Publisher's Synopsis
Room To Breathe: A M/M Romance Novel
For years, while Walter was maintaining the half-pretense of being a top, he'd kept his hair clipped short. But he's been letting it get longer recently, and the new length has yielded a surprising abundance of loose, wavy curls.
Elias wonders, as he has frequently wondered since Walter became his sub, how often this is the case with submissives in general.
"Did you tell him to stop?" says Elias mildly. "I don't suppose you used your safe word."
Consent play - ignoring a sub's pleas to stop, or even an agreed-upon fake safe word - was usually undertaken only in established relationships with a long history of mutual trust. No remotely decent person would attempt it with a sub they'd only just met. But Walter's last top hadn't permitted him the use of a safe word at all, though this was illegal and one of the few potential abuses by a top that was straightforward grounds for a sexual assault charge. It was still, unfortunately, a grey area in rape cases, but it was taken seriously enough that Walter had been able to use it as grounds to sue for emancipation when he was nineteen.
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Elias makes dinner for them that evening, and afterwards they watch an old film. It's comfortable, comforting, being in Elias' living room. Elias sits in the armchair. and Walter curls on the sofa with his head in Brody's lap, gentle fingers combing through his hair. Everything should be perfect really; he's safe with the two people in the world who are most important to him. But he can't shake the sickening anxiety in his stomach.
I got a new flogger today. I'll save it for you.
Is he going to fuck you tonight, whore?
