by Anna Zabo
Eli kissed his forehead. “Upstairs. Now.”
* * *
So many memories haunted Justin in this room. Good ones—and one bad one that had shattered everything. He shivered, but it had nothing to do with being naked. Thank God Eli’s back was turned. Last thing he wanted was for Eli to pull back. The Dom mask was in place, but there were enough cracks that the Eli who fretted and worried peeked out from beneath the leather pants and the linen shirt and the sly grin.
Eli’s nervousness was heartening. Justin wasn’t alone. They both wanted this and desperately didn’t want to fuck it up.
When Eli turned back, Justin held out the leather collar he’d collected from the attic.
Eli regarded the offering, then met Justin’s stare. “Put it on me.”
Heat flooded Justin, from his soles to the crown of his head. “What?” You didn’t collar a Dom.
Eli tipped his head back, exposing his neck. “Humor me tonight.”
Would it even fit Eli? Only one way to find out. Justin slipped the band around Eli’s neck, threaded the leather through the buckle and tightened. Yes—a bit loose, but better than too tight. By the time Justin lowered his hands to his side, his head was wrapped around a proverbial pole.
Warm fingers cupped his face and Eli kissed him, lips and tongue opening and claiming his mouth until Justin moaned. When Eli broke the kiss, he whispered, “Think about it.”
He had been, his brain reeling from the implications and the kiss. Justin’s collar on Eli’s neck claimed Eli. As surely as Eli claimed Justin. Equals, despite Eli’s orders and Justin’s submission.
Never, ever, in a million years, would Francis have let leather touch his neck like that.
“It’s different.”
Eli’s grin was full of teeth. “That it is.” Another quick kiss. “Up against the cross, Justin.”
This tremble, he didn’t mind Eli seeing. He obeyed, pressing against the cool leather and raising his arm out. Familiar sharp scent and stretch of muscle. Eli’s breath on his back. “I’m going to use rope, like before.”
“Good.”
A kiss between his shoulder blades. “If it becomes uncomfortable, let me know. Talk to me. Yes?”
Eli wore leather around his neck, a band Justin had placed there. “Yeah.” Blood pounded in his ears. Did Francis lurk in his mind this time? Please, no. He’d had more than enough of that man. Of his ghost.
When the rope crossed Justin’s flesh and pulled his arm tight against the leather pad, it was Eli who hummed in his ear. Loop after loop. First his left wrist, then his right. Justin’s cock hardened with each touch, each breath of Eli’s against his skin.
When Eli knelt—with a slight grunt—and pulled Justin’s leg over to be bound, Justin groaned.
“Good or bad?”
“Fucking hot.”
Eli ran his leather-clad hand up the inside of Justin’s thigh, just grazing Justin’s balls. “You have no idea.”
Every nerve in Justin’s leg twitched. He rocked against the cross. “Think I have some.”
The answer to that was a slap on his ass—enough to make him jump and whet his desire, but not hard enough to satisfy. Eli kissed his hip, right where his tattoo was.
“Tease,” Justin muttered.
Eli finished tying one ankle and pushed the other over, spreading Justin’s legs wide. “You’re begging for twelve, aren’t you?”
“I’m begging for more than that.”
Another grunt as Eli stood, then a scrape of teeth at the nape of his neck. No pain. Eli hadn’t bitten, but the warmth and wet enflamed Justin’s blood and made it hard to breathe.
“Well,” Eli said, speaking each word against his neck. “We’ll see if you get what you want or what I want.”
Or both.
Eli stepped back, but not away. He caressed Justin—arms, back, torso, scooping around to tease Justin’s chest and nipples before returning to cup his ass and balls and thighs.
Justin squirmed against the cross, creating the friction that would drive him higher. Eli slid his hand between Justin’s ass cheeks and brushed his hole.
Like lightning straight to his balls and brain. He pulled against the ropes and tried to pull air into his lungs. They’d fucked plenty of times since they’d gotten back together. Tenderly. Hard and furiously. Everything in between. But not like this, not while Justin was bound and helpless. “Please.”
“Patience.” Eli stepped back, taking his warmth with him. “First things first.”
The first strike of the cane didn’t register until the pain of it flooded into his brain. Which was about the moment the second blow landed against his ass. The cry that ripped from his throat was half pain and half shock. The third blow rattled his bones to his fingertips. Then Eli paused.
Fuck, he’d missed this, the burn, the way it spread into his head, the way his skin tried to crawl away. His balls ached for more. Justin pushed back, waiting for the next strike, dreading it and wanting it.
The fourth strike fell sharp and hot against his right shoulder blade, stealing his breath and hazing his vision. The fifth mirrored the fourth, and sparked starbursts before his eyes. Then Eli repeated both blows, and fuck, did it hurt.
Right on the edge between what he liked and what he could endure. And beyond that? Bliss. Pure bliss.
The next blow struck slightly lower and took away his ability to count. The rest fell like fire and turned his throat raw from sobs and pleading and cries. More. Less. He didn’t know and Eli didn’t stop.
Time bent and the agony flamed upward, pulling him toward heaven. Blow after blow until he hit the top and screamed as the world around vanished into one single pillar of fire.
He was pretty sure he didn’t pass out. Still, it took a while for the world to creep back in. When it did, it was a wonderfully achy place, full of bright light, freedom, and skin that felt like ice and fire at the same time.
“Eli?” His voice sounded like broken glass.
“I’m here, love.” A warm kiss to the back of his neck. “I’m going to take you down.”
Justin’s ankles came free first, before he could even formulate the words for a protest. “We didn’t fuck.”
Eli stood again, so quickly. Or maybe time was still screwed up. He couldn’t tell.
“It’s all right.” Eli untied Justin’s left wrist.
“But you didn’t get anything.” That wasn’t fair, for Eli to do all the work, give all the pleasure and pain.
“But I did.” Eli kissed top of Justin’s right shoulder. “You gave me more than you can imagine.”
“But—”
“Shh.” Eli freed the other wrist. “It’s okay. You’re in no shape for anything else.”
Justin slumped against the cross. Tired, so very tired. And light and . . . “But—” Eli picked him up, and for a moment, Justin was back in the night they’d first played. How long ago that seemed. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“I’m not,” Eli said. They were in the hall, then in the bedroom. A lot fewer steps than in that big mansion. “Some things, yes. But not everything.”
Yeah, come to think of it, a lot of their time together had been good. The bad bits? They were fixing those. He was fixing those. When Eli set him down on the bed, the sheets turned Justin’s back into a pile of stabbing pins. He rolled over. “Did you use that stupid little cane?”
“The carbon fiber? As a matter of fact, yes.” Humor in Eli’s voice.
Justin cranked his head and looked up. Eli still wore his collar. His shirt was unbuttoned now, torso covered with a sheen of sweat, but his face—his face was radiant, full of a wide, natural grin, Joy spilled into his eyes and into the tiny crinkles in his forehead.
“That explains a lot.”
Eli snorted. “I’ll be right back.”
When he returned, it was with the familiar tub of slave. Justin groaned when the cool cream touched the flaming stripes on his back. “I finished my capstone.” It came out as a
whisper.
“Thought you might have.”
“Why?”
“Ends and beginnings.”
“Beginnings and beginnings.”
Eli laughed. “That, too.” He brushed Justin’s cheek with a kiss. “Go to sleep, Just.”
There was an order that was easy to obey.
Chapter Twenty-one
The day dawned for Eli like every other had recently. Justin slept next to him, his warmth and presence keeping Eli calm and grounded.
Thirty-four. Today he turned thirty-four.
He wouldn’t celebrate for another six months—he’d moved his birthday the year he left home because there was no happiness in celebrating life two days after mourning death. Eli exhaled and shifted, waking both Lavi, who had been sleeping on his feet, and Justin.
Lavi made a soft meow of protest and repositioned himself, dropping hard enough to make his point. No moving, human.
Justin rolled over and propped himself up on his arm. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m . . .” Worry marred Justin’s face, creased his brow. “You know.” Knew what today was.
“Yeah. Sam told me.”
Eli closed his eyes. Damn it, Sam. “I would have preferred to let you know myself.”
“I know. I said as much. He should have left it up to you.” Justin leaned over and kissed Eli’s shoulder, the warmth of his lips melting away the anger in Eli’s heart. “I guessed it was this week, though. You’ve been out of sorts.”
A polite way of saying he’d been a moody fuck the past couple of days. “I should have said something, but I don’t like thinking about it.” He couldn’t help thinking about it. Eli rolled toward Justin, dislodging Lavi in the process. “I’m sorry.”
His Kitty Highness marched up between them and flopped down. Justin absently scratched the fuzzy interloper behind the ears. “You’d have told me in your own time.”
Lavi stretched, purred, and rolled onto his back. Eli stroked under Lavi’s chin. “Please don’t do anything special.”
“I won’t. Not until July.” A grin full of teeth. “All bets are off then.”
The chuckle bubbled up naturally. “Looking forward to it.”
“Also, it’s my night to cook.” There was a bit of a glint in his eye, a twitch to that smile.
Dinner . . . He could handle dinner. That was routine and normal. “So it is.” Expectation formed and shoved the morass of the past out of the way. He didn’t bother to ask what Justin was making. That was always a surprise. Sometimes a good one, sometimes . . . less so as Justin struggled with new dishes. Still, they ate and laughed and . . . His breath caught and his heart rammed against his ribs.
It was his birthday, and for the first time since the day he walked out of his parents’ house, he wouldn’t be alone.
“Eli?” It was Justin’s are you okay or are you not? tone.
He pulled Justin close for a quick kiss, much to Lavi’s consternation. “I’m fine. You just . . . make the day bright.”
Justin’s smile was the only gift Eli needed.
* * *
Dinner was an excellent meal of eggplant stuffed with a mixture of lamb and spices. Brownies for dessert. With those, a salad, and rice, Justin had outdone himself. The kiss Eli gave Justin after lingered just long enough to leave them both breathless.
“Nothing special?” How he loved to see that flush on Justin’s neck. They cleared the dishes from the table.
“It was pretty easy, to be honest.” Justin placed the last of the flatware into the dishwasher, closed it, and leaned against the counter. “Trick is soaking the eggplant in water with lemon.”
Eli stole another brownie from the plate. “Feel free to make it again.”
Justin chuckled. “Had a feeling you might say that.” His smile leveled out when Eli picked up both baking pans and headed for the sink. “You don’t have to—”
“Cook doesn’t clean.”
“But—”
But it was his birthday. He didn’t need the reminder. As light and good as the day had been—the best since the accident—the weight was still there. No phone calls. No cards. No family. “But nothing, Justin. Besides, you have homework.”
Justin’s shoulders dropped, but he retreated to the living room anyway.
It didn’t take Eli too long to clean what wouldn’t go in the dishwasher. He set the machine to washing.
From the couch, Justin looked up. “Movie?”
Eli leaned against the doorway between the rooms and shook his head. His skin itched and mind buzzed—too many memories and feelings threatening to trickle up and overwhelm him. He glanced back at the clock on the stove. 7:13. Still early enough. “I think I need to walk.”
A thoughtful frown from Justin. “Do you want company?”
“No,” he said, his throat tightening around the words spoken and unspoken. “Not tonight.”
Justin’s smile was sad, but at the same time, warming. “I understand.”
Maybe he did, too.
“But take your phone? In case you end up in Polish Hill or Swissvale or downtown or somewhere else miles from here? I’ll come get you.”
That stung a bit, but he sometimes wandered a bit too far on his walks. “Ordering me now?”
“In this?” Justin drew himself up out of the slouch on the sofa. “Yeah. I am.”
That Justin could? That Eli let him? Made all the difference. “Good.” Eli pushed off the doorframe.
Coat, scarf, gloves, cane—and phone—later, Eli stepped out into the cold night. The dry air stole his breath for a moment, but it also felt clean. Pure. Pouring into his lungs and purging out the chatter and thoughts that wanted to turn this good day into a pit of morass and misery.
Maybe someday, he could reclaim this day from the past. Eli put one foot in front of the other, and set off down the street. Cold and clear, no snow blocked his way. Stars hung like splinters of glass in the sky, glittering between buildings and trees, despite the effort of the street lamps to blot them out. A perfect night. Peaceful.
In his mind, he told himself he was walking at random, with no destination in mind. Yet somehow he ended up here, again, like every other birthday.
Staring at the front door of his parents’ house.
They hadn’t moved. Nor had the house changed much from the outside. Sure, the plants—all dead now but for the rhododendron—were a bit different. But the door remained the same. The windows. Even the lacy curtains glowing with light from within.
His fingers itched to touch the mezuzah affixed to the doorjamb while he recited the blessing.
Strange, that. He had one on his house—bought in Israel, no less—but rarely ever thought of it. When was the last time he had the parchment checked? Why was he even thinking of this now?
Eli stared at the door.
Every other birthday, he’d walked away in anger, content with his break from the past. This time, the anger wasn’t there. He had Justin. He had a future. Friends.
Family? Eli clutched the phone in his pocket. Maybe. Maybe he had a family, too. He could only hope and wait and see. The past, though . . . He’d let that rule his life for years.
Time for a change.
Eli took a breath of the clean night air, blew out a puff of cloud, and strode to the door. Before he could reconsider, he rang the bell.
Too many heartbeats and a dry swallow later, his father opened the door. His lips parted as if to speak, then flattened into a hard, unforgiving line. His father’s grip on the side of the door had turned his knuckles white.
“Jaco, who is it?” Eli’s mother joined him at the door. Same openmouthed gasp, though she didn’t close her lips.
“May I come in?” The tightness of his throat hadn’t lessened, but he spoke anyway.
They both hesitated for a moment, but then his father nodded and opened the door and stepped to the side.
Neither looked pleased. Hell, he wasn’t happy, either. But enough was en
ough. Sixteen years since he’d left. Eighteen since the accident. Eli opened the screen door and entered the house that had once been his home. His refuge. He even brushed his fingers over the mezuzah.
It smelled the same, that hint of spice under the lemon cleaner his mother used. A gentle smell of wax. The years melted for a second, reforming to when he had been happy here. When he’d watched his mother light the Shabbat candles. When he’d thought nothing could ever harm him. The constriction in his throat slid into his chest. “I think it’s time we finally talked about the accident. About Noah. And about me.”
It was his mother who nodded. “Why don’t you come and sit down? I’ll take your coat.”
He shoved his gloves and scarf into his pocket before handing it over.
His father eyed his cane, then gestured to the living room. He made it three steps into the room before what was on the coffee table stopped him in his tracks.
Photographs. Of him. His exhale was a little loud, with perhaps too much sorrow in it. But he was here for a reason—and the boy depicted in those photos, the boy he had been—was part of that. He forced himself to finish the walk to the couch, to sit down. He propped his cane up against the armrest.
The photographs spanned years, from his birth to his bar mitzvah and beyond. Even to high school graduation, when he’d cut his hair close and shaved his face completely. Eli touched a photo of a dark-haired, smiling boy holding a stuffed dreidel. He couldn’t have been more than three.
“Your second Chanukah.”
“I don’t remember being this young.” Everything before the accident seemed like a dream. Improbable. Someone else’s life.
Another photo had him riding a bike, his legs already too long for the frame. Again, the smile. This time, the curls were covered by a kippah. A pang in his chest, followed by a deep ache in his head and his bones. “I can’t ride anymore.”
His mother joined them, carrying a tray of cups. Tea.
“It’s herbal. The one with the calming weed . . . oh, what is it? There’s a bear on the box.”
Eli set the photo down. How long had they been talking in Ladino? Had he been? He couldn’t tell.
He answered in English. “Chamomile.”
