I wondered if he saw something different in me than he did in the others, or worse, if that’s what he was trying to make me feel like. I had to assume everything this kid did was an attempt at controlling me, the way he had managed to control these guys. But a part of me knew I wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t want him to control me.
“So, what are you thinking?” he asked.
I surveyed the room once again. “Sorry, but I think whatever you guys are into is way over my head.”
“Then what are you doing here, Boss? Why did you come here tonight? What did you expect to see or hear?”
I wanted to be an ass and quip that the Georgia boy in me just wanted to see what North Carolina guys were into, but now wasn’t the time for jokes. “Curious to see what you had to offer.”
His grin twisted into a villainous expression. “I’ve seen the way you look at me. You know you want to try me on for size. Well, I’m a reasonable guy. Why don’t you do just that? No commitment. You get a sample of all I have to give. You get to come here…and come…and experience me for yourself. No harm in a sample.”
“Sample?” Two asked.
“Who the fuck is talking to you, Two?” Sy asked, and Two quieted back down.
“Yeah, a sample. What do you think of that, Boss? You come here, say, next Friday night. You get a taste of this ass, and then decide if you’re interested in investing…mmmm…a little more of your time in our little team?”
Again, he’d hooked me with the promise of something more. Although, I’d figured that’s what today would be about, not this meeting with his entire entourage.
“Just you or your whole crew?”
“Everyone,” Two barked from his kneeling position.
“The fuck, Stupid? Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Sy shouted, his face turning red, the veins in his neck pushing forward.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Two said quickly, clearly regretting having spoken up, though judging by his tone when he’d said everyone, he’d felt compelled, as though he refused to imagine Sy messing around with anyone without him.
“You’re out tonight. The fucking bench for you. No watching either,” Sy said.
Two looked over his shoulder to Sy. “No, please, Your Majesty.”
I understood to some degree how Sy had managed to interest these guys, but getting them on their knees, fucking freaking out over him? The hell?
“I won’t say anything else,” Two went on, pleading his case.
“You keep talking,” Sy said through his teeth, “and you’ll be out for the week.”
Two sealed his lips and bowed his head, but I could hear him growl.
Stupid One glanced over at him, a sympathetic expression on his face as he seemed to pity his friend’s situation, yet dared not challenge Sy.
It was a horrifying sight, one I wanted no part of.
“Yeah…I think I’m gonna skip out on any of this shit.”
Sy’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, that stupid smile across his face not changing. “Boss, if you change your mind, you have my number.” He winked.
“Yeah, right.” I shook my head. “Nice meeting you guys,” I told them, turning around and heading out the door.
Sweat slid down my forehead. My heartbeat raced.
Dodged a fucking bullet there.
But alongside all the nervousness and the WTFs playing through my mind, there was a rush of excitement within me.
Because Sy had made it just as tempting by leaving the door wide open.
No, out of the question. Shut it down.
2
Boss
“Come here, Boss,” Sy says, taking my hand and guiding me through the dark hall, which seems to go on and on before being consumed by shadow. I follow in tow, eagerness welling within me as he turns and smiles.
God, he’s so fucking pretty. I want to stick my cock between those lips.
The way he’s got guys worshipping him, he must give the best bj ever, but his mouth’s not the only hole I’m interested in. I want to know what it would feel like to be inside him, to be the reason for his smile. It shouldn’t feel as electrifying as it does, but I can’t help what turns me on.
I’m lost in this mystical corridor for a moment before I find myself inside a room with gray walls, like the concrete basement Two led me into. It’s not the basement, though. It’s like a fucking prison cell, even has a barred window.
Sy pushes his chest up against the wall, spreading his arms out. I notice cuffs affixed to the wall with chains. He glances over his shoulder. “You about ready to fuck me? Go ahead.” He indicates the cuffs, and I restrain him.
I’m a fucking animal, lunging at him, forcing his pants down and tearing his shirt off his body like it’s paper. I can hardly consider my senses before I work my way into him.
He rears his head back, screaming. “Too fast,” he calls out, and I’m about to slow down when he adds, “No, keep going! I love it! I need it, Boss. I need you.”
My heart fucking soars at his words.
But no, something’s off. Something’s wrong.
This isn’t real, and I know it.
I must be dreaming, but fuck, I don’t want it to end. If I can’t fucking have him in real life, don’t I at least deserve it here?
My eyes popped open. “FUCK!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the mattress beside me, before doing the same with the other. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
It wasn’t fair or right. I’d had him, if only in my mind. My cock inside him, seeing what it was like to give him pleasure, but the fantasy had evaded me, as if Sy had some supernatural power to fucking implant himself into my brain and torment me.
I grunted as I took my cock in my hand.
Hard as a rock.
Harder than I ever remembered being over any fucking dream.
Painfully hard.
Damn you, Sy.
I licked my palm before returning my jerking-off hand to my shaft and stroking. I already knew I was going to need a few spits to make it work, so I kept lubricating as I sealed my eyes shut, thinking about screwing Sy Evans.
King Sy. What a crock of shit. What a fucking con. What stupid guys to fall for such a ridiculous act. King of what?
King of my cock, I thought as I desperately attempted to recall the feeling of what it had been like in that dream, to have him chained against the wall, fucking him from behind. I wanted him to beg me for more, wanted him to glance over his shoulder at me and fucking smile that devilish smile he was so fucking good at making.
“King Sy,” I blurted out, blushing as I spoke the words. “My fucking King,” I continued as I stroked so fucking hard it burned at my flesh.
Why had it felt so fucking good to say those words? Why did I want to say them again?
“My fucking King,” I repeated before I shot, the high tearing through me like it had that first time I’d learned to jerk off, when I didn’t fucking know what was happening to me as the blood surged to my face and my body convulsed.
My balls tightened as I came and came and came.
It felt like it would never end, until it did.
Relief.
Ease.
However, it was short-lived, and everything about the dream reminded me of what I didn’t get to experience in reality. Of what I’d shot down out of pride.
In the afterglow of my fantasy fuck, I imagined what it would be like, what it would feel like, to take King Sy up on his offer.
Pfft.
Never.
Sy didn’t stop haunting my dreams that week.
Hell, at that point, it was more like nightmares since we never followed through, perhaps because my mind couldn’t really imagine what sort of climax Sy could take me to. Or perhaps because there was this fantasy-prone part of me that believed it could be Sy himself. Like these guys were some sort of witch coven…or wizard coven…whatever the hell, something evil that could conjure up nightmares like that against my will.
I knew that was absur
d, but what about this wasn’t?
However, my world was more than some weird-ass encounter with some fucked-up guys who went to Daris Tech University with me. I had a life to manage, which included a part-time gig at the local coffee shop and playing catch-up on some courses I needed since I’d made my transfer from my hometown community college.
The Friday after that first meeting at Sy’s place, I was at work, taking orders from customers until business died down and trying to forget there was an open invitation to join Sy and his knights. I was doing a good job of adjusting to my new life in North Carolina. I was fairly impressed with myself over the past few weeks. I could have hung around my dorm room, binge watching Netflix and listening to podcasts, but I’d pushed myself into nabbing this job and going to parties with my roommates to meet new people.
As I grabbed a coffee for the final customer in line, I noticed I needed to fetch some more cups from the back.
“Hey there, Boss,” I heard and whipped around without thinking, practically spilling coffee all over my shirt.
“Ah, fuck,” I said to the burn against my flesh before my eyes shifted back up to him.
There he fucking was, those honey-brown eyes locked on mine, that smile mocking me.
When I wasn’t around him, at least I could pretend I had exaggerated how hot he was in my own mind. It was unreasonable—he wasn’t the hottest fucking guy in the world. Hell, I tried to fixate on all the parts of his face that were so fucking annoying to me, that weren’t symmetrical or were maybe even average features.
That’s what he was. Average.
And yet, he wasn’t.
It was something in the way he looked at me, or maybe the way he smirked like he had all this power over me, even though he didn’t…because he fucking couldn’t. There was no way.
Regardless of what it was, I stood feet away from the front counter, trying to convince myself that he didn’t hold this power over me. But I was a fucking liar, because I wanted him…so goddamn bad that fighting it only made the knot in my chest that much tighter.
“Are you gonna clean that up?” he asked, giving me the once-over, his forehead scrunched up.
I hadn’t thought much time had passed, but apparently, as I worked my way through all the thoughts he managed to stir about everything I saw in him, time had slipped from my grasp.
Cleaning up my mess gave me a great excuse to avoid his gaze.
I remade the customer’s drink, handing it to them and apologizing for my misstep. Then I checked to make sure I’d wiped everything off before approaching the register, and Sy.
“What can I get for you today?” I asked as I would have with any other patron but trying so much harder to keep my cool.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” He pressed his hands against the counter and leaned toward me. “We can still be friends, can’t we?”
“We were never friends.”
“No, but we could chat, right? Even if you choose not to take me up on my offer, which is still on the table, what’s the harm of a little chat? Maybe you can swing by the Forest tonight and have some drinks with me and the knights.”
“Oh, is Your Majesty inviting me out for a royal occasion?”
He laughed. “Come on. It’s a dynamic we all choose to use to have a little fun with. What’s the problem?”
I glanced around the shop.
He hadn’t said anything that could have let any of the patrons know the sort of world he was talking about, but since I knew what he meant, I feared that people would somehow pick up on the real conversation we were having, that they could read it on my face as easily as he could surely read that I’d been dreaming about him ever since our last convo.
“No, I’m busy tonight.”
“Studying?”
“Not really any of your business what I’m busy with. What if it’s a date?”
“It’s not. But I’m fine playing this game, Boss. Break your date. Come spend time with me.”
“You mean us. It sounds like there’s never time with just you. Only you and your role-playing buddies.”
“I come with baggage, but then again, so does everyone else. Mine just happens to take the form of some very sexy tops.”
The door opened as one of my regulars entered. “Okay, I think I’ll be shutting down this conversation so I can get back to work.” Even though I said it, and it was best to keep Sy at a distance, I was almost pissed at the customer for interrupting our discussion.
Walking away from that crazy-ass meeting with his sex drones was supposed to be the end of it, but somehow, even as I was walking away, I knew his offer to think on it would keep gestating inside my imagination, evolving and expanding into so much more. Practically driving me to madness.
I wanted more time with Sy.
And in a way, even simply having him all to myself at the cash register made me feel…special.
Is that how he wanted it to feel? Was that all part of some master plan of his?
“In that case,” Sy said, “I’ll have a caramel latte with a bit of extra cream. I do love cream.” He licked his lips, and I could tell by the expression on his face, he was trying to get under my skin.
It isn’t working.
That was a fucking lie. Of course it was. Everything he did fucking worked.
It was like everything he said and did hijacked my brain, stole my reason from me, and replaced it with lust for what he had promised.
After I took my regular’s order, I made Sy’s drink and called his name. As Sy took it from me, his finger brushed against mine, obviously not by mistake.
The heat, the way it soared through me, made my face fill with a similar heat, reminding me of how it felt when I came every time I imagined fucking him.
Oh, his touch was a fucking drug—no, a poison—pulsing right through my veins.
But Sy wouldn’t have felt the same without leaving me hungry, which he did as he pulled his finger from my grasp before heading out. He glanced through the glass door back at me, offering me one more glimpse of those beautiful brown eyes before slipping away.
I’d been so sure I’d made the right choice by walking away.
I knew it was the right thing to do, but once again, he’d forced his way right past my defenses and left me feeling like a weak man. Like a man about to cave to desire. He’d known what he was doing, no doubt about that.
And once I got off work, I found my desire only intensified as I kept looking at that finger he’d touched, thinking about how it felt…how it would feel to have my body pressed against his.
No, it was better in my head than anything that could ever come to life in the real world, I decided, so I could feel better about what I denied myself. But some part of me assured me that was a fucking lie.
I kept looking at that goddamn number he’d keyed into my phone after our first chat.
Just one taste, that’s all I need.
I’d fucked around with plenty of guys before, ones I wanted with a painful desire, but then we fucked and it was over, the lust gone. Surely, it’d be the same with Sy. We’d mess around some, maybe in front of those guys, and that would be the end of it. No more torment. No lingering lust.
Still, there was the fear that any contact would leave me wanting more, but that was unlikely…or was that part of the long list of lies I told myself to justify what I wanted to do next?
I clicked in the message box beneath our last exchange.
Would he know I was typing? Would he happen to have this screen pulled up, thinking about me as much as I was thinking about him?
Of course not. He had the knights to keep him occupied. Hell, they were likely running a train on him in that moment, making him call out the way I wanted to be the one to make him call out.
Hey, man…
As I keyed in the words, I knew I was making a mistake. I’d lost some fucked-up game in Sy’s head, but I didn’t fucking care.
3
Boss
A walk of shame usually
happens after a sex act, but in my case, it was happening on the way over to Sy’s.
The text exchange replayed in my mind over and over again on the drive to his place:
You still hanging with your knights tonight?
Depends… Curious?
He damn well already knew the answer. I hated feeling like he was inside my head, privy to so many thoughts he had no right to see.
I’d finally caved with a simple yeah, keeping it lowercase, which was actually harder than going with autocorrect and leaving the first letter capitalized.
Surely Sy saw through my ruse…my lie. He’d been right about me all along.
I’m not like those other guys.
I couldn’t believe I’d ever bow before him, endure such humiliation at his hands. And yet, there I was, walking up his drive from where I’d parked on the street, looking at all the cars packed into it, his other knights’.
I hadn’t been interested in the pretense of hanging at the local bar. No. Just wanted to get this over with.
I made my way to the door, where I stood, just as I had the week before.
I had another chance to back out.
I could walk away with my pride still intact, but I was compelled by the same force that had brought me to that house, and I knocked, against my own best interest.
Waiting…my mind worked overtime as I imagined that maybe this was when I’d discover this entire situation had been some elaborate gag Sy and his friends had orchestrated. They’d fucking haze the shit out of my dumb ass as though we were in some frat-porn fantasy. It’d all wind up on video as I found out there never had been any knights or king or sex games.
Just me, looking like a moron.
Maybe that would have been a better nickname for me—Moron.
The doorknob turned, and when it opened, Two stood in the doorway in a pair of jeans, the Calvin Klein band showing beneath the waistband. His expression was locked in that ever-present grimace that his face still managed to look sexy as hell in.
“Password,” he said.
“Um…what?”
King of Liars Page 2