Leashes & Lace Books 1-3: MM Romance Boxed Set

by Shaw Montgomery

  When I’d first started dating, I couldn’t figure out why the nice girls or even the wicked ones didn’t really appeal to me. After I figured out I was gay, I’d run into the same problem with the nice, professional guys my mother kept pushing at me.

  After the initial shock had faded for her, she’d made it her mission in life to find me a “nice boy,” not letting anything stop her from getting me fixed up with someone she thought of as perfect. But the polite, presentable guys she dragged me to meet at every social event she could find weren’t any more interesting than a lot of the women I’d been introduced to.

  Sure, my imagination and libido took more interest in the guys, but the passion that people talked about had been missing.

  Well, it’d been missing until I’d met a bratty little twink in college. With nothing in common but a mutual love of spankings and drama that turned into fiery sex, we hadn’t lasted long, but it’d shown me what I was missing.

  My mother had chalked it up to a man’s love of “bad girls” that she translated to “bad boys,” but I hadn’t even tried to explain. Until it’d become absolutely necessary after the disastrous explosion that my life became when Ken lost his fucking mind.

  Pushing that out of my head, I found myself looking back down at the computer. My finally behaving cock went back to rebelling at the thoughts of Eli’s pictures that were just there waiting for me. But I was a professional photographer, not some porn director who jacked off to his model's pictures.

  Needing a break, and a way to release some of the energy that was building inside me, I started stripping off my clothes. I might not have a gym membership, but I had a few weights at home and a park not far from the apartment that was well lit and busy enough in the evening that I didn’t worry about being out after dark.

  Ignoring my hard cock that was still pushing for attention I wasn’t willing to give it, I headed into the small bedroom. It was plain and sparsely furnished, but it had a bed and dresser, so I couldn’t complain. Before I could even grab my workout clothes, my phone started ringing again.

  “Shit.” If that idiot thought he could badger me into changing my mind, he was crazy.

  Long strides had me out to the living room in seconds, my anger coming out in every step. Swiping my finger across the screen, I saw that it was a different number from earlier and tried to rein in my anger. “Landry Photography, Roman speaking.”

  “You have to reshoot the scenes with the red panties.”

  Eli.

  “I thought those pictures turned out fine.” They were from the first part of the shoot and had a different look than the ones I’d taken toward the end, but there was nothing wrong with the photos.

  “The color is coming out pink, and I want different lighting on them before we put them on the site. There’s no way I’m putting up pictures that look pink but that are labeled red. It will confuse the customers.” His tone said he thought I was a moron for not understanding what he was talking about.

  He was insane. “Fine. When we do the full line, we’ll reshoot those.”

  “No, it needs to be now. I need to post about it, and I want those photos for tomorrow. It has to be tonight.”

  “You're insane. I’m not reshooting those photos because you don’t think they look red enough. You have plenty of pictures from that shoot already, pick one of those. You’re half-naked and harder than a porn star in almost all of them, so it doesn’t matter what you put up!” So I was probably crossing the line with that one, but I really didn’t care.

  “Your job is to take the goddamned photos I tell you to. A trained monkey could do it! Don’t make me explain that to Preston. I’ll be at the studio in half an hour and your judgmental ass better be there.” Then the brat hung up.

  “Of all the—” Too angry to even finish my sentence, I started grabbing my clothes.

  If he wanted pictures, I was going to give him pictures, but if he thought he could hold his fucking relationship with Preston over my head when he was shaking that hard cock at everyone who scrolled through the site, he was crazy.

  I’d just about had all I could take of that little brat.

  Chapter 6

  Eli

  “Okay, got to finish the paper because that’s due tomorrow, post to the blog, look at the reports that Preston sent over, oh, pay the electricity bill—they really should have made me sign up for automatic payments—and there was something else.” Tossing my keys and phone onto the couch, hoping that I’d remember later where I’d put my keys, I headed into the kitchen. “Caffeine and then I’ll write down the list.”

  And possibly figure out what I was missing…

  My to-do list was never-ending. Preston kept harping on me to get some kind of app for my phone to keep it all straight, but actually having a way to remember it all might give me a heart attack. As it was, the parts that I did manage to keep track of were enough to make me want to shove it all out the window and go get drunk.

  I kept telling myself I was too responsible for that—and most days I was.

  Sometimes it all just got to be too much, and it exploded in my head. I was trying to keep it from happening, but everything felt out of control and overwhelming. As I headed into the kitchen, I grabbed a notepad on the dining room table to start writing things down on.

  Maybe an app would have been more practical, but there weren’t many things in my life that made me feel relaxed. When I found something that was calming, like writing things down or spankings, I tended to hold on to them like a crazy person.

  Digging around in a junk drawer for a pen, I finally managed to find a pink unicorn pen that was a gag gift for my birthday. I tossed it and the paper on the kitchen table and started making coffee. The little pod things were fun, but it was a serious caffeine day, so I went for the regular coffeemaker.

  Friends had complained that I had too many kitchen gadgets and little machines, but that was just ridiculous. You could never have too many coffeemakers. When the smell started weaving its way through the kitchen, I grabbed my biggest mug and doctored it up.

  Taking it over to the table, I sat down and started brainstorming. The list was endless. Between household things and work and everything else, it was ridiculous. I needed a secretary or a houseboy.

  “Wait. If I’m the sub, then I think I’m supposed to be the houseboy. Shit, that won’t work.” Well, that blew all my plans out of the water. No Dom for me if I was supposed to do all the housework and keep track of everything.

  Taking a sip of my coffee, I had to smile. “Maybe I’m a Dom in disguise. A Dom that likes to be spanked and get fucked.”

  As I wrote out the never-ending list, I kept telling myself it was one step at a time and I’d get everything done. Preston kept saying that I needed to at least hire someone a few hours a week to help manage everything, but that seemed like cheating. I wasn’t running the day-to-day operations of the business.

  Finally getting it all written down and refilling my cup, I stood up and stretched. It was only late afternoon, but I could already feel a headache pushing at the base of my skull, and I was tired. Some of that was my own fault for going out to dinner with friends the night before, but I wasn’t old enough for one late night to completely run me over.

  My habit of burning the candle at both ends wasn’t helping, but the naughty voice in the back of my head said we knew exactly why I was so worn out. It’d been entirely too long since I’d had sex or a scene. Just a spanking to take the edge off would help.

  I wasn’t exactly looking for something lifestyle. Being at some master’s beck and call would make me nuts, and not in a good way. But I wanted something more intense than a random spanking once in a while. Men who were looking for more intense BDSM relationships wanted sweet, and someone who would at least try to behave.

  I couldn’t promise that—not without lying.

  I’d spent too much time figuring out who I was and what I needed to be happy to try to fit into someone else’s idea of what
submission should look like. I was a proud brat, and I wasn’t going to change that.

  Even if it would make it easier to find someone to date.

  Heading back out to the living room, I paused long enough to grab my phone and go into my office. It was a beautiful mess. While I’d done my best to keep the rest of the house looking reasonable and put together, my office was like my bedroom—all me.

  A relaxing gray color was painted on the walls, and spread out over two different desks were the crazy disjointed pieces of my life. In one part of my overgrown office, there were notes about blog posts, financial printouts, photos, and even a pair of panties that I was still trying to decide if I liked the color. In the other were charts and graphs for a paper I was writing for my MBA program and all kinds of other notes about classes I still needed to take and upcoming projects.

  I was so close to finishing I could almost taste it, but with the end in sight, I wasn’t sure what would happen afterward. With family obligations wearing down on me and the freedom that school had given me slowly disappearing, I was starting to look at a second masters or even doctorate program, just to keep everything else at bay.

  Dr. Elijah Farris—it had a pretty good ring to it.

  When the phone started to ring, I knew exactly who it was. My mother must have been part demon because even thinking about her was enough to set her radar going. A quick glance confirmed it and I answered the phone, determined to get her off it quickly.

  “Hello, Mother.” Setting my cup down, I tried not to sound as exasperated as I felt.

  “Are you sure you can’t come back out this weekend?” Her confused tone set my nerves on edge.

  Telling her no was easy, getting her to understand that no amount of badgering would change my mind was difficult. “Mother, we already had this discussion.” Three times. “I was out there two weeks ago. I have too much going on to just drop everything.”

  Especially for stupid social events where she was trying to fix me up with women who’d never understand me. For one, I was gay, and for the other, when both of us wanted to be drama queens wearing panties, the insanity would just get to be too much.

  I had no delusions about the kind of guy I needed in my life. Someone who wouldn’t mind my crazy leaking out on a regular basis, who liked keeping in charge of me—ideally while over his lap—and someone gay. That last one was kind of important. My mother would never understand that.

  She meant well, but it was like we were from two different planets. I could play human when it was required, but I was from somewhere a lot more fabulous than Earth if she was the typical resident. She sighed. “But Elijah, you said you’d be out again soon.”

  Soon did not mean two weeks.

  “With school and my obligations here, you know that isn’t possible.” Going to school on the other side of the country from my family had been wonderful. Being able to drag things out by getting my MBA had been even better.

  Yup, I was going to need a doctorate.

  “I just never thought that when we allowed you to go to school so far away, it would mean we’d never get to see you.” She honestly didn’t seem to understand how ridiculous that statement was.

  They’d allowed me?

  My grandmother had been the only one in the family who’d been able to see past the perfectly normal walls I’d built around me growing up. So, knowing my family, she’d set aside a good chunk for my education to make sure I could go anywhere I’d wanted.

  The trust had been designed to provide anything I might need for college and getting started in life, but my grandmother had worded it so it was vague enough that I could justify a lot. It had been enough to not only pay for college, but also for a house when I’d decided living in the dorms was a terrible idea and for the initial startup costs for the business. Plus, there’d been enough left over that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything financial while the business was still growing.

  A generous grandma was wonderful, but a roommate in college who was majoring in finance and liked playing the stock market was even better. He’d made me a ton of money as long as I would walk around in something sexy once in a while; it had been a brilliant tradeoff as far as I was concerned.

  Walking around in an old-fashioned dressing gown and stockings while he tried not to watch had been my first foray into showing off my desires. I was probably lucky he was a sweet closet case that was too nervous to try anything, or it could have gotten awkward. As it was, I just got a good friend who still stalked the site and gave great financial advice.

  Grandma would have probably found the whole thing hilarious, but she’d died when I was a teenager. I could still remember right before she passed when she’d told me that no matter who I was inside, she loved me and wanted me to be happy. The money had made my parents crazy, but it’d been a lifeline for me.

  If they’d known everything, my life would have been completely different. They loved me, but they saw things from a very narrow viewpoint. And when my father died last year of a heart attack, my mother’s ability to look past her own ideals almost disappeared altogether. So Elijah stayed in the closet and only went out to see the family when absolutely necessary.

  The battle over choosing a college far away never really ended once I’d left. I had it every week or two when I couldn’t go home as often as she wanted. “Mother, we’ve also had this conversation before. I understand that you would prefer me closer, but I have a life and job here that I am not willing to walk away from.”

  She thought I was an advertising executive. I kind of was, so I didn’t really think it was a lie, but it was about as honest as I was going to be until I absolutely had to. My head wasn’t buried so far in the sand that I thought I could keep everything separate forever, but I would keep it going as long as I could.

  Eli loved arguing.

  Elijah wasn’t really into drama and didn’t want his life blowing up.

  “If you lived closer, it—”

  Would make us both insane. “I visit every few weeks. You see me more than most sons who live in the same town as their mother.”

  That earned me another dramatic sigh. “At least tell me you’re seeing a nice girl. I would like grandchildren eventually.”

  We’d had that conversation before too. Well, something similar to the truth.

  “I’ve also said that I don’t want kids, and I’m not looking to settle down with a woman. I like my life the way it is, and I’m too busy for anything serious.” I was also too busy for a “nice guy.” Although I could make room for a kinky one. But kids seriously weren’t an option. I could understand why other people wanted them, but I knew myself well enough to realize that it wasn’t for me.

  I would be a damned good honorary uncle to somebody else’s kids, but that was about as close as I was willing to get. I wanted to be the nut throwing themselves on the floor in a tantrum, not standing around trying to act like a functional adult while a kid did it.

  That was no fun at all.

  She made a disapproving sound, and I could almost hear her shaking her head. “I’m sure you’ll change your mind when you meet the right girl. Most men do.”

  And that right there was one of the primary reasons I didn’t tell her anything else about my life. I’d given up. Elijah wasn’t strong-willed enough to fight back with her, even if Eli thought it would be a great idea to lose it one day and tell her everything.

  “I need to get back to work. I’ll talk to you later.” Making quick goodbyes, I finally hung up.

  It wasn’t the worst conversation we’d had lately, so it was going in the win category for me even though she was frustrating. Usually, the first couple of weeks after I left were fairly quiet, but for the last few trips, it hadn’t worked out that way. Each time she got antsy sooner and wanted me to come and visit quicker.

  I always put it off as long as possible because all she did was try to fix me up, but that was getting harder. Eli was also getting more difficult to shove into the closet with e
very visit. I’d actually found a pair of panties in my suitcase I couldn’t even remember packing the last time I’d gone out there. I was either losing my marbles or deliberately sabotaging myself…I just wasn’t sure which.

  Trying to shove the frustration out of the way, I sat down in my chair and turned to start working on the paper that needed to be finished. As much as I wanted to dawdle and put it off, it was due that night, so I couldn’t find any more reasons to delay.

  The two very distinct desks were facing away from each other, with my chair in the middle. My school desk had simple lines and reminded me a lot of Elijah. My work desk was all Eli. It had scrolling legs and all kinds of woodwork that was shiny and beautiful. They made the room tight, but it’d been the easiest way for me to keep everything separate. Living in the dorms, it had been almost impossible to find enough space to spread out.

  That had been my first justification for buying the house. Having something that was just mine and that they couldn’t take away when it all blew up was the other. Yeah, financially it had made sense with where the real estate market was at that time, but the rest of the decision had been pure Eli-emotion.

  Pushing back the conversation with my mother was harder than it should’ve been. I knew I only had Roman to thank for that. On days when I had to work with him, everything was more difficult. Something about being called a slut in that sneering voice dug its way under my skin.

  By the time I finished the paper, I had a pounding headache and a short temper. It probably wasn’t the right headspace to write a blog post, but venting to my followers about everything he said was becoming second nature. Maybe if those weren’t my highest-read posts, I would have found a reason to stop.

  But being able to rant against his judgmental bullshit made us all feel better.

  They all had people in their lives that just didn’t understand who they were and what they were drawn to. But completely losing it about “that man” or “that ass” was a fun way for all of them to tell off the haters in their own life.

  Ha, some of my psychology courses had come in handy.