Rachel Haimowitz & Cat Grant - [Power Play 1] (10 page)

CHAPTER
7

onathan’s buzzer rang around seven, and Bill, the evening security

guard, rasped over the line, “There’s a Mr. McKinney here to see

you, Mr. Watkins. Says he has an appointment.”

Cheeky bugger.
Still, quite the relief to know Brandon’s anger had

finally cooled.

“Send him up.” Then, with a smile, he stood and waited by the

elevator, hands in his pockets. His grin widened as the doors opened,

and out strode Brandon like he owned the place.

Jonathan didn’t even get the chance to say hello before Brandon

blurted, “So what exactly does this offer of yours entail?”

A moment’s hesitation. How best to present this without

sending him running again? Then again, perhaps it was better to put

everything on the table from the outset, give him the tools to make

an informed decision.

“I’d like to show you something,” he began, “but it might be a

bit . . . overwhelming.” Brandon went stiff and narrow-eyed when

Jonathan touched his shoulder, so he pulled his hand back. “Yes, well,

I’d just, I’d ask you to promise me you won’t bolt. Just . . . stay and

hear me out. Consider it for a moment, even if you think it’s crazy.”

Of course that earned him a suspicious glare, but he could

live with that if it got him what he wanted. Brandon scowled and

scratched at a stubbled cheek with his knuckle, but nodded. “Okay. I

promise, I won’t bolt.” Left clearly unspoken:
Weirdo.

Jonathan led him to the spiral staircase. They walked down a

flight, past the kitchen to the suite of rooms at the end of the hal .

Brandon shuffled from foot to foot as Jonathan pulled a key from his

pocket and unlocked the door.

“So, is this where you bury the bodies?” Brandon asked with a

nervous chuckle.

“In a manner of speaking,” Jonathan said, winking at Brandon

before swinging the door open. Then he rested a hand on the nape of

Brandon’s neck and watched his face very, very carefully as he flipped

on the light.

As he’d expected, Brandon tensed, froze, and took a step back.

He might have taken more, but Jonathan tightened his fingers, ever

so slightly, and said, “Remember your promise.” He tried to imagine

how it must look to Brandon—the black walls hung with crops and

paddles, whips and cuffs; the man-sized cages, one dangling by a chain

from the ceiling like an empty sarcophagus; the St. Andrew’s cross

and the spanking bench; the padded restraint tables and the rope

spiderweb; a hundred things a man like Brandon probably wouldn’t

even begin to understand. And those three mysterious doors along

the back wal , also painted black. To Jonathan, it was a playground of

untold delights. To Brandon, it must look like a torture chamber.

Brandon stood frozen, mouth open, eyes wide. Jonathan turned

him physically, by the shoulders, until their eyes met. “Would you

believe me if I said this was all in the pursuit of pleasure?”

Brandon knocked Jonathan’s hands from his shoulders with

rather more force than was necessary and took two huge steps back.

“You’re sick,” he said flatly. “Handcuffs in bed are one thing, but

this . . . This is
not
my scene.”

“I know it isn’t
now
, but I’ve seen the potential in you. If you

could just trust me a little, let me help you awaken to everything you

could be, all that magnificent promise.” But Brandon was shaking his

head, over and over. Best to switch tacks. “You’ve been taking care of

yourself since you were fifteen; rediscover the beauty of
being
cared

for again, of
trusting
again. It’s all right to let go, Brandon. It’s all right

to
want
. You don’t have to be on guard all the time.”

Whether he was getting through or not, he couldn’t say, but at

least Brandon had stopped backing away from him, seemed to be

listening at least a little—gotten over his initial fear, perhaps, that

Jonathan would lock him down here against his will. “Aren’t you

tired, Brandon? Don’t you ever wish it could all just . . .
stop
for a little

while? You could have that here. I could do that for you; I
want
to do

that for you. And I would never, ever harm you, I swear it.”

Brandon snorted. “So those whips are just for show, then, is that

it?” “Here,” Jonathan said, walking over to his collection of impact

toys and pul ing a lightweight suede flogger off the wal . “Feel this.”

Brandon flinched back when Jonathan held it out, but quickly

recovered, reaching for it reluctantly. He ran the falls through his

fingers once, twice, a third time. Seemed a little surprised by it.

“Nice, isn’t it? You’d be surprised how much pleasure I could

wring from you with this. A natural high. Like flying.”

“You’re full of shit,” Brandon said, even as he twined the falls

through his fingers once more. Any second now, he’d probably jerk

it over his shoulder, try to strike himself. Jonathan would’ve bet half

his fortune on that.

And there Brandon went, right on cue—a halfhearted swing, the

falls slapping lightly against the back of his shirt. He probably barely

even felt it.

“It feels even better on bare skin,” Jonathan said. He took the

flogger from Brandon’s unresisting fingers, held Brandon’s arm by the

wrist and draped the falls across his forearm. For a single fraction of a

second, Brandon’s eyes closed. “See?”

But then Brandon jerked his hand back and folded his arms

across his chest. “You’re insane,” he said—though with considerably

less heat than before.

Jonathan shook his head. “No. I promise you.” But that didn’t

help, of course it didn’t; Brandon had no reason to trust him at al .

“Look . . .” He took a step forward, another, closing the distance

between them. Brandon let him. Let him grasp his shoulders in both

hands, despite the flogger still occupying one of them. “I know what

your father did to you. I know what you must think when you look

at all these toys—”

Brandon knocked Jonathan’s hands from his shoulders, curled his

fingers into fists. “What the fuck do you know about my father?”

Jonathan had suspected that would strike a nerve, but not with

quite so much force—not after all this time. He tried on a smile and

said, “My investigators didn’t fall down on
everything
, you know.

Police reports and hospital records don’t just go away.”

“Who do you think you are! What gives you the fucking right to

go snooping around in people’s pasts?” He thrust one hand, fingers

still tightly clenched, just inches from Jonathan’s face. “I’m not a kid

anymore. That shit’s behind me.”

“I know that.” A hand on Brandon’s shoulder again, miraculously

allowed. He was so tense he was trembling. “And part of this is about

reclaiming what you lost then. This is
for you
, Brandon. For both of

us. You’d be amazed at how much pleasure you’d find in these walls,

how much of yourself could unfold before you. That’s my only goal

here. I said I would never harm you and I mean it.”

“Yeah,” Brandon said, knocking Jonathan’s hand away again.

“My dad used to say that too. But at least he didn’t fool himself into

thinking I’d
like
it.”

Jonathan couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed, but still, this

was further than he’d ever hoped to get after Brandon had stormed

out the other day. In fact, he was amazed Brandon was still here.

Clearly the man was intrigued by all this. Maybe the submissive

inside him really was stronger than his shame, his fear.

Maybe it was time to leave him alone and let him hash it out for

himself.

“Why don’t I let you have some time to yourself,” he said. “Take as

much as you want. Touch anything you’d like. Nothing’s off limits.”

Brandon nodded warily, and Jonathan handed him the flogger.

“When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you upstairs. If you’d rather

leave, I’ll have my driver take you home.”

Still here, still staring at the flogger, its soft falls tumbling through

his fingers once more, a strange, hypnotic look in his eyes. Not

moving, not demanding to leave. Instead, he brought the flogger up

to his face and sniffed, eyes closing, cautious pleasure leaking through

his guard. Maybe there was still cause for hope, after al .

Jonathan left the door open when he walked away, and for a long

moment, all Bran could think was
Thank God he didn’t lock me in

here
. Not that he’d
really
believed that would happen, but some small

part of him couldn’t quite let it go. Not after all he knew people were

capable of. Not after all he’d just seen.

And just what
had
he seen, anyway? He realized he was still

holding that stupid whip and put it down on the nearest horizontal

surface—alongside what looked like a little power unit and a whole

array of matching steel . . .
whatevers
, though from the shape of them

he had a pretty good idea of where they might get shoved. Even the

small ones looked intimidating; the large ones looked like they’d rip

him in two. People didn’t actually
use
those, did they?

Against his will, his fingers closed around one, hefted it up. Cold.

Heavy. Smooth.
Strangely compelling?

No.
No.

He put it down, wandered over to the wall of whips and crops and

God knew what else—hundreds, it looked like, all different shapes

and sizes and materials and what the
fuck
was he still
doing
here?

He fingered a row of whips. Some velvety soft, like the one

Jonathan had handed him. One even seemed to be made entirely of

rabbit fur, another of feathers, a third one strips of silk. He spotted a

leather one with braided tails and heavy knots at the bottoms. Picked

it up. No soft suede here. Hadn’t old British naval ships used these to

punish mutinous sailors? Seemed like the sort of thing you could cut

someone with.

So why was he pushing his sleeve up, thwapping himself on the

arm with it? It didn’t hurt, not really. The little red marks it made

faded almost instantly. He hit himself again, harder this time, and
ow
,

that
stung
. He hung the whip back up, rubbed at his arm. The marks

weren’t fading so fast anymore. Felt kinda warm now, though. Nice,

almost.

No, it’s not nice
at
all
. You just want it to be because you need the

money.

Near the end of the wall of whips hung a series of leather straps,

one exactly like a belt without a buckle. Bran shuddered and turned

his back to it. No way in hell he’d ever let
anyone
do that to him

again.

Some strange furniture across the room. Bran left the various

implements of torture to go check it out. Some of it was obvious:

cages; a big X with straps for ankles, wrists, waist. Beside the

X—which, it turned out, spun around like a wheel when he gave

it a little nudge—sat a padded leather bench-like contraption with

leather straps. He sat on it, gave a little bounce. But surely that wasn’t