Long, thick, snake-like things?
“Help, huh?” Gage asked, tipping my chin up and grinning down at me. “That offer sounds hella dirty with you staring at my cock like that, Noah, just sayin’.” Then he laughed, shaking his head, and dropped his hand, stepping away from me and adjusting the snake. “Not gonna lie, bro. That collar is supposed to mean ‘anything goes,’ and if it had been one of those chicks—that Mel girl, maybe—who’d come home with me wearing it tonight, pretty sure I’d be living out some seriously filthy master-slave fantasies right about now. But you just hang tight while I go get you that aspirin, dimples. I don’t want you to feel like shit in the morning, yeah?”
He turned away from me, heading toward the bathroom, and I smiled, warm fuzzies multiplying in my heart. He was the best. Always taking care of me. Looking out for me. Making sure I—
Wait, what?
My fuzzy brain suddenly screeched to a halt and rewound that last bit.Whathad he just said? Before the aspirin thing? Had he actually said that if someoneelsehad been wearing my collar…
“Gage,” I snarled, leaping to my feet too fast for the wobbly floor to catch up with me. I lurched toward him anyway, off balance not just from the floor, but because I wasn’t used to being mad at him… which was probably why my angry snarl had come out sounding more like a needy whine.
And it wasdefinitelywhy I misjudged the distance between us and ended up careening into him, making us both tumble down onto his bed.
“Careful, you little goof,” Gage said, laughing as he did some kind of athletic flip-and-roll thing and caught me before my head slammed into the wall.
Careful? Oh, I’d show him careful. My klutziness wasnotthe issue right now. I couldn’t believe that my very best friend in the whole world, my other half practically, had just insulted me and… anddeniedme.
“Did youseriouslyjust say that Mandy from poker night would be… would be a better slave than me?” I demanded, my pizza-dough tongue only getting in the way a tiny bit as I glared down at him.
And that’s right,downat him, because I’d landed on top (with his help), because I was abadassslave. Way,waybetter than Molly would ever be.
“Uh… no?” Gage said, like it had actually been a question.
Seriously?
He didn’tknow?
I shoved him in the chest… and immediately started to topple off the bed when it made my body move instead of his. But luckily, Gage grabbed my wrists just in time, saving me—
Um, I mean,throwing off my balance, the big jerk.
I recovered like a pro, though, doing a twisty move of my own that miraculously ended up with me straddling him… which, okay, maybe not the best choice since it made me feel a little dizzy and lightheaded for a moment, butthatwasn’t going to stop me. I had a point to make here.
I gripped Gage’s hips with my thighs to help myself stay upright, because I was the slaviest slave who’d ever been enslaved. (The fact that he was still holding my wrists—my arms out wide like that girl from the old Titanic movie—helped a little, too, but mostly, my amazing balance was all me and my amazing slave skills.)
“Come on now, Noe,” Gage started before I could get everything to stop spinning enough to make the point I was definitely about to wow him with. “’Course you’ve been a great slave, but just sayin’, we both know shit would play out different between me and a chick. I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna—”
“There isnothingMary could do for you that I can’t do better,” I interrupted before he could cast more aspersions on my slave skills, glaring down at him.
“Uh,” Gage said, chuckling a little. A rumbling vibration that I could totally feel with my… thighs. “Bro, get real. If you were a chick that had offered to ‘help’ me like that, I’d have thought you meant—”
“Noth-ing,” I interrupted again, emphasizing each syllable separately since he wasn’t getting it. “There is nothing she could do better, Gage. Read my lips.Nuh… thing.”
Iwas the perfect slave for him. After all, who’d won the collar, hm? Matilda? No. I didn’t think so. It wasme.
Gage’s eyes went wide, and… Wow. His eyebrows weren’t the only beautiful things on his face. I mean, I’d already known his eyes were my favorite color, but how had I never noticed howmesmerizingthey could be? I kind of wanted to stare into them forever, please and thank you. I refused to be distracted, though, even when the intense way he was suddenly looking at me made my whole body buzz with… with the intensely intenseintensityof the weird look he was giving me.
I ignored it, intensifyingmy glare instead, because I was so,sonot going to be distracted by all his… his mesmerizing amazingGage-ness.
“Tell me… Tell me what you’d do if it was that girl who had this collar on, Gage,” I said, intending to sound badass and demanding, but not quite sure it really came out that way. Not my fault, though. It was all the buzzing and straddling and swooning over his distractingly amazing eyes that I was also busy doing.
Multitasking had never been my greatest strength, and for some reason, trying to do all of those things at once had made my voice come out all breathless and needy-sounding instead.
“What… What do you want your slave to do for you, Master?” I asked when he just kept staring at me, my voice definitely more begging than demanding now. But I was totally okay with that because… because… I didn’twantto demand anything. I just wanted Gage to take charge. Tell me what to do. Tell me what hewanted. To tell me what I could do for him then let me do it, because Gage was the master here, not me, so… so he should be the one demanding things.
That was what we’d agreed, right?
For as long as I kept the collar on?
