The Foster Family (44 page)

Malcolm stepped away from him and turned him back so he was looking at me. He saw me. Acknowledged me with a serene little smile. But he’d slipped from the place where I was there, lying on the bed waiting for him, to a place in his own head I could not follow.

“He’s also mine. And when he needs this headspace, you are here to help me give it to him. Those times won’t be about you, no matter whose collar you wear. You have to be okay with him not being able to be with you sometimes. If you’ve never been in subspace, that’s hard to understand. And some subs can’t stand to see their Dom serve someone else. I have to know you’re okay with Charlie needing this. That you’ll trust him when he’s with you, and trust me when he’s not.”

I watched Charlie carefully. It wasn’t like he wasn’t aware of what was going on around him. He followed the conversation. He may have even looked a bit nervous about what Malcolm was doing, showing him to me like this, but I couldn’t let him down now. I had made a promise signing that piece of paper, and I was going to keep it.

“It’s fine,” I said, bringing my gaze back to Charlie. “I’m fine. But if you’re serious about not touching him, you’d better tie me down, because I’m going to want to hold on to him, whatever it is you’ve got planned.”

Malcolm nodded, like he had expected this to be an eventuality. “You heard him, Charlie. He’s your boy. Make it secure.”

Charlie’s touch as he secured my cuffs to ropes he pulled from under the bed was still gentle and strong and far more… tactile than needed. He ran his fingers along the insides of my arms as he stretched them out, and he kissed each palm once they were secure.

But he went back to Malcolm once it was done, and waited for whatever came next.

When he was ordered onto the bed on all fours above me, I think I knew before he did what that was. His complete subjugation. Malcolm wasn’t kidding about making it clear to me that as strong and powerful and in control as Charlie could appear, could
be
when he needed to, at the end of the day, he was a submissive man, and Malcolm was the Dom he’d chosen to take care of him.

I realized in very short order what he needed from his submission was vastly different from what I hoped for from mine. For him, it wasn’t about doing what Malcolm wanted. It was about
being
Malcolm’s. Completely.

And God, they were right to tie me down, because when he was begging for release and it was denied—again—I wanted to hold him. Soothe him through what I later learned was one of the most intense scenes Malcolm had ever led him through. I yanked at the ropes and cuffs with all my strength and got nowhere.

A bead of sweat dropped off the end of his nose, and he opened his eyes, locked gazes with me, and I wished I could touch him. Reassure him. But all I could do was look at him and talk to him and hope to unlock whatever it was that had him stuck so he couldn’t get to the place Malcolm was trying so hard to get him to.

“Don’t fight,” I whispered to him, relaxing my own arms and letting my hands go slack. “See? It’s all good.” I managed a smile and a wink. “I’m good. Finish this so I can take care of you.”

He grunted and strained as Malcolm pushed roughly into him and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Charlie,” I whispered.

Nothing. He was rigid, holding himself up with locked elbows and desperation as Malcolm pounded into him.

“Charlie,” I said louder.

He groaned and rocked, and one elbow gave. I braced for the impact of him falling on me, but he ground out a harsh “No!” and ruthlessly shoved himself back, as if to take whatever Malcolm had and get it over with.

“Charlie!” This time, I nearly shouted his name, and his eyes snapped open. “You can let go,” I told him. “You can do this.”

He shook his head, like he was fighting back from some faraway place to say something, but I shushed him and forced myself to calm, my breathing to even out, and my pulse to stop pounding in my head and drowning out my own thoughts. “This doesn’t scare me,” I told him. And as I said it, my breathing did even out and my muscles, which had gradually begun to strain against the bonds again, relaxed for real. Because it didn’t scare me. Not to see him give in. It was unsettling to see him fight it and know he was doing that because he worried about me, but it wasn’t scary to know how badly he wanted to give in.

“Let Malcolm have you now,” I said. “I’ll get you later. You’ll be okay. You see?” I lifted my hands and let them flop back onto the bed, loose and relaxed. “I’ve been resting up. I’ll be able to look after you.”

This time, his grunt edged out into a long groan and ended in a huff that could have been my name.

“Yeah, Charlie. I’m here. I’ll see you on the other side, babe.”

He whimpered then, and Malcolm’s pounding eased to something more like a deep and steady rhythm that made Charlie shiver, then shudder, and finally bleat out a tiny plea for his own release.

Malcolm only thrust into him more viciously again, and Charlie bowed his head until I could feel his breath on my chest, hot and shallow. I met Malcolm’s fierce glare over his back and knew what it was I had to do. I had to be more than okay with this. I had to give him more than acceptance at this show of what he thought of as a vulnerability.

I lifted my head as far as I could and spoke quietly to him, my eyes on Malcolm for approval. “Charlie,” I said, “he isn’t going to let you come if you don’t give in.”

Charlie made a sound in his throat, and I squirmed under him.

“Look at me, Charlie. I wanna come too, and if you don’t get to, I don’t get to, and look at me. Watching is driving me nuts. At least touch me. Please touch me.” I arched up under him, attempting to rub my cock on any part of him, but he growled and moved so suddenly I gasped, even though I had half expected it.

He slammed my hips back down with one hand and snarled. “Wait.”

I blinked at him, squirmed under his restraining hand, and he leaned harder, holding me down if not still. My skin burned against his, and when he peered at me, he was far away, but he saw me, knew me, and his look was stern.

“Wait,” he said again, and I nodded.

“Kiss him, Charlie.” Malcolm made the order soft and implacable. The kiss was immediate and unsteady as Charlie’s body swayed with the force of Malcolm’s thrusts, but it was deliciously hot and hungry. It took over thought, and I spilled all my need into it, moaning when Charlie’s tongue slipped into my mouth.

And then it was gone. Malcolm’s hand was in Charlie’s hair, pulling him away.

“Enough.” And he fucked then, hard and deep, and there was no other word for it, as he glared down at me and commanded me to watch because this was what my Charlie became when Malcolm had him. And at last, Charlie’s body language changed again, softened, melded into Malcolm’s and assumed the rhythm he fucked with, and I was forgotten. His world narrowed to that steady pounding and the hand in his hair and the one on his thigh guiding his movement. His throat stretched as Malcolm pulled his head back, and nothing on Earth could have torn my gaze from the sight of him finally giving in.

It was like a trigger. Malcolm growled out his name and stiffened, and it was obvious he’d reached his climax. “Now,” he said, voice filled with satisfaction, “you can come.”

Heat splashed over my cock and stomach as Charlie groaned and shuddered. He went so preternaturally still, neck strained, mouth open silently, that there was a surreal moment when he seemed to float above me. Malcolm eased his head down and smoothed hands over his skin, making soothing noises as Charlie gasped for air and collapsed.

“Oof!”

And dammit! I couldn’t hold him. I yanked ineffectually at my bonds and had to settle for twining my legs with Charlie’s and kissing his hair and his forehead because that was all I could reach. It didn’t matter that my erection was ignored or that I had to breathe in short, shallow gasps, as long as I had that contact, skin to skin, and I could hear his soft huffing.

Malcolm was a little unsteady himself as he got down and came around the side of the bed. He eased Charlie off me and settled him on his side between us, then pulled the comforter over everyone.

“You have to give him a little time. He’ll be spacey. It’ll take some time for him to come down.”

I nodded and watched him carefully and caressed his hairy calves and shins with my feet. He could have all the time in the world to come down from that. It had been intense to watch. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to experience it.

“That scares you,” Malcolm said softly, cupping one hand over my shoulder.

“No,” I lied.

He lifted one eyebrow and I sighed. “Maybe.”

“Any time you want that piece of paper back, all you have to do is ask.”

I shook my head. “No. It isn’t that. It’s….” I stared at Charlie’s closed lids, his evenly rising and falling chest, the pulse pounding in his throat. “I’ve been manhandled before. It isn’t that. I’ve been….” I sighed and blinked up at the ceiling. “I let him manhandle me and leave bruises because it was easier to let him than to tell him no.”

I didn’t have to tell him who “he” was.

“And convinced yourself that you liked it?”

I looked at him and smiled, a little lopsided as I tugged lightly at the bonds still holding me to the bed. “I do like it. I just hadn’t accepted the difference between what it was with him and what it should be.” I turned my attention to Charlie and squirmed close enough to plant a feathery kiss on his mouth. There was a faint response, a twitch of his lips, and a shuddery iteration of my name floated on the air in the small space between us.

“I’m here, Charlie,” I told him. “Take your time. When you come back and let me go, I’ll take very, very good care of you, I promise.”

Charlie smiled slightly and gave a small nod. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” I settled down as close to him as I could get and waited.

Malcolm smoothed a hand through my hair in an almost steady rhythm. The other was on the side of Charlie’s neck over his pulse point. “I don’t usually have to push him this hard,” he said after a while. Charlie’s breathing had evened out more, and he seemed to be asleep. “He hides the stress too well.”

“I guess my coming back has been a pretty big deal.”

Malcolm chuckled and tugged lightly on my hair, then resumed stroking. “Ya think?”

“I—”

“More than you coming back. When you left, I told him he had to get a job, and now you’ll want that job back. There are consequences to him not working, so he’s got to figure out what to do about that. You have this HIV drama, and then there was the art show. He’s been busy and tired, and I still need to work on getting out of my head long enough to see when it catches up with him.”

“You’ve got me, now,” I assured him. “He can have the job if he wants. I’ll find something else, and unlike him, I like being a house boy. I’m good at it. And I can keep an eye on him that way.”

“I can hear you, you know, brat,” Charlie muttered.

“Oh!”

He rolled himself on top of me again and smothered me. Not just his body weight squeezed the air out, but he covered my mouth with his, and I squirmed. He didn’t relent until I went limp and was seeing spots and couldn’t kiss him back because I literally couldn’t breathe. Then he levered himself up so I could choke in a breath as he gazed down at me.

“Normally, this is the part where I fuck you.” Still, that uncertainty haunted his eyes, like he feared I might think he was weak because he was spent and I wasn’t.

“You can barely hold yourself up,” I said, drawing attention to his shaking arms, straining already from this slight exertion. “After what you just did, I’m surprised you’re conscious. Untie me and I’ll go run the water hot. What you need is a hot shower and to be properly dried off and put to bed for a few hours.”

“What you need is—”

“To be allowed to take care of you. Please.”

“What? And leave you hanging?”

“What I want is to serve you. If you want that to be with my ass in the air, then that’s what I’ll do. Or give me a toy and watch me fuck myself. Whatever you want.”

“And you think what I want is to listen to you tell me what’s best for me?”

I clamped my mouth shut and grimaced as he rolled off me to flop onto his back on my other side. I couldn’t do or say anything to take away the uncertainty he felt about himself. It was his and I couldn’t make it go away. I could only love him the way he was.

After a minute, we both turned our heads to look at one another, and he sighed. “You just saw me at my weakest moment and now you want me to let you look after me like I can’t manage a shower on my own.”

“I just saw you be vulnerable in a way most people can’t be,” I said. “And now I want to prove to you that you deserve the very best care because you gave something to a man I love that he can’t get anywhere else. And he has the means to get pretty much whatever he wants. All I have is the chance to serve you. It’s how my submission works.”

I held my breath, hoping he understood. We might both be submissive, but we were not the same. He rolled to face me and cupped my cheek, kissed me tenderly, and sighed one more time.

“I don’t think I can stand long in the shower,” he confessed at last.

“Then just long enough to rinse off most of the sweat, and I’ll run you a bath.”

“What are you? My bath bunny?”

I tried hard not to giggle at him as I asked if he had ears and a tail for me to wear. I wasn’t proud.

“Don’t tempt me,” he snarled.

I bit my lip and chuckled at him. “Let me go start the shower, then.”

“And you’ll join me?”

I lowered my lashes and smiled. “If you wish.”

He kissed me more deeply at that, and it lifted arousal through me in a lazy, unhurried sort of tide that I could deal with. Finally, he unbuckled the cuffs, and Malcolm kneaded my shoulders a moment before I went to the bathroom to get the shower hot.

They both joined me, and Malcolm supervised as I cared for Charlie’s stiff muscles and lethargic momentum. We ran a bath, and I was thankful they already had a tub more than big enough for their two lanky frames. I was small enough not to take up much room between them, or be hard to manipulate into a position where Charlie could finger me while Malcolm stroked, and the lazy tide in my groin tsunamied out of control until I had come in their laps.