If It Flies (Market Garden, #3)(24)

“Ugh. I don’t know which would be worse: the job with the pile of files, or the boyfriend with the pile of files.”

“Try both.”

“I’ll pass.” Nick touched Spencer’s face, and the tender contact startled him until he realised Nick was just sliding off the blindfold. “Don’t need this anymore,” he said, and tossed it on the floor in the general vicinity of his duffel bag. “So what’d you do? Date a co-worker?”

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“No. Same line of work, different companies.” Spencer’s eyes took a moment to come into focus, but when he could finally make out Nick’s smooth features, he said, “and both brought work home at night.”

“Well, better than fishing off the company pier, but not by much.”

“Tell me about it.” he said, “You ever do that?”

“What? Date people I work with?”

Spencer nodded.

“Fuck, no.” He absently reached down to fiddle with his belt, squirming like he’d rested on something uncomfortable.

“Co-workers or clients.”

Well, damn.

The pang of disappointment smacked Spencer in the gut harder than Nick had slapped his arse earlier. And what the hell was that about? Disappointed that the prostitute he’d paid for didn’t work for free?

“Do you date at al ?” Spencer asked.

“You find me a guy worth dating who’s willing to date a whore, and we’ll talk.” The faintest hint of bitterness tinged the edges of his voice. Nick cleared his throat and quickly said, “And I’d be bored to death with someone who fell asleep on file folders every night.”

Ouch.

Spencer tried to come up with a defence like that he wouldn’t take work home if he could have something so much better (though he knew if he was ever going to make partner, he likely would have to), then muttered, “I don’t think that’s inevitable.”

“Spencer.” Nick’s voice was firm, though kind, nothing like that easily commanding game voice he used. “Look at me.”

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Spencer did, and Nick looked at him intently, like this was terribly important. “Right now, you’re in a pretty weird place. Open doors and all that. You’re discovering what you really like, and that’s fine by me. I’m more than okay to train you. But the thing is, it’s intense. It can be really intense, and emotions get muddled. What’s lust and getting off on the pain can quite easily get mistaken for something more than that. I’m not saying ‘more serious,’ because that stuff is damn serious, but I know people who’ve made life decisions based on those feelings and ended up making mistakes. Do you understand?”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not,” Nick said, matter-of-factly. “I’ve seen it before.

I can be your Dom, but there’s no way in hell I’ll date you.”

Double ouch.

“Okay. I appreciate your honesty.”

“Just making sure you don’t end up in a bad place there, Spencer. I have to look after you. Part of the job. If I take you there, I have to make sure you’re safe and find your way back.”

“Sounds very . . . ethical.” It hurt a bit, but maybe Nick was right and this was the best moment to nip it all in the bud.

Maybe it was just flying high from the pain that felt similar to a crush or something even worse. The lust was a given, the emotional side . . . wasn’t. But with his normal everyday defences stripped, maybe it was just too easy to fall into that trap—to think this could be more.

“For the record,” he said, “I think people not dating you for your job are fools.”

The subtle grin broadened into a ful -blown smirk. “Well, you’re a lawyer. You would say that.”

Spencer laughed. “Come on, I don’t spew bullshit that badly. It’s not like I’m a defence lawyer.”

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Nick threw his head back and really laughed, which didn’t do a damned thing to build Nick’s case that this was all some instinctive response to being stripped down to raw vulnerability. God, he was gorgeous.

Spencer masked a shiver by turning onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow. “So when you say you’re willing to . . . train me? Be my Dom? What exactly does that mean?”

“It means you become a regular client.” Nick was all professionalism and negotiations again. “I’ll do what I did earlier and—” he winked, breaking out of that strictly business mode for a second “—what I still plan to do tonight, and let you sort out what you want, what you don’t want, and what kind of submissive you really are.”

Spencer rolled the idea around in his brain for a moment.

He’d never thought of himself as a submissive or a masochist, it had just happened—quite naturally—in Nick’s company.

He’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the idea of more. Pro? More sex with Nick. More of this insanely amazing pain. Maybe figuring out what the f*ck it was he wanted in a man. Con? More sex with Nick. More of this insanely amazing pain. Quite possibly figuring out that what the f*ck he wanted in a man was everything about this man.

“You’ll get a better grasp on it all as you go,” Nick said, eyeing Spencer like he could hear his thoughts, “and you’ll be able to tell where the physical ends. Because that’s all this is. It’s physical. There’s some deep psychological shit going on, and it’ll get even deeper and stronger, but it’s not what it seems like to you right now.” He trailed his fingers down Spencer’s face. “It’s the pain and the domination. Not me.”