer.

  “That’s the warm-up, David.”

  Beach had gotten lost in a fantasy of being fucked and smacked until he came, so Tai’s words didn’t make a lot of sense. Huh didn’t seem to be the right answer, so he went with something safer. “Yes, Sir.”

  “What are you being punished for?”

  “Throwing my shoes and clothes?”

  “We’ll start there. One minute.” Tai handed his phone to Beach with the timer function set to a minute. “Press Start when you’re ready.”

  All the tension and dread came rushing back as Beach stared at the screen with the 1:00 blinking back at him. He didn’t want to press Start. He was pretty sure he wanted to press End.

  “Do you have something to add?” Tai said.

  Beach had known he was asking for punishment when he kicked his sandal into the living room. And he’d very specifically asked to be spanked. He’d said he liked having his choices taken away. Tai had given him all that. There wasn’t anything to say.

  “No, Sir.” Beach pressed Start.

  Tai spanked. His hand thudded on Beach’s already sensitive skin, like boiling water on a sunburn. At least he thought it was Tai’s hand. It was hard enough, dense enough to be a canoe paddle, but Beach hadn’t seen him get a weapon. His breath rushed out of his lungs, eyes squeezing shut at the explosion of pain from the solid, rapid slaps. He sucked in a breath and opened his eyes. Fifty seconds left. Fifty? He couldn’t lie here and take this for fifty more seconds.

  He didn’t make a conscious decision about it. His body did. One hand reached back to protect his ass while his hips tried to flop him out of the way of the blows that kept ratcheting the pain higher and higher. Tai caught Beach’s hand and pinned it to his back, and all the flopping did was get the swats to land on the more sensitive sides of his hips where there was no cushioning. And there were still thirty seconds to go.

  “I can’t.” His voice sounded like he’d run up twenty stories.

  Tai kept Beach’s hand clamped against his back but shifted them so Beach was folded over one leg, the other trapping him in place, and all the time that heavy hand kept crashing into his skin. Tai attacked the spot at the crease of Beach’s thighs now. Hard and steady, the same spot until his eyes watered and his teeth ground together.

  “Please,” he hissed out, but he might as well have been begging the seconds to suddenly tick by because Tai didn’t stop, didn’t ease up. Fifteen.
How could there still be time left?

  The smacks came and the pain built and his breath rasped against his ears. When the alarm buzzed, Beach yelled, “Time,” but Tai was already rubbing, much more gently now.

  “Okay. It’s okay.” Tai kept repeating it, but it was almost impossible to hear over the force of Beach’s breathing. The hand on his back was free, but he was too tired to move it.

  Tai’s hand slid down Beach’s back, making him aware of how slick with sweat he was. “How are you?”

  His ass was hot and swollen, and his throat ached from panting so hard. But the pain that had been impossible to think of enduring for another second was gone. “I’ll live. Sir.”

  Tai chuckled, fingers tickling across Beach’s ass. His dick had gone soft, but the teasing touch made blood throb at the base again.

  “Why were you spanked, David?”

  Beach remembered the shower. How he didn’t get out until he found the right answer. “For challenging you, Sir.”

  “Good.” Tai took his phone back. “There’s another behavior we have to address. Your disrespect.”

  “I take it back. I’m sorry, Sir.” It wasn’t only to avoid what he already knew was coming.

  He was sorry. Sorry that he’d been so absorbed in his bad mood that he’d been rude.

  “Thank you, David.” Tai’s finger stroked through Beach’s hair. But when Tai handed back the phone, there was another minute on the timer.

  “I don’t think I can take it.” A tremble vibrated through Beach’s body. He knew the pain didn’t last long, as bad as it seemed while it was going on. It was hardly unbearable torture. Most days, his leg hurt worse than his ass did now.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  But in the way back of his mind he knew he did. One simple word would stop it.

  Everything about what Tai was going to do right now was Beach’s choice.

  “I’ll hold your hands for you again,” Tai said, “but I need you to press Start to show me you accept this.”

  Beach nodded and tapped the screen. The pain was different this time. Sharp stings, like Tai was finding new nerve endings to send the screaming message to Beach’s brain to make it stop. Like it had last time, his hand obeyed the instinct and shot back, and Tai caught it.

  Fifty-five seconds left and already Beach’s eyes were watering. What the hell had he been thinking? It was much worse. He was insane. His body went into a full-on rebellion, bucking and shifting away from the relentless smack of Tai’s hand.

  Red. That one single word grew huge at the back of his brain. All the promise in it. No more pain. Get out of jail free. Skip over the consequences.

  Tai adjusted his grip, taking away even an ability to squirm, and then his hand fell on Beach’s ass with enough force that everything up to now had been a love tap. Beach couldn’t think. Couldn’t watch the timer. Couldn’t do anything but feel pain bursting again and again on his skin. His body tensed like he was heading into an orgasm, and then he collapsed onto Tai and just took it.

  The pain had stopped, the timer was buzzing, and Tai was whispering “I know” over and over. Beach realized it was because he kept whispering “I’m sorry” into the cushion.

  Tai lifted Beach to place him on his lap. It was more childish than being across Tai’s knee, and Beach’s ass wasn’t at all happy about the pressure from Tai’s quads, but the hard arms around Beach made everything else bullshit.

  “Feel better?”

  It should have been an incredibly stupid question. But he did. He felt calm, light, energized, like standing on the flybridge and opening the throttle on a perfect day at sea.

  No destination, open space all around him.

  “Yes. Thank you, Sir.” Beach couldn’t help a smile as he added, “How’s your hand?”

  Tai brushed a soft laugh into Beach’s ear. “Sore, thank you.” After a quick kiss, Tai took Beach’s chin in his hand. “We’re not done yet.”

  Beach’s ass throbbed in time with his heart, but the rest of him felt so good he didn’t care. “Okay.”

  “Tell me why we needed to do this.”

  “I challenged you and was disrespectful.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, David.”

  A hard spanking must be better than sodium pentothal because Beach blurted “My father” before he had time to think about what he was going to say. The doubts slithered back in, filling him with the need to push it all someplace where he didn’t have to think about it.

  He shifted his ass on Tai’s legs, settling more weight on it so pain echoed along his nerves. It gave him some of that floating feeling back.

  Tai didn’t rush him.

  “It’s complicated and boring. But my father is in some trouble. And he reminded me that since I may be in jail soon, I won’t be in a position to help him. I have to do him a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “My uncle isn’t returning my father’s calls. He wants me to call him.”

  “Okay.”

  Beach knew on the surface it sounded like an incredibly minor thing to have thrown a tantrum over. And it was obvious now that was what he’d done. It really wouldn’t be that awful to have to call Uncle Sinclair and find out why he’d stopped sending money to Dad. Not his favorite thing in the world, but not worth acting like an asshole over.

  “So tomorrow, you need to make the appointment for your physical therapy and call your uncle.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good.” Tai kissed him.

  Beach let out a long breath. “I’m ready.”

  Tai tipped his head.

  “You said we weren’t done. And you, uh, spanked me for challenging you and being disrespectful. And now for”—he remembered the words Tai had given him to write out—“not trusting you with why I was being such a dick.”

  Tai held Beach’s face and kissed him hard. “I’m proud of you, David.”

  “But you’re going to spank me more.” Beach had to grin when he said it.

  Tai eased Beach to his feet then led him to the back of the couch. “Bend over it until your feet come off the floor.”

  A sensation like when the bottom dropped out of a wave hit Beach’s stomach as he hung suspended, ass burning from nothing but the flow of air.

  “It’s going to be one spank at a time. And after each you need to tell me why you’re here.”

  Beach nodded and bit his tongue to keep from asking how many. It was probably easier if he didn’t know.

  He flinched when Tai rested his hand lightly just above Beach’s ass, then the stroke hit, reigniting every single inch of pain on his skin. As he blew out his air, he remembered he was supposed to say something. “I will trust you, Sir.”

  He’d barely finished the words when the next blow forced the air out of his lungs. “I will trust you, Sir.”

  “Good.” Tai’s hand on his back soothed and petted, but he still slammed the message into and out of Beach eight more times. It got harder and harder to put the words in the right order, and the requirement kept him coming back to process the pain every time.

  Tai turned Beach around and hugged him, hands stroking his back and squeezing his ass. “Good boy. I’m so proud of you.”

  Beach sagged against him, muscles shaking with exhaustion.

  “Sit, or stand if you want, while I get you some juice.”

  Using the couch for balance, Beach made his way around and planted himself on the cushion, wincing as his weight pressed him down but still liking the way the echo of heat made him feel. Quiet. Free.

  Tai sat next to him and handed over the juice. Beach raised his eyebrows at the cherry-bright reddened palm.

  “Yes,” Tai said. “That’s about what color your ass is. But I don’t think it will bruise. I was going for more of a sting, so I didn’t hit you that hard until the last few.”

  Beach didn’t want to think about what hard would mean. But after sucking down half the glass, curiosity got the better of him. “A
nd was that as hard as you—I mean, full strength?”

  There was a quirk, barely a twitch at the corner of Tai’s mouth and almost hidden by his goatee. “No.”

  Not even close was the implicit end to that statement. Beach shifted on the couch as he tried to find a comfortable spot. That corner of Tai’s mouth threatened a smile.

  “Sadist.” Beach knocked back the rest of the juice with only a minor regret that there wasn’t any vodka in it. It was all he could do to handle himself with Tai sober. Who knew what kind of trouble he’d get into with a little fermented lubrication?

  “Actually, no.” Tai spread his hands at his hips.

  Beach looked over, down. Other than the usual ample evidence of Tai’s equipment, there was no bulge of arousal. Tai took the glass from Beach’s hand and then pulled Beach back onto those hard thighs. Beach winced, and Tai buried a chuckle in the skin of Beach’s neck.

  “It turns me on that you let me. That you accept me being in charge. And yeah, handling your ass, looking at it getting red, that definitely lights a fire. But not the idea of dealing pain just as pain.”

  “So pain with a purpose?” Beach shifted so he straddled Tai’s lap, and the ache from the shuddering down his shinbone was far worse than the heavy, hot feeling in his ass.

  “Yes. And doing that to yourself doesn’t have a purpose.” Tai lifted Beach and spun him, dropping his ass back down over Tai’s lap, legs dangling to the sides. Tai tucked his chin over Beach’s shoulder as the strong arms wrapped around his waist, the hard chest pressed into his back, and his ass throbbed and prickled from the solid weight of them together.

  “You earned a sore butt, David.”

  “Yes, Sir.” He wasn’t agreeing to avoid an argument. The echo of the pain, the promise in the strength holding him here, the strength that could make him take more, feel more. It was exactly why Dav—Beach felt so content to simply be here. He wasn’t anticipating anything, wishing he was anywhere else. He sank deeper into Tai’s hold, aware of every sensation and perfectly at peace with them.

  He shut his eyes to block out the television, to concentrate more on the beat of Tai’s heart against Beach’s back.