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The damn house was keeping him awake.
Wyatt lay on his back, his arm tucked behind his head, his gaze fixed on the ceiling above their bed, and he’d long ago given up on urging his body to just fucking sleep. After a couple hours, he’d been forced to conclude that it was a battle he just wasn’t going to win.
They’d gone to bed the same time they usually did, followed the exact same routine they always did, and Wyatt had actually felt tired as he crawled into bed. It was a long day; a satisfying one full of the kind of work that left his muscles sore in the best way, and he’d put his head to the pillow and felt tired enough to fall asleep pretty quick.
He just woke up not too long after and couldn’t get back to sleep. At all.
Andrew was fast asleep on his side, one arm over Athena who had been at their feet when Wyatt fell asleep but must have crawled upwards to sleep between them, and he was softly snoring, his breathing steady and comforting. One of Wyatt’s favorite sounds in the entire world was hearing that man sleep peacefully, but for some damn reason tonight, it wasn’t enough to lull him back to sleep himself.
It was a long while before he realized it was the damn house that was doing it to him.
The bedroom windows were open to let the night breeze in the way Wyatt liked it, but the room was stifling all the same. Not hot, just too damn small.
Their house was nothing impressive; two beds and two baths split between two stories. The best feature of the house was the porch that hugged the entire front of the house. Their bedroom was the master; it fit their king-sized bed with plenty of wiggle room to maneuver around, but tonight it felt small. Constricting.
He got like this sometimes. Sometimes he could force himself back asleep and make himself get over it, and sometimes pushing himself ended up with him running out the front door into the woods just for a way to cope. Andrew didn’t approve of either of those choices, and they had discussed on no few occasions that if Wyatt found himself awake in the middle of the night unable to ease himself back to asleep, he had a responsibility to wake up Andrew and to ask him for help.
Asking for help wasn’t one of Wyatt’s strong suits.
He’d always been an independent man; forced that way from his childhood experiences onwards, he’d always paved his own way and did everything by himself. He knew how to make things work for him when he needed it.
Was it the most healthy?
Absolutely not.
But he always managed.
Andrew had worked with him on it for years, and Wyatt knew if Andrew was awake right now to know Wyatt was awake too, he’d be doing everything he could to help. He was selfless like that.
He deserved better than Wyatt—although if he heard Wyatt say that out loud, a stinging swat would find his backside, and those damn swats from Andrew’s hand somehow managed to linger for much longer than was necessary.
Wyatt was mostly picturing the large swing on the front porch, the one he’d custom built himself that was more of a swinging bed than a seat. It was his favorite place in the entire house—he and Andrew often spent time curled up there together. Wyatt had slept there no few times, and he was picturing it now, and knew without a doubt that he’d sleep like a baby if he went out there right now.
But he couldn’t leave Andrew.
He could—the man would be fine sleeping on his own, it wasn’t like that. It was just that there’d be no way he wouldn’t notice Wyatt gone, and Wyatt wasn’t much of an early—or easy—riser; Andrew would know something was up. Wyatt would have a lot to answer for if he just snuck out and slept on the swing without even bothering to try waking Andrew up.
There had been times Wyatt had done that in the past, looking for exactly what Andrew ended up giving him after he caught him. But he definitely wasn’t looking for that now—nope, not at all, he was sitting just fine thank you. His ass was just fine.
So, it was better that Andrew didn’t know.
So if he stayed awake all night memorizing the texture on the plaster ceiling above them… so what?
As long as Andrew didn’t find out, no big deal.
He’d fall asleep. Eventually.
By the face of his wristwatch, it was approaching three am. He’d spent most of the last four hours awake and cursing himself for it, but thankfully Andrew hadn’t stirred once. That was good. Athena, on the other hand, was painfully aware he was awake. She stirred every time he twitched a muscle, checking on him. Whether it was her head snapping up to attention to get a good look at him, nudging his arm with her nose, licking his elbow, or snuffling at him, she was keeping a close eye on him, but thankfully nothing she’d done had woken up Andrew. Yet. Wyatt did his best to keep stiff to his position to keep it that way.
The less movement he made, the less noise he made, the better.
For everyone.
All right, mostly for Andrew.
They’d probably be busy in the morning. Andrew would make breakfast—if it was up to Wyatt, he’d grab maybe a piece of toast (or, if he had a chance of getting away with it, nothing at all) and run out the door to get started on the chores—before they started work. It was just the two of them and Athena on the orchard most of the time anyway—Wyatt wasn’t much of a people person—but that meant their days were busy. Andrew wouldn’t think twice about sending Wyatt right back to bed, but Wyatt couldn’t let that happen.
They had shit to do.
Work to be done.
Fruit trees to be tended to.
And other shit like that.
Sleep wasn’t necessary.
If you couldn’t sleep at night, you’d just try again the next night. Everyone knew that.
Everyone but Andrew.
But that was exactly why he didn’t need to know.
The sun started to peek out about early five, just enough that the world was tinged a gray-blue rather than pitch black, and it was around then that Wyatt finally dozed off. He didn’t remember watching the sun rise, but it was warm on his skin when Andrew gently shook his shoulder as he did every morning. Wyatt groaned and rolled away, pulling the sheet over himself to block the light. He was not an easy one to wake; never had been. Andrew was used to that, and gently lowered the sheet just enough to press a kiss to his hair.
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
“Mmph,” Wyatt grumbled into the blankets, as he did pretty much every morning.
Athena had moved to the foot of the bed sometime after Wyatt had fallen asleep, and Wyatt could feel the mattress shift as she stood up, stretched, and she jumped off onto the hardwood. She yawned, and her nails clicked against the floor as she trotted towards the door.
Andrew’s hand found Wyatt’s hip and rubbed. “Food.”
Wyatt made a noncommittal noise, and felt the weight on the bed shift as Andrew got to his feet and followed Athena.
His brain pounded painfully against his skull. He groaned again and pulled the pillow up over his head, too, to block the light and the rest of the world.
Just stay up all night, he mocked last night’s decision-making, it’s fine, it won’t make a difference.
Fucking dumbass.
He probably had a good twenty minutes to get his shit together and wake up fully. Wyatt had always been difficult about sleep for the entirety of his life—hard to get to sleep, hard to wake up. Andrew was used to him and knew the drill; he had to give Wyatt some time in the bed himself to ease his way into wakefulness. Problem was, on a day like this, all Wyatt wanted was to go right back to sleep, but he knew he had to make himself wake up. Otherwise Andrew would let him go back to sleep, and that was the last thing they needed to do.
There was shit to do after all.
But goddamn it, the bed was so goddamn comfortable.
Wyatt growled into the mattress, his jaw tight.
Goddamn insomnia.
Goddamn small house.
Goddamn sun.
Goddamn it all.
Wyatt forced his body to sit up, shielding his eyes against the ferocity of the sunlight with a hiss reminiscent of a vampire being burned in a supernatural movie, then he forced his feet onto the floor and stood himself up, ignoring the roiling in his stomach and the feeling of acid burning in his throat. His body didn’t treat him kindly when he didn’t sleep much, but it was something he had to power through. He stumbled half-blind into the bathroom and brushed his teeth with his eyes half-shut, willing the chore to wake him up.
It didn’t.
He splashed cold water on his face, and that helped somewhat, but not enough. His eyes fell on the shower and he decided on impulse that a cold shower was exactly what he needed to start the day.
He didn’t often shower in the mornings; there wasn’t much reason to when he’d spend the day dirtying himself up outside doing chores and whatever else, but a quick jump in the shower under the freezing cold water sounded about perfect right now.
It definitely made him feel more alert. The second that freezing water touched his skin, it was like activation, and he felt more awake than he had the longer he stood under the chilling spray.
He didn’t bother washing anything, just let the freezing water rinse off his tiredness, and quickly shut the shower off and rubbed his skin dry with a towel.
He left the towel on the bathroom tile and padded naked back to their bedroom to pull on some clothes, then he rushed down the stairs, hearing the sizzling of something in the kitchen—from the smell of it, bacon. Wyatt’s stomach rolled. Eating anything at all this morning was going to be damn near impossible. He’d just have to figure out how to stop Andrew from noticing.
Athena sat near Andrew’s feet, not underfoot exactly, but positioned close enough that if he dropped anything, she’d be sure to catch it. She didn’t beg—Andrew didn’t give in to begging—but she had no problem being right there if, you know, they ever needed her help testing out the tastiness of their food or anything.
Wyatt smiled at them, knowing without a doubt that she probably had already been fed a bite of crisp bacon before Wyatt had come in.
And Andrew said he never spoiled her.
Yeah, right.
“Hey,” Wyatt said, coming up behind Andrew to kiss him as he did every morning, with the determination that he would be as normal as possible today. “Athena, c’mon, outside.” He walked over to the back door and pulled it open, and Athena obediently bounded out ahead of him into the yard to sniff the grass. Wyatt only managed a step towards the door before Andrew’s voice stopped him.
“Grab me a plate?”
Damn it. He was hoping that he could just slip out then and Andrew wouldn’t notice. “Yeah.” Wyatt grabbed a plate from the cabinet and set it on the counter near where Andrew was cooking bacon and eggs.
“This is about done if you want to grab me bagels and cheese.”
Goddamn it. “I’ll just take the bacon to go, I want to get out there.”
“You got some sort of hot date I don’t know about?” Andrew asked dryly.
“Just got shit to do.”
“Shit can wait for breakfast. Bagels, cheese.”
Fine. He’d take his sandwich to go, then, no matter what Andrew said.
“You sleep all right?”
“Yeah, you?” Wyatt lied, deliberately keeping his voice as normal as possible. He grabbed the bagels off the top of the fridge and tried to ignore the gradually increasing uneasiness of his stomach.
“Not bad; we had a good breeze. You were knocked out pretty quickly, I’m glad that lasted.”
“Yeah.” Wyatt grabbed the cheese from the fridge and shut the fridge door with more firmness than necessary, wincing at the slam. “Sorry, slipped.”
“All right?”
“Yeah.” Dropping the ingredients on the counter next to Andrew, Wyatt quickly moved away to the door.
“What are you doin’?”
“Just checking on Athena.”
The lie fell off his lips with as much ease as the truth. Part of him wanted to celebrate. The other was telling him, quite loudly, that he should probably go fuck himself.
His leg jostled with anxiety he couldn’t quite hide as he stood at the door, arms folded as he looked out across the yard. Athena was running laps, excited to be outside and to stretch her legs, but Wyatt didn’t see much more of her than the blur of her black fur, his mind drifting elsewhere.
He was vaguely aware of sounds behind him as Andrew kept making breakfast, but not of much else.
So when Andrew suddenly appeared right next to him, Wyatt jumped, blinking back into as much focus as he could muster as his partner’s hands gently unfolded his arms to take him by the wrist. Andrew walked him towards the table to the dining chair that had been turned away to face outwards towards the kitchen, and Wyatt followed where he was led in something of a haze.
It was about the second right before Andrew took a seat on that turned chair and tipped Wyatt over his lap that he realized what was about to happen, but he didn’t have the time or the chance to fight it. Andrew’s flannel pajamaed thighs were a firm landing place for Wyatt’s stomach, and Andrew’s hand rested on top of his upturned backside, his other arm winding around Wyatt’s waist. Wyatt found the kitchen tile with his hands, and when he tried to budge Andrew’s arm around him, he found the lock as secure as a seatbelt.
“What the hell?” he demanded. “What did I do?”
“You’re gonna tell me.” Andrew patted the seat of his cargo pants very firmly—not a swat, exactly, but Wyatt couldn’t miss the warning in it. “You’re trying to hide something, or you wouldn’t be avoiding me as much as you are.”
How did he always fucking know? “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Okay, sunshine, you can lose your pants.”
What?
There wasn’t much Wyatt could do but drop his jaw as Andrew deftly reached under him, popped the button, and unzipped the zipper with expertise, and shoved the pants right off his hips, over his ass, and down his legs. Andrew rested his palm against Wyatt’s underwear clad backside for just a second, then he lifted it and swatted down—Wyatt jerked, the sting blossoming where Andrew’s palm smacked him. Underwear didn’t offer much protection but it was worse than over pants, although better than bare—and goddamn, Wyatt did not want to be bared-ass up over his partner’s knee this early in the damn morning!
“Lie to me again and these come down,” Andrew informed him, patting his right cheek very firmly. “You lie after that, and I get your paddle. Up to you how long you want this conversation to last, sunshine.”
What the fuck?!
How did this man read him so damn well?
Wyatt shifted his weight as he weighed his options. The threat of the paddle was dire—that damn thing wasn’t usually Andrew’s first choice, and when he went for it, it was serious. The fact he has gone straight for that threat showed just how little patience he had for fucking around.
Which was a fucking predicament.
He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t tell the truth.
What the fuck was he supposed to do?
Wyatt clamped his mouth firmly shut, stiffening over Andrew’s lap. He wanted to talk? Too bad. Wyatt would lay here ‘til he got sick of it, then they could go about their day.
Whatever made him happy.
“Wyatt.” Andrew spanked him ten times in rapid succession, and Wyatt jerked at the first swat and hissed through the rest, unable not to try to shift his backside out of range. It didn’t work—never fucking did, but he had to try. “We’re talking. You try to take the stubborn route, then my hand’ll do the talking right to your butt. That what you want?”
“No,” he said honestly, wincing as Andrew spanked him another ten times, alternating cheeks.
“Then I guess you’re gonna have to use words.”
Another ten swats, and Wyatt’s ass was stinging and protesting every ounce of his stubborn will.
Wyatt had a sinking feeling they weren’t even really close to starting yet.
“Your bacon’s gonna get cold,” he tried.
Andrew landed another ten swats, all to Wyatt’s sitspots. “Oh well.”
“Drew!”
“Sunshine.” Andrew’s hand rubbed a little across his butt, easing a bit of the sting away. “Just tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. The more you try to cover it up, the sorer you’ll be.”
He didn’t want to be sore at all, goddamn it!
Wyatt swallowed and said with as much conviction as he could muster, he lied, “I don’t have anything to tell you.”
His underwear got shucked down so fast the breeze against his ass was a welcome change against the slight heat that radiated from his skin, but within seconds, Andrew spanked him hard and fast, alternating between both cheeks, and he didn’t stop at just ten swats. He spanked hard, his palm practically as firm as a paddle, reddening Wyatt’s skin as Wyatt squirmed over his lap, instantly regretting his decision to try yet another lie.
He could hold out. He could. Andrew would get tired long before Wyatt did, it’d be fine.
Except as the sting built up, Wyatt was feeling less and less convinced that his butt could outstand Andrew’s goddamn right hand. “Okay!” Wyatt groaned, both hating himself for giving in and for not giving in sooner. “Okay, I’ll talk!”
“Go on.”
He didn’t stop spanking.
“Andrew!”
“I’m listening.”
Wyatt groaned, his backside burning as swat after relentless swat hit their target right on mark. There was no choice left but to just get it out; Wyatt blurted, “I couldn’t sleep!”
The spanking didn’t stop, but it did slow in pace, although Andrew didn’t lighten up his strength a bit. “How long were you awake?”
“I don’t know?”
Andrew spanked faster, landing rapid swats up, down, and across his bottom without mercy. “You don’t know or you don’t want to tell me? Answer carefully,” he warned as Wyatt opened his mouth to respond, “because you’re about to earn yourself some time with your paddle.”
Oh God. Wyatt swallowed hard. Yeah, all right. Lying was right out. “The second one.”
“Thought so. But you are gonna answer me, one way or another. Up to you how hard you make it on yourself.”
With the steady swats smacking his bare backside, he should have been encouraged to unhinge his jaw and just come out and say it. Except Wyatt was a stubborn son of a bitch and always had been, and as bad as it was that he was already ass-up over Andrew’s knee with Andrew’s full, stern attention on him, he had a talent for making shit worse for himself. “What does it fucking matter?”
“All right, sunshine.” Andrew landed twenty accurate swats all to the lowest curve of his bottom, and Wyatt actively squirmed over his lap to evade what he could, which of course he couldn’t. Andrew always had unerring aim, no matter what Wyatt did.
Then Wyatt was hauled to his feet, steadied when he stumbled at the sudden change in position, and Andrew placed his hands on Wyatt’s hips and leveled him with a very serious look. Wyatt’s stomach dropped to the ground, his ass throbbing so much he couldn’t help shifting his weight on his feet.
Andrew nodded to the fabric around his ankles. “Step out of those.”
Wyatt hesitated, and Andrew reached around and swatted him hard, and it stung more somehow standing up in front of him than it did over his lap. Wyatt grunted and reluctantly stepped out of his underwear and pants.
“Go get it.”
Wyatt knew what he meant. Andrew knew what he meant. But Wyatt still pretended he didn’t and asked with an innocence he could only hope was believable, “Get what?”
It was a mistake. Andrew turned him to the side and lit his ass up with another ten hard, accurate smacks that he hissed through.
“Drew!”
“You really don’t want me to get it.”
“No,” he agreed, “and actually, I really don’t think we need it at all.”
“Oh, we need it. Only question is, do you need help?” Andrew turned him again and spanked him another ten times, holding him in place before he could try to evade the swats. “This is what my help looks like.”
“No!” Wyatt protested. “Fuck, okay, I’ll get it!”
Another ten swats landed before Andrew let him go with one final, firm pat. “You’ll get it and bring it to me. Or we can start this all over again.”
“Jesus Christ, all because I won’t tell you how long I was up?”
“Yep. You’re the one in charge of your choices, sunshine.” Another firm pat from Andrew’s palm landed against the center of Wyatt’s ass. “Go.”
Wyatt swallowed, but he moved, damning the fact Andrew was right, and Wyatt knew he was right, and he hated that he was right.
The custom paddle lived in their closet where Wyatt tried not to look at it too often.
It was the bane of Wyatt’s existence; by far the implement he had the most complicated relationship with. He loved it pretty much until it was about to be used on him, and then he fucking hated it and cursed himself to hell and back for making it in the first place. It was heavy and it was sturdy, and it stung like a fucking bitch on bare skin. It never took much from the paddle to get through to him, and for good reason. But damn it, of course he pushed right to it. Andrew didn’t often jump to it; it was kept for more severe offenses, or, in cases like now, when Wyatt was being particularly stubborn.
His stomach twisted into knots with each step he ascended, and when he reached their closet and the shelf the paddle lived on, he squirmed where he stood, staring at the damn thing just waiting to be picked up.
And applied heavily to his ass.
God fucking damn it.
Why did he do this shit to himself?
He snatched it up by the handle, the weight of it making his stomach sink, and he reluctantly walked it back to the kitchen where Andrew sat waiting, his eyes on his wristwatch. Wyatt swallowed as he noticed, and Andrew looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You had about ten more seconds before I came and got you.”
Well, he was damn glad he’d gotten a move on then.
“Come here.”
Biting his lip, Wyatt stepped forward, just short of Andrew’s reach, the paddle at his side. Andrew held his hand out expectantly, but instead of handing the paddle over, Wyatt held it in his hand and opened his mouth. “I’ll talk now.”
“You will,” Andrew agreed too quickly to mean anything good, and Wyatt’s stomach twisted as he waited for the other shoe to drop, “over my knee. We’re past the point of a face-to-face conversation.”
Goddamn it.
He hated it when he said shit like that—outright and directly, with no hinting around it. Goddamn it.
Wyatt felt his face heat uncomfortably. “I get it. We don’t have to—you know. I’m done fucking around.”
“We do have to.” Andrew gestured his hand for the paddle. “C’mon, sunshine.”
Biting his lip, Wyatt knew there was no getting out of this. No talking, no negotiating, and running would just delay the inevitable. Didn’t mean he wasn’t tempted—or that he’d never given into that temptation before—but he knew there was no changing what Andrew had in store for him. The man never changed his mind once he decided Wyatt needed a spanking.
Damn him.
It was so much damn harder to have to cooperate, let alone help by handing the paddle to him. One thing Wyatt would admit to no one else but himself was that it was probably a good thing Andrew had made him fetch the paddle and not a different implement—he was less likely to hurl the paddle away like he would have to anything else. He cared too much about the work he’d put into that paddle to destroy it.
The fantasy of that thought was nice, though.
Swallowing hard and ducking his head, Wyatt reluctantly held the paddle out, not quite thrusting it into Andrew’s hand. Andrew took pity on him and took it from his hands, and he caught Wyatt by the wrist before he could give into his half-formed impulse to beat a hasty retreat, pulling him closer until Wyatt stood between Andrew’s pajamaed knees. He had the paddle balancing on one thigh, and that was about as high as Wyatt could make himself look before his eyes darted back downwards, examining the patterns in the kitchen tile.
Andrew’s hands found his hips and pulled him even closer, and he cleared his throat pointedly.
Wyatt released a heavy sigh and forced himself to look up, making eye contact with his partner.
“I’ve got you,” Andrew promised, and the sincerity of it made Wyatt’s throat tighten.
He nodded. He’d never doubted that, not even once.
“C’mon.” Andrew patted his still bare bottom before he picked up the paddle, clearing the room on his lap for Wyatt to bend over, and Wyatt obeyed reluctantly.
He balanced himself on his hands and toes, really trying hard not to think about what a picture he must be painting, bare-assed over his partner’s knee in the kitchen, probably already a light shade of red. Andrew’s arm wound around his waist as it always did, and the paddle rested across his entire bottom, just sitting there, waiting. Wyatt couldn’t help it; he squirmed, hating it when Andrew did that. It pulled everything right into focus, and made it impossible not to feel incredibly taken in hand, without even a single swat from the paddle having landed yet.
The damn paddle rubbed a circle across his cheeks before it lifted, and Wyatt shut his eyes, bracing himself for the smack, which was shockingly hard no matter how much he tried to prepare for it, and stole his breath away.
“How long were you up, Wyatt?”
Wyatt bit his lip again, and that stubborn silence lasted about five more swats before he forcefully released it with a hiss, and damned his pride enough to spit out, “All night!”
“You were asleep when I went to sleep,” Andrew said, as if this was just a normal conversation and he wasn’t lighting Wyatt’s ass up with that damn paddle still falling in a steady, unbreaking rhythm. “What time did you wake up?”
“Eleven,” Wyatt groaned.
“And you never fell back asleep?”
Wyatt shook his head, the paddle stealing his damn breath away with its fucking vigor.
Jesus Christ, Andrew, lighten up a bit? he begged in the privacy of his mind, his legs flexing as the pain really began to crescendo.
“You didn’t wake me.”
It wasn’t a question but Wyatt shook his head anyway, grunting as the paddle met the lower curves of his backside.
“So you just laid awake all night, pissed at yourself for being awake?” Andrew guessed, and damn the man for knowing him so well, because yeah, that was pretty much it. “What’s our rule for spending nights like that?”
“I know,” Wyatt ground out miserably.
“So you deliberately disobeyed.”
There wasn’t a whole lot he could say to defend himself of that, so he just dropped his head and silently begged the paddle to miss its target just once, just once, goddamn it.
Of course it didn’t. Andrew was too damn good at it, and the entirety of his ass blazed like a forest fire that just kept fucking spreading.
And then it found the tops of his thighs, and Wyatt couldn’t hold onto his silence. “Ow, fuck!”
“Why?” Andrew asked calmly, applying that paddle as methodically as he repaired the plumbing.
“You were asleep!”
“You weren’t.”
Wyatt scoffed, then groaned as the paddle landed more swiftly, biting into his skin with ferocity.
“No, that matters. You sleeping matters. I’m not okay with you sacrificing your needs because you don’t want to bother me, or because you don’t want to ask for something that you know helps. That’s not a choice you get to make, sunshine, like it or not.”
“It was fine,” Wyatt insisted, even as he grunted through the hard swats that landed against his defenseless backside, the pace and intensity picking up after his statement, which he instantly regretted. “Drew!”
“It’s not fine.” Andrew continued spanking him with his paddle, turning his skin an angry, burning hot red, and Wyatt regretted ever opening his mouth at all. “It wouldn’t have been any trouble to move to the swing or even take a sleeping bag out in the woods if that’s what it took, and it’s okay to need that. It’s not okay for you to just say ‘fuck it’; that hurts you, and I’m not okay with that.”
“You’re hurting me!” Wyatt tossed out desperately, his eyes beginning to stream with unshed tears, and tried to ignore the stabbing in his chest for spitting out something so awful. What Andrew was doing was nothing short of what Wyatt wanted and needed from him, something they both agreed to, and it was low to pretend otherwise.
“I’m paddling you, because you pushed and then you pushed some more,” Andrew corrected calmly, his voice matter-of-fact and not rising to the bait that Wyatt knew better than to try. And damn him, this angel of a man, who didn’t condemn Wyatt for his low blow, but just kept on steadily spanking, responding in exactly the way Wyatt’s heart of hearts wanted him to: ignore his words for noise and keep on keeping on with a firm, unyielding swing. Andrew’s arm squeezed comfortingly around his waist, a physical reminder in addition to his relentless swing that he was here, he had him, and they were okay. “We’re almost done.”
Not soon enough, though.
The tears spilled over his eyes and fell of their own accord as the paddle just kept relentlessly spanking, from the top of his ass down to his thighs and up at the start again, falling rhythmically and unendingly. Until finally it did end, and Wyatt was sore and breathless and teardrops were falling into puddles on the kitchen tile.
Andrew leaned to set the paddle down on the tile, then his hand found the small of Wyatt’s shuddering back, and it rubbed deep, comforting circles against his skin where his shirt had ridden up, although Wyatt was a little past noticing it, mostly trying to balance on one hand to dab at his face where the tears stained his cheeks and kept leaking from his eyes like a damn faucet.
“You know I love you?”
“Fuck off,” Wyatt all but whined, the emotion straining his vocal cords.
It drew a chuckle and a firm pat against his blazing ass that made Wyatt squirm. “Yeah, I know. You love me too.”
Wyatt nodded, though he couldn’t bring his voice to produce the words. Andrew deserved them—deserved a lot better than he ever got from Wyatt, that was for damn sure—but for some stupid reason, Andrew didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding how much Wyatt meant it without having to say it all.
“I am putting you back to bed, though.”
Wyatt twisted, trying to look back over his shoulder. “The fuck you are—”
But the words turned into a whine as Andrew’s hand cupped the curve of his flaming ass and squeezed the sensitive flesh.
“You slept, what? An hour? So, yeah, the fuck I am.” He tapped Wyatt’s ass. “And you’re gonna stay there until I get you out of bed. Yeah?”
“If I don’t?”
“Then we go a few more rounds with your paddle.”
Goddamnit, he didn’t have to sound so fucking casual about it.
“However many it takes.” Wyatt could hear the unbothered shrug in Andrew's voice. “Doesn’t bother me if you can’t sit down.”
Goddamn it.
Wyatt dropped his head and groaned. Deeply. With most of his chest.
And maybe beat the tile a bit with his hands. Sue him.
And if he kicked his legs in protest, then whatever, he did.
Andrew waited through all of it, saying nothing, doing nothing. It was when Wyatt settled down with a heavy sigh and a scowl on his face Andrew couldn’t see that Andrew tapped him again and asked, “You need motivation?”
The genuine question made Wyatt blush. “Jesus, no. Fine, okay, I’ll go upstairs.”
“You’ll try to sleep,” Andrew corrected, his strong hands helping Wyatt get to his feet, “on the swing with Athena.”
Wyatt’s scowl softened, marginally. The fact he knew that that would probably help most, to be outside in the fresh, open air, to be near the work even if he couldn’t join in, to have the company of his dog because where else would she be anyway?
God, this fucking angel of a man.
“I love you.”
The words came out quickly, just a quick burst. Andrew’s expression didn’t even change; his eyes were just as gentle and his smile just as fond, and the hand that caressed Wyatt’s cheek was kind, understanding. “Fuck off.”
Andrew's wink ruined it; the scowl Wyatt wore cracked into a grin as he released a laugh, and he sank into the embrace Andrew pulled him into. “Fucker.”
Andrew’s kiss against his hair was warm and firm, and it was such a simple thing, just a little kiss, but that little gesture of love seared onto his heart like an animal brand.
His ass might never well recover, but he never felt more loved than he did when Andrew touched him, looked at him, smiled at him, spoke to him. Spanked him. Held him, in every way imaginable.
His angel.