Karl Urban. Matt Damon. Kept!verse
Short chapter but it kinda needs to break there. More soon.
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The portable shower is just a fiberglass box by the storefront’s restroom, hoses and drains piggy-backed to the permanent ones already in place. It’s not built for privacy, but then again, Karl doesn’t seem to be either. He strips down like Matt isn’t even in the room, dumping his black BDU pants and underwear into the sink to wash later, t-shirt and boots on the clothing table.
Matt has this vague feeling like he shouldn’t be sitting on the cot watching. Shouldn’t be appreciating the lean hard strength of Karl’s body. He’s tall. Not bulky like some, but god. Every line of him defined, sculpted.
“Beard on or off?” Karl asks, standing there in nothing but his skin. If sucking Matt off got him hard at all, getting choked unconscious has taken care of it because he’s soft now.
“What?” Matt asks. Oh yeah. Master. Slave. Decisions. He looks back up to Karl’s face, evaluating the darkness of his hair and paleness of his skin. It’d probably leave a shadow no matter how close the shave. “On,” he decides aloud.
Karl’s in and out of the shower pretty quick and probably a good idea that, with a whole five gallons in a water heater never intended for more than washing hands. He comes out and still Matt can’t think of something more engaging or urgent to do than watching. He’s damn near mesmerized by how smooth, how sure Karl moves as he goes through a clothing bag first. Pulls on a pair of boxer-briefs that almost match his skin-tone. Then over to the weapons table where he straps a skin-colored pistol holster to his left calf and a knife to his right bicep. Then back to the clothing table where he opens one of the garment bags and pulls out an ivory linen shirt and a pair of drawstring pants just a shade lighter. Loose and flowing enough that the weapons don’t show. So gossamer thin and almost translucent that nobody would even think to search him. A pair of sandals come out of another bag and a pale cream leather collar last of all.
Matt squirms in his skin as Karl’s slim fingers fasten the buckle. He wants to be the one doing that. Up close in Karl’s personal space as he puts the formal mark of ownership on what’s his. Wants to put Karl on his knees again. Wants to slide his cheek against the other man’s and feel Karl’s earlobe between his teeth. He takes a shuddering breath and gets himself under control because he’s not gonna do that. It’s just something he wants, not something he needs to do for the plan. No purpose in it beyond his own desires.
Karl walks towards Matt then, and he has this moment where he thinks Karl will kneel again unbidden, but instead he stops and picks the fallen tie off the ground. Stretches and smoothes the creases until it’s almost presentable again. His eyes meet Matt’s and Matt lifts his chin.
Karl’s hands are as sure sliding the tie around his neck as they had been holstering his weapon or driving the car. Cool and steady as he flips the collar of Matt’s shirt up and ties the Windsor knot. The scent of him. Skin soap water fabric-softener. So tantalizingly faint and yet it fills Matt’s head. Makes him want to lean in and smell. Taste.
Karl flips the starched cotton back down and asks “Anything else?” and Matt swallows hard and can’t ask. Won’t ask for what he really wants. He shakes his head instead.
“Time to head back to the hotel. Room service for dinner and then I need to talk to you. I need to kill somebody and I need your help to do it.”
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Karl holds the back door open for Matt and takes his own place behind the steering wheel. While it’s not unheard of for a body-slave to also chauffer, it’s not something you see every day, or at least something the valet at the hotel seems to think so. Matt has to stifle his smile as he watches the man’s face go from fawning and servile as he opens the H2’s door for what he assumes is a patron, to superior and vaguely lustful as he sees the collar around Karl’s throat, to deeply uncertain as Karl shuts him the fuck down with a frostbite stare.
Karl is the one to open the door for his master, to take the overnight bag out of the back seat, to guard his steps again as they walk inside the cool and echoing interior of the hotel. And Matt sees what the seller meant when he said Karl could pass as a body-slave of mediocre training. He follows all the protocols. The right number of steps between himself and his master, the right timing as he steps forward to open doors for him and then back again. As he checks in, Matt compares Karl to the other pleasure slaves and it’s something about the eyes. Something about the way his perception seems to be turned outward, surveying the room instead of only his master.
They move towards the bank of elevators and into the first that opens. Another master steps in beside Matt and his girl darts in last, so late the doors make a stutter-stop as they try to close. She hides it well but Matt sees the shiver of fear in her face as she slips in beside Karl at the back of the elevator car. Eyes tracking her master beneath her lashes, calculating how much trouble she’s in for that. And that’s the real difference. That Karl isn’t afraid of him. Wouldn’t be even if Matt had started their day by whipping the skin off of Karl’s back.
The chrome trim of the elevator reflects Matt’s face back at him, and Karl behind his shoulder. Quietly intense. And if a slave isn’t afraid, how the hell do you keep him loyal?
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