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Straight to HellA straight man and a gay man walk into a hotel room… It could be the start of a bad joke or the beginning of their hottest fantasy.
Michael is gay, out, and proud. He’s also been in love with his straight work-colleague, Simon, for months. When a business trip finds them sharing a hotel room, Michael expects it to be nothing more than mildly frustrating. But, apparently, Simon has other plans. Michael knows that agreeing to a no-strings hook up with a straight guy is a bad idea. He knows he’s being taken advantage of. And he knows he should say no, because if he doesn’t, the whole trip is going to go straight to hell. Facts and Figures:
Series: Hearts and Handcuffs (Book 1) Length: Short Novella (20,000 words) Genre: Contemporary, BDSM, Erotic Romance Pairings: Male/Male Published: September 2018 |
Excerpt...
“Is he ever going to stop drinking?”
“No.” Michael Jefferies sighed, closed his eyes, and dropped his head back to rest it against the wall behind his chair. “He’s never going to stop. We’re going to be trapped in the most boring hotel bar on the planet, watching our boss get drunk, for the rest of our lives.” God, he hated business trips, especially when Mr Fullerton was part of them.
“He always does this?” Simon asked, cautiously, from the chair next to Michael.
“Yeah. And he pouts and snipes at everyone all through the following day if anyone tries to sneak off and leave the bar earlier than he does—even if they can prove they did tons of work back in their hotel room.”
A hush settled over them, broken only by the soft music being played through the speakers on the other side of the room.
“At least he’s got good taste,” Simon suddenly said—his tone of voice slightly off, as if he was really nervous all of a sudden.
Michael opened his eyes and peered at the tall, red-headed woman his boss was desperately trying to chat up. “If you say so.”
“You don’t think she’s hot?” Simon asked.
“No. But I’m probably not the best judge. Gay, remember?” Michael said.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Michael turned his head toward Simon, but Simon was now staring fixedly at the bar room table where the key card for the hotel room they’d be sharing that night rested. A slight frown marred the normally smooth skin between Simon’s pale, blond eyebrows.
His expression didn’t make Simon any the less perfect in Michael’s eyes. It just made him want to kiss Simon until all was well in Simon’s world, and his expression turned into one of complete bliss. God, but it was embarrassing just how badly Michael wanted him.
As silence stretched out between them, Michael looked from Simon’s frown to the key card and back again. His stomach knotted as he realised the moment had come for “The Conversation”.
I’m not gay. I have no problem with gay men. But, I’m straight, very straight.
It was the same exchange that Michael almost always ended up having on the first night of a business trip that would see him sharing a hotel room with a straight colleague for the first time.
And, usually, Michael would be confident that the appropriate response was for him to roll his eyes and make a sarcastic comment regarding the sheer arrogance of straight men who all seemed to assume that any gay man they worked with was just frantic for any opportunity to jump them.
Unfortunately, in Simon’s case, the idea that Michael desperately wanted to get into his pants wouldn’t involve conceit, so much as a perfectly accurate understanding of the situation.
Michael loosened his tie as their corner of the hotel bar suddenly became uncomfortably warm. But, he was not going to get hot and bothered. He was not going blush for the first time in a decade, either.
Biting back a sigh, he glanced heavenward. Logically, he knew he should feel confident that Simon had no idea just how many of his private fantasies he’d starred in since they started working together. But Simon had him so far off balance that, for the first time in his life, Michael found he wasn’t sure about anything.
Not for the first time in recent weeks, he found himself checking back through his memories, reassuring himself that he hadn’t given himself away.
No flirting. No staring—at least, not when there was a risk of being caught. Ever since Simon had first walked into the office, and Michael had fallen in instant and uncontrollable lust with him, he’d been very careful not to do anything that might make Simon aware of just how badly he wanted him.
He might have imagined Simon spread out face down on the conference table after hours—his wrists and ankles shackled in place and his arse reddened from a fresh spanking—but he’d never got in Simon’s personal space when they were reading a report from the same computer screen.
He might have spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining Simon pinned against the wall in the stairwell begging for his permission to come, but he’d never so much as brushed against him as they both rushed for the coffee machine first thing every morning.
Michael shifted in his seat as his cock, which he could never recall being less than half-hard in Simon’s presence, stiffened even further as all the various kinky scenarios he’d imagined Simon in rushed through his mind.
He’d casually dropped his suit jacket over his lap when he sat down in the bar. An embarrassingly teenage precaution that he’d had to fall back on since meeting Simon. There was no way Simon could see how turned on he was. But as off balance as Michael felt, it seemed completely possible that Simon could read his mind.
So, he was getting paranoid as well as pathetic now—great! Yet another excruciating new low.
Michael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. While Simon continued to stare at the key card, Michael forced himself to at least try to be sensible.
At the very worst, Simon might have sensed that his gay work colleague fancied him. That wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t even as if Simon was some sort of homophobic jerk.
Simon probably just wanted to make sure that his friendliness—which hadn’t faltered for a second when he found out Michael was gay—hadn’t been mistaken for mutual attraction.
Yes, Michael told himself, very firmly, in the same tone his grandmother used to use when a child was being silly. Everything was fine.
Meanwhile, Simon opened his mouth and closed it again without saying anything. He took a sip of his beer and stared at the bottle for a while. He obviously wasn’t finding it an easy conversation to start.
Michael had often seen him struggle the same way at work, when he had to reject an offered deal by a supplier. Simon wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to hurt people’s feelings.
Michael took a swig of his own beer and, as it became clear that Simon was completely incapable of working out what to say next, Michael knew that he was going to have to rescue him. Lust and a desire for his submission might have come first when Michael met Simon, but protectiveness hadn’t been far behind.
Even if I did think she was hot, my boyfriend would kill me for even looking at another person—male or female.
That would do. It would be a complete lie, of course. But Michael was happy to invent a jealous boyfriend, if it would set Simon at ease and let them share a room without Simon needing to worry that Michael might forget that he was straight and try to jump into his bed in the middle of the night.
“Have you ever wondered?” Simon suddenly blurted out.
Michael blinked at him, trying to work out where the topic of conversation had wandered off to while he wasn’t giving it his complete attention. It was far from the first time he’d lost track of reality while thinking about Simon and sex. It was far from the first time he’d felt like a clueless novice sitting next to him, rather than a confident dom, either. “Wondered?” he asked, casually.
“Wondered what it would be like with a woman?” Simon clarified, his attention back on the woman their boss was chatting up.
“No,” Michael said, completely honestly.
Simon took another sip of his drink and cleared his throat. “You’ve never even considered getting a blow job off a woman, just out of curiosity about how things are on the other side of the fence?”
He was obviously aiming for a casual tone of voice, too, but he wasn’t able to pull it off half as well as Michael had.
“Just out of curiosity,” Simon stressed. “I mean, it’s always seemed to me that a man’s mouth and a woman’s mouth can’t be that different, that everyone having to stay on one side of the fence all the time is a bit stupid…”
And as easily as that, the conversation that Simon was actually trying to start up snapped into focus inside Michael’s head. Horror hit him like a gut punch.
Forget a nice guy trying to gently remind him that he was straight and uninterested. This was the other conversation that Michael had discovered that sharing a room with a straight work colleague could easily lead to. A bitter taste filled the back of his mouth.
“Are you saying that you’re hoping I’ll suck you off after we go back to our room tonight?” Michael asked, bluntly, without any of the pauses and qualifications Simon was so fond of employing when he spoke.
Part of him really hoped that Simon was going to blush, chuckle awkwardly, and explain he’d been trying to show how un-bothered he was by sharing a room with a gay man by making a joke—even if it wasn’t a very funny one.
Part of him prayed that Simon would stutter out something completely incomprehensible, horrified by the idea once it was laid out there harshly in the open.
Anything that would have made it clear that Simon wasn’t that kind of straight guy…
Simon hesitated with his drink halfway to his lips. He put the bottle back on the table. “Um… Not in so many words,” he hedged. “But…”
And as easily as that, the idea that Simon had realised that Michael was completely besotted with him despite all of Michael’s best efforts to be discrete wasn’t just embarrassing.
No.
Simon realising that his colleague has a crush on him and trying to set polite boundaries was kind of sweet and exactly what he’d expect from Simon. Realising it and deciding it would be a useful way of getting his cock sucked.
No.
Not happening. It had happened to plenty of Michael’s friends in the past, but it wasn’t happening to him. Not now. Not ever. Not even with someone he wanted as desperately as he wanted Simon.
Thanks, but I’ve never been interested in straight cock.
Sorry there aren’t any single women in the bar who want to screw you, but I’ll be damned before I become any straight guy’s back up plan.
Michael completely failed to push either statement past his lips. For what felt like hours, he just stared at Simon.
“I…” Simon trailed off. He was silent for a few moments, then tried again, more cautiously. “I guess I’m trying to say that, if…”
And that was it. Simon fell silent.
Images flooded Michael’s head full of all the fantasies that had, at some point or another, put his mouth around Simon’s cock. There was no shortage of scenarios to remember.
As suddenly as they arrived, they were all pushed aside by the image of his friend Harry. It was one of the things Michael remembered Harry saying when he’d got into that god-awful mess with a straight so-called-dom last year and ended up sobbing for weeks on Michael’s sofa, vowing never to even glance at a straight man again.
Straight men who liked to use gay men for no-strings blow jobs would never actually say they want you to suck them off. The guy who’d screwed Harry up had always liked to make it sound like it was all Harry’s idea, as if he was doing Harry a bloody favour by letting him come within ten yards of a straight dick.
Yet, somehow, Michael still found himself completely incapable of telling Simon to bugger off.
He couldn’t tell him that he wasn’t interested because, even with his every survival instinct screaming at him, he realised that he was still pathetically interested in anything he could get from him.
And the whole time Michael had been battling with his own mind, Simon still hadn’t said a sodding word. As far as Michael could work out, Simon considered his part of the conversation complete.
Michael might not have been able to push him away completely, but if Simon thought that Michael was going to let himself get screwed over the way Harry had, Simon was about to get another thought coming very quickly.
Not in so many words…
“It’s up to you.” Michael managed to relax his shoulders and shrug as if the conversation wasn’t bothering him at all. “But if you want my mouth anywhere near your cock, you will have to say so in exactly that many words.”
“Is he ever going to stop drinking?”
“No.” Michael Jefferies sighed, closed his eyes, and dropped his head back to rest it against the wall behind his chair. “He’s never going to stop. We’re going to be trapped in the most boring hotel bar on the planet, watching our boss get drunk, for the rest of our lives.” God, he hated business trips, especially when Mr Fullerton was part of them.
“He always does this?” Simon asked, cautiously, from the chair next to Michael.
“Yeah. And he pouts and snipes at everyone all through the following day if anyone tries to sneak off and leave the bar earlier than he does—even if they can prove they did tons of work back in their hotel room.”
A hush settled over them, broken only by the soft music being played through the speakers on the other side of the room.
“At least he’s got good taste,” Simon suddenly said—his tone of voice slightly off, as if he was really nervous all of a sudden.
Michael opened his eyes and peered at the tall, red-headed woman his boss was desperately trying to chat up. “If you say so.”
“You don’t think she’s hot?” Simon asked.
“No. But I’m probably not the best judge. Gay, remember?” Michael said.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Michael turned his head toward Simon, but Simon was now staring fixedly at the bar room table where the key card for the hotel room they’d be sharing that night rested. A slight frown marred the normally smooth skin between Simon’s pale, blond eyebrows.
His expression didn’t make Simon any the less perfect in Michael’s eyes. It just made him want to kiss Simon until all was well in Simon’s world, and his expression turned into one of complete bliss. God, but it was embarrassing just how badly Michael wanted him.
As silence stretched out between them, Michael looked from Simon’s frown to the key card and back again. His stomach knotted as he realised the moment had come for “The Conversation”.
I’m not gay. I have no problem with gay men. But, I’m straight, very straight.
It was the same exchange that Michael almost always ended up having on the first night of a business trip that would see him sharing a hotel room with a straight colleague for the first time.
And, usually, Michael would be confident that the appropriate response was for him to roll his eyes and make a sarcastic comment regarding the sheer arrogance of straight men who all seemed to assume that any gay man they worked with was just frantic for any opportunity to jump them.
Unfortunately, in Simon’s case, the idea that Michael desperately wanted to get into his pants wouldn’t involve conceit, so much as a perfectly accurate understanding of the situation.
Michael loosened his tie as their corner of the hotel bar suddenly became uncomfortably warm. But, he was not going to get hot and bothered. He was not going blush for the first time in a decade, either.
Biting back a sigh, he glanced heavenward. Logically, he knew he should feel confident that Simon had no idea just how many of his private fantasies he’d starred in since they started working together. But Simon had him so far off balance that, for the first time in his life, Michael found he wasn’t sure about anything.
Not for the first time in recent weeks, he found himself checking back through his memories, reassuring himself that he hadn’t given himself away.
No flirting. No staring—at least, not when there was a risk of being caught. Ever since Simon had first walked into the office, and Michael had fallen in instant and uncontrollable lust with him, he’d been very careful not to do anything that might make Simon aware of just how badly he wanted him.
He might have imagined Simon spread out face down on the conference table after hours—his wrists and ankles shackled in place and his arse reddened from a fresh spanking—but he’d never got in Simon’s personal space when they were reading a report from the same computer screen.
He might have spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining Simon pinned against the wall in the stairwell begging for his permission to come, but he’d never so much as brushed against him as they both rushed for the coffee machine first thing every morning.
Michael shifted in his seat as his cock, which he could never recall being less than half-hard in Simon’s presence, stiffened even further as all the various kinky scenarios he’d imagined Simon in rushed through his mind.
He’d casually dropped his suit jacket over his lap when he sat down in the bar. An embarrassingly teenage precaution that he’d had to fall back on since meeting Simon. There was no way Simon could see how turned on he was. But as off balance as Michael felt, it seemed completely possible that Simon could read his mind.
So, he was getting paranoid as well as pathetic now—great! Yet another excruciating new low.
Michael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. While Simon continued to stare at the key card, Michael forced himself to at least try to be sensible.
At the very worst, Simon might have sensed that his gay work colleague fancied him. That wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t even as if Simon was some sort of homophobic jerk.
Simon probably just wanted to make sure that his friendliness—which hadn’t faltered for a second when he found out Michael was gay—hadn’t been mistaken for mutual attraction.
Yes, Michael told himself, very firmly, in the same tone his grandmother used to use when a child was being silly. Everything was fine.
Meanwhile, Simon opened his mouth and closed it again without saying anything. He took a sip of his beer and stared at the bottle for a while. He obviously wasn’t finding it an easy conversation to start.
Michael had often seen him struggle the same way at work, when he had to reject an offered deal by a supplier. Simon wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to hurt people’s feelings.
Michael took a swig of his own beer and, as it became clear that Simon was completely incapable of working out what to say next, Michael knew that he was going to have to rescue him. Lust and a desire for his submission might have come first when Michael met Simon, but protectiveness hadn’t been far behind.
Even if I did think she was hot, my boyfriend would kill me for even looking at another person—male or female.
That would do. It would be a complete lie, of course. But Michael was happy to invent a jealous boyfriend, if it would set Simon at ease and let them share a room without Simon needing to worry that Michael might forget that he was straight and try to jump into his bed in the middle of the night.
“Have you ever wondered?” Simon suddenly blurted out.
Michael blinked at him, trying to work out where the topic of conversation had wandered off to while he wasn’t giving it his complete attention. It was far from the first time he’d lost track of reality while thinking about Simon and sex. It was far from the first time he’d felt like a clueless novice sitting next to him, rather than a confident dom, either. “Wondered?” he asked, casually.
“Wondered what it would be like with a woman?” Simon clarified, his attention back on the woman their boss was chatting up.
“No,” Michael said, completely honestly.
Simon took another sip of his drink and cleared his throat. “You’ve never even considered getting a blow job off a woman, just out of curiosity about how things are on the other side of the fence?”
He was obviously aiming for a casual tone of voice, too, but he wasn’t able to pull it off half as well as Michael had.
“Just out of curiosity,” Simon stressed. “I mean, it’s always seemed to me that a man’s mouth and a woman’s mouth can’t be that different, that everyone having to stay on one side of the fence all the time is a bit stupid…”
And as easily as that, the conversation that Simon was actually trying to start up snapped into focus inside Michael’s head. Horror hit him like a gut punch.
Forget a nice guy trying to gently remind him that he was straight and uninterested. This was the other conversation that Michael had discovered that sharing a room with a straight work colleague could easily lead to. A bitter taste filled the back of his mouth.
“Are you saying that you’re hoping I’ll suck you off after we go back to our room tonight?” Michael asked, bluntly, without any of the pauses and qualifications Simon was so fond of employing when he spoke.
Part of him really hoped that Simon was going to blush, chuckle awkwardly, and explain he’d been trying to show how un-bothered he was by sharing a room with a gay man by making a joke—even if it wasn’t a very funny one.
Part of him prayed that Simon would stutter out something completely incomprehensible, horrified by the idea once it was laid out there harshly in the open.
Anything that would have made it clear that Simon wasn’t that kind of straight guy…
Simon hesitated with his drink halfway to his lips. He put the bottle back on the table. “Um… Not in so many words,” he hedged. “But…”
And as easily as that, the idea that Simon had realised that Michael was completely besotted with him despite all of Michael’s best efforts to be discrete wasn’t just embarrassing.
No.
Simon realising that his colleague has a crush on him and trying to set polite boundaries was kind of sweet and exactly what he’d expect from Simon. Realising it and deciding it would be a useful way of getting his cock sucked.
No.
Not happening. It had happened to plenty of Michael’s friends in the past, but it wasn’t happening to him. Not now. Not ever. Not even with someone he wanted as desperately as he wanted Simon.
Thanks, but I’ve never been interested in straight cock.
Sorry there aren’t any single women in the bar who want to screw you, but I’ll be damned before I become any straight guy’s back up plan.
Michael completely failed to push either statement past his lips. For what felt like hours, he just stared at Simon.
“I…” Simon trailed off. He was silent for a few moments, then tried again, more cautiously. “I guess I’m trying to say that, if…”
And that was it. Simon fell silent.
Images flooded Michael’s head full of all the fantasies that had, at some point or another, put his mouth around Simon’s cock. There was no shortage of scenarios to remember.
As suddenly as they arrived, they were all pushed aside by the image of his friend Harry. It was one of the things Michael remembered Harry saying when he’d got into that god-awful mess with a straight so-called-dom last year and ended up sobbing for weeks on Michael’s sofa, vowing never to even glance at a straight man again.
Straight men who liked to use gay men for no-strings blow jobs would never actually say they want you to suck them off. The guy who’d screwed Harry up had always liked to make it sound like it was all Harry’s idea, as if he was doing Harry a bloody favour by letting him come within ten yards of a straight dick.
Yet, somehow, Michael still found himself completely incapable of telling Simon to bugger off.
He couldn’t tell him that he wasn’t interested because, even with his every survival instinct screaming at him, he realised that he was still pathetically interested in anything he could get from him.
And the whole time Michael had been battling with his own mind, Simon still hadn’t said a sodding word. As far as Michael could work out, Simon considered his part of the conversation complete.
Michael might not have been able to push him away completely, but if Simon thought that Michael was going to let himself get screwed over the way Harry had, Simon was about to get another thought coming very quickly.
Not in so many words…
“It’s up to you.” Michael managed to relax his shoulders and shrug as if the conversation wasn’t bothering him at all. “But if you want my mouth anywhere near your cock, you will have to say so in exactly that many words.”