“Proud of yourself?” Nick asked. “Making your helpless prisoner strip in front of you? Enjoying the power trip now, are you?”
“Nick.” Kit’s voice cracked, the coldness vanishing into concern and empathy. But Nick had seen how shallow the roots of that empathy ran, and he knew not to trust it. Nick turned from Kit, righting his clothes.
“I am sorry. I did not see—I thought I was keeping you safe. I did not see someone maim you in this manner.” Kit tracked close behind Nick, a distressed purr bursting from his chest. “Who did it? I will punish them. I know that will not erase the pain, but I can make sure that they do not get away with it.”
“I’m notmaimed,” Nick snapped. He whirled on Kit, who flinched, and as Nick turned, he saw distress in Kit’s widened eyes. His tail was curled around Nick’s legs, hovering close without touching him, and his chest heaved. “It’s just some piercings, for fuck’s sake. Calm down.” Nick wanted to be angry, not deal with Kit having a meltdown.
Kit’s mouth shut, but his eyes didn’t lose their stress.
Nick saw that and growled, as frustrated now with himself as he was with Kit. “I got the piercings done myself.”
The stressed rumble in Kit’s chest ceased. “You…” He tilted his head. “You put metal through—through –”
“Through my cock. Yeah.”
Kit’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes flicked down to gaze at Nick’s covered-up privates. “On purpose?” There was a distinctly horrified note in Kit’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“You were forced.”
“Nobody forced me. I went to a piercing artist and had it done.” Nick’s anger waned. He went to the washbasin, shrugging off his shirt. Kit shadowed him.
“Does it not hurt?”
“No.”
“That cannot be true.”
Kit sounded so damnprim.God, did Nick want to tease. He shoved down the feeling. He was angry, he reminded himself. Annoyed.
Nick tossed the dirty shirt on the floor and took a handful of soap flakes and rubbed them into the washcloth. He ladled in just enough cold water that it was bearable and began to wipe every inch of skin. “Do people not get pierced where you’re from?”
“Not through the cock,” Kit said, that horrified note ringing true. “And not so many –” A distressed rumble cut off his words. “Why do you leave them in? Is it too difficult to cut the metal when it is close to your sensitive part? I have pliers I can use to help remove them. I swear to be careful.”
Nick got a second wash cloth soaped up and handed it behind him without looking. “Do my back if you’re going to stick to me.”
Kit took the cloth. “I can get a numbing agent from Anna to ease the pain when we remove them. They probably are the true cause of your headaches,” he said with a note of certainty.
Nick groaned, exasperated. “They were put in there by a trained professional. They are perfectly safe, so long as I keep the metal clean, which I do, and they don’t cause any harm of any kind. I got them because they feel good.”
Kit’s agitated exhale accompanied the warm cloth rubbing a line down Nick’s spine. The water, just too hot, was bliss against his skin. Kit’s touch was gentle. “If you keep them in to please someone in particular,” Kit said carefully, “then you are safe to remove them here without consequence.”
Kit successfully snuffed out the last of Nick’s ire. Kit’s mind had jumped immediately to sexual coercion.
“I got my first piercing done when I was eighteen,” Nick said as he wiped carefully over his sensitive arms. “It was a graduation present to myself. It stung going in, but I kind of liked that. So after the first one healed, I went back to get another, and then another after that, and then another… It was all one at a time, except the ladder. For those, they stuck in the five bars all at once.”
Kit’s hand trembled against Nick’s back. “They really do not cause you pain?”
“Really.”
“And you were not forced –”
“I wasn’t forced.”
Nick dunked the cloth back into the water. He twisted to face Kit, whose eyes snapped up as he turned. He stared hard at Nick’s face, as if he was trying to detect a lie. His expression became muddled as he realised there was no deception to find. “I do not understand why one would…” Kit’s face reddened. His eyes were half-lidded as his gaze slipped down, looking at the front of Nick’s trousers. “Feel good how?”
Nick watched Kit. His tail was hooking, brushing against Nick’s calf—that was a friendly thing. Kit had lost the coldness of before, but Nick’s emotions hadn’t followed Kit’s back to calmer waters. Exhaustion clung to his body, a wrung-out feeling that fed a simmering resentment.
