Just Here for the Pain Read online

  “Was this the right level? I was wondering at the end if it wasn’t too much.”

  Sid closed his eyes. Getting beaten, fucked, and called names wasn’t embarrassing. This was. “We don’t need to talk about it,” he grumbled, stretching his aching legs. Asher broke apart his shell, so where was Sid to hide now?

  He could practically hear Asher’s frown. “What do you mean? I need some feedback. It’s not like I’m a mind reader,” Asher said, cutting through the tape on Sid’s chest next.

  Once the tape on his chest was off, Sid rolled over to his stomach to hide his face, still startled by the gentle kiss. He presented his bound arms, tingling all over from the strain in his muscles. But there was no denying the ache was pleasure. He hadn’t felt such release in years.

  “It… Yeah, it was the right level. Did you enjoy it?” Pushing the topic off himself could be the answer to the tightness in Sid’s throat.

  Asher laughed and briefly touched Sid’s ass before freeing his hands. He rolled his palms over Sid’s strained shoulders, about to deliver a massage. “It was really good. I kind of just upped what I usually do.”

  “What?” Sid backed off in confusion, but he was a doll strung too tightly, unable to control his achy limbs. He wanted out. Out of the bed and away from the caresses, but Asher wouldn’t have it and took him right back into his arms, into the warmth, and the cloud of his delicious scent. Rubbing his nose against the back of Sid’s head, Asher kissed his scalp.

  “I mean…you know, I can be a kinky guy. Like to experiment when the person’s right.”

  Asher was putting a spoon into Sid’s brain and stirring to make things even more mangled. The tenderness unnerved Sid more though. Tenderness wasn’t something they’d agreed on.

  “You never suggested anything like that.” He lay there stiffly, stretching his arms for good measure.

  Asher grinned and pressed a soft kiss to Sid’s cheek while he ran his hands down Sid’s arms, which still had red marks from the tape, and rubbed his fingers against the flesh. “You never wanted to try me.”

  “I…I’m gonna shower.” Sid couldn’t believe he’d actually done this. Such a bad idea.

  “You sure? I could give you a rub before we shower. Those marks look pretty… intrusive,” Asher said, turning Sid’s wrist in his hand.

  “N-no, I’m fine. I kinda need space now.” Sid pulled away despite his muscles screaming for him to lie the fuck down. He couldn’t think straight when Asher watched him with that lovey-dovey expression. He’d done nothing to deserve it.

  Behind him, Asher asked, “But what about aftercare?”

  Sid forced his legs to move despite them feeling like bundles of sticks tied together with flimsy rope, ready to break under him any moment. “I don’t do aftercare,” he said quickly and fled to the bathroom.

  Breathing was becoming harder by the second, and he leaned on the sink because everything ached no matter how light his soul felt. He looked into the mirror to witness the carnage of his mohawk, his mess of a face, reddened eyes, and bruises all over.

  “Holy fucking shit,” he whispered to his reflection.

  Chapter 4

  The sound of running water made Asher’s imagination work like a brand new sports car. With his eyes drawn to the locked bathroom door, he felt phantom droplets trail down his body and sink into his clothes as he watched Sid’s pale flesh redden from the heat. It was as if he were there with him, standing right behind Sid to watch him tremble, and smell the clean scent of his flesh.

  In reality, Asher was tense, still overheated under a fresh change of clothes, but his mind reached out to Sid, caressing each pronounced bone in his gorgeous, if underfed, body. He wanted to kiss and pet each fragment of Sid while watching him struggle against the caresses, spread-eagled on the bed, with leather and tape keeping him in place for Asher’s pleasure.

  How long has it been since Sid had left him here? It felt like hours, but couldn’t be that, because the lazy haze of afterglow still lingered in Asher’s muscles, reminding him that he hadn’t dreamed up any of what happened. Sid’s permission to touch was as real as the cash in Asher’s wallet, and hadn’t it tasted so much better than any of the stolen moments of conversation ever had?

  The click of the bathroom door opening made Asher’s heart jump, but when Sid walked out in all his naked glory, he didn’t even look Asher’s way. With his eyes on the floor, Sid went straight for his pile of clothes. He was beautifully disheveled, with the red hair that usually formed a tall mohawk now hanging in damp streaks, and bruises forming all over his pale flesh like physical reminders of Asher’s touch.

  He’d always enjoyed seeing them on his partners, but on Sid the spots of darkened skin awoke a longing to see them fade only to add more in their place.

  “So, yeah you can drive me back to the motel. Or I could get a cab,” Sid said as if he were fast forwarding through his own words, but the bruises on his ass and thighs were impossible to cover or distract from. Asher had left his mark, and Sid had let him.

  He’d let him do it. No, he’d wanted Asher to do this. All but asked for it, really. He’d used impersonal forms of ‘I like to be…’, and ‘I enjoy…’, but what he’d really meant when telling Asher about it, was that he wanted Asher to do these things to him.

  For the first time in the years since they met, he was welcome in Sid’s life. What Asher hadn’t managed to achieve with persistence, gifts, or even by lifting Sid’s band out of obscurity by using his contacts in the music industry and the Q-Detective, he had been offered because he could give Sid the kind of fucking he wanted.

  The kind of fucking Asher had dreamed of every time Sid had spat on his pride.

  Asher had only just come, but the moment his mind returned to what happened just minutes ago—Sid’s ass covered with stripes of red flush, his eyes unfocused and begging, limbs struggling against restraints Asher put on them—his cock stiffened slightly, already eager for another round. For those short minutes Sid had truly been Asher’s, twisting in pleasure and pain in reaction to Asher’s cruelty.

  And he loved it.

  Never one to say no to sex, Asher considered himself fairly versatile. He’d done it all—topping and bottoming, gentle and rough, but he’d always enjoyed grabbing, holding down, and whispering obscene things while his dick sank into a hot, willing body. He’d just never framed it quite like this. Never quite like he had tonight with Sid. His kinky encounters had been fairly spontaneous, usually with partners he’d met in person. There were rare instances where he enacted hot scenes with guys he’d met online and who wanted something more intense, but he never shared any kind of emotional connection with them. What happened between Asher and Sid was as hot as it was confusing. The situation pulled a ruthless brute out of him, but that brute had been there all along, waiting for permission to crawl into the light and spread Sid’s legs.

  As much as Asher still needed to learn about techniques and accessories if he wanted to be the answer to Sid’s fantasies of pain and degradation, that wild beast had already been inside him, waiting for its moment all along. Waiting for Sid.

  The Sid he was now seeing, the one hastily putting clothes back on, was so different from the cynical, standoffish persona Sid usually radiated, and it was Asher who’d broken him down into this twitchy mess, crushing the shell that had always seemed too thick to penetrate. If only Sid had let Asher soothe him with some aftercare, maybe he wouldn’t be so shivery now.

  But no matter how wrong that was, Asher still enjoyed being the cause of Sid’s goose bumps and shaking fingers.

  He stood and approached Sid from the back, feeling a twitch in his jeans when he noticed Sid’s nape flushing. “Are you sure? Everything’s fine?” he asked, rubbing the bare flesh with his palm and twisting his fingers in the long chain that was a permanent fixture on Sid.

  Sid swatted the hand as if it were an annoying fly, but stilled the moment Asher grabbed his wrist. “Sure, sure, it’s totally fine. I just
need you to call the cab, ‘cause my phone’s been dead since I dropped it. It’s your fault really, ‘cause you creeped up on me.”

  Asher smirked, rubbing the veins on Sid’s wrist gently. “I’ll drive you.”

  Sid made a long exhale, as if he needed to force the air out. “Cool.”

  “Yes. Cool,” Asher said and leaned down to smell Sid’s neck, which was now soaked with the generic citrussy scent of the hotel shampoo, but beyond that Asher could still sense the real Sid. He grabbed one of the two hairbands off the bedside table and let go of Sid’s wrist, to gently gather the damp hair into a ponytail. Without the spikes extending high above Sid’s head, he was no longer a cocky rooster, and he seemed smaller too. Cuter.

  “What’s this key pendant? You always wear it.” Asher hoped a bit of small talk could ease Sid’s nerves.

  “It’s just a key on a chain, okay? Why do you have to be so nosey? Does everything have to mean something?”

  The outburst had Asher taken aback, so he rolled his eyes and decided to stay silent for a while if Sid was this touchy. Sid kept his mouth shut but allowed Asher to tie his hair back. Was that a sign he’d be fine with other gestures of tenderness too? Asher needed to test the waters slowly, because his prize seemed unusually skittish.

  Still, Asher yearned to massage the tension out of those angular, tattooed shoulders, and take his time putting Sid back together after making him crumble. He wanted to unknot the obvious tension right away, but Sid weaseled his way out of Asher’s hands and quickly gathered a few more of his things without looking up.

  Asher sighed, but he wouldn’t be discouraged. There was no reason to get greedy now. He was in this for the long run.

  Getting back to Sid’s motel took half an hour of Asher trying to make conversation and Sid replying with as few words as possible. But not in his usual way either. Usually, Sid was ready to put Asher down, tell him to fuck off, go on nasty tangents, or challenge Asher with his gaze. Since he’d disappeared in the bathroom, Sid hadn’t made eye contact once, leaving Asher itching to grab his jaw and force the connection.

  Would Sid have liked that?

  Asher wouldn’t get to find out, because before he even stopped the car, Sid was already unbuckling his seatbelt and reaching for the door. Everything Sid did now made Asher think back to the scene, and the seatbelt was no exception. Were Sid’s hands tied, the straps holding him in the seat could have been considered part of bondage.

  Without thinking, Asher grabbed the angular wrist and held him in place.

  Sid took a deep breath, but then barked a “What?” that sounded forcefully injected with aggression.

  A spark of electricity went all the way to Asher’s balls, and he pulled Sid closer, close enough for a kiss. He didn’t want this to be over yet. “Let me buy you a beer. What do you say?”

  Asher half-expected the kind of snappy rejection he’d gotten used to over the years, but this time no words came out of Sid’s mouth for a handful of tense moments. Asher was dying to eviscerate Sid’s brain and find out what was actually going on in that shaved skull.

  Sid opened his mouth but still said nothing.

  In Asher’s memory, Sid had always been the picture of confidence, so seeing him so out of his depth was something unexpected, yet attractive in its own right. For once, Asher had the tools to make Sid yield.

  “Come on, we’re both thirsty.”

  Sid barked out a nervous laugh that had his teeth clattering. “Is that an innuendo?”

  Asher’s heart thumped, and he moved those two inches forward, pressing his lips to Sid’s.

  “You tell me.”

  Half a whimper left Sid’s mouth, and no slap came Asher’s way. Good. This was good.

  “Let’s get that beer,” Sid muttered as he pulled away.

  Before this night was over, Asher would make Sid look into his eyes.

  They made their way into the same bar they’d met at earlier, and Asher briefly left Sid in the booth before returning with their drinks. He was lucky this place sold Sid’s favorite beer too.

  Would Sid notice Asher knew his preferred drink? If he did, he didn’t mention it.

  Sid downed half the bottle in one go as soon as he got his hand on it. Asher had never imagined Sid could be this adorable when nervous.

  There was no way around it. If Sid wouldn’t start the topic that hung between them like spider on a cobweb which Sid pretended wasn’t there, Asher would have to get rid of it for him.

  “So, how did you like it? Was there anything you didn’t enjoy? I was improvising based on the few things I managed to get out of you on the way.”

  Ha. And there it was. Sid’s eyes snapped up to meet Asher’s.

  “It was all…unexpected,” he choked out in the end. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

  His word choice suggested someone else had done those things to Sid before Asher, and even though that should have been obvious, jealousy stabbed Asher under the ribs. Still, he kept himself all casual and took several gulps of his own drink. It wasn’t that tasty, but places like this one didn’t carry craft beers, so that was as good as it would get.

  “But you liked it.”

  Sid nodded, even though the discomfort over having to admit it was so obvious in his body language—the slouched yet tense shoulders, or the way he squeezed the bottle until his knuckles went white. “It was intense. What I wanted. Hot. The things that came out of your mouth…” He drank more beer and shook his head in a way that sent Asher’s ego to the stars.

  Swallowing a gulp of air, Asher moved closer to Sid and put his arm behind his back, making sure their skin touched. His mouth went slightly dry when he imagined Sid putting down the beer and crawling under the table with his eyes pinned to Asher’s. He’d have opened Asher’s pants and teased him for hours, until Asher was so turned on he’d force his dick down Sid’s throat, pouring his cum straight to his stomach. For once, he wouldn’t be the one begging.

  “What did you like most about what I said?”

  Asher didn’t exactly enjoy Sid’s discomfort outside of a sexual setting, but he welcomed it regardless, since it meant that he was finally getting somewhere behind the facade. Somewhere he hadn’t managed to get for years.

  “When you said I would never leave the room,” Sid whispered, clenching his fingers on his bottle. “I keep replaying it in my head. I liked that it scared me.”

  “So you are excited when you’re scared? What about nasty things?” Asher asked. Seeing no objection to the touch to Sid’s back, he put down his beer and rested his other hand on Sid’s knee. There was something so illicit about finally being allowed to touch him, and in the half-empty bar of a dingy motel, on a seat upholstered with a pattern that had been fashionable thirty years back, it seemed even more forbidden.

  Sid nodded, even though reluctantly. It felt like staring at a blank page that needed to be filled with words, but bit by bit, Asher would extract what he needed.

  “Scary is good. Must be why I liked the blindfold so much. Wasn’t expecting it. And… yeah, all those put-downs were hot.” Sid Maron. Blushing.

  Asher had no idea such things existed on the face of the earth.

  Would Sid be up for a quickie to finalize the night? Asher would be, because seeing Sid so pliant was the biggest turn-on of his life.

  “I liked how you reacted,” Asher said, though it wasn’t the entire truth. What he’d enjoyed the most was having Sid helpless, completely at his mercy, but he was intelligent enough to know saying so wouldn’t win him any favors.

  Sid had a few more gulps of beer until there was barely any left at the bottom of the bottle. “I guess I lost it a bit.”

  Asher’s heart thumped, and he squeezed Sid’s bony knee. “Isn’t that a good thing? You could relax.” Only now, when he had the comparison, did Asher understand how high-strung Sid usually was. How much he’d needed an excuse to stop thinking too much and just feel.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting such int
ense bondage either. I had no way out.” He lowered his voice even more, but his eyes shone in the flushed face. “The gag, the blindfold, the tape…it hit the right spot.”

  Asher’s mouth quirked. “Am I hearing right? You’re complimenting me?”

  Sid groaned and rolled his eyes. “You made it fucking hot. Happy?”

  Asher grabbed his beer and clinked it against Sid’s before taking a sip. Sweetened by victory, even the mediocre beverage tasted good. “I’m not complaining. And, since you’ve seen my trunk you know I have way more up my sleeve.” He would learn, too. He’d research whatever Sid wanted to do and give it to him.

  Sid slouched, as if trying to hide inside of his own skin. “I’ve kinda wanted to prove to you this wasn’t your thing, but I don’t know anymore. Maybe it is. Who am I to judge, right? So…I mean, it can be really hard to find someone for this on tour. Or when you’re even slightly more of a public person. You remember that shit with my old band, Crash Landing. They dropped me because they didn’t want to deal with the potential fallout of me being out.”

  Asher’s mouth twisted, and he moved his arm from behind Sid’s back to his shoulders. Something deep inside him twisted into a tangle of poisonous snakes. “I didn’t know that was why you guys parted ways.”

  Sid shrugged. “I didn’t exactly advertise it. You weren’t around at that time, but I was seeing a guy who wanted me to wear his collar and all that shit, and I bragged about it to my bandmates. I didn’t see it coming.”

  Asher wasn’t sure if hearing of a guy Sid used to be so serious about made him angry or hopeful for the future. “Those losers… And look where they are now. I’ve not heard from them in a while. I bet they’re sorry they ditched you,” he said, with a kiss to Sid’s neck.

  The tiny smile on Sid’s lips was all Asher could ever dream of. “I wanna see them one day crawling back to me to ask if they could be our opening act. They pushed me right back to the closet for years. I hated the way you outed Dusk and Lolly, I still think it was a shit move, but it’s turned out well all in all. The world didn’t collapse, and Crash Landing can choke on their words.”