Page 21 of Leather and Longing (Island Tales #3)

Chapter Seventeen

“Any sign of it yet?” Adam found it difficult to keep the exasperation from his voice.

How long does it take to find one specific box?

“Not yet.” Paul sounded pissed off. “D’you know how many of these boxes I’ve opened this morning? With the way my luck’s going, it’ll turn out to be in the last one.” He ground out a heavy sigh.

Adam gripped the doorjamb, fighting the urge to yell that if it was too much trouble, he’d find someone else to do the bloody job. He took a deep breath.

Losing his temper wouldn’t get it done any faster.

“Well, what have you found so far?”

“A whole lotta books. I’m trying to move them all to one side. I’m assuming at some stage you’ll want them to go onto shelves?”

Adam clenched his jaw.

What’s the fucking point? I can’t read them anymore.

“I mean, there are going to be books I’ll need for reference, right?”

Adam couldn’t argue with Paul’s logic. He had a point, after all.

“Yes,” he said grudgingly. He listened to the sound of tearing tape, Paul moving around in the dining room, heavy objects being slid across the floor. Adam decided that hovering in the doorway achieved nothing, and turned to leave Paul to it, but the sudden silence halted him. “Paul?”

No answer. All he could hear was Paul’s breathing, no longer regular but erratic.

“Paul, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” His breathing belied his reply, uneven, the word strained.

Adam racked his brains, trying to think what on earth Paul could have found that would have rendered him into silence.

“I’ve found the box with your laptop and digital recorders, by the way.”

Adam thought that was hardly likely to have brought about such a change. His lips twitched, curling into a smile. He licked his lips. “Did you find my box files?” he said, keeping his tone level.

“Yes, found those.” Paul’s voice was quiet.

“And was there a box with all my DVD’s?”

“Yes, those too. And your DVD player.”

“And what about the box with my leather wrist restraints?” There was a good deal more than those to be found, but he wanted to hear Paul’s response.

What he got was silence.

He smiled. “Just testing,” he said under his voice. He couldn’t imagine all his BDSM gear fitting into one single box. He’d amassed a great many items over the years.

Despite his qualms of the previous day, in that moment he yearned to run his hands over the leather, to smell it, rub a collar between his fingertips and bring them to his nose to inhale its odour, breathe it in once more.

“Bring that box, and any others like it, into the library,” he instructed Paul.

There was a moment’s delay before Paul responded. “Yes, sir.”

Adam walked into the library to wait, seating himself in the armchair by the window. Paul entered the room a few minutes later.

“How many such boxes did you find?”

“Three. Where do you want them?”

Adam tried to visualize the library. It was the room with which he was most familiar.

“Put them behind the couch.” They’d be out of the way, but there was enough room for Adam to investigate them without bumping into anything.

“And then put the box with the laptop and recorders on the desk in the office. That’s where you’ll be working, once you make a start. ”

Paul left the room, doubtless to collect a box.

Adam had expected to feel more upbeat at the thought of Paul working on a book for him, but the elation wasn’t there.

Instead, all he could think about was the content of those boxes.

Paul’s reaction to them demanded further investigation, but what claimed his attention was the thought of his whole life in the BDSM community, contained in them.

Three boxes that did nothing but remind him of what he’d lost.

The pain of it cut through him, making it difficult to breathe. His stomach was in knots and there was a dullness in his chest, a feeling of heaviness spreading throughout his whole body. Whatever resolution he’d come to the day before had fled, leaving despondency in its wake.

He waited until Paul had brought the final box. “Go away and close the door after you. I don’t want to hear from you until lunchtime.” Not that he felt like eating. His present mood had robbed him of his appetite.

All he wanted was to be left alone.

When Paul exited the room without a word, closing the door behind him, Adam stood and walked over to the couch.

His foot nudged a box, but he didn’t bend over to open it.

He didn’t need to. Adam could smell the leather, the scent evoking so many memories.

In his mind he gripped the handle of a flogger, heard the hitch in his submissive’s breathing that spoke of anticipation and desire, saw the unmarked skin, waiting for him…

What was I thinking? I knew it would fucking hurt to have all this around me. I’d have been better off if it had stayed where Caroline had stowed it, in the darkest recesses of the attic.

Adam stepped away and sought the comfort of his chair.

He curled his legs up under him, removed his glasses and slung them onto the floor, and turned his face toward the wing of the chair.

He closed his eyes as if that would shut out the world, and wished he could shut out the sound of the sea.

It was something he associated with his childhood, of warm summer nights when he’d lain in his bed, listening to the waves lapping the shore.

Fast forward, and it was the sound of waves hitting the hull of a boat as he powered through them, steering expertly, everything under his control.

Control….

Adam filled his lungs with air and expelled it in a scream, howling it out.

“I fucking hate this!” His body shook and he hugged his knees, trembling in the wake of his rage, directed at no one, just hurled out there into the ether.

Paul had never liked Mondays, but this one took the biscuit. After today, he fucking hated Mondays.

Adam had been in a foul mood since he’d gotten up that morning.

It had begun with him roaring when he couldn’t find his glasses, not that he really needed them in the house.

When Paul had located them on the floor, he’d handed them to Adam, who’d snatched them from him.

That had set the tone for the day. Adam had sniped and growled, picked holes in everything Paul did, until Paul had gotten to within a second or two of telling him to stick his job.

Except he hadn’t, of course. He’d retreated into the dining room and got on with his task of going through the boxes.

He tried to ignore Adam who followed him, asking constant questions while Paul had searched for the elusive box that contained his writing materials: laptop, notebooks, and most importantly, the digital recorders onto which he’d saved his next book.

Boxes…

His cheeks burned at the memory of opening that first box and laying eyes on its contents.

A whip. An honest-to-goodness whip, its handle thick and bound, the tail coiled up like some black, shiny snake that tapered to a thin point.

Heat and ice edged their way over Paul’s skin, playing with him, making him shiver.

At this point he’d seen what lay beneath the whip and his shivers had multiplied.

Oh my God.

He wanted to lift out every item and feel it in his hands, and yet he was scared shitless. That dark place inside him, the one that had cracked open when he’d first set foot in that club…

It called to him. And by some means Paul couldn’t fathom, Adam knew.

He’d carried the boxes through to the library, wanting to know more, see more, have answers to the numerous questions in his head. Because the one thought sending him into a tailspin was that his boss knew about these things.

What were the odds on this?

There was no time to give voice to his internal confusion, not when Adam had ejected him from the library. So there he was, on the wrong side of that closed door, while his boss appeared to have taken a step backwards.

This was not good.

No point standing here analysing the situation. He’d move the writing materials box into the office and then see to making lunch.

Adam’s scream gave him a start and he almost dropped the box he was carrying. He put it down on a chair and ran to the library door, stopping short of opening it, his hand stretched out toward the handle.

There’s nothing I can do.

That knowledge only served to make his heart ache.

Paul carried the box into the office and set it down on the desk. All he could think about was Adam in the next room, hurting. What Paul wanted with all his heart was to ease that hurt, but there was little he could do when Adam kept shutting him out.

Unless….

All thoughts of those boxes were pushed aside. His mind had ventured down another route entirely, prompted by the recollection of something he’d read during his research into Adam.

Paul opened the back door that led off from the kitchen and went outside onto the veranda.

The garden sloped down toward the beach, stopping short where it met the path beside the Lighthouse.

He clambered down the little path set into the hillside to where a bench had been placed, looking out over the entire bay.

Paul sat and regarded the view, breathing in the salty sea air.

The harsh cries of the seagulls overhead, the happy cries of children playing on the beach, the waves breaking over the rocks: Paul took it all in, breathed it in, let it flow over and through him until he was calmer.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through until he found Eric’s number.

“Hey! How you doing?” In the background Paul caught several voices.

“Fine,” he lied. “Where are you?”

“Oh, I’m in Yarmouth,” Eric told him. “Me, Shane, Mikey and Jase are on the boat. We’ve just re-varnished the wooden seating on deck, and she looks beautiful.”

It always amused Paul to hear his friend refer to the family yacht as ‘she’. “Actually, the boat’s the reason I’m calling.”

“Okay. Hey, Jase! Careful! You nearly knocked that tin of yacht varnish over.” Eric muttered under his breath.

“Can’t get the staff these days.” What followed had Paul grinning.

It sounded like a full-blown scuffle was taking place, reminding him of watching little boys fighting in the playground at school, except this was more entertaining.

Eric was breathing heavily. “Sorry about that. I had to show my lackeys who was boss.” Paul recognized Shane’s snort even over the phone.

“You done?” Paul asked him, chuckling.

“Yep. You were saying?”

Quickly, Paul outlined his idea.

“Yeah, I can do that. You got any idea when you want to do this? The only reason I ask is, this week is looking likely. Dad wants her after the weekend.”

“Is Wednesday too soon?” To Paul’s way of thinking, the sooner the better.

“That’s doable. You want me to ask the guys if they’d like to come along? Or would that be overload?”

Paul had already thought of that. “I was going to ask some of them to join me for lunch in the Cove first. Taylor was also on the list.” He hoped to God this would work. “They could join us after if they wanted.”

“Okay, let’s make it Wednesday. If your plans change, let me know, all right?”

“Fine. Where d’you want to pick us up?”

“It’ll have to be Ventnor. It’s too tricky negotiating Steephill these days, even for the RIB.”

Paul could do that. They could travel to Ventnor in his car, and park near the jetty. “You’re a good mate.”

They spoke for a minute longer, sorting out times, after which Paul thanked Eric and disconnected.

Paul puffed out a breath. Arranging this whole rigmarole was the easy part.

Getting Adam to agree to it was gonna be tough.

“What is this?” Adam poked at his dinner with his fork, scowling.

“Chicken sauté. It’s chicken breast cooked in stock with onions, garlic and rosemary.”

Adam caught Paul’s sigh. “If you’ve got something to say, come out and say it.”

A clatter of cutlery hitting a plate. “It doesn’t matter. If you don’t want it, say so, and I’ll make you something different.” Paul sounded weary.

He ignored Paul’s offer. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

“I mean that it doesn’t matter what I say, you’re still going to find some reason to bite my head off.

After all, why stop now? You’ve been doing it all day.

” Paul’s chair scraped across the kitchen floor.

“I’ll heat up some of the soup I made. At least I know you like that, unless you’ve changed your mind since Friday. ”

“Don’t bother, I’ve lost my appetite.” Adam pushed back his chair, grabbed his cane and escaped from the kitchen. He entered the library, slamming the door behind him, making the windows rattle. Adam sank onto the couch and stretched out, his head on a cushion.

Why did I have to fuck him? Why couldn’t I have left well enough alone?

In spite of how bloody good the sex had been, Adam couldn’t ignore the insistent voice in his head that kept telling him it wasn’t the done thing to go around fucking one’s employees. Industrial tribunals tended to take a dim view of employers who crossed that particular line. What made it worse?

Adam wanted to cross that line again.

Never mind his previous thoughts about forgoing sex: abstinence was the last thing on his mind when he awoke with a raging hard-on.

Damn him for making me want him again.

Yeah, it was all Paul’s fault.

And then there was Paul’s reaction to Adam’s BDSM gear.

If he hadn’t have aroused Adam’s interest, Adam wouldn’t have demanded the boxes be brought down from the attic.

They wouldn’t have stirred up his memories, making him long for a life he could never have again.

Reminding him exactly how much he’d lost.

Damn that fucking boy.

All his muscles were tense. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth. Every time he’d been around Paul that day, he’d struggled to keep his tone controlled, his breathing steady, but he knew he’d failed miserably.

Of course, it didn’t help that Adam knew he was taking all his rage out on the wrong person. If he were honest, none of this was Paul’s fault. And yeah, Adam had been an asshole, pure and simple.

Never mind trying to get him to leave the way I did. If I carry on like this, he’ll leave of his own volition.

That made him stop and think. In spite of all his ranting and raving about not wanting a companion, wanting to be left alone, his attempts to drive Paul away….

How would I feel if he really did go?

Adam wasn’t sure he had an answer for that one.