STORY EXCERPT

Once more, Zack lay down to wait for Mason. Suddenly, he heard Mason’s phone buzz.

He looked over at it, but the screen had already gone dark. Zack knew Mason’s password, and he wondered if it would be too invasive for him to go into Mason’s phone just to see if Karli had texted.

“Ugh,” Zack moaned as he thought of Karli. Karli was Mason’s best friend, and Zack remembered the woman giving him hell when he and Mason first started thinking of forming a relationship.

If it was Karli texting Mason, she wouldn’t want him to keep her waiting. So Zack grabbed Mason’s phone and opened it up, reading the text. As he did so, his eyes narrowed. Who was Sam?

“We need to talk,” the message read. “Are you free tonight?”

Zack felt his heart palpitating as he read the message, wondering for a moment if so soon into their marriage, Mason might have someone on the side.

“Honey,” Zack said, leaping up and taking Mason’s phone into the bathroom.

“Yeah?”

“Um, you got a text message.”

“Oh yeah? Who was it? What did they say?”

Zack drew in a deep breath before he responded.

“It was Sam,” he said flatly.

“Oh, okay,” Mason said, and Zack just stood there staring at the shower curtain, perplexed.

“Well?” Zack demanded.

“Yeah?”

“Who is Sam?”

“A coworker.”

“He said he wanted to talk tonight. It’s nine, Mason. What man has a right to talk to you at nine at night besides me?”

Once more, Mason opened the shower curtain, but this time Zack couldn’t have cared less about the hot man’s naked form. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

“You’re jealous already, Zack?”

“How am I supposed to feel? Who is he? A coworker, you say? What does he need to talk to you about tonight?”

Zack viewed Mason’s shoulders as they rose and fell with each obviously tortured breath. He started to open his mouth, but he continued in silence. Zack raised his eyebrows, demanding an answer with his facial expression.

“It’s Karli’s husband,” Mason replied, and for a moment, this strong man looked as if he might actually be afraid of Zack. And as far as Zack was concerned, rightly so.

“What does he want?”

“You know his problems, Zack. He drinks too much. He and Karli are on the brink of divorce. He wants some help.”

Now Zack stepped forward, raising Mason’s phone to eye level with the man before him.

“What are you going to do to help him? Are you a genie in a bottle, Mason?”

“No, but I can be a friend.”

“This doesn’t look right, Mason. You surely see that.” Now Zack stepped back and returned the phone to his side. “Straight men turn. Or they were never really straight, to begin with. Weird shit happens all the time.”

With those words, Mason threw back his head and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, Zack. Sam is as straight as they come. He only has a heart for Karli. He wants to save their marriage, and he wants my help to do it because he knows Karli listens to me more than she listens even to him. And he’s her husband, for God’s sake.”

Mason was still grinning, and Zack felt his blood boiling at how little Mason seemed to take his ire seriously.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Are you afraid, Zack?” Mason asked him in a low voice.

“No, Sir.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Mason put a hot hand on Zack’s chest, and Zack basked in the warmth of his husband’s skin.

“Maybe you should be.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Zack knew that Mason liked a challenge, and he and Mason had played the game of the bad slave before. Now Zack would crank it up a notch and really make Mason work to get him to succumb to his will.

“Ohhh,” Mason moaned, and now he took his hand off Zack’s chest. Zack could hear him flicking the flogger in the air, and he well knew that soon he would likely feel the sting of that flogger on his soft flesh. He just didn’t yet know where.

“Tell me I’m your master, Zack,” Mason commanded in a whispered voice, grabbing Zack’s cock and lightly stroking. Zack pursed his lips, trying to make it obvious that he had no intention of answering Mason. He knew he would eventually give in to Mason’s desires, but he also knew that both he and Mason wanted to make this time last as long as possible.

And Zack wanted to delay Mason going to The Lady’s Hook, his other reason for being so defiant that night. He would do all he could to keep Mason from leaving to see Sam. And to Zack’s dismay, his terror at losing Mason overshadowed the hot bondage encounter he and Mason were sharing.

“Feisty are we?” Mason said, stroking Zack’s cock still more forcefully. Fuck! Zack wanted to come, but he also knew that he and Mason had only just started the night of fun. Getting off now would have the same effect as admitting Mason was his master. Mason would immediately leave and go to The Lady’s Hook in either case, so Zack knew he had to keep himself from shooting his hot load just yet. But fuck, it was not easy.

“You’re not my master,” Zack said defiantly, panting in a breathy voice. He lifted his hips off the bed as Mason continued stroking him.

“Oh, I’ll show you who the master is,” Mason replied, both cruelly and mercifully letting go of Zack’s cock and walking away for a moment. Zack could hear Mason’s bare feet padding on the floor as he went somewhere. But where was he going? “Do you remember this, Zack?” Mason asked as if Zack could possibly see what he held in his hand. “It’s the same candle as before.”

Zack did, in fact, remember how Mason had caused his flesh to tingle with the hot, melted wax of that candle, and he longed to feel such light pain yet again. He couldn’t see the candle, of course, but he knew that burning his soft skin was exactly what Mason had in mind. What was it about mild discomfort that so captivated Zack? He felt he would never know, but he did fundamentally understand that he loved every second that Mason caused his body to squirm.

“I remember,” Zack replied, his voice a ghostly whisper. “Are you gonna burn me again?”

“Don’t put it like that, Zack,” Mason cooed, sitting on the bed right next to where Zack lay bound and blindfolded, surely ready to have Zack succumb once again to the pain of burning candle wax.

Zack didn’t immediately feel the wax, though. Mason once more grabbed Zack’s cock and started stroking, this time even faster than before.