Authors: Kim Dare
“So the thing about waiting for me to give up my bets is bull?” Bayden demanded. “When you say you’re not interested in doing a scene with me, what you really mean is that you don’t think I can do what you want?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t submit, that it’s not in you. I’d bet my bike on you being able to, if you want to. But what happened out there wasn’t anything like it.” He met Bayden’s eyes. “You’re offering me more submission right here than you’ve ever offered him or anyone else in this place.”
Bayden tensed, but he didn’t pull away. “I didn’t refuse to do anything he wanted me to do. That’s what humans mean when they talk about submission.”
“No. That’s obedience, or maybe bloody mindedness. It might satisfy men who only really want a bet, a punch bag or an easy lay. But I don’t think you even know what a good dom would want to do with you.”
“What do you want to do with me?”
Axel met his gaze. No man who’d played with dozens of subs and established a hellishly good reputation on the local leather scene should be that pleased that a novice was willing to label him a competent dom.
“I want to get back to where we were in the kitchen when I kissed you, find that spark of deep submission I saw in you and see where I can take it. I want to screw you, and tie you up, and make you writhe for me—you know all that. But I want so much more. I want the whole thing, not just a quick scene. I want twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I want you to be mine. I won’t take anything less.” It was true. Even as he said it, Axel realised that he couldn’t have anything less than that with Bayden. He wasn’t capable of half measures with him.
“Submission isn’t like that.” Bayden looked toward the door leading back to the pub, as if he could see straight through it and watch what all the men were doing on the other side of it. “What they’re doing isn’t like that.”
“Everyone has their own definition of real submission, real dominance,” Axel allowed. “But when we’re talking about what might happen between us, submission means what we say it means. It’s about what feels real to us, and the fact you let me in your space means more than anything you let him do to win a bet, right?”
Bayden didn’t deny it.
“I don’t know if you’re ready for it, but make no mistake, Bayden, what I want with you is so different to what you just did, it’s not even on the same planet.”
Bayden took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Axel looked down for a moment. Bayden hadn’t been hard during his bet, but he was now. Something about what Axel was offering appealed to Bayden just as much as it did to Axel.
“Real submission isn’t about going through the motions or proving that you can’t be broken, pup. It’s strong, it’s honest, it goes right down to your core and calling anything that happens in a bet by the same name cheapens it.”
Bayden nodded.
Axel stroked his cheek. “The real thing, it’s not something a sub can take a break from to do a bet with another guy every time he gets pissed off with some pillock who insults his species. There’s no room for that in the kind of submission I’m talking about, and I won’t pretend otherwise.”
Bayden looked down.
“I won’t play with a man who takes bets like that. But a man who
used
to take those sorts of bets, that’s a very different thing.”
Bayden looked up, eyes wide with surprise, as if he actually thought what Axel had just seen could have ruined any chance he had.
“When you’re ready, let me know,” Axel said.
Bayden nodded.
Axel studied him carefully. “Just because I didn’t like watching your bet, that doesn’t mean I want you to leave,” he said, just in case Bayden didn’t know that. “I still expect you to stay until the end of the night and eat here before you go home.”
Bayden nodded again, but to Axel it looked like an absentminded gesture, as if Bayden was already deep in thought.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Bayden stood at the edge of one of the play areas, watching a scene being played out around a cage. It was just like what he’d always thought humans meant when they talked about submission. The man in the cage didn’t really believe that the man who’d locked him in there was more dominant than him. Bayden had no doubt that when the two men left the play area, all the respect one man appeared to show the other would disappear. It was a game. They were acting, just like most of the men there.
Axel didn’t act. Maybe that was why what Axel called submission sounded more like what Bayden thought of as respecting another wolf’s dominance.
A more dominant wolf was more dominant all the time. An alpha was an alpha all the time. There was no need to pretend. Respect for another wolf’s dominance came naturally. Instinct didn’t let a wolf forget his place in the pack, or if his mate was more dominant than him.
Bayden pushed a hand through his hair as he tried to push the knowledge away, but it was right there, right in the front of his mind. Axel wasn’t offering him the chance to submit the way the man currently in that cage was. He was offering him something closer to what he’d always wanted to find with another wolf—
“Does it bother you that I call you my pup?”
Bayden looked over his shoulder. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t sensed Axel approach. He blinked at him.
Axel frowned as he repeated the question.
Bayden shook his head. “No.”
“It doesn’t mean anything different to a wolf?” Axel pushed.
“It sounds nice,” Bayden blurted out. “I like it.”
Axel’s frown disappeared.
Bayden smiled, thrilled that he’d pleased him if only by liking a nickname. “You don’t pretend,” he blurted out. It was true—Axel didn’t pretend about that either.
Axel guided Bayden closer as someone tried to move through the crowd next to them. He slid his arm around Bayden. “Pretend?”
“Most people who treat wolves well, they can only do it by pretending that we’re human. You don’t pretend, but you still…”
Axel didn’t take his arm from around him. Bayden closed his eyes and somehow resisted the temptation to lean forward and rest against Axel’s body.
“Respect,” Bayden whispered.
“Pup?”
Bayden swallowed. “What you were describing a few minutes ago. Wolves don’t really have a word for it, but we’d call it respecting another wolf’s dominance, accepting and liking that the other wolf is dominant over him.”
“Then, when either of us talks about submission from now on, we know what we both mean by it,” Axel said.
“Other humans…” Bayden hazarded.
“They’re not important. If they want to do things differently, if they want their words to mean different things, that’s none of our business.”
Bayden nodded. He peeked past Axel’s shoulder. “What do I call what he’s doing?”
Axel glanced at the two men behind them. “Casual. Temporary. Purely play-based or scene-based.” He shrugged as if what Bayden called strangers’ activities wasn’t important to him. The words they used with each other were the ones that really mattered. “Some people would call what we’re talking about lifestyle submission or complete submission.”
Bayden nodded again, filing the words away for future reference.
Axel was still pissed with him, and the scent of the bet still clung to Bayden’s skin, and a man who
used to
do bets like that was okay with Axel. If there was any chance to have something more than a kiss on the temple from Axel, even for a little while then…
“How long?”
Axel pulled back far enough for their eyes to meet.
Bayden cleared his throat. “You said you wanted to work out if I’m capable of submitting to you the way you’d like. How long would it take you to work out if I can do that?”
Axel seemed to think about it for a long time.
An hour? A day? Weeks? Bayden didn’t know what to hope for. He was sure he could respect Axel’s dominance over him, that he could
submit
to Axel, for a lifetime, and it still wouldn’t feel like long enough, but it wasn’t that simple.
“It’s not a quick thing,” Axel said. “But at the end of six weeks, I think we could both have all the answers we needed.”
“So, if I agreed to find out if I can submit to you, I’d only be agreeing to obey your rules for six weeks?”
“We could do that,” Axel allowed. “We could say that this is a trial period and at the end of six weeks everything could be up for renegotiation.”
Bayden nodded slowly. Six weeks would be—
“Is that what you want?” Axel asked.
Six weeks. A month and a half. He tried to make his mind work, but all he could think about was he was keeping Axel waiting. It was what he wanted, but… “I can’t, I mean…”
“Need time to think?” Axel suggested.
Bayden nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Axel hushed him, a soft gentle sound completely at odds with his body language. “Think about it. If you come up with any questions, let me know what they are.”
Bayden nodded. Axel didn’t step back, didn’t take his arm from around him. It felt good. For the first time in so long, Bayden felt safe and as if he was right where he belonged.
Six weeks. Maybe if he got enough cash saved up. Rent. Bills. Food. Doctors. His mind swirled with numbers that climbed higher and higher.
“My job,” Bayden blurted out.
It had seemed like Axel was focused on the scene, but he lost all interest in it as soon as Bayden spoke.
“Submitting to you means doing whatever you want for free, doesn’t it?”
“No. Your job would be separate from that. You’d still work here. You’d still get paid the same.”
Bayden looked down. “I don’t mind not getting paid. I just, I’d prefer to know if…”
“You were right to ask, and my decision stands. You’d get paid for the work you do in the pub, but I won’t be paying you for anything else. Paid bar service, free submission.”
Bayden nodded and went back to his silent calculations. He couldn’t do it now. He couldn’t do it until he saved up enough to top up his wages through those six weeks. But he knew how to earn money.
He couldn’t do it now, but soon. It was just possible that he might be able to submit to Axel soon.
“Do you know what the symptoms for rabies are?” Griz asked, taking a seat at the table with Axel.
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but—why?”
“Tolmore thinks that’s what’s wrong with Bayden. He’s got money on it.”
Axel raised an eyebrow at him.
“He saw a documentary on TV last night. He says when the rabies reaches someone’s brain, they completely lose the plot.” Griz glanced over his shoulder to where Bayden was working behind the bar. “That part certainly fits.”
Axel didn’t need to move. He already had a perfect line of sight. At the moment, Bayden was simply working away, serving the drinks, covering the entire length of the bar while Axel took his break. Bayden didn’t look as if he’d lost his mind, but that was only because he wasn’t allowed to take bets while he was on the clock.
Once his shift ended, well—if things had appeared to be looking up two weeks ago, Axel had since realised that there was no direction that could be sensibly referred to as up.
It was like being trapped in a leather-clad version of ground hog day. Bayden did his job; Axel had to grant him that. The boy had no problem being one hundred percent focused on his job. He worked like a Trojan. No task was too much to ask or too menial.
He also had no problem taking any bet that was offered to him. Anything would do. His only limits were the club rules and, his standards were somewhere around the bottom of the barrel. Axel had lost count of the number of guys Bayden had screwed as part of some bet or other. If the Dragons all had more sense than to approach him, there were plenty of other guys who pounced on the idea of a willing werewolf.
For someone who had apparently lost his mind, Bayden looked remarkably calm about it all.
“Well?” Griz pushed.
Axel dragged his attention back to his friend. “Bayden doesn’t have rabies.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What about OCD?”
“OCD?” Axel asked.
“The obsessive compulsive thing. It fits much better, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Axe, seriously. The boy cleans stuff—all the time.” Griz shook his head. “A well maintained bike—fine. A highly polished pair of boots—great. But at this rate the entire damn pub is going to sparkle and that is not a good look on a biker’s pub.”
Axel chuckled. “I told him I expected him to work hard, he’s just proving a point.”
“What’s he proving when he screws every dom in the pub except for you?” Griz asked.
Axel’s smile faded. He didn’t know. That was the damn problem. There would be a point behind the way Bayden had acted out over the last two weeks. Bayden would have a reason. But what the hell it was, was beyond Axel. A last blow-out before he took a shot at real submission? A panicked attempt to show Axel that he wasn’t submitting to him yet? Something else—something only a wolf could understand?
Axel rubbed at the stubble across his jaw line. The muscles in his face were starting to ache from the amount of time he spent grinding his teeth together watching Bayden make a mockery of real scenes again and again. Of course, it was better that Bayden did his bets there rather than anywhere else, but it didn’t mean Axel had to actually like what he saw. He dropped his head back to rest on the wall behind the bench he sat on.
“There’s another betting pool,” Griz said.
“God help us.”
Griz chuckled. “This one’s about you.”
Axel sighed, but he didn’t look away from Bayden. “Go on. Hit me with it.”
“Hale thinks you’ll eventually realise that wolves are more trouble than they’re worth and get rid of him without ever actually laying a hand on him. Tolmore says you’ve already lost interest in him—possibly because of the rabies thing. Drac thinks you’re going to throttle him if he doesn’t come to heel soon.”
“What’s your money on?” Axel asked.
“I think you’re going to collar him.”
Axel turned to Griz.
“I’ve known you for longer than any of them,” Griz pointed out. “When someone gets under your skin, you won’t give up on them. You’re like a dog with a bone.” He chuckled. “That wasn’t actually a werewolf joke.”