Work Text:
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
(First Lord, Act 4, Scene 3)
Bison sat on Kant’s bed, and Kant stood in front of him. He handed over the notebook, then clasped his hands behind his back—and tried not to let the heat creeping up his body show on his face.
They hadn’t talked about it much during the five years. Bison had made oblique references—are you doing your homework?—and Kant had assured him he hadn’t forgotten. But Kant had sensed Bison’s reluctance to discussing it openly. It had been difficult enough in the prison—touching each other furtive and fast and always worried about getting caught. Nothing in Bison’s prison life had been private, not even the stolen moments of pleasure.
This, the notebook, was just for them. So it had remained a sacred topic between them, to be hinted at and postponed until they could properly address it.
Now, they could.
And Kant was terrified. Because he had done his homework—but he didn’t know if Bison would be pleased with the results. He had taken notes, as requested, but he had also marked each task with symbols as a shorthand. So he could return to tasks he particularly liked.
Bison flipped through the book, glancing at some pages and reading deeper on others, before selecting a specific assignment and holding the page out for Kant’s inspection.
“What’s this mean?”
Kant leaned down, savoring the smell of Bison—warm, clean, unadorned—and noted the red heart he had inked into the margin of the page. He shrugged. “That’s—you know, the obvious.”
Bison quirked an eyebrow. “You like wearing my necklace? Isn’t it a bit tight on you?”
Kant almost said, that’s the point. But the point was also—“I liked the reminder of you.”
Bison reached behind his own neck and undid the clasp. “Come here.” He patted the bed next to him. Kant sat and wrapped his arms around Bison’s waist, grateful for the reprieve in the interview-like atmosphere. He enjoyed Bison’s control—he wanted this scenario—but it had also been five awful years of not touching his boyfriend whenever he wanted.
Bison clasped the necklace for him and then thumbed the beads with a fond smile. “Do you want to keep it?”
Kant bit his lip to keep the rushing tide of want from bursting out of his mouth in an embarrassing noise. The necklace sat high and tight and correct on his neck. The charm moved with every swallow and vibrated gently against his skin when he hummed. The beads pinched at his skin, caught at the fine hair at the back of his neck, and every prickle of pain reminded him of Bison, Bison, Bison.
After the first prompt suggesting it, he had taken to wearing the necklace daily—except when he went to the prison. It had felt like a taunt to display Bison’s gift in front of him. Judging by the possessive gleam in his lover’s eyes, maybe it would have had a better effect than he’d thought.
“It’s your gift,” he said, finally. “I got it for you.”
Bison looked up into his face, warmth suffusing every line of his expression. “You’re my gift, P’Kant. I’m grateful every day that you waited for me.”
He kissed Kant for a moment, mouth gentle and undemanding, and when he drew back, his expression was grave. “You know we don’t have to do this—” he tapped the black notebook cover with a finger. “Any of it.”
Kant knew. It had been a few days already since Bison’s release and that final, terrifying confrontation with his mother. They had spent most of those few days at home, cuddling and talking and having nice, normal sex. Kant, too, could easily live with a life full of nice, normal sex with Bison. But, if there was a chance for more…
He folded Bison’s hands around the notebook and shook his head. “I’m greedy, love.” He pressed a kiss to Bison’s temple. “I want all of it. Anything you’ll give me.” When Bison glanced away, unease prickled up Kant’s spine. “Unless…” he waited until Bison looked up again, and searched his expression for the truth. “You don’t want this anymore?”
“I just—it’s hard to ask you for it. After you’ve already given me so much.”
Kant thought for a moment—they had already talked for hours about Kant waiting and Bison’s guilt and whether it was fair. Bison was obsessed with the idea of justice, maybe because his own life had revolved around the shade of it—killing terrible people outside of the law’s purview—but held none for him. Kant knew simple protests were pointless, just rehashing the same overtrodden arguments.
He stood. Folded his hands behind his back again, and nodded at the notebook. “Why don’t we go through it, at least? It would be a shame to just toss it, after I did all of that for you.”
Bison winced. His fingers tightened visibly around the notebook and his shoulders hunched. It was cruel of Kant, to play on Bison’s guilt like that—but he knew the push would work.
“You’re right.” Bison nodded. “Let’s not waste it.”
Kant relaxed into a full breath as Bison opened the book again and began to flick through the pages. “Edging,” he murmured aloud, as he tallied red hearts. “Humiliation—” he glanced up. “You liked wearing the toy in public?”
Kant shifted on his feet, remembering the feel of the plug, how it had pinched and pressed, reminding him of Bison every moment while he worked, while he shopped, while he—
“Yes,” he said, voice too ragged for the moment, for the fact that no one had touched him and nothing had happened. Yet.
Bison smiled for the first time. “Did you wear it to the prison?”
“No!” When Bison just quirked an eyebrow he said, “They do security screenings.”
“Mmm,” Bison mused, dropping his gaze back to the notebook. “That could have been fun, though.”
Fun for who?
Bison flipped to another page, another task. “What does the black heart mean?”
Kant bit his bottom lip and hesitated. Bison glanced up—and then narrowed his eyes, already scenting blood. Better to get it over with. “It means I didn’t—I don’t think I liked it.”
Bison flipped through the book again, quick, fingers ruffling the pages. Kant knew the pattern he would find. His mouth was dry, his tongue tacky as he tried to formulate the explanation before Bison got there.
“It’s all the ones with…” Bison looked up again, eyes dark. Was he disappointed? Kant bit his lip, harder this time. “With pain.”
“Yeah.”
Bison’s shoulders slumped. “Were you upset, when I tried it? I mean, I know before the island, but after, with the clamps—”
Kant reached out blindly, stopping the words with a hand on Bison’s mouth. “No. No, Bison, I just—I didn’t like it alone.”
Bison’s brow creased into a frown and Kant knew, he knew Bison was going to make him say it aloud and he knew he had to, but still. Fuck, how did anyone talk about this stuff?
“I think maybe…” Oh, fuck it. “Maybe I only like it when you’re there? When you’re doing it?” His voice went high at the end, and heat flushed up his neck.
Bison pressed a smile out of his plush lips. “How do you know that?”
Kant resisted the urge to cover his face by clamping his hands down in their hold behind his back again. His ears burned, but he forced himself to talk. “Because I could get through it if I—imagined you. Your hands. Your voice. But as soon as the fantasy dissolved, when I remembered it was just me in the room—I hated it.”
It went all the way back to their early days, before Kant had even realized what he wanted—that time in the tattoo chair, after Bison left him wanting and Kant had pinched his own body, searching futilely for some echo of Bison’s gift for pain.
“So you didn’t finish any of these?” Bison tapped the first entry with a black heart.
Kant knew the command without looking: it involved nipple clamps and a rope tied around his wrist so that he pulled on the clamps while jerking himself off. It had hurt like a bitch, without Bison’s dark eyes to settle him and promise him future pleasure. It had taken him over an hour to finish, after switching to his left hand and gasping Bison’s name and telling himself, Bison wants it. He wants me to enjoy this.
It had been difficult. But he had come.
Now, he looked away from his boyfriend, who was so disappointed, so frustrated to have wasted so much time waiting for this moment, for Kant, when Kant was useless and weak.
“It took a while,” he admitted.
“But you finished?”
When he looked up again, Bison’s eyebrows were raised in appraisal.
“Yes?”
“I said you didn’t have to finish anything you didn’t like. Just try.”
“But—you wanted me to do it.”
“The point of this was to find out what you like. Not to force yourself into—”
“I like—” Kant’s voice dropped to a whisper. He looked away, sweat breaking out along his temples as he ground his jaw together. “I like pleasing you.”
Bison stood up. Cupped his cheek with one hand, then tugged on his chin and waited until Kant dared to glance up and meet his sparkling black gaze. “So you hate it. But you’ll do it for me anyway? Even if I’m not there?”
“I just like how much you like it.”
Bison licked his lips, eyes gleaming with the fever-bright pitch of a predator. “That’s—kind of better.”
“Hmm?” Kant watched his soft pink tongue and forgot how to speak.
“You don’t like the physical feeling. But you like the feeling of submitting despite that?” Bison rephrased it, double-checking, and Kant just wanted to be done with this, it was so horrifying. But he also loved how his chest fluttered with something nervous and sharp at the delight in Bison’s eyes.
“I guess? Especially when you’re here to—see it.”
Bison’s smile finally relaxed into something warm. “To take care of you.”
“Yeah.” Kant’s breathing eased. He met Bison’s gaze again, despite his nerves. “Yeah, I want that.”
“Perfect.” Bison smoothed a thumb across his cheek and cupped his face again. “You’re so perfect.” He leaned in and kissed Kant, biting down on his bottom lip until Kant tasted blood. And moaned. “Don’t worry, Phi, I’ll be here from now on.”
Kant looked into those cruel eyes and fell and fell and fell.
“We can go through the rest later, okay?” Bison said as he set the notebook aside. “There’s something I want to try. If you’ll let me?” He looked up at Kant through his lashes, hopeful expression too cherubic to be reassuring. Kant wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and nodded—because what else could he do, when Bison smiled like that?
Bison groped around on his side of the bed for a moment and then held up a shopping bag, which—it was Kant’s apartment, how had that gotten there without him noticing? And when had Bison had time to shop in the few days since he’d been out of prison?
The questions died on Kant’s lips as Bison stood up and pulled a long, thin, black object out of the box that had been in the bag.
“What do you think?” Bison asked, tone innocent, expression unreadable.
Kant eyed the crop and swallowed hard. Nerves surged in his stomach at the sight of the implacable weight, the way it sang through the air as Bison idly twirled it. The heavy thud as it smacked into his palm. He tried to imagine how it might feel, jumping through the air to his skin like a magnet.
“Where?”
Bison dragged his gaze down Kant’s body, lingering at his crotch until Kant shifted, until his stomach clenched. “Back,” he said, finally. “Maybe ass.”
“How many?”
Bison cocked his head. “Why don’t you decide?”
Kant tore his gaze up to meet Bison’s cruel eyes. “But—”
“Since you don’t enjoy it. You can tell me when you’re done.”
“What if I’m done now?” Kant whispered.
“Hmm.” Bison tapped the crop against his perfect pink mouth. “That would be a shame, don’t you think? I went through all this effort to buy it.” He paused to lick his lips, tongue flicking out to savor the words. “And I think you’d look pretty. With the marks. It’d be a shame, but if you really don’t want to…”
Faint disappointment in Bison’s delicate pout sent Kant’s pulse spiking, high and thready against his throat.
“I can—” He cut the words off as Bison grinned, feral and mean. As his stomach swooped out beneath him, as his dick tightened, strained against the way Bison played him like an easy mark.
Bison was already playing the game.
Bison was always already playing the game. Despite his protests about asking too much, about demanding things that Kant didn’t want to give—he breathed it, lived it without thinking. He wanted this from Kant.
And Kant couldn’t help it—he wanted to please. He needed to satisfy Bison’s craving. It was cruel what Bison did—forcing Kant to ask for what he disliked. But Bison enjoyed that dissonance and humiliation more than any amount of pain.
And Kant wanted to please Bison.
“Okay,” Kant said, and lowered his eyes. “I can decide.”
Bison tugged him close for a sweet kiss. “You’ll look so pretty,” he promised when they parted, ”with my marks on you.”
It began with Kant naked, save for Bison’s necklace, and braced against the wall. Bison stroked both hands down his back and ass and legs, massaging and molding Kant’s flesh. He pressed close, still fully clothed—which was doing strange things to Kant’s stomach—and brushed delicate fingers through his hair.
“Pretty P’Kant,” Bison mused, hands always moving, breath hot against Kant’s prickling skin. Nerves buzzed in Kant’s stomach, fizzing and fluttery, not quite pleasant—but not unpleasant either.
The hand caressing his scalp yanked tight on a fistful of hair. Bison pulled back and down and Kant’s neck strained to accommodate until his upper body ached in a backward crunch.
“Does it feel good, Phi?”
Kant opened his mouth, about to reassure him—and then he remembered the low, sultry tone of Bison’s voice when he’d said, you’re so perfect.
“Hurts.”
“You want to stop? You have a word.” Bison tightened his grip as he spoke until Kant gasped with it. His other hand trailed down Kant’s spine, dipped dangerously lower until Kant rocked back into his hand.
“Nnn-no.”
Soft lips against his shoulder, a perfect contrast to the fingers now seeking entrance to his body with shallow thrusts. To the hand still in his hair, tight and demanding. “Bear with it, baby. You’re so good for me.”
Kant shuddered.
Bison’s teeth sank into the meat of his shoulder without warning and Kant keened and shook and locked down every muscle in his body to keep from jumping away from it.
It hurt. Throbbed and ached and Bison kept biting, kept the pressure hard until Kant whimpered and swallowed saliva and opened his mouth to say penguin already he was so—
Bison pulled his hand away from Kant’s ass and ground into him and Kant could feel the hard line of him there, through Bison’s pants, even with the scratch of fabric against the delicate skin of his ass, and it was everything, so good, better that it had any right to be.
Fuck, he needed it. And Bison needed him.
Just like that, his body relaxed backward into Bison’s grip. Just like that, the ache in his shoulder receded, reframed itself as the sharpest kind of pleasure.
He moaned.
Bison lifted his mouth. Swabbed his tongue over the pricks where the indents of his teeth must be. “Good, princess.” He sounded delighted, his voice dark and heavy next to Kant’s ear. Kant moaned again, hips thrusting into nothing without volition. “So eager to please.”
“Missed you,” Kant mumbled. Bison had played nice in prison. So nice, Kant had gotten worried. That was the real reason he hadn’t worn the necklace, worn the toy, mentioned the notebook.
“I missed you, too.” His fingers returned, slick with lube, and pushed into Kant’s body without ceremony. Kant groaned, pushed back into them with abandon. “Not yet, Phi. We have a long night ahead of us.”
Kant whimpered.
He opened Kant with leisurely thrusts, two fingers spreading Kant in a sweet burn that his body had ached for, for five long years. All too quickly, he withdrew and said, “Ready?”
The sooner they began, the sooner Kant would get fucked by his boyfriend. So—“Yes.”
The thud of the crop into a palm, once, twice, slow and considering. Kant shivered and tightened his legs to keep his knees from buckling.
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
And the crop came down.
A whistle through the air, the slap of leather on skin, the shock of it enough to overwhelm the residual sting. Kant flinched. Breathed. He could do this. Waited. Waited.
Remembered.
“Another, please,” he said, the words scraped from his throat like a spoon gathering fruit off the rind.
Bison sucked in a breath, the sound too loud over the muffled thrum of Kant’s pulse in his ears. “So perfect, Phi.”
Kant’s shoulders sagged, the sudden heat that flushed through his body relaxing his muscles without volition. “Please,” he said again, just to imagine the delicious hunger in Bison’s eyes.
The crop swung again. And again.
There was no real weight behind the blows. Bison, trained in physical combat, could modulate the angle and the swing with precision. It was the tension, the waiting, the asking another, please, and yet not knowing when another would hit. They were light, stinging things, and no matter how Kant braced for them, they shocked him just the same. His legs trembled with the effort, his whole body strained for some clue. Sometimes, Bison waited ten seconds after Kant summoned his nerve, sometimes, he waited not at all.
Either way, Kant was never ready.
It took ten blows before he truly relaxed into it. Another five, and he was drifting. His mouth continued to follow instructions, another, please, but his thoughts eddied on the soothing heat of the sting and the residual pulse of need in his abdomen, the ghost of Bison’s fingers and the fantasy of more.
“Hey, Phi,” a warm voice said in his ear.
Kant grunted. His thoughts slowly swam into focus, anchored on the new physical sensations that had interrupted his reverie. First: the cessation of the crop. No whistle and slap, no new sting of pain, no frisson of heat. Just the burning lines, like localized sunburn, that spread out on his back from earlier. Then: Bison’s cheek pressed next to his, lips brushing his ear, breath hot on his skin, with the words that finally registered in Kant’s brain.
“You’re doing so well. So pretty.”
Kant relaxed again, his thoughts floating, detached from the quivering of his muscles, the pricking thorns on his back.
A delicate hand traced down his chest, to his quivering stomach. Lower. Fingers dragging on oversensitive skin. Another hand down his back. Lower. Skating over the hollow ache where he needed Bison.
“How many more do you want, princess?” Fingers dipped into his body, pushing in and down, on the bright spike of pleasure that Bison rekindled with callous ease.
Kant shuddered, shoved back into too-sharp reality by the brutal force of his need, and he bit back a sob. His legs trembled, barely holding against the exhaustion of bracing against the wall—against pain and the anxiety of when it might fall next. His cock hung heavy between his legs, the throbbing need of it almost forgotten between every other sensation that assaulted him, but there, pressing up again Bison’s cruel fingers.
“Should I sweeten the deal?” Bison mused as he retreated.
Kant held still and prayed.
“Touch yourself.”
“But—” he barely mustered the word, and Bison ignored it anyway.
The crop trailed against the back of his thighs and Bison waited, waited for Kant to do what they both knew he would—obey.
Kant gasped as his hand closed over his aching cock. Bison gave him no lube, but it didn’t matter—anything, any friction was pure bliss.
The crop landed lightly on his wrist, arresting further movement.
“What do you say?”
“Thank you, khun,” Kant managed. Bison nodded, but the crop didn’t retreat. Kant swallowed hard and said, “Another, please.”
Kant didn’t know if the blows were lighter now, or if he was simply distracted, overloaded. Unable to process the pain as anything but a delicious gild on top of the sheer bliss of his hand, of the friction, of Bison’s approving praise, the little gasping moan he made when Kant shuddered under the crop and moved his hand faster.
“Another.” He didn’t want to stop. It felt too good, the stinging crack of the crop melting into the sweet pull of friction, the pain radiating in heat from his back down his spine to join the pooling ember of pleasure in his abdomen. His dick twitched violently in his hand with every blow. “Another.”
Bison’s breath came fast now behind him, and Kant couldn’t see, but he could imagine the hungry look in his eyes, the way he might find the image of Kant, pliant and submissive, irresistible. The way he would pleasure himself on Kant’s suffering. Those little hitching moans—surely Bison’s blood was rising, surely he wanted more, needed Kant to fulfil his every, cruel desire. Kant could taste the moment when he gave in, salt and iron in his mouth; the moment when he pressed along Kant’s stinging back and finally, finally filled him where he needed it, where he ached for it, had ached for five long years.
His hand moved faster, another, the crop swung again, another, he was going to—
Kant pulled his hand away. He asked for three more hits before Bison noticed that both of his hands were braced on the wall again.
“What are you doing?” Bison’s voice was low. Dangerous. “Did I say you could stop?”
You will touch yourself—not, you can touch yourself. Kant hadn’t noticed the distinction when Bison gave the command, and he would pay for that, he knew.
It was a price he was willing to pay.
“No, khun. I’m sorry.”
Bison waited, but Kant still didn’t ask for another. “You’re done?”
“You said it’s my choice, when we stop,” Kant reminded him, fighting against the whine in his voice.
“I did. For this,” he dragged the tip of the crop down Kant’s spine and flicked it gently against his ass, drawing a broken moan from Kant’s lips. “But this,” the crop tapped ever-so-gently on one of Kant’s wrists, “That isn’t up to you.” The pressure increased, guiding Kant’s hand down from the wall again. “I said touch yourself.”
Kant hesitated, fingers flexed a moment away from his aching cock. Bison was sidelong now. When Kant slipped his gaze over, he could see the evidence—the unbuttoned, shoved-down crumple of Bison’s pants, the outline of him visible against his briefs—Bison’s enjoyment of Kant’s pain. It thrilled him with a pleasure so sharp he jerked his hand away.
“I—can’t,” he gasped, falling forward against the wall as his other arm gave out. “I won’t last. I’m sorry.”
Bison made a disappointed noise. “Too fast, princess. You’re enjoying this too much.” He backed off until Kant trembled against the wall, unable to perceive him nearby.
The crop ran up his inner thigh. Bison sighed, a heavy sound. “I was so enjoying this. But my princess is too needy.” The crop drifted higher, higher as he spoke, and Kant tensed as best he could, his legs aching with exhaustion, his back flaring with pain. “I’ll have to think up an appropriate punishment.”
The tip brushed against Kant’s balls.
He flinched. Sucked in a breath.
Surely not.
Kant whined, deep in his throat.
Bison laughed. “Kidding, Phi, I’m kidding.” The crop withdrew—but one day, he would not be kidding, and Kant tucked that bundle of fear and anticipation under his ribs to examine later. “It’s not your fault you’re so needy after five years of waiting.”
Kant shuddered at the latent disapproval under Bison’s reassuring words, but he said, “Thank you, khun,” nonetheless.
A clatter, as if Bison had thrown the crop aside and Kant sagged against the wall, muscles snapping like rubber bands. Bison’s body heat radiated all along Kant’s back as he approached. Soft lips pressed to his spine. A hand cupped his throat, fingers rolling over the beads of the necklace.
Kant whined. Shifted on trembling legs.
“I know. Soon, Phi. I just want to enjoy you a little longer.” Nails scraped lightly down his back, and Kant arched away, hissing with displeasure. Bison only laughed, low and delighted, and Kant couldn’t summon the energy to feel offended or even humiliated. He just waited, waited for Bison to take care of him.
Bison’s hands retreated to his hips, and his mouth drifted lower, lower. Bit one ass cheek gently. Harder. Kant’s cock throbbed, so tight with need it hurt now, more than his back, more even than his exhausted legs.
“On the bed, Phi.”
Kant sobbed in gratitude and stumbled three steps to collapse face down on the bed. Bison pulled him to the edge by his legs and the sheets burned delicious friction over his front until he cried out, on the edge again.
Bison smacked him on the ass. “Be good.”
Kant moaned and thrust into the sheets, already damp with his sweat and desperate need. Bison tsked and pulled his ass cheeks apart, shouldering his knees open in a way that ground his hipbones in their sockets. Kant shouted as Bison’s hot mouth pressed to his entrance, still inflamed from the rough fingering.
“Don’t—”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bison said against his skin, warning low in his voice. “Hands.”
Kant blinked, sluggish thoughts spiraling with the need to obey, breaking hard against his confusion. “Where?”
Another smack on his ass. “Here.”
Kant thrust his arms down his sides. Bison covered fingers with his own, positioned Kant’s hands until he held himself open for Bison’s pleasure. Kant’s face pressed into the sheets, head and shoulders driving down into the bed, the position effectively tethering him without any leverage.
“Hold,” Bison commanded, a hint of cruel laughter in his voice. His tongue probed into Kant’s body again, forcing the muscle open.
“Bison, please,” Kant gasped. Bison ignored him—but he didn’t scold again. Kant took that as tacit permission and began to beg, a litany of sobbing curses and desperate pleas, laced with Bison’s name over and over. It was the only way to anchor himself in the present, to keep his mind attached to the very real danger of coming before Bison told him to. He rutted into the sheets—he couldn’t help it—as Bison fucked him open with long, luxurious strokes of his tongue.
Kant remembered, with a broken laugh, that moment in the bowling alley when he had thought he didn’t deserve this from Bison. Funny, how anything could become a punishment, in Bison’s hands. Funny, how Bison could keep him so needy, so on edge, that something he had dreamed of for five long years was now pure torture.
“Please,” he whispered into the sheets as he rocked back into Bison’s mouth, the barest movement he could manage. Bison’s hands gripped bruises into the backs of his thighs. “Please.” The pleasure rose and rose, eclipsing the pain and pulling dangerously taut in his stomach. His whole body trembled against the rising tide that Bison forced higher and higher.
“Please, what?” Bison bit the place where his ass and thigh met, teeth tightening in warning as Kant keened and writhed into the sheets. “Stop?” He licked over Kant’s hole again, then blew cold air against the inflamed skin.
“What do you want?” His tone was so reasonable, so calm and Kant burned, humiliated, desperate, past caring. So far from the arrogant man who had walked up to Bison on that day more than five years ago. Different, even, from the man Bison had left behind when they took him away to prison.
“Whatever you want,” Kant sobbed, broken, defeated, alight with a pure furnace of need that only Bison could craft. He knew better now than to ask for things he didn’t need—control, dominance, release. Bison knew much better than he did how to give Kant the deepest, most satisfying pleasure of his life. He pushed his knees apart even further, abject in his submission. “Please,” he said again, a hopeless whisper.
“You have a word, princess,” Bison reminded him, tone almost gentle.
Kant didn’t want his safeword. He wanted Bison. “Need you,” he said.
Bison sighed. Shoved two fingers into him without warning. Kant yelped, the rough burn of it harsh after the luxurious velvet of Bison’s tongue.
But Bison crooked his fingers, pressed hard, until Kant moaned and ground into the sheets with humiliating gratification.
“My pretty little whore knows just how to get what he wants.”
“Yes. Yes, thank you, khun."
Bison pressed down again, three fingers now, digging into Kant’s prostate until the pleasure of it edged back into pain. Kant waited, ignored it, ignored his back, his aching spine. He cried into the sheets, overwhelmed and strung out—but the tears were relief. Because he was Bison’s whore—and he was going to get fucked.
And that was all that mattered.
Bison’s fingers withdrew. Kant heard the faint rustle of clothing before both of Bison’s hands returned to his hips, hiked his ass higher.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Kant chanted, limp in Bison’s grasp, ready for whatever Bison gave him.
“I hope you remember this—how nice I’m being—next time you whine,” Bison said with faint reproof. He slammed home with a single rough thrust; rocked deep with a blissful moan until Kant felt the sting of metal teeth against his ass.
Kant’s mouth fell open as he panted into the sheets, determined to savor every last moment—knowing he wouldn’t last long. Already, the litany of pleas and curses rose through his chest, but he closed his eyes and focused on breathing. Bison felt so good the way nothing in five years of desperate attempts with toys and his own fingers could replicate.
It wasn’t just the implacable stretch of him, or the heat against Kant’s trembling muscles. It was the small, choked-off groans, like he found relief in Kant’s body. It was the iron grip of his fingers on Kant’s thighs, like he knew every bit of Kant belonged to him; his clothing rough against Kant’s skin, like he couldn’t bother to undress before claiming what was his. It was the fire limning Kant’s back, reminding him with every breath that he belonged here, in this moment, to this man who had use for him—who had not just waited five years to use him, but given him meticulous instructions, direction how to craft himself into the perfect receptacle for Bison’s need.
It was all of that—and the way Bison gentled for him, just when Kant knew he couldn’t take any more.
The way Bison held for a moment, buried inside him, and stroked both hands down Kant’s shaking thighs. “Hush,” he soothed. “I know it’s too much.” He bent over, flush against Kant’s back, and smoothed a hand down his stomach, pressing Kant up into his next, slow, thrust. “A little longer, princess, you’re doing so good for me.”
Kant whimpered, caught between the raw pleasure of being good for Bison, and the agony of waiting, of submitting again to the moment, to Bison’s request to wait.
“Please.” He rocked back into Bison’s next thrust, desperate for that honeyed voice of approval.
Bison hummed as he thrust into Kant’s trembling body, his callous tone gilding Kant’s neediness with a humiliation that lit every vein on fire. “What should I do with such a whore? I thought you were a princess, but you just want more, don’t you?” He ran a hand down Kant’s back, pressing into the cropmarks until Kant cried out.
It was a trap, a game—it was Bison’s pleasure, to call him what he wanted, to use him how he wanted—but Kant’s hands still fisted in the sheets as he braced against Bison’s thrusts. Fire raced up his legs with defiance—he was Bison’s princess, he could wait—and he bit down on his pleas. Shifted his weight to meet Bison’s thrusts as best he could. To prove that he could be good.
Bison leaned over and palmed Kant’s cock, pressing it roughly up into his stomach until his legs kicked out. “That’s it, my pretty whore. Such a slut for this.”
Kant whined, helpless against the overstimulation, unsure which way to break, dangling at the end of Bison’s rope as pleasure flooded through his body. Horrified at the tears that pricked his eyes, the way his throat choked with no, I’m your princess, needing to hear it, hating it, wanting to be Bison’s princess, his whore—anything if it meant that he was good.
Bison laughed, cruel and delighted with his ability to bend Kant to his will. “Well, you can be both, can’t you?” He thumbed the head of Kant’s cock, digging into the slit, and laughed again when Kant pushed back into his next thrust. “You want it, princess? You want to come?”
How long had it been? It felt like hours, hours of the pleasure-pain and the waiting and Bison’s poisonous, beautiful words, his cruel, crushed-velvet touch. The pain, the stress, was almost too much now—Kant wasn’t sure he could.
“Please,” he begged, all pretense of resistance gone—and he didn’t know if he wanted more or less, it hurt and yet it felt so good and he needed to come so bad his balls ached and his cock was so hard. He had never felt this much sensation at once in his life and his body didn’t know how to handle it. His nerves stung raw at the ends, his brain unsure whether this was ecstasy or agony, knowing only that he needed it over, done, needed Bison satisfied on him, needed those words, that honeyed, razor-sharp tongue to say the words he longed for.
Bison hummed in consideration. He thrust again and again. His hand withdrew, and it was a relief—Kant wanted to focus only on the feel of Bison inside him, only on Bison’s pleasure, the thing he was useful for, the part he craved.
“I could just use you. Would you like that, princess?”
“Yes. Please,” Kant gasped. Too late, he realized his mistake.
You don’t like it, but you want it anyway. Because I like it.
Bison’s thrusts slowed. Stopped. His tone turned petulant. “You come first, Phi. It’s only respectful for seniors to go first.”
It took Kant’s sluggish thoughts a moment to crystallize on the words—to understand the new torture Bison had devised for him. His whole body ached. He shivered with exhaustion and overstimulation.
I can’t.
He knew better than to say those words.
Slowly, he heaved a lungful of air, thick with sex and his own desperation. Slowly, achingly, he shifted, forcing exhausted legs to brace his hips off the bed again, one trembling arm to take his weight.
“Come for me, Phi,” Bison coaxed.
Kant touched his aching cock, hissing at the raw spark of pain-pleasure. He flinched from the overstimulation even as his body thrilled to following Bison’s orders.
“That’s it. Show me what a good whore you are,” Bison said, voice too sweet. “I want to feel you enjoy it.”
Orgasm rolled up through his body from his abdomen like a freight train. Obedient, like every part of him was obedient to Bison’s will.
“Focus, princess, you can do it.” Bison dug fingernails into the red-hot pain of his back as he fucked Kant long and deep. Pulling Kant back from the edge with pain, driving him towards it with every thrust against that needy spot inside his body that was made only for Bison’s use. A perfect torture that Kant hated, craved, feared, reveled in.
“I won’t give you what you want unless you come for me.”
Kant whined, low and pathetic in his chest. The pain rose, eclipsed all other sensation. He panicked. Stripped his cock fast and hard, desperate to capture the fleeing threads of ecstasy, desperate not to dull the razor-sharp edge of pleasure that slipped away, elusive as a shadow.
Bison slapped his hand back down onto the bed. “You don’t need that. Be good.” His fingers pressed again, harder, into Kant’s back.
The pain rose and rose and Kant sobbed in despair as orgasm frayed from his grasp. Bison snapped his hips, hard, filling Kant with his need; bit down on his shoulder, the same spot as before. Kant tried to catch it, to ride the wave, to do what Bison commanded, come, you want it, don’t you, but it rose too fast, shoving him off a cliff, a wall he couldn’t—
Bison slid a hand up his back and tugged on the necklace, just hard enough to remind Kant that it was there, that he wore Bison’s marks, that the pain was good, it was for Bison, Bison’s pleasure and—
The train derailed. Like a switch was thrown, like a curtain flew back to reveal the prize, waiting there, all along. The pain sharpened, melted, molten and liquid and pure, into a full-body thrill that swamped Kant’s senses, shut his nervous system down, flooded his body with a release, whitehot and so pure that he screamed.
His senses greyed out, his lungs squeezed of air as every muscle clamped down and he felt only Bison, fucking him through it. The ecstasy flying through his nervous system toppled into a deep, luxurious satisfaction as Bison moaned, good, so fucking good, I love you like this, my Phi, my princess, the words Kant had dreamed of for hollow years and lonely nights. Yours, he promised, melting into bliss on the evidence of Bison’s gratification. Only yours.
Eventually, Bison stood up. He nudged Kant until he shifted over to the clean, dry part of the sheets. Kant heard the click of a cap, and then shivered as cold lotion dripped onto his back. The scent of it was soft and floral, with a warm, soothing undertone—though that might just be the scent of Bison that lingered in every cavity of Kant’s senses.
Teeth scraped the back of his neck. Kant shuddered pleasantly at the reminder of Bison’s latent violence. Though his hands were gentle and his praises sweet, the crimson cruelty of earlier lingered in every whisper-soft touch. And Kant loved it.
“So pretty,” Bison crooned as he massaged the lotion into Kant’s inflamed back. “I want to take pictures of you, P’Kant, can I?”
“Mm?” Kant blinked back the fog swirling through his brain and tried to process. When he lifted his head to look back, Bison shushed him and pressed him down again.
“Not now. Don’t think about it now, we can talk later.” His hands soothed lotion in large swaths down Kant’s back until he relaxed into the pillows. “I want to take photos of you all tied up and pretty for me. Would you like that?”
It was a new kind of torture, Kant realized with a wry internal laugh: Bison asking questions he wasn’t allowed to answer. Under any other circumstances, those words would make him squirm. Now, he drifted on the diffuse warmth of Bison’s voice. The idea of being tied, photos of his humiliation, Bison with complete control—it was a beautiful dream that Bison painted for him.
“I think you would, hmm?” Bison spoke low and warm, wrapping his voice around Kant’s drowsiness until it soaked into his spine alongside the lotion. “Maybe with a blindfold next time, too.”
“Mmm,” Kant agreed.
Bison’s hands drifted down his back. His nails trailed lightly over the stinging lines of heat from the crop. Kant sucked in a breath, but was still too languid to react otherwise. Every muscle in his body had melted into a pleasant puddle, encouraged by Bison’s ministrations. He lay complacent as Bison kneaded his ass with both hands.
“I want to put a cage on you, princess. Do you like that? So you’ll know who you belong to.”
It was so unfair of Bison to say these things when Kant was so deep in the fog. When his whole body was suffused with this ecstasy of Bison’s making, and Bison’s hands were gentle and loving, and Kant knew he would say yes to anything, anything Bison wanted.
He pulled Kant’s cheeks apart so his thumbs could dip down and stroke over his entrance, eliciting a sharp gasp from Kant as the rim snagged and stung. “So pretty.”
Teeth drifted against the meat of Kant’s ass. He tried to tense, to brace himself again for violence—it was impossible. His body refused to rouse itself from the languor of Bison’s spell.
“Shh,” Bison soothed, at Kant’s faint whine. “I’m being nice.”
Kant shook his head against the sheets, unable to articulate the staggering contrast of Bison’s gentle touch and gentle words with the stinging pain still spreading across his back.
“I missed you so much.”
“You saw me every week,” Kant mumbled.
“Not like this.”
Bison kissed his way up Kant’s back and nuzzled against his neck, nose pressed hard against his spine. “P’Kant, can I fuck you again?” His breath was loud in Kant’s ear and ragged with need. “I’ll be nice this time, I promise. You won’t have to do anything.”
Kant tried, for a fleeting moment, to imagine denying Bison something he wanted. It was not only futile but unappealing. He sighed into the pillow and preened under Bison’s desire.
“Words, Phi,” Bison chided, though his voice stayed warm. One hand slid up Kant’s neck to bury in his hair, a gentle caress laced with the echo of his earlier cruelty.
Kant’s body relaxed further at the memory of Bison’s stern touch, the care and attention he paid to Kant. To making Kant perfect for him.
“Yes, khun. I want it.”
“My obedient princess,” Bison praised, hand snagging Kant’s necklace with a sharp tug on the way back down his neck. Kant swallowed hard against the pressure and drew breath only when Bison’s hand released and smoothed the beads back into place. “You can be my princess and my whore, Phi."
He manhandled Kant’s body as needed—he had put on more muscle in prison with nothing to do but work out all day. Kant loved the feel of his hands, powerful and sure as they pulled his hips into place, shoved his legs open. He simply lay prone and pliant and let Bison do whatever he wanted.
Bison’s cock was heavy and thick in his body, the fit tight despite the first round. Kant hissed as Bison’s first thrust sparked oversensitivity straight to his soft dick, but he didn’t mind. The feeling of Bison inside him, his need now satiable in Kant’s body after years of waiting, was more than enough to make up for any lingering discomfort.
The first round had been too fraught with his need to obey, and his fear of disappointing. Of being unable to enjoy what Bison gave him. Now that he knew he could come under the weight of pain—not just reach orgasm but thrill to it, electrified by Bison’s gift—now he drifted, sated and warm.
“So pretty,” Bison crooned, as he fucked Kant slow and deep, one hand on the back of Kant’s neck. Kant helped as best he could, with his face pressed into the mattress and his body still boneless. “No one else will ever see you like this, princess. All—fuck—so open for me.”
Bison kneaded his ass between thrusts, holding him open for long moments, until Kant whined at the exposure to cool air, Bison’s hungry gaze—at the image of Bison, confirming his ownership of Kant’s body with implacable force.
“Only you,” Kant breathed into the sheets as the velvet luxury of Bison inside him swamped his senses.
“Thought about you like this every day for the last five years. All fucked out under me.” Kant breathed hard through his nose, pulling in Bison’s scent and fisted his hands in the damp sheets. He squirmed faintly as Bison’s words rekindled the spark in his abdomen and Bison’s hands tightened in warning on his ass.
“Is it time to tattoo my name on you?” Bison trailed a hand up his spine to finger the beads of the necklace. “Or is the collar enough for my pretty whore?”
Kant pressed back against his hand, until each bead was a pinpoint of pain along the back of his neck. He hoped there were tiny bruises tomorrow. “Want it.”
“I know you do, princess.” Stern hands stroked down his back, alighting the fading sting of the crop marks into a frisson of reflected need. “I’ll give you everything, don’t worry.”
After he came the second time, Bison stayed buried in Kant’s body as his breathing slowed. Kant shifted, uncomfortable not from Bison’s weight but from the growing tightness in his body. The friction, the knowledge of Bison inside him, had reawakened his own need, despite his exhaustion.
Bison laughed, low and knowing, at Kant’s unsubtle grinding. He reached a hand around and under Kant’s body and found him hard again. “You like me using you?” His hand tightened until Kant forced out a moan of assent. “Is my princess needy again so soon?” Bison withdrew, leaving Kant to rut uselessly against the sheets.
“If you had a pretty cage, we wouldn’t have to worry about this. Then I could use you however much I wanted.” He sighed and snuggled into Kant’s back, his softening cock still nestled in Kant’s body.
Kant squeezed his inner muscles to convey his rising urgency and Bison smacked him on the side, blooming fresh pain into the residual sting of the crop marks.
“Patience, Phi. I’ll take care of you.” But his actions belied the words as he settled back down, a weighted blanket on Kant’s back, one hand slipping under the necklace and applying faint pressure to Kant’s throat.
Kant’s lungs squeezed and his throat spasmed. He could either turn his head to the side and struggle to draw breath through contorted airways or press his face into the mattress and create a pocket of space. He wouldn’t suffocate, but his body screamed do something to relieve the strain. He had to stay calm and keep his breath slow and deep. He had to resist the burning drive to throw Bison off.
He was good, and Bison was being nice, but—maybe Kant preferred him mean. And maybe Bison didn’t want him to always be good.
Only one way to find out.
Kant rolled to his side to dump Bison off his back and onto the sheets. Bison gasped—and then crowed with laughter when Kant flipped around to tackle him into a bear hug. The stinging lines across Kant’s back flared as he moved, but he ignored the discomfort in favor of holding his lover close to his chest. When Bison attempted to regain control, Kant rolled them the other way until he sat on top of Bison and pinned him at both wrists.
Bison’s eyes widened in surprise—and then narrowed into delight. “The princess has claws, hmm?”
“You wouldn’t like me if I didn’t,” Kant said with a smirk.
Bison grinned up at him, adorable and sweet. Kant leaned down to kiss him and lowered his body to press fully against Bison’s in the process. He savored the skin-to-skin contact, still so miraculous after years of longing and furtive, mostly-clothed assignations.
“You’re always taking care of me. How about I take care of you, for a change?”
Bison’s expression softened. He looked up at Kant with wondering eyes that glimmered in the soft light of Kant’s bedside lamp. “I’m more than satisfied, Phi. You gave me so much.”
“Then, can I have a reward?” Kant rolled them over so Bison sat in his lap, sending Bison into furious giggles again.
“So suave. Have you been practicing?”
“So what if I have? I need to impress my boyfriend somehow.”
Bison leaned down and kissed his nose. “Consider me impressed. What did you want for a reward?” His expression stayed soft, and Kant knew the game was done for now.
Kant glanced down between their bodies and licked his lips with a hopeful expression.
“Greedy, princess.” Bison shook his head in admonishment. “Never happy with what I give you.”
“Can you blame me?” Kant squeezed Bison’s thighs with his hands. “I’m always going to want more.”
Bison blushed a pretty pink, which was adorable considering everything they had just done. Kant still felt the faint sting of his inflamed back as the lotion settled into his skin. It was getting all over the pillows and sheets, too—he would have to change them and have Bison reapply it and sleep on his stomach. But it was worth it, to see Bison’s sated expression. The way he lifted up on his knees to peer over Kant’s shoulder. The way he sank back down in Kant’s lap with a happy sigh.
“They’re already faded, but it’s all red. Does it still hurt?”
“A little.” Now that the adrenaline and the endorphins had receded, Kant hurt all over—but the tense ache of muscles braced too hard far outstripped the featherlight sting on his back. Bison had done a good job—as Kant had always known he would.
“I can’t believe you let me. You’re the best.”
Kant kissed him on the nose. “Leave some real marks next time.”
Bison preened at the words, wiggling in Kant’s lap until he gasped at the haphazard friction on his now-aching cock.
“You want me to fuck you again?” Bison’s grinding motions fell into a deliberate pattern, one that spiked pleasure through Kant’s exhausted body.
But Kant shook his head with a rueful smile. “I want to hold you. You don’t have to ride me, I can take care of myself.” He gathered one of Bison’s hands and lifted it to his throat, where it covered the necklace. “Just keep your hand here, that’s all I want.”
When Kant poured lube on his hand in preparation, Bison guided his fingers to his own body. “Want you inside.”
“Are you sure?” Bison’s cock was still soft, and his eyes were heavy-lidded. Kant had thought to get off with a simple hand job and then put his sleepy assassin to bed.
“Mmm.” Bison nodded. His head slumped forward onto Kant’s shoulder as Kant worked a finger inside. “Wait for me, though.”
Kant could have been annoyed—the game was over, he just wanted comfort and release and sleep. But he wanted Bison more. And even after coming down from the high of Bison’s cruelty, he thrilled to Bison’s instincts of control. He wanted to give that control up to Bison, wherever he could. Give him the gift of acceptance, of constancy, that he had never had in his life before.
After working Bison gently open, Kant helped seat him on Kant’s cock and then—he waited.
Past the first animal instinct to thrust into the wet heat. Past the next wave of aching need, and the next and the next that each drew his body tight with unrealized release. Past the burning itch of stillness and the unholy friction as Bison fretted and settled on his lap, each twitch molding Kant’s desire into sharp fangs.
Kant waited. Past all of that, until the need settled into want, and the want quieted into perfect contentment with his lapful of lover. Bison’s heat enveloped him, the way he enveloped Bison in his arms. A perfect symbiosis that he never could have imagined achieving—or even wanting—before Bison stormed into his life.
After five years of waiting for perfection, a few more minutes slipped by with ease. Especially when he could distract himself by pressing open-mouthed kisses along Bison’s delicate collarbones and down his chest.
“You’re not playing fair,” Bison whined, as Kant laved over a nipple with diligent focus.
Kant blinked. Pulled back. “I’m sorry, I—” But he looked up to find Bison soft with a fond petulance. His cock twitched against Kant’s stomach. Kant remembered that the game was over and switched tacks. “Don’t you want to sleep, love?” He kissed Bison’s chest again with lingering sweetness.
Bison sighed. “I don’t want it to be over.” His lower lip trembled and hot tears rushed up Kant’s throat in response.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He held Bison tight to his chest for a long moment. “It’s not. I told you I’m here for good.”
“But—” Bison swallowed a sob. “I hurt you. And—I’m so useless, what can I even do? I can’t cook, like Fadel.”
Kant’s dick shriveled at the mention of Bison’s protective older brother, who would definitely not approve of anything they had done tonight. Least of all, Kant making his brother cry while deep inside him.
“You shouldn’t have to support someone like me, just because—because you feel bad. And you waited so long—” Bison’s arguments trailed off into nonsense—but then, they were all nonsense from the start.
“Baby. Bison.” Kant cupped Bison’s face with both hands and waited until he looked up through teary eyelashes. “I love you so much. Regardless of this,” he gestured between them to encompass the mind-blowing sex they’d just had, “and regardless of our past. You think I would have kept visiting you, kept working at the prison, just out of guilt? I’m not that selfless, love.”
“You did more for your brother, for even longer.”
Kant winced. That argument would devolve into splitting hairs—better to target the solutions rather than argue about causes. “We should find you your own apartment once you’re settled—even if you spend all your nights here anyway. You could also move back in with Fadel,” Bison wrinkled his nose in distaste and Kant laughed, “but I’d hate to have a curfew again.”
As he offered future plans, Bison’s shoulders slowly relaxed and his tears slowed. “For work, there are plenty of contract jobs for artists or graphic designers. I can commission you for tattoo designs to build your portfolio, and Fadel will need help with menus and signage. Style’s dad has lots of business-owner contacts who always have small projects like that.” He reached up and ruffled Bison’s hair, earning a narrow-eyed glare.
“You won’t be dependent on me, love. You can be your own person.” Kant brushed the last tears away with his thumbs.
“That’s not—” Bison looked away. “I’m really grateful you’re letting me stay here.”
“You’ve had no control over your own life, ever, Bi. I get that.”
First, his awful adoptive mom, and then prison was worse. Even Kant had taken control from Bison—he had robbed him of the choice to leave the hitman life behind with his betrayal, and then played on his feelings in order to save his own life. Bison had been deprived of every choice, at every turn—not able to choose who he loved or how they treated him or even revenge, hatred, prison, death. Everything was dictated by someone else, even if it was someone like Fadel—or, eventually, Kant—who had his best interests at heart. Kant had even facilitated his imprisonment—in service of his future life, yes, but still.
Kant rested his cheek on Bison’s shoulder. Savored the warm weight in his arms. Forced the next words out: “If you need a break. If you want time to establish yourself, without me—”
“No.” Bison’s hand tightened on the back of his neck. “No more waiting.” He rolled his thumb over the beads of the necklace. Pressed them into Kant’s throat. “I’m ready now.” He shifted in Kant’s lap, making it clear that he meant not just for their future.
Kant smiled. Moved his cheek on Bison’s chest, to just above his heart. “I’m glad.”
Bison braced both hands on Kant’s shoulders and lifted up on his knees. Sank back down, languid and sure. Pleasure gathered in Kant’s stomach, a slow burn that he pushed aside as he helped Bison find the best angle.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Kant murmured. “Take whatever you want.” He echoed Bison’s earlier words back to him and braced his hands under Bison’s thighs—supporting Bison as he controlled the pace.
Bison moved on him with a shuddering sigh, eyes half-lidded, lips parting on unarticulated sighs. Kant kept his hands tethered, allowed only his eyes to move as he devoured the sight of Bison, skin flushed with arousal, muscles tensing and releasing on each lift and slow sink down.
He laughed a little and Bison’s eyes fluttered open in response. He didn’t ask the question, but Kant answered it anyway.
“Remember the first time we did this?” That night in the hotel. The first time Kant had felt alive in—years, if he was being honest.
Bison laughed too, a laconic huff of breath as he sank down again. “You were so mad, when I made you go the second round.”
“I thought it would kill me, to let you do this.” Kant slid his hands up Bison’s thighs and squeezed his ass, fingers brushing the place where their bodies joined. It still astounded him, that this was his. That he belonged here, with the beautiful man on top of him, after five interminable years. “Now, I love it. I love you.”
“You loved it then, too,” Bison said, with a slow, feral grin.
Kant kissed into that smile, shuddering with the bared-teeth feel of it against his mouth. “I already wanted more of you, love,” he said when Bison pulled back to lift up on his knees again. “And I always will.”
Afterward, Kant let Bison rest against him for a moment before maneuvering out from under him. He would change the sheets later. For now, he simply leaned down and scooped Bison up into his arms. “Come on, pretty one. Let’s get cleaned up.”
“Shouldn’t I be taking care of you?” Despite his protest, Bison snuggled into Kant’s chest.
“Aftercare is for you, too,” Kant pointed out. He had done more than Bison’s homework—he had also researched on his own—and he suspected Bison’s earlier emotional collapse was at least partly fueled by dom-drop. “And you already massaged me earlier.”
Bison yawned and turned his face into Kant’s neck. Kant dropped a kiss on his head and carried him to the bathroom, where he filled the tub while Bison watched with hooded eyes. When the tub was ready and steaming, Kant slid in behind Bison and washed his body with gentle hands. He lingered over the tattoo on Bison’s shoulder, now a little faded with five years of prison life.
“I do want it,” he said, propping his chin on Bison’s shoulder for a moment, arms wrapping around Bison’s waist for a hug.
“Mmm?” Bison’s head tipped sideways, dipping with drowsiness. “Want what?”
Kant kissed his cheek. “Your name. Another tattoo.”
Delicate hands gripped Kant’s forearms, pulling the hug even tighter. “That’s cheesy. Where would you get it?” Bison’s voice held none of the sly cruelty of their earlier games, just a sated fondness that dragged contentment over Kant like a heated blanket.
“Somewhere you can see it whenever you want,” Kant suggested as he buried his face in the crook of Bison’s neck. He savored Bison’s bright, clean scent, finally free of the prison boquet of despair and cheap soap. “Behind my other ear? Around my wrist?”
Bison reached over his head to the back of Kant’s neck, hand smoothing over the necklace as if reassuring himself of its existence. “You should live for yourself, too, you know.”
“Mmm,” Kant hummed in gentle disagreement as he laid kisses across Bison’s shoulder and up the elegant curve of his neck, collecting the beading of sweat and steam with soft attention. “I had five years of that, and I’m not impressed. I would much rather belong to you.”
“Even so,” Bison murmured. He turned his head to press a sweet kiss to Kant’s lips. “You didn’t have to wait.”
Kant held his lover to his chest, content—truly at rest—for the first time in over five years. Possibly for the first time since his parents had died. “It was worth it, my love.”
Those first few months had been terrifying, yes. And the last five years, painful and lonely, aching with the burning hollow of need in the wake of Bison’s absence. But he wouldn’t trade this moment of perfect contentment for anything in the world.
“It was worth it,” he said again, as he pulled Bison from the tub; wrapped him in a fluffy towel; kissed him on the nose until he giggled and relented and let Kant put him to bed. “And it all worked out in the end.”