“I wouldn't talk, sir. You knew I was writing a paper, sir, but I wouldn't talk about private secrets or share anybody's name.”
His chuckle was soft but distinct. “No one knows whether he'll talk until he has something really good to talk about.”
I hated to admit it, but he was probably right. There are some of us gay guys who really love to dish.
“The Fight Club rumors were started for a reason,” he was saying. “They're a distraction from the real deal.”
“Sure, sir. I know that.”
“Even if you had talked, nobody would believe you or really remember much of what you said. The other rumors are too well-established, and everybody thinks they already know the truth.”
“I wasn't going to talk, sir. You can trust me, sir.”
“Trust but verify.” He quoted the old wheeze with a smile in his voice.
I realized he'd been in my dorm room not once but twice. The first time, when he pulled me out of the ice bath. The second time when he'd come by and found James with the cheerleaders.
“You put something in my room?”
He chuckled again. “Nobody can deny you've got a brain in that hard skull, Nicky.”
“A recording device?”
“A transmitter the size of a dime. It's gone now. I'm satisfied you weren't gossiping with James. And I know you didn't write us up for your paper.”
“I didn't write the fucking paper, sir.”
We both laughed. It should have been a tense moment, but it didn't feel tense. In some ways, I was very much on my toes around Brayden Brent. There was that sexual electricity between us that couldn't be denied. In other ways, at unexpected times, I felt oddly comfortable with him.
Comfortable? Hmm. Didn't seem like the right word, but I wasn't sure what the right word would be.
He'd brought the transmitter the first time and removed it the second time. Should I feel so comfortable? He'd suspected from the first moment he'd spotted me in his gym what I was looking for.
Suspected it. Hell, planned for it. Even when I didn't really know myself what I came for.
I should have felt uneasy, but instead I felt special.
“So,” Brayden said. “Tonight's party.”
I nodded.
“Nobody there will talk about who or what they see, but until you feel comfortable with that fact, you will remain in the hood. In public, I'll only remove it if you ask me to—and you'd better ask me very, very nicely. Do you understand, Nicky?”
“Yes, sir. The hood stays on unless I ask you to remove it.”
“You have an interesting body for a young man of your generation. No tats, no piercings. As long as you're hooded, nobody will know who you are.”
I understood then that I would be naked except for the hood.
“Different men have different ways of testing themselves. Different men have different limits.”
This was elementary. This was warm-up.
“You will hear many things, including the sounds of men being traded. I want to assure you that all the men involved in that kind of activity are men who have deep desires to participate in that kind of activity. I will tell you frankly for the final time that I am myself not even remotely interested in sharing. If you ever change your mind and decide you want to be shared, you will need to be with another dom.”
That is so not ever going to happen.
“I suspect we are compatible on a lot of levels, but it's only a suspicion at this point. You are very young, and you have almost no experience of submission. You might find out you have different desires when you're confronted with the opportunity to act things out.”
I nodded again.
“I am the dom, but you also have some responsibility here to communicate your desires. If you have an unmet need or if you're being pushed too far, you need to let me know.”
I felt a soft, wet tap on the side of my mouth and realized he must have kissed his own finger and then put the kiss on the side of my mouth. It was an alternative to kissing me on the corner of my eye, since my eye was hooded. An unexpected gentleness that almost broke me.
“Do you have any questions before we go in?”
“If I want to tell you I'm being pushed too far without safewording out, how do I do that, sir? Because I don't want to end this by mistake.”
This time he kissed me on the lips, briefly but still sweetly. “That's a very good question, Nicky. That's exactly the right question.”
I sucked his tongue to let him probe me deeper for the sensitive places inside my mouth. We were kissing in the front seat of a parked truck like a couple of teenagers, and yet it felt infinitely adult.
“Yellow,” he said when we broke, his face still close enough to mine that I could feel his breath on my mouth. “Yellow or caution. Either one will work.”
“Yes, sir.” I took a deep breath. “I'm ready, sir.”
Chapter Twelve
In some ways, the party started like a party—the awkward beginning when you've arrived too early and all the preparations aren't quite in place. The smell of crispy fried finger foods sizzling in hot oil. The conspiratorial murmur of the staff. The squeal of feedback from a badly adjusted speaker. Soundcheck. Evidently, the party was large enough to demand live music.
Brayden—but I shouldn't think of him as Brayden now, I should think of him as my master—helped me out of the truck. My feet landed hard on the ground, but I kept my balance.
“Strip.” His voice sounded loud in the utter darkness of my hood.
“Yes, sir.” I assumed we'd parked somewhere along filthy town's two-block strip. Were there other men stripping naked all around me? The hair on the back of my arms stood up as I pulled off my shirt, stretching the neck quite a lot to get it over the hood, but I didn't necessarily sense anyone there on the street other than me and Brayden.
Maybe they were already inside.
“I haven't got all night,” he said.
Yes, you do, I thought. But I knew better than to say so. My fingers flew over my shoelaces and zippers, and I toed out of my shoes, then pulled off jeans, socks, briefs. It was a pleasant evening in early summer. Mosquito weather at a lower elevation, but not here. Little breezes kissed my skin as I bared it to the night. Was there a moon? Did my pale skin glow in the darkness? I wasn't sure.
I'd need to become a better observer if I was going to keep up with a man like Brayden Brent.
My bare feet squirmed across the rough boards of the old-fashioned wooden sidewalk. Rough, but arty rough. No chance of catching a splinter. Once again, I had that unreal feeling of being caught in a stage set. I wouldn't be taking any pain by accident. Everything that happened tonight would be something intentional, something crafted for the devious pleasure of my master.
Everything would be scripted.
It shouldn't be a sexy thought that sent shivers down my spine. Or should it?
I guessed we'd parked right outside the building I'd identified last time as the saloon—a guess confirmed when I heard the creak of the swinging doors.
Master slipped an arm around my waist and guided me in the right direction, although I could have figured it out from following my ears and my sense of smell.
“Who's here?” I asked.
“They don't know who you are, and you don't know who they are,” he said.
“Sorry, sir. I meant, how many people are here?”
“I leave it to you as an exercise to figure that out.”
Kinky bastard. The more I strained to hear, the more aware I was of the slight muffle effect created by the leather hood over my ears. That early, awkward feeling grew stronger. Perhaps no one else had arrived other than the staff.
He led me to the counter, and I backed into, then sat down, on a stool covered in soft kidskin leather. “Bourbon.” His voice came from my left.
The clink of bottle and glasses. The scoot of a plate between us. My master took my right hand and touched it first to the plate, then to my glass.
<
br /> So, yes, a party. We awkward early arrivals were given food and drink to keep us busy while the staff got ready for the rush.
It wasn't a situation that made it easy to focus on conventional hunger. I nibbled at a fried nugget, which appeared to be chicken heavily spiced with a number of unfamiliar flavors. My taste buds tingled, but my throat was thick with another kind of desire, and I had no appetite for eating more than one or two.
As for the bourbon, well, I normally left the bourbon to my dad. It burned even when I sipped, so I took it very slowly. My master and the bartender were talking about nothing. Social noises. Sports, maybe. It was surprisingly hard for me to concentrate. In the darkness, you'd think I had nothing to focus on other than the sound of voices and the taste of spices, but I kept thinking ahead to what was going to happen next.
Also, I was keenly aware of my nakedness. Strange to be naked and not to know if other guys were checking me out. My cock stirred, and I tried to think about... oh, I don't even know what... the deep sociological implications of post-Fight Club society.
Men began to arrive. Voices. Little breezes from people close by pushing up to the bar to place their order. An odd rattle here and there. Not bottles or glasses clinking, not plates clattering. My cheeks felt hot as I realized it was the sound of chains.
There were men here on leash and collar. I knew it in my soul, even if I couldn't see it.
“Stand up,” my master said.
I stood.
“Hands behind your back.”
I put my wrists together at the small of my back, and he handcuffed them out of the way. It wasn't an unexpected move, but I still trembled. My cock was hard again, and no amount of trying to think about random bullshit was going to make it stand down. Not now.
Because I was in the dark, I imagined the scene as if it was being played out in darkness. What I pictured was more medieval than old West—candles set in wall niches instead of the more likely hurricane lamps set out on the bar. Hell, the place had a generator, and the power was on, to judge from that amplifier. The band had started playing noisy rock from the late fifties or early sixties, although not as loud as the songs were originally intended to be played. Background noise, the better to confuse those of us in hoods. In any case, for all I knew, the whole saloon was lit up like a Christmas tree.
But I was in the dark, and so I imagined darkness.
“Let's dance.” His hand took my arm, and I felt myself being guided onto a hardwood dance floor.
Other couples were already dancing. I knew it to a moral certainty just from the creak and clop of feet on wood and the whisper of motion-breezes against my naked flesh.
My master dropped my arm, and I felt as if I was floating in space. Off-balance. When we didn't touch, to know where he was I had to rely on my muffled hearing and the way the hair stood up on the back of my arms. Somehow, I turned and faced in roughly the right direction, and we began to dance, a fast dance, awkward because of my blindness but sexy too.
When he danced too close, he bumped firmly against my cock. Bastard. He was doing it on purpose, to keep me from going soft.
I would have grasped his hips or his arm to hold me in his orbit, but the handcuffs stopped me. Instead, I had to stay on my toes to make sure he never bounced too far away.
I didn't want to dance with anybody else.
The music changed to something slow and sappy. There was plenty of bad music in the early sixties, although you wouldn't know it to hear people talk. Brayden—my master—swept me into his arms, and now we were grinding.
If he didn't watch out, he was going to make me come like this.
No. That wasn't the way to think about it. He was doing it on purpose. The way his full jeans pulsed against my naked cock, the way his ridged abs flexed...
Another man had already come somewhere nearby. I could smell it. My nostrils tickled.
“You'll be expected to lick up every drop.” My master breathed into my hooded ear so quietly I could tell myself I hadn't heard him.
But I had.
And I was triggered instantly.
Oh, fuck. Was everybody looking? Probably. I told myself again that the room was dark, that nobody could really see anything, but I couldn't be sure of that.
“Kneel. Lick it up.” A calm, firm command.
I obeyed. Licking wasn't an exact description of what I did, because I'd pretty well soaked the front of his jeans. There was plenty of sucking involved to get all the goo out of the fabric.
He was very hard. Did I dare? My lips puckered down tight to pop the button and grasp the zipper tag. It isn't easy opening a man's fly using only your mouth but it was a skill I was rightfully proud of.
“Did I give you permission to do that?” His voice came from way up high.
“No, sir. But, please, may I?”
“Listen.”
I listened, my face barely an inch away from his puffed-open fly. The heat between us was distracting, but I could hear the whisper of bodies moving around me. The band was playing even more softly, and I could figure out what those bodies were doing without the sense of sight. The grunts, the gasps, the little squeals... oh, I was left in no doubt about the general idea. There were pairs, even trios, all around me, and not very far away from me either, because the saloon wasn't exactly a ballroom.
“How does that make you feel, what you're hearing?”
I gulped. “Horny, sir.” Maybe a little scared too, but mostly? Horny.
His chuckle was so soft I almost didn't hear it. “Me too. Does that bother you, that I can see what the other men around me are doing?”
“No, sir. Not if it pleases you, sir.”
“Good answer. Then my boy deserves a reward.”
I waited.
“You may suck me off.”
With lips and tongue, I worked his jeans down and his cock out. Once again, I experienced the intensity of being hooded and the way it forced me to focus entirely on the feel, the taste, the smell of him. This time, my experience was enhanced by the knowledge that an unknown number of subs around me must be doing exactly the same thing to their doms. My throat worked at maximum speed in its determination to prove I was the best. I'm confident I took him deeper than he expected, and I'm certain he came sooner than he intended.
His will was iron, but even iron can crack under pressure.
He grunted in a vain effort to repress his sex noises, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him get away with a silent climax. I gulped and gobbled, determined to make him cry out loud when he erupted. Everybody in the room must have heard him.
I counted that as a victory.
“Fuck me, sir.”
He grunted again, and I felt the brush of fabric against my face. My master was pulling his jeans back up.
“Not here,” he said. “Not yet.”
“I'm ready, sir. I swear.” Other pairs were doing it. I could tell from the distinct slap of belly against ass coming from at least two directions.
“I'll decide when you're ready.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tease and denial. So he'd made me perform in hood and cuffs in front of all of filthy town, and then he put two hands under my armpits to pull me to my feet in one smooth motion. Couldn't he see how hard I was? Once again, I imagined darkness. Then his blue-jeaned thigh bumped against my hard cock, a deliberate nudge in the most delicious possible place, and I knew he wasn't missing a thing.
He enjoyed torturing me. He enjoyed rubbing my face in how much I wanted it.
God help me, I enjoyed it too.
Fuck, though. I couldn't hold out much longer.
He walked me to the bar, where he eased my bare butt against a kidskin-covered stool. If I wanted to, he was giving me permission to sit, but I chose to remain standing. My master deserved better than a lazy-ass sub.
He held a glass to my lips and poured slowly, and I drank. Sparkling water. An expensive brand, but I wasn't good enough to tell which one. A second glass. Mo
re bourbon. I took only a tiny sip and then firmed my lips.
“Caution.” I didn't want anything I was feeling to be dulled by alcohol. I liked the intensity of being sober in this situation—the way the hair on my arms and neck registered tiny movements, the tickle in my nostrils from the scent of sex.
Fuck, I even liked the throb in my balls.
Everything seemed more real than real, and that's the way I wanted it to stay.
He put down the glass and then pressed his nose into my collarbone. Was he smelling things as keenly as I was, even though he wasn't blindfolded? We were sharing this moment. This awareness of all the men playing in all their various ways around us.
We were accepted, we were part of something, but we were also just the two of us.
A warm feeling, but a difficult feeling to express in human language.
“I'm proud of you.” He whispered the words so they were more a tickle against my flesh than anything audible, but I understood everything.
“I want you so bad.”
“I know you do.” His fist came from somewhere to squeeze tightly around my shaft. “I like you wanting me.”
“I could please you. I could please you so much, sir.”
“You already please me. Just like this. Hard and naked and aching. That pleases me.”
He led me out of the saloon by my cock, which I'm sure had all kinds of deep metaphorical meaning in this game we were playing, but all I cared about at the moment was the way it felt. Fingers sinking deep into meaty flesh. His heat burning into my heat.
It was cooler now, although not chilly. How much time had passed? I had no idea. It made me wonder how much of our sense of time is based on our sense of sight. I rattled my cuffed hands against my back, a hint he ignored. My cock was leaking steadily which moved him to tug at my balls from time to time. It slowed me down a little, but it wasn't going to hold me off forever.
“I need to come so bad, sir.”
He walked slowly, the better to allow me to place my bare feet carefully on the unseen wooden sidewalk. When he stopped, I bumped into his big body—and not entirely by accident. Every contact with him was magic and heat.
Club Page 7
