by Adira August
“No. Sorry.”
Cam leaned over and kissed Hunt quickly on the mouth. “You’re doing great, okay?”
“WHERE’RE THE THINGS I gave you?” Cam asked once they were inside the apartment.
“Kitchen counter,” Hunt told him.
Cam found the bundle of cash with the paddle next to it. He didn’t touch them. “I’m going to get dinner started. You find some kind of open container, like a bowl or a shoebox. Unwrap the cash, put it into the container, leave that on your end table.”
Cam cocked an eyebrow at Hunter.
Hunt got a stock pot he’d inherited from the last tenant from the bottom of a low cupboard.
“Too deep,” Cam said.
Hunt put it back. There was a plastic dishpan under the sink he kept soap and sponges in. He emptied it and showed it to Cam who nodded.
While Hunter struggled with his task, one-handed, Cam went about preheating the stove and getting Gran’s pot pie ready to bake.
He didn’t know what he’d have done if Hunter had not acknowledged his nature and chosen his own submission. He did know his life would seem gray and lifeless without him. But it would become more and more impossible with him, unless they could give each other what they needed.
Cam didn’t relish the idea of always being on the look-out for Hunter’s stubborn, self-centered, and very independent side. He wished he could use that paddle tonight and be done with it. But building a relationship that didn’t revolve around this constant power struggle, would take all his strength and determination, as well as Hunter’s.
“No Mercy,” they sometimes called him. Most people had no idea how much care he gave his subs.
But now, he dare not show mercy or weakness. Not if he wanted to be with Hunter forever. He smiled at the thought that forever had taken on a more literal meaning lately.
Hunter got the plastic wrapper off and the bundle almost exploded out of his hands. He duck-walked around, as his finger didn’t allow him to crawl, picking up hundred-dollar bills and putting them into the dishpan. It was dirty and stained from living under the sink. He began to realize the magnitude of what he’d done. He’d made love to Cam all day and he’d loved doing that, teasing him, giving him the gift of making the relationship public. He’d loved making Cam feel good.
He’d loved.
Then he’d walked away to a poker game and it didn’t matter why, because the truth was it didn’t occur to him at the time that his behavior that day implied a promise of action. It had all been about what he wanted and intended.
Hunt was sweating when he got the last of the money into the plastic basin. He knelt, sitting back on his heels and looked at it. He knew it wasn’t the money per se that he craved in poker. It was the game, the challenge. It was power, domination of the submissive players, who in poker were usually men. Money was just how they kept score.
“You finished? Cam asked from the kitchen.
Hunter rose to his feet. “Yes, Cam.” He gestured at the money and Cam nodded it was satisfactory.
“You learn anything?”
“Yes. I should have gone after you.”
“When?”
“When you left. Jag said you were leaving, you didn’t even come and ask me if I wanted to go with you. I should have gone after you.”
“I thought you’d learned something. What? How to make excuses? The fact is you wanted to be where you were more than you wanted to be with me.”
“No, I didn’t.” Hunt interrupted. Cam flashed Dom and Hunt ignored it. “Not then, I just didn’t want to watch you giving another man what he wanted, so I went to the table. I didn’t know you were done or I would’ve …. anyway, you left.”
“You didn’t want to watch me spank Chez.”
“No, of course, I didn’t.”
“Hunter, if I didn’t go to the club for Chez and Sherrilynne, what would we have done after dinner?”
“Go back to your place. It was a lot of hours until midnight. And when you did go, I thought I’d just move the surprise to the club, seemed kind of symbolic. But I had to wait until you were done with Chez.”
“Symbolic?” Hunter nodded. “You were going to kneel for me? Was that the surprise?”
Hunter nodded. “You left.”
“You were pissed!”
“What?” Hunter turned red.
“We missed morning sex because I promised to go to Morganfeld’s. You didn’t want me to go to the club, you tried to tell me on the trail. You had a whole romantic surprise day planned, and I messed it up.”
Hunter was looking for something to stare at that wasn’t Cam’s astounded countenance. “It wasn’t just you. I should have gone after you. The dead guy at the Rocks wasn’t that helpful, either.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We had a case.”
Cam put his arms around Hunter and kissed him. “Oh God, Hunter, so many people think I’m so cool. So many think you are. And we are so fucked up.”
“Let’s not tell them … Why do you always smell so good?”
“C’mon.”
“What?”
“You’re questioning me now, sub? I’m taking you home.”
“You’re answering questions, now, Dom?”
“You’re going to start with me, now, sub?”
“I kinda like the power struggle.”
“Because it feels so good when I win?”
“When who wins?”
“Pack the food back up and get your coat. I have a surprise I was going to give you that night, too. At midnight. Because you were so romantic all day and infuriating and amazing.”
Hunter put the tart into a bag with the pot pie. “You’re giving me something?”
“Oh, yeah.” Cam grabbed the bags in deference to Hunter’s broken hand. Hunt got the door.
“What?”
“I’m flogging you tonight.”
8:15pm - No Mercy
* * *
They ate the pot pie and skipped desert on Cam’s orders.
Hunter faced another flare of outrage. He kept it to himself, but Cam could see it. He raised an eyebrow.
“Go get my jacket.”
Hunter got up and retrieved Cam’s wool peacoat from the mudroom.
“Check the pocket.”
Hunt felt the pockets until he located something hard. He pulled out the hairbrush paddle. He’d thought Cam left it on the counter at his apartment. He held it out to Cam.
“No, it’s not for me. It’s for you,” Cam said. “Keep that on you at all times until I tell you otherwise. Hart calls it ‘Dolly’s Discipline’. Next time you give me that sullen face at one of my orders, I’ll tell you to hand me Dolly. You’ll do so immediately and accept punishment without hesitation, negotiation or protest. You’ll keep it with you because I might ask for it at other times for other infractions. You have no choices in this. All choices are mine. You understand?”
Hunter hesitated. If he asked during a staff meeting? If he asked in the parking lot?
Cam waited for him to answer.
But Hunter knew Camden Snow had never been anything but the perfect Dom for him. Hunter had never even considered what kind of sub he should be for Cam. A wry smile curved his lips.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Hunter.”
Hunt slipped the paddle into his back pocket. “Just hoping my reach doesn’t exceed my grasp. Yes, Cam, I understand.”
Cam cleaned up after dinner and told Hunter to amuse himself while he did. It was still hours until midnight.
He wandered into Cam’s alcove to look in the top drawer of the bureau where Cam kept his DVDs. The box of thumb drives was still out from when Asher came to lunch. Cam’s laptop was in its place on the sofa table and Hunter realized he still had never seen Cam ski.
He took one of the drives marked “Chmp Run” and slid it into the laptop. He turned on the power to the giant wall-mounted TV.
/> The screen glowed to life. The laptop burbled. And it was daylight at the top of a mountain. The view down the slope was frighteningly steep. Thin poles holding blue or red banners dotted a wide run and curved blue lines were painted around the poles. Hunter had no idea what he was looking at.
An unseen commentator talked about a competitor in a helmet and goggles, skis and poles, entering a starting gate. The crawl at the bottom of the screen identified the skier and country, counted the seconds, and identified the event: Giant Slalom. This was Cam’s major event, that much Hunt did know.
The skier launched himself forward shouting something in a foreign language. A time clock ran in tenths of a second, the voice-over claimed this skier behind in his first run by 1.16 seconds.
It was one of the most exciting sports Hunter had ever seen. Mesmerized, his mouth hanging slightly open, Hunter watched as the skier skidded across the surface, sending up sprays of snow, twisted his body around the poles. The flags of red and blue defined the course, the path they had to take. He expected the man to wheel away into the air and crash into the trees at any moment. A camera apparently mounted on a wire followed him at speed part of the way. Hunter grabbed the top of the couch as if he might fall, himself.
The skier crossed the finish line. His time was 1:22:37. Not fast enough.
There was another skier in the gate. Covered head to toe the body-hugging uniform of his team, goggled and helmeted, Hunt still recognized the curve of Cam’s prominent backside that angled abruptly in to his sacrum as he slid his skis back and forth waiting the signal to begin.
They talked about him: “King” “Prince” “Lord of the gnar.” Hunter wondered what “gnar” was. Cam didn’t win his races by tenths of a second, they said. He won by huge leads of more than a second.
Hunter leaned over, resting his forearms on the back of the tall sofa, needing the support. Cam. His Cam. Knowing he was a champion and seeing what that meant were vastly different things. He barely processed the announcer …80 mph … g-forces … two skiers killed … last run, course degraded…
Hunter’s heart pounded in his throat even though Cam was safe thirty feet from him.
There was a beeping countdown, Cam hovered on the edge of nothingness and launched himself into it. The scrape of skis across the surface, artificially hardened, more ice than snow, was clearly audible. There was barely any spray. Cam flew around the gate poles. They came faster, closer, the slope steeper, uneven, shadowed between stands of trees the late afternoon sun couldn’t penetrate. He couldn’t beat his own time they said, not that time, not on this second run. Not on this bad ice. Not win against the man who had beaten his time by a single hundredth of a second.
Cam never seemed to go straight, he started into the next curve almost before he cleared the poles he shouldered into. He slid on edges that barely touched the ground, his body laid over at an impossible angle, twelve degrees from the surface. They slowed the image and showed him close-up his skis canted over so far only the barest edge could be touching the surface of the run, yet they were not. With the calm authority Hunter knew so well, Cam reached out and touched the skin of the slope and used it to suit himself.
Hunter Dane watched Camden Snow conquer a mountain. And when he’d finished, he’d beaten his own time by a full half second.
Cam laid back trying to stop before he hit the wall in front of an hysterical crowd.
Hunter caught a movement from the corner of his eye.
Cam. His face set in hard planes, mouth a slash, hands fisted at his sides. The wave of Dominant energy hit Hunt like the wall of a tidal wave. He could not breath.
Then it was Cam who slammed into him, forcing his head down, ripping down his pants without opening them, driving his stone-hard cock into Hunter, his own precum the only lube. Hunter roared and bucked and Cam drew back and drove into him again.
Cam had Hunt by both his wrists, shoved up, arms bent. Cam stood unmoving buried to the balls in Hunt’s ass. He released one wrist, grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked Hunter’s head back, forcing him to watch as they replayed both runs of his impossible, record-setting, insanely dangerous journey into history.
“This what you wanted Hunter? All of me?”
And when it ended, his last minute and a few seconds of being what he would never be again, Cam pulled out so fast Hunter cried out a second time.
Something hot trickled down his thigh. Hunter hoped it was semen.
Cal snatched the memory stick from the laptop, laid it on the sofa table pounded it with the corner of the laptop until only the bits were embedded in the splintered wood.
“Make sure I never see any of this again,” he said and climbed the stairs to his loft, head up, not touching a bannister, the limp from his bad leg barely discernible.
Hunter slipped back off the couch to his knees. His asshole felt damaged, torn, sore—something inside him bruised and tender. His shoulder burned. But the worst of the pain was his shame.
He’d spent months, years really, thinking of Cam, sometimes referring to him, as a “Norse sex god.” Now Hunter only felt stupid and small. For he’d been living with a real god, a king and lord and master of himself, of fear. A man who made a mountain of ice submit to his will.
Had he thought Camden Snow was a national hero because he was charming and photogenic? Did he think they handed out Olympic medals like chips after a poker hand? Had he actually said out loud to Camden Snow that he needed a Dom who was his equal?
His equal?
Hunter got to his feet and pulled up his pants. He would put the broken things in his room until his car was released. He’d get any more reminders of the past out of the chest in the alcove. Then he’d check himself for injury and go find his Dom and fall to his knees and put his forehead on the floor and be grateful to be allowed to do so.
Now he finally understood why, when he was at the A-frame, he was required to sleep with Cam. Because someday, ineluctably, when the Huntington’s set in and Cam’s limbs flailed, he wouldn’t be able to. And neither of them would ever have that comfort again.
Cam was all there was.
HUNTER FOUND CAM sitting in an armchair looking out over the moonlit landscape. The lights in his room were off, but the ambient light from the first floor was enough to guide Hunter to his side.
He folded himself down next to Cam’s chair and waited.
“Will you be disappointed if I don’t flog you tonight?”
Hunter smiled into his own knees. “No, Cam. Whenever you’re ready.”
Cam sighed. “I love it here. Loved it.” He looked down. “Come around here, Hunter, I can’t touch you this way.”
Hunt moved around and Cam opened his legs so Hunt could get close. He wrapped his arms around his Dom’s hips and laid his head on Cam’s belly. Cam let his fingers drift idly through Hunter’s hair. He loved Hunt’s hair, thick and dark with a wave that always flopped on his forehead.
“I was five,” Cam said quietly. “I was in a group of little kids taking a ski lesson, but it was over. I was last to go back because I never wanted to go back. The run next to where we were was closed. I hung back. The instructor didn’t notice I was missing.
“I’m going through the trees to this closed run. I just wanted to do it myself, ’cause it wasn’t … I don’t know, challenging enough. I was an arrogant dumbass who just started kindergarten with my little skis and poles. As I get to the last of the trees, these other kids come skiing down. The one kid, like nine or ten, stops in front of me and talks to me.”
Cam’s fingers stopped moving. “I don’t remember one word we said. But I knew his name was Denny.”
Hunter didn’t say anything, he just made a small movement with his head so Cam knew he was listening.
“So Denny and I are talking and there’s five or six kids behind him, watching and listening to us. Then the slope behind him, the one I was going to, moved. A big slab of the run just slid down the mountain. It w
as so sudden. There was a low awful rumbling like, like it was a thing. Alive. Then my mom was screaming my name and grabbing me. She carried me off and I kept yelling at her to get Denny and the boys.”
He stopped.
Hunter’s heart went out to him, to a little child who shouldn’t see what he’d seen or have to experience survivor’s guilt.
Cam cleared his throat. “Right there we weren’t so high up, but it would have killed me easily. In the morning, we went to look at it. An enormous pile of snow and ice and dirt and branches. Wild and deadly even just sitting there.”
His fingers started moving again.
“But the night before, the night it happened? They had to sedate me. When my mom put me to bed she told me how she’d gone to look for me when I didn’t come back with the class. She saw me, but she said she was watching me for a while, because I was talking to someone. Then she told me there wasn’t anybody there and it was okay because all kids have imaginary friends and I must have wanted to go be alone for a while. She said nobody was dead. She kept saying it over and over, Denny and the boys weren’t real.
“I got so mad at her I wouldn’t talk to her. Because Denny and the boys weren’t imaginary. Except … later I decided they must have been because where the other boys were standing? Behind Denny? There were trees. So how could they stand there? Except they were real and I knew they were real. But they couldn’t be, so I made myself forget them.”
Hunter stayed very still because he could hear the tears in Cam’s voice.
“They were real, weren’t they, Hunter? They came to keep me safe in the trees until my mom came.”
Hunter lifted himself up and they hugged, kind of awkwardly. Cam pulled back and wiped angrily at his face.
“I hate this shit, Hunter. I don’t understand why kids, little kids, have disgusting awful things happen to them and nothing that has the power to, stops it. But then something sends kid angels or whatever to save a stupid, spoiled, rich kid who skis?”
Hunter still had nothing to say. But he did reach into the nightstand and open a wipe to hand Cam.
