If It Drives (Market Garden, #7)(46)

“I was going to explain something to you, wasn’t I?” Cal ran his hand lightly over skin that probably still stung. “What was that, sir?”

James swallowed. “I . . .”

Cal traced his own handprint with a fingertip. “I asked you a question. Answer it, sir.”

James adjusted his stance a little, the jingle of his belt buckle giving away the movement of his feet. “You, um . . .” He cleared his throat. “You said that—”

Cal slapped his arse again.

James moaned; God, but Cal loved that sound even more than leather slapping flesh. “You said that you and Nick had been . . . had been talking about me.” He paused to catch his breath. “And you were going to—”

Slap.

“—tell me what . . . what you two had . . . what . . .”

Slap. Harder this time.

“Come on, sir.” Cal injected as much impatience as possible into his tone. “You’re more articulate than that.” He ran his gloved fingertips over that reddening skin. “Answer me. Or I’ll stop smacking you.”

“You were going to tell me what you two had talked about.” The words came out quickly. “What you had said about me.” James glanced back, eyebrows up. Was that good?

“Good, sir.” Cal slapped his arse again, and once more for good measure. He usually only did that during sex, as his body reminded him. He was very hard in his trousers and, under normal circumstances, he’d have taken things further towards f*cking very quickly.

But this was about frustration and control. They’d f*cked last night, mellow and sweet after teasing and stroking in the Jacuzzi. If not for the whole safe sex thing, they’d have f*cked there too. But this was different. There was Nick, and this wasn’t so much about sex as using arousal for something that wasn’t quite sex, though it turned them all on.

“What . . . was it?” James asked, just this side of pleading.

“He said you’re not easy to handle. Rebellious streak a mile wide. Fighting what you know you need. That you’re probably the type who needs to be broken damn near every time.”

James closed his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry.”

“Not so difficult now, are you? And why’s that, sir?”

James seemed to struggle with an answer, brow furrowed, eyes still closed. “It’s hard. Hard to give up. Not so hard now.”

Cal’s heart clenched at how raw those words were. He touched James’s back firmly enough to hopefully reassure him. I’m here for you. It doesn’t have to be hard. And the most difficult, most honest of all of them: You can trust me.

In his peripheral vision, Nick adjusted his stance, which did wonders for refocusing Cal’s attention on the greater picture. It was like he was falling into James, had got so wrapped up in the man’s responses that he’d forgotten about the scene, about what he’d set out to accomplish. After James’s words, Cal wanted to reassure and gentle him, when what he needed might be totally different. Or much more complex than that simple human response.

“Why aren’t you fighting now, sir?” He kept one hand between James’s shoulder blades, but dug the fingers of his free one into James’s arse, squeezing the muscle hard. “I could do anything to you, and you’d just let me?” You’d let your driver keep you down like this and f*ck you and thank me after?

James nodded, his cheek rubbing against the felt of the table. “Yes. Please.”

Cal stroked James’s hair, which felt strange through his glove. Made him feel physically detached, but somehow . . . not. James kept evading the question, maybe not out of rebelliousness but genuine struggle. Maybe he needed a little help. “Is this what you want, sir?”

“Yes. It is.”

Leather creaked softly, and when Cal looked up, Nick said, “You don’t fight him like you fought me, James.”

James tilted his head slightly, as if he’d forgotten Nick was there at all. “I . . .”

“Why do you fight him, sir?” Cal asked. “And why don’t you fight me the same way?”

Colour filled James’s cheeks, matching the handprints on his arse. “I hired Nick.” He was barely whispering.

Nick stepped forwards. He put his hands on the opposite side of the table and leaned over them, probably to hear James better. “You hired both of us, James.”

James licked his lips. “Not for . . . not for this.”

Cal continued stroking James’s hair. “So you paid Nick to do this, to do exactly what you wanted him to do, but you fought him. Why aren’t you fighting me?”

Something in James relaxed. Tension palpably breaking, as though he could only physically relax so much in that position. He closed his eyes, and when he spoke, Cal didn’t understand him.

He turned to Nick, eyebrows up. Nick shook his head.

They both leaned in closer.

“Speak clearly, sir,” Cal ordered.

James shivered under him. “I said . . . I trust you.”

Those three simple words almost knocked Cal’s knees out from under him. He half expected Nick to take offence—he hadn’t trusted him?—but when their eyes met, Nick grinned and gave a slight nod.

“Excellent,” he mouthed.

Careful not to let it show—to Nick or James—that his heart was pounding, Cal slid his hand from James’s hair down the back of his neck, drawing a slow path down his spine.