Magpie (17 page)

Kane looked up. Their eyes met just a fraction of a second later, when Everet lifted his own gaze.

Subtle pressure pushed against Kane’s wrist, encouraged him to resume his movements. At the same time, Everet began to crook the fingers still nestled snuggly within Kane’s body. The tips of the digits pressed against his prostate. His thumb rubbed against the sensitive strip of skin between his hole and his ball sac.

Kane arched his back, pressing his head back against the mattress. His free hand scrabbled at the blankets alongside him, grabbing fistfuls of them. His mind swirled with pleasure. He gasped for breath, unable to stop himself moaning with both pleasure and frustration.

Everet guided Kane’s wrist, nudging his hand to move faster and faster around his cock. Kane’s own cock remained untouched. He didn’t have the coordination to reach for it. Hell, he wouldn’t even have been able to keep jacking Everet if it hadn’t been for the raven regulating his movements and helping him along.

Kane closed his eyes very tightly as bliss took flight inside him, quickly gaining height and soaring through the sky high above anything he’d ever be able to control. He clenched his teeth. There was no way he could hold back now, no possibility of calling that kind of ecstasy back to the perch. Kicking out at the mattress, Kane lifted his arse up off the bed as he came.

Cum spilled across his stomach and chest. His hole clenched around Everet’s fingers. Ecstasy stabbed him again and again, a pleasure so sharp it felt more like pain.

Kane’s breath lodged in his chest. He jerked against the sheets, unsure if he wanted to squirm further into ecstasy or escape from it. It had been so long since he came, he’d swear his body was punishing him for that.

Panic rushed through him as his lungs screamed out for oxygen. It seemed possible that he might never be able to breathe again. Then, as quickly as it had claimed him, the moment of pure perfection slipped away. He collapsed back in his bed, finally managing to pull a breath into his lungs.

He lay there for what might have been hours letting all the parts of his scattered mind come slowly back to him one by one. He lay completely still. Kane frowned.

Still.

Motionless.

That was a problem. Part of him should be moving. That was important.

His hand. Damn. Kane opened his eyes and looked down at his right hand. It still encircled Everet’s shaft. It was also splattered with Everet’s cum. The other man had come, and Kane hadn’t even noticed!

Lifting his gaze, he looked Everet in the eye.

The raven appeared completely emotionless. He should have looked impressed. Men were supposed to be impressed after screwing Kane—it was a fact that he was very certain of.

No, that didn’t fit. Everet should actually look really embarrassed about coming too early. They hadn’t even got to the screwing and being impressed stage, and Everet was as finished as any man could ever be. As Kane continued to stare into Everet’s eyes, the raven retrieved his fingers from within Kane’s body.

Kane straightened his legs. Everet lay down alongside him on the bed, apparently perfectly at ease with the whole world. Kane frowned.

“Bit quick off the mark, weren’t you?” Kane asked.

“No,” Everet said, very simply.

“So you never intended to screw me?” Kane didn’t even try to make it sound like he believed him for a second.

“Oh I imagined it,” Everet admitted. “I even let myself pretend that I’d do that tonight. But no, I couldn’t let that happen.”

Kane rolled away from Everet and sat up on the edge of the bed, his feet on the floor.

“Messing around was one thing. Actually screwing you would have screwed us up in too many ways,” Everet said.

Kane glared at the plain white wall adjacent to the bed, as if it had personally offended him. His hands clenched into fists around the edge of the mattress. He looked down at his right hand. It was still covered in cum. So was a fair amount of his torso. Kane absentmindedly wiped his palm on the sheet.

He pulled himself to his feet. As he stepped forward he expected Everet to leap off the bed and catch hold of him. He didn’t. A stupid part of Kane was disappointed.

Everet didn’t make any move to leave the bed and pursue him. He didn’t even speak until Kane’s hand was on the door handle.

“You can go into the bathroom and clean up, that’s fine. But you’re not to leave the apartment without my permission.”

Kane looked over his shoulder.
And who’s going to stop me?

It was only his complete certainty that Everet’s inevitable answer would be “
me”
, that stopped Kane from asking the question. The annoying thing was, Everet would probably follow through with that statement, too.

Kane slammed the bedroom door behind him. He slammed the bathroom door too. In the small, spartan space, he stared in the mirror above the sink.

He tried to remember the last time a guy hadn’t screwed him at the first opportunity and failed. He couldn’t recall any occasion when that had happened. It was simply unheard of.

Kane frowned at his reflection. All his injuries had healed. Granted he still looked a fraction tired around his eyes, but if he wasn’t an out and out ten, Kane reckoned that he could at least manage a nine and a half on most men’s scales.

But, for some reason, Everet hadn’t wanted to…

No. He’d wanted to. Kane was sure of that. Everet had wanted to, but he’d held himself back.

Kane’s frown deepened. He blinked rapidly and forced the expression from his face. Running his fingers over the lines where the frown had been, he checked carefully for wrinkles. No, he was still safe from that. There were no crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes either.

Kane turned away from his reflection, suddenly uncertain that what he saw there could get him what he wanted. He shook his head in an effort to clear such a preposterous idea from his mind, but it didn’t work.

Once he’d cleaned himself up, Kane wandered into the living room. Everet sat on the sofa. He’d pulled his jeans on, but he hadn’t bothered with anything else. His feet were bare, so was his chest. If he’d wanted to look as hot as possible, he’d succeeded. Kane stopped in his tracks as their eyes met.

“Tomorrow, before you start work, we’ll need to put some ground rules in place.”

Kane folded his arms across his chest and said nothing.

Everet leaned forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees. “By then, you need to decide if you want what we do together to be strictly about getting your behavior up to a standard the nest considers acceptable, or if you are interested in a completely separate arrangement between us, which would run alongside that. The second option would include sex. The first wouldn’t.”

Unable to think of a witty, or even a sarcastic response, Kane raised an eyebrow.

“It’s your decision, and whatever it is, I’ll respect it.” Everet nodded toward the bedroom. “Go get some sleep.”

“What about you?” Kane said, before he could think better of it.

“The room is yours for the night,” Everet said. “A bit of distance will probably do us both good.” With that, he moved a cushion to one end of the sofa and lay down.

He was far too tall for the undersized piece of furniture. He had to rest his feet on the far arm of the sofa.

Kane shrugged and went into the bedroom. There was no reason why he should care if Everet got a good night’s sleep, so why did part of him hesitate as he closed the door, wondering if he should offer to take the sofa?

Chapter Seven

Everet tilted his head to one side, then the other, and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d have to get a full night’s worth of sleep, at some point. Preferably one that involved lying stretched out in a nice comfortable bed. He’d end up with a permanent crick in his neck if he didn’t.

“Sleeping on the sofa not as much fun as you thought it would be?”

Everet spun around.

Kane stood in the bedroom doorway completely naked.

Apparently, Everet had been wrong to assume he’d have to drag the magpie out of bed to face his second day at work.

“I slept fine, thank you,” Everet lied.

Kane’s lips twisted into a disbelieving smile.

Everet squared his stance and folded his arms across his chest in an effort not to fidget nervously under the magpie’s gaze. “Have you made your decision?”

“Yes.” Kane said no more.

Everet clenched his teeth, determined to outstare the other man. Kane made him wait for what felt like hours before he finally spoke again.

“Yes, I think a little side arrangement would be a very pleasant way to pass the time.”

Everet didn’t give himself time to look relieved. He immediately strode to the bedroom door. Kane had left it ajar in his wake. Everet pushed it open the rest of the way, and drew a line across the threshold with the toe of his boot.

Kane raised an eyebrow. “Are we playing charades now? I hope it’s a movie. I’ve never been one for reading—unless you include the kind of magazines that have pictures of hot men and sticky pages, of course.”

“This is the boundary line,” Everet said.

All the time he’d spent rehearsing the words in his head during the night paid dividends. The syllables came out smooth and confident. There was no way Kane would be able to tell just how fast his heart raced, or how unsure he was whether this was the right thing to do.

“Oh?” Kane prompted.

“On this side of the line, in the bedroom, we’re lovers. Perhaps one more dominant than the other, but still, lovers.” Everet stepped back into the living room. “On this side of the line, my only concern is making you a productive and trustworthy member of the nest.”

Kane frowned, apparently not the least impressed, but Everet didn’t even miss a beat.

“Nothing we do in the bedroom will affect anything that happens out here in any way. It won’t change what work you’re expected to do or anything else. I won’t let that sort of manipulation be an option for you.”

“You’ve got it all sorted out very neatly, haven’t you?” Kane asked, perching nonchalantly on the arm of the sofa, still as naked as any man could ever be.

“I would hardly be a good master if I didn’t think things through in advance,” Everet said.

Kane nodded slowly. It was impossible to tell what he thought of the arrangement, or if he intended to sabotage it in every conceivable way.

Everet took a deep breath. “Do you have any questions?”

“What happens if you want to screw me somewhere other than in the bedroom? What if you wanted to bend me over the back of the sofa, or push me up against the tiles in the shower? Or, what if—?”

“For the moment, none of those things are an option,” Everet cut in. He didn’t need any more erotic little sketches of Kane filling his mind.

Kane grinned and Everet knew that the other man had already spotted the way his jeans tented over his erection—and that was just because they were in the same room together, Kane hadn’t even needed to try to turn him on.

“It’s time for you to get dressed and go to work,” Everet announced, as impassively as possible.

Kane laughed as he walked past him and disappeared into the bedroom. Everet didn’t really blame him.

* * * *