If It Fornicates (A Market Garden Tale)

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  If It Fornicates (A Market Garden Tale)

  Copyright © 2013 by L.A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov

  Cover Art by Jordan Taylor

  Editor: Sarah Frantz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-027-7

  First edition

  June, 2013

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  If it flies, drives, or fornicates, it’s cheaper to rent it.

  Nick is a top earner in the Market Garden, where rentboys fulfill their high-rolling clients’ every sexual fantasy. As a Dom and a sadist, he sets his own price and is experienced enough not to let any client get out of hand. He’s damn good at his job, and it’s easy money.

  Or at least it used to be. But now he has a boyfriend. Spencer is a former client, a closeted corporate lawyer, and so beautifully submissive he’s perfect for Nick. He doesn’t even mind how Nick earns a living. He just wants to take care of Nick—something Nick isn’t quite sure how to handle.

  In fact, Nick’s clearly off his game these days. Sure, he’s tired from his shift work and his studies, but mainly he’s bored by his clients and distracted by thoughts of Spencer—dangerous for everyone when he’s wielding a whip. Now Nick has to make a choice: give up his independence, or walk away from the only man he’s ever loved.

  About If It Fornicates

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgments

  More Market Garden Tales

  Also by Aleksandr Voinov

  Also by L.A. Witt

  About Aleksandr Voinov

  About L.A. Witt

  “Oh, ow, that stings,” Richard hissed. His welt-covered back flinched away from Nick’s touch.

  “I know it does.” Nick kept his voice gentle. “Just relax. It’ll help.” He continued smoothing lotion onto the sub’s scourged flesh.

  Richard didn’t quite relax. He was still new at this, still hadn’t gotten used to that burn in his skin when he started coming out of subspace and his nerve endings remembered what they did for a living.

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “It is if you want to be able to wear a shirt or lean on anything tomorrow, yes.” Nick capped the lotion bottle and put it aside. Then he set his hands—lightly, of course—on the lotion-slicked skin, and made more smooth, gentle circles over the welts. He grinned over his handiwork; he always did love the cool patterns a cat-o’-nine-tails left on a sub’s back. Made his masochistic clients so much more fun and interesting than the regular “fuck me and I’ll pay you” johns.

  His grin faded, and he kept rubbing the lotion on, but with less enthusiasm. His muscles ached a little from swinging the flogger, but mostly he was just tired. That kind of bone-deep tired that hit the mind harder than the body. Less like he’d fucked a businessman this afternoon and flogged Richard this evening, and more like he’d just spent days on end studying for an exam he couldn’t afford to fail. “Friday night at five” tired.

  Just need a couple of nights off, that’s all.

  “How do you feel?” he asked Richard.

  “Good.” Fatigue weighed down the sub’s voice. “Feel good.”

  “Doesn’t sting anymore?”

  “A little. Isn’t bad.”

  Nick smiled. Richard had come back down from subspace, returned to terra firma, and now was hitting that lethargic state that would eventually knock him out for the rest of the night. Mission accomplished.

  Once Richard was all right for the evening, Nick took the folded bills off the bureau—they’d learned after the first or second night to have the money ready to go because Richard would be asleep before Nick left—and called a cab. He checked one last time to make sure Richard was in a good state, and then he was gone.

  The night was cool, especially for someone wearing no shirt under a leather jacket, but the shock of evening air on bare skin helped centre Nick and return him to the real world while he waited for his cab.

  He could have sworn there’d been a time when he was flying high after he left clients’ houses. He distinctly remembered feeling like he could take on the world, like he could move a mountain with nothing more than a glance. Maybe he was just burned out now. Who knew? But the last few times he’d stepped outside to wait for his ride, he’d felt a dull heaviness in the pit of his stomach. One he couldn’t quite explain.

  He glanced back at Richard’s terraced house. His lack of enthusiasm was weird because this was one of the clients he actually liked, although he didn’t really know him. He didn’t even know if Richard was the guy’s real name. Most of his clients gave him fake names. Nick gave them his real one. He liked the in-your-face quality of it, the ballsiness of saying, “Yeah, my name is Nick, and I fuck men for a living.”

  There was really nothing to be ashamed of. As far as some people were concerned, just being gay meant he fucked everything and everyone. Taking money for it was just the icing on the cake. The job suited him just fine. Or at least it had until recently.

  The cab pulled up and Nick slipped into the back just as his mobile started buzzing in his pocket.

  “Hang on a sec,” he told the driver, and pulled the phone out of his pocket.

  Want to come by? I have roast chicken.

  Spencer.

  He had a sixth sense for timing, that guy. The prospect of roast chicken sounded great, especially when the alternative was collapsing in front of the TV for another two hours before he rolled into bed. And an evening with Spencer—a late night dinner followed by anything Nick wanted—was always tempting.

  But Nick hesitated. He’d been doing that lately, ever since that night a couple of weeks ago when he hadn’t taken Spencer’s money. The night things had changed. Their relationship was on weird footing now, footing Nick hadn’
t quite adapted to yet, and he caught himself hesitating like this every time he considered going over there. Of course he always went—over the last couple of weeks, he’d been at Spencer’s house every night he hadn’t stayed with a client—but the momentary hemming and hawing kept happening.

  A second text came through: No strings attached. Just help me vanquish this bird.

  Vanquish. Well, all right then . . .

  Nick gave the driver Spencer’s address. After three months and a little, he didn’t have to check it anymore on the phone.

  On my way, he texted back. They tended to text rather than speak on the phone—all romantic and clandestine, but the relationship was still very much up in the air. They were still settling into things.

  It’ll work out, he reminded himself for the millionth time. He’d got used to being a prostitute. He could get used to being someone’s boyfriend.

  En route to Spencer’s, Nick checked his emails. He’d recently set up a website and that thing needed work. For whatever reason, it attracted way too much spam. He also needed to get some professional photos. Maybe if he pushed harder into the D/s side of things, he could start his own studio and hire a couple people for the grunt work.

  But that means you’ll be a fully professional, full-time whore.

  Being unashamed of something and being stuck doing it forever were two very different things.

  In front of Spencer’s house, Nick paid the cabbie, tipping well as usual, grabbed his bag, and stepped out.

  Before Nick had even reached the front door, Spencer opened it, looking gorgeous in jeans and a dark red cashmere sweater, barely protected by an apron. He grinned wide as if Nick were the guy from the National Lottery. “Come on in.”

  “Cheers.” Nick slid in and Spencer closed the door behind them.

  The house smelled of rosemary and roasting bird. After the dark outside, the warm light squeezed oddly against his heart, and Nick dropped his bag beside the door.

  “Glad you could make it.” Spencer’s hand was warm as he slid it beneath Nick’s jacket onto his bare waist.

  “Thanks for the invite.” Nick drew Spencer down for a quick kiss that turned into a long one. They wrapped their arms around each other, Spencer’s sweater soft against Nick’s skin wherever the apron didn’t get in the way. Sometimes after he’d been with a client, the last thing Nick wanted was to be touched, but Spencer’s hands and his embrace and his tender kiss were exactly what he needed right then. An entire bottle of wine couldn’t relax Nick the way this did.

  They separated, and when Nick swept the tip of his tongue across his lip, Spencer shivered. Then he let Nick go and gestured down the hall. “I should check on the bird. Come on in.”

  “After you.”

  In the kitchen, Nick leaned against one of the work surfaces.

  “Tea?” Spencer asked after he’d checked on the chicken.

  “Please.”

  This was all so oddly domestic: Spencer pouring tea into a pair of matching mugs, offering cream and sugar, and the two of them quietly sipping it in the fragrant kitchen. If someone had peered in through a window, they might have mistaken the two of them for a respectable couple instead of a corporate lawyer and his prostitute boyfriend. With that gentle kiss still tingling on his lips, Nick might have made that mistake himself, and he didn’t know quite what to make of that.

  He put down his mug. “You didn’t roast that bird yourself, did you?”

  “I did. Stopped at Smithfield Market, came face-to-face, well, in a manner of speaking, with the biggest chicken I’ve ever seen. The butcher said it’s a capon. A castrated chicken. Told me how to cook it, too, but it took quite a while longer than he indicated.”

  “Ahh,” Nick said. “That explains why it’s just about ready at this hour.”

  Spencer laughed. “Tell me about it. I didn’t set out to eat at”—he glanced at the microwave clock—“ten thirty at night.” His laugh turned into a gentle smile. “But I’d say it worked out. Meant we could have a proper dinner together.”

  “So we can.” Damn, but these fuzzy, romantic feelings were alien to Nick. He cleared his throat. “I, um, didn’t know you cooked. It’s been all restaurant deliveries so far.”

  “Shoving some oranges and limes up a dead bird’s bottom and throwing him in an oven isn’t cooking,” Spencer insisted. “I was just . . . in the mood.”

  Nick smiled and crossed his arms. “Next thing I know, you’ll bake gingerbread cookies.”

  Spencer laughed again. Then he nodded at Nick’s chest, which was bare under his leather jacket. “Want a shirt?”

  Hmm. Interesting. An attempt at domesticity. But having dinner half-naked might just be a bit weird.

  “I probably should.” Nick uncrossed his arms. “But nothing of yours is going to fit me.”

  “Just a sec.” Spencer rushed off, and Nick exhaled. Damn, nothing about this was as awkward or unnatural as he kept convincing himself it should be. He pulled down the zip and slipped out of his jacket, then hung that up in the corridor. The kitchen was plenty warm with the roast going.

  “Here.” Spencer came back with a slinky running top in black that wouldn’t hang off him like he was trying on an older brother’s clothes. Nick pulled it on, gratified that Spencer stole a long glance at his chest.

  “Thanks,” Nick said, and picked up his tea mug again.

  Spencer watched him for a moment. “Long day?”

  “Do I look it?”

  “A bit.”

  Nick clasped his hands and stretched his arms out, trying to release some of the tension in his shoulders. “Why do I feel like I just put in a week at your job?”

  Spencer laughed. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t even know, really.” Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just exhausted. And it’s less physical than mental. Which is weird.”

  “Huh. That’s kind of—here, turn around.”

  Nick eyed him. “What?”

  Spencer gestured for him to do as he was told. Odd, the sub ordering the Dom, but right about then, Nick didn’t care about playing games. And besides, they weren’t in the bedroom. Equal footing out here in the kitchen between an oven full of roasting bird and a table set for two.

  So he turned around.

  Spencer’s hands materialized on his shoulders. He pressed his fingers and thumbs in, and Nick closed his eyes as Spencer kneaded the exhausted muscles.

  “You okay?” Spencer asked. “You are really, really tense.”

  Nick wanted to answer automatically with “I’m fine” or “I’m just tired,” but Spencer’s hands were like tactile truth serum. Gentle but firm pressure that completely destroyed Nick’s resolve—and maybe his ability—to bullshit his way out from under the conversation.

  He exhaled, tilting his head forward so Spencer had more access to his neck. “I don’t know what it is. The last couple of weeks or so, I’ve just . . .” What? Approached everything, especially my job, with all the enthusiasm of a kid opening up a pack of socks and underwear on Christmas? He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe I just need a holiday.”

  “You just took one a few weeks ago.”

  Nick stiffened. Right. That “holiday to Spain” he’d supposedly taken. Guilt clawed at him; he still hadn’t been entirely truthful to Spencer about that. He cleared his throat. “I don’t think it was enough. Maybe I, um, need another.”

  “Maybe you do.” Spencer’s hands slowly climbed Nick’s neck, sliding under his longish hair in search of the tension Nick obviously couldn’t keep hidden from him. “You’ve got a physically demanding job.”

  “I’ve had a physically demanding job for a long . . . ooh.” He shivered as Spencer’s thumb pressed into a particularly tense spot.

  “That hurt?”

  “Yes,” he said through his teeth. “But keep doing it.” Man, he really was tense. He hated the feeling of someone massaging out a particularly knotted muscle, hated that persistent pain as muscle fought fingers befor
e finally giving in and relaxing. Right now, though, that obnoxious sharp pain was the promise of relief, so he pressed back, pushing against Spencer’s fingers even though his eyes watered.

  After some work on Spencer’s part and swearing on Nick’s, the muscle gave. The pain faded to a dull ache, and Spencer worked his way back down to Nick’s shoulders.

  “Anyway.” Nick released a breath. He carefully tilted his newly relaxed neck to one side, then the other. “It’s not like I’m new to this job. After all this time, you’d think I’d be used to it.”

  “Maybe you’re burned out.”

  “I don’t know.” Nick had studied burnout in-depth at university, but was that what this was? He sighed. “I don’t know what it is. Like I said, it’s not my body that’s tired.” Nick turned his head as far as he could, just enough to bring Spencer into his peripheral vision. “That’s what I meant when I said it felt like I’d been at your job all day.”

  “Brain stuffed with wet wool?”

  Nick laughed, facing forward again. “Yeah. Exactly. I mean, maybe it is burnout. I just . . .” Feel like there’s more to it than that? Maybe he was overthinking it. Trying to self-diagnose something strange and obscure like every psych student eventually did.

  He closed his eyes and enjoyed Spencer’s magic hands as they travelled down his back. Spencer’s thumbs pressed in on either side of his spine, and his fingers kneaded the outer muscles until they relaxed. Nick completely lost track of time, and very nearly forgot where he was until Spencer stopped.

  Rolling his relaxed shoulders, Nick turned again. “Fuck, you’re good at that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank you.” Nick realised right then how close they were, but just when Nick thought a kiss was inevitable, Spencer stepped back. He had a good sense of physical space. Nick couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever crowded him. And the man was bigger and taller than he was.

  “Well, let’s see what our dinner guest looks like now.” Spencer grabbed two oven mitts again and opened the oven. A waft of oily, citrusy, rosemary-scented heat escaped. He took hold of the roasting pan, lifted it out of the oven, and put it down on two slate plates.