Page 1 of Under His Skin

Chapter 1

The slight quiver in Alex’s thighs fascinated him. He knew Alex regularly did squats for his workouts, so a simple order like this shouldn’t have caused him any trouble, but still his muscles strained and bulged beautifully.

Tracht had tied Alex’s arms together and attached the rope to a hook in the ceiling. Beneath him, he’d set a low stool with a very, very sizable dildo under Alex and forced him to impale himself on it if he slid too low. Alex’s entire body shone with sweat, and his face was pulled tight from the strain.

If Tracht did nothing, Alex might be able to keep the pose for a decent while. Not comfortably, and every time he moved, he impaled himself farther down on the dildo. He was stretched so, so wide, and it was regrettable that Tracht couldn’t see it from this position.

It wouldn’t be any fun if Alex succeeded at this task though. Tracht stepped closer and laid his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “That’s five minutes.”

Alex immediately responded with, “I said I was sorry.”

Of course Alex would say he was sorry. He always apologized when he realized how bad the consequences for his actions would be. And lately—well, lately, Alex had simply gotten better at avoiding the consequences. There wasn’t much to be done about that. After almost five years together, it was natural that Alex would have learned how to behave. Even the dumbest dog could be taught.

It bothered Tracht a little bit, though he knew it was his own fault. He’d trained Alex well. Although there was the thrill of knowing Alex could overpower him at any time, it wasn’t the same.

He remembered telling Alex that he wasn’t going to grow bored of him—that he would keep Alex, and break him, make him cry, bind them together. It wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t bored of Alex, and he still wanted to see Alex’s tears and pain.

So it wasn’t boredom that was giving him pause here, but he wasn’t quite into the scene anyway. Everything was playing out exactly as he’d planned, with Alex shaking and sweating and clearly frustrated. Alex’s cock was trying to get hard in its cage, the metal bars pressing down into the flesh, and Alex whimpered beautifully when Tracht pushed a fingernail into some of that exposed skin.

Maybe he was simply getting old. He pushed through the mild disinterest and focused on torturing Alex.

First he caressed Alex’s sides, gentle touches that trailed up while Alex went down in another squat. When Alex was at the lowest point, Tracht settled his hands on Alex’s armpits. Alex’s face pinched with the strain of holding himself in that position, or possibly in anticipation.

Tracht debated between tickling and pinching, but decided that pinching would cause the better reaction. The sensitive skin between his fingers got redder as he applied more and more pressure.

“No!” Alex shouted. He bit down on his lip, muffling his cries.

Tracht loved how desperately Alex tried to be strong, even in the face of pain. He loved how Alex’s muscles trembled, pulled taut with nerves. He considered where he could pinch next: the other armpit, his nipples, his balls…

But then Alex let go, leaning harder into his bindings and opening his mouth to let out all of his cries and sobs.

Any other man might have reveled in that surrender, but Tracht felt his lust abate in the face of Alex’s obvious attempts to please him.

Part of him wanted to see this through anyway. He knew he was being overdramatic, and that there was no reason not to fuck Alex hard and make him suffer. It could still turn out good. The cries and sobbing might be faked, but Alex’s frustration at being denied an orgasm would be real, and his later tears would be beautiful—and genuine.

Knowing this was all fake, though, soured him on the experience. He refused to allow Alex to manipulate him, especially not when it was this transparent.

Tracht released Alex and got the scissors. “What’s the point?” He cut Alex free. “Go clean yourself up. I’m not in the mood anymore.”

Alex’s arms fell to his sides, and the expression he made when he was farther impaled on the dildo was priceless. But he recovered quickly. As he stood up, he glared at Tracht and said, “What the fuck?”

The use of curse words had to be a deliberate attempt at provoking Tracht, but he wasn’t going to fall for that. “I know you’re just pretending, Alex. It’s boring.”

He picked that word because he knew it would hurt. He saw the confusion and anger warring on Alex’s features. There was more protest brewing behind his eyes, but Alex must have seen it would be futile. His steps were heavy as he stormed into the bathroom to clean himself up.

Tracht sat down on the couch and turned the vid screen on to Cadmus’s main news station.

Sometimes he wished he could spend all of his life in the comm-free zones of space. It was an unrealistic dream, but he enjoyed the fantasy of being the ruler of his own little kingdom. Out there, he didn’t have to worry about the politics and human drama playing out on Cadmus or on Atalanta.

He wouldn’t have to take calls from the debtleasing center, which pointed out the contract was going to be over very soon. They insisted that given Tracht’s usual travel schedule, it would be better to simply end the contract three weeks early than have Alex trapped on the Sigrun for another three months.

“I understand that you would prefer to have him serve out his contract,” the broker had said, “but with all the discussion going on right now, we can’t really allow it. And it looks like Alex Stone has acquired a few assets over the years, so we’ll use those funds to pay the remainder.”

All thanks to Anna and Vasilis. If they hadn’t insisted on paying Alex every time he did anything marginally helpful to them…

No, Tracht was sure that even without them sticking money into Alex’s account, the center would have found other ways to remove Alex from his service. They were currently under a lot of scrutiny, both here and on Atalanta. As far as he knew, the planet Pylos wasn’t having the same issues, but certain agitators were making life difficult for bondholders in all space stations.

That was the real crux of the problem: the upcoming termination of Alex’s contract. Tracht was self-aware enough to realize that his real frustration had little to do with Alex’s attempts to appease him and were much more about the uncertain future.

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