The Administration Series (170 page)

Warrick took off his jacket, folded it carefully with the lining outermost, and then knelt on it.

"Hard floor," he explained.

"Not the only thing."

Warrick laughed and slid his hands up Toreth's thighs to frame the front of the thong. "So I can see."

He'd expected Warrick to rush, to get the treat over with before anyone spotted them. However, he didn't. For all the calm, unhurried concentration he put into it, they might have been safely back at the flat. Toreth shifted his feet on the floor and braced his shoulders, pushing forwards into the spine-curlingly wonderful enclosure of Warrick's mouth.

"Mmh. That's good," he murmured. Keeping his voice down, for Warrick's sake.

Toreth barely even registered the clink of metal on metal as Warrick fastened the chain between his wrists to the clasp on the wall. So that was why he'd moved him. Toreth smiled, not opening his eyes. Not caring. If Warrick kept doing that with his tongue, he could chain him to any fucking thing he wanted to.

The warm flush of the fresh drug, working beautifully, sharpened the need. How many times this evening? He couldn't remember, only knowing that he ached, so ready, and he thrust forward again. Warrick shifted his hands to his hips, gripping hard, pinning him back.

Get on with it, Toreth begged silently. Please. Get —

Noise penetrated the dizzying tide of sensation. Voices and laughter, loud and close, and he forced his eyes open.

The deserted alcove was deserted no longer. People surrounded them. A small crowd, in fact. Spectators.

"Warrick." He tugged on the chain then nudged Warrick's chest with his knee. "
Warrick
."

Warrick lifted his head, the rush of his mouth withdrawing quickly proving almost too much. Oh, God. Why had he said anything? Warrick would —

To his astonishment, Warrick glanced round, then smiled up at him. "Do you want me to stop?"

Intending to think about it, Toreth found himself shaking his head fervently.

"Very well."

He moaned as Warrick renewed the assault, choking the sound back as best he could. How much noise had he made already?

It took a minute or so before the change in technique registered. Warrick had been playing with him before, stretching things out. Teasing. Now, the teasing had slipped into outright torture. Too light, too shallow. It would have provoked a sinking feeling, if his nervous system had possessed the spare capacity.

Once — oh, God, a long time ago now — Warrick hadn't been quite so good at this, at least not in the real world. Never bad, never even average, but not as incredible as he was right now. He didn't know whether it was the drugs, or the evening, or the people watching (and he couldn't help looking down, just to see Warrick on his knees in front of an
audience
), but this was good. This was better than the sim, which considering Warrick didn't need to breathe in there was pretty fucking . . .

Then Warrick's head dipped forwards, taking him all the way in before pulling back quickly, and Toreth couldn't stop the moan.

He bit his lip, eyes squeezed shut, head back against the wall. Clenching his fists, he tried to concentrate on the shapes the bricks made, pressing into his back. Not here. Warrick wasn't going to make him do it here. In the sim, yes, and sometimes in the real world, but never when anyone else could hear. Things he didn't tell Sara.

Why
had he taken another one of those bloody tablets?

"Please."

Christ, that was loud. Had it been him? Couldn't have been.
That
was him, though, panting for breath. He licked his lips and tasted salty sweat. It seemed as if the crowd heated the space around them and sucked the oxygen from the air.

It had to be soon, or he was going to . . . he was . . .

"Warrick, please." Trying to keep his voice low. Was that a muffled chuckle in return? The plea certainly earned him a few sweet seconds of deeper, firmer suction, before Warrick pulled back. Toreth had never previously imagined circumstances under which you might regret teaching someone to deep throat.

There was . . . such a thing . . . as being too good a teacher.

Still, at least it left no doubt that this was quite deliberate. No doubt as to what Warrick wanted.

Toreth could say the safe word. Warrick's safe word — he'd never needed one of his own before. Or the sim cut-out word — that might work. If he'd thought of it five minutes earlier, he might have tried it. Now, desperate messages from his cock seemed to be short-circuiting the neurons he needed to articulate the words.

"Please." He didn't have any trouble saying that, though.

What Warrick wanted. Oh, God. All he had to do was
ask
and who the hell cared if there were people watching?

Not him. He only cared that they were listening. He couldn't. He gritted his teeth. No, not couldn't. He
wouldn't
.

'What I don't want or need is public humiliation'.

This was exactly Warrick's idea of suitable payback. Unfair, when Toreth hadn't even —

A noise pulled him back to greater awareness. Whimpering, escaping through his clenched teeth. Oh, God. Was that as bad as begging? Worse? Did it mean that now he finally could —?

Fight it. Keep fighting it.

"Jesus fucking
Christ
, Warrick, please. Finish it. Please. Mmh,
yes
." Deeper with every word, Warrick's mouth moving faster. Worth any amount of humiliation, and even as he paused to think that, he felt Warrick draw away again. The chain snatched at his wrists as he reached to stop him.

"God, no. Don't stop. Please. Keep it . . . don't stop. Keep going. Let me. Let me, please. Don't. Keep . . . more. Yes, Warrick, please. Please.
Please
."

On and on, stumbling over the words, dimly aware that he wasn't making much sense, and that it didn't matter because even if Warrick stopped, it would soon be far, far too wonderfully late —

Now
.

Toreth arched against the wall, bound hands scrabbling at the smooth bricks as he felt Warrick's mouth tightening round him, swallowing. The desperate effort not to scream as he came made him certain his head was about to explode. Moaning aloud anyway, through the aftershocks, until it was finished.

He felt the chain give as Warrick unclasped it from the wall, and he slid gratefully to his knees, leaning heavily against his tormentor. Warrick's hands caught him and steadied him, stroking down his back.

Inhale. Exhale. Suddenly very complicated.

Toreth couldn't manage to keep his head upright — he pressed his face into Warrick's shoulder, panting for breath, the applause from the audience sounding dull and distant. Christ, it felt so fucking good: golden haze of the drug, the flood of endorphins and Warrick's delicious, unmistakable smell.

"You bastard. You complete fucking bastard," he whispered once he could speak.

"Me?" Warrick said in mock surprise.

In the background, the applause had fragmented and stuttered into a hum of conversation. Just another ten minutes' entertainment. They didn't even bloody
care
.

"That wasn't fucking funny."

"I thought you enjoyed it." Warrick kissed his collar. "You could've said stop."

"No, I couldn't."

"So, was it worth waiting all evening for?" Warrick sounded so smug that Toreth was tempted to tell him he'd done nothing of the kind. Bit late to change the story now, though.

He took a deep breath. "Know what?"

"What?"

"I hate you." He tried again, struggling for conviction. "I absolutely fucking hate you."

"Really?"

"No." Another breath, his heart finally steadying. "Have they gone?"

Warrick's shoulder shifted as he looked around. "No one's particularly watching us, if that's what you mean."

Toreth sat back on his heels, fully intending to be furious just as soon as the treacherous, mellowing effect of the orgasm faded. Tuesday, maybe.

"What time is it?" he asked inconsequentially.

"Ah . . . a little after half past two."

That late? Toreth tried to add up the hours they'd spent there, and failed. He struggled to his feet. "Let's go."

"Very well." Warrick stood too, picking up his jacket and brushing it down. "But first . . ."

"What?"

"Well, the entertainment this evening has been rather one-sided." Warrick looked round the room. "And we did agree either, if either of us wanted to."

The chill Toreth had felt in the restaurant settled over him again. "
I
haven't touched anyone else."

"Your going first was part of the arrangement, was it?"

"Y — no, it wasn't." No way would Warrick genuinely forget something like that.

"In any case, I think the blonde in the gold dress and the boy with the cat mask have rendered the entire question somewhat moot." Warrick's tone didn't change in the slightest. "Along with, I imagine, various others."

Oh, fuck.

"How
old
was he, incidentally?" Warrick asked.

"I —" Toreth swallowed, trying to work up some saliva. "I have no fucking clue. Old enough to have had all his jabs and be let out at night."

"I see. Anyway, I think that the 'either' phase of the agreement has been thoroughly invoked." Another survey of the cellar as he put on his jacket and straightened it meticulously. "If I can find anyone willing, that is."

If
? He looked at Warrick, once more perfectly — irresistibly — dressed. Dark hair only slightly disarrayed, thoughtful expression, lips still a little moist and . . . Jesus, they'd be trampled in the stampede.

Trapped by his own plan, Toreth stood chained in miserable silence, watching as Warrick eyed up the crowd with every evidence of serious intent. All his own stupid fault for making assumptions. He wanted to say, please, don't. To beg again, if that was what it took. Anything so he wouldn't have to watch Warrick being pleasured by someone else. Hear him coming for someone else. Why the hell had he been so sure Warrick wouldn't want to?

He could walk away and wait for Warrick to do it and find him afterwards, but that would be even worse, because then he wouldn't know what or who. The picture built quickly in his mind — someone just like him, tall and blond but fifteen years younger and hung like a horse. Warrick against the wall, or kneeling, or —

Toreth took a deep breath. "Come home and
I'll
fuck you." Even if it took extra chemical assistance, which after that it might well.

Warrick turned back to him, shadowed eyes unreadable in the dim light. "Mm?"

"I'll fuck you. Or you can fuck me. I'll do whatever you want. Suspension fuck. Gag and blindfold. Fist fuck. Hours in chains. Anything." The things Warrick wouldn't do here, not even in a private room. At least Toreth hoped not — right now he wasn't so sure. "I'll wear this fucking collar all night, if you like."

After a long moment, Warrick returned to his survey of the room. "I have a confession to make."

Please, God, no. Not already. Toreth waited, not wanting to hear it, until the silence forced him to ask, "What?"

"I called the Shop and asked Fran about the dress code."

Taken completely by surprise, Toreth stared. "You did
what
?" he asked eventually.

Warrick turned back to him, a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. "For some unfathomable reason, the request to wait until you arrived before I dressed made me suspicious. So I decided to establish the ground rules for the evening from source."

"Hang on. You knew all along I was — " lying, " — wrong about it?"

"Quite so."

"But you didn't think you'd tell me?"

"Also true."

Toreth looked down at the thong, and at the leash trailing down his chest.

"So you got me to — " He looked up sharply as the logical conclusion hit him. "You never meant to fuck anyone else, either, did you?"

"Now, that I hadn't quite made my mind up about." Then Warrick smiled. "But no. Not since we arrived."

"You . . . " You bastard.

"After all, with you here, I'm hardly likely to find anyone who appeals more, am I?"

The sheer relief — and outrageous flattery — did a lot to cancel out the anger, and the knowledge that Warrick must have been counting on that didn't make the slightest difference.

Still smiling, Warrick rested his wrists on Toreth's shoulders, linking his hands behind his neck. After a long, thoughtful inspection, he said, "So . . . still think you need to remind me how to play the game?"

Toreth laughed, a little unsteadily, not yet entirely believing the reprieve. "No. You win. This time."

"Mm. And do I get a prize?"

Oh, yes. Oh, very definitely yes. He didn't need to say anything, and after a few seconds, Warrick dropped his gaze and shivered.

"If you turn round," Warrick said, "I'll undo the cuffs and we can leave." Not a bad attempt at steadiness, but Toreth knew him much too well to be fooled.

"Sounds good to me."

As Toreth turned, the hasp in the wall caught his eye. He smiled, thinking of the chains back at his flat, or of the cabinet at Warrick's — planning a suitable reward for such a comprehensive victory. They hadn't played like this for a long time.

After Warrick unbuckled the cuffs, Toreth turned back slowly, rubbing his wrists, and then held out his hand. "Let me have them." Warrick surrendered the bonds, the links rattling as he shivered again. Toreth took a step closer. "Take off the collar, too."

A brief hesitation — one last, lingering look at the collar in place — then Warrick obeyed.

It was, Toreth thought, nice to be off the leash again.

"Good. And now . . . " Toreth darkened his voice, drawing out the pause as he watched Warrick's eyes widen, his lips part. "Now
you
put it on."

Even though he couldn't move, it was a lovely dream.

All his limbs heavy with the paralysis of sleep, but nothing frightening about it. Usually, not being able to move in a dream made it a nightmare. This was nothing of the kind. He couldn't run, but that was okay, because he had no desire to do anything of the kind.