Faster than my eye could follow, Vandal brought the stick down on the outside of Zero’s thigh. The contact made hardly any noise, and Zero’s mouth stayed clamped shut, but his chest pushed up and out with the effort of staying silent.
“Motherfucker,” Zero wheezed. He grimaced and drew a long breath.
“Would me fucking your mother make you write faster?”
“Asshole.”
“You’re the one who signed up for this, you little prick. Meet your word count every day or pay the price.” The stick came down again, cutting the air, tapping naked thigh flesh. Red welts were already rising.
Zero groaned a little louder this time, and Vandal scowled at him.
“Shut up or our guest is going to hear you.” He glanced over his shoulder as though I might be standing right behind him.
I froze in the shadows, heart pounding, sure he’d look up and see me standing right there on the stairs, watching them like a creep. It was bad enough I’d been caught trespassing in the first place—this put me firmly in Peeping Tom territory.
“Is that it, you fucking pervert? Do you want her to hear you moaning like a nasty little whore?”
Silently, I gasped, putting my hand over my mouth to muffle any inadvertent noise I might make and give myself away. I could feel my face burning with the heat of a billion embarrassed suns, but I wasn’t sure if it was secondhand embarrassment for Zero, or if it was because Vandal had dragged the thought of me into their…interlude.
“No.” Zero’s cheeks reddened. “I don’t want her to hear this.”
“Maybe I should go ask her if she wants to watch.”
I tensed again, ready to disappear back into the upstairs hallway if it looked like he might actually turn around. It sounded like Vandal was only messing with him, though, right?
If he did come up to ask me though, what would I say? Would I have the guts to take them up on that offer?
“I guess she’s going to figure us out sooner or later, if you’re planning to keep her here for months. Unless you plan on doing some long-term enforced celibacy, which I’m safewording right this minute, in case it’s crossed your vicious mind.”
“Knowing how loud you are, she’ll probably know within the week. Maybe even tonight.”
“She’s hot,” Zero replied, making me twelve kinds of embarrassed. He thought I was hot?
“If you like the girl-next-door type.”
“Did you see that nose ring? She’s kinky on the down low.”
Self-consciously, I touched the small hoop. Was it that obvious?
“I doubt it,” Vandal replied derisively.
Vandal assumed I was a goodie two-shoes?
“Man, if you weren’t such an asshole…”
“You like that I’m an asshole,” Vandal growled, moving closer to Zero and menacing him with his hard body even though Zero couldn’t see it. My stomach fluttered unexpectedly at the potential violence his stance implied. “Besides, I’m hardly going to offer a thief a place in our bed.”
Oh.
Oh my.
They were together together?
“Oh, come on. You can’t seriously think she was here to steal your book.”
“If I didn’t think there was a chance, she wouldn’t still be here.”
Zero still didn’t look convinced, but he shrugged. “I can’t believe you left your laptop unguarded outside after what happened with your sister.”
“You little fuck.”
Zero chuckled. “You’d better not punish me while you’re angry. Only bad doms do that.”
“I’m not a bad dom—I’m the worst dom.” Vandal swung his stick, using the whippy length to hit one of Zero’s outer thighs, then the other. It must have hurt, because the kneeling man lost his teasing grin. Instead, his lips parted, and his head fell back for a moment.
I flinched along with Zero as Vandal landed blow after blow, his every grimace and twitch like a jolt through my own body.
Okay, I was kinky, but not like this. I’d been spanked and given corner time and been fucked in the ass, but this was a whole other level of kink.
Despite the pain, though, Zero’s cock still strained, hard and wanting between muscular thighs. Did he love the violence more than he hated it? By the time Vandal’s stick stopped lashing out, Zero was writhing and panting, his every labored breath accompanied by a quiet grunt of pain, and my heart thundered in my ears.
Vandal walked around him, trailing the tip of the stick over unguarded flesh. A sheen of sweat made Zero glisten in the low light, his skin a series of tattoos and welts, his well-muscled, heaving chest trembling with anticipation and lust.
It was hard to imagine being in his place. Everything I’d ever done was so vanilla compared to this. I’d thought I was kinky, but apparently being ordered around and spanked was the shallow end of the pool around here.
What would it be like to feel that way—to feel so helpless…so controlled? The way Vandal stood over him, that look of lust and malice in his gaze, the haughty lift of his chin, the broad expanse of his shoulders as he towered over the kneeling man.
I should probably calm down, but instead I was willing Vandal to make him yelp again, or to touch him.
Vandal threw the stick aside and crouched in front of Zero. He grabbed his chin, staring Zero down even though he wouldn’t be able to see through his blindfold.
“What am I supposed to do with a submissive who likes pain?” Vandal asked, his chuckle low as he reached between Zero’s legs. I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but instead of making a sound of pleasure, Zero winced, hissing out a breath.
“What? You don’t like that kind of pain, bitch?”
“I like whatever you like, sir,” he replied, his voice strained and submissive.
There was a long pause, then Zero exhaled in a whoosh.
Smoothly, Vandal rose from his crouch, and pulled off the kneeling man’s blindfold. The tableau of him standing over Zero, gazing down at him with affection while Zero gazed up at him with adulation made me feel like the worst interloper, and also made me absurdly envious. What would it be like to have that kind of close attachment to another person—that kind of bond? To have someone be cruel and violent because it was what you enjoyed, and trusting them to stop before it all became too much? The kinky games I’d played with my ex-boyfriend paled in comparison.
Vandal ran his hand through Zero’s sweat-soaked hair, smoothing it back out of his eyes.
“When I give you a minimum word count for the day and you choose not to do it, how do you think that makes me feel?”
“Disappointed?” Zero asked, pressing his lips together.
“Disappointed,” Vandal confirmed.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry is just a word. It doesn’t mean anything. If you’re really sorry…?”
“…I need to show you.”
Without hesitation, Zero opened his mouth. Vandal unzipped his jeans and pushed his cock into Zero’s waiting mouth so fast it made me gasp. With his hands wrapped in Zero’s hair, he face-fucked him hard and rough, making the kneeling man choke and drool. My gaze kept drifting back to the gorgeous indentations on either side of Vandal’s muscular ass, and the flex of muscle in his arms and along his back.