“Don't say nice things to me,” Will growled. “I know that means you’re planning on ditching me.”
“I will miss you so much.” Maddox walked to Will and took his face in both hands, searching Will’s visage with a hungry, lonely gaze. It was as if he was already gone, and Will absolutely hated that feeling.
“I’m coming with you, obviously.”
“Gideon will kill you if I allow you to come with me. I am certain of that.”
“I’m hard to kill.”
“I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
“You let Henry fucking magically taze me with that metal ring!”
“Well, you deserved that,” Maddox said. “Gideon would undo you in ways that meant you would never go back together. If we were lucky he’d just kill you.”
“I’ve never heard you so scared.”
“That’s because I’ve never had any reason to fear for you, my boy. Not this way.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“You absolutely cannot take care of yourself, boy.”
“Yes. I can.” Will truly believed the words as they came out of his mouth. He had no intention of letting anything happen to himself. Maddox might think he was just some young pup who needed protection, but Will had been looking after himself for a very long time. He’d survived prison on his own, and what was some dusty old vampire compared to warring prison gangs combining forces to kill him? Will had survived that, and he knew he was going to survive Gideon too. Maddox’s refusal to entertain him as a serious contender in his own life pissed Will right the fuck off.
Will’s world cartwheeled. This had happened enough times that he knew what it meant. He’d been lifted off his feet and thrown like a rag doll across the room, onto the bed. He landed lightly, thanks to Maddox catching him and pinning him in place, one hand on this throat, the other in his hair, long legs straddling his body, dark and merciless eyes locked on his.
“Show me, boy. Show me how you protect yourself.”
Will couldn’t move. Well, part of him could still move. The excited, hard, erect part of him came surging up against his pants while the rest of him remained pinned beneath his master.
“What’s that? Not so much?” Maddox’s voice was affectionately mocking.
“This isn’t fair,” Will groaned.
“No, it’s not,” Maddox agreed without a hint of pity. “You’re powerless against me, and my maker is many times stronger than I am. He would not have to touch you to destroy you.”
Will snorted with derision. “I don’t give a fuck how powerful he is.”
“Such an arrogant little pup,” Maddox purred. “I wonder how I might make you give a fuck?”
This was half-lesson, half-foreplay. Things with Maddox often were. He liked to cast himself in the role of teacher and make his instruction intensely painful, or pleasurable.
Will looked up into the face of the man he loved more than anything, and he let himself submit. At least, he let the part of him that would have put up serious resistance submit. He kept the part that liked to fuck with Maddox. He didn’t want to make things too easy for the vampire or for himself. Will loved the struggle. He didn’t mind if he lost, just as long as he got to fight.
The room spun again as Maddox lifted up slightly and tossed him over on his front, ripping his pants down. The room was well equipped with lube and toys because they’d been doing little more than fucking for weeks on end. It was just as well that Will was sexually limbered up because Maddox did not seem interested in showing mercy of any kind.
“You think yourself the equal to an ancient evil?” Maddox’s hands smoothed down Will’s back to his arms and then pulled them up above his head, pinning them to the sheets.
“I’m better, because I’m new,” Will grunted back, smirking to himself. His ass was bared now, very vulnerable to his master. He was not surprised when he received a hard lash across his cheeks, delivered from Maddox’s ever present and yet hardly ever worn belt. It made him curse into the bedding, but he was getting harder too, his cock rubbing against the expensive, smooth sheets as his hips writhed with the effects of the belt, hot and intense.
“Brat,” Maddox intoned, laying the lash across his ass again. “You taunt me for punishment, but you underestimate how serious this matter is, and the lengths to which I will go to impress that seriousness upon you.”
There was no opportunity to reply. Mad lashed the belt down six more times in devastatingly quick succession, making Will’s cries real. He’d learned how to take a beating under Maddox’s rough tutelage, but sometimes the vampire would push him further than he had ever before, and now was one of those times. Six, followed by another six, followed by another six. Eighteen harsh strokes of the belt caught Will across his ass, and his thighs when he moved too much, unable to keep himself still.
Maddox helped there too, pinning him down on the small of his back, making escape an impossibility. Will had been playing, but Mad wasn’t playing. He was giving full rein to his more sadistic impulses because Will had given him the reason to do so.
Tears leaped to Will’s eyes. He knew better than to beg for mercy. There was no point taunting his master only to beg him for forgiveness. That was not the game. He did not want to cry. He was still hard and throbbing. Still fucking horny. Being with Maddox meant mixing sex and sorrow.