Rachel Haimowitz & Cat Grant - [Power Play 1] (35 page)

trudging uphill, backwards, barefoot over broken glass. He looked

up at it, closed his eyes for a moment and imagined himself hanging

there, bloody and in fucking tears
because what if Jonathan wouldn’t

believe him when he safeworded and
six
strikes with the cane had

felt like dying and how the fuck was he going to make it through
five

times
that?

He jerked around at the sound of Jonathan rummaging through

a drawer. Things clinked and rattled against each other. Jonathan

snagged something, turned around—

Fuck
. The steel cuffs.
So he means to beat my ass
and
make me

break my wrists? Fuck that.

“Hands out,” Jonathan said, and only then did Bran realize he’d

folded his arms across his chest, tucked his hands and wrists beneath

his armpits. Somehow he managed to pry them free, though, and

offer them to Jonathan. He didn’t want to wear those fucking things

again, but they’d hurt less than fighting.

“Going without these,” Jonathan said, circling his fingers around

Bran’s wrist, “was a privilege. A reward. A show of trust. Which”—a

twist of Jonathan’s wrist, and suddenly Bran found himself on his

knees, gasping at the pain shooting up his arm—”you’ve betrayed.”

Jonathan took his hand away, but Bran left his arm in the air; no

fucking way was he moving without permission. One steel cuff closed

around his wrist, then Jonathan gestured for the other one. “You’re

going to struggle. These will hurt you when you do. Bruise you. A

reminder to think on later. It seems you need one.”

Jonathan turned back to the drawer, returned a moment later

with the ankle cuffs. Bran swallowed so hard he coughed. Couldn’t

take his eyes off them. He wasn’t going to . . . Was he?

“Get up.” Bran stumbled to his feet. “Put these on.” He handed

Bran the ankle cuffs and folded his arms across his chest, scowling.

Waiting. Bran bent down and fastened the fucking things, even

though his hands were shaking hard enough to make clicking them

together difficult, even though he could practically feel the charge,

the there-and-gone agony of the
zap
running through the steel and

up his legs.

When he finished and straightened up, Jonathan hooked a finger

through an O-ring on his wrist cuff and dragged him over to that

low bench contraption he’d examined the day Jonathan had made

his cursed offer. Jonathan pointed at it and said, “Down.” One-word

commands. Like he was some fucking dog again
.

And here he was cowering with his tail between his legs, because

he got down on that bench so fast he hurt his knees. Jonathan

manhandled him into position, clipping his wrist cuffs to the ring

by the grab-handles, then pushing his legs onto the shin pads and

locking his ankle cuffs down. Leather straps went around his biceps

and thighs, too, holding him well and truly in place, ass in the air,

junk exposed. Inner thighs bared too, and though it’d been a week or

more, he hadn’t yet forgotten the pain of a crop landing there.
Beyond

pain. And that’d just been a little strip of leather, not a cane.

He found himself opening his mouth to beg again, and shut it.

Jonathan wouldn’t care and Bran saw no reason to humiliate himself

further. At least Jonathan didn’t close the strap over his neck. Still,

not a whole lot of wiggle room. Not enough to get away from the

cane.Not enough to get away from the hand Jonathan stroked down

his spine, either. “I know I promised you thirty cane strokes,” Jonathan

said, rocking up to his heels and walking somewhere behind Bran,

where Bran couldn’t see no matter how far he tried to turn his head.

He heard a drawer open, close. Jonathan came back, but his hands

were empty. Something in his pocket, though. “But you lied to me,

Brandon. You stole food, and then you looked me right in the eye and

lied about it. You also touched yourself in the shower this morning,”

he added, perfectly casual, and all Bran could think was
thank God I

didn’t go through with jacking off
because Jonathan had seen
him, of

course
he had, never mind that he was supposed to be asleep.

“I’ve told you before,” Jonathan went on, pul ing a leather glove

from his pocket and tugging it over his right hand, “nothing happens

in this house that I don’t know about. And I don’t think a mere

caning, however severe, will suffice to get that through your head

this morning. Nor would it knock the attitude problem away, or

your propensity toward fibbing, or theft. You know . . .” He paused,

smoothed his gloved hand over Bran’s left ass cheek, then the right

one, then gave it a squeeze. “When I was on the commune, we didn’t

own very much. None of us did—
commune
, after al . But what little

we did have? Was sacrosanct. Thieves were banished. I remember

that vividly, the first one I saw. I was seven, friends with his little

girl. His wife chose not to leave with him. Kept his daughter. He lost

everything
, and for what?”

Was this Jonathan’s way of saying
Get out?
Well, good luck with

that. He wasn’t going anywhere without his fucking money.

“I can’t banish you quite so easily, but I
can
make you regret what

you’ve done. Maybe, in time, you’ll even understand why it matters

so much. Maybe you’ll actually be sorry. And not just because you

were caught. Look at you”—another leather-gloved touch, down

the backs of his thighs, across his arms—“you’re trembling. Am I so

frightening to you now?”

“No, Jonathan,” Bran said. Pure bravado.
And stupidity. Stop

lying, you idiot.
He sighed, met Jonathan’s steady gaze. “Yes.” Fucking

talk of banishment . . . what was he, Amish?

Jonathan just raised an eyebrow, like he wanted more. Waited.

Well, he’d wait for fucking ever if he didn’t ask a question; no way was

Bran speaking out of turn right now.

At last Jonathan said simply, “Why?”

Was he
kidding
? “I dunno, maybe because you’re about to
torture

me?”
Asshole
. “Jonathan.”

A tiny smile flitted across Jonathan’s lips, and he shook his head.

“Try again. Or rather, try harder.”

What the fuck did he
want
from him? What else was there to

say? He turned away from that deep blue gaze, rested his chin on the

bench. Jonathan seemed to want the truth—might as well keep letting

him have it. “Because you’re so fucking
sure
of yourself, Jonathan.

Because you’re not the first man who thought he could control me,

and it didn’t end so fucking well the last time. Because I can’t fucking

figure you out; one second you’re beating me, the next you’re fucking

me, and you know what? Sometimes I’m not sure which is worse . . .

Jonathan.”

Silence. He dared a glance back—nothing subtle about it, he

had to move his head to meet Jonathan’s eyes, sure he’d find fury,

maybe even hatred. Found instead . . . amusement? Contemplation?

Confidence, for sure. So much fucking
confidence
. Like Jonathan had

known exactly what Bran was gonna say before he’d even said it.

Jonathan reached out, took Bran’s chin between thumb and

forefinger. No force, just heat and a little pressure. “I’m not your

father,” Jonathan said, and suddenly it was all Bran could do not to

jerk his chin from Jonathan’s fingers. “His control came from a place

of anger, insecurity, immaturity. He broke you down to build himself

up, to make his life easier.
My
control? Is a gift, as surely as your

submission is. I break you down to build
you
back up, to make
your

life better. Do you think it’s easy for me, having you here? Fighting all

the time? Do you think I
want
this?” He actually sounded sincere—

desperately so—his grip tightening on Bran’s chin. “I may be a sadist,

but it loses a lot of its fun when the man on the receiving end doesn’t

want it too. I don’t
like
to punish you so often, Brandon. I want you

to be happy. I want you to
get out of your own way
. And when I try to

help you do that, you spit in my face. You think I don’t know what

stealing that banana meant? You think I didn’t hear that giant
fuck

you
?”Did Jonathan just
curse
? Shit, he really
was
in trouble. And yet,

the man still sounded so calm . . . so fucking
calm
.

“I get it, I do,” Jonathan said. “Children need discipline, routine.

They’re grateful for it later, but at the time?” A wan smile, which Bran

would have punched right off his face if his hands weren’t bound. He

was
not
a child. “Not so much. I recall being angry with my parents

sometimes. But look what they gave me. Look what I was able to

accomplish because of their guidance, their firm hands. But you? The

last twenty years, you’ve known only cruel hands, or greedy ones. I

mean to fill that gap.”

Jonathan let go of Bran’s chin, reached into his pocket with his

gloved hand and pulled out a little squeeze-bottle of lube. So, what,

he meant to fill that gap with his dick?
Somehow, I don’t think it works

that way, pal.

But Jonathan just squirted some lube into his ungloved hand,

reached under the bench, and grabbed hold of Bran’s flaccid dick.

“You’re going to come for me this morning,” Jonathan said,

starting up a rhythm with his hand, half stroke, half twist, squeezing

at the head. And despite the situation, the discussion, the fear, the fact

that he was
shackled to a fucking bench on his hands and knees
, Bran

felt himself hardening in Jonathan’s hand. “You’re not going to want

to. You’ll be angry.”
Stroke.
“Ashamed.”
Stroke.
“Conflicted. Somehow

you’ve gotten it into your head that submission is weakness, that

you’re not allowed to enjoy these things. That you can’t let someone

else take control, take care of you. That pleasure and pain are mutually

exclusive. That
wanting
—wanting
anything
, let alone
these
things—is

disgraceful, degrading. But it’s not.”

God, didn’t he ever
shut up
? This was the last fucking thing in the

world Bran wanted to hear with that hot slick fist on his dick, with

the first tight coils of pleasure curling his fingers and toes. He laid his

cheek on the bench, closed his eyes. Thrust his hips as best he could

into Jonathan’s hand, just to prove him wrong—
See? No shame here.

Jonathan chuckled, kept up that maddening rhythm—

And
spanked
him? His left ass cheek stung, and he clenched and

unclenched it, letting the sensation sink in. Not pain, not really.

Heat. Tingling. He was hard as a fucking I-beam in Jonathan’s hand.

Another stroke of those magic fingers, another twist . . . and another

spank, much, much harder than the first.

“Ow, what the hell!” he shouted, jerking in his restraints, then

remembered to add “Jonathan” before the fucker hit him again.

Jonathan chuckled, still jacking him at the same steady pace, and

said, “You do recall this is a
punishment
, right?”

You talked so fucking much I forgot.
Seemed like a bad idea to say

that out loud, though, so he settled for, “Yes, Jonathan.”

And was rewarded with another slap, and another, and then four

more in rapid succession, all on the same tender spot where ass met

thigh until he was shouting, squirming, desperate to get away. But of

course the restraints held, and so did Jonathan’s fucking fingers, still

fisted and twisting slick around his dick, which had flagged at the

pain but was perking up again now that Jonathan had stopped.

“I’m going to keep hitting you until you come,” Jonathan said, and

for a second Bran wasn’t sure he’d actually heard him right because,

seriously, how did Jonathan think the first thing could ever lead to

the second?

Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just planning to beat your ass until

he can see his reflection in it.

Jonathan smirked at him. So fucking smug and condescending

and
amused
. “You think that’s impossible.” Another hard smack, at

least to somewhere new this time, thank God. The blow drove Bran’s

hips forward into Jonathan’s slick, waiting fist, and a sharp bolt of

pleasure dulled the pain. “You’re wrong.”

Another blow, another thrust into Jonathan’s fist, and Bran’s

brain didn’t know
what
to feel, what to think, except that maybe, just

maybe
, the smug fucker was right. Maybe he
could
come like this. God

knew he’d been hungry enough for it this morning, and the spanking

didn’t hurt
that
bad.

But it will. You
know
it will.