Might or might not make the final cut. I think it should, but...<squirms>

---

Walking into the empty bedroom assigned to Emily’s Feliciano’s security team was the most terrifying thing Yoshi had ever done, and that was saying a lot. Exhilaration made his heart beat so hard he could feel it in his teeth, behind his eye sockets, and as usual, between his legs. A sharp fearful whisper—can I do this?—fought with gleeful burbles of All for me, anything I want.

Both large beds were fresh-made and turned down, the sheets crisp and white. He dropped his bag next to the closer bed and undressed.

“Come in, if you’re coming,” he said once he finished. He retreated to the window to stand surrounded by rich fabrics and polished, hard surfaces. The texture of the carpet, the glow of sunset through the sheer curtains; the vent blowing cold air against his bare legs and cooling his overheated balls— it all felt unreal. Kaylie had joked about his lack of initiative. Now look at me, he thought.

A moment later, Carl touched his shoulder with cool, damp fingers. “Where do you want me?”

The mass of him at Yoshi’s back felt like an avalanche waiting for one last push to send everything crashing down. He could say, I’ve changed my mind, and they would go on lie always. Or he could take charge.

“Strip,” he whispered. “and stand next to the bed.”

He waited for silence before turning.  Carl stood waiting, his cock fully erect and shaking slightly, the way his whole body trembled. Yoshi went to him, put out a finger to touch the wet tip of that lovely, perfect shape. His courage dried up and blew away. “I don’t want to get this wrong.”

Carl’s hands balled into fists, relaxed. “Whatever you want is right.”

Yoshi couldn’t decide between options, so he pushed Carl at the waist, one palm on each hip bone. Body heat seared his hands, made them tingle. “Down.”

Carl bounced slightly when he fell back onto the bed. He was so damned tall. Everything was right there in easy reach, waiting to be touched and served. Yoshi wiped his hands down his sides, sweaty hands sliding on sweaty skin, and he looked everywhere but Carl’s face.

“Well,” Carl said after a wait long enough to make Yoshi wonder if he should just forget this whole stupid idea, “so far, so good.”

He sounded droll, and yet his voice was shaky, saturated with desire. Looking up was a mistake. Carl was flushed and breathless,  and his blue gaze held a drowning trust that made Yoshi’s heart stutter.

“Anything?” Yoshi asked.

“Within reason. You want to hurt me? We negotiate. I have a safe word and three veto points. No blades, no hard restraint, no risk play. Not even for you.”

Yoshi looked up fast, and the darkness in Carl’s eyes sucked the breath out of him again. All those scars. “No way. I’m not into that. Not to dish it out, I mean.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself.” Carl’s lips curved up. “But I’m not arguing. Please, Yoshi. Whatever is making your eyes shine and your cock drip like that—say it, and make it happen.”

“I want to rim you and finger you and tease you until you cry for me,” Yoshi blurted out. “I want to jackhammer into you so hard you won’t walk straight for a week and hear you beg for more, to fuck you until you’re so far gone you don’t care if you ever come or not.”

Silence filled the room to overflowing. Yoshi stopped breathing. Too much? Pain wasn’t the point, but it would hurt. More importantly, he couldn’t imagine Carl reduced to that state, not in real life. Dreams were different.

“I might have to tap out,” Carl said, “but I want to try. Hands and knees, or face-on? You’re going to need leverage to do it properly, because we’re not—I mean, you’re plenty big where it counts, but you’re not tall, so it’ll take some maneuvering, and I wouldn’t want—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up!” The words came scratching out of Yoshi’s throat on claws of shame and frustration. “I hate it when you talk everything to death. If you consent, don’t say another word unless it’s to tell me stop, or yes for more. Got it?”

Carl’s silent nod left Yoshi hot and dizzy, like knocking back a long swallow of good vodka. He felt reckless. Powerful. It gave him ideas. “Kneel facing the bed, legs apart.”

Once he was there, Yoshi shoved the man’s head down and turned his face to the side, cheek to carpet, then placed the man’s hands wide along the bottom rail of the bed to put him on display, ass high, every inch accessible.  The scars were like graffiti on a marble monument, a blemished surface accentuating the fundamental beauty beneath.

Yoshi took his time with his work of art, raking fingernails over skin until Carl arched like a cat and hissed, stroking the man’s prick until it was rock-hard and dripping. Then he let go and dug sharp nails into those broad shoulders, twisted and pinched nipples until they were hard like pebbles. Then he nipped and feasted his way down to Carl’s ass, spread him wide and tongued his way from scrotum to asshole. He tasted salt sweat and sour musk, drove Carl to squirming with his tongue and then pressed fingers in, one and then another, then a third with no more lube than spit.

When he crooked his knuckles, stroking in and down and over, Carl cried out, rocking back hard enough to set his balls swinging. Yoshi slid his hand free, wiped it dry against sweet curves of muscle. “Easy, now. Rest.”

Carl sagged forward, eyes shut, breathing fast and shallow. That edgy, unfamiliar desire poured through Yoshi again. The sight of someone else in the state of frustrated bliss he knew so well made his cock pulse and his balls ache. He licked Carl’s ear. “Don’t move. When I come back, I am going to drill you like there’s no tomorrow.”

The snaps on the pocket of Yoshi’s bag opened with cheerful little pops. He took out the prophylactic lube and spread it on himself. Every stroke of his dick set off fiery little explosions behind his eyes. Yes, he told it. I know you think this is grand, but you like lots of awful things. Do I really want to do this to him?

Carl sighed, slumping until his chest was nearly on the floor. The image burned into Yoshi’s mind, slicing laser-sharp through all the uncertainties until one pure thought fell clear. That. Is. Mine. Everything changed in that moment, and nothing. He’d always known what he wanted. This was acceptance, not revelation.

He announced his return with a slap hard enough to leave a bright handprint. “You asked for this. Remember that.”

A second slap to make a matching mark brought Carl’s head up, but he abased himself again without hesitation and whispered, yes. Yoshi used slick fingers to make him moan, to push him wide and wider until he begged yes, until he sobbed it, and then Yoshi gave him more. Lube first, warm and viscous, but he jammed in after it as hard as he could, grinding forward until their balls slapped together and heat pulsed around him, squeezing tight. His whole body lit up, and the rough scars below Carl’s waist tickled his fingertips.

Yoshi moved him then, up over the side of the bed. Every lunge forward sent a bolt of lightning up his spine, every choked cry drove him to more savage ferocity. Skin parted under his fingernails and teeth, and his grip left dents. He didn’t relent until the flesh beneath him lay still and keened softly without words. Only then did he let himself go over the top. He emptied in sweet, long pulses of ecstasy and collapsed over Carl’s back.

The man heaved under him, groaning. A hitch of breath, a lurch of ribs, another groan. Yoshi felt the heady, drunken sense of power melt into something so tender he didn’t have a name for it. He crawled onto the bed and rolled Carl over. “Let me see you.”

The full head of Carl’s penis bobbed with every ragged breath he took, and veins stood out dark along the red length. He lay quiet with hands fisted in the sheets, too far gone to even move.

Yoshi straddled him, going hand over hand over hand, sweeping over the hot, wet tip, flicking the rim with his thumbs. It brought Carl gasping off the bed, back arched in exquisite agony, and Yoshi pressed pressed him down: cock to cock, heat to heat. “Let go,” he whispered. “Come for me.”

Carl crushed him with both arms, sank teeth into his shoulder and cried through a searing gush of release that Yoshi milked for all it was worth. The steely tension in Carl’s muscles slowly relaxed into twitching aftershocks, his arms loosened, and his head fell back so he could take in huge gulping breaths.

The motion lifted and dropped Yoshi like a boat rocking in an ebb tide. The bite mark in his shoulder throbbed to a different tempo. A flood of other emotions overtook Yoshi’s satisfaction when he lifted himself up to view the damages he’d inflicted in the name of pleasure.

His thoughts cycled through worry, guilt, fierce pride, and overwhelming affection, and Carl’s breathing steadied to soft, low sighs, Yoshi gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “Hey, buddy. Are we good?”

“Mmm.” Carl’s lips spread into a smile. “Hzzggnnngh.”

He looks so happy. So peaceful. Relief shook itself down through the cracks in Yoshi’s self-image, displacing some of the guilt. I gave him that, he thought, and I want that for me, someday. He said, “What now? Do you need some time alone? You want to clean up?”

“Stay.” Carl stroked Yoshi’s back with one hand, petting him with slow, languorous touches. “Clean’d be better, but’m too tired.”

“I’ll do the work,” Yoshi said, then reached for courage. “It’s what I want.”

Carl tolerantly allowed soaping, lathering and pampering, but it didn’t help Yoshi’s conscience much. The bruises looked appalling as they darkened, and Carl couldn’t move without going pale and tight around the lips.

“I’m sorry,” Yoshi said more than once.

“Don’t be,” Carl said the same number of times. “I asked for it.”

After settling into the clean second bed, he invited Yoshi under the covers and curled around him from behind. “Feel better?”

Yoshi sighed. “I should be asking you that.”

“I haven’t felt this good in a year. Thank you. For everything.” Lips brushed the back of Yoshi’s neck, followed by a wet touch of tongue. “That took you a long way past your comfort zone.”

“Too far,” Yoshi admitted. “I went way overboard, and now I’m a soggy mess. What kind of top does that?”

“A good one who doesn’t know what he’s doing yet.” Carl’s chuckle rumbled along Yoshi’s spine. Then he rolled away, leaving emptiness at Yoshi’s back. “Listen: if you insist on washing me, who’s in charge? Me, or you? Same question goes for earlier. Who held the power? You delivering orders, or me, allowing it?”

Yoshi rose on one elbow to look back over his shoulder. “Why do you make everything complicated?”

“It’s sex. It comes that way.” Carl ran a finger along Yoshi’s jaw. “I love seeing you grow strong in yourself. In and out of bed. Can I ask a favor?”

He was barely visible in the dusky room, but Yoshi’s heart stopped anyway. Tears welled up and spilled over. “Yes, of course.”

Carl pulled him close again, front to Yoshi’s back, hugging him like a toy. “Stop giving yourself to abusers when you need grinding down. Look for a partner who feels the weight of holding the leash the way you do now—someone who knows caring is powerful too.”

“Someone.” Disappointment zinged through Yoshi. He’d started to hope. You should’ve known better. If Carl’s embrace hadn’t been so tight, he would’ve moved away. “Not you.”

“No.”

After a pause that lasted so long that Yoshi thought the conversation was over, Carl said softly, “I am not safe, Yoshi. Don’t ever ask me for that. If I ever offer, run.”

The threat in those words shot down Yoshi’s spine and brought panic up on the rebound. Carl wasn’t a marshmallow or a pussycat or any of the other diminutives Kaylie used to describe him. He was not a pet.

Not safe. Not safe. Yoshi couldn’t breathe for the fear, but when he wriggled towards escape, the arms around him squeezed tighter. Carl said, “No, shh, I’m sorry, let me finish. I can’t give you that. Not won’t. Can’t. It was taken from me along with so much else, and that made me angry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Yoshi’s heart slowed, and when he could speak again, he said, “I can do without.”

Carl shifted his weight, sighing. “Don’t lie to me out of kindness. You need pain. You get off on humiliation. Own that. If you’re so worried about making me happy, let me help you find someone who is safe. I would like that very much.”

Yoshi thought about the offer, and when he was done thinking, he snuggled back against his own personal tiger. “I’d like it too.”