At His Throat, a Promise (49 page)

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AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

Without preamble, he took Harte"s cock to the root, swallowing around it as he"d been taught.

Harte gasped and his hands came down on Ellis"s shoulders, but what started as an attempt to push him away became one to get him closer. Harte"s sounds were all wrong—Master never made noise—but Ellis ignored it in favour of the first real instruction he"d gotten since… since…

Well, in a while.

He used all the tricks he knew Master liked. Tightening his lips, he wondered why Master"s cock wasn"t as thick as before. His tongue traced the throbbing vein and flicked against the glans, every practised action causing a reactive exclamation.

“Oh, shit, oh, Ellis,” Harte chanted.

Ellis plunged down on the cock and sucked hard as he came up, repeating that several times until Harte cried out in surprised pleasure, shooting copiously into Ellis"s waiting mouth.

“Oh, my… oh, fuck… ”

Swallowing hard, not missing a drop, Ellis backed off the bed and sank to his knees on the floor and his head down, waiting.

As soon as he did, his mind was his own again. All too quickly, he realised what he"d done.

And promptly threw up.

“It"s okay,” Harte was chanting, holding him now, rubbing his back as he vomited. “It"s not your fault, it"s okay.”

“I"m sorry,” Ellis whispered. Even with all Jude"s rules he"d had to remember, he hadn"t forgotten William"s. He knew he was going to be punished for what he"d done. He should be punished.

He was bad.

It was okay. William would make him good again.

He took a shaking breath and nodded. “I"m fine.” 424

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

But Harte stiffened at the words. “I"m going to go get Master, all right?”

Ellis nodded again. William would help him.

He didn"t move the entire time Harte was gone. He closed his eyes against the vomit on the carpet in front of him, resting clammy hands on too-warm thighs and waited for punishment.

Only William didn"t look angry when he came in the room and knelt beside Ellis, pulling him into his arms. Everything was so confusing now. What had happened to the times when he"d known exactly where he stood? What had happened to breaking rules and getting punished?

“Tell me what happened,” William instructed.

That was easy. An instruction to follow. Time for Ellis to be good again. “I got confused. Harte made a gesture that Master makes… made… and I… I got confused.” He meant to say more, but words were difficult and he couldn"t quite express what he meant.

“What was the gesture?”

Ellis shook his head. He couldn"t repeat it, not to William. That would be almost like telling William to… tend to him.

“Harte?”

“I don"t know! I told him to come here, and I… maybe waved him over?”

Ellis shook his head again. No, he hadn"t been wrong. Harte had made the same gesture as Master made… as Jude made.

“Can you describe it, Ellis?”

That was okay. It was just like explaining to Caleb what the gestures meant. “Two fingers curling inward.”

“Yeah… I did that, I remember.” Harte sounded so sad, and that made Ellis sad. Harte was too beautiful to be sad. He might 425

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

have said so aloud, because William"s arms tightened around him.

Then William was lifting him up, and even though he knew he was a bad slave and didn"t deserve the comfort, Ellis wrapped his arms around William"s neck and rested his cheek on his shoulder.

William smelled so good. He liked being close to him.

To his consternation, they didn"t go to the punishment room.

They were in William"s room now, Harte hovering around the doorway, looking nervous. Ellis was lowered into William"s bed, where he sat stiffly and waited for his reprimand.

It didn"t come.

“It"s clear that we"re going to have to deal with the repercussions of having an overly strict master. Harte, try to avoid that gesture, obviously. As well as any overtly sexual overtures.

We"ll take it slow, all right, Ellis? And for your part, try to talk to us a little more. Instead of… following Jude"s rules, remember mine, instead. And if you can"t, just tell us. You"ll never have to service anyone sexually if you don"t want to, understand? Never.” Not knowing what else to do, how to explain or express himself, Ellis just nodded.

“And if you need to say something, please
say it.
You can tell either me or Harte anything. You won"t be punished for anything you think, all right?”

That seemed like a good lead-in, and Ellis needed to know.

“What about for what I did to Harte?”

William and Harte exchanged a glance before William said,

“That was an honest mistake, all right? I won"t hold against you the things you do as a result of… of your time with Jude.” A part of Ellis knew that William was offering him a kindness, but he didn"t like the way it made him feel. Like he was too stupid to understand the rules or that he was above punishment. Neither 426

AT HIS THROAT, A PROMISE

of which were true. He"d been punished for mistakes before.

“Yes, Master,” Ellis said, knowing he sounded dejected and not really caring.

His head was down, so he wasn"t really prepared for William"s kiss, which came hard and fast and was over before he really got to enjoy it.

“I"m sorry,” William said, frowning. His hands held Ellis"s cheeks and he seemed to be fighting with himself. “I promised myself… ”

Ellis didn"t find out exactly what promises William had made because their mouths were pressed together again, and even through his anger at being handled with kid gloves, Ellis gave himself up to the kiss. It was the first one the master had bestowed upon him since his return, and Ellis found it brought him back to a time where he
didn’t
want punishments, where he craved approval but only when it wasn"t contradictory or random. Where he didn"t want pain, only this.

A noise escaped him before he could clamp down on it, and he pulled back, holding his breath and waiting for reprimand. He didn"t like feeling afraid. Jude"s rules and William"s were getting all mixed together in his head, and he was just so
unsure
…

But it was obvious he was doing something the master approved of, because William pushed him back against the sheets and covered him with his larger body. Ellis"s legs fell open, allowing for William to settle himself in the cradle of his hips. The master was hard and heavy, and Ellis revered the immediacy of him, the permanence.

Pressed up against his side was Harte, who was fleeting where William was not, and light where William was solid. They were opposites and yet… Ellis was the thing that brought them together.

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He froze in the kiss as his epiphany played itself out. William didn"t mind; he attached his mouth to the side of Ellis"s neck and sucked deliciously, and Harte mimicked his actions on the other side.

He was like the bridge between them, the connecting piece, the missing link. He was just as important to them as they were to him.

He was their middle, their third. He had a role. There was a place in the world—in their world—just for him.

Harte stripped his sheath from him, and they worshipped his battered—beaten, but never
defeated
—body, William lowering his hot mouth over Ellis"s erection. Before he even had a chance to marvel that he
had
an erection, Harte"s mobile lips were moving over his again, and all he could do was receive. They would take care of him. They wouldn"t hurt him or mock him for his reactions.

They were doing these things, these wonderful things, because they
liked
his reactions. They wanted to see him squirm, to hear him moan, to make him come…

He did all those things. He squirmed—William held him down with a firm arm over his abdomen, and Harte pinned his shoulders to the bed as he plundered Ellis"s mouth. He moaned—William"s mouth was wicked and Ellis couldn"t hold back, letting Harte swallow his sounds or drown them with noises of his own. And he
came
—hard and sudden and he tried to pull away, to not sully William"s mouth like that, and he broke away from Harte"s kiss to watch, horrified and aroused as William swallowed around his still-hard cock, taking everything like Ellis had practised so hard to do.

When he moved down to return the favour to William, he was stopped. William shushed him and kissed him and laid him back against the pillows. They curled around him until his body was 428

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covered by their limbs and by their kisses. Being pinned down like that should have been uncomfortable. It should have made him feel suffocated. It didn"t. They were anchoring him, keeping him tethered, and he felt safe, secure. He knew exactly where he was supposed to be. They did that for him.

He must have slept, for he certainly felt groggy and couldn"t account for the darkness of the room. He opened his eyes slowly, not wanting to give himself away if Master—if
William
—was in the room.

He was.

Harte was gone. He sort of remembered that happening. Harte had said his show was on. William had asked him to call the office and tell them he wouldn"t be coming in. Harte had laughed and said,
He’s got you wrapped around his little finger
, and William had said,
He needs me.
And Harte had sounded so serious when he"d responded,
I know.

“Awake?” William was groggy, too. Ellis was glad he wasn"t the only one. He nodded, not thinking that William might not to be able to see it in the dim evening light.

“I want to talk about what happened at Jude"s, Ellis. So we"re going to go to your room. Do you know why?” Ellis almost shook his head, but the memory was suddenly so strong and so clear that it was a wonder he"d allowed it to drift into the recesses of his mind at all.

“Safe,” he whispered. He could feel it even now. Safe.

“Good boy.” The words sent a pleased shiver all over Ellis"s body. “Let"s go.”

Once in his own room, Ellis stood at the doorway and looked in, amazed. He wasn"t sure if he"d expected it to be different or anything like that, but it certainly wasn"t. It was exactly the same.

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The white walls were almost glaring in their purity, and the red bedspread stood out like a beacon amidst the calm surroundings.

Ellis gravitated toward it like he had so many month ago—a lifetime, really—and sat upon it, digging his fingers into the bedclothes and enjoying the way they slipped through, so soft and yet resilient, still there even though he"d disappeared. How long would the room have stayed his without him in it?

On impulse, he opened the nightstand drawer. His cassette player and tapes sat in there just as he"d left them.

“I"m sorry, Master,” he whispered. He wished he could have taken them with him. How he could have used William"s voice on the dictated tapes… But it would have been a crutch he couldn"t afford.

“I hope you aren"t concerning yourself with such things,” William chided. “I understand you better than you know. While I will admit to hoping you would take it, I imagine if you had, you wouldn"t have been able to bring it with you when you left.” The words made Ellis remember what else he hadn"t been able to bring. “My cock ring, Master, the one you gave me… ” William sat up against the headboard and opened his arms.

“Come here.”

Ellis obediently climbed into his lap, folding himself into the warmth that was becoming familiar again.

“I"m glad it got left behind.”

“Master?”

“Because I don"t want you to think that your pleasure isn"t important to me. That I would deny you yours while taking mine. I know that"s what happened to you. You forget, I know—
knew
—

Jude. I have a good idea of what you went through. I… ” William trailed off and Ellis wanted to press him to continue, but he found 430

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the words wouldn"t come. Instead, he touched William"s cheek, stroking along the bristly jaw, liking the darkness against his pale fingers.

William drew in a deep breath and said, “I"ll never forgive myself for allowing you to go to him. I thought… His female slaves were treated well, according to Nell, and I thought he just didn"t like Fen. I didn"t know… that you would be treated like that.”

Because the master seemed to be expecting a response, Ellis said, “I don"t blame you for anything, Master. And he did help me.”

“I tried to get you back, you know. There wasn"t a week during the entire time you were gone that I didn"t call him or write him. I offered him… but there was nothing he needed, and he seemed to enjoy having what I wanted so badly. I think that his knowledge of my feelings for you were what made him treat you so poorly.”

“He didn"t treat me that poorly.”

“I saw you at the Lounge, Ellis! And even now, you"re…

broken.”

Ellis smiled. “No… I bent… but I didn"t break.” William smiled, too, looking relieved. “Good boy.” They were wrapped up in each other for a long time. Ellis matched his breathing to William"s, and every now and then he would touch William, on the wrist or chest or face, just to make sure it was all real. It was hard to believe. He
wanted
to believe.

After getting what he"d wanted—without even knowing it half the time—he almost didn"t know what to do.

“So what would Jude have done if you"d performed oral sex on one of his slaves against his orders?”

Ellis shuddered. “I can"t even begin to imagine.” 431

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“Well, what did you do that has you so beaten up right now?” It seemed like a lifetime ago. “I got into bed with another slave.”

“And… ?”

“And woke up there. Maya told Ma—Jude, and he found me.”

“Nothing happened between you and the slave? Caleb, correct?”

“Yes, it was Caleb. Nothing sexual happened. I held him. It made me feel better. And… you saw how he looks. I pretended… ”