Nine-tenths of the Law

by L. A. Witt

  I snorted. “What kind of cretin do you take me for? I love Thai food.”

  He laughed. “Good, because-”

  The door flew open. Max leaned in and started to speak, then looked at Nathan. Confusion brought his eyebrows together, then enlightenment raised them. He cleared his throat.

  “Hey, uh, boss,” he said. “Need your help in the projector room.”

  I groaned. “Tell me it didn’t break again.”

  He nodded. “Sorry.”

  “Fuck.” I rolled my eyes. To Nathan, I said, “Come on, guess we’re eating in the projector room.”

  “Anywhere’s good for me,” he said with a shrug.

  “Hey, I thought we weren’t allowed to have food or guests up there,” Max said as Nathan and I followed him out of the office.

  “You’re not,” I said. “But when you run the place, you can have anyone and anything you want up there.” He looked over his shoulder and laughed, but I didn’t miss the uncomfortable glance he cast at Nathan. Yes, Max, I’m fucking him. Deal with it. Then it occurred to me that it was a good thing he hadn’t come into the office a few seconds earlier. Though their discomfort with my sexuality annoyed me, this was a business, and I had to stay professional. I thought better of sneaking off with Nathan to a quiet, hidden corner in the future.

  Upstairs, I gave the projector the evil eye and decided it would be best to eat something before I tackled its latest issues. Otherwise, judicious application of percussive maintenance might be the least of its problems.

  Max left to help in the box office for a little while, so Nathan and I had the room to ourselves for a few minutes. I sat back in a chair and put my feet up while he leaned against the window.

  “My God, you’re a life saver,” I said after we’d eaten in silence for a while. “The crap at the concession stand was even starting to sound good.”

  He laughed. “That bad, huh?”

  “You have no idea.”

  He looked out a window into one of the auditoriums, which hummed with the voices of a shifting crowd. The sound slowly diminished in volume, so the showing must have just ended.

  “Wow, you guys really are slammed today,” Nathan said.

  I laughed. “Did you think I was lying?” I glanced up at him, and the somewhat-sheepish look on his face made my stomach drop. “Nathan, you-”

  “I know,” he said, nodding and putting a hand up. “We’ve talked about this.”

  I tapped the side of the Styrofoam carton with a chopstick, trying not to let my irritation seep into my voice. “And yet you still don’t trust me.”

  He exhaled, looking anywhere but at me. “I told you, these things take time.”

  I think you’ve had enough time to figure out I’m not Jake. I wanted to say it, but bit it back instead. Getting caught by an employee in the middle of a heated lover’s spat would be almost as awkward and uncomfortable as being caught in the middle of a kiss. That, and I just didn’t have it in me to argue with him tonight.

  I let out a breath and looked at him, gesturing toward the window with my chopsticks. “Well, you’ve seen it for yourself. Busy day here.”

  “Yeah, I see that.” He picked at his food for a moment. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I swear to God, I’m not going out of my way to find reasons not to trust you.”

  “Well, it’s not like Jake has helped,” I said. “Even since we both split with him.”

  “Good point.” He laughed bitterly. Meeting my eyes, he said, “I’m sorry, though. I was out of line.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He sipped his drink and pushed himself off the windowsill. “Well, I should probably let you get back to work. You still coming by tonight?”

  I smiled. “You still want me to?”

  He grinned and kissed me. “After that kiss in your office, you’re damn right I do.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “You’re awfully quiet.”

  Lying beside me in bed, Nathan turned to me and smiled, but it seemed forced. “Sorry, guess I’m a bit spacey tonight.”

  “Anything wrong?”

  The smile fell and his gaze shifted to the ceiling again. I rolled onto my side, propping myself up on my elbow. I put my hand on his chest and he put his over mine, clasping it gently. For a long time, everything was still except his heart beating beneath my palm and his thumb running back and forth across the side of my hand.

  He ran his free hand through his sweaty, disheveled hair. His sudden shift from playful and horny to this was unsettling. In fact, it was hard to believe this was the same person I’d just slept with. He didn’t seem angry. Whatever it was that had changed, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It almost seemed, I realized with a sick feeling in my gut, like regret.

  “Nathan?”

  He looked at me. “I’m just…” He paused. Sighed. Looked up again. “Just been thinking about all of the bullshit with Jake. And, you know, how we got started.”

  The sick feeling turned into a sinking feeling. “What about it?”

  He shrugged and started to speak, then stopped. After a moment, he turned to me. “I guess I’m just trying to be realistic about all of this. About us.”

  “We can’t change how things got started between us.”

  “I know.” He ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip. “I just keep going back to this whole trust thing. With all the bullshit we keep running into about trust-”

  “I trust you.”

  He sighed and squeezed my hand gently. “I know you do.” The silence hung between us for a moment, loudly emphasizing what he didn’t say.

  I pursed my lips. “I don’t know what else I can do to convince you to do the same.”

  “Zach, it goes beyond just you. It even goes beyond Jake.” He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “The way we met got us off on the wrong foot, but even with that aside, my track record with guys is…” He paused and shook his head. “The one before him was just as bad. Worse, even.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek, then touched his arm. “What happened?”

  He closed his eyes again, taking another long, deep breath. “I lived with a guy. Name was Stephen. In law school. We met when we were first-year students, split during our third year.” He was quiet for a moment, his gaze fixed on something, his lips tightening into that familiar almost-a-snarl line. “Fuck, anything you can think of that a guy can do to be an ass, he did it. Treated me like shit. Stole from me. Drank too much. Cheated on and off me.”

  “Cheated on and off you?” I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

  He laughed bitterly. “Apparently cheating on me with another guy wasn’t enough. He also used one of my papers to cheat in a class we had together. Damn near got us both thrown out of school, but fortunately, I convinced the dean that I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “And you stayed with him for two years because?”

  “Same reason I stayed with Jake for four years.” He didn’t sound so angry now. Sad, if anything. “Because I loved him.”

  And right now, I hate them both. “I guess love is blind, isn’t it?”

  “Or stupid.” He shrugged. “So between Stephen and Jake, my love life has been rather disastrous. In fact, Stephen…” He shifted a little on the bed, as if the conversation made him physically uncomfortable. “That bastard is the reason I prefer to give rather than receive.”

  Ice water surged through my veins. “Fuck, is there anything he didn’t do to you?”

  “He never forgot my birthday.”

  “Oh, what a charmer.”

  “So, after all the shit with those two,” he said, “I’m sure you understand why trust and I aren’t very good friends.”

  “I’ve understood that from the beginning,” I said, trying to hide my frustration behind sympathy. “I just don’t know how to get us past it.” How the hell was I supposed to compete with the Ghosts of Nathan’s Fucked-Up Past? No matter what I did to prove that I was worthy of h
is trust, all he heard was the lies of his past.

  He trailed his fingers along my shoulder. “Zach, you get where I’m coming from, don’t you?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I do.” I understood, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating. This was the first relationship I’d ever had that didn’t start with at least a basic foundation of trust. Neutrality, at least, the assumption that both parties were innocent until proven guilty.

  Before we even knew each other’s names, we’d distrusted each other. We’d started out in a way that couldn’t possibly be conducive to any kind of lasting relationship because this wasn’t supposed to become any kind of lasting relationship. We’d been thrown together by lies, drawn back together by physical attraction, and now teetered precariously because we lacked the one thing no relationship could function without.

  I didn’t want to lose him, but I didn’t know how to keep him.

  Nathan released a long breath and rubbed his eyes. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing and if he’d come to the same conclusions. It doesn’t matter how great a house is if it’s built on sand. Sooner or later, it’s going to come down. With a sick feeling twisting in my gut, I wasn’t sure if I should try to find a way to put us on solid ground, or just come to terms with the fact that it was a lost cause.

  His hand sought mine and clasped it gently, running his thumb alongside my hand.

  I swallowed hard. There has to be a way. Looking up at the ceiling, I chewed my lip, trying to think of something. Anything.

  A thought crossed my mind that gave me pause. Did I dare? I cast a surreptitious glance at him, watching him stare at the ceiling, his brow knitted together. This could work or it could seriously blow up in my face, if he even agrees to do it.

  This was something I’d never even thought to do without having someone’s complete trust, so I questioned the wisdom of even considering it. Then again, maybe the best way to get him to trust me was to convince him to jump in with both feet. To just do it.

  Was it worth the risk?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked after a long silence.

  I sat up, swallowing hard. “You want to trust me, right?”

  He exhaled. “I do, I definitely do.”

  Leaning away, I reached for the nightstand drawer. “If you want to trust me…” When I came back, I looked at him, watching his eyes widen at the pair of handcuffs hanging from my outstretched hand. “Then trust me.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Nathan’s eyebrows lifted slowly as he eyed the handcuffs in my hand. Then he swallowed hard and his gaze rose to meet mine. Darted back to the cuffs. Back to me.

  “Are you-” He glanced at the cuffs again. “Are you serious?”

  I shrugged, the subtle movement jarring the handcuffs and making the chain rattle slightly. Nathan shivered.

  “It’s your call, but I’m willing to if-” I hesitated. “If you trust me.”

  He chewed his lip and neither looked at me nor the cuffs in my hand. My heart pounded. This was a bad idea. What the fuck was I thinking?

  “Nathan-”

  His eyes suddenly met mine, but the movement didn’t seem to be in response to his name. The way he drew a breath and shifted his posture-losing the uncertain expression in both face and body-struck me as coming from something in his mind. An end to an internal debate, a conclusion drawn.

  Moistening his lips, he simply nodded.

  “Are you sure?”

  Another nod.

  “First things first,” I said. “Safe word. You know how that works, right?”

  “I say it, everything stops.”

  “Exactly. Any ideas?”

  He shrugged. “How about just ‘stop’?”

  I shook my head. “Has to be something neither of us would use normally during sex at all. Like a color or something.”

  Grinning, he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to say ‘stop’ during sex with you.”

  “You know what I mean.” I laughed. “There has to be a big different between ‘stop that’ and ‘stop everything’.”

  “Okay, how about…” He thought for a second. “Cigarette?”

  I shrugged. “Works for me.” Nervous smoker. Thinking about smoking. Yeah, I’m definitely making him nervous. I cleared my throat. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

  “As sure as I’ll ever be.” He gave me a reassuring smile.

  I inhaled slowly, hoping he didn’t see my own nervousness. Though he seemed less uncertain now, I couldn’t say the same about myself. Was this really a good idea? I’d never done BDSM unless I was one hundred percent certain that I had the other person’s trust. But in this case, I could think of no other way to gain his trust than to ask for it this way-make him take the leap of faith out of his comfort zone-and not take advantage of it.

  Yet I was the one who was nervous. This could blow up in my face so easily, almost too easily. A wrong move. Pushing him too far. Even letting him sense my own worries. This could be five steps forward or ten back.

  Do not fuck this up, I warned myself.

  “Give me your hand,” I said quietly.

  Without even flinching, he did so, extending the arm closest to me. I held his wrist gently, my eyes flicking back and forth between his arm and his face in search of a sign, any sign, that he wasn’t as comfortable with this as he let on, but he gave me nothing. No subtle recoil when I touched him, no goose bumps when the cuffs creaked open, no bob of the Adam’s apple or sweep of the tongue across his lips.

  The knot in my gut loosened. Maybe he really is okay with this. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Then the cuff touched his wrist.

  Twin shudders rippled up his arm and spine, ending in a sharp intake of breath. He swallowed hard, and his eyebrows jumped as his gaze darted toward the cuff, which was still open. Pressed against his skin, probably colder to him than it was to me, but open.

  I looked at him, making no move to bind him until he gave me the go-ahead. “You okay?” I asked.

  Warily, he eyed the space between us where hands and metal intersected, the crossroads that seemed to have caught him off guard. It was a simple thing, a thin piece of metal encircling his wrist, but it put him at my mercy. Under my control. For someone as unpleasantly acquainted with trust as Nathan, it was a simple but terrifying thing.

  His arm didn’t move. Neither did my hands. I needed him to tell me whether to proceed or back away. I had a feeling he needed me to tell him which way to go. We’d reached an impasse. A stalemate.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed again. The unspoken safe word hung in the air, waiting to be said.

  I started to speak, but his other hand moved. Slowly, but not hesitantly, he reached across to where our hands were still in suspended animation. His fingers nudged mine away from the open cuff and panic lodged my breath in my throat. Shit, shit, I shouldn’t have-

  Metal creaked. Clicked.

  I looked down just as he moved his free hand away.

  He’d closed the cuff around his own wrist.

  Our eyes met briefly. I took a breath and nodded toward his hand, then the headboard. He raised his hand over his head, letting it rest on the pillow. The other cuff clanged against one of the slats. Nathan shivered, but he seemed to try to suppress it. He was nervous, but willing. Uneasy, but still here.

  I laced the other cuff between the vertical slats, then brought it around and gestured for him to give me his free hand. With only the slightest hint of reluctance, he obeyed.

  I closed the cuff around his wrist, tightening it enough to prevent him from slipping his hand free, but still leaving some room for him to move.

  “Is that comfortable?” I asked.

  He gulped. “Comfortable isn’t the word I’d use.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.” He paused, glancing up at the silver shackles around his wrists. With less certainty than before, he added, “It’s fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

&nbs
p; He nodded. “So, um…” He cleared his throat, probably trying to hide his nerves. “What exactly are you planning to do?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  He hesitated, straining to look at his bound hands. “Yes.”

  I bent to kiss him. “Then don’t worry about it.” I knew it unsettled him, the vulnerability of restraint, but whether he knew it or not, he was more in control than I was. Any control he surrendered, he did so willingly. The more he surrendered, the longer he let me bind him this way, the more he’d understand that I wouldn’t hurt him. If he could grasp that physically, maybe he’d understand it emotionally, too.

  Still, I wasn’t in this to completely freak him out. I guided his fingers to the quick release on each side of the handcuffs. “If you want to open them, just push that switch.” I did exactly that, and the cuff fell open. With just that momentary freedom, or simply the knowledge that an easy escape was close by, his entire body relaxed. Even when I fastened the bracelet around his wrist again, only some of the nervous tension returned.

  His thumb wandered over the release tab, testing it, though not enough to actually open the cuff. Then his eyes darted toward me. “Isn’t that what the safe word is for?”

  “It is,” I said. “But the safe word only works if you say it and I comply with it-” His eyebrows jumped, his body tensing and his thumb pressing a little harder on the release. I quickly added, “Which, of course, I will. But this way…” I nodded toward his hands. “You have a way out that’s within your control.”

  At that, he visibly relaxed. He exhaled and laced his fingers together, evidently satisfied that his escape switch was close enough for his comfort. I took that as a good sign.

  “Guess you get to be in control this time.” He laughed nervously as I sat up.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  “Sort of?”

  I ran my fingertips down his chest and abs, biting my lip when his muscles quivered at my touch. “Handcuffs or no,” I said, “I’m never completely in control when I’m around you.”

  “If you-” He sucked in a breath as my fingers trailed over his hipbone. “If you haven’t been, then you’ve been fooling me.” There as an almost imperceptible lilt in his voice, a nervous sound, as if he was searching for uncertainty in me. Or reassurance that he hadn’t just agreed to surrender control to someone who was on the verge of losing it himself.