“You like it when I do that. Don’t you?”

Tor’s raspy voice sent a thrill straight to my balls as his mouth brushed kisses along my jaw and his thumbs stroked up and down the sides of my neck. We’d just entered his condo after lunch, and before I’d even taken two steps, he’d backed me up to the closest wall and crushed his mouth down over mine.

“Yes.” I clutched at his shirt, pulling him closer so I could feel his body surround me, and when he shifted forward to wedge a leg between mine, I spread my thighs and welcomed the pressure he applied to my rigid dick.

After Tor had sat back down at the café, I’d easily pushed aside the woman and her ramblings, knowing she was likely a lunatic. Because the man who was so attentive with me, the man whose hands were on me right now, fueling a fire I’d never known before…he had been nothing but upfront and honest with me, and I trusted Tor to keep me safe.

“So responsive. So willing. Aren’t you, lamb?”

Yes, I really was when it came to him. He just had to look at me, order me to do something, and it felt as though my body had no other choice other than to comply. It was as though Tor was at the head of the controls that made my body react, and whatever he wanted, he got.

As his teeth nipped at my ear, his thumbs increased the pressure at the base of my throat, and I arched against him, straining under the hold he had on me, relishing in the danger I knew I was in, even as I knew I could stop him should I feel as though it was going too far.

I smoothed my hand up over his shoulder and speared my fingers through his hair, urging his mouth closer to mine, wanting his lips and teeth all over me as I writhed on his thigh, rubbing my covered cock against his muscular leg.

“Wolfe.” I sighed as my head fell back and thunked against the wall, and I felt the scrape of his teeth down the side of my neck to my shoulder, where he sank them in hard. I cried out, the stab of pain swift and intense.

His rumbling laughter was sinister, and the fact it made my dick throb even harder was all kinds of wrong, but I was starting to understand he’d been right—maybe I was a little bit wicked like him, because I liked it. Because imagining him buried in me while he unleashed made my ass clench and my fingers curl tighter into his shirt. He raised his head and ran his thumbs back up my jugular until he was holding it under my chin in an unrelenting grip.

“Your cock is so fucking hard right now. It’s got to be aching. Is it, Jesse? Does it hurt real good right now?”

I blinked at him as he slowly raised his knee to press against my balls harder, and my eyes glazed over. The terror, the danger, the pain, the arousal—all combined to make the blood rush around my head and make me feel high as a kite. High on Wolfe.

“What did it?” he asked, his dark eyes holding mine, mesmerizing me. “Was it the bite? Or this?” he asked, tightening his fingers, and when I coughed, he aimed a vicious grin at me.

I reached up and clutched at his wrist then, and he shifted to stroke my shaft with his thigh, and I groaned and jerked my hips forward, thrusting against his leg, reaching for a release I knew I wouldn’t achieve until he deemed it time.

“Yes,” Wolfe growled. “Struggle—it always makes it so much sweeter when you finally give in.”

I thrashed against him, knowing just how good it would be when he finally tunneled into me and claimed me, and with one hand, Wolfe hauled me off the wall by my neck and slammed his mouth to mine.

It was brutal and carnal as I took hold of his hair and twisted it in my fingers, and he shoved his tongue deep into my mouth and fucked it the way I knew his cock would soon fuck me. When his teeth scraped over my lower lip and then he bit down hard like he did that first night at the museum, I cursed and yanked my head back.

My chest heaved against his as I licked at the blood he’d drawn, and suddenly I found myself released with a hard shove. Wolfe said, “Get on your knees.”

Without question, I fell to his feet right there inside his front door, and tongued my swollen lip.

My dick was painfully hard at this stage, and as I knelt there, I knew I was slipping. I was drifting away to the darkest corners of myself as I waited to see what he would do to me next.

I wanted to worship at his feet. Give him all of me. I wanted to lay myself down and let him destroy me, and from the glint in Wolfe’s eyes, I knew he wanted to destroy me.

He was intimidating as hell as he loomed over me, and that only made this more exciting, and I reached down to palm my erection.

“Unbutton and unzip, Jesse. I want to see how angry your dick is because it hasn’t been fucked or sucked yet.”

Oh God, I thought, and quickly did as I was told. The minute my fingers touched my sensitive flesh, a shudder racked my body. My cock was very angry. It wanted to come. And as I drew my fist up it, I dropped my head back and shut my eyes from the pleasure of my own touch.

“Hands by your sides,” Wolfe ordered. “I didn’t tell you to touch. I told you to show me.”

I felt dizzy as I stopped stroking and stared up at the powerful image he made, and I was convinced I might come just from looking at him.

“Look at me,” he said, and I angled my head back so my eyes met his. “You’re not to touch yourself again until I say so. Do you understand?”

I nodded and delighted in the sadistic curl that curved Wolfe’s lips.

He was pleased by my response. And I grew harder from his. And it was about then that I knew I was totally lost. Lost to the darkest depths of my soul over this man, and it was too late for anyone to save me now.

* * *

Had there ever been a more obedient little lamb kneeling before me? One with a face so alluring it could tempt even the devil?

I knew the answer to that, of course, but I shoved it away before it could linger in my brain to taunt me the way it did in my dreams. Every day I woke up and warred with myself, vowing that this would be the day I let Jesse go. But the uncompromising control I’d prided myself in having for so long, in every aspect of my life, was slowly unraveling in the area that mattered most.

The lamb at my feet, the one who continued to prove he’d follow me to the slaughter if I led him there, was far more dangerous than I ever could’ve imagined. He trusted me when I didn’t trust myself. Adored me when I couldn’t look in the mirror for fear of what I’d see staring back at me.

And with each passing moment I spent with him, I felt the sand passing through the hourglass, our time together coming to its inevitable end. I knew it, I felt it in my bones, and yet I refused to acknowledge a reality without the one I craved.

As I stared down at Jesse, whose guileless eyes blinked up at me as he waited for my next instruction, I tried to tamp down the desperate drive to do more, to go further than I’d dared with him before.

Fuck, but he was mouth-watering with his pants open and his flushed cock spilling out, just waiting to be milked dry. When I spoke again, my voice was nothing but gravel.

“Let me taste you,” I said, and Jesse didn’t hesitate. He knew exactly what I wanted him to do, and as he ran two of his fingers over the head of his dick, coating them with his cum, the savage inside me roared. I crouched beside him and opened my mouth, and Jesse brought his fingers up to my lips. With the boldness I’d come to expect from him, he painted my lips, and as my tongue dipped out for a taste, I purred with satisfaction.

But with my little lamb, a drop was never enough, and I caught his fingers between my teeth like a lion snapping at its prey, and then I sucked them inside my mouth, relishing his flavor. Jesse inhaled sharply as I licked him clean, his eyes glazing over. The cords of his neck were pulled tight, and judging by the way he’d balled his other hand up by his side, he was struggling not to relieve his ache.

I let his fingers drop from my mouth. “You want to come?”

“Yes, please.”

“What about in my mouth? Would you like to come there?”

Jesse’s eyes fell shut and he took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he said, “Please let me come in your mouth.”

I stood back up and held Jesse’s chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I do love how you beg so nicely. Maybe I’ll grant your wish later if you please me.”

I dropped his chin and positioned myself in front of him, and Jesse’s eyes dropped to the bulge straining against my zipper.

Yes, smart lamb…

His gaze met mine, and it was asking for permission. Lucky for him, that was something I was looking to grant.

“Open your mouth. I need something to fuck,” I said, and Jesse’s eyes blazed. He reached for my belt, and then, as if he remembered he needed an order to undress me, he paused. “You can touch me. You can’t touch yourself.”

Jesse unbuckled my belt and left it hanging open at the sides as he unbuttoned and unzipped my pants. I hadn’t worn anything underneath them today, and the stunned expression on Jesse’s face was one I stamped into my memory for later.

He inched forward, and then his tongue swiped a path across the head of my cock, making it jump in response. Wrapping one hand around the base, he used the other to guide me past his lips, and the hole I now found myself immersed in was warm, wet, and eager.

“Ah, yes,” I said, watching myself disappear into Jesse’s mouth. “Take it all.”

Jesse’s tongue swirled around my erection, working in sync with the hand jerking me off. Fuck, his mouth felt good, but in the mood I was in, it wasn’t enough. I needed more, something to satiate the beast clawing at my insides, daring me to tempt fate once again.

No. It was too dangerous, and if I opened that box again, I didn’t think I could force it closed afterward.

But Jesse was inhaling me like my cock was oxygen, and my resolve was crumbling. I grabbed hold of his head with my hands, my fingers tangling in those silky blond strands, and for a moment, his face morphed into the one from my past. I took a shuddering breath, punching my hips forward into the mouth I missed, and then the picture changed again, and it was Jesse sucking me off, Jesse’s eyes staring up at me with unconcealed lust.

What if…maybe just this once…

As the idea turned over in my mind, I knew there’d be no stopping it, at least not on my end. I needed the power the act gave me so intensely that tremors began to rack me, first my hands, which I dropped from my hold on Jesse, and then the rest of my body. Just as Jesse’s mouth pulled back, about to take me inside again, I pushed him away and backed up, breathing hard and gripping the ends of my hair.

I couldn’t look at him as I paced, trying to talk myself down from what I wanted, but Jesse, his voice thick with desire and confusion, called out to me.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

Rubbing my face, I muttered, “No,” and hoped he’d leave it at that.

“Is there something else you want? Something you want me to do…or…try?”

A moan escaped my lips before I could stop it, and that gave my lamb all the answer he needed to press on.

“Tor…Wolfe. Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I want to. I know you’ll make me feel good, and I…want to please you.”

Fuck that sweet, gullible lamb. So utterly unguarded and unconcerned for his safety. So trusting to put his life in the hands of one who would do him harm.

You’re making me do this, I thought, as I reached for the end of my belt. Jesse’s eyes flicked down to the fingers I was wrapping around the end of the leather, and he gulped. Nerves or excitement? I couldn’t tell what was riding him in that moment. All I knew was what was driving me, and it was nothing good. But there was no stopping it now. He was too inviting, and I was too needy, and as he knelt there with his balled fists resting on the tops of his thighs, everything I’d feared from the first time I’d seen him came rushing to the surface like a freight train. One that was on track to run right over the top of Jesse.

Walk away, I told myself as the pads of my fingers rubbed over the supple leather. But instead of following my own advice, I walked toward Jesse, my long legs eating up the space in three steps, and when I stopped in front of him, Jesse nodded, as if sensing the war I was waging with myself.

“Do it,” he urged. “Whatever it is, I trust you.”

Those three words were familiar ones. I’d heard them before. But it wasn’t that I didn’t think he trusted me—it was that I didn’t trust myself.

“Wolfe…” Jesse’s voice was like a caress over my exposed cock, and when my eyes locked with his, that sweet fire I’d discovered simmering inside of him flared to life and caught alight with the rampant lust kindling inside of me, consuming any ounce of resistance I had in its flames.

I let go of my belt and put my finger under Jesse’s chin, tipping his face up as I bent over him and said against his lips, “From the moment I saw you, I knew you were a bad idea.”

Jesse blinked once, then twice, before sighing against my mouth. “But you still came for me…”

In more ways than you think, little lamb…

I straightened to my full height and glanced down at Jesse’s flushed, veiny cock jutting out. “With your eyes on me, stroke yourself, Jesse. I want to watch you.”

As Jesse wrapped his hand around his stiff length, he caught his lip behind his teeth at the pleasure his own touch gave, and I reached for my belt again, this time knowing I was about to go down a road I’d once found so addictive I hadn’t known when to stop—a road that had cost me horribly.

As I watched Jesse milk his dick, I began to slowly slide my belt free, aware that with each loop it slipped out of, I was that much closer to flaying him alive.

“Spread your knees a little,” I ordered as the belt finally came free of my pants and dangled down by my side, and Jesse did as he was told, widening that beautifully submissive pose of his. “Perfect,” I said, and reached for my cock, clamping a fist around the root of it. I needed to get a handle of myself or I was going to come all over him before we both reached the rapture I knew we could and would achieve.

Jesse’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his breath leaving him in quick pants as he pleasured himself for me, basking under the attention I was giving him, and he was a spectacular vision to behold.

“Keep going,” I told him, and walked past him, dragging the end of my belt over his shoulder until I came around to stand behind him. His blond head was like a beacon to the darkest parts of myself, and yet it still wasn’t enough to steer me back on course. Back on the path to righteousness. I wasn’t even sure that had ever been an option for me. For as long as I could remember, I had always been fighting urges that were even darker than the shadows I’d learned to lose myself in. But it was the ones like Jesse, the bright lights I couldn’t resist until inevitably I snuffed them out.

A soft moan echoed around my condo as Jesse’s head fell back and his shoulders tensed, and I knew my little lamb was getting close. It had to be now, and it was going to be. I wanted it too much to call a halt to it. I wanted to see this. I wanted to witness the wave of euphoria wash over Jesse before it crashed down and claimed him as mine.

With one quick, well-studied move, I wrapped the belt around Jesse’s throat and slipped the tongue through the metal buckle, and tightened the strap. Jesse reached up to grab at the belt, just as I knew he would, and as his fingers slid over the top of the leather and his alarm at what was happening set in, I bent down to place my lips by his ear.

“If you want to stop, say the word now and we stop.”

His shoulders heaved, and his breathing was now harsh, his panic a palpable thing as it mingled in the air with our arousal.

“But if you don’t, if you trust me, lower your hands.”

Several seconds passed, and then, ever so slowly, Jesse’s fingers left the belt and his arms lowered.

“Good little lamb,” I said, and gently increased the pressure of the belt around his jugular. “Now, if you continue to stroke your cock for me, I will make sure we both experience pleasure unlike any you have felt before.”

Even as I delivered the promise, and replayed the words over in my mind, I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, because my pleasure wasn’t dependent on his. My pleasure was in getting to cause such terror. It was achieved by being the one to tighten the noose. My pleasure was already racing through my veins like a wildfire before he even began to reach for his. But as I stood above Jesse with the belt in hand, I saw him reach for his shaft and begin to stroke.

Up and down he manipulated the engorged flesh, his arm moving faster as the pre-cum helped the slide of his palm, and I watched over him carefully, knowing that timing was everything when it came to this particularly frowned-upon act.

With his hand clamped around his dick, Jesse squeezed hard, and his hips punched forward as his entire body began to shake. That was my cue. With a powerful tug on the leather strap, I pulled the belt taut until it was digging into the smooth skin of Jesse’s neck, and he gasped, coughing for air, and then his movements began to slow down even as his cock remained at full attention—just as mine was.

As the blood flow was cut off, the seconds passed and my dick pounded with the fevered excitement I felt over using such dominance, such extreme dominance, over the one at my feet. I reached out, wanting to touch that virtuous head, knowing that when he resurfaced from the lightheaded, intense high of the fogged subspace, he would never be the same, and as my fingers brushed the soft strands, his head lolled back and I whispered, “I’ve got you, Lee…”

When the blue eyes trained on mine rolled back in his head and his entire body went limp, I stiffened at the sense of déjà vu. That was when I realized exactly who it was I was now reaching out for, as I let go of the belt and fell down behind Jesse to catch him in my arms.

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I couldn’t see anything. The room was dark and quiet, and I seemed to be alone. The second thing I noticed was that I was lying on a soft bed with a pillow tucked under my head.

Where am I? How did I get here?

A wheezing cough overtook me, and I barely had the energy to lift my hand to my mouth. My body felt so tired, and my throat hurt, like it had been stripped raw.

What happened? Where’s Tor?

The questions kept coming as I struggled to remember. Tor and I had come back from lunch…we’d started fooling around…then…what? Images flashed through my mind, me on my knees looking up at him, Tor telling me to touch myself, Tor’s belt coming off…

With a gasp of air, I shot up in the bed, reaching up to my neck to pull away the belt I could still feel choking me. But there was nothing there, only a lingering ache, as I remembered what had happened before the world went black.

Shit. Did I pass out? The last thing I remembered was feeling out of my body as Tor tightened the strap around my neck, cutting off my air. I’d been about to come, and the lead-up to the explosion barreling down my spine was like nothing I’d ever felt before. But right before that blissed-out moment of ecstasy could happen, everything went dark, and the next thing I knew, I’d woken up in this bed.

I scanned the room, looking for the light, and as my eyes adjusted to the unlit room, I thought I saw something or someone in the corner.

“Tor?” I said, my throat burning and in need of water.

The figure moved, as if getting to its feet, and then it was walking toward me, and as it stopped by the bed, I could just make out Tor’s face. His expression was grave, his eyes haunted and the line of his jaw set.

“You need to leave,” he said, his voice rough and so low the words were barely audible.

I tried to swallow to coat my throat. “What?”

“Get out. You have to go.” I could hear the torment and restrained anger in his words, and I could feel the distress vibrating off his powerful body.

“But…what happened? Why?” I swung my legs off the bed toward him, and when I reached for him, he took a step back.

“I said go.” When I didn’t make a move to do as he said, the levee holding back his temper broke. “Get out! Leave! Now!”

I scrambled to my feet as he roared, my pants falling down my hips, and I quickly pulled them up and buttoned them with fumbling fingers.

“I don’t understand. Did I do something wr—”

Tor grabbed my arm harshly and yanked me across the room, through the door, and then down the hall. I squinted at the overhead light coming from over the kitchen, and that was when I saw we weren’t alone. I recognized Tor’s driver, the same one who’d picked us up in a limo for our date.

What’s happening? What did I do? Or what did he do to me? I took a quick inventory of my body, but nothing felt out of place or sore, other than the chafing at my neck. Even the fatigue I’d had when I woke up was gone, replaced by a burst of adrenaline at what had to still be a dream. Tor suddenly let his tight grip on my arm go, and I stumbled away from him.

“Get him out of here,” he said to the driver, snarling down at me as I stared at him in confusion.

“I don’t… Why are you doing this? Talk to me. Please.” I felt the sting of tears threatening, and as I swallowed, my throat burned again, and I brought my hand up to soothe it, but that was the wrong move, because Tor’s eyes dropped to my neck and his nostrils flared. With a growl, he turned on his heel and stormed down the hallway, and my heart thumped in time with his steps. A door slammed, making me jump, and I debated going after him, but the truth was, I was scared. I’d never seen him in such a rage, and though I didn’t understand what had set him off, I knew it had to do with me, and my presence would only make things worse.

Slowly, I turned toward the driver, who was standing by the front door with an impassive expression, like he hadn’t just witnessed anything out of the ordinary. My shoes were on the floor where I’d kicked them off earlier, and as I made my way over to put them on in the aftermath of Tor’s explosion, the silence was chilling.

I left Tor’s condo without speaking another word, and once I was in the back of a Town Car, I wrapped my arms around my waist and pressed my forehead to the glass. It was warm, and rivulets of water trailed down the pane, much like the tears that began to fall. It still didn’t seem real, the day moving from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye.

I’ll talk to him when he calms down. I’ll give him some space, and then we’ll work this out. He’ll tell me what went wrong and how we can fix it…

As the car turned onto my street, I fingered the tender skin of my neck. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to be alone. What if I passed out again? If something happened, I wouldn’t be able to call Tor, because what if he didn’t answer?

No, I wasn’t walking into my dreary apartment tonight. I needed to understand. I needed to tell someone.

“Sir,” I called to the driver. “Could you take me to Breakaway Point instead, please?”