Chapter 2

Leather. Black and smooth. Buckles and loops. Silver. Wrist cuffs. Colby's hand right there.

Jason stared at the tantalization, couldn't not look at Colby's graceful wrist, heard the pounding of his own pulse. Sheer lust. Crackling. Laced with astonishment.

They'd played with scarves. With rope, blue and satin sleek, not rough. Colby needed to be able to get out of any bondage on his own, and to know that he could—that was a hard limit—and he needed Jason to talk to him, to be there with him…but Colby also loved being captured and contained and overwhelmed, loved and claimed so completely…Jason knew he loved that…

They didn't have anything formal. Not like this.

And Simon had delivered it. On this night. On this night, disrupting all Jason's expectations.

"Did a bit of shopping." Simon's smile curved, dazzling, dangerous. "Knew you liked my bracelets. Of course you'll want Jason to buy you something proper, custom designed, so it's about the two of you, but I like this shop and I thought you might want a reminder."

"Oh…" Colby touched the first cuff, exploratory fingertips over black leather. "Oh, my…this…"

"You can tell him no," Ben said. "My husband is, as we've already established, sometimes too pushy. In need of discipline."

Simon grinned at him. "Love it. Love you, sir."

Jason felt his eyebrows go up. Of course Simon Ashley would say it outright, would push limits, to see what might happen. Jason had known that much from first meeting him, not to mention Colby's stories.

But Simon had said it easily, readily. As if sure that Jason and Colby wouldn't mind. And Colby didn't seem to mind…Colby was touching black leather, taking a cuff out of the box, and now looked up, eyes big and fascinated, chocolate hair falling in attractive rumpled waves, candlelight along the line of his arm under that pushed-up violet sleeve…

Jason swallowed. Heat slid under his skin.

Colby said, "Sir, you said…" and it was a question, with that inflection.

"Oh yes." Simon held out a hand. "Can I help you with that? Putting it on you, I mean. Yes, of course, I'm his, and I like it."

"You say it." Colby looked at Simon's outstretched hand, back at the leather, then at the heavy bracelet around Simon's wrist. "Out loud, I mean. You—the two of you—I mean, I know we talked about it, a bit…"

"Simon," Ben murmured, low.

"We did," Simon said, unrepentant, "and we concluded that you, darling, are not so secretly an absolutely adorable submissive twink with an utterly shameless penchant for being stuffed full and claimed and used in decadent ways by an enormous muscle mountain. I mean you," he added to Jason's open-mouthed wordlessness. "Of course you, obviously."

Jason couldn't talk. Words had imploded, collided, spun away. Colby, he thought. If his husband—his beautiful sweet at heart husband, who'd worked so hard to be able to enjoy sex and love and being touched at all—if Colby was horrified, or—

Colby was blushing. Pink across his cheekbones, his ears. Gazing at Simon.

Ben rumbled, "Okay, brat, you've made your point, and I'm gonna spank you for it, and it'll be pretty damn hard, too," and his tone was entertained but the authority had come out, deep and thorough and dominant in a way that left no question about consequences.

Colby, still pink, said, "Oh," and stopped, and licked his lips. "Er…that is…well, I think I'm too old to truly be a twink, these days…"

"No you're not," Simon said. "Trust me. You on that baking show, with the little glittery barrette in your hair, in that cuddly jumper with the rainbow buttons…oh, darling. You have no idea."

"Well…" Colby did the lip lick again. "The rest of what you said, though…yes, all right." This time he looked squarely at Jason. And the smile bloomed in his eyes, sunlight across bluebells. "All of it."

"Fuck," Jason said, inadvertently. Colby looking at him like that, Colby saying it aloud…right here, in their flat, at their dining table…that nice friendly table, which Colby could be bent over or lifted up onto, for tasting…if Ben and Simon weren't here, and how could he get them to leave, and could he just shove decorative steampunk centerpiece spheres aside and toss Colby onto flat smooth wood and get to the filling up and claiming…

He knew Colby was both shy and not, in complicated ways: genuine social anxiety, alongside old bruises and scars from vicious exes who'd been so cruel; but Colby when happy, among friends, would dive right into conversations about calligraphy or violin museums or werewolf romance novels. Colby liked hosting dinner parties and pleasing everybody who came over, and could deliver gloriously filthy innuendo in the world's most innocent fairytale accent, so smoothly that often people didn't realize until several minutes later. He'd once told an interviewer that he and Jason had a new favorite summer pasta recipe, because Jason could do marvelous things with an eggplant, entirely delicious.

At this point part of Jason's brain caught back up—the rest of his thoughts were trapped in the vicinity of the white hot rigid need in his pants—and he managed to say, "When did you two talk about this?"

"Simon texted me, in fact." Colby took a step closer to him, holding black leather. The silver rings gleamed in candlelight, suggesting control, fastening, restraint. Fantasies bespelled into existence. "To say he and Ben had bought me a present. Well, us. For both of us."

"For the record," Ben said, "I just planned to give them to you. Not to have my submissive talk about what you like in bed, out loud, when you've just had us over for dinner, and thank you again, by the way."

"Oh, well…" Colby took a deep breath. Put one hand on Jason's arm, possibly for support. "Of course you're always welcome. We're friends, after this, aren't we? That is—I think we are? If you'd like that?" That was a genuine question; Colby even now never quite believed that people truly liked him, Colby Kent-Mirelli, rather than the movie star persona.

Jason said, "They're our friends, babe," and put his hand over Colby's, for warmth, for reinforcement. They'd better be Colby's friends. Jason would ensure that, if his husband wanted it to happen.

At the same time, Ben was saying, "We want to be your friends, Colby, of course we are," and had also come over to Colby's side, shorter than both of them but firm and commanding; that dark brown voice, unassuming secret agent muscles, unquestionable control of a room and a mission. "Look at me, kitten. We like you, okay? And I'm honestly pretty damn amazed, really, I might've been a lot of places but I've never been friends with a movie star before, and I don't mean we're friends with you because of that, we're friends because you're a pretty cool person, understand?"

Colby blinked at him, expression somewhere between surprised and—Jason was decently sure—kind of into being lectured. "Er…kitten?"

Ben shrugged a shoulder, not apologizing for it. Jason thought about skills, and confidence, and dominance. He himself was good at taking care of Colby, and he'd always had those instincts, but Ben was impressive.

"Mmm," Simon said, now sitting on the table, swinging short legs. His toenails were painted glittery silver. They matched his shirt. "He's so good at that."

"I was actually going to say…" Colby leaned into Jason's muscles more. "I…I rather liked it. I mean, I was thinking…not all the time, but…I do love being Jason's, and…it sounded so lovely, the way you said it, so natural, yes, sir…and then you were talking about discipline, and spanking him, and we don't really…but we could…I mean, we do, sometimes…so I was wondering…"

"Wait," Jason said. His head had gone light, buoyed up, spinning with want and astonishment and disbelief. "Baby, you don't like punishments. We don't—we don't do that."

"Not exactly," Colby said. "I don't like feeling…not good enough. You know that. But that wasn't exactly what Ben meant, and you do sometimes, er, spank me just because we like it, and…I was curious, you know, about what makes that feel good, the way they were talking about it…if we could, if I wanted to know…"

"Oh my God," Simon said, nearly falling off the table, catching himself. Pure glee in summer blue eyes, framed by smoky eyeliner decoration. "Are we having an orgy?"