Birthday Licks by VJ Summers Read Free Book Online

Admire the View
     
    Ryan snickered, feeling the flush of the tequila warm him
from belly to balls to fingers and toes. Yeah, he’d done his share of college
drinking, enough for it to have lost its glamour, but this tequila, slammed
back on the night of his twenty-first birthday, somehow tasted better than any
other tequila he’d ever had.
    It had also smoothed some of the ragged edges catching his
nerves. It was one thing to talk to Tristan about having someone get a little
bossy with him during sex. It was another thing entirely to walk into a club
and see a naked boy on a leash, thick silver ring through the tip of his cock,
rubber mask covering everything but his nose and mouth.
    That had been terrifying. And disturbingly hot.
    Now, with the tequila wrapping everything in a warm glow,
terror was settling into titillation, and disturbingly hot was just plain hot.
    He was so busy gaping around as he enjoyed his beer chaser
that he didn’t notice the “conversation pit” until he’d literally fallen into
it.
    “Shit!”
    It seemed to come in three-part harmony—his own yelp of
shock, the surprised shout of the man sitting in the leather chair off to the
side of the pit and the pissed-off growl of the man he’d landed on.
    The guy in the leather chair was a silver fox. Silver hair,
liberally and dramatically shot through with black. Silver shirt with a
monochromatic tie under a dully gleaming black suit. Chunky silver signet ring.
He was the embodiment of power, and something in the way he was examining Ryan
made his stomach squirm uncomfortably. He could totally see this guy tricking
someone into eating some pomegranate seeds.
    “Well, well,” Hephaestus incarnate said. “Look at the
pretty.”
    The man Ryan was currently draped over gave an
irritated-sounding grunt, and Ryan somehow found himself kneeling in front of
him. He didn’t even have time to be annoyed at being called “the pretty”, which
he totally would have been. Yeah, Ryan knew he was good looking enough, but he
wasn’t pretty , dammit. And he had a brain.
    A brain that was currently floating like a balloon on
endorphins and a happy tequila breeze—so the Lord of the Underworld was scary
and most likely an asshole, but in a cartoon villain sort of way. After handing
out the pomegranate seeds, Ryan expected scary dude would twirl his
non-existent moustache and growl, “You must pay the rent.”
    Deciding to ignore the man in black, Ryan lifted his gaze to
his accidental victim, ready to apologize and invite the guy to laugh with him.
Maybe use his shiny new ID to buy him a conciliatory drink. Thankfully, Ryan’s
own beer bottle had been nearly empty when he fell, and both bottle and dregs
had landed on the floor without dousing any of them in yeasty goodness. Any
thought of laughter died unrealized and the apology dried up in his mouth when
he met the man’s eyes.
    Oh holy fuck .
    This man had none of the trappings the silver fox flaunted.
He was wearing jeans that were faded with age rather than from trendy
distressing, and a white button-down, un-tucked. The only concessions he made
to the BDSM sensibility were the black leather vest he wore open over his shirt
and the heavy black boots that currently bracketed Ryan’s knees.
    He was older than Ryan. Mid-thirties, maybe. A clump of hair
near his temple glinted lighter than the rest of his shaggy blond mane. A patch
of gray? His eyes, indeterminately dark in the dicey club lighting, were framed
with a few tiny lines, as though the guy smiled a lot. Ryan took in the hard
line of the full lips. Or maybe he squinted.
    He was so painfully hot, he practically glowed.
    Ryan struggled to process through adrenaline and his fading
tequila buzz. The men were sitting together. At a BDSM club. One was clearly
dominant, dressed like a corporate shark and wielding condescension like a
whip. The other was dressed casually, hadn’t spoken, other than his involuntary
shout when Ryan landed in his lap.