It had been a horrible day, a day full of peril, risks, and mistakes, his mistakes. Ezra locked the door behind him and stepped into the dark foyer. Uncaring of his usual routine, he opened his hand and let the briefcase drop to the floor. Shrugging out of the suit jacket, he let it, too, fall. He was tired beyond belief, his mind fogged with fatigue and distracted with the events of the afternoon.

One more step and strong hands grabbed him and spun him face first into the wall, pinning him there. He opened his mouth to protest and another hand shoved a ball gag between his teeth and fastened the ties around his head. He threw off his lethargy and began to struggle. A voice growled in his ear.

"Submit."

One word.

One word to penetrate the fog and he stilled. He let the hands place a blindfold over his eyes and then strip him of his clothes. How many hands? Two sets of hands, he thought, two people. He wondered at that.

Hand lifted and slung him over a shoulder and then dropped him onto a bed. His feather bed was gone and he was flipped face down onto the extra firm mattress. His arms were pulled over his head, bound, and fastened to the headboard. Large hands lifted his hips and shoved pillows under him. He lay there with his bottom high and rounded.

His tongue pushed at the ball in his mouth. He couldn't understand the gag. There was no reason for it. He could scream his lungs out and no one would hear. His bedroom was completely soundproofed. He had come back from his last undercover assignment to find it so along with the high, iron barred, custom-made bed.

A warm breath tickled his ear and a voice, the one that had growled, whispered in his ear.

"You don't like the gag, do you? You don't know why it's there."

His muffled murmurs were the only answer.

"Your cries and screams, your pleas and promises are only for me. No on else is to hear them."

The breath and whispers withdrew.

"He's all yours. Those are there if you need them."

"More probably when I need them, not if."

Laughter. Laughter and footsteps, both fading as the door opened and snicked close.

A voice, this one deep and rumbling.

"I talk to you. I try to explain. I've talked and explained until I'm blue in the face and it does no good. You do not listen, Ezra. So, from now on, no more talking. I warned you. I told you what would happen if you behaved again as you did today."

Movement. Then a swish, a sharp, loud crack, and a line of fire that seared across his bottom.

He cried out into the gag. Before he could draw in a breath, another swish, crack, and line of fire. And another and another and another. Marching down across his bottom and onto the backs of his thighs. Only to move back to the top and start all over again.

He twisted over the pillows and his right leg jerked up toward his chest. He felt something drop onto the bed and the flesh of his hip crawled and jerked away from the leather of the strap that curled against it.

A hand grabbed his ankle and pulled it down. All too soon, both ankles were bound and restrained to the bars of the footboard. The leather was lifted away and the strapping continued.

His tears soaked the blindfold. Pleas for mercy and promises to forever behave tumbled through his mind. Suddenly the fire that flamed across his bottom exploded into a conflagration of white-hot pain that consumed his body and wiped out his thoughts. He screamed and screamed.

He didn't know when the strap stopped falling, didn't hear when it was put away. Didn't hear the door once again opening and closing. Didn't feel the mattress dip beside him or the hand that began rubbing circles on his back.

Slowly the sobs that wracked his body quieted and he became aware of the presence beside him, of the hand rubbing his back. The hand was not as massive as the one that had wielded the strap but it was still large, much larger than his own. It rubbed, rubbed, until he sank into the bed, limp and boneless. The hand pulled the pillows from beneath him.

A voice, the other voice, the first voice, commanded him to blow as the hand held a tissue to his nose then wiped it and his upper lip. And then reached to the back of his head and untied the gag, pulling the ball from his mouth. A straw touched his lips and he drank from it greedily, thankful for the cool water that eased his dry mouth and bathed his raw throat.

Silence. Waiting.

"Why?" he whispered.

"You scared him. You scared him badly. You went way over the line today, Ezra. You pushed him too far. He only did what a father does when he's been pushed to his limit and scared too much once too often."

How could he have known? He had no experience with fathers. Maude had had husbands but he had had no fathers. There was no way he could have known.

"You scared me, too." The voice was full of awful promise.

He was exhausted and his bottom still burned and throbbed with painful intensity. He couldn't take any more.

"You can, and will, take whatever I choose to give you."

His body stiffened. Oh God, he hadn't meant to say those words aloud.

A hand fisted loosely in his hair under the blindfold.

"Who do you belong to?'

The fist tightened.

"Who?!"

"You. I belong to you."

"How do you belong to me?"

"B body, heart, mind, and soul."

"And what can I do with you?"

"Any...anything you want t...to."

The hand released its hold and patted his head.

"You risked your life today, risked it needlessly. You broke the first rule, the most important one. Why did I make it the first rule?"

"Be...because you love me."

He spoke the words and knew them to be true. The one constant unwavering truth in his whole existence.

"Yes, I love you," the voice whispered.

He heard the footsteps, heard the cupboard doors open, heard the sounds of objects being removed from it. He trembled as he thought of what would be done to him with those objects.

The hands returned. They loosened the restraints and turned him over, holding him over the bed for a moment before easing him down.. His bottom dropped onto the bed and he gasped. That wasn't a smooth silk sheet under him. Whatever it was had a rough abrading feel to it that punished his bottom further. He arched up trying to raise himself off the bed only to have a hand flatten on his belly, pushing him down.

"Be still"

The hand left his belly to pinch and twist his nipples. The voice instructed and gave detail, texture, and depth to the promise. It held no comfort. It was harsh and cold. When they played, the voice conveyed warmth, affection, and praise. But this was not play, this was punishment. The comfort would come only when it was over. Clamps bit deep into one nipple, then the other. He twisted and cried out helplessly at the flash of pain that flared through him.

"Be still!"

He took a deep breath and then another, willing his body to accept the punishment even as his mind locked onto the comfort that was to come and the truth that was all around him.