Room at the Edge (8 page)

Jay bit his lip. An extra sixteen strokes for him, bought with ten for Austin. Even if he told himself that Austin liked being spanked and a certain amount of pain, he knew he wouldn’t enjoy his whipping, or if he did, he’d feel guilty.

“You’re so fucking mean sometimes, you know that?” The words were no sooner spoken than he regretted them. Fuck. Not again. Liam was going to think he was topping from the bottom or acting out. And he wasn’t. He just craved the simplicity of a hard, ruthless whipping from a man who knew how to make him scream. Pain without guilt.

“At some point between tonight and the next time I see you, Jay, you can find a dictionary and write out the definition of
sadist
for me. A hundred times, handwritten, of course, and done neatly, please.”

He swallowed. That was something Austin would love doing, sinking deeper into sub space with every line, but for Jay it would be tedious in the extreme. “Yes, Sir.”

The crop came back to tease him, the stiff length of it sawing between his legs, chafing his balls. “I’d be surprised if you make it to forty,” Liam said into Jay’s ear, the soft puff of his breath in stark contrast to the iciness of his words. “I’ve always held back using this, even on you, but tonight you’ll get to find out just how hard I can hit.”

“Please…oh God, Sir, please.” He was begging before they’d started, shame at his rebuke pushing him into a place where he wanted to abase himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Gag me. Don’t let me say anything else—”

“But I want to hear you scream, Jay.” The tip of the crop smacked against Jay’s balls, a tap, no more than that, but he cried out, acutely aware of how much damage a much harder strike could’ve caused.

“It’s a start,” Liam said.

The first real smack of the crop against Jay’s ass was swift, and the only way he knew it was coming was because of the sound it made slicing through the air. It was a hard blow—not the hardest Liam had ever given him, but hard enough that it was a shock.

“That’s only one.” Liam slapped him with the flat of his hand across the same spot the crop had struck, then rubbed his ass roughly. “Thirty-nine to go, Jay. I have to admit I’m curious to find out if you can take it.”

Jay swallowed and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long, and the next half dozen strokes came quickly, without more than a few seconds’ pause between them. He knew Liam would expect him to keep track of the number, so he did. The pain was sharp and long-lasting, the effect from one blow not fading before the next struck home. It felt like being cut with a knife. Although he knew from previous experience that it wouldn’t look as bad as it felt, he also knew that it was going to hurt for days. Sitting would be a challenge. Every time he did, he’d remember this moment, that Liam had hurt him because he wanted it.

“Seven,” he gasped when Liam stopped and rubbed his ass again. His skin felt raw already, and there were still thirty-three to go.

Liam said, “Austin,” and a moment later Liam’s hand was back on Jay’s ass, this time pushing two slick fingers inside him. It was unexpected enough that Jay gasped, but that didn’t stop him from pushing back to take Liam’s fingers deeper. “Greedy boy.”

“Yes, Sir. Please.”

“I’ll give you what I want to when I want to,” Liam said, adding a third finger that stretched Jay wide.

His thighs trembled, and he was glad for the support of the chair underneath him. “Yes, Sir,” he whispered. “I’m yours.”

“You are. Both of you.” Liam’s fingers twisted inside him, driving deeper. “I’m a lucky man. You think I’m hard on you and I am, but I don’t do anything to you that you don’t allow, and I try to make it what you need.” He crooked his middle finger, and Jay moaned, shameless, appreciative, enjoying the stab of arousal piercing him. “It’s never occurred to you that I’m yours just as much, I suppose? No?”

“We want you to be,” Jay said, honest in the depth of his need. It was what Austin would’ve said if he’d been allowed to talk, but it was true for Jay as well. “We’re stronger together—” His final word ended with another moan as Liam worked his fingers in and out. The stretch felt amazing, but Jay was greedy when it came to Liam. “Sir, need more. Please.”

“I’ll fist you soon,” Liam said casually. “Not tonight.” He pulled his fingers out slowly so that Jay felt the loss of each inch as his body tried to clamp down and keep them inside him. “When I do that, I like to take my time. The prep work is part of the experience. I enjoy it.”

The implication that Liam had done it before, to someone else, had Jay hissing out an outraged breath. Behind him, he heard Austin stir and murmur a similar protest.

Liam chuckled and patted Jay’s ass with his dry hand. He’d use a wipe on his other hand before letting it touch their skin, Jay knew. Liam wasn’t fastidious exactly, but he tidied up as he went along. “Oh no. You don’t get to be jealous. Not when I’ve just told you how much you both mean to me. I’ve never fallen in love with a sub before, never wanted to, but you two didn’t give me any choice.”

Jay couldn’t remember Liam telling them so easily that he loved them before. He held on to that as the crop struck him again, Liam dealing out ten hard strokes in quick succession.

In the videos he’d watched online, he’d seen lines of fuel igniting on skin, a blue flame flickering to life in a flash. The crop was leaving fire buried under his skin, dark lines of red, a hot, searing burn, but much though he loved the bruising heat, he still wanted to feel those transient blue flames dance over his skin.

“Another break, I think.”

Jay shook his head, but his chest was heaving as he fought for breath, and he knew Liam wasn’t being kind. The pause let Jay feel the pain in a way he couldn’t when it was continually changing. It grew and spread, wild and savage, ripping at his self-control and leaving it in shreds.

“Touch him, Austin. Feel how hot his skin is. Run your fingers over the welts.”

Austin’s hand touched him a moment later, gentle and so cool that Jay pushed back against it to soothe the burn. He could almost pretend that it was a real burn blistering his skin. Austin’s fingertips moved away, then back again. He was probably afraid of hurting Jay. No need; his careful touch didn’t increase the pain even slightly.

“You know how much he likes this, don’t you?” Liam said. “You’ve seen him beg for it often enough.”

One of Austin’s fingertips traced over a slash mark. “Yes, Sir,” Austin said.

Liam smacked the bottom of Jay’s right foot with the crop, and Jay twitched, couldn’t help it, even though the blow hadn’t been hard enough to hurt. “How many is that, Jay?”

“Seventeen, Sir.”

“Not even halfway,” Liam mused.

“I can take it, Sir.”

“Really?”

The crop struck the back of his thigh, claiming another part of his body. Liam left five strokes on each thigh, the final one on each leg high up, along the crease where thigh met ass.

Jay was sobbing now, the tears soaking his blindfold. He held still for each stroke because Liam told him to, but after a stroke had landed, he had to move, as if shaking his ass would dislodge the building pain. He’d never understood how he could crave the pain, love it, and yet still fight it like this.

“Stop fighting it. Stop fighting me,” Liam said, lifting Jay’s long hair away from his neck for a moment, allowing him to feel a breath of cooler air on his hot skin. “I’m not punishing you, Jay. I’m whipping you. There’s a difference.”

Jay knew that. Liam had taught him that lesson early on.

“He’s doing well, though, isn’t he, Austin?”

“Yes, Sir.” The pride in Austin’s voice was unmistakable.

“Thirteen more. Where should I put the next three, Austin? The last ten are going on his arse, but that leaves three to play with.”

Jay could practically hear Austin’s brain working. He knew exactly how torn Austin would be over something like this—wanting to give Jay what he wanted, but at the same time not wanting to be the cause of hurt even when it was a hurt Jay craved. It was a double-edged sword Jay wished Austin didn’t have to grasp, but Austin answered without taking too much time. Maybe he was in the right head space to do as Liam asked without questioning it too much.

“His calves, Sir,” Austin said.

Liam didn’t hesitate—he hit Jay the specified three times with enough force that Jay shrieked, screaming out his anguish, then paused as Jay fought to get himself back under control.

It felt like everything from his waist down was on fire, and his cock was so hard he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to come again. He let his head sink down until his nose and mouth were resting on the solid wooden surface of the chair. He was drooling—or shedding so many tears that even his lips were wet.

“You can ask me to stop,” Liam said, running his hand over Jay’s ass as if he needed to touch the skin he was marking. “You don’t need to go to forty if this is enough.”

The part of Jay that could still be objective and provide a running commentary—the voice he wanted to silence with the pain because until he did, he couldn’t leave everything behind and just be—was reporting in on every throb, every rising bruise in an excited, horrified babble.

“Forty was Austin’s guess,” Jay told Liam, his voice thick and hoarse. “He’s never done this to me. You have. As many as it takes. Please, Sir. You’ll know when I’m there.”

As he said it, he remembered that any extra strokes would be added to Austin’s total, but it was too late to retract. The crop came down after his final word, as if Liam was as eager to continue as Jay. If Liam had been holding back before, he wasn’t now. The agony was too much for Jay’s body to contain. It pushed at him from the inside, reshaping him until his flesh felt paper-thin, ready to rip and tear with the next slashing stroke.

He stopped counting, and between one hard-won breath and the next, he let go of everything holding him anchored—his worry over Austin’s emotional state, his doubts about moving in with Liam, a score of petty work-related issues. The pain filled him too completely for there to be any room for them, and after that, each stroke sent him higher, sent him soaring.

Jay was gone.

He didn’t think he’d safe worded, but he was vaguely aware, like experiencing the world through a layer of thick fabric, that it was over. Liam murmured something stern but reassuring to Austin. Jay felt his feet being untied and dimly waited for his hands to be freed as well, but that didn’t happen.

“There, now. No, don’t try to move. Just stay where you are and breathe. Austin, bring that here.”

The blindfold was gently removed, but Jay didn’t try to open his eyes. It would be too bright, and he was too exhausted. He was glad Liam hadn’t untied his hands, because he probably would have just fallen onto the floor and lain there. Instead he felt the cool touch of Austin’s hands again. He realized he was waiting to hear Austin’s voice, and then that he wouldn’t because Austin was still under orders not to talk.

Something wet touched his hot ass, and he whimpered and twitched away, but there was nowhere to go. It was Austin pressing the cool, soft cloth to his burning skin, and Jay wasn’t sure how it felt. Not really good, because he was so raw he knew he’d have welts on top of welts. The cold just made the burning worse, and he focused on that, letting the waves of it pull him deeper under again. There, that was what he wanted, to drift peacefully.

If Liam had further plans for him, they were going to have to wait.

Chapter Five

Liam could hear Austin and Jay fussing over each other in the family room, exchanging anxious inquiries, whispered reassurances… He watched the jug fill as coffee dripped through the machine, the second pot of the morning, and smiled wryly. After Jay’s whipping, he’d ended the scene, meaning Austin’s arse was in good shape, and Jay had loved what’d happened to him, so Liam wasn’t quite sure why he wasn’t the target of their sympathy.

He was the one who’d gone to bed alone, after all, his balls aching, his arousal too intense to be quenched by his hand. He’d jerked off before he went to sleep and then woken in the middle of the night, his prick stiff and his hand already reaching for it.

Letting the two of them sleep in the spare room instead of with him had been an easy decision to make. Jay had been out of it, mumbling disjointedly when Liam had tended to his bruised skin and falling asleep immediately. Austin had been concerned for Jay and, though he probably didn’t realize it, as frustrated as Liam. If Liam had suggested the two of them share his bed and let Jay sleep alone, Austin would most likely have turned him down.

Liam didn’t deal well with rejection.

He filled three mugs with fresh coffee and put them on a small tray to save him making two trips. The crop he’d used on Jay tucked under his arm, he walked into the family room.

Austin and Jay were on the couch, Jay understandably curled on his side, his head on Austin’s shoulder. They were both bare-chested, wearing soft sleep pants, Austin’s a plain, faded navy, Jay’s bright green, patterned with a cartoon character Liam didn’t recognize. Jay should’ve still been riding the high of the night before, but his eyes were clouded and Austin’s mouth was pinched with worry.

Neither expression pleased Liam, but they made what he was about to say easier. As their Dom, it was his responsibility to take care of his subs during and after a scene. As their boyfriend, though the word was too juvenile to sit well with him, their happiness was his priority.

He’d been failing them if they could sit there and look at him like that. He set the tray on the coffee table and placed the crop beside it. In this formal room, lit with the soft, gray light of a dull October morning, it should have looked incongruous, even obscene, but what it represented was the foundation of their relationship. It belonged in here with them.

“I don’t think I could take even four from it today,” Jay said, a hint of regret peeking through.

Liam longed to see Jay’s arse. From what he’d gathered at breakfast, Austin had already slathered it with arnica cream, but the bruising would be spectacular. The trouble with seeing them infrequently was that he didn’t get to monitor the slow fade of the marks he’d put on them or get involved in the aftercare. Those were his bruises and he’d wanted to be the one to tend to them, but it would’ve seemed petty to point that out. “Probably not, but Austin’s going to do his best to take, let me see…eighteen. Yes.”