Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

safe and strong, and Adam’s anxiety stopped and listened, and it let him speak. “I understand, Sir, that I’m going to go into your apartment and kneel down with my hands behind my back. I understand you’re going to make me come. I understand that I’m safe with you, and that you’re going to teach me that I’m safe in your apartment.”
    “Say, ‘I’m going to learn that being in your apartment means I come like a rocket.’”
    “I’m going to learn that being in your apartment means I come like a rocket. Sir.”
    Denver pulled him in close and kissed Adam on the mouth, a hard, possessive kiss that made the last of Adam’s anxiety melt away.
    It came back, though, as they arrived at Denver’s door. Adam faltered and began to shake, and Denver stilled him with a hand on his shoulder. “What are you going to do when I open this door?”
    Adam tried not to hyperventilate. “I’m going to go into the living room and kneel with my hands behind my back, Sir.”
    “Good boy. Except push your jeans and underwear to your ankles first. I feel like seeing your bare ass and dick flapping around while you kneel in front of me.”
    Why that made Adam calm, he couldn’t say, but it did. Maybe it was the image of Denver standing in front of him. Maybe it was being naked, counterintuitive as that was. Maybe it was the shift into something semi-sexual, which felt like familiar ground.
    Whatever it was, Adam clung to it like it was his only lifeline out of hell.
    When the door opened, he didn’t allow himself to look around. He beelined for the living room, dropped trou, and fell to his knees. His breath came hard and fast, and he wanted to sob. Shame swamped him. It was his boyfriend’s apartment, and he couldn’t be inside it, not even for a minute—
    Smack!
    The slap came hard— hard! —across Adam’s bare ass, and it knocked him forward. “Put your hands behind your back, boy, right now, or I will make you stand in the corner with your dick in a cage.”
    A dick cage? The idea intrigued him briefly, but he couldn’t be distracted from his panic, not even by a dick cage. Adam’s hands went behind his back, but the tears he’d been trying to hold back began to fall. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
    “You crying because you’re afraid of me, or because you’re scared of being here, or because you’re busy shaming yourself because you have a hard time being in my apartment?”
    Adam wanted to lie, but he couldn’t, not to The Voice. “Shaming myself, Sir.”
    “That’s against the rules, Adam, and I’m going to have to punish you.” He stroked Adam’s cheek. Then he removed Adam’s glasses, put them on a shelf behind him, and pinched Adam hard on the ass. “Hands and knees. Now.”
    Adam wavered for a moment, and he could feel the distinct and varied parts of his psyche gathering to try to suss out whether or not this was bad, if he—they?—should panic. Before he could figure it out, Denver crouched down and cupped Adam’s face, looking him straight in the eye, no wavering.
    “Here’s the deal, Adam. We’re playing, right? I know you’re nervous, but this is play. You said you liked giving in to me, and that feels good, so it’s play. Punishment is part of play too, though it doesn’t mean it’s a game. I know this is serious for you too, that this is part of who you are. That maybe you listen to your bully voice because part of you needs to follow. You feel better when you do. Nod if I’m on the right track here.”
    Adam nodded. He really did like following, didn’t he? He loved rules. He loved the structure of academia. He loved the lab. He loved puzzles and problems and the laws of physics. How the hell that had anything to do with this, he wouldn’t be able to say, but when Denver said there was, he could believe it. And it wasn’t following, not then. It was understanding.
    He nodded again, more sure of himself this time. “Yes, Sir,” he added, because it made him feel even stronger, and calmer.
    Denver nodded too. “This is part of who I am too. I like telling you what to do, making you follow. It makes me feel good when you obey me.” He stroked Adam’s cheek with his thumb. “I like how your eyes go calm when I say obey . When you call me Sir. It makes me proud of you, and it makes me feel so good. I like that you like to make me feel good, that you want to make me proud.”
    “I do,” Adam said, trying to bleed sincerity. “I do want to make you proud. It makes