Seven tried to squeeze his knees together, testing the give. There was none. Something was holding his legs open. A spreader bar of some kind. He bit down on his lip to muffle the fearful sound clawing up his throat. Enzo ignored Seven’s mewling, wrapping that same soft material around his wrists, binding them to his knees, forcing him to stay how he wanted him.
Something skimmed along Seven’s inner thigh, then between his ass cheeks before disappearing. Once more, his brain tried to guess what it was. It wasn’t skin or metal. Leather maybe, like the cuffs? It was thin but hard, like a piece of bamboo or a cane. There was no way Enzo would start with a cane…right?
Oh, God. That would hurt.
“Are you shaking already?” Enzo marveled. “I’ve barely touched you.”
“That’s the problem,” Seven muttered under his breath.
He barely had time to acknowledge something slicing through the air before fire stole his breath, making him hiss at a pain too sharp to describe. Was that a…riding crop? He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.
“What was that, smart mouth?” Enzo asked. Seven clamped his lips shut with a whimper. “That’s what I thought.”
Enzo didn’t spank him again. Not yet. Instead, he seemed to revel in Seven’s torment, dragging the leather loop of the crop along Seven’s skin…between his legs, behind his balls, along his leaking cock.
“You’re already making such a mess all over our bed,” Enzo marveled, giving another disappointed tsk. “Gonna have to invest in rubber sheets if you keep leaking all over the place like this.”
Seven whined with embarrassment. He never thought he’d be into degradation, but when Enzo teased like this, he only grew harder…and wetter.
“Oh, don’t be shy,” Enzo said. “I know you can’t help it. Besides, you’re so beautiful like this. Just like I pictured. Like art.”
Seven blushed at the compliment. He preferred the taunting. The sweet stuff made him feel too raw, like an exposed nerve. His shoulders were already starting to ache from the awkward position, but he was ready for more, whatever that entailed.
“Since this is your very first time playing like this, let’s start with ten, hmm?”
Ten? Was he serious? Ten was nothing. Nico’s maintenance spankings were no less than twenty-five on a bad day. Did he think Seven couldn’t take twenty? Was he humoring him? Did he not want to do this with him?
“You think I can only take ten?” he blurted, immediately wanting to suck the words back in.
The sharp crack of the crop echoed, the sensation slicing through all his bravado, dragging a strangled cry from him. Enzo’s hand followed, soothing over his heated flesh. Seven hated how much he loved Enzo’s soft touches.
“Do you not trust me?” Enzo asked, his fingertips tracing over the welt the crop had left behind.
Him not trust Enzo? It was Enzo who didn’t think Seven was strong enough or brave enough or tough enough for…whatever it was he wanted of him.
“I-I let you tie me up. How can you ask me that?” Seven said, perspiration clinging to his skin like the pain the crop left behind.
“Because you keep questioning me. If you trust me, relax and let me give you what you’ve been begging for,” Enzo said. “Now, count.”
Count?
“T-Two,” he managed, voice a bit strangled.
“That was one, sweetheart,” Enzo said in that soft, mocking tone. “Are you already so gone that you can’t count?”
“You hit me b-before,” Seven said, head spinning, indignant.
Enzo’s soft chuckle was as sexy as it was infuriating. “That was a reminder.”
“That’s n-not fair,” Seven said through gritted teeth.
This time, Enzo’s laugh was borderline malevolent. “What on earth made you think this was about fairness, baby? In here, you belong to me. Remember? This is what you’ve been begging for. What did you call it? A reset? I’m trying to give you what you asked for. You’re the one who was mad I was only giving you ten. Consider the earlier one a gift.”
Seven squeezed his eyes shut behind the blindfold, concentrating on the softness below his cheek—the texture of the sheets, the faint scent of Enzo’s cologne lingering in the linen, grounding him—instead of the ache already growing in his limbs. “You’re just teasing me.”
He bit back a moan as Enzo’s hand closed around his cock, rubbing his finger around the wetness at the tip. “And you’re already dripping for me. What does that say about you, hmm?”
Seven couldn’t stop the desperate moan or the way he tried to fuck into Enzo’s tightened fist.
