Page 35 of Anchored

“Please, Master. Please, I want to . . . let me make you feel good.” Daniel rubbed his hands up the master’s thighs, but he didn’t dare touch the man’s cock without permission. “It’s just, you’ve been so kind to me, so generous all this time, and I’ve been so bad, so ungrateful for everything.” Back to the belt now, and this time the master didn’t stop him. He could feel the intensity of the master’s stare on the top of his head, hear the master’s quickening breaths, but whether from anger or arousal, he didn’t know. Both, he thought—things were very bad, but he could still fix them if he tried hard enough. “I’ve taken advantage of your patience, and I’m so sorry, Master. I know I don’t deserve another chance, but I—”

The master’s huge hands caught Daniel’s wrists, and Daniel gasped, pain sparking bright all the way past his elbows. His fumbling fingers stilled, their task unfinished; he’d been so nervous, so afraid, so inept that he hadn’t even managed to pull the master’s belt prong from its hole yet.

“I said stop,” the master ordered, loud and slow, tugging on Daniel’s wrists until he’d lifted him off his knees and dumped his sore ass back on the couch. “Just . . . just stop, and tell me what the hell is going o—”

This time, the master cut himself off. His eyes had locked with Daniel’s, and whatever he’d seen there had silenced him midword. Daniel sniffed, blinked hard. His eyes were watering, and though he tried to convince himself it was pain, just pain, the stark truth was that he was terrified. The master didn’t want him anymore. He couldn’t even manage this one simple thing, and now he’d be sent back to Mr. Foster, to horrors he dared not even contemplate.

“What happened to your finger?” The master’s voice had dropped low and dangerous, and with the hand still around Daniel’s wrist, he pulled Daniel’s arm forward to look at the taped-up pinkie.

“I don’t know.”

The master’s face clouded over, as if he didn’t believe him.

“Honest, Master,” Daniel added, because Jesus, things were bad enough already, and the last thing he needed was for the master to think him a liar as well as incompetent and willful. It was getting harder and harder to blink the tears away, and even his voice shook as he added, “I really don’t know, Master, I’m sorry.”

The anger in the master’s face radiated outward to his shoulders, his hands, and his fingers tightened on Daniel’s battered wrists. Daniel clenched his teeth on a cry and closed his eyes against the master’s fury, wondering how badly the man might hurt him before he threw him away.

His only hope was to distract him, to change his mind.

“Please,” Daniel said again, and though he was begging full out, throat tight and burning as fiercely as his cheeks and ears, he didn’t care, didn’t care about anything but pleasing this man, about never seeing the basement of NewWorld Media again. He slid back to his knees, for though his hands were still not free, he had other tools with which to pleasure his master, as Mr. Foster had made so painfully clear.

But he’d just barely managed to press his open mouth to the master’s cloth-covered, half-faded erection before he was jerked up and away again.

“No, damn it, stop!” The master hauled Daniel to his feet, and the hands that had been gripping his wrists moved to clutch at his upper arms, shaking him hard.

Daniel lowered his head so his master couldn’t read the shame on his face, the humiliation or fear as he swiped at watering eyes with a trembling hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then, “Please, Master, please,” though even he didn’t really know what he was asking for.

“What’s this?” The master asked, deceptively gentle, tilting Daniel’s chin up with one hand. Daniel could feel his face burning, his lips quivering, and when a single tear ran down his cheek, the master caught it with his thumb. “Stay,” he said, taking his hand away and holding it before Daniel’s face in a universal “don’t move” gesture. “Just . . . just hold still for a second, okay?”

Daniel pressed his lips together and nodded. Would the master call his handler to come take him back now? Did he really think Daniel would try to run away while he went to get the phone?

But the master took only a single step back, his hands dropping to his sides, his eyes never leaving Daniel. They traveled slowly down Daniel’s neck, shoulder, arm, widened in alarm at the bruises peeking out beneath Daniel’s shirtsleeve, as if noticing them for the first time.

“Goddamn it,” the master growled, reaching out to brush fingers over Daniel’s forearm, the heavier bruising around his wrist. “What the fuck is this?”

Daniel swallowed hard and resisted the very strong urge to cover himself, to hide this new shame from the master’s prying eyes. “I struggled, Master.”

The master raised an eyebrow over a harsh scowl. “You struggled?” he demanded, as if he could hardly believe his recalcitrant slave would pile such an insult atop all the others that had led to his punishment in the first place.

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have; I was weak, I didn’t mean to misbehave again, I really di—”

“Damn it! He told me he wouldn’t beat you! He promised!” The master turned his eyes to Daniel’s, and if Daniel hadn’t known better, he’d have said the man was downright beseeching. “I made him promise!”

Well, that was . . . different. So much so that Daniel had no idea how to respond. The truth, he supposed. “He, uh . . .” Daniel licked his lips, shook his head. “He didn’t, Master.”

No. What’d he’d done was much, much worse.

The master’s scowl grew deeper. Perhaps he didn’t believe Daniel, or perhaps he did and simply wanted to exact a punishment himself, for he crossed his arms and said, “Take your shirt off.”

The master’s voice quivered, much like Daniel’s had these last many minutes, though surely the cause in the master’s case was rage instead of fear. What was he planning? If he’d wanted sex, he wouldn’t have stopped Daniel’s earlier attentions. Which meant . . . Oh God, please, no. Daniel didn’t think he could handle any more pain today. Not again.

Still, lest his punishment grow worse, he dared not keep the master waiting. He pulled his shirt over his head, wondering almost hysterically what the master’s upper-crust neighbors would think of all the screaming coming from the north penthouse.

But the hands that fell upon Daniel’s bare skin brought no pain. They were gentle, indecisive, tracing the bruises on his biceps, forearms, wrists, the smattering of contact burns on his stomach and chest, before spinning him around and repeating the process on his back. There were fewer marks there, but the master’s fingers lingered long over the painful bite on Daniel’s shoulder blade.

Those large hands turned Daniel around again, skimmed over his arms and chest like the hands of a blind man trying to map something unfathomably new. The touches burned with an intensity that infused the master’s whole being—the master’s hands trembled as Daniel shook beneath them; the master’s breathing grew fast and audible as Daniel’s own chest heaved with fear.

Maybe the master didn’t want to hurt him after all. Or maybe he’d planned to, but had changed his mind once he’d been able to see and touch; maybe now, he simply wanted to take what he’d paid for. That’d be no less painful than a beating, but at least it wouldn’t leave Daniel to contend with Mr. Foster’s wrath again.