If It Fornicates (Market Garden, #4)(16)

“Good.” Nick strolled around behind the john. Muscles in the john’s back and hips tensed, relaxed, tensed again. He looked like he was bracing himself but didn’t know exactly what he was bracing himself for. Perfect.

Nick turned the cue so it was horizontal. He touched the tip to the inside of the john’s ankle, prompting a hiss of breath and a full-body shudder. He slid the tip up to the back of the john’s knee, and paused there. Then tapped it. “Farther apart.”

Red Tie looked over his shoulder. For a moment, Nick was sure they were about to have another little power struggle, but then the john touched his forehead to the felt and spread his legs farther apart.

“Good,” Nick said, and slid the cue higher. He stopped when it was almost touching Red Tie’s balls, and just ran it back and forth over an inch or so of skin, letting the john wonder for a moment what was going to happen next.

Then he pulled the cue away, breaking contact with Red Tie.

Muscles twitched again. Weight shifted from left to right, then from front to back, like he wasn’t sure if his centre of gravity was safer over his hips or his torso.

Nick touched the cue to the john’s side, just below his ribcage. Red Tie jumped, drawing away from it just a little. Goose bumps materialized across his tense back and shoulders.

“You know,” Nick said, “a man could leave some serious marks with something like this.”

The john shuddered again. As Nick drew little loops and circles all over the blank—too pale—canvas of skin; Red Tie flinched and shivered as if the cue’s tip were electrified.

“You like pain?” Nick asked.

“I . . . y-yes. Sometimes.” Red Tie pulled in a deep breath. “Within reason.”

Nick laughed. “You’ll have to be more specific. One man’s too much is another man’s foreplay.”

More profanity. More flinching and shuddering.

And once again, another sub was on Nick’s mind. Another man was in his mind’s eye, leaning over this very table with the pool cue—its pale surface contrasting beautifully with his dark skin—taunting nerve endings in all the places Nick could hit if he wanted to. He pictured Spencer arching, not away from the cue, but towards it. Pressing into its tip or even the side of the shaft, as if with enough pressure he could convince the inert stick to produce the sting or thud it would create if Nick swung it.

Nick was rock hard now, genuinely aroused and aching for his own release, but his erection wasn’t for the man bent over in front of him now. Not for the apprehensive john who fought him every step of the way even though he’d paid for this, but for the man who fully trusted him and was eager for the pain and the dominance and anything else Nick would give him.

Nick swallowed. He was still tracing those invisible loops and circles on the john’s skin, but the vague ache of fatigue in his arm was like a physical manifestation of the reluctance in his mind. No, not reluctance. Lack of enthusiasm. He’d get pleasure out of this—he always did—but knowing how much better it was with Spencer turned this into work. Something he had to do.

Here he was, in a rich man’s house, with that rich man bent over a billiards table, a naked, paying customer who’d take whatever Nick dished out, and all Nick could think was how much he wanted to get in a cab and get himself to Holland Park.

Fuck. Fuck. This was not going to work.

Stay professional.

He couldn’t just bail. Too much was riding on it. His reputation. Market Garden’s. A thick wad of cash.

Later. He’d figure out all this shit in his head later. But right now, with a paying customer gagging for it, was not the time. He needed to focus, and that shouldn’t have been such a damned struggle. Thank God Red Tie was a new customer with no previous performance to compare to, so he had no reason to believe Nick wasn’t at his best tonight. One of his regulars wouldn’t be fooled.

Nick dragged his mind back from wanting to go home—home being rather loosely defined as any place where he could either be with Spencer or brood in peace—and delivered a quick slap with the cue. It was unwieldy and unbalanced, but the shock of impact after the teasing was a fitting payoff.

And once he’d reduced the man to a sweating, whimpering mess with the cue, he even managed to f*ck him.

After Nick had exhausted Red Tie, they moved to his bed, and the john was out cold before too long. Lying awake beside him, Nick stared up at the ceiling, his stomach all tied in knots. Likely nobody could tell the difference, and Red Tie certainly hadn’t complained, but tonight was the first time in a long time that Nick had just gone through the motions like an automaton: bought, paid for, and without giving a damn.

No, it was worse than that. It wasn’t just that he didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t just apathy. He didn’t want to be here tonight. At all. There was one place he wanted to be, and it was neither this extravagant house nor his own tiny flat. His mind was already there, behind the closed door of Spencer’s bedroom, and if Red Tie hadn’t paid for the entire night, Nick would be well on his way there now.

But he was here tonight. Bought, paid for, and not going anywhere.

No matter how badly he wanted to be with Spencer.





“If you need a ride, I’m heading back to Central London very soon,” the driver told Nick when he emerged, freshly showered, from one of the guest rooms in the manor. The man studiously ignored Nick’s bare chest and stayed at a polite distance. “We’re a bit out of the way.”