He can’t see his face except sometimes, barely, hidden beneath the mop of hair and not quite at the right angle, but body language tells him a hell of a lot. He’s moving, body jerking and squirming like nerves are firing erratically, and then when he gets into it, when he’s layering that deep pink spotted with welts to a bright angry, uneven red, Chase seems to be made of motion. He’s breathing hard but the sounds beneath his breath still have arousal, and that’s impossibly erotic. As he goes, hard, harder, back and forth, he can hear pain and pleasure from Chase. He can feel that it’s too much, that he wants it to be over, that he’s right at that point where if House stopped, there’d be a sense of relief. But House also knows, somehow, that if he stopped, there’d also be a sense of loss. Like he’d stopped short, like he was almost there and didn’t follow through, like an almost-orgasm interrupted. He can tell that Chase is crying, see that he’s shaking, and he’s so damned incoherent that it’s getting close to dangerous. He’s tuned to the sounds he’s making, listening for something to tell him that it’s too much, definitely too much, stop now, but he’s not there yet. He’s shaking like he’s going to come apart, on every hard breath, almost sounding like he’s going to open his mouth and say something, open his mouth and beg.

But he’s not there yet. He’s close, so close, but not there yet.

So House continues. The hard crack of the paddle on his skin is painful to hear, and his ass is red and mottled from the holes in the paddle, from the chains on the crop, an odd, beautiful pattern that he’d created. His arm is burning, but he’s not stopping, not until it’s enough. Not until he’s brought Chase through to where he needs to be. Not until he begs.