Bound and Determined (28 page)

chances, he gave himself a cursory swipe with the towel, hung it back on its

hook, closed the shower door, and hightailed it to Owen, water still running

from his hair along his neck as he fell to his knees with a little more force than

they were used to.

He winced but looked up at Owen hopefully.

“Bring me a dry towel,” Owen said. “A white one, please.”

The precision of the order did what it always did and calmed Sterling to

the point where he could stand with more grace than he'd shown going to his

knees and walk away, moving quickly without rushing. That had been another

lesson that Owen had taught him: unhurried efficiency. Owen didn't like it if he

got flustered and panicked.

The narrow cupboard outside the bathroom yielded a towel that was both

dry and white, and Sterling took it from the stack with a hand that had

stopped shaking with reaction. He returned to Owen, the folded towel in his

hand, resisting the urge to blot away some of the trickles of water coursing

down his back. Owen wanted the towel dry.

“Thank you,” Owen said, accepting the towel from him unsmilingly. “Kneel

facing away from me. That's it.”

Sterling felt the softness of the towel against his bare skin as Owen began

to dry his back, the thick material soaking up the water. Owen didn't take long

over it, but when he moved to dry Sterling's hair, that changed. Thick strands

of hair were lifted, wrapped, squeezed, and rubbed, with Owen seemingly in no

hurry to finish grooming Sterling back to the way he preferred to see him.

The sensations made Sterling shiver; then his skin prickled with goose

bumps. It reminded him of a phase Justine had gone through for a while,

pretending to break an imaginary egg over his head, little fingers moving over

his hair. Even though he'd known it was a trick, it had made his skin crawl

every time.

Owen wasn't playing any tricks, though. Owen was slowly, carefully drying

his hair, styling it into shape, which wasn't too hard considering it was fairly

short, though when it was wet it had a tendency to curl. Justine had gotten the

straight-hair genes. All the straight genes, actually, Sterling thought, but didn't

let himself snicker.

He inhaled through his nose as Owen dried the hair at the nape of his

neck, a fresh wave of shivers moving through him. His cock, which had been

flaccid, stirred, one pulse of blood sliding into it, and at the same time his sore

nipples throbbed too. Sterling moaned against closed lips.

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117

That earned him a reproving tug at a lock of hair, which did nothing to

quell the gradual renewal of his arousal, but which did remind him of how

important it was not to slip up again. Owen was right; Sterling had thought

that the imposed silence was a gesture, no more, with the clamps and

spanking being the true penalty for speaking out of turn, but he'd been wrong

about that, just like he'd been wrong about being ready to be shown off at the

club. Owen had taken things a little further with the weight and the chain, but

really, it was an extension of something that they'd done before, and the

spanking had been brief.

Keeping silent when there was
so much
that he wanted to say had to be

the worst punishment ever, and Owen had known that.

“You're going to stop fighting this,” Owen said. “If I was spanking you and

you struggled, I wouldn't be happy, and I'm not happy with the way you're

dealing with this. Sink into it. Accept it. You fucked up, and you're being

punished for it, just like I'm going to deal with you talking before your shower.”

The towel dropped into Sterling's lap.

“But that can wait until
I
shower,” Owen said. “Get up. You're going to go

to my room and bring my robe, a plain white T-shirt, and some navy shorts to

the bathroom. While I'm showering, you'll kneel on the bathroom floor, and you

can dry me when I get out and then dress me. Show me what a respectful,

penitent little pet I've got.”

Listening to the sound of the water falling in the shower just made

Sterling harder, imagining Owen stripped to the skin. He went to Owen's

bedroom and found the things as ordered, then took them to the bathroom and

set them in a neat pile on the edge of the sink before kneeling. Owen had said

“
on the floor
,” he remembered, so he did kneel on the hard tile instead of the

soft bathroom rug that would have been so much more comfortable under his

knees.

As he knelt there, Sterling managed to find a level of calm, a place where

all he had to do was exist and not worry about what was happening or what

would happen. It was a good place to be, especially when Owen, on the other

side of the glass door and visible, if blurry, started to jerk off.

It was impossible not to
want
, with visible and audible proof of Owen's

arousal and the desperate, almost-painful need to participate in relieving it,

but Sterling kept it together. Still, each moan, every movement, no matter how

slight, was lovingly remembered for future use. The curve of Owen's shoulder,

the taut line of his ass when he finally came, head thrown back in pleasure,

was imprinted on Sterling's brain.

He stayed quiet, waited for Owen to finish and get out.

The shower door opened. Owen's skin was flushed from the hot water, and

droplets clung to his body, a body that Sterling had seen and touched, but not

as much as he would have liked. The dusting of brown hair across Owen's

chest was water-darkened, flat against his skin, and his cock, still half-hard,

drew Sterling's gaze. He wanted to crawl across the space separating them and

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Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

lick the tip of it, take it into his mouth and coax it hard again. He wanted a

trace, no matter how faint, of Owen's taste on his tongue, even if that was all

he could have until this endless time of waiting was over.

A pointed clearing of Owen's throat recalled him to his duties, and he

reached out for a towel and tugged it down off the rail. He wasn't sure where to

start when it came to drying Owen, but he was on his knees already, so he

decided to stay there. With the towel in one hand, trailing behind him, he

crawled, head down, and began to dry Owen's feet. He was getting a kick out of

serving Owen this way, attending to his needs. This close, he could see the

individual hairs on Owen's legs and the odd freckle, smell clean, damp skin

and, sometimes, when the towel slipped, touch it.

He wanted to kiss it, but was that allowed? He didn't know, and he

couldn't ask. Frustration built in him and with a choked whimper, he pressed

a single kiss to the inside of Owen's knee, then rubbed his cheek against the

warm skin imploringly.

Owen reached to caress his hair; Sterling, being contrary, chose to view

this as affection rather than actual approval, and applied himself properly to

the job at hand. He dried Owen's knees, thighs, and hips, avoiding his cock

except for a cursory pat, and then stood so that he could concentrate on

Owen's torso and arms.

He wished he could do this every time Owen took a shower. It was like

being able to give something back to Owen, one small thing in exchange for

everything Owen had done for him.

Lingering at Owen's hair, which was short and barely needed to be dried,

Sterling inhaled the scent of shampoo. Being able to touch Owen like this was

such a privilege that Sterling felt awed, aware that his eyes were wide and his

lips slightly parted.

“You make me wish for the days when every gentleman had a valet,” Owen

said, sounding much less stern than he had been before the shower. Sterling

wondered if that was because Owen had gotten to come or his own efforts to

please him and decided to believe it was the latter.

He put the wet towel into the wicker hamper in the corner of the room and

then turned, ready to kneel again.

“It's not that late, but it feels as if it's been a long day,” Owen said,

smothering a yawn with his hand. “One last task to take care of and then I

think we'll call it a night.”

One last task had to be dealing with his slipup earlier, and Sterling bit his

lip, worrying at it as he waited to be told what Owen had in mind.

“Stop that,” Owen said, making Sterling feel guilty for very little reason. It

was his lip, after all, but even if he'd been allowed to speak, he didn't think that

he would've pointed that fact out to Owen. “You spoke when you shouldn't

have because you wanted to be with me. That's flattering and the desire is

mutual, but it doesn't excuse you.” Owen studied him for a moment in silence.

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119

“You may sleep in the spare room in a bed or in my room on the floor. This isn't

a test or a way to prove anything to me. If you choose the spare room—”

Sterling shook his head firmly, his choice made before Owen had finished

speaking. He'd always choose being close to Owen over comfort, and there was

something that got to him about sleeping curled up by Owen's bed like the pet

he'd been called so many times that night.

“All right.” Owen gestured at the sink. “Brush your teeth and do whatever

else you need to, then come to bed.”

The floor in Owen's bedroom couldn't have been any harder than any

other floor, but as Sterling lay on it staring at the wall, it felt less comfortable

than anything he could remember. He couldn't lie on his stomach, not that he

would have anyway, because his abused nipples were so sore, and he couldn't

lie on his back because his ass was. On his side, a pressure point on his hip

was gradually becoming numb, but it was his best option, and he was

determined not to complain, even in his own head.

From the darkness came a sigh. “You're very restless, you know that?” The

bed creaked, and then the door of the built-in closet. Something soft and heavy

landed on Sterling a moment later—a summer-weight comforter, by the feel of

it. “Now go to sleep,” Owen said quietly, the exasperation in his voice mild

enough that Sterling allowed himself a grin before rolling himself up in the

comforter.

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Chapter Ten

Owen woke up with a vague sense that something wasn't right and an

insistent pain tightening around his head. A moment later the toilet flushed,

water ran in the sink, and Sterling came into the room, then looked surprised

to see him and gave what might have been an apologetic shrug of his

shoulders.

“You don't need permission to use the bathroom,” Owen reminded him

peevishly.

Sterling frowned and, looking worried, pointed at Owen and raised an

eyebrow.

“And you can stop with the charades and get into bed with me,” Owen told

him. “I'm not ready to get up, and I don't want to be alone.” This was a stress

headache, no doubt, considering the date, and what he wanted to do right then

was close his eyes and go back to sleep curled around Sterling's warmth and

hope that when he woke up again he'd feel better, or maybe that he'd find the

whole day had passed.

He didn't realistically think either of those things would happen, but it

was worth a shot.

Sterling slipped into bed and close to him. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

There was a warning shimmer in his field of vision, shifting prismatic

light, small, but it would gradually increase until he was virtually blind out of

one eye. “Migraine,” Owen admitted reluctantly. He hated the way that

something as trivial as this could render him helpless, even for just the space

of a few hours. “I get them from time to time. Once, maybe twice a year. It'll

pass.”

Thoughtfully, Sterling lowered his already quiet voice another notch. “Do

you have pills or something?”

He did, and if he'd been alone he wouldn't have taken one, finding it easier

to lie in bed than get up and find them. “Bathroom,” he said, limiting words.

“Imitrex.”

“I'll find it.” Sterling pressed a light kiss to Owen's shoulder and left the

room, the padding of his bare feet on the floor unusually loud to Owen's

sensitive ears. He was back an eternity later and helped Owen to sit up,

putting a pill in his mouth and holding a glass to his lips.

Owen swallowed some water and lay back down to a freshly turned pillow,

the case cool against his cheek. He closed his eyes and imagined the pill in his