Affirmations

"Fuck!" Buck twitched and lurched, clutching tightly to the chains that ran through D rings on the ceiling and kept his arms stretched high and wide. His hands were sweating, had been sweating since Chris had locked him into position, and the thin steel links were slippery and hot in his grip. His inner thighs ached, because his legs were spread so wide and because of the stripes of fire that licked the tender skin there.

Chris stepped up close behind him, and he heard the thud of something hitting the floor. Probably the crop Chris had used on him. Buck could only hope it was that.

"God, you're beautiful," Chris breathed. A hand touched his back, shockingly cool and dry compared to the heat his body was generating. Just standing here, just holding position and taking what Chris gave him, took more out of him than a ten-mile run.

He sucked in a breath, dutifully repeated the words. "I'm beautiful," he whispered quietly, barely more than a breath; it embarrassed him, to say such things about himself without the shield of humor--especially when Chris stripped him so very bare, as he'd done today.

The hand moved down, two fingers sliding just into the sweat-slick crack of his ass, the touch so light he could barely feel it against all the other sensations screaming in his body.

"You're so sexy."

He tried to push his hips back without moving his feet; Chris really got on him when he stepped out of place. "I'm so sexy," he repeated.

Chris moved closer, straddling his left leg. The denim of Chris' jeans rubbed at the skin of his calf, and Buck ached with the need for friction, touch, release. Chris pressed his face into Buck's exposed armpit, inhaling deeply.

"Damn, Buck, just the smell of your sweat makes me want to fuck you."

He shuddered at the desire in his lover's voice, at the power of it and what it could do to him. Just words, he'd sometimes try to think. But they weren't, not when Chris used them. When Chris used them like this, they were mink gloves and Spanish Fly, the bite of a whip or a belt, the soft sucking caress of lips to that tender spot on the inside of his thigh, just beside his balls.

"Please..." he whispered, desperate.

Chris had been so hard on him today; it had been hours. A severe game, of putting him through his paces, of intensely confining bondage and the slow, methodical opening of his body, of kisses and feathers and harsh flagellation.

"Please what, Buck?"

"Please, Chris," he panted. "Please let me come."

Chris' right hand eased further down his crack, nudged the end of the dildo that stuck out of him. It was big, inches bigger than he'd have said he could ever tolerate at ten o'clock this morning. But now his asshole felt like a maw, and he was so sensitized, every nerve so awakened he'd have begged to be fucked by anything Chris wanted to put inside him. His brain had gone on its own fantasy flight, spurred by Chris' heady words: impossible penetrations, fists and forearms, dildos like fire hydrants, the spitting of his body on a length of pvc pipe Chris had shown him earlier, for effect.

Soft and hard, cold and hot.

Chris' fingertips danced over the polished knobs of his balls, tight and aching in their sac, pushed up and forward by the thick leather width of his cock ring. Chris licked a broad path along the edge of his armpit and up that stretch of muscle to his collarbone.

Hard. Chris gripped the rubber cock more firmly and nudged its tip an inch further into him. He hadn't seen it, but he could sure as hell feel it. It must be four or five inches in diameter and twelve inches long, and as Chris nudged it now it felt like it was trying to tap the inside of his belly button.

The stripes from the riding crop burned like snake bites, puffy and hot, across the tender bottoms of his ass cheeks, and around the softest skin of his inner thighs. And each time Chris had whipped him, his muscles had clenched and spasmed, tightening like a boa constrictor around the pole inside him, sending shock waves of sensation he couldn't even distinguish anymore as pleasure or pain, straight up his spine to ignite and explode behind his eyes.

Chris' hand left his balls and settled on his belly to steady him, to keep him from losing his balance and taking a forbidden step forward. The rubber cock nudged inside him, pushed in another inch.

He shuddered in pain and need, and twisted his wrists in the cuffs.

"Stop that," Chris ordered, cold. "Only I mark you."

He'd chafed himself badly once, torn enough skin from his wrists that Chris had been forced to ask Nathan to see to him. Ever since, Chris had watched him closely, and kept him from doing it again.

Chris jabbed the rubber cock forward unexpectedly and Buck's muscles went rigid, arms drawing tight and trembling, tendons standing out harshly, body arching forward like the curve of a bow. Chris moved it up and down without changing the level of penetration, the dildo a lever and Buck's anus the fulcrum. He sobbed, trying to move with it without shifting his feet, his entire body shaking as the feeling rolled through him in great gasping waves. It pushed the pleasure up, pushed the pain up, and pushed the orgasm that much further away.

"God, you're beautiful." The timbre and tone told him when he needed to respond.

"I'm beautiful!" he cried out.

Suddenly he dildo slid out of him, Chris stepped away, and the world went quiet. He shuddered, trying to listen past the sound of his pounding heart and unsteady breaths. Chris was giving him this time, he knew, a gift to be alone with his body. Every inch of his skin alive. His hips moved ceaselessly, his ass and thighs twitched to the steady throbbing in the stripes Chris had given him. As the seconds or minutes or hours dragged out, he stamped his feet, jerked at the chains, thrust at the empty air. His dick was so hard, so incredibly, impossibly hard, and his ass so open and empty he didn't know how he'd stand this, how he'd last another second without screaming, without demanding and threatening, without losing his mind.

"That's right, stud," Chris whispered, right in front of him. "That's right, Big Dog. Just take it all in."

His eyes popped open and his gaze impacted with Chris' like a heat seeking missile. From that simple contact, a shudder started at the base of his skull and chased down his spine, down his thighs, his legs, all the way to his toes. Oh, yeah. It was all for him. Chris was how he'd stand it.

With that remembrance, the conflicting sensations all combined into one solid, sublime mass, like a recipe prepared by a master chef. The result, him here and trembling, so ready, in love, desperate, patient, was magic made from simple raw ingredients that Chris had started with this morning.

Chris stepped forward, and soft, full lips pressed against his own, a nuzzling, nurturing caress. "I need to fuck you," Chris breathed against his damp mouth. "I need you."

He blinked. All the control was right there in Chris' eyes, all the possessiveness, the banked heat and power. Feeling that need pull at every cell, he affirmed, "You've got me."

Chris moved away. Metal clinked loudly, and chain links rattled as they slid through the ceiling rings. Buck's arms hung limply with the new slack, wrists almost shoulder height. He'd stay restrained. He wouldn't be able to reach his groin, wouldn't be able to remove the cock ring or touch himself. He'd be brought to his knees right here, and fucked from below.

His belly shook with the soft, sobbing hiccoughs that he no longer tried to fight, and pushed his breath out in harsh, gasping rhythm.

Fingertips circled the knob of one of his anklebones.

He opened his eyes, staring down. Chris lay between his wide-spread legs, naked now, leaning to one side to reach his foot and pull on it gently. The impassioned face, intent and soft, stared unblinking up Buck's heaving body. Buck felt a droplet of sweat roll down his cheek, watched it fall away and land with a splat, square in the middle of Chris' chest.

He tested his legs, and carefully shuffled them in until his feet tucked in at either side of Chris' narrow waist. More touches, a stroke over his Achilles tendons. He grabbed the chains again for balance and walked his feet forward until his toes nestled in his lover's damp armpits and he swayed slightly backwards, bottom-heavy.

"Mount up," Chris said quietly, and Buck squatted down, weight supported by his hands and heels, his ass the third point on the triangle. Hands cupped his cheeks to guide him, to pull them apart and open the way. Chris' cock head met his dilated, loose hole and slid in without resistance.

A grunt escaped Chris as most of Buck's weight settled onto the narrow bowl of pelvis, and Chris' hands slid down his thighs.

Fingers traced the raised welts that would mark him for days. "Up a little," Chris instructed, a fine knife-edge of emotion cutting his voice. "Okay, hold it."

Buck held, swaying slightly as the chain rocked, and threw his head back when Chris' heavy cock started jack-hammering into him. Chris had stretched him so sloppy loose over the course of the morning, he'd wondered if he'd be any good for his lover, but all he had to do was listen to the animal grunts that kept squeezing out of a tight throat to know that Chris was getting what he needed.

Each slam of pelvis against his ass cheeks incited his welts, and each corkscrew twist of hips told him just how high he was. What should have hurt before just drove him higher, chasing an orgasm that Chris' tight control and the damning cock ring kept firmly out of his reach.

He sobbed his frustration just as Chris grated, "Look at me!"

He dropped his head forward between his upstretched arms. "Chris," he whimpered, bouncing on the thrusts like a cowboy rides a bull.

Hands squeezed deeply into the muscle of his ass. Chris gritted his teeth, mouth stretching in a rictus of pleasure that transcended his whole face. "I'm--
Buck..." The thrusts lost their rhythm, went desperate and erratic, then Chris arched up and held, lifting Buck's weight with the force of his climax. Chris convulsed once, thrust up again, and Buck felt his slick ass grow slicker as cum mixed with lube and began to dribble out of him.

He'd have fought for his own orgasm, if he'd had any chance at all. But his climax was Chris' today, and they both knew it, so he grit his teeth and absorbed the pleasure that burned in Chris' eyes like a laser, and panted in envious sympathy.

Chris' tension slowly ebbed. His clutching hands eased, rubbed gently over Buck's butt. His ass slowly settled back to the floor, and Buck, exhausted and desperate, sat heavily on him. Chris' eyes softened, shiny with pleasure, relaxed. Entertained at his expense.

"You ready?" Chris asked before Buck could even think to be mad. Chris' hands slid off his ass and around between his knees, up the insides of his thighs, one moving to measure the point of their joining, the other to tickle around the edge of the leather band that kept him from coming.

"Now? Chris, now?" he asked, as close to begging as he could ever get.

"All right." Fingers pressed at his softened muscle, then popped in right in front of Chris' cock. Buck gasped, jerked as they aimed right for his prostate and stabbed at it.

He yelled like a banshee and stiffened, riding so much higher, off the top of the world, and still Chris pushed at him, stimulated him, started thrusting his still-hard cock all over again.

The cock ring came off, and as Chris just grasped his shaft and squeezed, milking him, orgasm descended on him like lightning from the sky. He shook, trembled, gripping the chains and digging the balls of his feet under Chris' shoulders for leverage. The first tiny moan, eye of the storm, herald of Armageddon, whispered out of him, and just when his belly cramped up, Chris went still.

"Bastard!" he yelled. "You fucking--*bastard,* Chris, you--" but Chris had seen somehow that it was already on him. Like an avalanche, the first sensation was tiny, trivial, a quiver through his cock that swept gently, fluttering, through his pelvis.

"Ah...I..."

Then the rumble, the shaking of the ground, the instinctive knowledge that this would be the end of him and that no effort, no act of strength or will, would save him.

His hips jerked. His spine popped. And the first wave hit him, slamming through his belly, burying consciousness beneath a tide of sensation so strong, all he could do was shake like a rag doll and roll where it pushed him. Long, slow, drawn out like the scream he could hear from a distance, it washed over him, and over him, his cum spurting once, hesitating, cock twitching, sensation swamping, then another spurt, another held-breath effort to stop the scream before the next wave, and the next... as his cock jerked a fourth time and he registered Chris' fingers rubbing light and fast over the slit in his dick, like a boy scout trying to use friction to start a fire, and lost touch entirely.

He came back slowly, groggy. The corners of his eyes were wet and sticky, and he was pretty sure he was drooling. Pitched forward against something hard and warm, he tried to piece together the sporadic information his brain was gathering from his fried nerve endings. Warmth. His arms were stuck on something above his head. A soft sound sussurated past his earlobe. Maybe it was a language. Yeah. English. Even tones, smooth and gentle. He focused on decoding the syllables.

"... come on, wake up before you squash me, pal, come on. Jesus you're heavy, come on, damn, Buck. Come on, wake up..."

He jerked back, and remembered he was still handcuffed only as he started to pitch forward again.

"Easy, Buck," Chris said, and between his own uncoordinated efforts and Chris' gentle shoving, he rebalanced his body backward, against Chris' upraised thighs.

"Damn, my ass hurts," he mumbled.

"Just think about my dick," Chris said, his grumbling half-hearted at best, "you've been sitting on it for the last five minutes."

Buck yawned, and dug his heels in against the floor. He grabbed at the restraint chain and gave an experimental tug, to be sure he'd have his balance, and slowly pulled himself up. Chris helped him, then dropped back onto the floor as soon as Buck was standing.

"Ow," Chris said.

"Damn," Buck answered, looking down at his lover through a cloudy, silken haze.

Chris grunted and rolled, and Buck stepped over him, let him crawl to his feet, and waited while he unbuckled the cuffs. As soon as his arms were free, he dropped them over Chris' shoulders and flopped forward, carrying them both back to the floor.

"Damn," he said again, feeling far more lucid than when he'd said it a moment ago.

Chris propped up beside him and ran gentle hands over his shoulders and down his arms to check his wrists. Buck heard the quiet curse that told him Chris would be dragging out the first aid kit sometime soon.

"How're you feelin'?" Chris asked him.

He thought hard, trying to come up with a better description than 'damn.' "Wow."

Chris smirked at him. "Wow?"

"Chris," he said sincerely, then yawned. "Wow."

Chris tucked in beside him, and Buck just breathed in the smell of their sweat and sex, and waited for the energy to drag his lover into the shower. He had a feeling it would be awhile, especially when Chris started stroking him meditatively, bringing his awareness back to his cooling skin and the warmth where their bodies pressed together.

"I don't like you passing out," Chris said after a minute.

Buck would heartily disagree. His body felt twenty pounds lighter, and the sensation that still thrummed through him was like muscle memory; he wasn't going to forget this for a long while. If passing out was a part of it... if Chris didn't like it, then he'd try not to do it again.

"You were just too intense, to day, Lead Dog. Stop worrying, it was fantastic."

"Well," Chris said, mollified, "you just remember that later when you're sore as hell and asking me why I hit you so hard."

He had never asked why Chris did the things he did, nor why they both sometimes needed things like this. Work pressure, life pressure, things getting too normal or too tense... sometimes specific things could mess them up, like a prostitute's abandoned corpse or a child caught in the crossfire. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Chris had never let him drown in his insecurities, not even when they were kids. All that mattered was that Buck knew how to turn a belt or a fuck toy into a sweet, heartfelt release from anniversaries or unknown women on the street who would catch Chris' eye and make him remember.

"You hit me that hard because you needed to see me jump," he dismissed. "You hit me that hard because I needed you to."

Whatever one needed, the other knew how to provide.

Chris leaned up and bent to kiss him, then chuckled. "You look like hell."

He probably had tears and drool and snot on his face. He knew for a fact that he was grimy with sweat, slick with semen, and that his pubic hair was positively matted. "Your fault," he said placidly.

Chris lay back down. "I love you."

Buck pondered that for a moment, listening to the timbre and tone, and sighed. Smiled gently. "You love me," he answered simply.

The End