By His Rules (9 page)

“Hera—” Aiden warned.

Scott chuckled and said to Hera, “Aiden and I have

an arrangement.”

Hera looked from Aiden to Scott and back again.

“Are you seriously going with him?”

Aiden didn’t answer. Hera slung her bag over her

shoulder.

“I’ll take a cab home. You take the car. It’ll save you

some time.”

“Hera, wait… ” Aiden said. But she left the club

without looking back.

“Who’s she?” Scott asked.

“A friend.” Aiden stared at the door, wishing he

could run after Hera, apologize.

Scott followed his gaze. “I don’t want you talking to

her.”

Aiden looked at Scott. “What?”

“I worry her attitude toward our relationship will

have a negative effect on your training. Stop talking to

her.”

Aiden laughed.

Scott didn’t.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Scott just stared at him.

“For how long?”

“Until I give you permission to talk to her again.”

Aiden shook his head. “But that’s—she and I work

together. I can’t just—”

“You can and you will if you want to remain in my

service.”

Aiden
did
want to remain in Scott’s service. But he

was hardly going to throw away a friendship to do so.

“Scott, please… ”

“Is there something unclear about what I said?”

Scott’s voice was low and dangerous.

Aiden dropped his gaze. “No, Sir. I just—”

“Good.” Scott snapped his fingers. “Basement.

Now.”

In the basement, Scott found them a small room

with a spanking bench. He sat on the bench and hauled

Aiden over his knee. He delivered three blows to the seat

of Aiden’s jeans that even through the taut denim hurt

like hell. But Scott quickly seemed to lose interest in

spanking Aiden. He shoved Aiden off his lap, got up,

and ordered Aiden to sit on the bench, facing the wall.

Aiden did, anxious. Scott’s hard, frantic energy here was

much different than the deliciously cruel, seductive

confidence he projected at home.

Scott stood behind Aiden and started calling him

names. Softly at first, his voice growing louder as he

continued. Some of the words were exciting—Aiden

sometimes liked to be called “slut” or “whore” in the

bedroom. But Scott’s language grew fouler and more

explicit, and soon Aiden felt genuinely shaken, unsure if

Scott meant what he was saying or not.

Scott grabbed Aiden’s shirt, nearly tearing it as he

pulled it off him. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

he demanded, running his nails down Aiden’s chest,

leaving long scratch marks. “The boys I was talking to

upstairs have better bodies than you. Maybe I should

make you watch while I fuck one of them. Huh?”

Aiden felt his cock twitch, then shrink. He didn’t

know if he was aroused or upset by Scott’s belittling.

“Stand up,” Scott ordered.

Aiden obeyed.

“Hands on your head.”

Aiden stared at the floor, wishing he’d gone home

with Hera, wishing he hadn’t seen Scott here tonight. He

laced his fingers behind his head.

“You like this, don’t you?” Scott whispered,

running a hand over the front of Aiden’s pants. “You like

me talking to you like this?”

Aiden didn’t think he did. He didn’t answer, but

Scott didn’t seem to notice as he caressed Aiden’s cock

through his pants and said, “I could get everyone here to

come watch you. They’d all see what a slut you are. A

mindless whore who opens up on command.”

Aiden grew harder in spite of his anxiety. He

gasped and closed his eyes, moving with Scott’s hand.

“And not even a pretty one. Almost every boy here

has a better body than you. You pretend you’re a big

shot. You want to go off to school to get a fancy degree.

But you’re just a dumb cocksucker, aren’t you? Can’t get

a degree in cocksucking, can you?”

Scott rubbed harder, and Aiden rode his hand, the

words stinging, making him furious, making him wild.

He came, a long, quiet orgasm that brought him as much

shame as it did pleasure. Scott grabbed Aiden’s balls and

squeezed as Aiden finished. Aiden’s knees buckled, and

his mouth opened in a silent cry. Scott let go and shoved

him away. “Put your shirt on, so no one sees what I had

to settle for. We’re going home.”

* * * *

Hera at Joe’s on Monday, because she refused to speak to

him. Every time Aiden came near her, she stalked off in

the other direction. They took their breaks separately.

Finally Aiden cornered her in the kitchen, by the cooler.

“Look. I’m sorry.” He didn’t care that Scott had

ordered him not to talk to her. There was still some part

of his life that Scott didn’t have control over, and this was

it.

“For what?”

“Last night.”

Hera shrugged. “None of my business what kind of

total fucking prick you go home with.”

“I’m sorry for ditching you.”

Hera didn’t speak for a moment, and she didn’t

look at Aiden. “Hope you had a good time, at least.

Though I don’t see how you could have.”

Aiden chewed his lip. “He’s not always that bad.”

“Not
always
?”

“All right, he’s kind of intense. He just gets in these

moods—”

“You need to drop that fucker.”

Aiden’s temper flared. He’d wanted to apologize,

not invite a lecture on how to live his life. “You barely

know him!”

“I know he sucks. And not the way you’d want him

to.”

“I don’t need your judgment. All I wanted was to

apologize.”

“Great, you did. Now I need to get back to work.”

“Well, so do I,” Aiden snapped.

“Then do it.” Hera slipped past him and into the

seating area.

“Shit,” Aiden muttered. He winced as he walked

toward the kitchen. His back hurt. Scott had flogged him

last night with a heavy leather cat, nearly breaking the

skin in several places. Aiden had felt each blow,

subspace stubbornly eluding him. He was having a

harder time these days slipping into that perfect place

where pain melded into pleasure. Everything Scott did

hurt. Aiden knew it was mostly his own fault. He tensed

against the pain, fought it, anticipated it. Couldn’t relax.

He got nervous when Scott came near him—even Scott’s

kisses were brutal, painful.

Rima burst into the kitchen. “Cole! Table twelve is

waiting on refills.”

He’d totally forgotten about table twelve. “I’ll get

on it.”

“Hey?” Rima called. He turned, startled when he

saw how intently she was watching him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“All right,” Rima said uncertainly. “Then get to

work.”

Aiden hurried past her to table twelve.

Keaton Hughes walked to the faculty parking lot,

thinking about the Dutch illustrations of
Juliette
he’d

shown his class earlier that week. Beautiful, violent,

titillating, and repulsive. He always felt odd, showing

things like that to his students—as though a neon sign

hung over him, indicating that he was into BDSM.

He hadn’t been to Obey for a few weeks. There

didn’t seem to be much point in his going. The men there

were into the scene—costumes, role-play, toys, hookups,

“sir” and “ma’am”… Fun, Keaton agreed, but not what

he was looking for. The odds of finding a sub in Obey

whose interests matched Keaton’s were next to none.

Keaton had been in high school when he’d first

learned about domestic discipline. He’d found an article

in some trashy magazine, written by a middle-aged

woman who claimed her husband maintained domestic

order in their household by spanking her when she got

“too sassy.” She said it helped relax her to know he was

in control, and that her husband enjoyed being in charge.

The woman claimed her husband had guided her

through her return to college, helping her balance work,

school, and family life. He’d helped her curb her

smoking and her spending habits.

Keaton had been fascinated. He’d had no idea this

sort of thing could go on between adults. He thought any

hitting between partners constituted domestic abuse, and

he had been shocked to learn there was such a thing as

lovingly administered corporal discipline. The woman

described a typical punishment: an over-the-knee

spanking—sometimes

with

her

husband’s

hand,

sometimes with a hairbrush—after which she was

forgiven, taken into her husband’s arms, held, and

comforted.

Keaton became enchanted with the idea of having a

domestic discipline partnership. Not with a woman, of

course, but with a man. He just couldn’t imagine any

man being interested.

He did meet a few who were willing to give the

arrangement a try, but they never seemed to get it. They

treated it as a role-play, purposely leaving the house a

mess or back talking Keaton, as though their lines and

actions were scripted. They were turned on by spankings

—not their fault, but not what Keaton wanted. He didn’t

get off on having a boy bare bottomed over his lap, at his

mercy. What he craved was his partner’s trust, his

partner’s
need
for guidance. Try as he might, Keaton

couldn’t find a partner who was interested in a long-term

—and very real—domestic discipline relationship. And

Obey wasn’t the place to look.

There had been that boy. That beautiful boy who’d

watched Keaton from across the room. Keaton had asked

Daddy, one of the other tops at Obey, about him.

Apparently the kid, Aiden Cole, was in high demand. He

was a talented role-player, had a high pain threshold,

gave incredible head, and was—well, gorgeous. Not a

word Keaton used often, but one that fit Aiden Cole.

Right now the boy belonged to Scott Runge. Keaton

didn’t know Scott, but the rumors he’d heard were

unsettling. Scott played hard, pushing his subs to their

limits with little regard for their pleasure. He was sexy,

charismatic, but could be downright cruel. He was a fan

of toys and torture devices and wasn’t afraid of bruises—

or even blood. Scott didn’t usually take on subs for any

length of time, so his continued relationship with Aiden

was the subject of a lot of gossip around the club.

Aiden must be into the hard-core scenes, Keaton

told himself. Real pain. He’d never want what you want.

Anyway, he’s young and pretty—probably just another

superficial twink who’ll blow anything that moves.

Keaton couldn’t make himself believe it.

Who’s superficial
?
You’re the one who’s fantasizing about

him based solely on the fact that he’s gorgeous.

It wasn’t just that, though. There was something

else. Maybe he was deluding himself, thinking he could

tell anything about the boy’s soul based on a look

exchanged across the room. But Aiden’s eyes were those

of someone intelligent and creative, someone whose

mind was constantly active. There was a sense of shyness

about him as well—a delicate desire to please.

He’d smiled at Keaton—looking about seventeen

when he did—but there was something mature and

slightly melancholy in his expression, wise but a little

lost.

Stop it, Hughes
.
It was dark in the bar; you could barely

see.

Yet he’d seen enough to know he was intrigued by

the slender young man with chestnut hair and wide,

intelligent eyes.

He unlocked his dark blue Solara and threw his bag

into the backseat. Then he climbed in the front, put his

hands on the steering wheel, but left the car off. He

leaned back against the seat rest, closing his eyes. He

often felt out of place at S&M clubs like Obey (hence

bringing his journal as a buffer). He was looking for

something separate from the whips-and-chains motif. He

was looking for some
one
who wanted to be more than a

slave, who wanted to be guided, cared for, and
truly

disciplined—no games.

But if he couldn’t have that, then maybe he ought to

think about finding a nice sub to do a scene with now

and then. Perhaps he could brave the music and the

chaps-and-chains crowd again this weekend at Obey and