“Wait by the end of the bed,” he said, as he left the room and took his turn into the bathroom.
When he came back a few moments later, Nate was kneeling, apparently quite contently, in his rest position at the base of the bed.
Smith stripped off his clothes and got between the sheets. “Come here.”
Nate crawled around to the side of the bed and climbed onto the bed with him.
“If you stay all the way over there, you’re likely to fall off the mattress,” Smith observed as he watched Nate try to lie politely on the furthest edge of the bed.
Nate hesitated, still not entirely sure that he should be in the bed at all. Surely if Smith really wanted him there, he would have just told him he could share the bed with him.
Having to make the choice, any choice, itched away at the comfort he’d discovered over the last hours.
Maybe Smith wanted him to choose to come instead. Maybe he was disappointed in him for making the wrong choice. Nate looked across at him. All he could read on Smith’s face was exhaustion.
“Come here.”
When Nate didn’t move, Smith reached out, caught hold of his hand and pulled.
Nate’s balance deserted him, he fell, half sprawled across the older man. He stared down at him, wide eyed for several long moments, before it occurred to him to retreat.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Smith brought his palm down sharply on Nate’s bare backside. Nate gasped as sudden, and surprisingly pleasurable, heat flared through his buttock.
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“No unnecessary apologies.”
Nate nodded.
Smith guided him to lie against his body. Nate’s erection nudged against the older man’s side. He glanced up, about to apologise when he stopped himself short. Although, it was pretty tempting to apologise even after he remembered the order and the spank—maybe especially because he remembered the spank.
Smith chuckled sleepily. “Yes, I thought you’d like that. But no acting out just to get your backside warmed.” His hand settled on the skin he’d struck, palming it as he found a comfortable sleeping position.
“Yes, sir.”
Smith was asleep within seconds. Nate shifted slightly, trying to find a position that was comfortable and which produced as little frustration and friction against his cock as possible.
The dominant made a displeased sound in the back of his throat. He twisted under the blankets until Nate realised Smith was trying to turn him over. He followed the sleepy order and rolled onto his side. Smith spooned behind him pulling him close so his spent cock nudged against Nate’s backside.
The position did nothing at all to ease Nate’s frustration.
* * * *
Several hours later, Nate would have sold his soul to be back in that position, no matter how frustrating he’d found it. Smith held the coat out to him.
Nate glanced at it. Trying to think of something to say that would prolong his time with the other man.
“It’s the coat or the boot,” Smith told him. “Your choice.”
“Thank you, s—” Nate cut himself short as he took the coat. One night. That’s all Smith had offered him. He didn’t have any right to call him sir any more. He dropped his gaze and wrapped the coat around himself, enveloping himself in the subtle scent of Smith’s aftershave.
Finally, he had to say something. “What are you going to tell my father?”
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“The truth,” Smith said.
“If I—“
“There is nothing you can say that’s going to change anything about the conversation I’m going to have with your father,” Smith cut in.
Nate closed his eyes for a second. It was almost impossible to put this stern, unapproachable version of Smith together with the man who’d been so kind and so patient with his attempts to play the games he seemed to be so used to the previous night.
“Come on, we’re leaving.”
Nate hesitated, but the order made him feel stupidly better about the world—it gave him a tiny taste of the certainty he’d felt under Smith’s control. He followed the order. And he followed all the others Smith gave him.
He got in the car on his order. He ate the food Smith bought at the service station on his order. Several long hours in the car later, he went into his apartment and got changed on his order. And he got back into the car to be driven to the main house to face his father on Smith’s order too.
“Sit down. Stay there while I speak to him.”
Nate sat in a chair outside his father’s office. Somehow even after he’d changed into his own clothes, he’d retained Smith’s coat. It was too big, and he knew he had to look like a fool wrapped up in it—especially in the warmth of the waiting room outside his father’s office, but he kept it on anyway.
It was all he had left.
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“Well?” Lockwood senior demanded.
“Do I have permission to speak freely?” Smith asked.
Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been speaking damn freely to me ever since you took the job.” He waved a vague hand in his direction when Smith continued to wait for a proper answer. “Granted.”
“Your son’s gay.”
Lockwood tensed.
The request for permission hadn’t been much warning, but it was as good as Smith felt capable of right then. After considering the merits of every possible course of action during the drive home, he was certain that he was doing the right thing. That didn’t make it any easier to believe anything which didn’t involve Nate naked and in his arms wasn’t a waste of his time.
“He told you that?” Lockwood demanded.
“No. He told me a very convoluted, very unbelievable story because some complete bastard made him promise never to tell anyone he was gay.”
Lockwood glared at him across the desk, as he assessed the situation and tried to stare him down. “It’s for his own good.”
Smith clenched his jaw. Lockwood was Nate’s father. That meant he couldn’t throttle him—Nate would probably be upset if he did. “If he can’t be openly gay, he’ll end up creeping around the edges—it will be far more of a scandal in the long run.”
Lockwood jerked to his feet and started to pace. “You think I give a damn about scandal?”
“Yes.”
Lockwood stopped pacing and stared out of the window overlooking the gardens, much the same as Nate had stared out of the hotel window the night before. “He’s going to inherit all this one day, you know.”
“As long as he stays in the closet?”
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“Nate’s a smart boy,” Lockwood said. “But he…”
His tone of voice was off, Smith stared at the back of Lockwood’s head, wondering if his understanding of the situation was as thorough as he assumed.
“He’s far too easily swayed at times,” Lockwood said. “In business that can be corrected by making sure he knows his job inside out. If he knows he’s right, he’ll hold his guns. But if he has the slightest uncertainty, another man can convince him he’s wrong far too easily.”
Smith waited for something he could argue with, but everything Lockwood said sounded suspiciously like the truth. Without a proper outlet for his submission, it was easy to believe Nate found it hard not to let it seep into his business dealings.
“The one thing he is good at, is brushing off gold diggers.” Lockwood told the window. “Do you know damn near every woman who wants to sleep her way into a fortune has had a go at him since he turned legal?”
While Smith took that in, Lockwood turned around to face him.
“So that’s your plan,” Smith asked. “To keep him in the closet for the rest of his life, just to protect your business interests?”
Lockwood waved a dismissing hand. “Once he is married off to a suitable woman no doubt some arrangement could be made with a discreet—”
“He deserves better than that,” Smith snapped.
“He doesn’t deserve to be the target of every man who’ll switch teams to get the inside track on a deal either,” Lockwood said coldly. “I know what will happen the moment that boy steps out of the closet. Some bastard with an eye to the company will have him wrapped around his finger and trampled under his feet in no time at all. And that will hurt Nate far more than any woman ever could. So—”
“That won’t happen.”
“I know my son far better than you do—”
“It won’t happen,” Smith repeated, as calmly as possible.
“And you can assure me of that, can you?”
“Yes.”
Lockwood’s eyes narrowed. “What, exactly, is your relationship with my son?”
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“That’s his decision,” Smith said. “But I’m telling you right now, in or out of the closet,
no one
is going to treat him that way.”
“Because you’ll be watching over him,” Lockwood mused. He tapped his fingers against the desktop as he fitted that fact into his view of the world.
“If you support his decision to come out, it will be easier for him.”
“Are you asking for my permission to date my son?” Lockwood asked, a touch of amusement tinting his voice now, as he seemed to see that Smith was offering him a solution to a problem he’d been unable to resolve himself.
“He’s a grown man. I don’t need your permission.”
Lockwood studied for a long time. “You’re in love with him.”
Smith didn’t deny it.
“What guarantee can you give me?” Lockwood asked, after what felt like an eternity.
“I can guarantee, whatever he chooses to do next, he’ll be happier out of the closet than in it. He’ll be stronger for it, better for it.”
“You’ll see that all that happens?” Lockwood asked.
“Yes.”
“Irrespective of his decision regarding a relationship with you?”
“Yes.” The idea that he had a choice about it was crazy. Nate belonged to him. If that meant he had to settle for being his bodyguard rather than his lover, he’d just have to deal with it, because Smith knew he couldn’t
not
look after Nate any more.
“And what do you want from me?” Lockwood asked.
“Release him from his promise—tell him he’s allowed to say he’s gay if he wants to.”
Lockwood continued to study him, waiting to hear it all before he gave his answer.
“And turn all his security arrangements over to me—personally.”
“He already has a fine security team who work under your professional supervision.”
“Transfer them.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you know I’ll take better care of him than anyone else ever will,” Smith snapped, his impatience with being in stuck in there arguing with Lockwood while Nate sat waiting and worrying outside getting the better of him.
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Lockwood was a businessman at heart. He couldn’t leave the negotiations at that. But finally, after conversation ten times longer than it needed to be, Lockwood was ready for his son to be brought into the room. He reached for the phone to have his secretary send him in.
“I’ll get him,” Smith said, before he could pick up the receiver.
The meeting had gone on far too long. Nate seemed to be holding his nerves at bay by the skin of his teeth.
Smith walked across the room and crouched down in front of him.
“You told him about last night,” Nate whispered.
“Yes.”
Nate closed his eyes, embarrassment rushing to his cheeks.
Smith touched his jaw very gently, telling him to look up and open his eyes. “I told him what he needed to know—that you and I spent the night together. What we did is none of his business.”
“Thank you, sir.” He looked so bloody grateful for receiving that tiny bit of respect.
Smith studied him very carefully. It was the wrong time. It was the wrong place. But during the conversation with Nate’s father, he’d realised he couldn’t bring Nate into the rest of the conversation until he knew the answer.
“I’m going to ask you a question. There’s no right or wrong answer, but it’s very important that you’re honest with me. Understand?”
Nate nodded.
“Did I take advantage of the situation last night?” Smith asked. He forced himself to stare straight into the younger man’s eyes, sure he would see the truth in there, even if Nate wasn’t confident enough to say it out loud.
Nate merely looked confused and then more than a little embarrassed.
“Nate?” Smith prompted. “The truth.”
“May sixteenth. It was raining. Your hair was wet. Your hand was wet too—the first time you shook hands with me. Before that, it was magazines and the internet. You were the first real live man that I really…I came out to my father that weekend.” Nate cleared his throat. “I think it’s safe to assume I wanted everything that happened last night.”
Smith nodded. “We’ll talk about what that means for us later. First your father has something he wants to say to you.”
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* * * *
Nate glanced at Smith and then looked quickly away. The older man changed gears and turned down the driveway towards Nate’s apartment over the old stable block.
I’m gay.
The words rolled around and around inside his head, begging to be spoken out loud, just because he was allowed to say them.
I’m gay.
Not straight, not bi, not gay for pay.
I’m gay.
Nate took a deep breath as they pulled up outside his apartment. He let them in and then looked at the keys in his hand. “I…you should probably…”
Smith shook his head when Nate offered him the keys. “I’ve taken over all your security arrangements. I’ll have all the keys I need.”
Nate nodded. He folded his arms across his chest as he walked into his living room and then straight across to the window. Smith had been talking about a
working
relationship…
His new security officer had driven him home. Smith was there because it was his job—because he was getting paid for it. Nate closed his eyes, wondering if Smith knew how much of an idiot he was. It was only a small mercy he hadn’t blurted out he was in love with him right outside his father’s office.
“Come here, Nate.”
Nate found himself turning around and making his way across the room before his brain could object to his body following the order. Smith had taken a seat in one of the leather armchairs by the fire place. There was a cushion on the floor at his feet. Nate frowned at it.