Page 56 of Just Business

“So I’ve noticed.” Justin pushed the butter over. “You keep syrup in the fridge?”

Eli shrugged. “Read the label. Besides, I don’t go through it that fast.”

“I guess pancakes for oneisa lot of work.” Justin’s eyes were bright. “You really haven’t done this for anyone else?”

“No.”

“Not even the other two?”

The ones he’d spent the night with. “No. Noah was—well, we were teens and hiding the whole thing from our parents. With Michael, we were undergrads and—”

“Michael?” Justin’s fork hung in the air. “Wait, Sam’s Michael?”

Right. He hadn’t said that before. “Yes.”

“You datedSam’sMichael?” Justin set down the fork, a horrified look widening his eyes.

Eli cut his pancakes with his fork and tried not to smile. Probably failed. “As I said, we were undergrads. The relationship didn’t last long, but the friendship did.”

“But he’s a Dom.”

“That was the main reasons we split, yes. But I wouldn’t have known I was as well without his help.”

Justin reached for his coffee. “And now you work for his boyfriend.”

“Yup.” He ate around the grin that wanted to spread across his face. “And I don’t have to worry about being fired for being gayanda sexual deviant.”

“You were fired?” Justin took a gulp of coffee. “I guess from the outside, the whole BDSM thing seems a little weird.”

A little?“I tie men up, whip them, and fuck them.” Eli took another bite and watched Justin squirm in his seat. So very lovely when he moved like that. “Not exactly a normal hobby.”

There was the understanding. “Certainly not in the same class as macramé.”

Eli laughed. “No, not at all.”

Justin smiled into his coffee. “Speaking of rope...?” He raised his head and peered through the ragged locks in front of his eyes.

A rush of desire and the heat of joy wrapped itself around Eli, burning his blood. “Is that what you’d like for lunch?”

“Yes.”

Oh, the turn of Justin’s lips, the spark in his eyes, and flush in his cheeks. Delectable and a welcome change from the start of this conversation. “Finish your breakfast and help me with dishes, and we’ll see whether you get what you want.”

“Yes, Eli.”

How he loved the sound of those two words together. Eli inhaled the dark scent of coffee. “Perhaps we can do something about the collar I stripped off you last night?”

Justin’s shiver was visible. “I’d like that.”

Eli took a sip of coffee and sent up a silent prayer that Justin was telling the truth. “Good.”

***

For once, Justin welcomed wealth. The leather Eli wrapped tight around Justin’s neck was soft and supple, like one of his gloves. A shower of sparks trickled over Justin’s skin as Eli buckled the collar into place.

He hadn’t expected Eli to pull leather and tools out of a drawer in his playroom and make a collar for him right there. So personal, so... exacting.God.His balls ached with the need to be naked and kneeling while Eli fitted the band of leather to his neck.

Bliss followed by terror. Francis had made him kneel like this once, and to receive a collar as well. But nothing else about this day and that one was similar, not the care Eli took with cutting the leather or his gentle questions of comfort and fit. Eli loosened the band, drew back, and picked up a hole punch. “It’ll likely stretch over time. Let me know if it becomes too loose, and we can add some holes later.”