Out of the Ashes (The Game 5)

True enough, I had a friend request waiting for me when I logged in.

TheHandlersWhore wants to add you.

“The Handler’s Whore,” I chuckled. “This from the man who blushes at nothing.” I pressed my lips to the top of Lee’s head and snuck a hand down his T-shirt. I loved running my fingers over his chest hair. “Do you think he’s come to stay? Or is kink just a shiny toy he’ll move on from?”

Lee hummed and didn’t take his gaze off the movie. “Too soon to tell, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he eventually finds his kink identity as a straight-up fetishist.”

I could see that too. Less D/s and more orchestrated playtime and exploring of various kinks. We had a crowd for that too.

Lee’s phone buzzed on the table, and I snatched it up and huffed a little laugh. “Speak of the whore and he shall appear.” He opened a text and laughed again. “Bless him.”

I read it.

I just exchanged my first dick pic with a Top, and now I’m aroused. What is happening to me?

“Oh my God,” I laughed. “I wonder who it is.” I went to his profile and scrolled through the short friend list. Not counting Lee, Franklin had added three Tops. KC and two I didn’t know very well. I doubted he’d exchanged a dick pic with KC; KC wasn’t that type of guy.

Anyway. I… Christ, this was funny. It was impossible to cling to my anger the more I got to know the kink side of Franklin. He was just so clueless and sweet and fucking eager to get screwed. And what it boiled down to in the end was that we all got knocked over in life at some point. Franklin wasn’t in a position where he could be the best friend. He was going through a divorce, he was working really fucking hard to create a better life for himself and his daughter—a little girl who needed him so damn much—and that was his limit. He’d still been there for me; he’d still been a great support while I’d bitched about losing Lee. Only, then Franklin had met the man himself, and…yeah. He hadn’t been able to control his attraction or claim the moral high ground.

“I’m just gonna take a leak.” Lee squeezed my leg and then stood up with a grunt. “You want another beer?”

“No, I’m good, thank you. But you go to the bathroom—I’ll get you a beer and some snacks.”

He sighed contentedly on his way to the bathroom. “You spoil me, pet.”

Not nearly enough. He deserved all my worship.

“What’s this?” He came to a stop outside the bathroom, where he picked up Lily’s drawing from the side table.

“Oh right, I was gonna show you that.” I grinned and headed over to him. “I gave my students a story assignment during our Bob Your Head class.” It was a twenty-minute long exercise we did a couple times a week where the students were supposed to practice multitasking. While I played a tune on my guitar or piano, the children were instructed to bob their heads to the music at the same time as they performed another task, such as counting on their fingers, drawing something, or sharing a random memory from last weekend. “I told them to draw a picture and write a one-sentence story, and that’s what Lily came up with.”

It was a stick figure of me, reading glasses and guitar included, not to mention an enormous smile that extended past the shape of my head. And she’d written “Mr. Tate smiles lots now THE END.”

“That’s fuckin’ precious,” Lee chuckled warmly. “Does Mr. Tate smile lots now?”

“Mr. Tate’s jaw has seen a lot of action lately, be it from smiling or sucking Master’s cock,” I confirmed.

He rumbled a laugh and nudged me away from blocking the bathroom door. “Go get Master’s snacks, my cock-sucking clown.”

I grinned and complied. My God, this was the perfect evening. I was so happy that I felt ridiculous.

I was less happy about waking up in the middle of the night because someone was calling Lee.

I grumbled and lifted my head from his arm. “If that’s Franklin announcing he’s downloaded a fascinating app called Grindr, I’m hauling out an anal hook for him tomorrow.”

“And a ball gag,” Lee muttered, his voice thick with sleep. “Hm. It’s Greer.” He yawned and answered the call. “Everything okay, buddy?”

I yawned too and stretched out alongside his body. I was sore in all the right places, but I missed wearing his bruises. I missed us getting punchy with each other. Thank fuck we were doing primal play tomorrow. Or today, technically. I glanced over Lee’s form and saw the red digits on his alarm clock. Two AM. We’d crashed at eleven, like the rock stars we were.

“So he’s there now?” Lee asked. “Yeah, no, of course. I’ll head down there. Don’t worry about it.”