If It Flies (Market Garden, #3)

“You a lawyer?”

Spencer’s grin died. “Uh. Never mind. Five hundred quid is fine.” He’d hardly need dozens of hours—he wasn’t trying to solve a tricky legal problem. Besides, he did believe in paying specialists what they were worth, and Nick was making him hard just with his cocky arrogance. If he was any good at fucking—and he’d likely had the practise—that would be more than worth it. Spencer swallowed. “I’m assuming I can feed the meter if I want to go on longer?”

An incredibly subtle laugh curled Nick’s lips. There was no middle ground with this man: either everything was blatant and in your face, or subtle to the point that Spencer couldn’t always tell if it was really there.

“Feed the meter. Cute.” Nick dipped his straw in his drink and covered it with his finger again. After he’d released the liquid into his mouth, swallowed it—God, he could even make that sexy, the way he raised his chin to expose his entire throat—he put the straw back in his drink and said, “We can always negotiate extensions.”

This was strictly business to him, wasn’t it? He enjoyed it, got a charge out of it, but when it came to transactions, it was all black and white. Cash and sex. Nothing more.

“Two hours, then.” Spencer tried not to shift around, keeping both his nerves and impatience as far up his sleeve as he could. “What does two hours with Nick get me, anyway?”

17

Nick grinned. Nothing subtle this time, not even a little.

“It gets you two hours with Nick.” The grin broadened a little more, pale green eyes narrowing like he could see right through to anything Spencer was trying to keep up his sleeve.

“After al , Spencer, what more could you possibly want?”

He gulped. Nick laughed. So much for hiding a damned thing from him.

Nick drained his drink and pushed the glass away, sliding up next to Spencer so they were almost touching. “So. Two hours? Let’s go.”

“Does that two hours start now?” Spencer was already sliding out of the booth because according to Nick this was a done deal, and who was he to argue? “Or when we get to—”

I’m really doing this? “—my place?”

Nick slid partway out of the booth, but didn’t get up.

He pursed his lips and ran his gaze up and down Spencer’s body, a gesture that registered on his nerve endings like an actual touch. Their eyes met, and Nick pushed himself to his feet. “Assuming you’re local, we’ll start the clock when we get there.”

Spencer’s heart pounded. His wallet had hoped for that answer, but his body wasn’t entirely sure what to do with two solid hours of Nick.

He’d find out soon enough, though. Nick pulled a black leather jacket over his otherwise bare torso. Spencer got up and—oh God—Nick gave a nod to Percy, who gave him a two-fingered salute before he resumed making out with a blue-haired black twink, and they were out the door.

The back door, fortunately, rather than through the lounge where the female strippers did their thing, and then down an alley to a different road from where the cab had 18

deposited Percy and him earlier. They had discretion down to a science in this place.

19





Chapter


threE


he backseat of the cab was less cramped than the Tbooth, but somehow felt . . . tighter? More intimate?

Perhaps because of the implication, what their presence in the vehicle actually meant. That must have been it, because it felt even more confining as Spencer gave the driver his address.

Or maybe it was because, as he worked out the details with the driver, he was being slowly and subtly ambushed by the leather-wrapped demon beside him. A hand over his thigh. A thumb dangerously close to his groin.

The cab pulled away from the club, and as Spencer sat back against the seat, Nick slid closer.

“I suppose now,” he murmured, a hint of taunting in his voice, “would be a good time to lay down the ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Spencer moistened his lips. “Such as . . .?”

“Customer’s always right,” Nick said. “You tell me.”

Spencer glanced at the cabbie, who hopefully could hear nothing on the other side of the glass window. “I’m assuming stuff like . . . condoms and all that is self-explanatory.”

“You’re assuming.” Nick grinned. “Would you bet your arse on it?”

Spencer wasn’t quite sure how this space, that could easily hold a wheelchair plus people, could be so crammed.

“Well, play nice, use lube . . . the works. Common courtesy.

It’s not . . . really that complicated, is it?” His nerves were showing. Again. But as far as negotiations went, arranging an arse-fucking was hardly sorting out a peace treaty in the Middle East.

20

“Well, one thing I hear often is ‘not in the face,’ or ‘no permanent marks’ . . .” Nick shrugged, then idly rubbed the area just to the side of a nipple piercing.