Beta by Jasinda Wilder

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WAKING UP
Waking up has turned into one of my favorite games. The first question is always who’s awake first, Roth or me? If it’s me, it’s my job—self-appointed—to make sure he wakes up in the best possible way. In other words, with my hands and mouth around his morning wood. And if he’s awake first, he pretends to be asleep, so I can wake him up that way.
The second question I ask myself every morning is where in the world are we? Because it’s different every week or two. Two weeks ago, I woke up in Vancouver. I still had one of Roth’s neckties knotted around one wrist, the remnant of a long and scream-filled night spent tied spread-eagle to the bed. Roth didn’t untie me until I’d come…god, like six times? Seven? And when he did finally untie me, well, let’s just say I don’t think he’ll play the “torture Kyrie with multiple orgasms without letting her touch him back” game again any time soon. I literally attacked him. The claw marks raking down his back are still healing. I fucked him so hard I actually think I nearly broke his cock. I think that’s possible. Pretty sure it is, and I’m pretty sure I nearly accomplished it.
This morning I woke up and took stock. A little sore between the thighs, but nothing too bad. Roth was snoring, so I knew I was awake first. I breathed in, sighed, stretched. I blinked my eyes open, catching a whiff of salt sea air and the sound of waves crashing. The bed rocked gently from side to side. We were in a small, wood-paneled room with low ceilings and an open window. There was just room enough for the bed and a small chest of drawers. But the room was moving. Why was the room moving?
Where were we? It took a few minutes for memories of the preceding weeks to bubble up. A week in Vancouver…a long, long flight to Tokyo. A week in Japan. God, what a week. So many tours, so much hiking, so much sushi and sake. I’m not sure I’ll ever drink sake again, that’s for sure.
Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto…. I remembered the flight out of Kyoto, the flight attendants all dressed identically, down to their hairdos and the little scarf-tie thing knotted just so.
Then where did we go?
A seagull cawed, and I heard voices off in the distance, chattering rapidly. But they were not speaking Japanese.
“Nh?t nó lên!” The angry voice echoed across the water, faint and distant.
Vietnam. That’s where we were. Hanoi.
Roth had bought us a houseboat, paid for it in cash, and then piloted it himself up the Red River all the way to Hanoi from a little village on the Gulf of Tonkin. We took it slow, stopping often to take on supplies and admire the scenery. We ate, drank, slept, and fucked. We checked out temples, hiked out into the farmlands and up into the hills, hiring an interpreter/guide to show us the best places off the beaten path. That’s the thing about Roth: He never behaves like a tourist. He always seems to belong wherever we are, and he always makes sure we’re safe.
We arrived in Hanoi last night, and Roth found some little old lady to cook us a huge dinner on the houseboat. He paid her enough U. S. dollars that she left looking slightly faint from shock.
After dinner, he uncorked a bottle of some local wine or liquor—I wasn’t sure which—that was insanely strong. After a couple of small glasses, I was hammered. Roth took full advantage, laying me on my belly and drilling me from behind until we both came. That was it, because I passed out after that.
Once in a night isn’t anywhere near enough to sate my Valentine, so I owed him this morning.
Roth was lying on his side, facing away from me. The sheet was low around his hips, showing me his broad, rippling back. His blond hair had grown out over the last few months, enough that it brushed his collar when he had a shirt on, and it hung down past his cheekbones. He’d grown a bit of a beard, too. Being fair as he was, he didn’t grow a thick beard, just a fine coating of blond hair on his cheeks and jaw. Sexy. Oh, so sexy.
I hadn’t realized it was possible to feel this strongly about anyone. I’d realized pretty quickly that what I felt for Valentine was love, and that had been scary enough by itself. I wasn’t prepared to fall in love. Especially not with a man like Valentine. But as the weeks turned into months and I saw the world at his side, I realized what I’d felt for him back in Manhattan had really only been the beginning. The tip of the iceberg. The tiniest scraping sample off the top. The longer I spent with him, the more I realized how deep and intense my feelings for him were. I wanted to be with him every second of every day. I lived for the moments when I could make him smile, when I could see the soft, tender side of him that existed only for me.
Valentine was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I cuddled up against him, pressed my lips to the back of his shoulder, and kissed, running my hand down his thick bicep. I found his hip and pushed the sheet away. I peered over his shoulder to watch as I cupped his balls in my hand. That, I’d found, was the best way to get him hard if he was still asleep. Massage slowly, gently, maybe a little pressure to his taint, and the sleeping giant would respond. Sure enough, within a minute or so, his cock was engorged and his breathing was changing. He groaned, his abdominal muscles tensing, arms raised over his head. He rolled to his back, stretched, and flexed his hips to drive his dick into my fist.
I glanced up at him, finding his eyes on me. “Morning. ”
He grinned at me, a slow, sleepy smile. “Good morning, my lovely. ”
“I passed out last night, huh?”
“Yes. Snake wine does you in rather quickly, it seems. ” He watched as I stroked him slowly, one hand sliding from root to tip and back down in a smooth glide.
“Guess so. ”
“You passed out before we got to do the one thing I’d been wanting to do to you on this boat,” he said between yawns.
“Which is?”
“Mmmmm. ” He closed his eyes and lifted his hips. “Would you like to find out?”
I just gave him my small, secret smile, the one that meant I wasn’t going to argue either way. The do as you wish grin.
Roth growled low in his throat and sat up, pushing me off him. He grabbed the blanket, a large, thin piece of dark green fleece, and draped it from his shoulders, wrapping the ends around both of us as I stood in front of him. He gestured at the door leading from the cabin up to the deck, and I ascended, squeaking as Roth’s fingers traced a line up my ass crack. He just chuckled and kept fondling and fingering me, making the trip up the ladder a little difficult, but fun. On the deck, Roth kept the blanket around both of us and guided me to the bow, which curved up elegantly to about waist height. Hanoi was spread out before us, dim in the early morning haze. There was another houseboat some two hundred feet away, and a third the same distance away on the other side, but there was no motion from either. A fishing scow plied the water about a thousand feet up-current and drifted toward us with fishing nets being hauled in, voices echoing now and again.