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CHAPTER ELEVEN

ALL IN THE WRIST

“ A nd that”—the whip cracked across Percy’s bare back, his muscles quivering as a carnal groan broke free—“is for lying about the corset.”

Percy might ordinarily have responded that an omission isn’t the same as a lie, but the gag shoved deep in his mouth and bound tight in his hair prevented any such response. Not that Joe was interested in Percy’s excuses.

“And if you ever call me Ignatius again…” Another hot snap of leather on firm flesh, another cock-twitching moan, and Joe dropped the whip onto the bed.

He took up his champagne, surveying his beloved. What a glorious sight he was. His arms reached wide, biceps, triceps, tendons, everything straining against the ropes that fastened him to the bedposts. His muscular back was a patchwork of Joe’s bruising punishment, and his ankles were shackled at the base of the bed, tight, waiting for Joe to do whatever he wanted with him.

And Joe intended to take full advantage.

He cast his shirt to the floor, down to only his oversized crucifix and leather pants, which his dick strained hard against. He wasn’t ready to set it free. Yet.

He ran a finger slowly down Percy’s spine, right to the top of his perfect ass, listening for Percy’s hitching breath. He paused there. He pulled a small package from his pocket and tapped a line of cocaine out onto the firm cheek, then inhaled the lot in one go. He kissed where the powder had been, over the rise and fall, to the top of Percy’s leg, gently, then he wrenched Percy wide and licked up and over his tight hole.

Percy sucked in a gasp of air at the sensation, straining hard against his binds as Joe did it again, and again. He would have begged for satisfaction were he able to speak. Then Joe began the slow, galling circles, around and around, bringing a frantic shiver of sweat to his brow and back. Joe revelled in Percy’s desperate need to shift his dick against the sheets, to find any relief from the excess of pleasure, and his accompanying frustration at his complete physical suspension.

Percy’s thighs, calves, contracted in his yearning, his fingers curling tight against the wrought iron, and when Joe was satisfied Percy was really suffering, he stiffened his tongue and pushed inside.

Percy groaned, louder still, so Joe slid a finger over Percy’s taint, squeezed his ass as his body shook with the intensity of the cruel delight. “Don’t you dare come yet,” Joe whispered. And he savoured the delicious shudder that was Percy fighting with everything he had to obey the command.

Joe didn’t relent, licked him, teased him, held Percy in an agony of ecstasy, until Joe couldn’t take it anymore. He snapped the binds from Percy’s ankles and drove his knees up hard with his own. He ran a hand over the curve of Percy’s firm ass, down the back of his thigh, and back up the inside, grazing his balls softly.

The sheets were wet with sweat, Percy’s dick dripped with his urgency for Joe, and Joe did consider stopping there, leaving him right on that torturous line as a fitting discipline…

But Joe was a man of ethics after all. More or less. And it may be noted that where Percy was concerned, he had a considerable weakness.

He slathered his dick with lubricant, and pushed a finger into Percy, carrying him closer to the beautiful edge. “Percy…” Joe leaned his body out long across Percy’s back, wrenched his head back by his hair, and rasped against his ear, “Will you please try to behave yourself in the future?”

The response was instantaneous: “Like fuck I will.”

Of course, Joe couldn’t understand his garbled words at all, and therefore he obliged them both by taking Percy’s gigantic, throbbing, utterly glorious dick in hand, and fucking him into the next day.

In the morning, Percy sat on the bed in the hotel room, rubbing his sore back, with the phone in the crook of his neck. It wasn’t long before a voice down the line answered, “Pronto?”

“Luca, it’s me. Everything’s fine.”

Luca made a vague grunt in recognition of Percy’s achievement of stealing the painting, inasmuch to say the money would be in his account shortly, but Percy stopped him from getting off the line immediately by saying, “Listen, I think I might take some time away. From anything too… arduous.”

“Ah,” said Luca, a knowing warmth to his tone. “Your fiancé?”

With a smile at his lips, “Giordano told you?”

“He did. Congratulations.”

At that moment the door smashed open and Joe stumbled in, arms laden with little brown paper bags full of pastries he hadn’t been able to decide between, two coffees spilling out the tops of their cups, and a too-adorable blush on his cheeks at having interrupted.

Breaking into Percy’s enamoured silence, Luca said, “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Percy’s eyes were all but devouring Joe when he replied, “I really don’t think I will.” He hung up the phone.

Joe dumped his goods on the table and passed Percy a coffee. “Who was that?”

“Luca. We’ll have the money soon.”

Joe raised his chin and eyebrows, calling Percy over to the table. “Great. That was fun. When can we do it again?”

Percy huffed a laugh and kissed his cheek, Joe’s stubble and the heat of his skin a comfort he’d sorely missed in the last ten minutes since Joe had left. He ran a hand around his waist, searching for the small of his back as he brought him closer. “Maybe after Scotland.”

“Yeah,” said Joe, tilting his head to enjoy another kiss. “I guess we should get back to that evil princess situation that we haven’t mentioned once this whole trip.”

Percy, agreeably segueing into the next chapter while peeking into Joe’s bags, asked, “Have you ever had krappin an’ stap?”

Joe’s fine eyes cut across sharply. “Is that a trick question?”

Percy watched him, awaiting his reaction as he revealed, “It’s offal, mixed with suet and oats, stuffed into fish heads, then they boil the lot in seawater.”

More abhorred than he was at seeing Dubois’s exploded body, or a room full of dying neo-Nazis, or even when they were almost suffocated by soul-eaters, Joe gasped out, “They serve them just like that? Eyes and all?”

“Aye, eyes and all. A plate full of them. Staring up at you. Awaiting their fate.”

“Percy, that’s disgusting.” Then on the same breath, “Do you know, I think there’s something very wrong with people’s fetishisation of peasant food. What is this self-degradation that drives people to such extremes?”

“Clearly they need God,” Percy suggested.

“I’m not eating that,” Joe declared, ignoring the slight slight. “I can just eat potatoes, can’t I? I’ll eat potatoes every day while we’re there.”

“Mmm,” agreed Percy. “We’ll set you up with a nice bowl of clapshot.”

Joe scowled. “What now?”

“Maybe a festy cock?”

“Are you going to be like this the whole time we’re in Scotland?”

Percy grinned. “Or maybe you’d prefer some rumbledethumps.”

“You said we were going to Lerwick,” Joe grumbled. “Not Hell.”

“Only a culinary hell, darling.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“But obviously,” Percy said, letting out a heavy breath and becoming a little more serious with it, “all that pales in comparison to what’s probably waiting for us at Cleo’s mansion, Barmiston Hall.”

Joe fell into a quiet, trepidatious reflection at the mention of the place.

“Are you sure you’re in?” asked Percy. “Althea could use a steady friend in London if you’d rather go visit her. Because whatever’s waiting there in Scotland… From what Althea told us, it wants blood. And it’s probably desperately hungry by now. This is undoubtedly going to be a harrowing experience.”

Joe pulled Percy’s arm back around his waist. “And then there’s the crapping to deal with.”

“Krappin,” Percy corrected, manoeuvring Joe in front of him and taking his hands. “Insult to injury, to be sure. So this is your out.”

“Are you kidding? You and me, a dangerous supernatural killer, and a haunted inn in the middle of nowhere, Scotland? As though I’d miss that.”

Percy narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think it’s haunted?”

Joe held his gaze. “Isn’t it?”

Percy’s lips slipped to the side in a resigned sort of gesture, and he said, “I haven’t got the full details from Leo yet.”

“Better call him then.” He kissed Percy’s cheek. “Don’t worry. We can take it. Whatever it is. So long as we’re together.”

“Always,” Percy replied, heart warming with Joe’s ever-growing confidence in the two of them.

And so they ate and packed, and Percy did call Leo, and Percy did decide to save the full details regarding their accommodation for discussion at a later time.

They left the hotel to catch their flight, and before long, they’d arrived in Aberdeen, ready to board the ferry to Lerwick, both of them hoping, after their last adventure, it would be smooth sailing.