“Nick.” Nick turned and faced him fully.
“Just Nick.” Red Tie’s eyes flashed with interest and his gaze drifted to Nick’s bare chest. “Nice piercings.”
Nick didn’t follow the man’s gaze downward. That would have subtly shifted the power balance out of his favour. “You got any?”
“No. I was considering it though.”
Don’t tell me you don’t like the pain.
“But I travel a lot to the States. They have those X-rays now.” Red Tie smiled. “You’re never sure if you’re flying into a state where perverts get thrown into jail.”
Nick nodded. “You gotta wonder though what they’d do to you in jail.” He bared teeth. “From the corner office to everybody’s bitch, I’d guess.” Said under his breath, more offer than threat.
Red Tie’s hand went up to his collar and tugged at the knot. “You think?”
“I do. I think you’d get fed a lot of cock, until you like it, and then because you like it.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Obviously, I’m the safe option there, but I can give you a taste of that.”
Red Tie exhaled, studied him, and then glanced around the room—not to evade, just to check on witnesses. “How much are we talking?”
“Five hundred for a couple hours.”
“And you . . .” The man cleared his throat. “Deliver on that?”
“Ask anybody. If you want pain, hell, if you want to get fucked until you scream, that’s my profile.” Nick pushed away from the table, knowing his barbs and hooks were embedded in the guy’s bones and nervous system. Humiliation he could deliver. Pain, absolutely. “Best Dom you’ll find in here. And I play rough.”
Red Tie nodded. “Okay. How much is the whole night?”
All night? Thank God he’d rested well. He got the sense he’d need it. “Twelve hundred.”
Red Tie nodded. “Let’s go.”
Twelve hundred for a night, and he hadn’t even batted an eye. Nick could make a killing off this guy if he played his cards right.
He waved a hand towards the bar. “They do a discreet background check first. It’s quick, and then I’m all yours.”
Red Tie glanced at the bar, at Nick again, and then nodded a third time and headed for the bar.
As his evening’s paycheque took care of the necessary paperwork, Nick finished his watery Coke. Something in his gut tightened as he shifted his attention from finding a client to doing what needed to be done so he could get paid.
Then I’m all yours.
How many times had he said that to johns? He’d never given much thought to the choice of words, needing only to convey the message that his client had rented him for the evening and would get his money’s worth. Not that Nick was literally all his.
The thought made him uncomfortable, but he brushed it away. Just part of adapting to the idea of prostituting when he had a boyfriend. Spencer didn’t have a problem with it. He’d said he didn’t, and he’d looked Nick in the eye when he’d said it and hadn’t given him any reason to think he was lying. This had been part of the deal from the beginning, and Spencer had gone into their relationship knowing that when they weren’t in the bedroom together, Nick’s body was for rent. For other men to rent.
Nick’s mouth dried as he watched the john filling out the short form at the bar. If this didn’t bother Spencer, why the hell did it bother Nick all of a sudden?
Stop obsessing over it.
He shook his head and looked into his empty glass. Idle time meant an idle mind that insisted on overanalysing his situation. Once he and the john were past the point of paperwork, he’d have enough to concentrate on, and he wouldn’t have time to think about anyone or anything outside the hotel room or flat or wherever they ended up. Likely a hotel room. Guys like Red Tie didn’t cough up over a grand for a back alley blowjob or a quick fuck in a backseat. Though guys like him tended to own very large cars, and often employed chauffeurs. If the back of the car was big enough . . .
He looked up as Red Tie returned, and the toothy grin said the background check had gone swimmingly. They usually did. Though when they didn’t, Nick sure thanked every deity imaginable that they were performed at all.
“Well,” Red Tie said. “That’s all taken care of. How about you and me get out of here and we see if you’re really worth twelve hundred quid?”
Nick stepped around the small table. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.”
Red Tie did have a huge car with a driver. As Nick climbed in, he checked out the spacious backseat, mentally calculating just how much could be accomplished here. A fair amount, by the looks of it; they could have easily fit two more people back here and still had leg and elbow room.
Red Tie gave the driver a quick, terse “Home, please,” and then rolled up the opaque privacy screen. Tinted windows blocked out the rest of the world, especially since it was after dark, and the two of them were alone in the car, facing each other on opposite bench seats.
“How long is the drive?” Nick asked.
Red Tie shrugged. “Thirty minutes, give or take?”