After a few minutes, I realize he’s rocking me from side to side, and I close my eyes to ask the question I need to ask.
“Young-gi?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you want to check my bruises?”
Because I love you, because I’m the only one that loves you, I’m the only one that cares for you, because it’s what lovers do–
There are so many wrong answers that I’m not even sure what the right answer is, but I wait for it anyway. I hide against his shoulder, feeling small and nervous in a way I don’t think I ever have before.
“You’re strong, Tommy,” he murmurs, still petting my back. “Smart, fiercely independent. You don’t need me to take care ofyou. But you’ve trusted me to help you anyway, with corner time, with the soap, at the club last night, on the couch earlier today. Checking your bruises is the same. It’s the same as a spanking, the same as telling you that you can’t drink at the club or having Yosef bring you back here after you ran off. It’s not about controlling you, or pretending that the bruises aren’t from my own hand. It’s for your own good.”
My own good…It’s a new answer. He’s said it to me before, but I didn’t think about it in any other context besides correction. And maybe he’s right, maybe this is the same as everything else. It doesn’t need to be different just because it reminds me of my past. Young-gi isn’t using care against me. He’s just… giving it to me.
But all things have a price. Nothing is given for free.
“What do I have to do in return?” I ask, raspy and almost inaudible.
He stills, like he’s absorbing my question. I wait, barely breathing.
“You’ve got it backwards, Tommy,” he finally answers. “It’s not about what you have to do to earn my attention, it’s about what I need to do to earn your permission.”
And that’s the right answer. The one I didn’t know I was waiting for.
“Okay,” I sniff, then clear my throat. I pull myself together, blink my eyes dry. When I look up at him, I’ve got my game face on, bratty and annoyed. “Fine. Whatever. Look at them if you’re gonna throw a fit about it, but then we need to eat because I’m starving.”
And despite my sass and the way I’m twisting it so that it sounds like I’m doing him a favor, like he’s the one that’s gonna owe me instead of the other way around, he just smiles. A real smile. Not a big one, but really there. Amused, maybe even fond.So I roll my eyes and scoff, but eventually give him a grin in return.
“Good boy, Tommy,” he says, guiding me toward the counter.
When we get close to the cream, he turns me so my back is facing him, and I realize all at once that I’m about to let this man touch me. On my ass.
“Um…” I shake out a brash laugh, like I’m not even a little bit embarrassed. “I might get excited if you’re back there touching me, Young-gi. You sure you’re alright with that? Seems really gay of you.”
“Unless you’re safe wording,” he dares, his tone completely different now, sensual and sexy instead of somber, “push your pants down and let me see the marks I left on you. Let me see if you’re sore enough to remember all the tests I’ve passed.”
Goddamn.We haven’t even started and my dick just twitched. Heat curls in my belly at this sudden shift in the mood. It’s almost alarming that I can go from emotionally breaking down to horny on a dime, but I never claimed to be normal.
“That’s kinda fucked up,” I whisper, keeping my back to him, while my shaking hands go to the front of my borrowed shorts. I grip the elastic. “Do you get off on this kind of thing?”
“Out of the two of us, Tommy, I think we both know who gets off on this more.”
“Fucker.” He’s right.
“Push your pants down, and put your elbows on the counter,” he orders, leaning over me so he can put those words right into my ear. I shiver hard.
“Perverted freak,” I whisper, mostly to myself, when I do as I’m told. I do it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. Before I have a chance to second-guess it, I’m leaning over the counter, with the borrowed shorts taut around my thighs, right under my bare ass. And, of course, I immediately get really fucking turned on.
I let out a slow, hissing breath as he examines me without touching me. I peek over my shoulder and watch his eyes trace every centimeter of skin.
“Like what you see?” I ask crudely.
“I like that you’re letting me do this,” he answers, not really answering me at all.
“Get on with it,” I huff.
“Ah, here’s one,” he says softly, scooping out a dollop of bruise cream. “Right here.”
