“Mm.” Adrian had nothing more to say than that. Sterling’s thumbs worked out knots in his muscles he hadn’t realized had beenbotheringhim.
“Everyone makes the assumption that because I’m the man in charge, I’m the one who’s going to be the most darkly involved in the lifestyle—that for me, it’s whips and chains and ball gags or nothingatall.”
The constant, circular motion of Sterling’s hands guided Adrian’s troubled mind back into his body. As the oil worked into his skin and the fragrance filled his nostrils, he listened to the rhythm of his heart and remarked the rise and fall of his chest. They were small, simple pleasures, and Adrian had never thought to cherish thembefore.
Now he knewbetter.
“But I think what they don’t understand is that life is more nuanced than they give it credit for.” One of Sterling’s hands left Adrian’s shoulder, and the other gripped him firmly and tugged. Adrian followed Sterling’s lead and rolled over, settling on his stomach. Once he was comfortable, Sterling straddled his hips. Room-temperature oil pooled on the small of Adrian’s back, and Adrian had to stifle a moan into Sterling’s pillow. All of his joints relaxed, and the first of the tethers his mind had on his body started to comeundone.
Why was thissogood?
“The Shepherd is my vision, and it serves a community that I adore, but it’s as much for them as it is for me.” Sterling’s fingers dipped into the reservoir of oil, then traced along the dip of Adrian’s spine. All Adrian could do was lie still and take it. He groaned into the pillow, overcome by the care Sterling took of his body. No one had ever treated him like this before, and Adrian still couldn’t convince himself that what he felt was real. Something as simple as fingertips running up his spine shouldn’t have been able to disarm him like that, but there was no denying thattheyhad.
His mind pulled further away from his body, negativity overruled by genuineaffection.
“When I was younger and wilder, some of the more ludicrous claims might not have been far from the truth. There was a time in my life when I moved from lover to lover, when I mastered pain and forced every dewy-eyed submissive I came across to his knees.” Sterling’s fingers branched out, and Adrian trembled as he worked them against his muscles. The dull, throbbing pain Sterling expelled from his body ached, but the pain was pleasure—it was the promise that after Sterling was finished, Adrian would feel better than he ever had before. “But I’m older now. The Shepherd first opened seventeen years ago, I’m going to be turning forty next year, and the man I am now isn’t the man Iwasthen.”
“Mm.” Forty. Forty was a good number. Adrian’s brain fogged at the thought of it. Forty was the right age to settle down, to find a partner, and to raise a family. He could give that to Sterling, if that was what Sterlingwanted.
The anxious, negative part of Adrian’s mind that would have dismissed the thought as foolish was hushed. He didn’tmissit.
“Anyone can inflict pain, Adrian.” Sterling’s fingers rubbed the kinks from Adrian’s back, and all Adrian wanted to do was let Sterling touch him like this forever. “Anyone can tie a boy up, deny him, forbid him from acting, and harm him until he’s flying so high, he thinks he’ll never come down… but do you know what’s so much harderthanthat?”
“No.” Adrian’s shoulders slumped. The bed seemed to rise up to swallow him—or was it simply that his body was melting into it? He couldn’ttell. “What?”
“What’s so much harder is bringing a submissive into a state of subspace without punishment. The body is naturally inclined to protect itself from danger, and the mind is quick to let go when it needs to. There are Doms out there who will use that to their advantage, and who think that it’s okay to mistreat a boy because helikesit.”
“Mm.” Adrian wanted to turn his head to the side, but he couldn’t find the strength. With nothing more than scented massage oil and his fingers, Sterlingownedhim.
Adrian once controlled Sterling with pain. Now, Sterling controlled Adrian withpleasure.
“So to me, the progression was natural. If I’d already mastered pain, why not move on to pleasure? Why not dominate a man with such sensuous kindness and praise that he finds subspace without any painful external stimuli? To me,thatis the ultimate mark ofmastery.”
There had to be a contact drug in the massage oil that Sterling used, or a trick in the way he worked Adrian’s muscles that could turn a man to mush, because it was too good to be true. Adrian couldn’t move. Each shallow breath filled him, but each exhale made him question whether he’d be able to draw another breath. The relaxation seeped from his muscles through his bones. It pooled in Adrian’s stomach and coated the lining of his lungs. It rose up his throat and spread down intohisgut.
And when that feeling reached his cock, all Adrian could do was push himself meekly against the mattress and hope that the friction wasenough.
He’d never been so helpless before, not even when he was tied up and at the mercy of another man, and Sterling hadn’t done anything more than lay him on hisstomach.
“And now, here you are.” Sterling’s voice was hot against the back of Adrian’s ear. Adrian pushed down into the mattress, trying to sate the arousal Sterling’s proximity stirred in him. “Abrasive. Angry. Quick to lash out… and I’m going to ruin you. I’m going to tear down every board you’ve put up to barricade yourself from the rest of the world, and I’m going to do it without laying a hand on you. And when you’re bared and vulnerable, I’m going to show you what it means to trulysubmit.”
The pitched noise that rolled from Adrian’s tongue only to be swallowed by the pillows wasn’t voluntary. His hands found purchase, and he grasped the sheets in front of him until his knuckles protested and his body relaxed once more. Sterling’s hands worked over his shoulders, then down his sides. When he started to knead into Adrian’s hips, Adrian couldn’t help himselfanymore.
Hesobbed.
It wasn’t pain, or distress, or discomfort that brought him to do it. It wasn’t the fear of crumpling to the kind of man he’d spent his adult life dominating and destroying, either. It was because, for the first time since Gabriel had disappeared, Adrian waslettinggo.
There was no more guilt. There was no moredisappointment.
Under Sterling’s hands, he was worthy offorgiveness.
“You’re almost there, Adrian,” Sterling whispered. His fingers dipped into the shallow reservoir of oil on the small of Adrian’s back and rubbed it in circles along Adrian’s hips. “You’re so close. I can hear it—I can hear you letting go. You deserve this. You don’t have to suffer—not as long asI’mhere.”
Another sob racked Adrian’s chest, rattling his ribs and choking his throat. All this time he’d believed Sterling was weak, but the reality was anything but. Sterling was strong in all the ways that Adrianwasn’t.
And in all the ways Adrian couldneverbe.
The same hands that had worked his body so lovingly slid the pajama bottoms from Adrian’s hips, then brought what little was left of the massage oil down to rub into Adrian’s exposed cheeks. Adrian found the strength to push up against them for a brief moment before his body gave out, and he landed back on the mattress. His aching cock rubbed against the bedsheets, and he shifted his thighs in small ways to try to keep that feelingalive.
