If It Flies (Market Garden, #3)(21)

Everything. Spencer nodded, closed his fingers around the edge. He had to bend forwards, but the position itself was comfortable and stable.

Nick pushed up against him, his leather-clad groin brushing Spencer’s arse. He tapped the inside of Spencer’s right leg. “Open further.”

68

Spencer slid one foot over the carpet and couldn’t believe he was doing this.

Absolutely not, he heard himself telling a boyfriend a year or two ago. No blindfolds. No f*cking way.

But now there was a blindfold on his face, and he was obediently making himself vulnerable for a man who gleefully carried around something called an evil stick.

Nick drew him out of his thoughts by running a hand— warm, soft, light—down the centre of his back. His spine straightened one vertebra at a time, like Nick was switching on electrical charges all the way down from Spencer’s neck to the small of his back. There, the hand stopped. Paused. Lifted away.No movement. No sound. No contact.

Spencer swallowed.

Crack.

A hand hit Spencer’s arse so hard his eyes fluttered behind the blindfold.

“Shit.” The word came out as more of a grunt than anything.

“I don’t recall saying you could talk.” The razor sharp edge on Nick’s voice jolted him more than the slap had. “Unless I ask you a question, or you’re using your safeword”— crack— “you won’t speak. Got it?”

Spencer nodded.

Crack.

“Got it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought.” The edge dulled slightly, enough to untie the muscles below Spencer’s neck.

Nick’s body heat moved, gathering off to Spencer’s left side, leaving his right side cool and exposed. Then, once again, 69

the entire room was still and silent. He imagined Nick slipping in and out of his tangible, flesh-and-blood form, flitting from solid to ghostly and back just because he f*cking could. If not for that warmth beside him, he might have believed that was exactly what was happening.

Snap.

“Fuck!”

The evil stick bit in just below Spencer’s nipple. Everything behind the blindfold flashed red for a split second, and he ground his teeth to keep from cursing again.

“You aren’t supposed to speak.” Crack. “Right?”

“Right,” Spencer said through his teeth. “Sorry.”

Silence. Stillness.

Snap.

Spencer bit back a curse. Held his breath until he was sure it wouldn’t slip out. Then he exhaled slowly, and realised he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to rub the stinging red hot spot inside his forearm. Probably not. Asking might get him a slap on the arse, presuming might get him an evil stick across the knuckles.

Snap.

Under the shoulder blade this time.

Spencer breathed slowly and evenly. The tiny focal points of pain still glowed on his nerve endings, like stars coming into view one by one in a dark, bare sky. One by one—in the middle of his buttock, just below his col arbone, on the inside of his thigh—more stars came into focus, each glowing brightly at first before settling into the same intensity as the ones before, slowly forming a constellation.

Spencer braced against the bed and forced back tears that were increasingly from pleasure more than pain.

70

Pleasure? From—

Snap.

God, yes.

Snap.

The sound he forced back this time was a groan. As imaginary lines connected the stars, Spencer spun further into warm, red-dotted darkness. This wasn’t right, he shouldn’t be this delirious from pain, and this oblivion shouldn’t be so inviting, but to hell with it— snap, snap, snap—he didn’t fight it.

All at once, the side of his face was covered by warmth, by softness, and the sudden touch—alien compared to the snapping evil stick—jolted him hard, violently, spectacularly, and his knees sagged beneath him. One light touch after all those bites, and he damn near came.

I don’t know what you’re doing, Nick, but don’t ever, ever stop. “You’re doing well.”

Those simple words of approval meant the world to Spencer. More than wrapping up a big job. More than happy clients congratulating him for ploughing through an acquisitions contract over an extremely long weekend powered by twice-brewed espresso and sheer desperation.

“Thank you,” Spencer muttered, and then flinched when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to speak.

His nipple burst into fire when Nick twisted it in retaliation. He cringed and writhed, and although the pain kept him centred in his body, somehow he was slipping away.

Life was incredibly simple right now, and nothing mattered beyond what Nick gave him. No thoughts anymore that he was cal ing the shots, that Nick was just hired help. Right 71

now, even that didn’t seem to matter, though it should have freaked him out.

Nick’s hand trailed down his front, and Spencer gasped for breath, expecting another slap or something worse, except now on his dick. Maybe he should beg for that not to happen?

But would Nick care, short of using the emergency exit of the word or the gesture?

Nick’s dry hot palm closed around his dick, jerked him a couple of times, and Spencer’s legs grew weak, especially when Nick’s hand slid up and squeezed the tip of his cock in the foreskin. Spencer’s knees nearly gave and he pushed into that hand in reflex.