Title: Beginnings
Summary: Prequel to ″Reconciliation.″ Jack's first time with each of his subs.
Rating: AO for graphic sex, violence, and mature themes.
Fic Word Count: 34,444
Fic Pairings: Jack Harkness/Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness/OFC, Suzie Costello/Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness/Suzie Costello/Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness/Owen Harper, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams
Fic Contains: biting, blood play mention, blowjobs, bondage, caning, canon character death mention, casual drug use discussion, clamps, cunnilingus, Dom controlling a sub's clothing, exhibitionism, Fetish clothes, fingering, first time with a man, gags, handjobs, one night stands, orgasm denial, PIV sex, sensory deprivation (blindfolds), sexuality discussion, spanking, threesomes, vampire gloves, violence mention, voyeurism
Fic Warnings: canon character death discussion, casual racism (outside of the main pairing), fetishization (outside of the main pairing), suicide contemplation, unwanted non-sexual touches (outside of the main pairing)
Chapter Number: Three
Chapter Word Count: 7,595
Chapter Pairings: Jack Harkness/Owen Harper
Chapter Contains: spanking, sexuality discussion, sensory deprivation (blindfolds), bondage, vampire gloves, blood play mention, gags, blowjobs
Chapter Warnings: suicide contemplation, canon character death discussion,
Eggs. The first thing Owen was aware of was the smell of eggs.
Second thing: He could hear the frying pan sizzle.
The third thing was—well, the third thing was his massive fucking headache, but then he realized that he couldn't see shit. It was dark. He was awake in the middle of the night, and someone was cooking eggs in his kitchen.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
Maybe he'd done it. Just as planned. He got black-out drunk at his stag party with some of his mates from the hospital, and now Katie was cooking breakfast at whatever ungodly hour this was because, well, they had a long day ahead of them. He'd have to get up any minute now so that they could eat before going off to get dressed and she could get her hair and makeup done and they could rush off to the church on time for the wedding at 1:00. They'd be in Innsbruck by tomorrow morning. Maybe it was all okay. Maybe. God. What an awful dream all of that alien bollocks had been!
Owen rolled over. He buried his eyes in his pillow and he forced himself to breathe.
He should get up and go to her. Help her cook.
It was a shame that all he could remember was that awful dream.
Had Katie's cousin managed to find the bride's maid dress in plus-size? Had Owen forgotten to ask or had Katie forgotten the answer?
Why was the other side of the bed so cold? How long had Katie been—
Just breathe. In, nice and slow. Out. In. Out. He'd thought about not breathing anymore, a few times, but he'd decided to hold off on that decision until after the New Year. He'd been hoping that, given some time and some distance, he'd think of a few good reasons to live without Katie. So far, no luck. He supposed that was why he wasn't really scared, despite an intruder making eggs in his kitchen. Granted, Owen had been a doctor for long enough to know that 'stab wound' was not how he wanted to go, given a choice, but it seems like such a small price to pay, to never have to get out of this bed and face the truth.
Or maybe it was a toss-up. Getting stabbed and getting out of bed both sounded pretty fucking painful.
Maybe he'd leave. Maybe it was just some poor sod who really wanted eggs. Maybe if Owen just waited it out here in bed, the intruder would eat his eggs and then leave. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing that had happened to Owen in the last few months.
The sizzling stopped. Something in the toaster popped up.
There was about a minute of silence, and then someone pushed open Owen's bedroom door.
"I know you're awake," Jack said. "Snoring like yours? People notice when it stops."
No running from it now. Owen sighed and sat up.
Jack handed Owen a plate, then turned on a table lamp, which didn't irritate Owen's headache quite as much the main light would have.
Jack had a plate of food for himself too, and two glasses of water in his arm. He passed one to Owen.
Water. Eggs. Toast. Hangover food. Owen stared down at it for a second while Jack started eating his.
"Did I invite you over?" Owen asked, genuinely curious because he had very few and very hazy memories of what had happened after he got off work yesterday.
"No," Jack said.
"Did I let you in?" Owen asked.
"No," Jack said.
"Then why are you here?"
Jack stared at Owen for a moment, then sighed. "Torchwood's mortality rate is high enough as it is without our doctor killing himself. That's sort of a double-blow."
Owen looked down at his plate. 'I wasn't going to kill myself!' he probably should have said. He said nothing.
"You should eat," Jack said. "And drink that water. You'll feel better."
No. It would help with the hangover. That was all. It wouldn't really make him feel better. Owen had been there before, though, as a doctor. If you can't treat the disease, you treat the symptoms. Owen took a long drink of water, and that satisfied Jack a little bit.
"At first I thought you'd just gone on another bender. I was ready to lay into you when you sobered up. Then Tosh told me you were supposed to get married this month..."
When had Owen told Tosh that? Why had Owen told Tosh that? When he was drunk and because he was drunk, probably...
"Then I got scared," Jack said. "I did a little digging and figured out what I think Tosh already suspected. She wanted to come, but I told her not to."
Why?
Oh.
"In case I was already dead?" Owen asked.
Jack nodded. "I called her as soon as I found you and let her know you were okay. We're not the only ones who thought it was a possibility, you know. Your phone's been ringing. I answered the last call. I figured your friends would want to know that you're okay."
Friends. The guys from the hospital. The ones who were left. Harry. Matthew. Had they been Owen's friends? They'd been his groomsmen. He liked working with them. But he hadn't said a fucking word to any of them since he joined Torchwood.
It was sweet that they cared enough to check in on him on the second worst day of life, though.
"I'm proud of you, you know," Jack said softly. "For not doing it. I know you must have wanted to." Jack sighed. "I don't like you drinking, but sometimes you do what you have to do to get through the hard days. I get that."
What did Owen care whether or not Jack liked him drinking? It wasn't Jack's liver. It wasn't Jack's dead fiancee. Owen took another drink of water. "Did you have some hard days in the Air Force?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah. A couple." He looked at Owen's plate and and his eyes narrowed. "Owen," he said, slightly more sternly. "Eat."
Owen swallowed two forkfuls of egg before he remembered that he had no real reason to listen to Jack right now. They weren't at work.
Owen knew that Jack was Tosh and Suzie's Dom. Though they didn't exactly fuck in on the conference table in front of Owen, they could be pretty bold at work, and Owen had seen Jack and Tosh at parties. He'd seen Jack spank Tosh at one of those parties. Owen had been talking dirty to a couple of Domme's as they fondled him and looked him over, and Jack and Tosh had been in a crowd of six or seven people on the other side of the room, laughing and chatting about something. Owen had known that they were there, but he hadn't paid much attention to them until Jack pulled Tosh over his lap. Owen still didn't know what Tosh had said that Jack had found so impudent that it needed immediate and public correction, but Owen had watched as Jack's strong arms came down on her bare arse a few times. He'd flinched. The Domme's had found that terribly funny, and Owen had had a sore arse of his own by the end of the night. Owen was sure that Jack and Tosh had known he was there and that he'd seen the whole thing, too, but the three of them had never talked about it. Their whole involvement in the BDSM community seemed to be something that they just didn't talk about. Owen supposed that it wasn't exactly workplace conversation.
Owen knew the difference between a boss voice and a Dom voice. That 'Eat' had been in a Dom voice. Had Jack meant to do that? No. He couldn't have. He'd done that out of habit. You don't order your employees to eat. You order your subs to do that. Eventually, you get used to saying the word with a certain tone.
A tone that Owen had responded to as quickly as Tosh or Suzie would have.
Jack was smirking. Whether he'd done that on purpose or not, he'd certainly noticed that it had worked.
"So. I slept through work, huh?" Owen was hoping that reminding Jack that their relationship was strictly professional might wipe that smirk off his face.
"You did," Jack said. The smirk stayed in place. "But don't worry. I gave you the sick day." Jack took a drink of his water, then looked at Owen thoughtfully. "Were you?"
"What?"
"Sick. How much did you drink?"
"Enough to not really remember the answer to that question."
"Enough to black out, then?"
Owen nodded. He kept his eyes down, on his plate, and he ate another bite of eggs, because he might as well if he was going to be staring at them anyway.
"And you were by yourself?" There it was again. The Dom tone. The 'I'm about to punish you and you'll deserve it' tone. Jack still probably wasn't doing it on purpose.
Owen certainly wasn't reacting to it on purpose.
"You're not my Dom, Jack!" Owen snapped. His face ached already.
"No," Jack said calmly. "I'm not, luckily for you."
"Oh?"
Jack shrugged. "If you want to spend a week at the base and not be able to sit down for most of it, you're welcome to. If not, yeah, I'd say it's lucky."
"Extenuating circumstances don't count for anything?"
Jack thought about it for a moment. "The extenuating circumstances are the reason why I'd make you stay with me, so they wouldn't help you there. If you really thought the spanking was unreasonable, we could talk about it." He took a drink of water, but kept his eyes on Owen while he did so. "Do you think it's unreasonable? Hypothetically, I mean. Because if it were me, I think I'd want it."
Owen shrugged.
"You're not making much of a case for yourself," Jack said.
"Neither are you."
Jack smirked. He took another bite of eggs, and kept smirking at Owen while he chewed. Owen wasn't Jack's sub and they weren't at work, so Jack was going to let Owen get away with talking to him that way. After Jack swallowed, his face go more serious. "You put yourself in danger," Jack said. "That is one thing that Tosh and Suzie are never allowed to do without a damn good reason and my approval, if it was at all possible to get it."
"I wasn't trying to poison myself," Owen said quickly. "I just wanted to get drunk enough to forget who I was."
"You're a doctor. I don't need to tell you why that's a bad idea."
"So what am I supposed to do?" Owen asked, flopping back on the bed. "Just deal with it?"
"Yes, actually," Jack said. "And be glad you get a choice."
Right. Owen had seen plenty of people die when they didn't want to. But what did Owen owe those people? It wasn't Owen's fault that the universe wasn't fair and it killed people who wanted to live and spared people who wanted to die.
Katie. Katie wouldn't want Owen to die. Owen owed Katie everything.
"One day at time," Jack said. "Until it gets easier. It will, eventually."
Owen remembered that promise he'd made to himself the day after Katie's death. Not until the new year. January 2nd. That was a good day to decide whether or not to kill himself. Maybe, if he still hadn't learned to care less about Katie, he could at least learn to care more about something else.
"I've lost a lot of people, Owen," Jack said. "I know what I'm talking about."
"Today, then," Owen said. "What do I do today?"
Jack frowned. "Breathe. Eat your eggs. Drink your water."
"And for the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes in the day?"
"Keep breathing," Jack said. Then he shrugged. "Do you want to watch a movie?"
"Sure," Owen said. "As long as it doesn't have death or romance in it."
Jack through about this for a second. "Do you have a deck of cards anywhere?"
"There's probably one in the hall closet."
Jack went off to find it, and Owen laid on his bed and contented himself with the fact that Jack was not going to leave Owen alone. Jack probably knew he wasn't going to make Owen feel any better, so Owen could only assume that his goal was to prevent Owen from killing himself. That was fair, honestly. Owen knew very well just how much paperwork there was when someone died. Jack didn't have time for all of that.
Honestly, Owen might have taken a good spanking over losing ten consecutive card games. At least they weren't playing for money. Jack was good. Or maybe Owen was just really bad. Owen was blaming it on the hangover, because even though Jack had actually agreed to play by candlelight and continued to reprimand Owen every time Owen went two straight minutes without taking a drink of water, Owen's headache persisted. It was strange. They didn't even move to the kitchen. They stayed right there in the bedroom and played cards on Owen's bed until sunrise, and Owen hardly thought about what a strange thing that was to do with one's boss. He was too sad and hungover to be worried about someone revoking his man-card. No one but Jack knew, anyway, and Jack was the last person Owen could imagine shaming him for not living up to modern ideals of masculine heterosexuality.
Jack made breakfast a little while after the sun came up. Owen ate it all without complaint or question and drank another glass of water. Jack rewarded him with a smile that, from a Dom, would mean very good things later. From a boss, it probably just meant a slightly higher chance of getting approved for the next day off he requested. Owen didn't even really need days off, anyway. He rarely got sick and it wasn't like he ever had family functions to go to. Owen wasn't expecting an invitation to his own mother's funeral, when it happened. Hell, it may have already happened, for all Owen knew.
Jack made Owen shower and get dressed. Owen didn't see the point of it, but Jack insisted that it would make Owen feel better, so Owen did as he was told. He didn't really feel better. He just felt numb and slightly sick and very wet. When Owen got out of the shower, he found Jack starting one of Owen's video games. A racing game. Owen could handle that. They played until about 11:00, and then Jack insisted on them going out for lunch. Owen didn't really want to go, but he'd already caught on to the fact that Jack was calling the shots. He didn't even let Owen pick the restaurant.
"Do you know if I can swap the carrots out for another vegetable?" Owen asked, looking at his menu.
Jack's eyes moved up and down the menu quickly. "Don't get the duck," Jack said. "Get a steak."
Owen rolled his eyes. "And what will you be ordering for me to drink? Just so you know, I could really go for a coffee, now that my hangover's gone."
Jack smirked. "Sorry," he said. "Believe it or not, that one was actually meant as advice, not an order."
"And how many of the others were advice and not orders?"
"Very few of them," Jack admitted, still smiling. "I'm bossy. I know. It's a character flaw."
"You are the bossiest boss I have ever had," Owen agreed. He looked back at his menu and smirked a little himself. "Also, the only one that ever broke into my flat in the middle of the night."
The waiter appeared out of nowhere just on time to hear that, but he didn't question it. Jack ordered a steak and an Americano, and then the waiter turned to Owen.
Owen thought about it for a minute. He'd never actually eaten here before. "I'll have the same," he said. He handed his menu off.
Jack was watching the waiter walk away when Owen sighed and dropped his head into his head. "Christ," he said. "We're here all alone, casually dressed in the middle of the day, and I just let you order for me. He probably thinks we're on a date."
"Maybe," Jack said. "Did you get the sense that he was jealous of you?"
"Jealous of me?" Owen repeated. Then he realized. "Oh." He looked over at the waiter for a second while he took an order a few tables over. He was a tall redhead, around Owen's age. Too old to be a university student, and he had a Cardiff accent. Lightly freckled. Muscular. Owen could see the appeal. "He's not gay," Owen said, looking back at Jack.
"Good," Jack said. "Neither am I."
"He is at least ten years younger than you."
"Really?" Jack said, eyebrows climbing up his forehead.
Owen flinched. "Forget that I said that," he said.
Jack smirked. "You are so lucky you're not my sub."
"I know," Owen said. "We went over that earlier." The waiter was out of sight now. "Would Tosh and Suzie really be okay with that, though? With you just picking up some waiter and bringing him into the relationship?"
Jack blinked hard. "I wasn't thinking about anything nearly that long-term," Jack said. "But if I did want to bring someone else in on the relationship, I'd have every right to do that. If they weren't comfortable with the new person and wanted to have different boundaries with him than they do with each other, we'd talk about it, but our relationship is open. I can sleep with whomever I want, in whatever way I want. So can they, unless I specifically tell them not to."
"Doesn't that get complicated?" Owen asked. "Having sex with all those people?"
Jack looked behind Owen and paused, and a second later, their drinks arrived.
After the waiter left, Owen shrugged. "I mean, one night stands I get. I've had plenty of those. But when it comes to long-term relationships, wouldn't it be so much easier to just find that one right..." He paused. "Wait. I just remembered who I'm talking to." He smirked. "Never mind."
Jack smirked back. "Actually, I've found that three can be considerably less complicated than two. We don't have to be everything to each other. We know what we are, and that's great. The more the merrier."
"As a doctor," Owen said, but Jack cut him off:
"As a Torchwood doctor, Owen, you know that it's not a problem."
Owen shrugged.
Jack leaned back and sucked his teeth. "I wish we knew if he thought we were on a date," Jack said. "It changes how I have to approach this. I don't want him to get the wrong impression. I'm not cheating on you or looking for a threesome." He looked at Owen. "Unless you want a threesome?"
"I'll pass," Owen said. "Unlike you, I'm really not gay."
"Right," Jack said. "You and John spent an hour in the bedroom at Mike's last party talking about how very not gay you are, right?" Jack sighed. "I'm not really gay either. You can ask the women I'm sleeping with."
"So then what are you?" Owen asked.
Jack shrugged. "That question's a bit more complicated for me than it is for you."
"Really?" Owen asked. "Because lately it's felt pretty complicated for me lately." He sighed. "I'm straight. Except when I'm not." Owen stared down at the table. ″I wasn't at that party, but... I think I am, today."
"It doesn't really matter to me," Jack admitted. "You know, it's a pretty recent thing for it to matter to anyone. It used to be that if you had sex with men, you had sex with men. That was it. We all got petrol-bombed together in the 80s and we all went to jail together in the 50s." Jack took another sip of coffee. "In the grand scheme of things, I don't really mind if people call me gay. Call me 'pouf' or 'queer' and you're looking for a fight, but even my life isn't long enough to split hairs over whether or not I'm gay. It's not like I'm anything else either. Homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual... None of them are..."
"Exactly right," Owen said. "None of them really accurately describe it."
Jack smiled, but he didn't quite look like that was what he'd been about to say.
Their food arrived. The steak was good. The coffee was okay. Owen still hadn't found anyone in Cardiff who could do really good coffee. Jack and Owen talked, mostly about trivial things and a little bit about what had happened at work the day before. When they were finished, Jack paid the check and left the waiter a generous tip and his phone number. Owen didn't think he was going to call, but Jack seemed to think it was worth a shot anyway.
By the time they got back to Owen's flat, he'd been awake for long enough that even with the coffee, he was ready for bed. Jack refused to let him go, though. He need to fix his sleeping schedule now, so that he wouldn't have to worry about it during the work week. Owen saw his point, but he grumbled anyway and beat Jack at a couple more races before they agreed to put on a documentary and relax for a little while. Jack didn't actually let Owen go to bed until 7:00pm, after Owen had eaten a full dinner.
"Are you going to stay here all night again?" Owen asked.
"No," Jack said. "I'm going to go home as soon as you're in bed."
Owen briefly wondered just how much Jack had slept in the last few days. It couldn't have been very much at all. He'd gone to work on Friday and been over at Owen's house shortly after work. He'd stayed up with Owen all night Friday night. It was now 7:00pm on a Saturday.
Owen asked, but Jack dodged the question. He practically tucked Owen in before leaving, which was condescending and unnecessary, but Owen was too tired to get worked up over it.
"You're going to be okay?" Jack asked.
"I'm going to fall asleep," Owen said. "I can't imagine what trouble I'll get into then."
Jack nodded, but he looked worried. "Call me when you wake up," Jack said. "If I don't get a call by noon, I'm coming back over."
"Deal," Owen said. They were out of the danger zone as far as Owen doing anything, but Owen didn't really blame Jack for wanting to be careful for a few days. At the hospital, they'd often held people at the hospital for a few days after suicide attempts, just to be safe. Owen hadn't actually attempted anything, but Jack knew danger when he saw it. What was it Jack had said? If Owen were his sub, he'd spend a week at the base. At least he didn't have to worry about that. Not having a sore arse was advantageous too. He could lie on his back.
It wasn't okay. None if it was really okay. But he was too tired to feel that right now, and tomorrow... well, Friday had been the hard day. Friday was over. Saturday was over. Sunday could only be easier.
Owen drifted off to sleep within minutes of Jack leaving.
He awoke at 7:48 in the morning, knowing that there was something he was supposed to do. By the time he was out of the shower, he'd remembered what it was. He had to call Jack.
He could do that later.
He made breakfast and ate it very slowly while watching the morning news. He allowed himself to feel proud of the fact that there was no report of a handsome doctor being found dead in his flat in an apparent suicide.
Then it was 9:30. That probably counted as later. Owen looked at his mobile for a few seconds.
It was sitting on top of a copy of The Da Vinci Code, which he'd checked out from the library a week ago and hadn't yet opened. He should read at least the first chapter right now. He could call Jack later.
The first chapter was short. He kept reading.
This book really didn't deserve all of the hype it had gotten, but Owen read it until 11:55, and then—and then he read a little bit more.
When he heard his mobile ring, he looked up and it was 12:07.
Well, he didn't want Jack to think he was dead, so he answered.
″Hello,″ he said.
″Hey,″ Jack said cheerfully. ″Sleep in?″
″Nope,″ Owen said. ″Been up for hours.″
″Did you forget to call me?″ Jack asked.
″Nope,″ Owen said.
″Oh,″ Jack said. ″So you were deliberately blowing me off?″
″Something like that.″
″Any particular reason?″
Owen bit his lower lip and thought about it for a second. ″Because I wanted to...″
Jack sighed. ″Okay, Owen. I get it. I'm not your Dom. But this isn't about that. I'm trying to make sure you're okay, and if you could stop making that so difficult—″
″No, I mean, I wanted to call you.″
There was a moment of silence on the other end. ″You didn't call me because you wanted to call me?″
Owen paused for a second. ″The leap made sense in my head. I just...″ He sighed and looked down. ″What am I supposed to do now? Text you a picture of my erection and invite you over to give me that spanking?″
Jack was quiet for a second, then he said ″I'd be lying if I said I hadn't accepted cruder propositions.″
Owen sighed. ″And then what? I've never actually had sex with a man that I really had to... see ever again.″
Jack laughed. ″Yeah, we'll probably have to see each other again if you want to keep working for me.″
″Well,″ Owen said. ″I don't really have anything else going on with my life right now.″
″Yeah, I got that sense,″ Jack said. ″You know, we can do it, and if you decide tomorrow that you're completely heterosexual and want to pretend it never happened, I can do that. It's not my favorite thing, but it wouldn't be the first time.″
″Hm,″ Owen said. ″Pretending it never happened means no telling anybody, right? Not even Tosh and Suzie?″
″Not even Tosh and Suzie. If they ever find out, it will be because you told them.″
″Because you've done such an amazing job of keeping them from me?″
″They never asked me to keep them from you. Why would they? I'm kind of a catch.″
Owen rolled his eyes. He chewed on his cheek for a second and then said ″You'll spank me?″
″Is that what you want.″
″I guess so,″ Owen said.
″You sound unsure,″ Jack said. ″Let's try something else.″
Owen sat up a bit straighter. ″What?″
″If I give you a couple of hours,″ Jack said, ″Can you come to me clean and ready for a rough night?″
″How rough?″ Owen asked.
″Rough,″ Jack said, and there was that voice again. Definitely on purpose now. ″We'll talk specifics when you get here. Three hours. Be clean. Have a safeword in mind. Sound like fun?″
'Fun' wasn't the word Owen would use. Not for Owen, at least. Owen's cock was making its vote known, though. ″Okay,″ he said. ″Yeah. Just, er, I don't actually know where you live?″
Owen could hear Jack smirking on the other end of the line. ″I'll get us a hotel room.″ Of course he would. Mysterious asshole. ″That way there's no risk of Tosh and Suzie walking in on us.″
Okay, Owen had to give him that. Tosh and Suzie probably did know where Jack lived, and they'd been in a relationship with him, however complicated that relationship was, for long enough that it wouldn't surprise Owen if they had keys. How often did Jack tell themto come to him?
There were other options, though. ″My flat is private and free,″ Owen pointed out.
″It's also yours,″ Jack said. ″I'll text you the address in a little bit. Three hours. Don't be late.″
Owen tensed a little. He wouldn't be late. He and Jack were actually doing this now, and he was going to be good. If he was in for a rough night anyway, he wasn't going to make it rougher.
Three hours later, he was picking up a keycard from the front desk of a hotel far nicer than he'd expected his bdsm one-night stand to take place in. His last ones had been in far shadier places. This was well-lit. There were security cameras. All a good sign, honestly. It meant that, at the very lease, they wouldn't be getting up to anything messy.
It was 3:04. He wasn't late. He stopped outside the door and took a deep breath. Did good subs knock? He'd been given a keycard. That meant that Jack had told the front desk to give him a keycard. Jack had wanted him to have a keycard. Jack probably didn't want the inconvenience of having to get up and answer the door. It was Jack, so maybe he had arranged to be doing something cool when Owen walked in. Owen swiped the card and watched the light turn green.
He opened the door barely wide enough for his body and slipped in quickly, not sure what kind of scene might be waiting in the room and whether or not it would be appropriate for the eyes of strangers.
But before Owen had time to process his surroundings, his world went dark.
″Safeword?″ Jack asked.
″Alcott.″
″I'm going to tie this blindfold,″ Jack said.
″Okay,″ Owen said.
Jack finished tying it a moment later. It was tight. Owen couldn't even see out the bottom of it. All he had was a vague impression of light.
A second or two went by, and then Owen felt Jack's lips on his. It took Owen's breath away. This was happening. Jack was kissing him. That was Jack's tongue slipping between his lips and claiming his mouth. Owen still got butterflies in his stomach anytime he had sex with a man, but this as so much worse and so much better. This was Jack, not some anonymous one-night stand that Owen would never see again. This could actually happen again, if Owen decided he wanted it to.
″I'm going to undress you,″ Jack said. ″Cooperate, but don't help.″
That was easy enough. Owen let Jack unbutton Owen's denims then unzip them, then push them down to the floor, along with Owen's pants. Well. This was happening quickly. Or maybe not. They'd had a 26-hour date this weekend, with a broadened definition of the word 'date.' Owen hadn't been on had a real date recently enough to be picky about the definition of the word.
Jack didn't touch Owen right away. There was a moment of silence where Owen assumed Jack was looking him over, and then Jack said ″Arms up,″ and when Owen complied, Jack quickly and carefully pulled Owen's shirt off without upsetting Owen's blindfold.
Then Jack touched him. Owen felt a hand run from Owen's chest to his thigh, carefully avoiding Owen's hardening cock.
Then Owen felt a hand on his neck. Owen associated that with being in trouble, but he couldn't have done anything wrong already, could he have?
Jack applied just enough pressure for Owen to get the message, and Owen started to walk forward.
No. Owen wasn't in trouble. Jack was asserting his dominance, because he could. Because Owen needed to know that Jack was in control, and that Jack could touch him in any way he wanted.
Owen took half of a step after the pressure stopped and his legs hit the bed.
″Get onto the bed,″ Jack said.
Owen did, and he felt the mattress shift as Jack got on as well.
″Stay on your knees,″ Jack said. He sounded like he was a few feet away. ″Crawl forward.″
Owen did, until Jack told him to stop, then Jack ordered Owen to hold his hands above his head.
Owen complied, and Jack grabbed Owen's wrists and quickly tied them together, then secured them to something above Owen's head. Owen reflected that whatever it was, the hotel probably hadn't put it there for that purpose, but he was still trying to be good, so he didn't say that.
Jack got off the bed. Owen could hear movement off to his side, but nothing that would reveal what was coming. A minute went by, and then there were footsteps, and then his skin started to tingle a bit and his hair stood on ends as something very sharp grazed against his arm so lightly that it didn't' cause any pain.
″Ever played with vampire gloves before, Owen?″ Jack asked.
Owen swallowed hard. ″No,″ he admitted.
″Are you excited to?″
Owen squirmed for a second, then he nodded.
Jack caressed Owen's face with smooth leather, then the tingling sensation resumed as Jack ran something very sharp down Owen's back, far too gently to do any damage. ″Let me get a feel for your tolerance level,″ Jack said. ″On a scale of one to ten, one being 'I'm not sure if that's pain or if it just tickles,' and ten being 'I don't think I can take much more of that,' where are we now?″
″One,″ Owen said.
Jack placed his hand just below Owen's left hip and ran it down Owen's thigh a few inches, and this time he applied a bit of pressure.
Owen hissed. Those were some very sharp gloves. ″Three,″ he said.
Jack pressed harder. He ran his hand down Owen's thigh and there would be just half a second where Owen would feel the cool, smooth leather of the glove before he felt the rough sting of the spikes. The pain was moving, slowly but steadily, and Owen knew exactly where it was moving, but with his hands bound high above his head, keeping his body taught, there he was powerless to prevent it.
Owen didn't react this time, even though Jack's hand was leaving a burning trail in its wake and Owen could just picture the blood rising up out of the ravines Jack was leaving in Owen's skin. That probably wasn't happening just yet, but the beauty of a blindfold was that Owen's imagination could run wild. ″Four,″ Owen said.
Jack grabbed Owen's arse cheek and squeezed.
Owen gasped and jumped, but not far enough to get away from Jack's hand the spikes it was embedding deep into Owen's sensitive flesh. ″Seven,″ Owen said breathlessly.
″Hm,″ Jack said. ″Thighs apart.″
Owen's body was already being held straight by his restraints. Spreading his thighs would throw his balance off and make the position considerably harder to hold.
That was probably exactly what Jack wanted.
Owen did as he was told, and then he waited. He took a deep breath and tried to get comfortable, even though the attempt was futile.
Then it happened.
He didn't actually hear the glove hit his flesh. He heard himself shout ″FUCK!″ as the pain of a dozen spikes hitting him in the inner thigh fast and hard overwhelmed him, but he didn't hear that slap itself.
He took a few more deep breaths and resisted the urge to close his legs. Jack had smacked him on the thigh. Hard. With spikes all over his gloves.
″Ten,″ Owen panted.
″Ten?″ Jack echoed calmly. ″Or do you need to use your safeword?″
Owen whimpered. He knew what that question meant. ″Ten,″ he said quietly.
″Do I need to get something for your mouth?″ Jack asked. ″I have alternatives to safewords.″
″That's...″ Owen wanted to say that that wasn't necessary, but the thought of more of those blows stopped him. He could take maybe two more of those quietly. If he was going to need a gag, it was probably best to let Jack know now, when Jack had asked. Owen didn't think Jack would take kindly to have to stop the beating once it had started to get a gag Owen had said he didn't need. ″That's probably a good idea,″ Owen admitted.
There was more movement behind Owen, and then the mattress sagged as Jack got back onto the bed. Something smooth was touched to Owen's lips, and Owen opened his mouth and accepted the ballgag. Then Owen felt Jack press something into Owen's hand and moved Owen's thumb slightly.
″That's the tv remote,″ Jack said. ″Your thumb is over the power button. Press it to turn the tv on, and I'll stop. You'll have to be careful to keep holding it just like this. If your grip shifts, drop it and I'll give back to you. Normally I would use a hand-held alarm, but I don't think it's a good idea to have an alarm go off in a hotel.″
Owen smiled. Or at least he tried. Whatever his face looked like with the ballgag and the blindfold probably couldn't accurately be called a smile. Still, Owen appreciated a Dom who could improvise a bit.
He definitely wasn't smiling when Jack got off the bed. After a second, he felt an ungloved hand on the outside of his thigh, and he allowed himself to relax for a second, until he felt Jack's other hand, which definitely was wearing the glove, close around his thigh and apply pressure until Owen was once again sure that he could feel his skin being split open beneath it. Owen whined into his gag as Jack dragged his hand down Owen's thigh.
Then it stopped.
Owen actually felt relieved for a second before Jack hit him again, right on the skin he'd just abused. Since Owen was gagged, he allowed himself to yell into the gag, and that did nothing to stop Jack from hitting him again. This blow fell on Owen's unscratched thigh, but Owen didn't even have time to think of that as merciful before Jack hit his left thigh again. Two more blows landed, one on each thigh, and then Owen felt Jack's ungloved hand on his less abused thigh, and tensed just on time for Jack to run the spikes deep into Owen's flesh and pull them down. Owen felt tears stinging his eyes, and for a second, he thought about pressing the button and ending it. Ten, dammit. Jack was pushing him, though, and Owen was going to let him. He took seven more blows and one more good scratching before his left leg collapsed and his weight shifted to his wrists, causing him to drop the remote.
Jack stopped, true to his word, and he sighed. Jack climbed onto the bed, but rather than hand Owen the remote again, he removed the gag. ″I think that's enough of that, for now,″ he said. He freed Owen's wrists, but he didn't remove the blindfold. ″Down,″ he said gently, leading Owen down to his hands and knees and then nudging Owen to lie down on the bed. Owen obeyed without fuss, but he tensed when he felt Jack's hand rubbing his back.
″We don't need to do that,″ Owen said.
″Yes,″ Jack said sternly, ″We do.″
Owen grunted to make his displeasure known, but he stayed still and took the petting from Jack's soft, ungloved fingers. They didn't go anywhere near his legs, and that was the important thing.
Owen's stomach growled. ″I haven't eaten since breakfast,″ Owen admitted.
″You must be hungry,″ Jack said.
″I am.″ Owen waited a second, and Jack didn't volunteer, so Owen assumed that the only way he was getting it was if he asked: ″Can I have some food?″
″In a little bit,″ Jack said. And though Owen wasn't aware that he'd had any outward reaction to this decision, Jack quickly added: ″You'll be okay.″
″I'll be okay,″ Owen granted, ″but I wont be happy.″
″Would you be happy if I fed you?″ Jack asked.
Owen thought that his silence answered the question for him, but Jack, apparently, didn't:
″Answer me, please.″ His voice didn't get much sterner, though. He was teasing.
″Probably not,″ Owen said.
″That's what I thought,″ Jack said. This pet went lower than the others, over Owen's arse cheeks. ″Brat.″
″Sorry,″ Owen said. ″Should have warned you.″
″That you're a brat? I knew.″
″Oh?″
″Any Dom who says he didn't is either very inexperienced or lying, Owen. It's pretty obvious.″
Owen grunted again.
Jack sighed. He moved on the bed, and then he grabbed Owen by the hair and gently lifted Owen's head and moved it until Owen knew that his face was pressed against naked skin.
Owen took a deep breath. He knew what was coming.
″I'll tell you what,″ Jack said. ″Start here. Show me that you're eager to please, and then I'll feed you so that you have more energy for what's coming next.″
'What's coming next' sounded ominous, but there was no point in worrying about that now. Owen was quite satisfied with the deal Jack had offered him, and he expressed this by immediately beginning to explore with his tongue rather than his hands. The first lick landed on Jack's thigh, Owen was fairly certain, but the next found its target. Owen knew the shape of a cock and the little sigh of pleasure from Jack confirmed it. It was only then that Owen brought his hands up to rub Jack's massive balls while Owen's tongue kept licking away at Jack's cock. Owen kept as silent as possible himself, so that he could hear Jack's breathing and soft moans. Once Jack was properly excited, Owen decided it was time to take Jack's cock into his mouth.
Jack was letting Owen maintain a great deal of control, at the moment. That was nice. Owen had played with Doms who'd held his head and shoved their cocks in exactly as for as they wanted their cocks to go while Owen gagged, and that had been satisfying in its own way, but it hadn't beennice. Jack was being nice to Owen, so Owen was going to be nice to Jack. Owen suppressed his own gag reflex and took as much of Jack's cock as he could into his mouth. He sucked and hummed as if he were already eating something delicious, and Jack gasped and moaned in response.
The blindfold was frustrating for Owen. Owen had been taught to look up and meet a man's eyes every now and again while he was sucking him off. Not being able to do that now felt a bit like Owen was breaking a rule. He did that a lot, but not usually that rule. But that wasn't Jack's rule, clearly. Jack had different rules. Owen would have to get used to those rules. Tonight. Maybe beyond tonight. Maybe.
Jack came, and Owen swallowed every drop of it and then licked Jack's cock for second. The whole point, after all, was to prove that he needed food.
Jack sighed happily. ″Good boy,″ Jack said. Then, he moved out from under Owen and said ″Stay here.″
Owen did. Jack didn't leave the room, so he must have brought food. After a few minutes of activity on the other side of the room, Jack returned to the bed.
″It's not dinner,″ Jack said. ″Dinner is still going to be later. But we'll have a snack.″
That was fine by Owen. ″Thank you,″ Owen said. He reached up to take his blindfold off, and Jack stopped him.
″That stays on,″ Jack said sternly.
″How am I supposed to eat while blindfolded?″ Owen asked.
″Open your mouth.″
Owen hesitated. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. Still, he wanted food. He opened his mouth.
He felt a spoon slip past his lips and then he tasted yogurt. He closed his mouth as Jack pulled the spoon out, and then he ate.
″There's fruit, too,″ Jack told him, ″and we're going to eat it all just like this.″
″I'd rather do it on my own,″ Owen said, doing his best to keep his tone from sounding insolent.
″I know you would,″ Jack said. ″You're very independent. That's why we're going to do it like this. It'll do you some good to actually have to rely on someone else.″
Owen frowned, but he didn't object.
″Now eat up,″ Jack said, putting another spoonful into Owen's mouth. ″The night is young, and I have a lot of toys I want us to play with.″