Chapter Text
I had expected some form of commentary from Throren when we reached the bedroom. I didn't get it. He said nothing to me and dropped heavily into his armchair. It creaked in protest. I sat at his feet on the cold stone floor and shivered.
Throren stared at the smouldering remains of the fire. I knew that he wouldn't punish me. Dune was involved, so I wouldn't be punished, unless Throren intended to go back on that promise. I doubted that with a solid, unthinking surety. I trusted his word.
"Strip. Lie on your back in the middle of the bed with your legs apart," Throren said.
I obeyed apprehensively. It had not been long enough since our last time. It was still the same night. Throren brought the water and cloth. He did not set the candle and he did not take out the oil.
He put himself above me and looked me in the eye for a while. He looked blank and cold, exactly as I had expected him to after this much contact with Dune.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you did just now," he said, after a time of just looking me in the eye.
I bit my lip and tried to find the words to answer him.
"Don't try to explain it," Throren said. "I have the feeling that whatever just happened was so intensely manipulative it would go over my head anyway."
I bit my lip harder, and he leaned down to pluck it from my teeth with his lips. I kissed him, trying to placate him, and it seemed like it worked while he kissed back, but then he leaned back and looked at me blankly, and I wasn't sure.
"I'm sorry, Master, I was only trying to help," I said softly. "Are you going to confine me to keep me away from Dune?"
Throren did not answer my question. Instead, he ran his eyes over me, from the top of my head to as far as he could see between our bodies. His gaze made me feel warm, but it also made me shiver as though I was cold. "Can you do it?" he asked.
My knees shook in response as I lay naked underneath him. No. It was too soon. I hadn't even had a night to recover ... oh, fuck, I'd done it again.
I took a sharp breath as I realised how badly I'd cocked up. "Master, wait," I said quickly. "Wait, I'm sorry, I've - I'm sorry-"
"Stop," he said simply, and I shut my mouth. "You panicked rather suddenly," he said after a few moments. He leaned down and kissed my neck, and I whimpered uncomfortably. He pulled back immediately.
"I'm sorry," I said slowly, trying to draw out my words so as not to seem panicked. "I did it again, I obeyed the order to come here, and I didn't think, I just did, and you wouldn't have wanted me to - "
"Kath, breathe," Throren said warningly.
I closed my mouth and breathed.
"Why exactly wouldn't I have wanted you to obey me?" Throren asked.
"Because I'm sore," I said. "You don't like hurting me, and I'm hurting and it's too soon, and the last time I put myself in this position when it was going to hurt, you told me to rethink my decisions-"
Throren's eyes widened. He'd been blank since we returned, and this was the first time I'd seen a reaction from him. It stunned me into silence again.
He lowered his lips to mine incredibly gently and we kissed without any fervour at all. He kissed quietly and calmly, and I kissed nervously.
"I'm glad you took it to heart," he said eventually, but it was stilted and forced. "The issue that time was that you didn't inform me that you still had pain and I didn't know. Do you think I don't know that you're sore?"
I looked away, trying to figure out what he meant by that. "You don't want to hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly," I said eventually. "So why would you want me like this right now, Master? I shouldn't have come. I should have stayed at your feet and told you I was too sore."
"And I'd have commanded you here anyway, to do what I'm going to do to you. Sore or not," Throren said.
I furrowed my brow, trying to figure out how to reason that in with everything I knew about him. It didn't make any sense, and it put me on edge.
"Now, can you do it?" Throren repeated.
"You told me to stop you," I said feebly. "You told me to stop you if I couldn't take it-"
"Not that. This thing with Dune. Whatever it is you're doing, can you do it?" Throren asked.
I clenched my jaw. "I don't know, Master," I said. "I can do something, but I don't know if it will be enough."
Throren leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. "If you can do something, it'll be more than I've managed," he said against my lips. "I think you managed more tonight than Yulie and I have since Yulie bought the little shit."
"I don't know the situation well enough. Dune spoke to me about it a bit, but not nearly enough for me to make anything but the most simple of changes. And I'm in a ... a precarious position. I'm worried I'll offend you, or Lord Yulie, or even Dune. I don't have any authority over him, and if I bother him, he'll just ignore me like he ignores everyone else. I don't know if I can do it," I said.
"I bet you can't," Throren said. The words sent a hot bolt of pain through my chest. Throren didn't think I could help? What the fuck? After everything? How many times did I have to prove myself to this man?
When he pulled back, he was smirking at me, like an arsehole-
Wait. Blank Throren didn't smirk. Regular Throren barely even smirked.
"You bet I can't," I said. "Like how I can't take your cock, and I can't ride a plough horse, and I can't please your father."
"I bet you can't get Dune to behave," Throren said, smirking down at me, and I'd never felt quite so proud as I did at that moment.
"Watch me," I said.
"You may use every tool at your disposal, except sheer force of will," Throren drawled. I laughed.
He kissed my cheek. I felt out of breath and immensely smug.
He leaned back and settled between my thighs. My smugness faded and my apprehension returned.
"I'd like to apologise," Throren said. He stroked my thighs with his huge hands, and I shivered. "I'm not usually half as neglectful as I've been with you."
"Neglectful, Master?" I asked, confused. That was hardly how I'd have described him at any point in my time as his slave. He could be cold, certainly, but neglectful? He'd always seen to my every need. He was often cold or detached when he did it, but he never neglected to do it at all.
"You do this amazing thing with your arse, Kath," Throren continued. He mouthed at my knee, then he placed soft kisses on my thigh. "It's incredibly distracting, and it's driven me to a level of distraction I wouldn't normally have."
"What exactly haven't you been doing, Master?" I asked.
"Everything else," Throren said obscurely. "Everything else is usually all I get, so with you, I've been rather single minded."
"I don't know what everything else is," I said.
"See? Neglectful," Throren said, seeming properly ashamed of himself.
Then he put his lips on my half-hard cock and took it inside of his mouth.
My reaction was primarily comprised of shock. Seeing Throren with my cock in his mouth was a very similar sort of image to seeing him in that spin shop. He didn't belong there, he was too high class for that sort of thing.
It was filthy and wrong, and I hadn't even done it to him yet. Most slaves would go their entire lives not knowing what this felt like, let alone having it done to them by a Master ... let alone by a lord...
I let out a choked, aborted noise and tried to still my hips. I completely failed. Within moments I was making soft, pleading little sounds and moving my hips up, pushing my cock further into his mouth. He was warm and wet, and his mouth felt tight - oh, he was sucking on me - for fuck's sake, this wasn't right, this wasn't something I should be allowed.
This man was going to ruin me. I'd spent months with traders carefully crafting a submissive, pliant little slave personality to show to Masters. He was going to suck out all my hard work through my cock and spit it out onto the floor, ruined.
How was I ever going to submit to him after this? How could I ever be his slave, to use as he pleased, after he let me fuck his mouth like a ... like a whore?
I'd never be able to look him in the eye again without seeing the way his eyes were so attentive as they looked up at me. I'd never be able to hear his voice again without remembering the way his timbre had felt around my cock.
I'd never be able to look at his hand again without seeing it wrapped around my cock, holding it firmly while he pressed his tongue - oh, ae'Aberda, fuck - just underneath the head of my cock.
I'd never be able to look at his fingers without seeing them running experimentally over my balls, touching, cupping, rolling, while his eyes looked at me and I knew he was listening - listening intently to every noise that passed my lips. He was learning and learning well.
Before I knew what I was doing, my hands were in his hair, gripping and tugging him, and he let me. He let me yank on his hair until I could control myself and make myself let him go.
"Sorry," I said breathlessly, but I wasn't sorry.
I'd never be able to forget the spit coming down his chin as he pulled off my cock. I'd never be able to let him take me by the wrists again without remembering him putting my hands back into his hair. I'd never be able to hear Throren - two-word Throren - speak in two-word sentences again, not without hearing him say what he said to me, husky and low, in the late hours of that night.
"You may," he said, and everything was ruined.
I spread my legs further, fisted my hands into his hair, and thrust back into his mouth while he just took it and sucked.
Two-word Throren's two-word sentences were running through my head like tiny hallucinations, wild and rampant.
'Turn over,' he had said, every time we had sex, even though he liked my face.
'Love you,' he had said, as though he had no idea how to say it.
'Please breathe,' he had said, and then he had distracted me until I calmed down.
'Will you?' he had said, a question, not an order.
'You may,' he had said, and my whole world had crashed to pieces to lay in a shuddering mess at his feet. No amount of collars, servitude, or riding crops could do what he had done to me in this room, with those words.
I knew what I had always known from the start.
This man was going to ruin me.
I could not come out of this in one piece. Throren was going to ruin me with his two-word sentences and his notched candles and his filthy tongue. I'd thought that it would be his cock that did it, when I'd first learned that I belonged to him. I hated to admit to being wrong, but I couldn't deny it when it was now so blatantly obvious. His cock would not ruin me. It would be his tongue, his words, his eyes, and his actions. It would be the way he paid studious attention to me while he fucked me, regardless of how he did it. Fingers, cock, and now mouth, and he was as attentive as he always was.
It became apparent quickly - to both of us - that what I liked best was to hold on to his hair for dear life while he tongued at my cock. Once he figured that out, he just kept on doing it, stopping only to try new things and note my reactions.
He could fit almost all of me into his mouth. I liked the sight of that, and he could tell, so he just kept on doing it. I liked holding onto his hair and letting myself lose control, thrusting up into his mouth while I yanked his head down, and he didn't even seem to mind.
I didn't like it too rough, or too fast, and I didn't like too firm a grip on my balls. He didn't repeat those actions. He did what I liked best. He did what he learned would get my hands drawn tight in his hair and my voice to escape out of my throat in unplanned, likely unattractive grunts and moans.
"Master," I pleaded. I used the word entirely out of habit. He could never be a Master to me ever again. No Master would do this. This was a Throren thing to do.
I tried to pull him off me before I came, because that was just too much, but his neck was stronger than my hands. He would back off a bit, but he wouldn't release me from his mouth. I realised then that he could have quite easily defied me and kept his head still or moved at his own pace. Instead, he had chosen to let me grab, pull, and yank his head onto my cock however I wanted to.
I came into his mouth to that realisation. I'd never be able to stare at his throat again without remembering the way it had moved as he'd swallowed my come.
Well, fuck. There went all my hard work at trying to be a good, submissive little whore. It was gone forever, right down his throat.
When he was done swallowing, he licked his lips and gave me a most insolent little smirk. He looked smug and pleased with himself. He knew exactly how much he'd wrecked me. He just didn't know precisely how. He could tell that he'd given me pleasure - lots of it. He might not yet have known that he'd completely fucked our Master and slave dynamic.
Throren looked like he'd just done something incredibly easy for an incredibly large reward. He drank in the sight of me, sprawled out on his bed, staring at the ceiling so that I didn't have to look at his face.
Surely, if I looked at him, he'd know that everything had changed.
He crawled up the bed and into my line of view. He either didn't notice that everything had changed, or he didn't care.
He dipped his head and kissed me. I kissed back. I'd never be able to kiss him again without remembering the way he'd tasted after he'd had me in his mouth.
I didn't want to forget. I didn't want to go back. I wanted him to suck me every day for the rest of my life. I wanted him, complacent and eager, with my cock in his mouth and his eyes studying me to learn what I liked. I wanted to put a collar on his neck and make him do that to me forever.
I never wanted to remember my place ever again.
He kissed me thoroughly and I wrapped my arms around him. He let me draw him in closer. I burst into a sob when I felt his hard cock on my thigh.
"Hm," he said, pulling back. "That's not usually how that goes."
"Why won't you let me touch you?" I whined. I couldn't take his cock in my arse again, and he wouldn't let me touch it.
Things had been fine before, when he had only wanted my arse. I could please him with my arse. How could I please him now, when I was sore, and he didn't like hurting me and he didn't want to be touched?
He was going to leave to take care of that cock. He was going to fuck off and deal with it without me. He'd done it before, but at least that time I'd fallen asleep, so I hadn't had to lie awake knowing that he'd left me.
My eyes dried up as quickly as they had started to water, because I wasn't upset. I was furious.
It made me want to strangle him. It made me want to wrap my hands around his glorious throat and squeeze until he relented, but I could no longer think of his throat without remembering the way it had looked when he had swallowed my come.
He kissed me again. "Is it really that big of an issue?" he asked dubiously.
I levelled at him the dirtiest glare I could summon, before I remembered myself and looked away.
Fuck - I was already fucking up. Slaves were definitely not supposed to glare at their Masters. Especially not to a Master that had just done that to their slave's cock.
He either didn't notice the glare or he chose not to mention it. "Kath," he said.
"I'm your slave," I ground out. "I am here to please you. If I let you go off and please yourself, I'm worthless."
"You're not," Throren said, unusually strongly, but he'd used two words to say it.
'You may,' ran through my head with astounding forcefulness.
This had nothing to do with my self-worth. That had just climbed skyward, because Throren had sucked my slave mindset out from me through my cock and it had been glorious.
It had also reminded me that I could not bear to lose him.
"I'm supposed to please you," I whined. "That's my job."
Throren put his nose into my neck, just below my ear. "You please me all the time, Kath," he said.
"It's not enough," I said, before I could stop myself.
Throren pulled back and looked me in the eye. I tried to school my expression into something more slave-like. I must have failed.
"I don't think anyone has ever sulked after I sucked them off before," Throren said absently, as though he found the whole thing amusing.
I turned away. If I didn't, I was going to do something I'd regret.
He chuckled - the absolute twat - and spoke again. "Is this because I've said you can't? Your father told you no horses. Everyone told you couldn't take my cock. Do you want to touch me just because it's forbidden?"
He didn't even sound angry. He sounded fond, like my casual wilfulness was something he liked. That just made me want him more.
"Have you ever considered the idea that I might want to touch you for the exact same reasons you want to touch me?" I spat.
He refused to get angry at me, despite my extremely disrespectful tone. "No. There's no possible way you want to touch me because I'm adorable and tiny and so, so white," Throren said.
I huffed. "You're adorable and huge and so, so dark," I snapped.
"There is no possible way you find me attractive," Throren said.
"I'd find you attractive if you were mangled and covered in boils," I said angrily, glaring at him. "How dare you try to tell me what I can be attracted to? I'll be attracted to you if I like."
Throren looked at me for a long time. I glared back, wondering in the back of my head if I was going to get hit with the crop again. I just couldn't bring myself to care.
"You're not afraid of me anymore," Throren said eventually.
That wasn't entirely true. I was afraid of something very different than I had been before. I had been afraid that he'd be cruel to me when I didn't deserve it. Now I was afraid he'd be cruel to me and I would deserve it.
"I'm afraid of what I'm going to do if you keep pushing me away," I said, twisting the truth. "It hurts. The only part of me good enough for your cock is my arse."
Throren lay down beside me and drew me into his arms. "That's not true," he said softly. He stroked my hair.
I felt trapped. I struggled out of his arms and sat up. He let me go, frowning.
"What is true, then?" I said. "I can't know unless you tell me."
Throren ran a hand through his hair. "It's not like that," he said. He sat up, reached out with a hand, and lightly touched my shoulder.
"What is it like, then?" I said.
Throren didn't speak for some time. When he did, I couldn't stay angry at him.
"You may have noticed I had a routine," he said softly. "I have been very careful with my routine. It's taken years to perfect it. You're not anywhere near the first person I've had in my bed."
I had known this. He was experienced, of course, that was obvious.
"You're not the first person to take it. You're the first person to take all of it. You're the first person to like it. But I've tried enough times with enough different people to know that the moment someone sees it, however much they could take before, they suddenly balk at less," Throren said.
"You think if I see it, I won't be able to take it anymore?" I asked incredulously.
Throren shrugged. "No," he said. "I - I'm sure you've seen it. It's not that. It's that I don't want to see you see it. I don't want to see the expression you'll take when you look at it. It's always the same look, Kath. People look at it and they think, 'that's too big', and it's written all over their faces. I just - I'm tired of that look. It's not something I ever want to see on you. I like your face too much."
I flopped back onto the bed and put my hand over my eyes. I was exhausted. "I haven't seen it," I said warily.
"I'm sure you've peeked," Throren said.
"When, exactly?" I asked, my voice dry. "In the three seconds between when it comes out of your trousers and when it goes into my arse? In the times when you get dressed with your back turned while I'm asleep?"
Throren frowned. "You haven't peeked," he said.
"What good would it do?" I asked. "I wanted to know before I took it in me, back then I thought it would be useful to know what I was in for, but you were so sneaky about it. You're so protective. Since then I didn't see the point. I know what I'm in for, now. I don't need to see it. I need you to need me. I'm supposed to be your bed slave. I'm supposed to please you."
Throren lay down beside me again. "You do please me," he said warily. "I don't quite know what you're asking for, anymore."
"I don't care how you do it," I said. "You're supposed to take your pleasure from me. If I can't touch you and you can't see me see it, then I'll look away. But you like looking at me well enough. There's absolutely no reason for you to leave."
Throren curled up against my back.
"I'm your slave," I said. I sounded angry, broken, and a little bit vicious. "If you want to do it yourself then you should, and my presence shouldn't matter at all. I'll do as I'm told and I'll leave you to it, if that's what you want."
Throren put his hand on my side and his lips at my neck. "So, you'll just ... lie there and look away?" he asked.
"I'm your slave," I said again. "I'll do whatever I'm told."
"But you won't let me leave," Throren said.
I grit my teeth. "I'll let you do whatever you like," I snapped. "You'll do what you like whether I want you to or not, but if you want me to just lie here and be unaffected after you let me do that to your mouth, you can fuck right off."
Oh, shit. There it was. There's the crop, right there.
And Dune wasn't even involved.
"I'm sorry," I said, floundering, trying to find a remnant of the pleasant little slave he'd stripped from me earlier. It was gone. He'd taken it from me. It was in his stomach now. "I've gotten emotional. I need to learn to control myself better. I'll submit to whatever punishment you decide," I said. My voice didn't sound meek and pleasing. It sounded dead. It sounded hollow.
Fake.
Throren trailed his hand down my side and shifted closer, bringing his front against my arse. He wasn't hard anymore. He pulled me into his arms.
He didn't say anything for a long time.
Eventually, I pulled out of his arms to find the blanket and cover us. He pulled me straight back against him afterward.
I was almost asleep, figuring that punishment would await me the next day, when he finally spoke.
"I don't think I've ever been loved before," Throren said. "It seems to involve a lot more lectures than I'd expected."
I laughed. "Are you not mad?" I asked incredulously.
He put his lips on my neck again and kissed the marks he'd left there not so long ago. "You took me by surprise," he said eventually. "You were supposed to take a few fingers, be pretty, and then lose my interest when you couldn't take my cock and you failed to not be afraid of me."
I shrugged. "Sorry," I said.
I was not sorry.
"I didn't expect there to be feelings," Throren said. "It complicates things."
"How?" I asked.
Throren kissed my neck. "It means that I have to forgive you when I cock up and you lecture me," he said.
If he didn't start beating me soon, I was going to become a real terror.
"This is the fourth time, you know," he said idly. He stroked his hand up and down my arm. "You lectured me after I cropped you. You did it again when I wouldn't touch you. You did it again when I misunderstood your sheer force of will comment. Now, here we are again. Each time, it gets longer, and you get ... blunter."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I'm not," Throren said. "You've yet to be punished for speaking. You lectured Yulie earlier and look how well that turned out."
I felt tension seep out of my shoulders, even as disbelief settled in. I wasn't going to get the crop again? Really?
"You're probably right, anyway," Throren said.
Fucking hell. I was so fucked. This man was going to ruin me.
Throren really was spoiling me. I'd told him to fuck off and he told me I was probably right.
I'd never be able to fake it again. The whole dynamic was fucked. He wasn't my Master anymore. He was just Throren. I loved him, but I couldn't be reverent to him anymore. I wasn't scared of him. He'd taken me into his mouth like he was my whore and let me tell him to fuck off.
I realised, belatedly, that I hadn't called him Master since he'd sucked me off. I'd just talked like we were equals. Even ae'NaNathra couldn't have gotten away with that with Father.
"Go to sleep," Throren said. "Yulie's going to want to put you to work with Dune tomorrow. And I'm going to want to suck you again. Or worse. You'll need your rest."
Or worse?!
What ... what the fuck was 'or worse'?!
"Relax," Throren said. "I promise you'll like it, and I won't leave after."
I didn't know what to say, and I was exhausted, so I reluctantly did as I was told. I closed my eyes, expecting to be plagued with my own imaginations of 'or worse'. Instead, I fell asleep nearly instantly.