by Dare, Kim
Jamie nodded, rubbing his heated cheek against the mattress.
When Darren stepped back, taking his hands away, Jamie took a deep breath. A moment passed and Jamie’s mobile phone appeared on the mattress right next to his hand.
“You can ring me if you need to, otherwise just come down to the bar when you’re ready,” Darren said.
One final pat on his arse and Jamie heard him walk away. The door opened and closed behind Darren. Jamie was left all on his own.
The room seemed incredibly quiet without Darren’s overarching presence. The pulsing pleasure that had reverberated through the space was gone now. Jamie slowly levered himself up off the pile of pillows.
Rolling over to lay on Darren’s side of the bed, Jamie stared up at the ceiling as if he’d never seen a roof above his head.
He pushed one hand through his hair, it was all messed up by the straps that had passed across it, fixing his bondage in place. Jamie’s other hand rested idly on the bed next to him, he moved it slowly, until his fingertips brushed against leather. The collar…
Jamie let his eyes drop closed. Without any orders leaving his brain, his fingers wrapped tightly around the leather. God, it felt good. He had no willpower left to resist picking it up and holding it up in front of his face.
He blinked his eyes open and stared up at it.
A collar…
After all the time he’d spent thinking about wearing one, imagining what it would feel like to have another man’s mark wrapped around his throat, it was right there in his hand.
After all the time he’d spent staring at the other man across the office, he finally had the option of belonging to him, and Darren wasn’t even there to help him make that decision.
It would have been so easy if the dominant had been standing there in front of him. Jamie knew he’d do anything for Darren and not even stop to think.
“Bastard,” Jamie whispered. He was willing to bet almost anything that Darren had bloody well known it would be a hundred times harder for him to choose to wear his collar when he wasn’t there.
Hell, it would have been so easy for him to make the decision if Darren had even hinted that he’d let him come as soon as the leather was wrapped around his neck. There were very few things that Jamie could think of that he wouldn’t do if it led directly to permission to orgasm.
Sitting up, still holding the collar up in front of his face, unwilling to take his eyes off it, even for a moment, Jamie shuffled toward the edge of the bed. He soon sat exactly where Darren had been sitting when he took the collar from his backpack. Jamie’s buttocks clenched at the thought.
The rest of the weekend—that’s what Darren had said. But even if that was all Darren was offering him, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it? Even if the weekend wasn’t destined to be the start of something he’d hoped would last a hell of a lot longer than any holiday, it would still be something, some good memories to look back on.
Jamie rolled his shoulders and tried to work the lingering soreness out of them, but his gaze still didn’t move away from the collar.
The decision was his. Darren wasn’t there to help him.
Jamie took a deep breath and finally made his choice, all on his own. Setting the collar carefully down on the bedside table, Jamie pulled himself to his feet and walked across to the chair where he’d tossed his clothes.
Chapter Three
“What can I get you?”
Darren reluctantly tore his gaze away from the door leading from the hotel foyer into the bar. He glanced over his shoulder. The guy behind the bar smiled politely back at him.
“Nothing, thanks.” Darren turned back to the door.
“What about an introduction to—?”
Darren turned to face the other man—Matt according to his name tag. He was cute. If Darren had been there alone, he might have given in to the temptation to flirt. As it was, he could barely spare him a second glance. “I don’t need any help getting laid, thanks.”
“Friendly ear willing to listen to you bitch about him until you’re ready to make up?” Matt hazarded.
Darren fully intended to glare at the other man, right up until the moment he turned around and saw the look on Matt’s face. Darren’s lips twitched into a small smile. “Is it actually in the staff contract that you can’t let a guy sit alone and not look as if he’s completely thrilled with the world?”
Matt’s frustrated expression eased into a smile. “Yep. You’re going to be forced to enjoy yourself the whole time you’re here, under pain of being pestered by someone like me if you don’t.”
Darren managed a chuckle, but it wasn’t easy when his stomach was still clenched in knots. Where the hell was Jamie?
Glancing down, Darren checked his phone to make sure the signal was still strong and he hadn’t missed a call from his lover. Then, he looked back to the door again. Nothing. How much longer could it possibly take him? Finally, Darren turned his attention back to the bartender.
“I’ll tell you what you can do,” he offered. “At some point, my…friend is going to turn up. If he’s wearing a leather collar, we’ll both have a lemonade.”
“That doesn’t sound too difficult,” Matt said, cautiously.
“But if Jamie’s not wearing a collar,” Darren continued, even as his throat damn near closed up at the possibility. He took a deep breath and pushed on. “Then, I’ll have as much whisky as you can fit into the first glass you lay hand on.”
Matt nodded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then he seemed to promptly forget that Darren was sitting there. He stared over Darren’s shoulder in silence for several seconds.
“Your friend, Jamie,” Matt said slowly. “Early twenties, blond, cute, slightly nervous looking?”
Darren spun around on his barstool. His gaze darted around the room, desperate to find Jamie. When he finally did, Darren realized that what he’d felt while he was waiting for his friend wasn’t real panic. This was real panic.
Jamie turned his head, spotted Darren and stepped forward.
His jeans and t-shirt hid most of his body, but there was still some bare skin on display. Most notably of all, there wasn’t a damn thing covering Jamie’s neck.
Darren watched, paralyzed, as Jamie came closer and closer. There was no way in hell the collar could be hiding behind the neckline of his t-shirt. The fabric lay far too low down Jamie’s throat, but somehow Darren still found himself studying the thin cotton, hoping against hope that a tiny bit of black leather would appear above the light blue fabric.
“Hi.”
Darren said nothing. He wasn’t sure he had the ability to make his vocal cords work without giving away far too much.
Jamie stood just a few steps away from him, shuffling his feet. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets. He couldn’t have looked more nervous if he’d tried. Darren managed to lift his gaze from Jamie’s neck to his lips just in time to see Jamie’s tongue creep out to moisten them.
“I, um…”
Finally, something inside Darren’s brain kicked into gear. He couldn’t just let Jamie stand there and suffer, getting more and more embarrassed by the moment. The protective instinct their scene had called up inside him couldn’t be dismissed just because the submissive apparently didn’t want to play anymore. Darren cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he said.
He turned back to face the bar. A large double whisky sat directly in front of him on the polished stone surface. Darren looked up. Matt was still standing on the other side of the bar, but he didn’t meet Darren’s gaze. He looked just as embarrassed on Darren’s behalf as Jamie did.
“Jamie, can I get you a drink?” Matt asked, as the silence stretched out.
Relief flooded through Darren’s veins. He closed his eyes for a moment, silently thanking any God who was listening for prompting Matt to distract Jamie and allow him a few moments to pull himself together.
No answer was given. A hand came to rest on Darren’s arm. Leather brus
hed against his wrist.
The collar was in Jamie’s hand. Darren gawped at the strip of leather as if he’d never seen it before in his life, as if he hadn’t picked it out from the shop and packed it in his luggage just a few days before.
“I told you to leave it in the room if—”
“But leaving it there would have meant I didn’t want to belong to you, wouldn’t it?” Jamie cut in. His words weren’t loud, but there was no weakness in them either.
Darren met his friend’s eyes and held his gaze for several long seconds. He hardly ever remembered hearing him sound so confident about anything that wasn’t directly related to their work.
“You see, the thing is.” Jamie paused to clear his throat. “I’ve been imagining getting collared for a long time. And for the last few months, you’re the one I’ve been picturing doing the collaring. I’ve imagined it happening lots of different ways—but never once when I was on my own in a hotel room, and you weren’t even there, let alone the one doing up the buckle.”
As Jamie’s words slowly registered in his brain, and the various cells and neurons started to fire into action, Darren reached out and tried to take the collar from Jamie’s hand, without ever looking away from his eyes. It would have been a far easier task to accomplish if Jamie had been willing to let go of the other end of it.
“I’m not saying I don’t want it,” Jamie rushed out, his words almost tripping over themselves in their haste to be heard. “Just that I…”
“Just that you decided that the two options I gave you before leaving our room weren’t enough. You decided to make up your own third option instead?” With each word he said, his faith in his voice, and his control of the situation, grew stronger.
“Um… Yes?” Jamie ventured.
“Not the most submissive thing to do,” Darren pointed out. He squared his shoulders and tilted back his chin, once more ready for anything the world could throw at him.
Jamie didn’t say a word. He didn’t even breathe.
“So it’s lucky I’ve always admired honesty more than a strict adherence to convention,” Darren went on.
As if his words truly held the power of life and death over the submissive, Jamie seemed to remember how to draw air into his lungs when he heard them.
“On your knees.”
“Here?”
Darren raised an eyebrow at Jamie. “Is there a word you want to say?”
The submissive turned and looked around the bar. There were quite a few guys in there now. Whatever happened between them would be watched by an audience, unless he said his safe word.
Returning his gaze to Darren’s face, Jamie met his eyes. All nervous fidgeting stopped. Jamie turned very still, his movements very controlled.
He slowly lowered himself to his knees in front of Darren’s stool. If Jamie was aware that the other men in the bar were now all watching them with just as much interest as Darren had anticipated, he gave no sign of it. Darren felt every ounce of the other man’s attention focus in on him, and it was so easy to believe that Jamie had forgotten anyone else in the world existed.
This time, when Darren tried to pull the collar from the other man’s grip, Jamie released his end of the strip of leather without the slightest protest. He dropped his hands to hang idly at his sides. Darren smiled, as he watched Jamie’s hands clench into fists. A moment later, Jamie shoved them into his pockets as if that would somehow hide his nerves from Darren—as if he’d ever be able to hide anything from Darren now.
“You said you’d thought about me collaring you,” Darren said.
Jamie looked up at him, big, blue eyes rapidly blinking his confusion. It was only then that he appeared to realize he’d confessed to doing any such thing. “Yeah,” he whispered, very softly. “I did.”
“When you were jacking off?”
Jamie nodded.
“You won’t be allowed to do that once I’ve actually put the collar on you. There’ll be no playing with your cock without my permission.”
Jamie swallowed rapidly. His head jerked up and down. It was probably another attempt to nod, but it looked more like he was a puppet whose strings had been cut. And now, the marionette was helpless until a master picked up the controls and guided him via new strings—strings made of leather rather than boring old cord.
Darren stroked his fingertips across Jamie’s throat, back and forth until he felt the vibrations of a whimper stir the other man’s vocal cords. Blood pumped through the veins beneath his touch, air rushed down his throat and in to his lungs.
Once he was willing to acknowledge his firm intention of doing so, it only took Darren a second to position the collar around Jamie’s neck. But then, Darren made him wait.
Staring down at Jamie, Darren studied every line of the other man’s posture, every nuance of expression on his face. There would be no going back after this, everything would change between them. There was no way in hell they would be able to face each other across the office and not think of themselves as a dominant or a submissive. Labels like that didn’t wash off after nothing more than a gentle scrubbing with a bit of soapy water.
Darren kept his expression serious as he finally fastened the collar in place. There would be plenty of time for grinning like a lunatic later. It was far more important that Jamie know he was taking the event seriously than that he was incredibly pleased with it. “This won’t come off for the rest of the weekend,” he ordered.
Jamie nodded. It was a far smoother gesture this time, as if he knew a new master had picked up his strings, too. “Okay.”
Darren took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, carefully allowing their respective roles to settle properly into place around them for the first time. One of them teasingly bossing the other around at the office was one thing, but this didn’t feel like a game anymore.
As if to underline that fact, Jamie didn’t seem to be in any rush to get off his knees. He stared up at Darren as if he really thought his lover had all the answers, and Darren couldn’t bear to disappoint him.
Lifting his gaze, Darren looked around them. Most of the patrons had realized nothing overly erotic was going to take place soon and had turned their attention elsewhere, but there were still quite a few guys watching them—including the bartender, who was now grinning like a fool. “Shall I get you those lemonades?” he asked.
Darren nodded his permission. “Thanks, we’ll have them out on the beach.” He pointed through the patio doors on the other side of the room, which led down to the sandy stretch of shore.
Matt nodded. The grin didn’t fade in the least.
Hooking his fingers into Jamie’s collar, Darren pulled at the leather, tugging his friend to his feet. With his hands still in his pockets, Jamie seemed content to let Darren be the one to make sure he retained his balance and didn’t end up falling flat on his face.
Darren didn’t let go of the collar as he walked Jamie out into the evening air and straight onto the sandy coastline that ran the entire length of the hotel front. The sand shifted beneath their feet, but Jamie’s trust in his master didn’t seem to waver at all.
Darren kept a firm hold on him, determined to prove Jamie’s trust was well placed. There would be no falling over on his watch!
Several broad leather sun loungers had been placed halfway down the beach. Perfect! Darren strode purposefully toward one, doing his best to ignore the way the sand crept into his shoes.
Darren sat down. A gentle pull brought Jamie to stand directly before him between his knees.
“Was putting the collar on in our room outside your limits?”
Jamie’s expression immediately turned wary. “Not really. I mean—”
Darren cut him off with a tug against his collar. “Yes or no.”
Jamie blinked down at him. Being temporarily taller than his dominant didn’t seem to be giving him any confidence. “No?”
“It was just something you didn’t want to do?” Darren asked.
“Yes.”<
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“And do you think that’s acceptable?” Darren asked.
Jamie nibbled at his bottom lip while he thought about that for a moment. “No.”
“So are you ready to accept a punishment for disobeying me?”
“Yes.” There was no pause to think about the answer that time.
Darren smiled slightly. “Just so you know, if you’d given the wrong answer to any of those questions, you’d have been over my lap, getting your bare arse spanked hard and fast until you begged me to stop.”
Jamie’s Adam’s apple moved against Darren’s fingers as he swallowed rapidly.
“But, since you gave the right answers then…” Darren said. He took his hand from the collar and leaned back, resting his hands on the leather behind him.
“Tell me?” Jamie finally whispered, when the silence drew out.
“Then you’ll still be turned over my knee and get your bare arse spanked—but this time it will be a pleasure spanking, and it will last until you beg me to let you come,” Darren said.
Jamie closed his eyes. Unless Darren was very much mistaken, his new submissive was trying very hard not to come in his jeans at the description of his reward. He could hardly wait to see what the reality of it would do to Jamie.
“Drop your jeans and your boxers, but don’t kick them off. Leave them around your ankles.”
Jamie didn’t look over his shoulder, but Darren still had no doubt the other man was thinking very carefully about the fact there were still quite a few other guys on the beach, laughing and joking, making out, admiring the night sky and the way the moonlight glinted off so many nearly naked bodies.
“Do you remember what I told you about your limits?” Darren said.
“I have to let you know if we hit into any of them,” Jamie whispered.
“And?” Darren prompted.
“I don’t mind people watching,” he said, slowly. “So long as they just watch.”
“No one but me is going to lay a hand on you,” Darren said, straightening up in his seat. “You belong to me, not them. I won’t forget that, I don’t expect you to either.”