The Administration Series (76 page)

"Please."

Warrick's shoulders moved, pulling on the belt, and his cock twitched as he felt the restraints.

Could anything be better than this? Yes — a lot of things, and they were going to do plenty of them.

"Again," Toreth said.

"Please. Please stay." Warrick's tongue flicked over his lips, and Toreth imagined how dry his mouth must be. "I — I need it."

A good thing, really, that he'd included the hand job in the plan, because if he'd tried to do this without he didn't think he would've been able to stop himself jumping Warrick right this moment. Instead he stood for a while, pretending to think it over, soaking up the delicious sight of Warrick's flushed desperation.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm going for a wash. I won't be long. If, by the time I'm done, you're on your knees and ready to say sorry properly, I'll think about staying."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed for the bathroom, metal already rattling behind him.

He closed the door and turned on the tap quickly, not wanting to miss the show. Leaving the water flowing, he crept back to the door, eased it open a tiny crack, and peeped through. Warrick didn't notice the movement because he had his eyes squeezed shut as he struggled with the cuffs. With slippery fingers and tightened straps, it wouldn't be easy.

Toreth intended to stay, of course, but it was far more fun to leave the question in doubt. What mattered was that Warrick believed he would leave, and from his expression, there was no doubt about that. After all, Toreth had left before. Those departures had been necessary if frustrating training, with evenings like this as the worthwhile reward.

Even as he thought that, Warrick stilled and stood, chest heaving, staring down at the floor. What now? Toreth wondered.

After a moment, Warrick lifted his head, and Toreth froze in alarm, but still Warrick didn't see him. He was frowning with concentration as he leaned back, putting his weight on the bar. His head tilted back, lips parting as he pressed against the cuffs. Wasting his time, Toreth knew, because there was no chance that the leather or steel would give way.

Then Warrick arched even further, shoulders straining, and Toreth realised what he must be trying to do.

Shit, he could break his back like that. No fucking way in hell could they explain
that
one away in casualty.

Even as he put his hand on the door, the rod shortened suddenly with a click he heard over the running water, and Warrick nearly fell. Only nearly, though, and soon there was a second click and the bar collapsed by another section.

Toreth grinned. Very, very clever, and the final effect would be fantastically fuckable.

Time to turn off the tap, although it was a pity to miss the last part. As he returned, he heard the muffled thump of Warrick's knees hitting the ground, and his heavy breathing. Toreth ran his hands through his hair, summoned up a cold smile, and opened the door.

"Well . . . " He paused, partly to draw out the tension, and partly because the scene before him drove the words out of his mind.

Fuckable didn't do it justice, he thought, not anywhere near. Warrick knelt, head bowed, his dark hair curling with sweat, and in the light from the bathroom, more sweat gleamed on his chest and taut shoulders. The bar between his ankles spread his thighs and his erection, lost during the struggle with the cuffs, was swelling again under Toreth's gaze.

Jesus fucking Christ, what could you charge for a sight like this?

"I suppose I'll have to give you a chance now, won't I?" Toreth said finally.

Warrick straightened, looking up at him, blinking, teeth bared in a mixture of triumph and relief.

His. Absolutely and completely his. Whatever he asked at this moment, Warrick would do for him. Luckily, he had the right instruction prepared.

"Go on, then. Tell me how sorry you are."

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  

No one had told
her
, which had a surprise factor of minus several million. Why would anyone bother to tell her anything? All she had to do was reorganise Toreth's caseload, arrange facilities for the visitor and generally turn her life upside down. But, of course, she wasn't
important
enough to be told.

The first Sara knew about it was on Monday, when a second desk arrived for Toreth's office. When she politely enquired what the hell was going on, she didn't get any sensible reply, beyond the information that the orders were from somewhere non-specifically 'higher up'. Toreth himself had been called in to a meeting with Tillotson first thing, and he hadn't reappeared.

So she went to work on the comm, but the only story of note circulating was that there was a socioanalyst in the building, assignment unknown. That was old news. Toreth had met him late on Friday afternoon, when he'd spoken to senior paras from several sections, but she'd gone home before the meeting had ended. Hopefully there was no connection to the new desk, because she didn't fancy the idea of a spook in the office. She'd never met one, but she'd heard they were extremely creepy.

By the time Toreth came back from Tillotson's office, she was nearly biting her nails with impatience. From his air of restrained fury, she guessed the news wasn't good. Before she could say anything, he stormed past her into his office. She followed him in and almost ran into him. He'd stopped inside the doorway to survey the new arrangement.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm resigning, that's what's going on." He stalked over to his own desk and started sweeping up bits and pieces. "I'm going to clear my desk, and go back to tell Tillotson exactly where he can shove his fucking job, with illustrations, and then I'm going out to get hammered enough to forget the whole fucking morning."

She stared at him, horrified by the sincerity in his voice. All she could manage to say was, "Really?"

A long silence followed, then he dropped everything back on the desk. "No, of course not really. But I was this fucking close." He threw himself into his chair, just catching the edge of the desk as he nearly went over backwards. "
This
fucking close."

"What's wrong?"

"What isn't wrong? I've been — " And he stopped, lost for words, which was something worth seeing. "I've been given to this fucking spook as some kind of bloody errand boy. Like a . . . a . . . like a
pet
. His own personal . . . it's outrageous. I'm a bloody senior. Tillotson stood there and as good as told me that if I don't give the smarmy fucker — "

"Should I come back later?" asked a velvet-smooth voice from behind her.

Sara turned and found herself looking up into the widest, bluest, deepest, most come-hither eyes she had ever seen on a man. Long, fine lashes swept down and up as he blinked slowly. When she managed to tear her gaze away from his, she unconsciously braced herself for disappointment, but the rest of the tall, blond, elegant package standing in the office doorway wasn't half bad either. Far too old, unfortunately — even older than Toreth. But still, God in heaven . . .

It took her several seconds before she could even try to frame a reply. Then she found she couldn't remember what he'd said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Am I interrupting? I can go away and come back, if I'm being a terrible nuisance." He smiled, nearly causing her to lose track of the conversation again. "Although I would like to start work some time this morning, if that's not
too
much of an imposition."

"Oh! You're the sp — " She caught herself barely in time, although what she'd meant to say was still blinding obvious. Great first impression she was making here.

"Socioanalyst, yes. Jean-Baptiste Carnac." He offered his hand. "You must be Ms Lovelady."

His hand enveloped hers, warm and dry, his grasp neither aggressively tight nor unappealingly limp. Perfect.

"Mm. Yes. That's me." When he released her hand, she added faintly, "Call me Sara."

She thought she was prepared for it, but his smile dazzled her again. "Delighted to meet you, Sara, although I doubt you'd say the same about me, since I'm afraid I'll be making extra work for you."

"It'll be a pleasure." Behind her she heard something snap — hopefully nothing more exciting than the pencil Toreth had been holding. Time for a diversion before he started snapping anything else. "Look, why don't I show you where the section coffee room is, and generally do the tour and Toreth can," convince himself that killing a socioanalyst will look bad on his record, "get the office sorted out?"

Carnac glanced up over her shoulder. Toreth didn't say anything, but he must have managed a nod, because Carnac looked back into her eyes and said, "That would be tremendously kind of you, Sara."

So she took Carnac for coffee, thinking as she did that, old or not — and spook or not — she really wouldn't mind taking him for something else as well.

The surprise wasn't that Carnac wasn't particularly good at blowjobs, it was that he was willing to give them at all. They broke two rules which Toreth had come to see as central to the socioanalyst's entire existence: they stopped him talking, and they interrupted the illusion that the world, solar system and probably entire galaxy revolved solely around him.

Even Toreth could appreciate the irony of the complaint. But in a self-centred egotist competition, he was more than prepared to yield first place to the man currently on his knees in front of him.

Not that he wasn't grateful, especially for the part where Carnac shut the fuck up for ten minutes. Even a not-terribly-good blowjob was better than none at all, and about a thousand times more enjoyable than listening to him talk.

It was a tough call, but he'd eventually decided that the theme 'it's not easy being a socioanalyst, surrounded as one is by mundane minds who sabotage one's otherwise invariable success' was marginally more annoying than his diatribes on the deficiencies of I&I's systems and processes, or the lovingly detailed accounts of old cases. But more or less everything he said was irritating to a degree.

Sharing an office with the man was driving Toreth mad. He'd suggested to Carnac that Sara would be able to find him a room of his own, but Carnac had said he preferred to maximise interaction with the organisation. Meaning that he didn't want to be sidelined in some cupboard at the far end of the building. Which, by a coincidence, was exactly what Toreth had been thinking of when he'd suggested it. So here they still were, together all day.

There had to be some kind of plea-in-mitigation that would allow him to get away with throttling Carnac. Self-defence of his sanity, perhaps.

The worst part wasn't the day-to-day irritation, or even the disruption to his current cases — Jesus, teeth were
not
what he wanted to feel at this point, but at least the sharp scrape dampened down his arousal and bought him another couple of minutes' silence. No, the worst part was that it was all his own bloody fault. If he'd just ignored Carnac when he arrived, some other poor bastard would be the recipient of his ever-open mouth.

But a socioanalyst was a rare sight at I&I, and experience working with one was a valuable career booster. Besides, the man could flirt at championship level. Toreth had never fucked a spook before — and wouldn't be fucking one again, without references — so he'd responded in kind. Curiosity killed the cat. Lucky fucking cat was all he could say, because the next thing he knew, Tillotson had called him into his office and handed him over to Carnac as his 'personal liaison'. Hah. He'd have to remember
that
one next time Sara asked him what Warrick was.

Sara was another source of annoyance because she thought Carnac was God's bloody gift. It was the only time he could recall her looking actively envious of him fucking anyone. Carnac had infinite reservoirs of charm for dealing with the admins and he had the whole section full of them eating out of the palm of his hand in a couple of days. So now there wasn't even anyone willing to hear Toreth's complaints. Probably for the best, because Sara would have ruptured something laughing.