Bound and Determined (5 page)

16

Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

Owen allowed him to win and then walked away again, something he was more

than capable of doing?

It took more of an effort to stop than continuing to run would have done,

but with the finish line a few yards away, he slackened his speed dramatically

and watched a blown, panting Sterling finish the race.

“You don't know your limits well enough,” he said when he could speak

without gasping for breath between words. His legs were trembling slightly, and

the lure of a really hot shower made him disinclined to drag out a conversation

that he supposed the boy had earned. They were still the only ones on the field,

but it felt odd to be discussing this here in this wide-open space. “That kind of

recklessness in a Dom can get a sub hurt, and in your case, you'd need a very

experienced handler to impose more realistic demands upon you.”

Sterling was bent forward at the waist, hands braced on his thighs as he

fought to regain control of his breathing. His face was flushed, his T-shirt

damp and clinging to his upper body, but his eyes were bright and hopeful

when he looked up at Owen. “You're experienced,” he said. “You could handle

me. I want—I want you to show me. Teach me.” Sterling hesitated, then went

on. “Like the woman in that club. Carol? Like her.”

“Oh, God, no,” Owen said without thinking before he spoke for once. He

shook his head forcefully and felt the cool air brush against his flushed face,

reminding him of how hot he was. “I'm not going through that hell again and

certainly not with you. No.” He walked over to the towel he'd left draped over a

bench a few yards away and used it to blot up the sweat on his face before

picking up his water bottle. Sterling appeared beside him, but Owen ignored

him in favor of getting the water from the bottle to his mouth, swallowing it in

long, slow gulps.

Teach him? Teach the obnoxious brat who'd given him a semester's worth

of hell to behave? Oh, it was appealing on one level—and Sterling's manners

had improved somewhat since his freshman year—but Owen had had enough

of newbies and wannabes. He'd already decided that his next session—and

God, he'd earned it—would be a one-off with a sub he knew and trusted, a

blessed relief after weeks of dealing with Carol's lack of imagination and, before

her, the equally disappointing Andrew.

How long had it been since he'd really clicked with a sub? Bleakly, Owen

wondered if he ever would again. Maybe he was too demanding, too exacting,

but wasn't that what it was all about?

“Please,” Sterling said. His voice was quiet, but the lack of volume didn't

do anything to hide the intensity. “What if—what if it wouldn't be hell? I mean,

I'm smart, and I'm a fast learner. And there must be a reason you do it—for

you. Something you get out of it, right? I could give you that.” From

somewhere, the kid managed to find a slender thread of persuasiveness and

inject it into his voice. “I could give you what you need.”

“How do you know that?” Owen asked bluntly, determined to make

Sterling see sense. “You don't know anything about my tastes, and believe me,

Bound and Determined

17

it isn't as simple as matching someone with a desire to control with someone

who wants to be controlled. Far from it. I've been involved in this for a long

time, and what I need and expect is almost certainly beyond you.” Sterling's

mouth tightened mutinously, and Owen gave an impatient sigh. “That isn't a

dig, so don't give me that look. God, you wouldn't last five minutes with an

attitude like that… Tell me—and don't exaggerate—just exactly how much

experience you've had.”

And then I can laugh, walk away, and avoid you for the rest of the year
.

Sterling smelled of sweat and musk, and the visceral memories that particular

combination conjured up were making Owen edgy.

“Almost none,” Sterling said, looking at him steadily and making no

apologies, two things that Owen reluctantly gave him credit for. “My friend Alex

and I messed around some, but it wasn't working and we didn't know why. It

wasn't until he saw how I looked at you at the club that something clicked and

we realized that it was because I wanted you. Because I want to let someone

else be in charge, but only someone
I
choose.”

Sterling sighed and looked out across the fields toward where the campus

pond was. Owen looked too, reflexively, and they were both watching when a

kid threw a stick and a black-and-white dog ran after it, barking, only to be

swallowed up by the morning fog that hung thick in the air around the water.

“I know you think I'm too young to know what I want,” Sterling went on.

“But I do. And even if I'm inexperienced, I'm not ignorant. I've been reading

about this for weeks. I can
learn
. I just need somebody to teach me. I'd like it to

be you.” That sounded like a thinly veiled threat—if Owen wouldn't take him

on, he'd find someone else who would.

Owen contemplated walking into the club one night and finding Sterling

kneeling, collared at someone's feet, and found the image not at all to his

liking. Sterling was new, completely new to all of this, to a world that Owen had

been part of for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it was like not to be

surrounded by people who thought and felt as he did, people who understood.

Someone had once told him that hell was standing in the cold, lonely darkness,

looking through a window at a party you could never join, and right now that

was how Sterling had to be feeling.

Which got him a certain amount of sympathy, but did it get him what he

wanted, just for the asking? No.

Without vanity, Owen knew that he was considered good at what he did—

what he
was
. Carol might be complaining about his harshness with a tear or

two dewing her eyes, but that would add to the cachet of being his next sub,

not put people off. If he showed up with someone as raw and untried as

Sterling, eyebrows would rise and the gossip would start. There was more at

stake than guiding Sterling's baby steps, not that Sterling, who possessed the

natural egotism and selfishness of most people his age, would have considered

that.

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Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

Overhead a squabble of birds flew, chattering noisily, swooping and diving

through the cool, damp air. Owen tilted his face up to watch them, admiring

their grace and precision. He could train Sterling to move like that, each shift

of position smooth and flowing, his body under perfect control.

Under
his
control.

Oh, God, yes, it was appealing.

He turned his attention back to Sterling. “How old are you?”

Sterling looked startled, then answered slowly. “Twenty. Almost twenty-

one.” When Owen lifted an eyebrow, he admitted, “In four months. January

eighteenth.”

Owen shook his head. “Not a chance in hell until you're over twenty-one.

And that goes for anyone you'll meet at the club
or
outside it, and trust me, I'll

know if you try.”

Which wasn't strictly true, but he had no compunction about lying if it

kept his sub safe—and look at how easily Sterling had slipped into that space…

“Oh, so now you control everyone in the neighboring five towns?” Sterling

didn't look even slightly convinced. “I already know that's not true—Alex was

seeing a guy who traded him in for a younger model, younger than me. Just

because you have an unreasonable code that you pretend has something to do

with ethics, that doesn't mean everyone else does. If you won't do this, I can

find someone who will. But I'd rather it was you.”

“Fine, the legal age for gay sex in this state is eighteen, and you're well

past that,” Owen snapped, goaded into honesty. “What you want is more than

just sex, and I'm damned if I'm going to let you rush into this, demanding that

everyone dances to your fucking tune. God, pushy subs like you are the

most—”

“Challenging?”

“
Not
the word I was going to use.” Owen ran his hand through his damp

hair, his T-shirt clinging clammily to his back. He really needed that shower,

and he had a class at nine… “The answer's no.”

He glanced over to the right and saw a small group of students

approaching, kicking a football between them, the sound of their voices

carrying. Sterling saw them too, and his mouth tightened with frustration.

“Go away and think about it,” Owen said with more sympathy in his voice.

“Talk to people like this friend of yours. You don't need someone like me when

you're this new; you just need a boyfriend with an open mind. Find one and get

him to give you a spanking. You might discover you don't even enjoy it when

it's reality and not a fantasy.”

“So you're saying you're out of my league?” Sterling demanded. “I'm not

good enough?”

Owen looked him over; tall, good-looking in a classic fair hair and blue

eyes way, undoubtedly intelligent and so very much in need of discipline and

control… Oh, Sterling was good enough.

Bound and Determined

19

“You're perfect.” Owen watched the boy's eyes light up, good-looking

transformed into something so much more with the praise, vulnerability, and

pleasure struggling for the upper hand in his expression. It made his parting

words seem cruel, but they had to be said.

“For someone else. Not me.”

He walked away without looking back, putting some much-needed

distance between them.

* * * * *

still willing to eat ice cream in the fall in New England, but it was okay with

him because it meant he had a job. It wasn't crazy busy the way it was in the

late spring, but business was steady and not at all hurt by the fact that

Charlie, the store's manager, had branched out and added pastries and cookies

to the menu along with an assortment of coffees. In a college town, there were

always dozens of students willing to pay almost anything for a beverage with

extra caffeine in it, and the very expensive and sometimes temperamental

espresso machine saw almost constant use.

He'd just finished making a round of cappuccinos for some girls with the

serious, drawn expressions of students working under a deadline and delivered

them to their table—the delivery wasn't a usual part of his job, but it wasn't

busy enough for it to bother him, and sometimes that kind of thing earned him

good tips—when the bell over the door rang and a woman came in. She was

wearing a black cap and looked, at first glance, vaguely familiar, but it wasn't

until their eyes met and she said, “I know you,” that he remembered who she

was.

“Um, Carol, right?” Sterling asked. She was the woman from the club, the

one that had been Owen's sub. “What can I get you?”

She laughed, one of those artificial titters that were meant to say just how

much she
wasn't
amused. “Well, I came in for coffee and a raspberry Danish,

so how about we start with that? Skim milk, large, and why don't you surprise

me on the beans?”

“Sure.” Sterling went for Kenyan and took the cup and the pastry over to

her table, tucked away in a corner. He'd gotten good at guessing where people

would sit, and he would've pegged her for a table in the middle of the room

where everyone would see her, or the window, where she could look out. When

she tapped the chair beside her and said, “Sit,” her choice made more sense.

“I'm working,” Sterling told her, but sat anyway because he was curious.

“Owen doesn't want to see me anymore,” Carol said. “So I assume he's

seeing you.”

“No,” Sterling said. “I mean, I'm trying to talk him into it, but he says I'm, I

don't know, wrong for him, or something. What am I doing wrong?”

20

Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

Carol laughed again and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug like

she was trying to warm her hands. “You think
I
know? It's just Owen—he's the

best, but he gets bored easily, so he moves on. If he isn't with you, then he

must be with someone else.”

Somehow Sterling didn't think that was the case, but Carol knew Owen

better than he did. “Who? I mean, do you have any guesses?”

Carol shrugged, making the gesture theatrical. “I don't know. I heard

about
you
because you were staring at me—you know, that night, and I hadn't

seen you before, so I asked around.”