Rules to Live By

by Lisa Henry

  “No,” Daddy agreed. “You’re not good. You’re a spoiled little brat. Nasty little rich boy with an empathy problem.” When he reached out, Tad thought he was about to get slapped again, but instead Daddy’s hand just closed around his chin, tilting it until their gazes intersected. “But Daddy’s gonna stick with you just the same. Show you how to be a good boy, even if it takes a lifetime. You want that, don’t you, baby? You want to be my good boy?”

  No question. No hesitation. Green. Green. Green for miles. “Yes, Daddy.”

  Even if it was all a lie. Even if it was just a game and the game was about to end. He could get more money. He could pay for more. He could pretend it was real, at least for a little while. Once a week, at least, he could be something else, something more. He could be Daddy’s.

  “Good boy,” Daddy said. He released Tad’s chin. “All you gotta do for now is ride my dick. Show me how well you take it. Come on, baby boy. Clench your pussy around Daddy’s dick. Make me proud.”

  Daddy gripped him by the hips and quickened his pace. Tad felt the breath punched out of him with each punishing thrust. Uh uh uh. His muscles burned. His ass was on fire, the coil of pleasure still tightening inside him. His dick, trapped between his hand and his abdomen, was wet and throbbing. Tad was right on the edge of coming, but he wanted more.

  He wanted Daddy to fuck him forever. He wanted this to never end. Daddy’s dick belonged inside him, hurting him, pleasuring him, and most of all, owning him.

  “Such a good boy,” Daddy moaned, eyes half-closed. Sweat dripped off him. “Such a tight pussy. Baby, you were made to take my dick.”

  Tad rocked into his Daddy’s thrusts.

  “Almost there, baby,” Daddy gasped, his rhythm faltering. “Jerk your little dick. Show Daddy how you come!”

  Tad almost sobbed with gratitude. He curled his fingers around his shaft and barely had time to stroke himself before he was coming. Shooting all over his own hand and chest and trembling abs. All over Daddy’s dress shirt.

  He’d never come so much.

  “Right on command,” Daddy said with a groan. “That’s my boy. That’s my good boy . . .”

  Daddy froze. His dick seemed to swell inside Tad, and then he jerked his hips rapidly as he came. Tad whimpered, wishing he could feel the hot gush of his Daddy’s cum coating his insides alongside the twitching pulses.

  Daddy straightened up, and Tad squirmed as he withdrew. His ass must be gaping. Daddy stepped out from between Tad’s thighs, and crooked his finger.

  Tad sat up, his muscles aching.

  Daddy peeled his condom off. Held it up and squeezed it out over Tad’s chest. His cum was hot. It slid down Tad’s skin, following the same path that the milk had earlier. Daddy ran his fingers through it. Scooped a little up and held it to Tad’s face. Didn’t say anything, just held it there.

  Tad opened his mouth and moaned as Daddy wiped his fingers on his lips and tongue.

  “Oh, baby boy,” Daddy said with a tired, satisfied smile. “I might be the oldest whore here, but you just swallowed my cum without being told.”

  Tad shivered as he wiped himself clean with his own underwear. Daddy, sitting at his desk, was looking through the same spreadsheets as before. He didn’t even glance at Tad. Tad burned with shame.

  He’d come in here tonight expecting to dominate and exert his power, show some whore who was boss, but instead the exact opposite had happened. That wasn’t even what stung the most.

  Daddy’s gonna stick with you just the same. Show you how to be a good boy, even if it takes a lifetime.

  Liar.

  Tad almost laughed.

  Oh, the whore was a liar. Big fucking surprise.

  Well, the joke was on Tad and the part of him that had been stupid enough to actually believe it. Well, maybe not believe it exactly, but want it. Want it so much that in some fucked-up corner of his mind it had felt real.

  Just a game. Just a cheap thrill. Just the moment his feet hit the ground again, jarring him bone-deep, and it was like he’d never flown at all. How often had he watched the DVD of his skydive, hoping to capture just a fraction of the wonder he’d felt at the time? On every replay it had seemed more and more hollow. He’d thrown the DVD out, in the end, sick of trying to pretend it was something it wasn’t.

  That it was life changing.

  His hurt and heartache boiled over and transformed into rage. He angrily yanked his clothes on, then dug through his pocket for the wad of cash he’d brought tonight.

  Daddy hadn’t looked up at him. He just stared at those fucking spreadsheets like the game was still on.

  Well, it fucking wasn’t.

  Tad tossed bills across the whore’s fake desk, letting them fall with disdain. Don’t socialize with the help.

  The whore looked up, one eyebrow quirked. He said nothing.

  “Your pay,” Tad spat. “Count it, make sure it’s enough, and I’ll get the fuck out of your hair.”

  The whore picked up a bill by the corner as if it were a piece of toilet paper instead of currency, and then dropped it again. “Did you raid the piggy bank for this, baby boy?”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “I’ll call you what I like. And your little tantrum won’t work on me. Pick this mess up.”

  Tad startled, unsure of how to react. Half of him wanted to tell the whore to fuck himself. Half of him wanted to cry out, Yes Daddy! and drop to his knees.

  Several bills had scattered to the floor.

  “Hmm. I think my boy needs to be punished. Should I spank you, baby, or should I ground you?”

  Tad’s heart skipped a beat. “Gr-ground me?”

  How could he ground Tad? Ground him where? And for how long?

  “Mmm. Send you straight to your room—without that good-night kiss I wanted to give your little cum-eating mouth so bad. Two weeks, I think. No friends, no pocket money, lots of chores. You’d have to come straight home after school. No dallying.”

  “Home?” Tad asked. What was he talking about? Tad had paid. The game was over.

  So why wasn’t he giving this guy the finger and storming the fuck out?

  “Yes, baby. Home. Here.” He pointed at the ground next to his knee.

  “I don’t understand,” Tad admitted. Something inside him untethered, and he felt loose and light, yet grounded at the same time. His body swayed.

  “That’s okay, baby. You just had the brains fucked out of you, so I’m not surprised.” He patted his lap. “Here. Come.”

  Tad didn’t even think. He just went straight to Daddy’s side and sat straddling one thigh.

  He almost felt ridiculous, but then Daddy wrapped an arm around his body and squeezed.

  Tad’s eyes flicked to his spreadsheet. Which . . . he actually seemed to have been working on. New columns. New numbers.

  “You need structure, baby. And consistency. You need a home.”

  Not his room at university. Not the boys’ dormitory in his old school. Not his parents’ sterile, empty house, with entire wings he wasn’t allowed to enter, where his parents always hid.

  “I don’t have one of those,” Tad said softly.

  Daddy reached up, brushing a hand through Tad’s hair. “Now you do.”

  “I-I don’t . . .”

  “This is your home now, Tad. If you want it to be.”

  White-hot rage flashed through Tad’s chest and belly. He launched to his feet. “You want me to be a fucking whore here?”

  Daddy raised his eyebrows. “Baby, I have way too much respect for my clients to expect them to fuck an ill-mannered brat like you. And I have way too much respect for my staff to let you call them whores.”

  “Your . . . your . . .”

  “This is my building, Tad. We’re sitting in my office. Through there—” he pointed to a door tucked into one corner of the office “—is my apartment. This place? These people? My business. Now pick up that money. I don’t want or need it. Half of it can go into your piggy bank for
when you’re done being grounded, and half of it can go to Conor, as a tip for what he put up with from you last week.”

  “I . . .”

  Daddy stood up. How could the guy look so imposing even with a crumpled, cum-dappled shirt and askew tie? “You walk out now, the way you came, and you won’t be allowed back. I’m not hurting for business so bad that I need to take money from men who act the way you do. But if you follow me through that door over there . . . well, your Daddy will be strict with you. You’ll be spending a lot more time in the humbler, and even more time studying and doing chores. You won’t be allowed to come as often as you want. I’ll probably keep your little dick in a cage. You won’t be abusing any more of my staff or mistreating anyone, ever.” He paused. “And that includes yourself.”

  Tad swallowed.

  Daddy crossed to the door to his apartment, and opened it. “You’ll be my good boy, Tad. I’ll punish you when you make mistakes. I’ll punish you worse when you act out on purpose. But as long as you do your best, Daddy will be proud of you. You won’t always like how hard I make you work for it, but I’ll always be there to look out for you and give a shit.” He gave Tad a meaningful look, so powerful and heavy Tad couldn’t breathe for a second. And then he shrugged. “Or you can go back to being a spoiled brat with no boundaries and no one to love him for anything but money. Your choice.”

  Tad watched as Daddy stepped through the door.

  He closed his eyes briefly.

  His parents. His car. His friends. His life.

  But still . . .

  But still, hadn’t he jumped out of a plane once?

  His heart racing, Tad stooped to pick up the bills littering Daddy’s office. Then, clutching them to his chest, he hurried through the door after Daddy and into his new life.

  At the end of the workday, a week and a half after Sherri dumped me, Gabe spun his chair around on the other side of the cube we shared, and I turned, expecting a question about code or environments or something. Engineering stuff.

  “Isn’t Thursday your date night?”

  I was sure my expression gave away my anger, frustration, and sadness, since the next words from his mouth were, “Ah. I’m really sorry, dude. I know you liked her.”

  I had. Up until the night she’d left. “It’s fine. It . . . just didn’t work out.”

  Understatement of the year. While she’d been somewhat adventuresome in the bedroom, my last suggestion had made her flee. Apparently scarves and handcuffs were her limit. Anything more was “freakish.” That had been the word she’d used. A sour burn formed in the back of my throat. I’d told her I was bi, and discovered while open-minded in theory, she was a bigot in practice.

  Figured. I had a knack for picking real winners when it came to relationships. The one before her had been even worse.

  “Tough break.” Gabe gave one of his endearing, lopsided grins. “How ’bout a drink later?”

  “Sure.” I should have said no. But man, I needed a beer, and Gabe, well, he was the closest friend I had after five months in Pittsburgh. My best friend.

  His smile was a quick flash of teeth. “Great. I need about twenty more minutes to wrap this up. That fine?”

  “Perfect.”

  We rotated back to our respective screens.

  If I were still living in San Francisco, I’d have thrown myself into the scene, either the BDSM or LGBT one, the day after Sherri had called me a freakish fag and stormed out. But alas, this was Pittsburgh. I didn’t even know if they had a scene. After what had happened in San Francisco, I was a bit gun-shy to find out. I should have Googled around for the Pride crowd at least, but . . .

  But Sherri had put me into a bit of a spiral. I hoped the rest of the town wasn’t like her, all fun and full of adventure on the outside and conservative as hell inside. I shook my head. Shouldn’t judge an entire city on one person. Or, if I did, I should judge it on Gabe.

  Gabriel Visser. That’s what the tag on the wall read. Originally, I’d been paired with Gabe for training, but there really hadn’t been anywhere else to put me in the crowded office, so we still shared the large cube.

  Gabe had been born in Pittsburgh. Left for college, but came back when tech opportunities blossomed. Quick to smile, wickedly smart, and as easygoing as a summer day, Gabe had been the one to point me in the direction of a good bike shop, told me about interesting concerts, and introduced me to Geek Night.

  Which, of course, was where I’d met Sherri.

  Fuck. I checked the clock. Fifteen minutes. I didn’t really have anything I could start on and not fall into for hours, so I leaned back and pretended to stare at code while Gabe worked.

  Normally, his sharp mind made me code all the harder. I loved working with folks smarter than me. Made me up my game. Gabe’s smiles and his nods of approval when I fixed bugs or found them before the test engineers, well, that made any day good.

  That he was gorgeous helped. Short, dark hair, stunning blue eyes, and a sleek, limber body beneath his T-shirts and jeans. The day he’d stripped off his shirt when we’d gone bike riding down the Montour Trail? I’d seen he had a tattoo that ran down the side of his chest and disappeared into his shorts. God, that had made the ride back into the city interesting. I discovered rather quickly that a hard cock and a bicycle seat didn’t really work well together. I couldn’t help wondering what the rest of that tat looked like, and where it ended.

  Not that he even showed the slightest interest in me. Guys like Gabe? I was never that lucky. They were either straight or as good as married. Since he wasn’t seeing anyone or married, I was betting straight on Gabe.

  Still, a beer with a friend? Yes, please.

  Gabe drove, since I took the bus to work. I still didn’t know Pittsburgh well enough to find my way anywhere new. I swore they’d laid out the roads here based on non-Euclidean geometry. California wasn’t flat by any stretch of the imagination, but here there were hills and valleys and rivers every-fucking-place. More bridges than anywhere in the world, save Venice, they said. I believed them.

  Gabe went north. I recognized that much since we crossed one of the rivers but didn’t go through a tunnel. Soon, we were on a four-lane road straight toward strip-mall hell.

  “Really?” I thought I hadn’t said it out loud, but Gabe chuckled.

  “There are other places with better atmosphere.” He took us around a jug-handle turn, then up a small hill—everything off this road was up a damned hill—and behind one of the strip malls. “But those are all smoker-friendly, and I hate smelling like an ashtray. This place has Guinness on tap and decent burgers, and we won’t have to wait long for darts.”

  The parking lot was fairly full despite it being a Thursday night, and the people entering the joint were the typical suburban fare. I watched a man and a woman walking, so little space between them they seemed like one person, and felt the familiar bitter tang in the back of my mouth. Then Gabe’s hand landed on my thigh and every thought left my head. Well, not every one . . . Fuck. I really didn’t need to be getting hard, not when I was sitting next to him in his car.

  When I turned, he smiled. “It’ll be okay. Promise.” He squeezed my leg, then let go.

  “Thanks.” A little too breathless, there. I hoped he didn’t notice. I didn’t need another round of fag hate, especially not from Gabe. He didn’t seem the type, but neither had Sherri, and I was fucking sick of being alone in this stupid town. I didn’t want to lose my best friend. Or my job, for that matter.

  “There’s a case with darts in the glove box,” Gabe said. “Grab that will you?”

  “I’m pretty horrible at darts.” I opened the compartment. My breath caught. Besides the normal stuff—car manual, paperwork, spare sunglasses—there was a neatly coiled bundle of light-blue rope. I moved it to grab the darts, and stroked my hand against the soft, sensual fibers.

  I loved rope. Scarves, cuffs, whatever could be wrapped around my wrists and ankles. Anything to tie me down.

  I close
d the box and handed Gabe the case.

  He smiled as he often did, but this one made my skin tingle. His gaze bound me up until I wanted to blurt out my desires and fears. Why is there rope in your car?

  “I’ll teach you.”

  Teach me? My breath caught. Darts. Darts. Not the damn rope. “You might find me a hopeless cause.”

  A huff of amusement. “It’s all about discipline and control.”

  Those words echoed in my skull and went straight to my balls. Did the corner of Gabe’s mouth turn up a bit before he opened his door? “Come on.”

  Holy hell, was Gabe flirting with me? Or was this casual guy banter in Pittsburgh? Fuck if I knew. I was glad I hadn’t worn my tight jeans. My dick ached, and I couldn’t wait to get a beer into me. At least then I could blame my swimming head on booze.

  Gabe was the last person I should be fantasizing about. We shared a fucking cube at work. That bundle of soft blue rope in the glove box didn’t mean a damn thing. It couldn’t.

  I followed Gabe out of the car and into the restaurant. The place had a faux–British pub feel that was a bit too bronzed and sanitized around the edges. Top 40 thumped in the air and all kinds of sports flickered on a dozen TVs. I chewed on my tongue and tried not to sigh. A beer was a beer, right? But man, I’d have preferred an honest-to-God bar somewhere, smoke or not. This place was too loud and bright. I curled my hands until my nails bit into my palms.

  “Relax.” Gabe’s breath grazed my ear, and he gripped my shoulder. “Trust me.”

  Like a lightning rod straight to my submissive side, those words. He probably didn’t even know why, but I relaxed under his touch and nodded. “Okay.”

  He slid his hand away as the brunette greeter came back to her podium. “Hey, Gabe! You brought a friend!”

  “Hey, Angela. This is Thomas.”

  She smiled brightly at me, and I answered with as much of my own smile as I could. “Hi.”

  Thomas? Gabe called me Tom in the office. Damned if I didn’t like the way my full name sounded on his lips.