Chris set his jaw and complied, ready for Geoff to whale on him. If he'd done that, Chris could have endured it like a hard football practice, nothing touching him below the surface. But Geoff chose another, far more devastating tactic.
The strap whispered over Chris's tense flesh, a featherlike sensation that had a shiver running up his spine. He could almost feel the heat of Geoff's gaze following it, studying every inch of his back and nervously flexing ass. When Geoff slid a firm, heated palm down the line of Chris's spine and down to cup one buttock, fingers gripping with casual possession, Chris's heart rate went up another octave. "Geoff . . ."
Crack! The blow had him sucking in a breath, swallowing Geoff's name. He could tell himself the loud pop of the strap gave a false sense of how hard it was hitting him, but the sting through his nerve endings called him a liar. He put his head down and tried to breathe, trying to keep his head in a center space where he would stand apart from this. On the third strike, he failed. A churning mix of arousal, nerves and deeper, harder things gripped him, and he was grunting as much from their clamp on his mind as the force of the blows.
Geoff began alternating the strikes from side to side, coming up from beneath so that the impact sang through his perineum and balls. He made a flat crack against both cheeks, so Chris jerked and tightened. Hell, Geoff had him practically dancing, his toes curled tight in his work shoes, his hamstrings strained.
Then, he'd change it up again. A couple of times when Chris was ready for the sting, Geoff ran his hand over the throbbing flesh instead, a caressing, firm touch, teasing Chris's balls. His dick got harder and things higher up got even tighter. He was white-knuckling the edge of the workbench.
"Geoff . . ."
He hadn't bent all the way over when he turned back toward the bench, but Geoff took care of that now. He pushed him down to his chest again, which meant Chris had to adjust his stance, putting his ass farther out there. Geoff clamped his hand on the back of Chris's neck and landed a half dozen blows that went past sting into full burn. Chris snarled, cursed and kept his ass lifted, some part of himself he knew but didn't understand asking for more.
He was shuddering, fucking shuddering. Something in him broke. He needed to push up, he knew he did. He needed to stop Geoff, but Geoff anticipated him. He set the belt aside and dropped to his knees behind Chris. Parting Chris's buttocks, he put his mouth on Chris's rim.
Holy Christ. The sensation was incredible, Geoff's tongue provoking sensitive nerves as it stabbed inward. His hands were locked on Chris's hips, reminding Chris how strong and stubborn Geoff could be. Chris pushed his forehead into his palms, his elbows digging into the workbench when Geoff reached between his legs and took hold of his cock.
"Let go," Geoff demanded, and Chris couldn't do anything other than obey. His hips jerked, humping against the bench as Geoff kept tongue-fucking him and playing around his rim, working his cock in a sure, firm grip. When the climax grabbed him, Chris was sure he shot come halfway across the garage, but that didn't mean anything, not with his mind breaking to pieces like this.
Geoff was still teasing him with his mouth when he came down. "Stop," Chris groaned. "It's too much. Fuck . . . quit."
"Say please."
Really? Was he kidding? Apparently not, because he was going to keep doing that crazy thing with his tongue, and Chris's legs were shaking too much to stop him. "Please. Asshole."
"Yours is a pleasure." Geoff drew back, his thumbs passing over Chris's buttocks, making him feel the soreness of those stripes. He bit the meat of one cheek, hard enough Chris jumped and knew he'd left another mark. He'd never seen Geoff get this intimate at those clubs, using his mouth and his hands how he used them on Chris, on Sam.
Geoff straightened to his feet, leaning over Chris's body, wrapping his arm around Chris's broad chest. "Breathe, big man. Be easy."
He should be embarrassed he was this shaky, because it was only an orgasm, no big deal, but Chris knew it was far more than that. So it helped, having Geoff hold him like this after something like that. When Geoff put his lips on his shoulder, Chris dropped his head down lower. "You need to get off."
"I surely do." Geoff's position had his pelvis pressed firmly against Chris's ass, so he could feel how hard his friend was. A chuckle rose in him, strangled in other emotions.
"Yeah, but not what I meant."
"It's all right." Geoff kissed his sweaty neck, nipped at him again. "Don't think. Just relax. Because now that I'm done beating your ass, I'm going to fuck it. And you're going to take every inch of me."
He drew back, and Chris heard the sound of him opening his jeans, the pause as he lubed up, because he was probably carrying some in his pocket. Just in case.
"You like biting."
"Yeah, I do. I'd leave teeth marks all over you if I could."
Chris dropped his head back into his hands. What had he just done, and why? He thought of when they were kids, daring one another to do Indian burns. A game, the sole point of which had been to see who could take more pain. It had usually been a draw between them.
Now, though, Chris remembered one time when Geoff was rubbing the eraser on Chris's arm. The pain had grown excruciating, but Geoff had been watching him the whole time, so closely. Somewhere along the line, it wasn't about an adolescent need to prove who had the bigger balls. The discomfort had mixed with other things and Chris became so involved in watching Geoff register his reaction that he forgot the pain. It was Geoff who called it to a stop, who realized he needed to stop before he took all the skin off Chris's arm.
"You're trying to hold on to control to prove to yourself you're in charge of both of us," Chris muttered.
"If that's true, you're trying to stop yourself from relinquishing control because you're worried about the consequences of doing so." Geoff bit his shoulder again. "Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between."
He set his hands back on Chris's hips, pushing the head of his cock against his rim, still tingling from having had Geoff's tongue there. Chris groaned, and Geoff answered with a growl in the same octave, a deep-throated sound of possession and sex. Geoff pushed all the way in, Chris's muscles giving way as if they knew who was callin
g the shots here. Then they clamped down on Geoff's dick like they'd never let it go. Wrapping an arm around Chris's chest, Geoff worked his hips against him in a smooth rhythm, though his breath rasped harshly against Chris's back, his other hand flat between his shoulder blades.
"I can't remember the first time . . . I knew . . . I wanted your ass. Seems like all of a sudden, it's always been . . . that way."
Chris understood what he meant. Last night, they'd talked about how Sam had become the bridge they'd needed to cross from friends to lovers. But if it had been that simple, they would have made the leap long ago. Chris wondered if they'd had to reach the point where this element could be part of it, the one that had Chris's ass cheeks smarting, that had him thinking about whether or not Geoff would do it again. And even crazier, would Chris eventually ask for it? Punishment, desire, pain. Surrender, a loss of control.