Kingsley grew light-headed. He could still breathe and that was the problem. He was near to hyperventilating from the intensity of the kiss. Dangerous as it was, he grabbed onto Søren’s shirt, digging his fingers through the fabric and into Søren’s sides.
Kingsley tasted blood and Søren must have tasted it, too. The kiss was so vicious, Kingsley had started bleeding. Hadn’t he?
When Søren released his neck, Kingsley stumbled back a step. His mouth was swollen and ached. He stared at Søren who raised his hand to his bottom lip and wiped it with the back of his hand. The tiny smear of blood on Søren’s lip disappeared. Then it came back, the droplet of blood. Gone. There again. Søren touched it with his fingers and then displayed the blood for Kingsley.
It hadn’t been Kingsley’s own blood he’d tasted.
Kingsley had bitten Søren.
“I didn't mean to. It was an accident.”
Kingsley experienced all the symptoms of fear—the pounding heart, the sudden uptick in body temperature, tingling, dizziness. Even his apology sounded fearful. But he wasn’t afraid. Not really. Not yet. Exhilarated was more like it. What if Søren brutally punished him for biting him? What if Søren punished him more brutally than ever before...
Kingsley could only hope.
“Are you sorry?” Søren demanded.
“I am. I’m sorry.”
Lungs burning. God, he really might faint.
“Beg forgiveness.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear to God. I didn’t even realize I did it. You were kissing me so hard, I think my teeth just sort of accidentally—”
“Beg on your knees.”
Kingsley dropped to his knees onto the stone hearth of the fireplace. He didn’t say anything. This wasn’t the first time he’d been instructed to “beg” on his knees. Søren unbuckled his belt as Kingsley opened Søren’s trousers. He took Søren’s cock into his mouth, into his throat. And then he felt Søren’s hands in his hair, holding him hard in place. He sucked and licked and rubbed and sucked again, deeper, harder, with abject devotion, like a penitent sinner kissing the feet of a saint’s statue over and over again. And Søren must have been a saint of something. When Kingsley prayed for Søren to hurt him, Søren always answered that prayer.
The bare feet still bothered him, though. Søren’s bare feet on the cold ground of a Maine forest in October. There was something Kingsley was missing, something not right. It seemed crazy to do that. It scared him...scared him like seeing someone who never drank alcohol suddenly downing a glass of whiskey or the well-dressed lady next door suddenly wearing rags. Knowing why Søren walked through the woods barefoot seemed more important than having sex. Usually there was nothing in the world more important to Kingsley than having sex.
But if Søren was hurting about something, maybe that was the thing that could possibly be more important than sex?
Kingsley pulled back and looked up at Søren. He expected to see Søren’s head back in pleasure, or at least his eyes closed. But his eyes were open and staring, fixed on nothing. It was like trying to make love to a stone—hard but unfeeling.
“Are you all right?” Kingsley asked.
Søren started a little. Just a tiny bit. Just a flinching around the eyes. Søren looked down at him.
“Why did you stop?”
“I don’t know. You just don’t seem into this. You don’t seem okay. I mean, what’s with walking barefoot—”
“If I wanted to hear you talk, I wouldn’t have put something in your mouth to shut you up. Do your job or leave. We aren’t friends. If I wanted a friend, I wouldn’t have hired a whore.”
Søren said horrific things to him all the time.
All the time and every day almost. Most of it made Kingsley laugh. He knew it was Søren’s way of flirting. But that crack about them not being friends, that made Kingsley’s throat tighten up. Too tight. When he tried to get back to his “job” as Søren so tactfully called it, Kingsley couldn’t do it. He tried and it hurt, and not the good type of hurt. Søren made a disgusted sound, half-sigh, half-growl, and Kingsley tried again, but he was miserable now, on the verge of tears which only Søren could do to him that easily.
“Useless.” Søren put his toes against the center of Kingsley’s chest and knocked him down onto his back.
And now Kingsley was mad.
“You don’t like the way I do it, fucking do it to yourself then. You have your own head up your ass. I’m sure you can figure out how to suck your own cock, too. Christ, could you at least pretend to be human for five fucking minutes?”
Søren turned his back on him, straightened his clothes and simply said, “No. And if that’s what you want, you should leave.”
“So you did ask him to leave,” Madame said.
“Finally.”
“He didn’t leave.”
“He did, though. He did leave. And for the second time since I met him, I was scared he wouldn’t come back. The first time I sent him a letter to order him back. What if that didn’t work a second time?”
“I said it to him, and I will say it to you—you men are you own worst enemies.”
“How many years did you sleep alone before forgiving your husband? Fifteen, was it?”
“Oh, shut up and tell the story.”
Kingsley didn’t love Søren. He realized that the second Søren turned his back on him and told him to leave. All that time, Kingsley had been deluding himself, thinking this was love he felt. He didn’t love Søren. He just wanted to win this game they were playing. That’s all it was, a game, and Kingsley kept playing because he thought if he played it well enough and hard enough and smart enough, he could uncover all the clues and put together all the puzzle pieces and the tumblers would turn and the dice would land double-sixes and he would win at last and the prize was, of course, Søren’s complete and undying love.
And Kingsley was done playing. He was done because he would never win. So...fine. He would cut his losses. He would fold. He would never win, and he was a fool to keep trying. Dying old drunks in Vegas had better odds.
Kingsley came to his feet and pulled on his jacket and stuffed his school tie in his pocket, picked up his bag again and walked out. Just...walked out, leaving Søren stretched out on their cot, reading his Bible.
There were things that needed saying, but Kingsley decided not to say them. He left without another word. More words would just throw good money after bad. All Kingsley allowed himself was one glance back as he walked out the door, one last look at Søren on their cot. With the door and the angle of entrance, Kingsley saw that the bottom of Søren’s feet weren’t just dirty from walking in the woods, they were bloody.
Not his problem.
Kingsley stormed away from the cabin but stopped at the edge of the clearing as if some kind of force field kept him from taking that first step into the woods and away from Søren for good.
The clearing around the cabin, it was almost a perfect circle. So perfect, in fact, Kingsley guessed it had been measured out by the old priests who’d put the hermitage here. Cabin at the center, bare ground it and a ring of rocks to keep the forest at bay.
When they’d finished cleaning and putting the cabin back together, Kingsley had made a joke, calling the clearing around the cabin their “fairy circle.”
A gay joke, obviously, and Søren got it, but didn’t laugh.
“Don’t say things like that about us,” Søren had said, sharply, coldly.
“Fuck, why not? Just a joke.”
“I wouldn’t let anyone call you that. Don’t call yourself that. Or me. Either this—” and he pointed between the two of them, “is real or it’s a joke. Decide right now which one it is.”
“It’s real,” Kingsley said. And he hadn't made that joke again. It was a stupid joke anyway.
So Kingsley didn’t step out of the clearing. Instead, he went to the old well with the cast iron pump that provided water from a deep ice-cold spring. Kingsley went to the pump and worked th
e rusting lever until fresh water flowed from the deep well into the bucket.
Water sloshed against his trousers as he carried the bucket back into the cabin. Søren turned his head as he walked back in and rested his Bible, open, across his chest.
“Are you going to throw cold water on me?” Søren asked, sounding bored.
“No, asshole. Cold as you are, fucker, you wouldn’t even notice. Like throwing ice cubes at icebergs.”
What Kingsley was going to do, and did, was wash the blood and mud off Søren’s feet.
Kingsley set the bucket on the floor by the foot of the cot and dug a towel out of his rucksack. He’d learned the hard way to bring a towel with him to their nights together after a certain come-related incident in late September. Considering theirs was an all-boys school, Kingsley had a feeling the laundry service that took the dirty towels away just incinerated them all and brought back new towels every week.
He would rather be using the towel as a come-rag, as he usually did, but if he had to use it for the purpose God intended it, fine.
Fine.
Fucking fine.
“Sit up,” Kingsley said.
Søren blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want to get mud on the fucking quilt, okay? It’s the only one we have. So sit up. I have to sleep there, too, and you’re getting dirt on it.”
“You scold like an old maid.”
“I suck cock like one too, apparently. Sit up.”
Was Kingsley actually doing this? Ordering Søren around? Apparently so. And the strangest part was, Søren did sit up. Kingsley saw a smile flit across Søren’s mouth when he sat up, as if he were secretly amused by this sudden burst of suicidal behavior on Kingsley’s part.
Whatever. Søren could laugh at his outburst all that blond fucker wanted.
Kingsley dunked the white towel into the water and quickly, and with zero regard for Søren’s comfort, he scrubbed at the dirt and blood. The blood, Kingsley saw, was on the right foot only. A small cut that had bled profusely but would probably heal quickly. Well, it would heal quickly now that it wasn’t caked with dirt. But just to be sure, Kingsley washed the wound again and dried it carefully.
“You’re reminding me why I asked Kingsley to stay,” Madame said. “Submissives like that are rare finds. Especially male submissives. To be that strong and that vulnerable all at once? I’ll never forgive you for stealing him from me.”
“He was mine first,” Søren said. “I think the moment he washed the dirt off my feet was the moment I decided what I decided.”
“And what did you decide?”
“That I’d find a way for us to stay together. No matter what it took.”
“It meant that much to you? That Kingsley came to wash your feet?”
“No, it meant that much to me...simply that he came back.”
“I’m fine,” Søren said, out of nowhere it seemed. Was he talking about the cut on his foot? Kingsley guessed so.
“If you get gangrene and your foot falls off, I will laugh at you. A lot.” Kingsley washed his other foot and he wasn’t gentle about it either. Not even when Søren put his hand in Kingsley’s hair.
Kingsley ignored the hand and the thumb stroking his cheek.
“Leave me alone,” Kingsley said. He didn’t mean a word of it, and Søren, of course, ignored the request.
“How does an old maid suck cock?” Søren asked.
Kingsley wouldn’t smile. He refused to smile. But he really wanted to. And he really wanted to close his eyes and press his face into Søren’s hand. The thumb on his cheek, right under his eyes, making tiny sensual circles...
“I don’t know. I’d guess she wouldn’t be good at it since she’s never done it before? Or maybe she does it kind of enthusiastically?” Kingsley said. “Like, ‘Hooray, there’s finally a cock in my mouth! Just what I’ve always wanted.’”
“Hooray? Did you say hooray?”
“I guess she wouldn’t say ‘hooray.’ Not with a cock in her mouth. But she would think it.”
Søren’s knuckles grazed the side of Kingsley’s face. Then the hand was on Kingsley’s chin and the thumb ran across his bottom lip. Kingsley’s eyes fluttered in pleasure. Could someone come from having their lip touched? If anyone could, it was Kingsley.
“Is that what you think? Hooray?”
“When I’m sucking your cock?” Kingsley asked. He glanced up at Søren who nodded. “Usually I’m thinking ‘Hope he doesn’t get it in my eye again.’”
“That was your own fault.” Søren tilted Kingsley’s chin up an inch and leaned in. “Close your eyes next time, Dummkopf, or I’ll make you stand in the corner again.”
He had done that. Søren had literally made Kingsley stand in the corner for fifteen minutes as punishment after the Come Incident of Late September. And with no towel to wipe his eyes either. Lessons learned. Close his eyes. Bring towels.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” Kingsley said. “Being called a dumb-ass or being called a dumb-ass in German.”
“Close your eyes next time, and I’ll be nice enough to insult you in French.”
Kingsley did smile that time. A little smile, too small for Søren to see as Kingsley patted both feet dry. Then he tossed the towel into the corner of the cabin and looked up at Søren.
Kingsley was still on his knees. No reason to leave, not with Søren’s hand still in his hair. And on his knees at Søren’s feet was exactly where he wanted to be for all eternity.
“Take off your clothes and get into bed,” Søren said.
Or that. Naked in bed was even better than being at Søren’s feet for all eternity.
Kingsley stood up and undressed. To save Søren time, Kingsley went ahead and threw his own clothes on the floor, stepped on them a few times before pulling down the quilt and sheet and lying in bed, naked and hard and waiting.
Søren had undressed, too, and crawled into bed on top of Kingsley. Then they were kissing again, like before. Søren’s left hand gripping the back of Kingsley’s neck, his right hand on the throat and pushing...the sounds, the whimpers of pain and need. Kingsley couldn’t stop his hips from grinding up and against Søren. His cock ached, wanting to be touched and stroked and sucked. Was that another prayer? Must have been because Søren answered it.
Søren didn’t suck cock like an old maid. Kingsley didn’t think old maids would grip his wrists and dig their thumbs into the pressure spots there until his hands twisted in pain.
But it was heaven, lying there flat on his back, agony and ecstasy incarnate in the body of one teenage boy. His arms throbbed as Søren gripped his wrists tighter and tighter and Kingsley squirmed on the cot. The pleasure was intense, acute. Søren’s mouth was as tight on him as the grip on his wrists. Kingsley found the side bars of the cot, pressed his heels down onto them and pushed himself into Søren’s mouth. It was all he could do, trapped as he was by those vicious hands on his wrists.
His head fell back on the bed. His back arched. Kingsley tried to stay quiet, if only so Søren wouldn’t know how much he was enjoying it. Always a risk. If Kingsley liked it too much, Søren might stop. But Kingsley couldn’t stop groaning and panting and if anyone walked through the woods right now, they’d probably think he was being murdered. Maybe he was. Not that he cared. He couldn’t think of a better way to die. He couldn’t think of anything when the pressure increased on his wrists, on his cock. His testicles tightened and he cried out and at that cry, Søren released Kingsley’s wrists. The combination of the release of pain with the rush of pleasure was blinding, obliterating.
Kingsley came and he came and he came. He came so hard his shoulders rose off the bed. He almost bent double from the sharp spasm of release that he felt in his cock, back, and stomach.
He fell back on the cot and lay there, eyes closed and panting, the muscles of his stomach still quivering deep inside. Limp as a rag doll, he put up no fight whatsoever as Søren took the ropes from their bag, stretched Kingsley’s ar
ms over his head, and tied his wrists to the bars of the cot. And though he felt the cold fluid on him and Søren’s fingers, he was too spent to react to it. Not even when Søren’s arm wrapped around his back to lift him did he say or a word or move a muscle. He was gone, a body without a will, and all that was left of him and in him was his total contentment to be used by Søren in any way that beautiful blond monster saw fit.
And Søren saw fit to fuck him.
The penetration was painless. Kingsley wouldn’t have felt it if Søren came in his brain, he was so utterly gone. His entire body yielded to Søren. He moved only when Søren moved him. Even the kisses on his mouth and neck and chest he barely felt, though he knew they happened and silently blessed the kissing god on top of him for each of those blessed kisses.
Søren kissed Kingsley from his collarbone to his ear.
“Do you really want me to be human?” Søren asked.
Kingsley shook his head no. “Never. Stay a god.” Did he say that out loud or only think it? Didn’t matter. Søren was a god and gods heard all prayers, spoken or silent.
Still limp, he didn’t protest when Søren forced his legs wider and moved in even deeper. He could only stretch and groan when Søren’s hand found his throat again and his mouth found Kingsley’s mouth. This time Kingsley didn’t bother watching Søren, waiting for him to come. Instead, he lay with his eyes closed, his back flat on the cot, and listened to Søren’s tense breaths grow louder until they stopped a moment altogether as he finished inside him, filling him completely, all the way, until Kingsley could take no more.
How much time passed between when Søren pulled out of him and when he untied Kingsley’s wrists from the cot? Who knew? Who cared? Kingsley only roused himself a little when Søren slid onto the cot with him again.
The Return (The Original Sinners) Page 5
