Page 142 of Naughty November

“I don’t know, Parrish.” I closed my eyes and leaned against him, relaxing into the familiar yet somehow still cruel heat of him.

“Is it because you didn’t know better?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Because you left so soon, so rushed. I didn’t have time to explain what I expected of you.”

I curled my fingers over the top of his forearm, but he wasn’t going anywhere. For as slight as Parrish was in stature, he was just as strong as me, even though I towered over him. I had more height, more muscle, my cock was thicker and longer, but it had never stopped him from dominating me in every possible way.

Sometimes, he liked to remind me of that too.

“Look how pathetic you are,”he had said to me one night, minutes after sunset. My tongue licked him from his ankle to the back of his knee and he told me,“Bested by a man half your size.”

“What did you expect?”

“Do,” he corrected, dragging one of his hands to the inside of my thigh. The touch was delicate and tender, and then he gouged his nails in, pinching the most sensitive skin he could find through the expensive wool of my slacks.

My instinct was to fight him, but he kept me pinned on his lap, fingers twisting the small piece of skin they’d managed to latch on to.

“I wasn’t ready for things with you to end, Niko.”

He said it so simply, so out of context for everything our relationship had been up to that moment. I didn’t know how to process the meaning, so I asked him the only five words that my brain could make sense of.

“Whatdoyou expect, Parrish?”

FOUR

PARRISH

I didn’t have an answer.

The things I expected from Niko at home were not things he could give me with an ocean between us. Even before…we hadn’t talked about any of the things we did. We justacted,like I’d just acted by chartering a flight halfway around the globe when I knew Christian was going to be incapacitated because I wanted Niko off duty so I could get him back into my bed.

“We can talk about that later,” I told him, cupping my hand around his burning hot and hard cock. “For now, there are two items on that to-do list we need to take care of.”

“Then you should probably take your hand off me,” he rasped.

I tightened my hold on him. “Who are you to tell me what to touch, Niko? You’re nobody, right?”

“Nobody,” he repeated, hips bucking off my lap.

“Nobody who matters, at least. Isn’t that right?” I pulled my hand off his lap and reached for the watered-down whiskey he’d ordered at the bar. Raising the glass to his mouth, I let him take another drink, then I had a swallow for myself.

He licked his lips. “Right.”

I finished the rest of the whiskey so he didn’t have a chance to get at it. I wanted him buzzed, not out-of-his-mind drunk.

“Go get us some water,” I told him, setting the glass back down onto the table and giving him a shove off my lap.

Niko stumbled forward, standing up and moving to adjust his erection, but I stopped him with a quiet tsking noise against the roof of my mouth.

“No,” I said simply before flicking my fingers toward the bar. “Let them see how being my errand boy gives you an erection. In fact, make sure they all know.”

“How would I do that, Parrish?” he asked, mouth pulled into a frown.

“I don’t know.” I grinned at him and folded one leg over the other, ankle resting on the opposite knee. “Why don’t you tell them?”

I could see the fight in his eyes. He wanted to argue with me, but he also wanted me to get him off, and he couldn’t have both. I didn’t ask for much from him besides everything, and a protest was as good as a safeword for me. I watched him as he worked his jaw, then he stalked away from me toward the bar. He leaned over to order a drink, and I watched with rapt attention as he leaned closer and kept talking. Niko gestured between his legs and the bartender shook his head, giving Niko the slightest eye roll in return. I didn’t imagine he was unused to that sort of thing happening. The Black Door had a clearly stated open door policy, and the staff were no exception to the blanket consent rule.