Page 23 of Fire & Ice

He treasures the memories now, digging for more, and there are so many. Tripp drowns himself in each recollection, savoring them one at a time.

“An incredible creature,” Leander had called him. “So deserving of my affection, my attention.”

Those are the words Tripp clings to, here in the lonely dark. He lets the tone of Lee's voice in his head, the memory of the gentle caress of his hands soothe and pacify him. When the impact of those things starts to fade, Tripp moves on to thinking about how Leander cared for him after the scene finished. The way he spoke softly, the way he tipped juice into his parched mouth. The incredible massage, the ice packs, the heating pad. His favorite burger ordered from memory and fed from Lee's fingertips—bliss.

It works.

The tendrils snaking out from the darkest corners of Tripp’s mind retract, dissipating slowly but surely back into the ether. His mood evens out and stabilizes, no longer setting his teeth on edge or making him clench his fists in raw irritation. In fact, the entire day starts catching up with him fairly quickly, making Tripp’s eyelids heavy and his thoughts turn fuzzy. Even as he drifts off to sleep, Tripp continues to wish that he wasn’t alone, but there’s nothing he can do about that now.

The best he can hope for at this point is more of whatever Lee is willing to give, tomorrow.

Tripp already knows he’ll take it, whichever parts of his friend end up on offer.

Tripp will take it all.

***

Waking up is confusing. The warm body pressing flush against his back is something Tripp feelsextremelysure was not there when he went to sleep. A quick glance towards the covered windows reveals the barest fringe of bright light leaking out from one curtain’s edge—morning.Despite the fuzziness in his head, Tripp’s dick is having none of the same qualms, fully on board with the big, warm hand stroking it firmly.

“Hello, Tripp.” Leander’s sleep-rough voice rumbles in his ear and against his skin, warm breath ghosting over the curve of Tripp’s shoulder and down the back of his neck. There’s a knee nudging its way in between his thighs, and Tripp finds himself parting his legs instinctively, letting Leander manipulate him in whatever way he likes.

That includes, apparently, mouthing at his collar, nosing at the leather, and nipping the sensitive skin just beneath. Even in Tripp’s sleep-groggy state, the possessive show has him rolling his eyes.

It would be going too far to say that Tripp doesn’t like his collar—hellno, he loves it. Loves how free he gets to be while wearing it, loves everything that it represents. At the same time, he would be lying if he claimed that Lee's obsession with the thing wasn’t starting to grate. Waking up to his friend worshipping the little strip of leather first thing in the morning automatically brings Tripprightback to the negative headspace he worked so hard to rid himself of the night before. Being left alone with his thoughts was no freaking picnic.

Still, it’s hard to argue with being jerked off in Lee's arms, his hand functioning as an alarm clock, though how that happened Tripp can’t begin to figure. He supposes—like everything else lately—that he should probably just sit back and enjoy, and not question it.

Just when he’s finally starting to relax and sink fully into Leander’s grip, it disappears completely, as does the man’s reassuring presence behind him. Unable to suppress the urge in time, Tripp groans and smacks the mattress with his palm, growling his friend’s name as he buries his face into the bedding.

“Lee,”he grunts, voice muffled significantly by the pillow’s bulk, but not enough. Leander catches the slip and swats him—hard—righton the meat of his ass. “Ouch!” Tripp yelps, rolling over swiftly and sitting up, rubbing a hand protectively over his stinging skin as he does.

The lights are on, causing him to blink groggily against their glare, still not entirely awake. Small mercies, they’re dim, but plenty high enough for Tripp to see the room and that Leander has been busy while he slept. Narrowing his eyes, Tripp glowers at the man as he strides—buck naked and clearly very pleased with himself—around the bed to stand at his side.

”What the hell,” Tripp mutters, rubbing at his eyes and trying to figure out why there’s a foam mat on the floor to his left and ahefty-sized dildo sticking jauntily out from the wall above it. He’s sure—well, ninety-five percent—that particular monstrosity wasn’t there when he drifted off to sleep, any more than Lee was in his bed.

“What was that?” Leander asks smugly, cupping a hand around his ear to blatantly mock Tripp while simultaneously assessing exactlyhowmuch of a brat he’s intending to be. When Tripp doesn’t answer, Leander hums and cards a hand through his hair, tightening his fingers at the back in subtle warning before abruptly letting go.

“You kept your collar on,” he says, tone thoughtful but pleased. “And you’re familiar with the rules, yes?” It’s an olive branch, an out (or at least a last chance of sorts), but Tripp is grumpy this morning, and while hedoeswant Lee to fuck him six ways ‘til Sunday, he’s irritated enough to fuck around and find out what happens.

Glaring up at his friend through his lashes, Tripp licks his lips and holds steady eye contact while he carefully annunciates, “Fuck the rules,Sir.”

Tripp’s cheek is stinging before he even fully registers what happened, his head whipping violently to the side as Leander’s palm makes sharp contact with the side of his face. No time for recovery—or even to take a breath—given that Leander grabs his chin in one hand and forces him to make eye contact, his own blue eyes glinting with both amusement and promise.

In the aftermath, Tripp has zero—count ‘em: fuckin’ zero—regrets.

Hit me again,his brain supplies, and Tripp wants it so badly, he can taste blood on his tongue—he nearly says so out loud.

“Color, Tripp,” a righteous Leander demands, and even if Tripp didn’t have a front-row seat to the guy’s dick filling out against his thighrightbeyond the tip of his nose, he’d be able to see the arousal, theintentioncoloring his face.

Before answering, Tripp works his jaw back and forth and then pauses, just to piss Leander off. “Green,” he says finally, right as Lee is opening his mouth to do God-knows-what, Tripp’s never going to find out. Against his better judgement, he smirks a little, and Leander grabs him by the thighs, yanks him towards the edge of the bed, and then tosses him over onto his stomach in oneincrediblyswift—andhot—motion.

“Fuck!” Tripp yells, mostly in surprise, because he’s certainly not hurt. Actually, the way his face smarts from Lee's hand feels seriously fuckin’ awesome, and Tripp’s not entirely sure what to do with that information.

Sure, he’s messed around with mild masochism in the past—a tweaked nipple here, some biting there, even a little spanking once in a blue moon (though nothing like what Lee dishes out). He’s always known that helikesit, that razor’s edge wherehurtcuts into the sweetness of pleasure, amping it up, but he’s never sought out or experimented withpainas a concept. Not until now, anyway.

Seems like Lee might be the one to change all that, and Tripp’s body thrills at the possibility. He decides not to overthink it—he’ll trust Lee, stay in the moment, and worry about the details later.

Good thing, because Tripp has barely three seconds to grapple with the fact that Lee can throw him around like aninflatable pool toy if he so chooses before the sound of a tube snapping open behind him can be heard. Soon after, Lee's hand is pressing between Tripp’s shoulder blades, holding him down while he pushes not one, buttwofingers inside of him. They’re slippery and cold, and Tripp wriggles beneath his Dom, just because he can.

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