Page 157 of Piece Us Together

This mission was secretive. Vague. The call to leave was last minute. The details—even to Maison, according to him—weren’t clear. He claims not to even know the location or other logistics. He wasn’t even sure if Travis was joining them.

I register that I’m being moved around, but only manage to pull myself out of my sticky thoughts when I feel my knees connecting against something hard. He has me kneeling on the floor of the kitchen, no cushion. His hand grips my hair in a tight fist. My breath comes in sharp. My head clears.

I look up to find him nodding, like he just tested something and got the answer he figured he would. “Sir is going to have to hurt you today, aren’t I, darling?”

My bottom lip wobbles. “I—I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry. I can try harder, to stay present.”

“I’m not saying I’ll hurt you as a punishment. I just want to ground you. I don’t mind when you drift to happy places. In fact, I love helping you get into that headspace. But I can tell when it’s not a happy place your mind is in, and I don’t want to leave you there when that’s the case. I think that’s going to be the case a lot today. Maybe every day he’s gone, for however long it takes.” He uses the hold on my hair to tilt my head back. His eyes are darker than usual, more on the brown side of hazel than the usual green. He skims his fingertips down from my temple to my chin. “Do you think pain would help? To have welts that will throb and remind you? Or any other physical sensation that might help you?”

For just a moment, I swear I feel the ghost of a collar around my throat.

It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve let myself think about that. It hasn’t been an important element. I missed kneeling and submitting a lot more than having a simple collar, and a collar was never on the table with Maison.

It’s not on the table now.

But there’s something else that’s close to a collar, something restrictive, something that will be heavy against my skin.

“Do you have cages, sir?” I ask.

His eyebrows rise for a moment before smoothing out. “I do. Would that help?”

“That and maybe—maybe some marks? Please?”

“Shh. Of course, darling. You don’t have to beg.” He steps back, releasing my hair. His eyes take me in for a moment before he offers me his hand and pulls me to my feet. “Let’s get you settled.”

It worked better than I thought it would.

He was the perfect dom, unsurprisingly. He brought me to the guest room instead of his own, laying me out on my back with my legs spread. After a small trip to the bathroom and grabbing a black box from one of the drawers of the dresser, he came back to me. He slipped a towel under me before running his fingertips all along my thighs and across my lower stomach. He told me how he loves that I wax myself for him. That it makes me seem like an even needier little subbie. That I’m such a good, perfect boy.

In the end, he’d needed an ice cube to get me soft enough to fit in the cage. It had made me shivery in a good way. Made me feel owned and loved and grounded.

“You aren’t coming out of this until he’s back,” he had told me, sounding so fucking sure that it would happen, that Maison would come home to us. I had been dizzy with the relief of his control over me. His control over the whole situation. “Understood?”

And I’d agreed easily.

Then he’d turned me onto my stomach and caned me. It was awful. I fucking hate the cane. But it was a clarifying kind of awful. A pain so excruciating and brilliant that it can’tbe ignored. He’d given me three, right across both ass cheeks, thankfully avoiding my sit spot. While still red and burning, he’d pulled the plug from my ass and fucked me hard, leaving bruises and fingernail crescents at my hips. I’d sobbed so hard my voice was hoarse at the end of it all.

He’d plugged me again, hushing me as my cries slowly tapered off, his hands gentle as he smoothed a cool gel over the welts. I’d drifted—this time in a very happy place—while he got our omelet and some juice. We’d shared, him feeding me bites by hand and helping me sip with a straw.

Now, as he sits on the couch with me kneeling at his feet, I find myself so fucking thankful for all of that. For the cage and the welts. For his cum in my ass, held in by the plug.

I don’t look at the fireplace as he turns the TV on. I don’t think about how the only one of us who can make a fire isn’t here. I don’t wonder where he is. I don’t wonder if he’s okay. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.

My throat tightens with the urge to cry.Maison should be here. I want the both of them. The three of us. I want safety and happiness. I want to stop fighting. When is he going to stop fighting?

I turn on my cushion, my throat squeezing. “Sir?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Can I come up there with you? I just—I want to be held…is that okay?”

His whole body softens. “That’s more than okay, Nolan. Come on up.”

He opens his arms, letting me climb up and settle across his lap. Then he pulls a throw blanket off of the back of the couch and drapes it over us. It’s a safe little cocoon. The way my knees are drawn up makes my caged cock press into my stomach a little. The fabric of my pants is a little irritating on my welts. Hesmells like himself, all warm and spicy. Just the in and out of his breaths is grounding.

“This is nice,” I admit, my cheeks heating as if this is anywhere near scandalous, especially compared to the things we’ve gotten up to before. “We haven’t really cuddled a lot.”

“Which is funny. I’ll have you know, I’m a bit of a cuddle slut.”

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