Chapter Twenty-Two
The moments with Eli at the cabin were just that. Moments. They were pieces of his life that he’d always turn to, to remind himself that things weren’t always dirty and terrible. There were clean and beautiful souls to make life joyous.
For the following days, everything was joy, being together, loving…
Their morning routines were the best. Eli would wake first, getting them coffee in bed. Bread and fruit that he’d had stocked in the kitchen were brought too. Lee thanked him, not like he thanked Mars, of course, but with long, languishing kisses.
They showered one after the other and then they’d explore, like kids, hunting for treasure. The treasures were edible mushrooms or wild garlic, mint, tubers around the streams. While Eli was with him, he taught him all he’d learned about the forest, and they’d add them to their dinners.
They made love out in the dirt, with the needles and leaves their beds and rooves, then continue their lovemaking inside, on the sofas and bed. There was no hurry, no stress, and no more talk about it being the end or anything that would stop their happiness.
The last night there, they were on the couch, Eli sitting and Lee’s head in his lap. Neither spoke much at first, both staring into the fire. They felt it, the end rushing toward them. Lee wanted to call the feds and tell them he was out, not a minute more.
That would tear them apart, though, as Lee would likely go straight to prison. Even if they couldn’t get a conviction on the things he’d done, he’d get one on things they could frame him for, and he didn’t doubt they would.
Besides, he could never face Eli if he didn’t try to fix his own failures when it came to making laws. The old way of doing things had to change. The country was changing, so the politics must too.
“Eli, I know we agreed to just live in the moment on this trip, but I’m…it feels like my chest is in that fire over there.”
“Glad you said it. I have been thinking the same thing. Lee, whatever it is that you’re doing, I want you to be careful. If I can’t have you, I can live with that as long as you’re okay and doing something you believe in.”
“It is, Eli. And I’ll be careful.”
“I want to say it, but it won’t move past the big rock that’s lodged in my throat.”
Lee knew what it was. They’d been skirting around saying it for the whole trip. “Me too.”
In bed later, Lee tied Eli to the bed, and it wasn’t so much for kink as it was that he was scared to lose Eli on their last night. It was crazy, of course, as they both wanted to live every second of it.
He saw Eli there, his arms above his head, tied to the headboard and he was choked with emotion.
“Turn it to something else, Lee. We can’t hurt like this for our last night. If this is the last time ever for us, then make it good.”
“Make it hurt in other ways?”
Eli looked into his head and nodded. “I have a safeword, but right now, I’d rather use it to stop the pain in my heart instead, so hurt me. Make me forget for a while.”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
Lee took the belt off the dresser and looped it in half, holding the ends as he gazed at Eli’s perfect form, there, on the bed, waiting.
“Do it, Lee. Please, Sir.”
Lee closed his eyes for a moment, but it didn’t stop his heart from beating fast or his eyes from stinging in unspent tears. It couldn’t stop the pain, the love or the need he had for the man. Eli was the one person that had changed him for the better, that had given him something to love besides the fleeting money and power he thought he adored.
When he opened his eyes again, he set the belt on the bed, helping Eli to turn over, so his back was showing instead of those dark blue, beautiful eyes. Then he began, lifting the belt and bringing it down, striping Eli’s back, then his bare ass, his thighs and up again to his shoulders.
Eli’s screams were visceral, seeming to shake him and the cabin around him. He didn’t safeword, but he did let out his pain, letting it carry on his strained voice. Lee ate it, took it into him, needing his pain as much or more than his love. He had to feel powerful in any other way than to play with people’s lives by the votes he cast in his job.
And he did. The power was there, the power over the only person he wanted it through. Eli, handing over his control, handing over his trust and love…that meant more than all the money and power he’d ever had.
His skin was bright red with welts, glowing with them. His perfect skin was a blank canvas for Lee to use for his art, the art of pain.
When his arm started to ache and he saw the dappled bruises start to rise, he threw the belt to the floor and climbed on top of the bed, getting Eli turned around so he could face him while he stuffed his cock inside that tight hole he’d begun to crave.
He slapped a hand over Eli’s mouth, stabbing him with his cock, placing his mouth over his hand. “Need you to take it for me, Eli. Need you to take my cock and know it’s more than that. It’s more than a part of me, it’s all of me and I’m inside you now!”
Eli’s eyes leaked with tears, and he tried to nod, though it can’t have been easy for him. They stared at each other while Lee’s hips moved, like they were on their own.