Kiernan hissed, anger clouding his expression as he got his first good look at the welts and bruising covering Demitri’s body. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “Demitri? Why won’t you press charges? No one has a right to do this to you, especially a parent.”
“I-I…” Demitri ducked his head, not liking the frustrated, disappointed expression on Kiernan’s face. He couldn’t very well explain that, since he couldn’t go to a hospital, this was pack business, not police business. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, his erection starting to wilt.
Sighing, Kiernan gently helped him under the spray. “It’s not your fault, darling. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Kiernan moved Demitri’s hands on the shower wall. “Stay there. This might hurt a bit.”
Demitri refrained from pointing out that it wouldn’t hurt worse than when it happened. Then, Kiernan ran a soapy cloth over his back and he arched away from the pressure, hissing.
“Just try to relax,” Kiernan crooned. “Once I’m done here, I’ll make you feel so good. Let it out if that helps,” he encouraged.
Trembling, Demitri whimpered and shivered, but he resisted the urge to flinch away again. Suddenly, the warm cloth rubbed over his balls. Kiernan’s other hand reached around his chest and pinched a nipple as he leaned over his shoulder and sucked his earlobe.
Demitri’s eyes shot open wide. “Oh!”
“You ready for that pleasure now, Dee?” he asked.
“Please,” he hissed. The blood rushing south left him slightly light-headed as his cock went from soft to rock-hard in seconds. “Kiernan.”
The cloth moved up to his shaft, rubbing along his sensitized length. Instinct took over and he thrust forward.
Kiernan dropped the cloth and wrapped his hand around Demitri’s dick in a strong grip, jacking swiftly.
“That’s it, lover,” Kiernan murmured, moving his mouth to his neck, nibbling as he went. “Take what you need.”
Between the hand on his dick, the fingers rolling his nipple, and the warm lips nipping the tendon where his neck met shoulder, Demitri hit the edge faster than he thought possible. His body bucked and he fell over the ledge into bliss, howling his pleasure. Kiernan continued to stroke him, slowing his movements, ringing the last bits of ecstasy from his system.
Finally, Demitri slumped, his forehead pressed against the wall, his chest heaving as he struggled to regain his breath. When he heard the plop of wet clothes, Demitri pried an eyelid open and glanced over his shoulder to see his mate stripping out of his soaked shirt. He wished he had the energy to explore the thin mat of chest hair plastered to hard pecks and trailing down his chest to his navel.
“Come on, darling,” Kiernan said firmly, easing him out of the shower and wrapping a towel around him. After the trying day and the explosive orgasm, Demitri felt completely wiped. Except, it was a good wiped. Now all he wanted to do was find the nearest flat surface and sleep for twelve hours. Evidently, that seemed to be his lover’s plan, because seconds later, Kiernan helped him into a pair of soft sweats and led him out of the bathroom.
He couldn’t remember passing through a bedroom on his way in, but he must have, because Demitri found himself in what could only be the master bedroom. “Come on, lover,”
Kiernan urged, his arm once more around his shoulders.
“You lie there, and I’m going to rub some lotion on your back.”
Demitri was out before Kiernan returned.
Staring at the young man sprawled across his bed, Kiernan’s gut tightened with a mixture of want, frustration, and protectiveness. He didn’t understand why he felt this way when he barely knew the man. The fact that he’d come in his pants just from the sounds and feel of the man in his arms had shocked the hell out of him. He hadn’t done that since he was a horny teen.
Kiernan decided he’d figure it out later…or maybe he wouldn’t. He’d just enjoy it for as long as the sexy stud wanted to keep an old guy like him.
Demitri was out cold and didn’t even stir when Kiernan rubbed ointment into the welts and cuts on his back. He’d dabbled in the D/s scene a time or two, though it wasn’t something he wanted to make a way of life out of, and the thin lines seemed to be from a whip or cane, maybe a crop.
The thick bruising along his shoulder and thigh looked like it was from a bat. There were so many of them.
“Good god,” he muttered, his hand clenching. Somehow, he had to get his lover to press charges against his father.
Knowing he could do nothing else that night, Kiernan pulled on a pair of boxers, double-checked that the doors and windows were locked, and turned out the lights. He climbed into bed, just resisting the urge to spoon up behind his lover. Instead, he pressed his side against Demitri’s, reveling in the younger man’s warmth.
Demitri snuffled in his sleep, then turned and burrowed into Kiernan’s side, throwing one arm over his chest.
Smiling, Kiernan leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Demitri’s temple before letting his eyelids slide shut. An odd sense of peace settled over him as he drifted off to sleep.
Kiernan wasn’t certain what pulled him from his slumber.
He frowned. The creak of soft footsteps on stairs reached him right before his daughter’s voice started singing Happy Birthday.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered right as Demitri grunted and shifted in his arms.
“Wha?” Demitri mumbled, cracking open an eyelid.
“Haaapy birrrrthday to y—” The line cut off and ended with a squeak.
Kiernan met his daughter’s shocked, wide-eyed expression over Demitri’s back. Her brown-eyed gaze swept over them, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. She had a white-knuckled grip on the tray of cupcakes.
“Dad?” she finally squeaked. “I didn’t, didn’t realize you’d, um.”
With his arms around his young lover, Kiernan forced a smile. “Perhaps you could wait in the kitchen, Valerie?”
“Yeah, yeah, right, sorry,” Valerie replied, her voice higher pitched than he’d ever heard it. She
