He glanced in the rear view mirror. Sleeping before driving was a smart decision. His reactions felt so sluggish, he might as well have been drunk as exhausted. It was not about the guy in the boot. It wasn’t…
Smith sighed as he leant his head against the headrest while he waited at the traffic lights. He wanted Nate somewhere safe where he could keep an eye on him. That was more like the truth.
He wanted to be able to close his eyes for a few hours and
know
that any of the things that could have happened to Nate in that club weren’t happening. And he wanted to know it because if he opened his eyes Nate would be right there with him.
It might not be professional, but it was the truth.
Five minutes and another phone call later, he pulled into another underground car park. Grabbing his coat off the passenger seat, he marched around to the boot and flung it open. Nate blinked up at him, shielding his eyes.
“Get out.”
Nate tried to look past him. “Where are we?”
“A hotel.”
Disorientated was no more than he deserved, but the guy looked terrified. “It’s just me,” Smith said, and promptly labelled himself a fool for thinking that would reassure Nate, when he obviously had no idea what another man taking him under his protection really meant. “No one’s going to hurt you,” he translated.
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
10
Nate didn’t look convinced. Smith tried to tell himself that the stupid little sod offering himself to a club full of complete bastards without turning a hair, and then being scared of
him
didn’t burn deep inside him. He was singularly unsuccessful.
“Do you want to spend the rest of the night in there?”
Nate shook his head.
“Get out,” Smith ordered again.
“May I borrow your coat, please?” Nate asked.
Smith tossed the coat at him, not sure if he was more angry that Nate didn’t trust him, or that he was half sure his job title was the only thing stopping him from showing Nate how a real dominant acted—right there in the car park.
The guy actually scrambled around inside the tiny space, trying to put the coat on before he got out. Smith ground his teeth against the instinct to just pull the smaller man out of the car until Nate finally clambered out on his own, the oversized coat wrapped tight around him.
Smith marched him across to the elevator. Two minutes later he slid the key card the ever-so-discreet hotel had left by the door through the lock and they stepped into the hotel room.
Nate tensed when he saw the double bed.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Smith snapped. “And take the stupid mask off.”
Fresh heat rushed to the younger man’s cheeks. Dropping the mask on the table, he wrapped the coat more firmly around his body and turned his back on Smith to look out of the window.
“How did you know where I was?”
“I used to be a cop.” That, and his security clearance made it easy to follow Nate’s credit card transaction from the moment he slipped his security, through until he found a real person who’d seen him go into the club.
It was several seconds before Nate spoke again. “What are you going to tell my father?”
“The truth,” Smith said.
Nate closed his eyes. “And that is?”
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
11
“You were in a sorry excuse for an S&M club masquerading as some sort of gay for pay rent boy.”
Nate swallowed. “Those exact words?”
”You think there’s a better way of saying it?”
Nate shook his head. “I’d appreciate it if you would use those exact words.”
For a few seconds, Smith was speechless. “God, you really are pathetic. Do you have any idea how this stupid little stunt could have ended, if I hadn’t found you in time?”
Nate stared into the darkness outside the window. “Let’s just agree on pathetic, shall we?”
Yes, he thought to himself, pathetic summed it up nicely.
At least if the other man kept his word and relayed that exact information to his father, his Dad would know he’d kept his promise.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Smith demanded. “Twenty years old and still running away from home to get your father’s attention!”
Nate stared unseeing out of the window, knowing the other man couldn’t understand the real reason he’d tried to sneak away for a few nights, not even if he spent the whole night trying to explain.
Smith grabbed his arm and spun him around. “I asked you a question.”
Nate stared at the hand on his arm. “It’s none of your concern,” he managed to say, more to remind himself that Smith didn’t really give a damn than anything else.
“When I’m sent half way across the damn country to fetch you, it is my concern. You know what I should do with you?”
Nate tried to pull his arm out of the other man’s grip as he felt heat rush to his cheeks.
They were too close. It was all too possible he would do something stupid—like say Smith could do whatever he wanted with him, and he’d get down on his knees and thank him for it afterwards.
“Get off me!”
The larger man simply twisted him around and pushed him against the wall. It was humiliatingly easy for Smith to hold him in place with a hand on the back of his neck, his body pressed up close behind him.
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
12
It was all so cruelly close to what he’d actually thought might happen that night. Nate struggled, hating himself for wanting Smith to do so much more than just hold him there.
His efforts to push Smith away merely succeeded in making Nate hotter under the collar.
Finally he stilled.
“Temper tantrum over?” Smith asked, sounding incredibly bored with the whole situation.
Nate nodded.
Smith turned him around and pushed him back against the wall again. Nate snatched at the edges of Smith’s coat. The older man saw the movement, and grabbed his wrist before Nate could cover himself.
”Do you really imagine that…” Smith trailed off as he looked down and saw what Nate had been trying to hide ever since he got out of the boot.
“You’re getting off on this,” Smith whispered.
Nate tried to pull away again. Suddenly it was easy. Evidently Smith no longer had any interest in holding on to him. Nate took several paces away from him, but there wasn’t far to go in the hotel room.
“You actually wanted what those men should have been offering you, didn’t you?”
Smith said slowly, as if trying to wrap his mind around the concept. “You’re gay.”
Nate shook his head. “Just gay for pay.”
“You’re a bloody billionaire,” Smith snapped. “You really expect me to believe you need the money.”
“Maybe I needed something else,” Nate said, before he could stop himself.
“What could someone in your position possibly need?”
Nate shook his head, knowing it was pointless to try to explain.
“What do you need?” Smith demanded, very seriously. “Tell me.”
It was also pointless to pretend he didn’t want to obey any order issued in that tone of voice. “My sex life is always going to be about money,” he began.
“Just more poor-little-rich-boy bull,” Smith muttered, turning away from him.
“They wanted me!” Nate yelled, suddenly unable to keep it inside. “Not my name, not my family, not my wallet. The guys in that bar wanted
me
. And maybe I was just a whore to them, but do you want to know what really is pathetic?”
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
13
Smith stared blankly at him, but Nate couldn’t stop.
“Being up there on that stage, feeling them stare at me, having that guy’s hands all over me—it was all worth it—because that moment when the first man made a bid was better than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. Someone wanted
me
. Because, you know what, Smith? The whore gets the best end of the deal. At least they know the other person in the bed wants them to be there!”
Smith went to speak, but suddenly words Nate had never said out loud tumbled out uncontrollably.
“You think you know what it’s like to be me? Really? You know what it’s like to realise that no one will ever see you as a person instead of a cheque book? What did I want? I wanted to have sex with someone who isn’t working out how generous they can expect me to be afterwards. I wanted to feel someone’s hands on me and know that for once in my goddamn life they are touching me because they want to, not because they wanted a new car, or because they wanted me to recommend them for a contract with my father’s company or—”
Smith’s lips covered his. Nate gasped as the other man’s tongue thrust past his lips and took instant possession of his mouth. His hands pushed against Smith’s chest for all of half a second before his fingers clawed at his shirt pulling him closer.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t work out where to put his hands or if he was allowed to kiss back or what the hell was going on. He made a weak little noise in the back of his throat as he realised his wet dream was kissing him, and there was no way he could fail to screw this up.
As suddenly as he’d kissed him, Smith pulled back and stared down at him.
When Nate dropped his gaze, the older man threaded his fingers into his hair and made him look up.
He’d kissed a man. The thought ran around and around in Nate’s head as Smith brushed his thumb over his bottom lip.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Smith said, with unexpected gentleness.
Nate just stared up at him. Smith was gay, or at least bi, or at least inclined to kiss him.
Maybe just to shut him up, but still…
“What did you want when you went there?” Smith asked.
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
14
He’d wanted someone to kiss him like that—as if he really wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted someone to hold onto him so tight he couldn’t get away even if he’d tried—and he’d wanted to know he would never try, because he was exactly where he wanted to be. He stared at Smith’s hold on him, unable to find the words to say any of it out loud.
“You wanted a man.” Smith paused, as if waiting for Nate to confirm that before demanding more difficult confessions from him.
Nate closed his eyes, wishing Smith had skipped straight to the difficult ones.
“Nate?”
“I’m not gay,” he whispered, sadly.
“If you—” Smith began.
Nate shook his head, his fists clenching even tighter in the other man’s shirt. “I promised,” he whispered. “I’m not gay. I…” He sighed, not even knowing how to explain the promise without breaking it.
“Promised who? Your father?”
Nate nodded, keeping his eyes closed.
“So saying you were gay for pay…” Smith whispered.
“I promised,” Nate said again. “I can’t say I like men. But I had to do something. I couldn’t just go on pretending. I had to find a loophole and…” Smith was right. Pathetic.
Smith was silent for a long time before he spoke again. “You said I didn’t understand.
Let’s see how much I can guess.”
Nate held his breath.
“It wasn’t just the gay for pay label that got you up on that auction block,” Smith said.
“You wanted to belong to someone, to be possessed by another man. You wanted him to tell you exactly what to do and how you could please him. You wanted to know that all you had to do was obey—the other guy would take care of everything else. Right?” The words were said more softly, more gently than Nate would have ever believed Smith could ever speak.
“Submissive.” Nate cleared his throat. “I might not have had a chance to do much, but I’ve got the internet. I’ve seen the porn, I surfed the sites. I know that if things were different, if I hadn’t made that promise, if there was any chance someone could want to screw me rather than my wallet, I know I’d be looking for a real master, but…“
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
15
Nate stared at the other man’s shirt for a long time, unable to lift his gaze and meet his eyes.
“Would you know a real master if you met one, Nate?” Smith asked.
Nate nodded. There was no doubt in his mind that he was standing before a master right then. In spite of the kiss, he also had no doubt that Smith considered him below contempt let alone anything else.
“I’m going to leave the room and make a phone call. When I come back, either you will have decided this is what you really want—in which case you will belong to me for the rest of the night. Or, you’ll have decided this isn’t what you want—in which case this didn’t happen and neither of us will ever mention it again.”
GAY FOR PAY
Kim Dare
16
Well, that was a bloody stupid thing to have done. You don’t screw the boss’s son. It was probably rule number one on the ‘do not do’ list. Smith leaned against the wall outside the hotel bedroom and wondered at what exact point he’d lost his mind.
When he’d kissed him, he decided as he stared blankly at the wallpaper opposite him.
When he felt Nate’s lips part and welcome him. That moment when he’d felt the fear and the uncertainty drain out of the younger man’s body as if he had finally come home. There was no going back after that.
His brain hadn’t so much dropped to his balls as much as it retreated into that primal little bit of his brain that didn’t understand bosses or practicalities, but knew all about dominance and lust, and a few other emotions Smith wasn’t ready to look at too closely just then.
Smith looked at his watch. He considered making the phone call he’d invented as an excuse to leave the room, just to while away the time, but there wasn’t anyone he wanted to speak to but Nate. A few more minutes passed. That was as long as he could manage to wait.
It appeared that Nate had made his decision.
The younger man knelt at the bottom of the bed. The ridiculous posing pouch had been dispensed with, leaving him completely naked, completely accessible and, more importantly, completely his.
As Smith closed the door and walked across the room, Nate’s hands clenched into fists as he fought the instinct to cover himself, but they stayed behind his back. His head remained bowed.