If It Fornicates (Market Garden, #4)(42)

Nick closed his eyes and sighed. Yes, he was miserable. Miserable, confused, completely f*cking f*cked in the head. But it wasn’t Spencer. God, no, it wasn’t Spencer at all. Maybe he was the catalyst, the thing that had shifted Nick’s world so far off its axis he didn’t know which way was up, but he wasn’t negotiable. His place in Nick’s tilted, screwed-up world wasn’t up for discussion.

Which scared the f*ck out of Nick. Absolutely terrified him.

Well, being the reason you’re losing sleep and coming apart at the seams is one of those things I won’t let you ask me to do.

He shifted on his too-big, too-empty bed, resisting the irrational urge to reach for Spencer’s arm. Spencer wasn’t here, but that didn’t mean he was gone. Yet.

Just get some sleep. Too tired to think.

Right. Sleep now, then think, then talk to Spencer tonight. And maybe sort this out.

Except he was too wound up to sleep. There was a simple solution for that, one he’d used time and again to relax when insomnia decided to kick in.

Jerk off in the place where Spencer and I f*cked like that?

Evidently his body didn’t object to the idea. His cock was already hardening just thinking about the last time he’d been here, when he’d been on top of Spencer, who’d been lying right here, just like this. Oh, what the hell.

He wrapped his fingers around his cock and stroked slowly as his erection thickened in his hand. He shifted a little to get comfortable, and the futon gave a quiet, familiar creak, one he’d heard thousands of times but this time sounded like one night in particular. So he moved again. The tiny creak echoed in the otherwise quiet flat, and sharpened the images in his mind. Spencer on his back. Brow furrowing, abs trembling with the effort of not moving and not thrusting, wrists straining against the leather cuffs, gripping the chain because Nick had told him to.

Nick bit his lower lip and arched his back, f*cking his own fist as the bed squeaked again. It had been loud last time, hadn’t it? The whole frame protesting their rapid, violent motions as Nick tried to get Spencer as deep inside him as he could? He didn’t remember. All he’d heard then, all he could recall, was Spencer’s breathing. The quiet grinding and rattling of the chain between the cuffs. His own heart pounding. The sounds of the two of them kissing. Flesh hitting flesh.

And then he’d come, and he came this time too, toes curling and back arching as his semen hit his stomach just like it had landed on Spencer’s the other night.

All too quickly, it was over. One last aftershock rippled through him, and his body sank back to the bed, which offered one final, muted creak.

We have got to f*ck like that again.

The thought startled him, but post-orgasm lethargy was already settling in. He had just enough left in him to fumble for a tissue, clean himself off, and then slip back in between the warm sheets.

He desperately wanted and needed to sleep, but in spite of the hour and the blissful fatigue following his orgasm, he still couldn’t. His brain just wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking about Spencer. Not just sex with him. Just . . . Spencer. About how much he couldn’t stop thinking about him when he was supposed to be focusing on the men who were paying him for sex and domination.

As long as I have him, I can’t give them what they need.

Cold water slid through his veins as the epiphany took shape.

There were finances to think of, and his need for independence. And he wasn’t ashamed of what he did. Not by any means. But the more he thought about his job and his relationship, the more incongruous those things became. Something had to give, and just thinking about letting Spencer go—or Spencer letting him go—made his pulse spike.

But . . . bills. Independence. Fuck, he was too tired to think.

His body finally won over his brain, and sleep closed in, but not before one last thought crossed his exhausted mind:

I can be Spencer’s boyfriend. I can be a rentboy.

I can’t be both.





Okay, so he was nervous when his phone buzzed with Spencer’s text.

I’ll be home in 25 minutes. Meet you there?

He confirmed, then spent the next five minutes or so fretting over what to wear. Jeans, then, and a black T-shirt from one of the many weird internet sites, featuring Pinhead from Hellraiser. He’d always considered the whole series nothing but an allusion to gay BDSM, and wearing this particular T-shirt was something of an insider joke.

He could easily pass as a horror movie fan. Sadistic demons dragging innocent souls to Hell, and all that. It fit the mood. It also reminded him of raging hard-ons he’d had as a young teenager with all the chains and leather and intimidation going on in those movies. He’d wanted to be one of the demons so bad, which had probably been one of the earlier clues that he wouldn’t quite turn out like most other people.

He slid into a leather jacket and left his flat. After a couple of Tube changes and a few minutes on foot, he reached Spencer’s door. Spencer opened on the first ring, having clearly just arrived home himself. He let Nick pass into the house and locked up behind them.

The kiss hello in the hallway was quick and light, unsettlingly so; Nick knew they had things they needed to discuss, but there was too much space in that kiss. Too much distance.

Spencer gestured towards the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Sure.”

Nick settled on the couch in the living room, folded his hands in his lap and felt ridiculous, listening to the water boil and Spencer busying himself in the kitchen. But a couple minutes later, he was glad to be able to hold something in his hands when Spencer joined him on the couch.