by Piper Scott
“This is not housework.”
“Really?” Adrian cast the book onto the coffee table. It skidded a short distance, then came to a stop just out of Sterling’s reach. “I think pretending to be household furniture for your humiliation kink is the most literal definition of housework there is.”
The words were meant to be abrasive, and Adrian braced himself for a fight. He expected to see Sterling’s brows knit together as the expression on his face grew stony and worrisome, but it never happened. Instead, Sterling arched a brow as the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
The smug look on his face pissed Adrian the hell off.
“You’ve given power over to me, Adrian. That’s what this arrangement is about. Your care is in my hands, and my word is your will. We came to an agreement last week and I am happy to respect it, but you know that you’re stretching the terms we agreed upon.”
“And so what?” There were goosebumps down Adrian’s arms that he couldn’t explain away. Anger had squared his jaw, but the inexplicable feeling muted the heat of his anger and made him more frustrated than ever. He hated Sterling for being so smug and for bending the rules in his favor, so why wasn’t his body letting him fully rile himself up? Adrian had gone toe to toe with several alphas before Sterling—it wasn’t like he was wading into unfamiliar territory.
So why the hell did his chest tighten and tingle like it did when he looked Sterling’s way?
“So you need to start listening, or I will punish you for your disobedience.” Sterling’s gaze never wavered, but Adrian didn’t care. No matter how long it took, he would not give in.
“You think you’re going to punish me?” Adrian was near hysterics now, his voice a pitch higher than it usually was. Each word he spoke wavered as he neared the point of disbelief. “So wait, wait just a second, hear me out. This is how our whole relationship has gone so far.”
Sterling said nothing, but the intrigued glimmer in his eyes said he was listening.
“You find me breaking the rules. You take my phone from me as collateral, and then demand that I be your quivering little submissive for a month if I want to save my club membership.” The more he broke it down, the angrier it made him feel. None of this was fair. “So we make arrangements and compromise on what I’ll be doing while I’m here. I show up, strip for you, put on these leather cuffs, and then what? Then I walk over to you—almost a near stranger who has made zero effort to know who I really am or what I like—and you expect me to submit to you? You expect me to drop to my knees and be your footstool? Are you insane?”
Now that Adrian had started, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. His tongue navigated the words he spoke with fluidity, never tripping or tying itself in knots. Anger fueled him onward.
“I’m not kneeling for you. I’m not going to listen to a word you say. You have no rapport with me, and you’re not making an effort to establish one. I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me, and a TPE will never work between us if that’s the case.”
This wasn’t healthy Dom behavior. Of all people, Sterling should know how to treat his submissive correctly. What he was asking for was irresponsible. There was no connection between them, no kind of relationship of trust or understanding. To Adrian, Sterling was the asshole who wanted to limit the few good things Adrian had in life. To Sterling, Adrian was just some pretty-faced slut—fresh, easy prey that he could wet his dick with.
That wasn’t going to cut it. Adrian refused to allow a man to own him. He would not sacrifice his liberty, no matter how much he loved The Shepherd. There were other clubs in Aurora—other places he could find men who would help him forget who he was and why he spent his weekend nights as far away from home as possible. He didn’t need to be some dickwad’s footstool for the next twenty-five days.
It didn’t matter that Sterling’s body was a work of art, or that his sense of style was flawless, or that he was a self-made man who exuded power and wealth. The truth was that Sterling was no better than Adrian considered himself. They were monsters in their own right, too self-absorbed to care about the world around them, or how they related to it, and too selfish to try to correct that behavior.
And when Sterling chuckled, it backed up Adrian’s belief and spiked his anger yet again.
This wasn’t funny.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to call me out.” Sterling laid his arms on the armrests of his chair. The same vaguely smug smile shaped his cheeks and glinted in his eyes. “I was almost certain that you wouldn’t come tonight, and if you did, that you’d refuse to strip.”
Red-hot rage seared what sense Adrian had left. “What?”
“I was never counting on the TPE working out, but I wanted to see how far I could push you—how far you’d go until you snapped. I’m surprised it took this long.”
Adrian’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He wanted to speak, but he couldn’t find the words to say. None of them were scathing enough. Sterling needed to shut up, and he needed to do it now before Adrian really got angry.
“I’m impressed by your commitment, if I’m being honest.” Sterling nodded toward the book, but he didn’t take his eyes off Adrian. “I was settling down for a night of doing nothing when you came through the door. You have to admit, the whole setup was suspect from the start.”
No, it wasn’t. Sterling hadn’t been acting when he’d haggled with Adrian for more time, and Adrian wasn’t going to let Sterling reshape reality so it better suited his ego.
“You need to shut up right now,” Adrian uttered. His hands shook. “You’re not going to pretend this was all some game, because it wasn’t. It was real.”
“If it wasn’t a game, why would I propose something as serious as a TPE to a casual acquaintance?” Sterling’s gaze challenged Adrian, but all it did was make Adrian angrier. He needed to stop talking. If he went on any longer, Adrian was going to explode. “I own The Shepherd. I may be a businessman, but my intent behind opening the club wasn’t purely down to the dollar. I understand what it takes to be a good Dom. I wouldn’t have—”
There were too many excuses and too many convenient truths. Sterling was so far up his own ass that he couldn’t admit his inadequacy. Adrian couldn’t listen to one more word. He needed Sterling to stop talking, and he needed it now. The prickly, writhing irritation in his chest and the anger boiling beneath his skin had grown too great to hold at bay. It freed Adrian of his inhibitions and left him as nothing more than a creature of instinct.
He grabbed Sterling roughly by the front of his shirt, then yanked him forward in his chair so they were nose to nose. At first, Adrian was going to stop there—the shock value should have been enough to stop Sterling from saying whatever he was about to say—but the prickling irritation Sterling stirred in him wasn’t sated, and it drove him further. Without a second thought, Adrian crushed their lips together to stop Sterling from talking any more shit.
The kiss was rough, spurred by hatred rather than passion. Adrian’s teeth clacked against Sterling’s, and when that wasn’t enough, he shoved Sterling back against the chair and climbed onto his lap in order to increase the pressure between their lips. The kiss bruised, and Adrian’s jaw ached, but he didn’t care. Until Sterling shut the hell up, he wouldn’t stop.
He just wasn’t expecting Sterling to return the kiss.
Clacking teeth met clacking teeth. Sterling slipped his arms around Adrian’s waist and held him closer, and as he did, sparks fired off in Adrian’s chest that amplified the strangeness he’d been feeling since last week.
It left him craving more.
Adrian rooted his hands in Sterling’s hair and tugged. Sterling forced his lips open and slipped his tongue into Adrian’s mouth. Adrian nipped at him—not enough to injure, but enough to hurt—then allowed his tongue to meet Sterling’s.
His heart raced.
Fuck, did he hate Sterling. He hated him. And yet the longer the kiss lasted, the more Adrian didn’t want it to end.
Sterling’s hands dipped downward and squeezed both globes of Adrian’s bare ass. His fingers bruised Adrian’s skin, but Adrian didn’t care. He pushed back against Sterling’s hands and strengthened the kiss, taking from it just as much as he gave.
“Fuck you,” Adrian whispered against Sterling’s lips as the kiss broke, then started again. Their greedy, frantic passion was interrupted by stolen, gasped breaths. “Fuck you. I hate you.”
“Is that why you’re kissing me?” Sterling’s fingers loosened, then squeezed again. Adrian bucked back against him. The hatred had hardened his cock, and he didn’t care if Sterling saw. Their tongues met again, Sterling’s effortlessly dominating, before Sterling withdrew and broke the kiss. “And is that why you’re so hard for me already?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Adrian kissed him savagely, but briefly. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” One of Sterling’s hands left Adrian’s ass, and Adrian lamented its loss until the same hand wrapped around his bobbing cock and pumped it. The floodgates of pleasure burst, and Adrian stifled a gasp as he pushed into Sterling’s hand. “Do you mean to tell me that this isn’t an erection? Should I stop touching you?”
“No!” Adrian shook. He thrust into Sterling’s hand, fucking the tight ball of his fist even as Sterling pumped him. The tension in his thighs and the rising pressure in his balls made him want to shoot, but he refused to let himself be weak.
“No, what, Adrian?” Sterling’s smug smirk was back, and it rekindled Adrian’s anger. “You’ll have to be specific. No, it’s not an erection, or no, I shouldn’t—”
Adrian didn’t let him finish. He crushed their lips together again and pumped into Sterling’s hand as hard as he could. When he closed his eyes and suspended his disbelief, it was easy to imagine that he was pounding Sterling’s ass mercilessly while Sterling gasped and cried out.
And fuck, did that turn him on.
The desperate, hateful lust between them stretched on. Adrian wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but right as his breath hitched and orgasm gripped his balls and made him ache to shoot, Sterling pulled back from their kiss and released Adrian’s cock. The sound of the slap rang through the room before Adrian felt it—Sterling had spanked him.
Adrian’s cock pulsed. His cheeks reddened.
“Get into the master bedroom,” Sterling uttered. His voice was deepened with lust, and when Adrian ground down against his lap, he found that lust manifested in the massive, erect cock Sterling’s pants hid from him.
“You want to fuck me?” Adrian asked, surprised to find his voice just as husky. His cock missed the tightness of Sterling’s palm, and his hips marked its absence by moving in slow, needy thrusts that kept Adrian scorching hot. “You want to plow me into your mattress? You want to hear me squeal for you?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
It was Adrian’s turn to smirk. He tilted his head so they were lip to lip, then spoke. “What happens if I don’t listen?”
He had his answer seconds later. Sterling pushed him off the chair, and as Adrian struggled to find his footing, Sterling grabbed him and pinned him against the nearest wall as their lips crushed together again. Head spinning, Adrian grabbed at Sterling’s shirt in order to brace himself, but it was no use. Sterling grabbed him and pulled him from the wall. They stumbled a few feet, lips clumsily locked, until their trajectory brought them crashing back against the wall, a few feet from where they’d been before.
It was a short trip down the hallway, made long by the intensity of their desire. Sterling pinned him to the wall fiercely, stoking flames that were already far too hot until Adrian couldn’t take it anymore and pushed him away. Breathless, Adrian took control from him and slammed Sterling into the wall in turn, kissing him all over again. Scorching kisses and staggered steps marked their passage, and by the time the bedroom door was shut and Adrian’s thighs met the side of the mattress, his jaw ached and he tasted blood from a nick on the inside of his lip.
He was ready for more.
Tonight, he would not submit—Sterling hadn’t earned that privilege. Not yet, and maybe not ever. But that didn’t mean that Adrian couldn’t enjoy himself in the way he wanted to, and dominating Sterling? Working out his anger on the man who made his blood boil?
That sounded like one hell of a good time.
7
Sterling
Sterling’s belt hit the floor before Adrian hit the mattress, and he was in the middle of fumbling with his fly when Adrian seized his wrist and tugged him roughly onto the bed. It wasn’t often that Sterling was caught off guard, but the sweltering arousal he harbored for Adrian shut down the cautious measures he took to maintain control at all times, and he found himself colliding with the bed—and Adrian’s body—before he was ready. Sterling’s knees hit the mattress, but his palms never got the same chance. Adrian’s hold tightened, and with surprising strength, he flipped Sterling over so Sterling was on his back.
For seventeen long years, Sterling had run The Shepherd. On its dance floor and at its bar, he’d met people from all walks of life whose preferences and desires were all unique. But never once had he met an omega with such fire in his soul.
Before Sterling could process what was happening, something thick hit his wrist. It took a second to recognize what the pliant but sturdy object was—one of the wrist cuffs he’d left out for Adrian.
A sharp tug tightened the strap around his wrist, binding his suit jacket in place. Sterling tried to lift his arm only to find he couldn’t—Adrian had already discovered the clips he kept hooked to the headboard. He’d attached the cuff when Sterling wasn’t looking, leaving Sterling bound to the bed.
Arousal ripped through Sterling’s gut like a tornado down a busy street. He tugged at the cuff again, but it was a futile attempt. The clip held firm, and the cuff had been well secured.
Adrian wasn’t playing.
He straddled Sterling’s chest, every inch of his nude skin radiant. Sterling drank him in. From the stiffened, bobbing cock that fought to touch Adrian’s stomach to the tight, toned planes of Adrian’s chest, he was beautiful. A refined face with delicate features and eyes that pierced Sterling whenever they looked his way only added to his splendor. But it wasn’t Adrian’s physique that made Sterling want more—it was his spirit. The sharp, lashing words he spoke and the arrogant way he conducted himself were a direct challenge, one Sterling was ready to face head-on. He wanted Adrian to submit to him. He wanted to see the proud, boastful omega hit subspace so fast and so hard that he never came back down.
But right now, all Sterling wanted was to make Adrian his, and by the way Adrian assumed control of their coupling, it looked like he felt the same way. The only hint that there was something off was the underlying hatred that arced through Adrian’s eyes and turned his expression stony. It was that fury that brought Sterling to look closer.
What he saw rattled him.
Behind Adrian’s resilience and rage was something Sterling hadn’t expected to find—sorrow. Or at least, some manifestation of doubt and negativity. It pooled in Adrian’s eyes like tears, leaving them glossy. If Sterling hadn’t known better, he would have said that Adrian looked forlorn.
Eyes like those had no more hope, no matter what the sparks of energy and bursts of emotion on their surface said. Those weren’t the eyes of a young man looking to prove himself as a Dominant—they were the eyes of someone who was lost and desperately seeking an outlet.
“Adrian?” Sterling asked hesitantly. His erection strained against his unopened fly, but he didn’t let his dick dictate the way he lived his life. If there was something wrong, Sterling wanted to make it right. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay.” The reply came a little too quickly, and was just a touch too sharp. Adrian shifted, and as he did, Sterling lifted his free hand to touch the side of Adrian’s face. In that moment, Adrian’s whole body went stiff. Fear clouded his eyes, but par
ted quickly as he made a sudden grab for Sterling’s hand. He latched onto Sterling’s wrist and pinned it to the pillows, the crescents of his fingernails digging into Sterling’s skin.
Adrian glared at him but didn’t move. Chemistry, vibrant and so thick it choked each breath Sterling took, simmered in the air between them. There was no doubt that something was wrong with Adrian, but it was hard to stay focused when Adrian made him feel so…
Sterling couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. He had no idea how he would have concluded it if he could.
Good wasn’t a strong enough word. Wonderful felt too contrived. The way Adrian made him feel couldn’t be encapsulated by a single-word statement. It was fire and ice at war in his chest. It was fear and excitement coming together to tug at Sterling’s heart and stiffen his groin in one troubled swoop. The lows and the highs met in the middle, but didn’t cancel each other out. Instead, they deepened his experience.
That was how Adrian made him feel.
Sterling didn’t want to think about what that meant.
Adrian loosened the strap on his wrist and let the cuff fall. If he’d wanted to, Sterling could have broken free from his grasp, but instead, he let Adrian do as he wished. For years, Sterling had been the man in control—the one who called the shots and brought pleasure to his partner in the bedroom, and that wasn’t about to stop now. On the surface, Adrian was staking his claim and playing the part of Dom, but underneath, Sterling recognized a fragile part of him that needed this release in order to feel whole.
Sterling would nurture it.
The next twenty-five days weren’t going to go the way he’d thought they might, but the unexpected change of direction didn’t bother him at all. He was there to care for Adrian, and Adrian was showing him how he needed to be cared for in the most candid way he could.
So Sterling would listen. Sterling would learn. And when Adrian came to see that his needs were being met, Sterling hoped that the lost look in Adrian’s eyes would fade away to nothing.
