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“Have a care, Julian,” you warn. “If you can’t behave, I might have to seriously punish you.”
Julian, predictably, ignores your warning. It’s at least the fifth time tonight he’s disobeyed your order to hold still, and you’ve barely started. You push him back with a firm hand around his slender throat, and his eyes flash darkly with arousal.
You’ve got him kneeling on the bed, his shirt discarded somewhere forgotten on the floor, the top button of his trousers undone. His arms are bound behind his back with soft rope, and his muscles flex as he strains against them just to feel the delicious restriction.
Julian crooks a brow and gives a practiced, rakish grin. “Oh, darling, didn’t you know? When you’re dealing with a scoundrel, punishment tends not to take. You might have to,” and here he surges forward against your grip on his throat, nipping a playful line over your jaw, “punish me over—” he licks at the pulse in your neck—“and over. Maybe I’ll learn something eventually, hmm…?”
You bite the inside of your lips, resisting the urge to smile. He really is impossibly charming. But you have to stay firm, or he’ll soon be completely out of hand. He’s already gotten out of hand, really, always vacillating between compliance and mischief. One moment he’s so eager to abandon himself to your will that he’s all but throwing himself into whatever you’ve demanded of him almost before the words have left your mouth; the next he’s pushing back shamelessly just to dare you into getting even.
Well. A little mischief is fine, even desirable; you do love the getting even part. But lately he’s been more mischief than compliance.
This is just no good at all.
But what to do? A flogging would be more of a reward to him than anything—it’s what he’s pushing for. Usually, you’d indulge him, but it seems you’ve been far too indulgent for too long. He needs to learn he can’t always get away with anything and everything and still get what he wants with just a charming grin and a wiggle of his ass.
No, you need to do something he’ll actually dislike. Hmm.
Yes, you know just the thing.
“All right, you asked for it,” you warn, pushing him roughly back again. You motion with your head. “Up by the head of the bed. Now.”
“Oh nooo,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows, and he scoots back eagerly against the headboard as you grab more rope. Obviously he’s expecting a punishment of the more corporeal variety. Once you’ve got his wrists bound to one of the posts of the headboard, you give him a once over before hopping off the bed and taking a step back.
You’re loathe to leave, with him looking so flushed and helpless and delectable, but well—you won’t leave him to stew for too long, and when you come back, he’ll surely be better behaved.
A suspicious little crease forms between his brows. “Wait, what are you—where are you going?”
You wag a finger at him. “Downstairs. You need a time-out.”
“Wha… A what?”
“You get to stay here while I go amuse myself however I please,” drawing out that last syllable until it drips with innuendo. “Maybe you’ll benefit from some time to think.” And not much else, what with those misbehaving hands out of the way.
“What—no! I’m not good with thinking! You know I’m not good with thinking!”
“Clearly,” you snort, finding his shirt on the floor and throwing it over your own shoulders.
“Wait, stop!” he cries in alarm, tugging frantically at the ropes. “I’ll be good, I promise, I’ll be good! Really—don’t go, please!”
Satisfaction curls up in your belly. Now he gets it. “Too little, too late,” you tell him, sing-song, as you turn away with a smirk. (It’s so much fun to wind him up.)
He calls your name, pleading. “Come back, love, please, I’ll do whatever you say! Just—don’t go! Don’t...”
You just saunter to the door nice and slow, letting him get a nice long look at what he won’t get to touch for a while. But as you cross the threshold, your hand reaching for the doorknob, he calls out one last time:
“Please!” There’s a strange note in his voice—something tremulous that freezes you in your tracks. You hesitate, running the sound over in your head, and then you twist to look back at him in concern.
The look on his face. The look on his face. A child lost in a sea of strangers, abandoned and unwanted.
His eyes are wide and they gleam like he might actually be close to tears. A sick, leaden weight drops in your chest, and it seems to be going on some twisty journey inside your stomach. It takes a couple of tries to find your voice. “Julian…?”
He blinks. His eyes dart from side to side as though he’s been shaken from a trance, slowly remembering where he is. Eventually he looks down, ears going pink with embarrassment, his mouth working soundlessly.
“Um,” he finally says, in a small, unsteady voice. “Er. Sorry. Please—please don’t… Don’t leave me.”
You’re back across the room in a single breath, leaping onto the bed and gathering him into your arms. “Julian, what on earth…” you huff, exasperated, but you cradle the back of his head in your hand, pulling it against your shoulder and running your fingers through his curls.
He makes a soft noise of surprise, but then presses his face into your neck, his body going pliant and heavy against you with clear relief. “Thank you,” he mumbles miserably, the sound muffled against you. A pause. “...sorry. I didn’t mean—sorry.”
His skin feels so cool against yours. How can someone his size feel so fragile? For a minute or two you just rub his back and stroke his head, but then you tangle a hand in his hair and give a gentle tug, pushing him back with your other hand so you can look at his face.
He tries to turn away, but you grasp his chin and make him look at you. His eyes are still shining bright in the dim lantern light, and his throat bobs as he swallows heavily.
“Why didn’t you tell me, you silly oaf?” you demand.
His brow knits in confusion. “‘Tell…?’” he echoes.
“Tell me that I shouldn’t do that sort of thing! Remember, when we talked about what you absolutely wouldn’t want me to do? Or—at least you could have used our word, just now! What if I hadn’t noticed?” You shiver with a sudden chill. Leave him to face whatever that was, haunting the space behind his eyes? What might you have come back to if you’d left him like that?
The thought makes you queasy, and you have to push it forcefully away.
“Oh, I, er,” he stammers. “I didn’t think about it…?” He gives a watery, self-deprecating smile. “That’s for emergencies, so… It didn’t seem like—I mean, it’s just being left alone, it’s not like it’s all that important—”
“Clearly it’s not ‘just’ anything,” you tell him sternly, giving his chin a little shake. “Not for you. And don’t try to downplay it, I saw you. I never want to make you feel like that! Ever! Nothing could be more important to me, do you understand?”
He’s staring at you blankly now. It’s the same sort of expression he used to give when you insisted that affection didn’t need to be earned, that he didn’t have to be useful in order to be important to you, and you sigh heavily.
“I need to know you’ll be honest with me, Julian, or I’m always going to worry I’m crossing lines I don’t know about. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.” You pause as your own words catch up to you. “Uh—I mean. You know what I mean.”
Julian snorts a startled laugh. It’s contagious, and you bite your lip, only partly stifling the urge to giggle.
“I mean it,” you insist. “From now on, you need to tell me these things. You get to have limits. Even if it’s something unexpected, or if it might seem trivial from the outside. If anything is happening that really bothers you or scares you, and I don’t seem to realize it, I need to know you’ll use our word. Okay?”
He nods, looking down with a little shame-faced pout.
“Hey, look at me,” you say, tilting his face back up. “I want you to promise. Even if you don’t think it’s that important, it’s important to me, so promise. For me.”
A slow, astonished smile spreads on his face, like you just performed a clever magic trick. “All right,” he says, and finally the traces of those shadows behind his gaze seem to evaporate into warmth. “Pirate’s honor. I promise.”
“Pirates don’t have honor, you ass,” you grumble, and you tug him forward into another hug. His body curls into you, and you feel the muscles in his arms and shoulders straining unconsciously against the rope. “Oh!” you say, remembering. “I guess I should… Do you want me to just untie you for now?”
He makes an unintelligible sound against you.
“Try a human language.”
“...Mm…maybe.”
You snort, and push him back—he’s got a talent for being a barnacle even without the use of his arms—and as soon as you get the knots loose he sweeps you up and crushes you to his chest, nuzzling his face into your hair.
“Oof!” You struggle to draw in a breath, wiggling enough to get your arms around his waist. “Oh, Ilyushka…” you sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”
You can feel Julian’s lips pull into his usual grin against your temple, and you roll your eyes, already knowing what he’s about to say—
“Oh-ho, I can think of a few things…”
Really. He’s just completely out of hand.