If It Flies (Market Garden, #3)(6)

“After al , Spencer, what more could you possibly want?”

He gulped. Nick laughed. So much for hiding a damned thing from him.

Nick drained his drink and pushed the glass away, sliding up next to Spencer so they were almost touching. “So. Two hours? Let’s go.”

“Does that two hours start now?” Spencer was already sliding out of the booth because according to Nick this was a done deal, and who was he to argue? “Or when we get to—”

I’m really doing this? “—my place?”

Nick slid partway out of the booth, but didn’t get up.

He pursed his lips and ran his gaze up and down Spencer’s body, a gesture that registered on his nerve endings like an actual touch. Their eyes met, and Nick pushed himself to his feet. “Assuming you’re local, we’ll start the clock when we get there.”

Spencer’s heart pounded. His wallet had hoped for that answer, but his body wasn’t entirely sure what to do with two solid hours of Nick.

He’d find out soon enough, though. Nick pulled a black leather jacket over his otherwise bare torso. Spencer got up and—oh God—Nick gave a nod to Percy, who gave him a two-fingered salute before he resumed making out with a blue-haired black twink, and they were out the door.

The back door, fortunately, rather than through the lounge where the female strippers did their thing, and then down an alley to a different road from where the cab had 18

deposited Percy and him earlier. They had discretion down to a science in this place.

19





Chapter


threE


he backseat of the cab was less cramped than the Tbooth, but somehow felt . . . tighter? More intimate?

Perhaps because of the implication, what their presence in the vehicle actually meant. That must have been it, because it felt even more confining as Spencer gave the driver his address.

Or maybe it was because, as he worked out the details with the driver, he was being slowly and subtly ambushed by the leather-wrapped demon beside him. A hand over his thigh. A thumb dangerously close to his groin.

The cab pulled away from the club, and as Spencer sat back against the seat, Nick slid closer.

“I suppose now,” he murmured, a hint of taunting in his voice, “would be a good time to lay down the ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Spencer moistened his lips. “Such as . . .?”

“Customer’s always right,” Nick said. “You tell me.”

Spencer glanced at the cabbie, who hopefully could hear nothing on the other side of the glass window. “I’m assuming stuff like . . . condoms and all that is self-explanatory.”

“You’re assuming.” Nick grinned. “Would you bet your arse on it?”

Spencer wasn’t quite sure how this space, that could easily hold a wheelchair plus people, could be so crammed.

“Well, play nice, use lube . . . the works. Common courtesy.

It’s not . . . really that complicated, is it?” His nerves were showing. Again. But as far as negotiations went, arranging an arse-f*cking was hardly sorting out a peace treaty in the Middle East.

20

“Well, one thing I hear often is ‘not in the face,’ or ‘no permanent marks’ . . .” Nick shrugged, then idly rubbed the area just to the side of a nipple piercing.

“Uh.” Now the tension had even drained the oxygen from his lungs. “Err, no. That’s too much.”

Nick licked his teeth. “Well, we can set a safeword regardless. I can push until I get the sense we’re taking things too far. If I do take it too far, you can safeword.”

“Ehhh.” Spencer regarded him again, top to bottom ( awful pun, his inner voice informed him). “Let’s just stay . . .

the other side of that.”

Nick grinned. “You’re cal ing the shots.”

That sounded quite ironic, too, like Nick was just humouring him. Well. He’d found the one whore in London who specialised in people with a fetish for smartarses. Spencer would never have assumed Nick was his type—it had been his body much more than his personality that had attracted him, but even that cheekiness intrigued him now. Besides, if the guy was going to top him, Nick was allowed to be a bit of a smartarse. That should definitely be more fun and interesting than dating a doormat. How long since he’d had a sufficiently aggressive top? Way too long. Throwing a surreptitious glance at the devil in black leather, Spencer had a feeling he’d be making up for that in spades tonight.

When they finally arrived in Hol and Park, Spencer opened the gate, and then the door to his three-bedroom house. He’d had it gutted and completely rebuilt over the last two years rather than move to somewhere bigger, largely because he liked the area. Apart from knocking down a few walls, he’d had the eighties interieur ripped out, too, as well as some of the awful seventies floors. It was now all clean lines, 21

expensive materials, and . . . well, Spencer thought of it as cosy. It was also all his. Tailored-to-measure.

While he shed his coat and jacket, he let Nick take in his surroundings, but Nick didn’t stand and stare, just kept his attention on Spencer.

“I’ll, uh, add some money for the cab drive home.” He was about to kick himself—as if a prostitute couldn’t cover his own travel expenses—but Nick smiled a bit at him.