If It Flies (Market Garden, #3)(35)

Nick grinned into—but didn’t completely break—the kiss. “You’re being naughty.”

An electric charge zinged immediately into Spencer’s balls and tightened them with nervousness and anticipation.

“Sorry,” Spencer murmured. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“I’ll keep tabs on your punishment.” Nick drew back and touched his temple with a finger, likely already adding up how often he’d hit Spencer, but Spencer really didn’t care at this point. As far as their scene was involved, any excuse to get beaten worked for him.

Nick traced the side of Spencer’s face with a fingernail.

“I’m keeping this one . . . simple. I need to find my feet with what I want to do with you.”

“Rather than what I pay you for?”

“Has to do with that, sure. But really, I just want to make it special. For you. And me.” Nick smiled, eyes alight with that wicked ability to unnerve Spencer. “Blow your mind in a different way.”

“I’m game. Whatever you want. I’ll get where you need me to be, if you help me.”

Nick touched Spencer’s face again, trailed his lips with a thumb, which tickled, but probably was meant to remind him of the kiss they’d shared.

Spencer couldn’t wait to know what the sex and kink would feel like when it was real—well, more real than it had 116

been. Nick had got off on what they’d done, no doubt, and often, but that had been at least partly a performance, he assumed.

What would the real Nick be like? The one who cared about him. The man for whom he was special and not just a meal ticket.

Granted, he knew very little about Nick. His personality.

His . . . did he even know what Nick really liked in BDSM?

Probably. Nick hadn’t just been lucky-guessing. It was doubtful that he did this for a living but preferred missionary-with-the-lights-out at home. He certainly didn’t lie back and think of England on the job . . . What had he said? Had been approached in clubs and kinda got into it. Sometimes they offered him money, he’d said, so he’d gathered experience and gone ful -time. Turned a hobby into a career.

“Haven’t done this in a while. Cared about somebody.

It’s weird.” Nick kissed him again, short but tender, and then pulled back. “I think I’ll like it, though. You. Me.”

“Well, you already have me on my knees,” Spencer joked.

“I do. But what happens next?”

Spencer swallowed. “You tell me.”

Nick’s lips pulled into a grin, and he trailed his fingers down the side of Spencer’s face. “Always the sub, aren’t you?”

“That’s what you want. Isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. And I knew from the beginning you were a sub.” Nick curved his hand around the back of Spencer’s neck and leaned in for another kiss. Just before their lips met, he added, “Just never realised you’d become my sub.”

When Nick broke away again, Spencer licked his lips and said, “But I’ve been your sub from the beginning. That was the whole point.”

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Nick shook his head slowly. “No. You were my client. I was your . . .” He gestured sharply, like he couldn’t find the word.

“Your whore? Your coach? Your Dom on Friday nights and only Friday nights?” His hand came down again and rested on Spencer’s neck, and more than a few muscles in Spencer’s torso relaxed beneath his touch. “I’ve been staying away the last two weeks because I thought I shouldn’t be doing this.

And maybe I shouldn’t.” He laughed dryly. “In fact, given my line of work, I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t. But when I saw you with that other Dom tonight, I panicked even more than I did when I kissed you last time, because this, what we’re doing now, seems like the only thing we can do.”

Spencer had no idea what to say.

Nick stood, but kept the skin contact, one hand on Spencer’s shoulder, then walked around him and put the other hand on his back, tracing the line of his spine underneath the skin.“As unblemished as when I first met you.” Nick scraped his fingernails right down the middle, making Spencer gasp with the unexpected, intense pleasure. “I don’t think that should continue.”

Spencer shook his head.

“Ready to try the single-tail?”

It was an actual question. The tone was much lighter than the one Nick normally used before he started hurting Spencer.

“I thought . . . I thought you said we were keeping things simple.”

“We are.” Nick grinned. “For me.” He arched an eyebrow.

“So are you ready or not?”

“I’m . . .” The single-tail was terrifying. He’d seen videos, and that crack and snap would most definitely send him screaming. After a break of two weeks, would his body be able 118

to adjust to it? He doubted very much that getting used to it was even an option. “I’m scared.”

“You’re a smart man,” Nick said.

Oh, damn.

“But you think I can do it . . .?”

“What do you think?” Nick raked his fingernails across Spencer’s skin again, creating electric currents that col apsed and converged back onto those red hot streaks.