Page 8 of Collin, Episodes 4-6 (The Residency Boys #2)

Collin couldn’t meet Mr. Reevesworth’s eyes as he stepped inside the office and shut the door. Mr. Reevesworth was standing on the other side of the desk. He tapped the surface with the end of a stylus. “I think, Collin, that you forgot something.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth sat down in his chair. He pointed to the carpet in front of his feet. Collin went around the desk.

“Down.”

Collin’s breath hitched. He sank to his knees and pressed his palms against his thighs. Inside his chest, his heart beat fast enough for a tango.

A hand settled on the back of his head and pushed him down toward the tiny bit of space on the edge of the chair between Mr. Reevesworth’s thighs.

“Breathe, Collin.” Mr. Reevesworth drew in his legs, bracketing Collin with his body. “There you go, boy.”

Collin shuddered. His fingers curled into his thighs, but it was nowhere near enough pain.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“For what?”

“All of it. The fax, getting photographed, not being here.”

“Only one of those items was your choice.”

“But if I’d been here, I wouldn’t have been photographed.”

“If you’d remembered your hat, you’d have been less recognizable.” Mr. Reevesworth massaged the back of Collin’s scalp. “Just breathe.”

“Can’t.” Familiar cold tingles ran up and down Collin’s limbs.

“If I wasn’t here, what would you be doing?”

Collin gritted his teeth. It was so hard to talk past the shaking and the clenching in his chest. “I’d scratch, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth pulled him up off the floor by the back of his coat. The man’s chair slid back and away from the desk with the force of his movement, crashing into the wall. Collin’s head spun as Mr. Reevesworth flipped him. He landed on his stomach, bent over the massive hardwood desk.

The room spun. There was a hand on his back, holding him down. Collin’s fingers curled against the cold surface.

CRACK!

Cold, then hot pain shot up his spine from his buttocks.

He gasped. The muscles up and down his back contracted and loosened.

“Are you with me, Collin?”

“Sir.”

“I got you, boy. Do you need more?”

Collin nodded. Tears burned his eyes. He didn’t have time to blink them away.

CRACK! Another hit of burning, shocking pain crashed across his body, lower this time. There was no way the implement was anything other than a belt.

Collin smothered a groan into his arm.

A second later, a third strike hit him.

Then Mr. Reevesworth was all around him, his elbows on the desk on either side of Collin’s body, his hard chest pressed against Collin’s shoulders, holding him down, making him real.

“With me, Collin?”

“Yes, sir.” Collin blinked hard.

Mr. Reevesworth brushed his tears away with the crook of his fingers. “How do you feel?”

“Bad, sir. I shouldn’t have gone out without telling you. It’s in our contract.”

“It is. But that’s not why I spanked you. That was keeping my promise.”

“To give me pain when I need it.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth pressed his lips to the side of Collin’s neck. “I think I know why you did what you did, but you need to say it. And I need to hear it.”

“I panicked, sir. Ash said he needed my computer when I told him the file wasn’t the public one, the one everyone would have seen. And after Monday… I…” Collin sighed raggedly. “I don’t want to be the weak link.”

“They’re playing with your head, Collin.

If they can get you to freak out, then you’ll be someone they might be able to compromise.

There’s nothing on your computer that’s going to incriminate me.

They’re trying to pull a psyop. Frankly, it’s not a very clever one.

And they weren’t even targeting you directly. The message was for me.”

“Really, sir?”

Mr. Reevesworth stood up slowly, keeping his hips pressed against Collin’s thighs, still pinning him to the desk.

He started to replace his belt. “Yes. I knew what the threat was as soon as I saw the area code. That’s why they sent it from that number.

” He dropped his hand to Collin’s back. “Someone, several someones, want me to drop a project in that area code. I will not. So, this is their threat to me that they’re prepared to make things difficult.

You just happened to be their easiest target. ”

“Is it Bernstein?”

Mr. Reevesworth hummed noncommittally. “It could be. Or it could others. It’s a complicated list. One that I’m un-complicating.” He ran his hand up and down Collin’s back and settled his grip on the back of Collin’s neck. “But first, there’s the issue of your disobedience.”

Collin closed his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“There’s an old story of how a shepherd would break the leg of a sheep that would not stay with the herd and then carry the sheep until it healed, bonding the sheep to them, so that they would no longer wander. I do find I rather like your legs whole, though.”

“Yes, sir.” Collin waited for fear to rise up in his throat, but there was none. If anything, the lack of fear was frightening.

“The concept still has value, though.” Mr. Reevesworth opened a drawer and eased Collin’s legs farther apart. He reached down and gripped Collin’s right ankle. “Give.”

Collin shifted his weight off the foot. It made him have to cling precariously to the desk with his palms. Only Mr. Reevesworth’s hip kept him in place.

Mr. Reevesworth bent Collin’s leg back until his heel nearly touched his ass. He slid rope around Collin’s ankle.

Collin stared at the glass surface of the desk.

He couldn’t see, but he could feel every single bit of length, each tug and pull.

The rope went around his ankle twice, then around his upper thigh.

It was solid, anchoring. Between that and the burn in his ass, the need to scratch and bang his head was gone.

Entirely. Mr. Reevesworth wove the rope up and around three times, each time more firmly anchoring Collin’s lower leg to his upper leg.

There was no way he could unbend it now.

Mr. Reevesworth lowered Collin’s bound leg slowly, still keeping Collin in place on the desk. He ran his hand over Collin’s ass and up his back, curling his fingers around Collin’s neck once again. “Good boy.”

Tears collected on Collin’s eyelashes.

“I’m going to help you down to the ground now. As long as you are under or behind my desk, no one will see you. When you need the bathroom, I will help you. When you need food, I will fetch it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth’s fingers carded through Collin’s hair. “Do you have any questions or concerns?”

“I still have the work that you assigned me, sir.”

“I’ll fetch your devices, the ones from Ash, and bring them to you. You can work on the floor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth slid his arm under Collin’s chest and pulled him upright.

For a long moment, he held Collin there, against his chest, his hand wrapped around the front of Collin’s throat.

He pressed his lips against the pulse point of his neck.

Collin tilted his head back, arching his neck into the touch. It was everything.

“Let’s get you settled.” Mr. Reevesworth moved his chair aside with his foot and lowered Collin to the floor.

It was awkward. Collin put out one hand and sat sideways, his tied leg tucked underneath and the other stretched out.

There was sufficient room for him on the carpet behind the desk.

And if he put his back against the wall or against the desk, then he would be able to balance a laptop or a tablet on one thigh or another.

“What’s your color, Collin?”

“Green, sir.” No hesitation. The word came out of his lips without thought.

“Good boy.” Mr. Reevesworth ran his hands through Collin’s hair again. “I’m going out to the office. I’ll be gone five minutes at most. Stay.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Reevesworth went around the desk and out the office door.

It closed with a click behind him. Collin looked down at the rope around his leg.

It was a work of art, not merely a binding but a strong, intricate work of aesthetically pleasing knots, balanced one against each other in dark-blue fibers.

He touched them; they were slightly rough but not sharp.

Like a meditation, his fingers traced the lines.

There were three sets, one just below his knee, one in the center of his thigh, and one high, near the line of his groin, and going around the first anchor of wrap around his ankle.

He slid his finger under the lengths, testing them.

Tight but not cruel. He couldn’t shift without feeling the grip of the tie against his skin.

Like he couldn’t breathe without feeling Mr. Reevesworth’s hand around his throat when he was gripped. Or how he couldn’t harden in his pants without feeling the cage around his cock.

Collin closed his eyes and slumped forward, head against the tower of drawers holding up the desk.

Where was the person he had been just weeks before?

Gone. Or was he? He brushed another tear off his cheek.

He’d messed up. He’d broken the rules. And he’d panicked.

And instead of cold, instead of emptiness, there was this, these bonds, the heat across his aching ass from the three strikes from the belt, and the points on his skin where he could still feel the lingering heat of Mr. Reevesworth’s body holding him down and holding him up.

If Mr. Reevesworth walked back in and wanted to twist more rope over his other limbs, he’d offer them up. Just for more of that warmth. Was this a punishment? It hardly felt like one.

He flinched at the opening of the door. It closed again. That was Mr. Reevesworth’s stride across the carpet. He could tell just by the cadence and the length.