Though Jol was as silent as any Nobek, Ospar could sense him at his back as he went to a drawer set in the wall. He opened it. Swallowing hard, he pulled out a flogger, turned, and offered it to Jol.
The Nobek finally showed a reaction. His eyes brightened and widened. He licked his lips as his gaze flicked from the flogger to Ospar.
Aware of the tremor in his voice, Ospar said, “I deserve a reprimand for going to Pladon today. Especially since it sent you in harm’s way.”
With a single look, Jol surveyed him with more interest and heat than he had the entire day. He took the flogger from Ospar’s hand and tested its weight. Seeing Jol with the device made Ospar’s knees shake. The Nobek looked too comfortable with it.
Jol glanced at the open drawer where the flogger had appeared from. “Strip down while I explore what else you have in there.”
Ospar knew full well the items the Nobek would find, and he was already scared of the coming punishment. “That’s—that’s personal stuff. Mostly for sex, which I’m sure you’re no longer interested in.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Move aside.” When Ospar hesitated, Jol added, “As the injured party, I should choose the degree and manner of discipline.”
Ospar wanted to argue the point. He didn’t know how angry Jol was or what he would choose to do to him. Yet he had a point. Ospar was offering himself for discipline, but he was trying to dictate the manner of justice—not a fair move, to be sure.
With an unhappy sigh, he stripped while Jol pawed through his collection of toys, tools, and enhancers. It was an impressive assortment for sex play, some of it suitable for punishment, but much of it was seldom or never used. He hadn’t gotten the chance to incapacitate a lover with the restraining cords Jol plucked from the drawer.
At least the wretch had found a reason to smile again. It was a terrifying grin, however, and it grew bigger as he eyed Ospar’s now-naked body. “To the pull-up bar, Director.”
Ospar restrained the urge to run—because of what that could lead to. Being helpless while Jol beat him had no appeal either. “You’re tying me to the bar?”
“I think it would be best.” Jol said no more than that. The smirk remained, but Ospar could tell he was serious about the punishment he was about to deal out.
I might have committed an error with my offer to accept discipline. But Jol is here to protect me. Surely that means he won’t take things too far?
Ospar drew himself up, summoning the little bit of courage he could claim. He marched to the bar, facing the door to the hall.
“Arms up.” An undercurrent of excitement threaded through Jol’s voice. He tied Ospar’s wrists to the metal bar, stretching him tall so that the Dramok was forced to stand on his toes. Then he walked around to face him, looking him over with satisfaction. The Nobek’s pants crotch distended, indicating his pleasure with the situation.
That’s one of us. Maybe sex wasn’t off the table after all…but Ospar wasn’t aroused in the least at the prospect.
Jol pulled the flogger from his belt, where he’d stashed it while binding his ward. He shook out the leather tails, which swished with a slithery sound. “We’ll start with the flogging.”
As he headed behind Ospar’s helpless body, his stare intent, the Dramok sputtered, “Start? What else do you plan to—”
He broke off with a yell as the first splash of pain landed on his buttocks. From there, the leather strands peppered his back, ass, and thighs, heating his flesh with searing strikes of lightning. Ospar did his best to accept his whipping stoically, but it fucking hurt. Not only did he yell to the point of embarrassing himself, but he was dancing before Jol was satisfied with the beating. Ospar hopped from foot to foot as instinct took over and tried to find an avenue to escape the agony.
At last the flogger stopped scoring his flesh, leaving burning streaks of hurt in its wake. Ospar hung from the bar, panting in the aftermath. He hadn’t been worn out like that since he was a kid and Tebrok had caught him sneaking home after a party that had been raided by the police. It hadn’t mattered that Ospar hadn’t partaken of the drugs that were there, or that he hadn’t been caught by law enforcement. Tebrok had been devoted to reminding Ospar of the family honor and what a drug arrest could have done to his future.
Ospar had conducted himself to be squeaky clean after that beating, even after growing old enough to not have to fear his uncle’s wrath. He’d never expected to receive a whipping on that level again. He’d thought wrong.
At least this one was over. Okay, we’ll put this behind us now. Jol can untie me, and then I’m sucking on all the pain inhibitor as I can find and opening a bottle of—
Ospar’s hopes of post-punishment relief were cut off by Jol’s hand curling about his primary cock. All thoughts disappeared when the tight grip worked up and down his shaft, encouraging it to fill and swell with excitement. He gasped as rapture filled his groin.
The welts on Ospar’s back parts didn’t seem quite so important. The rough, calloused hand rubbing up and down on him—that was important. And felt pretty fucking amazing.
Too good, in fact. Suspicion snapped Ospar’s mind out of his arousal, though his groin continued to sing with joy. He rolled his eyes up to gaze into Jol’s smirking face. “Oh shit. What are you up to now?”
“You talk too much.” Jol left off the lovely handjob. He went to the sex toy drawer and returned to stuff a ball gag into Ospar’s mouth. He cinched the straps around the Dramok’s head to keep it in place. “Better. And far more comfortable for you than my fist.”
Ospar had the feeling the flogging would end up being the kindest part of the sentence Jol had decided to mete out, especially when the Nobek smeared a sensation-enhancement cream on his now-avid hardnesses. With Ospar jerking at the slightest touch to his dual manhood after that, Jol opened his own pants to display his thick, ready dicks.
The Nobek chuckled. “You’re a bastard, but I do enjoy your ass, as you can see. I’ll appreciate it more now that it’s covered with my marks.”
He moved behind Ospar. A moment later, the Dramok grunted as the slick, heated length of Jol’s primary shoved into his ass, pushing past the resistance it found to force deep inside him. The burning ache of taking the demanding thrust was mitigated by the delicious sensation of it rubbing against his prostate. Pleasure doubled when Jol reached to once more pull on his eager erection.
Jol fucked him, masturbating him at the same time. Gorgeous pressure built in Ospar’s groin, fed by the friction against his inner cum spot and the tight grip working his length. Delicious molten desire filled him, making his lower parts pulse with bliss. Jol handled him with knowing expertise, driving Ospar until he moaned with excitement.
Ospar had been correct to think the flogging hadn’t been the worst of Jol’s penalties. Somehow the Nobek intuited when he was close to rapture. Jol realized the precise moment when he was about to erupt, his sexes throbbing. Every time Ospar neared that final stroke needed to finish him off, he was denied. Jol snickered as he let go, leaving the trapped Dramok groaning in protest of the missed climax.
The bodyguard didn’t refuse himself, however. He rammed deep inside his captive, yelling as he jetted warmth into Ospar’s aching ass. The Nobek remained inside his prisoner until his cock stopped pulsing.
“That was nice,” Jol sighed, pulling out. “Stay here. I might return for more.”
With that, he walked out of the room. Ospar yelled after him, furious at being left hanging there with his shafts thrumming in need. Screaming through his gag was no help. He figured Jol stayed away for about fifteen minutes before returning, his clothes still on but dicks hanging out, eager to have the Dramok again.
Ospar was humiliated when the Nobek’s gaze lit on his continued erections. The enhancement cream was long-acting. Worse still, his cocks somehow interpreted the throbbing welts from the flogger as more pleasure than pain.
Jol smirked at him. “You remained nice and hard for me. How kind to my eg
o. Let’s review the situation. Are you sorry for being an asshole?”
Ospar was angry, but he wanted to be let loose too. Somehow both sentiments managed to sneak out in the strangled sound he uttered; a kind of whimpering growl.
Jol laughed outright. “A little sorry? Not adequately, however. No, you need to continue this lesson, I’m afraid.”
He fucked Ospar again, jerking on the Dramok’s erections to bring him to the verge once more. Again, Jol denied him release. As the Nobek filled his ass with his seed, the last of Ospar’s pride crumbled. The pleading sound he made as Jol headed for the door, leaving him aching, was genuine remorse.
Jol kept walking, ignoring Ospar’s begging cries.
The Nobek’s abandonment infuriated Ospar. On top of wanting release, it overloaded his brain with the fury of a storm. He attempted to scream around the gag filling his mouth.
“You fucking sadist! Get back here!”
It occurred to him that yelling demands would not get him anywhere. Though the words had been garbled, impossible for Jol to interpret, Ospar’s demanding shout wouldn’t be mistaken for an attempt to compromise.
Even a Dramok needed to be conciliatory in certain situations. Ospar tried again.
“Come on, Jol. Please don’t do this to me. Haven’t I shown I’m sorry? I admit I’m a complete asshole. Okay?”
His muffled, unintelligible pleas went unanswered. Jol didn’t appear at the sleeping room door. Worse still, Ospar could have sworn he heard another door elsewhere in the house open. And was that the singing of nocturnal drills and avians, coming from the outdoors? The noise of a closing door, shutting those off?
No. Jol wouldn’t have abandoned him, not like this. Not alone, unprotected, hanging naked and helpless. Not a perfect victim for those who wanted to kill him.
“Jol? At least call me a bastard or something! Let me know you’re there. Hey!” The strangled cries he made in his attempts to speak sounded frantic to his own ears. Terrified.
The son of a bitch is playing with my head. Fucking mind games. He’s in another room, laughing at me.
Ospar strained to believe that. He forced himself to go silent, his pounding heart and quick breaths the only companions left to him.
He ditched me for a while before. Then he returned. Same thing. He’s coming back. He’s coming back.
Except during the last stretch of quiet, he hadn’t heard the door opening to the outside. Though Jol had been silent during that interval between fucking, there had been a sense of him present, as if Ospar could detect the air currents Jol’s passage had moved. The Dramok discerned none of that this time.
As the seconds ticked by and there was no indication Jol was in the house, Ospar felt anger and fear in turns. He made an effort to yank himself free of the cords that tied him to the pull-up bar. He couldn’t budge.
Ospar counted off the minutes. Jol would return. Ten minutes crept by. The Nobek had to reappear. Twenty minutes. Ospar’s ears strained, desperate for any signal from his bodyguard.
Thirty minutes.
No sign of Jol.
Ospar screamed in frustration, in fear. Where the hell was that man?
He deserted me. He actually did.
Maybe that meant Jol wasn’t coming back after all.
Ospar didn’t know how long he hung there. He wasn’t sure at what point he began to shake. He started breaking apart.
He’d given up on Jol. Ospar had reached the point of wondering when someone would come looking for him. Their reaction when they found him in the state he’d been abandoned, whether alive as he was now, or murdered by a member of the syndicate.
Terror of being set upon by Syodab’s killers should have been at the top of the Dramok’s concerns. It wasn’t. Even the humiliation of being discovered healthy and breathing but suspended in what had obviously been a sexual encounter wasn’t what brought hollowness and agony in turns.
Jol had abandoned him. That was what tore at Ospar. What made it hard to breathe. What dropped a lead weight in his gut and made him face the shattered hopes he hadn’t known he’d held in his heart. After all the damage he’d done, there was no chance Jol would return.
When the moment arrived, when Jol finally stood before him, blocking out the light filtering in from the hall, it was too surrealistic to be believed. Ospar stared up at the Nobek, doubting his own sight.
He came back.
No. It’s a delusion. He’s never coming back.
Then Jol touched him. His hand cupped the side of Ospar’s face, warm. Strong. Real.
He’d returned.
If Ospar had an iota of Dramok self-respect left to him, he’d have cursed the vicious bastard. He should have ordered Jol to release him, then beat the hateful monster until the Nobek couldn’t stand. Jol hadn’t merely taken him to task for going to Pladon. He’d been cruel to the extreme. He’d gone too far with the punishment and deserved to have his ass handed to him.
Instead, Ospar gave him a pleading look. No more. Don’t scare me like that anymore. If you’ve got a speck of decency in you, you’ll stay this time.
You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to give me another chance. Just stay.
There was a flicker of emotion in Jol’s eyes. An almost invisible shudder ran through his body.
He pulled the gag off Ospar. The Nobek flung it away and kissed him with a passion that bordered on desperate. Ospar had an instant to register the heavy vegetation scent of the caverns outside before his consciousness was swept away by Jol’s fervent embrace.
Maintaining the ardent kiss, Jol peeled his one-piece uniform down his body, making himself naked to the knees. He pulled Ospar close, skin against skin, muscled flesh to muscled flesh, their slick and hard cocks between their bodies, touching.
The terror of the last hour disappeared. All Ospar knew was need, and a gratitude that Jol had returned. He offered no protest when the Nobek moved behind him again, when his length zeroed in on Ospar’s ass. There was none of that sense of being punished now. The care with which Jol entered him, angling himself just right to rub the Dramok’s hotspot, along with the sure grip of his hands on Ospar’s shafts, made the taking a gift. As Jol slid back and forth inside him, his fists keeping in time with the strokes that felt more akin to being cherished than crudely fucked, Ospar’s head fell on the Nobek’s supportive shoulder. Now his trembling was all for the sweet sensations thrilling up and down his spine, for the delicious warmth filling his secondary, seeping into the primary, tended until sensual gratification filled his every cell.
Best of all was the closeness. The contact that assured him Jol was there. The sheer joy of being not only with someone else, but being with the Nobek who kept him safe.
The orgasm was violent, exploding in Ospar’s groin and expelled in shattering, heaving bursts from his larger cock. He shouted and jerked in Jol’s grasp, hardly noting the gentler pulses of the shaft inside him or the Nobek’s steady groans as he joined him in gratification.
Overwhelmed, Ospar’s consciousness faded in and out, lending him snapshot moments of what followed. Jol releasing him, catching him before he could fall to the floor. Jol laying him on his sleeping mat and whispering, “I’ll clean everything up.” Jol giving him water. Jol washing him with a warm, damp cloth.
Jol. Jol. Jol. Nothing else mattered.
Little by little, Ospar came to himself. He blinked to find his bodyguard curled around him on the mat, holding him, kissing his brow, stroking his back.
Safe. Yet Ospar’s soul was raw, exposed. He looked into the Nobek’s face, noting the concerned expression. When did Jol start looking at him with such feeling?
“You left me. Where did you go?” Ospar hated sounding like an abandoned child, but as the night replayed in his mind, he was shaken.
Jol’s hold on him tightened. “I wouldn’t leave you, Ospar. I stepped outside for a short bit.”
“Why? I thought—I thought you might leave for good.”
“I went
out to take a breath. I had to. It got pretty intense in here.” Jol looked deep into Ospar’s eyes. “I couldn’t believe you offered yourself up for punishment.”
“I deserved it. I messed everything up. Especially what we shared last night.” His voice caught. Maybe it was only winning a bet to Jol, but the night before had meant something to Ospar. It was what had driven him to seek the Nobek’s forgiveness, offering him a flogger with the knowledge of how much it would hurt. A dim hope that something special could be regained.
Jol kissed him. “Last night…I think maybe that’s why I took you going to Pladon so badly. Last night was important to me too. It made me think things could be better between us. Something we could build on.”
“Don’t say that.” Ospar choked on the opportunity he’d lost. “Don’t make me face how badly I screwed up.”
“Ospar.” Jol’s sigh was filled with all the regret the Dramok felt. He said no more. He didn’t have to.
The Dramok traced over the other man’s features with a finger, trying to memorize every detail. The better to torture himself with later when he’d think back on what could have been. “If they come after me, swear you won’t get killed. I made this mess. You shouldn’t have to pay for it, even if you are my bodyguard.”
Jol shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have to do my job.”
His job. Nothing more. Ospar spoke against the pain of his words. “I did this to myself. If you don’t tell me you’ll stay out of danger, I’ll fire you.”
Jol barked a harsh laugh. “Like hell you will. Try it, and I’ll just have your uncles reinstate me. Now shut up before I beat your ass again.”
“You’ve been begging me to fire you for the last few days. I can’t believe you’d walk away from your favorite dream. Especially if the syndicate plans to kill me.”
Jol didn’t continue the argument as he should have. Instead, he looked into Ospar’s eyes with an intensity that was hard to bear. After a few moments, he said, “Ospar, if you have faith in nothing else, believe this: I’m not going to let anyone harm you.” He paused and added with feeling. “Ever.”
Clan and Conscience Page 12
