Chains and Canes (17 page)

Daniel’s role was to simply give over.

As soon as his knees made contact with the wood floor, his pale eyes turned glassy—from dominant to submissive with just one word. Remy felt the same flip, except he didn’t enjoy it nearly so much. If he could find a way to shed the doubts pushed up by his disgusting past, he’d never go back. He would stay this powerful for the rest of his life.

Daniel’s hands slipped to the small of his back. He hadn’t stepped away from the wall. His shiny loafers nestled at the line between mirror and floor.

And that suit. Just…holy damn. Impressive.
Immaculate.

Daniel was a gift.

Remy didn’t know much about suits, but he guessed there was little by way of padding or extra material. All that strength and steady posture was Daniel’s fiercely honed body. The man was the sort who’d run ten miles for the force of the burn. He didn’t crave endorphin hits like Naya did, but would a high-strung guy like Daniel bust his ass to shut off his brain? That made more sense, finding a zoned-out place on his own before he’d known any better.

All of it had forged a body that made Remy hungry. Seeing Daniel clothed in incredibly expensive suits made the act of getting him dirty even more exciting. The transition was part of the thrill, the in-between magic of muscles working and skin being revealed—with a dose of humiliation as Daniel worked hard to obey. To watch him strip was to mainline domination.

Remy was too impatient for that. He couldn’t wait, not after Daniel had dogged after him so relentlessly. He raked his fingertips through the man’s short-cropped hair.

“Everything is yours, isn’t it? The whole world your oyster and all that clichéd shit?”

He might’ve been tempted to mercy had Daniel dropped his gaze or given any submissive indication that he understood Remy’s black mood.

Instead Daniel’s mouth tweaked into a smirk that perfectly fit his roughly handsome features. His blunt jaw shifted. “Yes, yes. All that. I was handed my oyster on a silver platter while working out of my mom’s garage in south Baltimore, but it’s mine. You and Naya will have the portions you deserve. I want that for you, Remy.”

“Shut up,” Remy growled. He unhitched his belt buckle, while trapping Daniel’s head with his other hand. “What I want? Right now?” He trailed his thumb over Daniel’s perfectly shaped lips. “I want to fuck that rich mouth of yours. This time, I’m not stopping until I shoot my load down your throat.”

He’d expected Daniel to put up a fight about how they’d been talking about serious issues, and how Remy should grow up already. He’d heard that refrain plenty of times as a kid—an echo like birds squawking through trees choked by Spanish moss. It hadn’t made much sense to him then, not when bearing witness to meth overdoses meant growing up at eight. Seven.

Be honest. Six years old.

Daniel only parted his lips. He curled the tip of his tongue around Remy’s thumb, and he licked. Slowly. Tauntingly.

Remy pulled his throbbing cock from his pants. The tip glistening with precome took the place of his thumb. The satin slickness of Daniel’s bottom lip tempted him to close his eyes. Instead he planted his feet.

“Take me. Suck it.”

“Yes, Sir.” He pulled his head back an inch, which hit the mirrored wall with a dull thump.

Remy had him pinned.

He clasped both hands around Daniel’s head to increase the effect. They were a knot of power, most of it willingly given by Daniel, who opened his mouth to welcome the first inch of Remy’s cock.

Wet pressure. Sucking and pulling. Within seconds, he took Remy deep. Apparently their one exploratory session had inspired Daniel, because he acted like he knew what he was doing. He licked the underside of Remy’s shaft. His eyes turned up toward Remy with a porn star’s intensity, except this was real. Sincere. Daniel loved this—sucking Remy’s dick, taking half the shaft with as much relaxed calm as he could.

Remy shoved. Hips taut, he forced his prick all the way down, until Daniel’s throat closed around the head. He gagged briefly. His eyes fluttered shut. His cheeks hollowed on the force of the push.

Yet he recovered quickly. He took everything Remy thrust at him, no matter how rough or humiliating. Jesus Christ, he was gorgeous. Amazing. Daniel’s lashes sat across high cheekbones. The furrowed vertical line between his brows melted away.

“God, you look good.” He traced the lines that scored Daniel’s cheeks. Through that thin skin, he could feel the obscene swell of his own prick. “You’re a born cocksucker, boy.”

Daniel released Remy with a wet plop. “I like licking Naya too, Sir.”

“Of course you do.” He nudged toward Daniel’s lips, gratified to shove deep once again. “It’s service. It’s your way of giving to her. I bet you’ll like it even better when I tell you to kneel between her legs. When I’m ready to fuck your tight, virgin ass. Because you’ve never been taken by a man, have you?”

On a shudder, Daniel’s eyes rolled closed—answer enough. He never released the sucking intensity as he tended his task.

Good boy.

The wetness from his mouth pooled and eased down Remy’s tight balls. “Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re going to make me come so fast. That’s what you do. You serve me. You give to me. And you’ll give to Naya when I tell you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I didn’t tell you to stop. There’s a penalty for that.”

He locked both hands around Daniel’s head, clasping where the hair was the shortest—almost bristly against Remy’s palms. He fitted his cock to Daniel’s mouth—and shoved. Again. And again.

Another gag made Daniel cough and sputter. Lightning quick, he recovered and began to breathe through his nose. His icy eyes melted into a softer, unfocused blue. No one home. He’d let it all go. Remy fucked his mouth, over and over. Long, slow strokes layered pleasure from root to head. It was like jerking off at his own speed, controlling the pace, but with Daniel as the beginning and end of the pleasure.

The robust man in the business suit was pinned between Remy and the wall. Daniel tried to hold himself as steady as a sentinel, but Remy was going to win this one. He pushed even closer until Daniel’s head met the wall and stayed there. Nowhere else to go. He was immobilized. This captain of industry thought he could rearrange other people’s lives on a goddamn whim. Not now. Remy didn’t have diamond-encrusted toilets, but he had what he wanted.

He was out of the swamps, with Louisiana in the rearview mirror. Good enough. Daniel was downright cruel to dangle better things just out of reach. He was going to marry Naya. If they backed a dance company with Remy and it didn’t work out? Then what? Remy would be the one without a place. The one lost. He’d been lost for years and swore that would never be him again.

He
had
a place. His apartment and his job and
dancing
. They weren’t the biggest or best the world had to offer, but he lived with no regrets. The closest he’d come to a regret of late was misreading Naya so badly. No way would he risk fucking up worse than that, even if it meant backing away from them both. Completely.

Like hell.

He jerked his hips so that he dragged free of Daniel’s mouth. Grunting once, Daniel followed and captured the head of Remy’s cock. He licked from balls to head.

“Fuck. You want me to come, boy. You’re trying to make me explode in your mouth.”

Daniel nodded.

With a groan, Remy planted his hands on the wall, while Daniel returned his hands to the low center of his back. There was no protection between them. No padding. Just the cruel fuck Remy needed.

Daniel took it, protecting only his teeth. His throat opened. Heat and wet and fist-tight pressure. But the best part, the thing that really turned Remy’s crank, was how Daniel kept his gaze trained on Remy, the way intelligence and arrogance and insight faded into paler blue.

Submission.

From Daniel.

Naya was nowhere around. Just this man and Remy’s dick and Remy’s demands…

He came. Fast. Explosive. There was no such thing as holding back. Sensation jolted his chest in a hard pulse that plunged down his spine. White streaks slid across his vision. He’d forgotten to breathe. His air came back in great gasps.

“Motherfucker,” he hissed. “Take it. Take it all. Good boy.”

Daniel never wavered. He held his lips open, mouth wide, when Remy pulled back. White layered Daniel’s tongue. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Looked up at Remy, beautifully, obviously waiting for orders.

Voice rasping, Remy gave the word. “Swallow.”

Daniel obeyed.

Damn, he needed to collapse, but he wasn’t going to give Daniel the satisfaction. “You obey so well on some things. Not others. Why?”

Daniel’s usual spark rapidly returned, even as his mouth quirked. He recovered much faster than Naya, but then, pain made her fly incredibly high. “Might as well ask why the sky is blue.”

“Because it simply is?”

Remy hadn’t paid much attention in science class. He’d studied only enough to keep dancing at the school’s facilities and to keep from flunking out entirely. It had been a close call after Tracey resigned to create her own real family. Remy had lost the one person who’d believed he could be more—the one person he’d wanted to impress.

Daniel’s lips were glossy, reddened. Freshly fucked. Remy couldn’t look away.

“More like…” Daniel stopped and shrugged wide shoulders covered by fine charcoal-colored wool. “I don’t know right now, but give me time and I can figure it out.”

“Try. Now.” Remy needed to hear
something
, because even coming hadn’t made the jittery nerves disappear.

“Everything goes away. While I’m doing it. Not before, and not after. When I’m being obedient, there’s nothing in the world but what I’m giving you.”

Remy couldn’t hold back a shiver. “And that’s enough for you.”

Even now, Daniel’s cock pressed against the front of his tailored slacks. Remy remembered its thick, full beauty. Soon he’d get his hands on it. Right now the joy of making Daniel wait for release was more delicious.

“It’s not a matter of being enough,” Daniel said, so reasoned and thoughtful. “It’s what I’m beginning to need. May I stand?”

“Yes.”

He did so with much more elegance now. The crease down his slacks flicked into alignment. With the practice of a thousand times, he straightened his tie, where purple shone against his white button-down shirt. Remy should have wrapped that length around his wrist and used it as extra pressure. Maybe next time.

That he kept thinking of “next time” was goddamn idiotic.

Daniel’s lips jumped in that endearing near-smile. He pulled a matching dark blue handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit and patted excess moisture from his chin. “So, I’m learning that I want the middle—when I submit. But don’t think I’m someone else, Remy. I know exactly what I’m doing before and after. Like now, and how I never forgot about those.” He tipped his head toward the corner of the room.

Toward the camera.

“Holy shit,” Remy muttered.

He’d forgotten. After being the one to warn others about the cameras time and again, he’d given Declan quite the show—Declan, who happened to be Daniel’s close friend.

Only, Daniel didn’t seem upset. He was spinning out another half-smile.

“I did that for you, Sir. To make you happy. To let you know how far I’m willing to go for just that.” He adjusted what had to be one helluva hard-on. “If I made you happy, I’d like you to answer one question. Do you want to be a partner in a dance company with Naya? I’m not asking whether you think it will work or whether you deserve it. I have my own answers. I only need to know if you
want
it.”

Remy couldn’t lie to him. Simply couldn’t. Not when his quiet dreams were right there for the taking, and not when his honest answer was all Daniel asked as his reward.

“I want it.”

“Then dance your fucking heart out. Thursday through Saturday. Three shows. Because I’m still not telling either of you when I’m bringing my guests.”

Chapter Seventeen

They were sixty minutes from going on, and Naya couldn’t find Remy. This was their second performance of the weekend, which meant the odds that Daniel’s investors would accompany him to Club Devant were tipping toward likely.
Tonight, tonight, tonight,
she kept thinking. Her nerves were shot.

Dios mío,
her nerves probably explained why she hadn’t aimed higher than the chorus until now. It was easy to blend in. She was still learning to stand out. Only when she hit the stage and the lights electrified her blood did that anxiety drop away. Getting to that place was like dragging her feet through lava—slow and stinging, convincing her that whatever happened during the performance meant she’d never dance again.

Daniel believed in her
so much
. Their relationship was half based on his admiration for her dancing and on her never-ending need for his appreciation.

Now, with Remy, no matter what she and Daniel had agreed… What if that basis wasn’t strong enough? She was nervous as hell for so many reasons.

What if I said we weren’t perfect?

She’d agreed to Daniel’s proposed joint seduction of Remy because she wanted the wounded Cajun. She wanted a man she could call
Sir
without reservation or fear. The fear like a balloon in her chest was for her and Daniel. This would change them. With a shiver she admitted this could end them.

She braced both hands against a warm-up barre in her dressing room and lowered her head between them.
Lose Daniel.
The thought caused her physical pain. Yet after all he’d sacrificed for years, indulging and even encouraging her masochistic needs, how could she deny him this opportunity? It was his chance for self-discovery. She’d suffered through the aftermath when Patrick had left her, but she wouldn’t change what had taken place between them. She was a more complete person within herself, knowing the truth about who she was and what hungers she harbored.

Daniel needed that. They might suffer by taking this tremendous leap—this risk. But she couldn’t in good conscience marry him until they learned
his
truth. Because what if their definition of perfect was, on some level…
settling
? She didn’t want Daniel to settle, even if that risked their future.