COMPLETED | Take Me Down The Rabbit Hole (BDSM | 18+)

LXVI

"So I have a divorce lawyer on my hands who can break open doors with bobby pins?"
"Possibly," Alan said, gently closing the door to Thea's bedroom.
"Morally questionable," they teased, and Aspen had to laugh.
"If it helps," he said softly, pushing off the door and slowly making his way across the room towards Thea who was sitting on their bed, "this is the first time I've had to use that skill since learning it."
He was careful to keep his eyes on them and not let them drift through the room, even though it was tempting.
He wasn't here to snoop, he was here to make true on his words.
"I told you what was going to happen if you made me break down that door," he reminded them. "You chose this for yourself."
He watched Thea shiver. It was the slightest twitch of their upper body, and the blush on their cheeks that let Aspen know he was doing just fine.
"So," he continued, unbuckling his belt and sliding it out of the belt loops as he kept crossing the room. "I'm going to need you to tell me that you understand the consequences of your own actions."
"Yes," Thea said, but their voice sounded haughty.
Immediately, they cleared their throat. "Yes," they repeated.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Sir?"
Their eyes were holding an unspoken question, slightly narrowed, lines creasing the skin above their nose.
"Very good," Aspen praised, folding the belt over in his hands and running his finger along the worn leather. "Get up and turn around. Hands behind your back."

Thea obeyed, and he fashioned the belt around their hands in a makeshift cuff, before he held onto their shoulder and marched them out of their bedroom and across the hall, still careful not to intrude on the privacy of their bedroom.
After all, this was Thea's house, and they were the professional dom/me.
D/S was powerful, and though in this moment Aspen felt that he had power, he knew Thea was the one with the ability to put a stop to all this, well aware that Aspen had to honor that if it happened.

Thea rolled their shoulders in the. "Well?"
Aspen shrugged. "I haven't thought about more than this, I was more occupied with getting that door open without damaging the lock. I know you like that lock in particular."
Thea giggled again. "Silly boy."
"Hey," Aspen scolded. "You can't talk to me like that when I'm the one who put your hands in a cuff."
"Can I not?"
Aspen narrowed his eyes. "I didn't know I had a professional brat on my hands."
"Surprise!"
Aspen pressed his lips into a line. "Oh, well," he sighed. "Guess I'll have to deal with that."

He hoped his tone conveyed that they were play-fighting, and still held the promise that he would deal with it, because this was what his shadowing work at Aphrodite had been good for.
Aspen had discovered a few things about himself.

The first was that he, much like his mentors, had developed a taste for sadism. The second was that he was — apparently — a pleasure dom. He hadn't quite wrapped his head around how that could co-exist with the sadism part, but that was okay.
And the third was that one of Thea's more sought-after employees had given him a once-over upon their first meeting and told him: "You have the demeanor of a brat tamer."
That employee's suspicion had only been confirmed when they had seen the way Aspen interacted with clients.

Aspen supposed that was because he sometimes gentle-parented his A-List celebrity clients during their meetings, and he had developed a few too many techniques to stay calm even when he was pissed.

"Guess you do," Thea confirmed, trying to rub more salt into the wound that wasn't a wound after all.
Aspen crossed his arms. "Anything off the table?"
For a few seconds, Thea considered.
"Nope," they quipped.
"Brat," Aspen responded. "Femme terms okay?"
Thea flushed at the question, but nodded. "Very."
Aspen nodded too. "Then how about you be a good girl," he said slowly, trying to gauge their reaction and come up with something he actually wanted them to do, "and apologize to me for having to chase you down?"
"I could," Thea agreed, scrunching their nose in an unfortunately really adorable way. "But I'm not sorry, so I won't."
"Not sorry?" Aspen echoed. "Huh."
In two steps Aspen had them cornered against the nearest wall, towering over them. "How the tables turn," he mumbled, sneaking a hand behind their back to loosen the belt-cuff. "Jessica warned me this could happen," Thea mumbled back while he was busy fiddling with the buckle. "I should have believed her."
"Oh?"
"She was quite accusatory about the whole deal as well. Asked me how long I knew you were a brat tamer and how long I was planning to keep that to myself."
The belt fell away, but Aspen managed to wedge his hand around both of Thea's before they could try to defy him any more and kept them cornered against the wall.
"But you didn't know."
Thea shook their head. "I didn't. But when she pointed it out I decided I should wait and see. Now—"
"I am going to have to teach you some manners." Aspen finished the sentence for them.
And with that, Aspen grabbed Thea's waist, slung them over one shoulder and marched them toward the bed on the other end of the room. "You will be so very sorry at the end of this, I promise you."