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Chapter Eleven
Curiosity Killed the Cat
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Oh boy.
Kalevi was going to have to delete his search history after this.
He’d gone down the proverbial rabbit hole when he started googling. Work had been shit and he’d returned home exhausted and grumpy. They had done a fantastic job of cleaning and Ben had left him some groceries to fill the fridge and cupboard. With Eli staying over with a friend and Kal unable to sleep, he had sat down with his ancient laptop. He’d tried to stick to the basics. He read a few surprisingly dry articles on non-sexual submission. He’d meant to stick to facts, just the information about the mental health side of it and the reasons why people chose to be submissive or dominant, blah, blah, sue him.
Kalevi was a cat by nature and cats got curious.
He’d watched porn before, he wasn’t that fucking sheltered. Kal could appreciate the bondage aspect. He could even admit his dick twitched hard as he watched an embarrassing amount of various bondage videos. The problem was Kal would never trust anyone to tie him up in any way. The idea of being pinned down, helpless, watching as their fists got closer…
It took several moments for Kal to realize he had his claws stuck in the chair arms. Yeah, no thank you. To him, hitting was hitting. Any arousal he might have had for the theme had completely wilted. He had been about to erase his damn search history and shut everything off when one more video caught his eye. He glanced disinterestedly over the preview and was surprised to see no bondage whatsoever. Confused, he clicked it.
He had only meant to watch for a couple of minutes. He ended up watching not only that video, but several more on the same channel. It was as confusing as it was strangely arousing. The man in charge was slim, small, weirdly breakable, but that didn’t seem to matter as he easily commanded the movement of the kneeling figure on the floor. The man kneeling was muscular, large, and dusted with hair. He looked as though he should be the one in charge.
Except he wasn’t.
‘You’re so good for me. Put your hands behind your head. Link your fingers and don’t move them. That’s it. So good.’ Kalevi swallowed hard. The man wrapped slim fingers around the throat of the kneeling figure. A quiet whimper. A full body shiver.
Kalevi slammed the lid of his laptop shut. Fuck. Why was this, of all things, doing it for him? He wasn’t into this! Was he? He glared at the closed laptop as though it had personally offended him, trying to ignore the way his chest was heaving. He closed his eyes, but almost at once he was bombarded with the memory of being held in Vano’s lap, Ben leaning over him.
‘We’re going to take care of you Kal.’
Nope!
No, not happening. Too much internet for one day… urm, night. Too much internet for tonight. He stomped off to his bedroom, stripped off his clothes and curled up naked on the bed covers. He tried very hard to pretend his cock wasn’t hard and throbbing between his legs.
Spoiler alert, he didn’t get very much sleep that night.
—
‘Wow! This place looks amazing!’ Eli gasped.
‘Really?’ Kalevi said stupidly as his brother stood in the doorway.
‘Yeah! I can’t believe how big and clean this place looks! You got rid of that funky coffee table! Shit, was the couch always that big?’ Eli paused. ‘Was this why you panicked about where I was? You wanted to surprise me?’
‘Uh…’ guilt twisted in Kal’s stomach. He could see Ben’s gentle smile slipping into silent disappointment. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it was. Decided to clean the place up a bit.’ Another lie. Fuck.
‘It really does look great. Have you picked out any new stuff?’ Eli asked as he spun on the spot.
‘Couple of things. Nothing fancy,’ Kalevi grunted.
‘Did Ben and Vano help with all this?’
He wasn’t sure how he felt that Eli knew Ben and Vano. ‘Yeah, they did,’ he admitted. ‘What do you think of them?’ He wasn’t sure why he was asking. Some part of him needed Eli to be okay with Kal’s potential partners.
Eli shrugged. ‘Honestly, I haven’t really spent any time with them, but they seem cool. Super chill, you know?’
Kal nodded. ‘Yeah, they are kind of.’
His brother gave him the side eye. ‘Do you like them?’
Kalevi suddenly decided he wanted tea and headed to the kitchen with his brother on his tail. ‘They’re… okay.’
‘Oh! Okay. That’s high praise coming from you!’ his brother teased.
Kal snorted, ignoring the heat he could feel in his face. ‘Yeah, well. They fed me so they get a very small amount of credit.’ Eli laughed. It was a good sound. The whole interaction was good. They made burgers for lunch and talked about various unimportant rubbish. It was one of the longest and friendliest conversations they had shared in a long time.
‘Kate said I should tell you about what happened,’ Eli said as he pushed about the crumbs on his plate.
Kal frowned. ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
‘Yeah, I know. I think I do want to, though. It was really stupid. Remember how I said I got into a fight with Justin.’ Kal nodded. ‘Well, it was over something really stupid too. Justin’s got a new girlfriend and he’s been skipping a lot of practice to hang out with her. That’s… that’s not important. Anyway, we got into a row, and I felt it.’
Kal frowned. ‘The shift?’
Eli looked a little pale as he shook his head. ‘No. Not exactly. It wasn’t that. Justin was shouting. I was too, but we were in the locker rooms and his yelling suddenly sounded so much louder and it was echoing. It felt like I was a little kid again. Kal, I thought he was there. I know how that sounds but I just… reacted.’
Kalevi’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. ‘Eli, I get it.’
His little brother looked at him with an expression that bordered on desperation. ‘He’s not coming back, right?’
‘No. If he does, I’ll kill him,’ Kal growled, ignoring the rolling shiver of apprehension. Eli was staring at him with such intensity.
‘How many times, Kal? How many times did you take a hit for me? How many times did you distract him so I could find somewhere to hide?’
‘Stop it,’ Kal snapped. ‘What does any of that matter anymore? We look out for each other and we protect each other.’
‘But I never protected you! You always protected me. I inherited the jaguar. You’re just a cat!’
Okay. Fucking ouch. Just a cat. That was going to ring violently in Kal’s nightmares for a while.
‘You were a little kid. A baby jaguar isn’t any more threatening than a baby cat at that point. Let it go, Eli. The past is the past. We can’t change it. We survived, and that’s all that matters.’ But it wasn’t all that mattered. For either of them.
The conversation started to lapse into silence before Eli broke it with, ‘I know my eyes changed because Justin stopped yelling. He was staring at me like I was a monster. He ran out of the locker room. We made up later. I think he convinced himself that he was just seeing things in the heat of the moment.’
‘Do you think he told anyone?’ Kal asked uneasily.
Eli shrugged. ‘He must have otherwise how would the council know to send people out?’ How indeed. It was a good question. Kalevi made a mental note to ask Ben. Eli got up to put their plates in the sink. He paused at the kitchen bench.
‘Were those always there?’
Kal’s heart gave a nasty jolt as he saw the claw marks under the bench. Fuck, he’d forgotten to patch those. Without even thinking, he blurted out, ‘Yeah. Of course.’
Eli hummed thoughtfully. ‘Never noticed them. The place really does look different without the clutter.’
Kal gave a nervous laugh. ‘Yeah. True.’ Kalevi groaned internally. He’d just lied. Again. He was a bad person.
—
‘So, were you able to do any research?’ Ben asked as he watched Kalevi strip off his grocery store uniform. Some brats had thrown several jars of pasta sauce in the last hour of Kal’s shift, resulting in a disgusting amount of wiping and mopping. Somehow, he seemed to have gotten it in his hair. He’d barely gotten home when Vano and Ben had turned up on his doorstep.
‘Not so loud, would you! Eli’s studying in his room,’ Kal grumbled.
‘Hi Ben!’ Eli hollered from down the corridor.
‘Hi Eli! How’s the study coming?’ Ben called back.
‘Good!’ Eli yelled.
‘Both of you stop shouting at each other!’ Kal barked. Both Ben and his damn brother started laughing.
‘We’ll call you when dinner’s ready,’ Ben shouted.
‘Okay!’ yelled Eli then promptly closed his bedroom door with a snap.
‘I hate you both,’ Kal grumbled.
Vano was carrying a fresh bag of groceries into the small kitchen. Kal was beginning to begrudgingly look forward to their visits. Vano started to unpack the vegetables on the counter.
‘We were thinking of making a big batch of stir-fry. Does that sound okay?’ Ben asked, handing Vano a chopping board. Having helped clean up, they basically knew the layout of where everything lived.
Kal shrugged. ‘Sure. No complaints here.’
Ben smirked. ‘That’s a first.’
Kal bristled even as his belly did a stupid little happy tumble. ‘Oh, you can just go-‘
‘So, did you research?’ Ben asked, cutting him off. He watched as Kal’s face reddened.
‘I’ll take that as a yes. Did you have any questions? Was there anything you wanted to clarify?’
Kal looked nervously over his shoulder. ‘I can’t. Eli’s here.’
Vano raised a brow. ‘In his room, studying with the door closed. Don’t avoid the question,’ he rumbled.
‘I don’t know,’ the cat said uncomfortably. ‘I only just started looking at the shit.’
‘The shit? Come now dear. You can use better words than that.’ Kalevi hated how his entire face went red at the term of endearment. It brought him straight back to his fantasy. Vano’s arms around his chest, holding him still as Ben stole his breath in a long, thorough –
‘Kal?’
‘Huh?’ Kalevi’s embarrassment hit a new level as he realised both shifters were sniffing the air. They could smell his arousal. Damn it!
‘It’s okay Kal. We can stop if this is making you uncomfortable. That’s not the goal here. I was just poking fun,’ Ben said gently. Gods, why did this man have to be so damn perfect? He was way too nice. It was impossible to stay annoyed with him and his stupid smiling face…
Kalevi sighed. ‘I did look into it. It was… weird.’ Weird. Nice one. Way to use your big boy words Kalevi. He groaned. ‘I don’t totally get it, the whole submissive part. I tried to read about it, but it just seems like they enjoy being meek or letting people boss them around.’
Vano hummed as he began to slice up some green onions. ‘Did they look meek? Being submissive is not about weakness. It takes strength to give yourself to someone, to let them take care of you, to be protected and cherished.’ Cherished. The sound of the word made Kal feel as though something was squeezing his organs painfully.
‘I… I don’t have any unit of measurement for that. I don’t know what that’s like,’ he admitted quietly. Vano stopped cutting vegetables.
‘And for that we are deeply sorry. You had parents who should have loved and protected you,’ Ben said. ‘Would it be alright if we held you?’
Kal hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Vano got to him first, wrapping him in a tight embrace that had hot tears tickling the corners of his eyes. He took several breaths of the man’s warm scent before straightening up. ‘Okay, that’s enough of the sappy shit. We all know I had a fucked up childhood. It’s not exactly a secret.’ He froze in place as Ben reached out and lovingly pushed back a lock of wayward hair. Kalevi had to fight down a very cat-like urge to nuzzle into the man’s hand.
‘Was the research all bad? Was there nothing about it that you liked?’ Ben asked quietly.
‘It… wasn’t all bad. Confusing, but not bad.’ Kal clenched his fists. Damn it! He wasn’t a coward, and he wasn’t a little kid! This shouldn’t be so hard. He’d talked about sex before. Hell, he’d talked about sex with his baby brother. He could do this. ‘There were some things I could never do. I like watching it, but I’m not interested in trying bondage or impact play. The thought of holding still while someone tries to hit me…’ His eyes bled into feline pupils as his control slipped. The sudden rigidity in his muscles was almost painful.
‘Of course. We understand Kal, it’s okay. This is good. Knowing what you don’t like or what you aren’t interested in is just as important as knowing what you would like. Arguably even more so,’ Ben said, his tone low and soothing. Kal let out the air he’d been holding. Vano was warm, pressed against Kal’s back. He let himself sag back against the man.
‘I saw some videos, but they weren’t like the others. The guy wasn’t barking orders or hitting his partner. They were still listed under the BDSM section thought.’
‘It’s called soft dominance or gentle dominance. In that situation, it’s more about praise and care giving. Is that something you would like to try Kal?’ Kalevi was shivering though the kitchen was warm enough. He was pressing back into Vano with something like desperation. His eyes were slightly dilated, and his breaths had sped up.
Ben felt a twinge of want and possessiveness. He watched as Kal nodded. The cat’s eyes kept flicking down to Ben’s mouth. It was an invitation Ben couldn’t ignore. ‘Good boy.’
Kal would later deny making the stupid little whimper that escaped him but when Ben kissed him, all other thoughts left his head. The kiss was slow, languid, and warm. It sent tingles right down to the base of his scalp. When they pulled apart, Kal missed the contact immediately.
‘Take him to the couch. He could use some time off his feet. I’ll make dinner,’ Ben said. He was talking to Vano, but he never took his eyes off Kal. The cat didn’t even complain when Vano picked him up and carried him over to the couch. The sound of the knife once again chopping vegetables on the chopping board was familiar and domestic. Kalevi found himself wedged between the back of the couch and the wall of muscle that was the stag.
‘Rest, little cat. I won’t move,’ Vano said. A huge hand gently stroked down Kal’s back. He shivered and burrowed more into the man’s body. It just felt too good. Eyes heavy, Kal tried to stay aware of his surroundings, but it was far too simple to just… let go.
‘Wow, it smells great in here!’ The sound of his brother’s voice jolted him from sleep. Kal blinked weakly. Vano was just how he promised, keeping Kal warm and pinned to the cushions.
‘Is he okay?’ Eli asked.
Kal tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, but Ben answered first. ‘He’s fine. He and Vano had long days at work.’
‘Mm, n’ok,’ Kal slurred. Vano had to help him sit up. Ben thought he looked adorable with his hair tussled and his shirt rumpled.
‘Would you be able to fetch us some water, Eli? Then we can eat.’
‘Oh, yeah, of course.’
As they sat down at the old table with plates of stir fry, Kalevi couldn’t help but notice how homely the whole situation felt. If this… if he could have more of this, then maybe he really could get his shit together and give Eli the life he deserved. He almost smiled to himself as he dug in and unfortunately missed the troubled look on Ben’s face as the man caught sight of the deep claw marks on the underside of the kitchen bench.
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END
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