naked now, Sterling. You wanted to know what I
saw in you? This. Just this.”
Sterling stood on legs that trembled and took an uncertain step toward
Owen. “Please.” He said it very softly, part of him ashamed of the person he
was letting himself be in that moment, in the person he was hoping to become.
God, this was so fucked up.
Still, he took another step closer before sinking down to the floor at
Owen's feet; it wasn't kneeling as much as it was collapsing, his legs no longer
able to support him. He didn't touch Owen, unsure whether that would be
acceptable, but gave him such a look of anxious devotion that it might as well
have been a physical caress. “Please. I need—this. You.” He was shaking, his
heart beating so fast it felt like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings.
“I can see that,” Owen said, and his voice was rock-steady now, which was
just what Sterling needed. Someone who knew what to do, someone who
understood how he felt, because even if they were on opposite sides, somehow
they balanced each other. “Stand up, please.”
Owen saying please was so different from Sterling's stammered, pleading
use of the word; it was coolly courteous and totally unnecessary, because
Owen wasn't asking, he was telling. Every time he said it, Sterling felt a flicker
of heat race over him. “I'm going to undress you,” Owen continued when
Sterling had gotten to his feet with an effort of will that took everything he had.
“Then I'll allow you to kneel for me and show you exactly how I want you to do
it—and you're going to remember and do it perfectly the next time you're told to
take that position.” Owen stood, so close that Sterling could feel the whisper of
air from each word he said brush his face. “Aren't you, Sterling?”
“Yes.” His vocal cords were so tight that it was hard to give his reply
enough force to be heard, but Sterling was sure that Owen had heard him. He
made himself repeat it, though, just to be on the safe side, and it was only as
Bound and Determined
35
he said it that he realized he was breathing way too fast, on the verge of
hyperventilating. “Yes, Owen.”
Sterling took a deep breath and let it out slowly—he didn't think he was
imagining Owen's look of approval. He hoped he wasn't.
“Relax,” Owen advised. “I know this is overwhelming, but the only way
that you can disappoint me is by not trying, and that's not going to happen. I
won't permit it. So you can relax and enjoy this.” He cupped Sterling's face
again and ran his thumb slowly across Sterling's lips. Sterling couldn't stop the
helpless push his mouth made, chasing the drag of that thumb and trying to
keep it touching him for as long as possible. “You're getting what you asked for
here, and there's been a little too much of that, I think, so we need something
that you have to wait for, something you'll go home wanting so much that it's
all you'll be able to think about.” He began to unbutton the shirt that Sterling
had chosen to wear because it hadn't seemed right to show up in a T-shirt
somehow, his fingers deft and unhurried as they worked the buttons through
the small, tight slits in the fabric. “Any suggestions?”
His whole body was trembling, and he couldn't keep his eyes from darting
back and forth between Owen's face and Owen's hands, so close. “Touch me,”
Sterling said. “I mean, that's what—that's what I want you to do. I want you to
touch me. Run your hands over my skin.”
Incredibly aroused as he was, his brain couldn't help but provide brilliant,
Technicolor pictures of what it would be like. Stretched out on a bed, naked,
with Owen sitting next to him. One hand would slide up along his bare thigh
toward his dick… Sterling moaned, his cock giving a heavy throb inside his
jeans, as Owen slipped another button free.
“Hmm, yes, I suppose that would do,” Owen said with something a little
rueful in the words. He stepped back.
Alicia Taylor, Natalie Townson