Page 4 of Disciplinary Action
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Can I trust you not to cover yourself during your punishment, or do I need to tie your hands?”
“I…” Cal didn’t want his hands tied, but he also didn’t trust himself to hold still. He wasn’t sure what would be worse, trying and failing or not trying at all. “Please don’t tie my hands, Daddy.”
“You beg so sweetly,” Gideon murmured. “Walk to the bed.”
Cal did as Gideon asked, his steps slowing the closer he came to the mattress as if the path was mired in quicksand.
“Bend over. Palms flat on the mattress.” Cal began to comply, but Gideon stopped him. “Wait. Don’t move.”
Cal froze, like a single step might detonate the bomb that seemed to tick down inside him. He could hear Gideon moving, heard a drawer opening and closing, and then the man was back behind him. Panic sent his pulse off-rhythm as leather closed around his throat. For a moment, he wondered if this had all been an elaborate ruse and Gideon would now choke him to death with his belt. But it wasn’t Gideon’s belt—it was a pink leather collar, and in the mirrored headboard, Cal could make out the silver letters along it. They spelled out BABY BOY.
Cal’s fingers fluttered to the butter soft leather, touching each letter, feeling more naked somehow with only the collar around his neck.
“It’s like it was made for you,” Gideon said, sounding almost surprised. “What do you say?”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Cal whispered.
“Such a quick learner,” he praised.
This close, their size difference was obvious. It made Cal feel…something. Vulnerable? Needy? Fragile... Something his father had never allowed him to feel in nineteen years, not even after his mother died.
This time, Gideon didn’t speak, just guided Cal into position, one hand at the bend of his hip and the other applying pressure between his shoulder blades until he was bent over.
“Open your legs for me, baby boy.” Cal did as Gideon asked immediately. “I’m going to spank you now, and I want you to count each one. Twenty to start, I think. If you mess up, miscount, or forget to count, we start all over. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good. Let’s begin.”
The breath punched from Cal’s lungs as the first blow landed. If he’d thought Gideon would spare him the full weight of his palm because he was new, because he was small, he’d been wrong. “One,” he gasped.
Once more, Gideon rubbed the area, pulling a low whine from Cal. He yelped as the second smack came. “Two,” he said, voice trembling.
Slap.“Three.”
Slap.“Four.”
And on it went, this maddening rhythm of slap, soothe, begin again. Cal was sure his skin had blisters as Gideon’s palm landed again and again, hotter than any fire might have been. A fine sweat broke out along Cal’s skin, the air conditioning causing goosebumps to erupt over his whole body.
“Ten,” he cried, his voice catching on a sob.
Time stretched as he waited for the next blow to land, but nothing came. Cal glanced up, catching their reflection in the mirror. He almost didn’t recognize himself. At some point, he’d stopped supporting his weight on his palms, his head and chest now rested against the cool sheets, his arms akimbo, his ass in the air like he presented himself to Gideon. He didn’t remember shifting, didn’t remember when his body had surrendered to gravity, but tears streaked his face, and he had clamped his teeth down on his bottom lip. He closed his eyes.
Gideon’s body blanketed Cal then, pressing tender kisses at the nape of his neck and along his throat. “You are doing so well for me, little bird. So well.”
“Daddy,” Cal whined, not sure what he wanted but feeling lost somehow.
“Color,” Gideon purred against his skin.
It took Cal a full thirty seconds to register what Gideon was even asking.Red,his body screamed. Red like his skin? Red like the fire burning in his belly. He didn’t know if he could take anymore. His body shook, but he didn’t know if it was adrenaline or fear. Still, when he opened his mouth, all that came was, “Green, Daddy.”
Gideon twisted a hand in Cal’s hair, tugging his head back and slanting their mouths together in a filthy kiss. “Such a good boy,” Gideon said against Cal’s lips before tearing himself away and pressing Cal’s face back against the bed.
Cal now understood why Bastian had warned him not to kiss Gideon. When his cheek hit the mattress, Cal was shattered, his chest hollow as if Gideon had sucked out his soul and left him empty.
The next blow that landed seemed to have less heat, or maybe Cal’s body was adjusting to the pain. Maybe it was something else altogether. By the time he uttered, “Fifteen,” a strange haze had wrapped itself around his reality, leaving him feeling almost like he floated on the ceiling in a delicious pocket of warmth.
