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“Anything else you’re curious about?” Nathan asks.
“No.” Carter forces a tight smile. “I think I’m ready for bed.”
Nathan wakes up before Carter, barely having slept at all. He feels terrible that the first thing he does is carefully extract the dying flower from the boy’s hand and hides it. He hides the moose too. They agreed to be sir and slave right off the bat. It’s going to be on Nathan to maintain that. Carter needs him to be strong.
When he’s summoned the most solid version ofNathanhe can, he tugs the blankets off of Carter’s body and grabs one of his biceps. “Rise and shine, slave.”
Carter jerks awake, looking at Nathan without really focusing on him. He rubs at his face with his free hand and makes a soft, “Huh?” sound. It’s fucking adorable.
God, Nathan loves him…
No. Bad, Nathan. Bad boy. No loving. Not today. Love tomorrow.
“Time to wake up.” He lets go of Carter’s bicep and snaps his fingers. It makes Carter jump again, but this time when he looks up, his eyes are focused on Nathan. “You remember what today is?”
He sees Carter’s expression flicker - probably torn between answering as Carter or answering as slave.
Nathan helps him. “It’s your master’s birthday. Don’t tell me you forgot. That’d make me awfully sad.”
Carter’s eyes widen. “No, sir! I – I didn’t forget. Sorry. I was sleepy. But – but happy birthday!”
“You can do better than that, can’t you?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes.” Carter shifts on the bed until he’s kneeling, his hands clasped behind his back. He peers up through his eyelashes. It’s such a pretty sight, Nathan almost forgets they’re playing pretend. “Happy birthday, sir. How may I serve you?”
“Better.” Nathan cups the boy’s chin, running his thumb along his cheek. “Are you going to be my present?”
“If you wish, sir.”
Nathan grins, feeling a little bit naughty as he thinks of all the ways he could make this boy his present. “Maybe later. For now, go start the shower. You know how I like the water. Make sure a towel is ready.”
“Yes, sir.” Carter starts to move before pausing and looking at him again. “Um - would you like me in the shower with you, sir? Or kneeling outside?”
“You know, since it’s my birthday I’m going to let myself enjoy you a little longer than usual. You can wait for me in the shower. I’ll clean you myself today.”
Carter’sface turns red before he quickly ducks it and hurries off toward the bathroom. Nathan gives him a minute to do his tasks, grabbing his phone and shooting off a text to Benny to make sure everything is going well so far. Benny texts back withI sure as fuck hope so, it’s not even 7 a.m.Nathan sends him a GIF back of someone flipping him off.
There’s already some steam billowing in the bathroom when Nathan enters. He can see just a sliver of pretty pale skin where the glass isn’t fully fogged yet. A hip, from the look of the finger shaped bruises on the skin.
Leave it to Nathan to choose to start his fake birthday with the biggest tease of all - a naked, soapy Carter that he doesn’t have the right to fuck.Because he doesn’t, right?They’re alone. They’re not putting on a show. Even with the parts they’re playing, Carter didn’t consent to anything in private. Nathan has no right to touch him more than necessary - definitely no right to fuck him.
Carter gives him a shy smile when he enters the shower, moving to the side so Nathan has plenty of room. There’s a moment where Nathan feels like they’ve gone back in time. It feels like Carter should tease him about his dry skin shampoo and Nathan should call him little red and threaten to eat him all up.
Throat suddenly tight, chest heavy, Nathan jerks his head toward the door and orders, “Get out.”
Carter frowns at him, not moving. “You said-”
“I changed my mind.” Nathan grabs his bicep, squeezing hard enough to make Carter gasp. He immediately softens his touch - but he shouldn’t, just like he shouldn’t have Carter in here with him.Fuck. “Why are you arguing with me? Get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy nearly slips because he gets out so fast. Nathan watches through the crack in the curtain as he clearly fights with himself, not sure if he should dry off or kneel on the mat. Nathan should help him, but he doesn’t trust himself. He just turns his back and lets Carter figure out what to do while he grabs the soap.
Happy fucking birthday.
Starting off the morning by being scared awake, grumbled at, flirted with, told to climb into a nice warm shower, then forced out of it so he can kneel dripping wet and cold, makes Carter feel like he’s right back to before he found out the truth when sir was a hot and cold, unpredictable asshole. He doesn’t know if that was the man’s intention - since they agreed to keep Carter in the slave mindset from the beginning today - but it works. He feels very small and insignificant already, and he hasn’t even had his morning piss yet.
When the shower turns off, Carter quickly grabs the folded towel and lifts it like he’s presenting a gift, keeping his gaze lowered like a good little slave. It hurts when sir just takes the towel without a word or glance in his direction, but he reminds himself he shouldn’t be hurt - he doesn’t get to be hurt. He’s serving his purpose right now. That should make him happy. And even if it doesn’t, his happiness doesn’t matter.
