1
VINCENT
I don’t need to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to know bondage isn’t for me. Nor are hot and sweaty threesomes. I’m not kink-shaming, just saying I know my sexual skill set. I’m Mr. One-And-Done as a rule. Up for a good time, not a long time, and always gone by morning. Yet here I am, bound by strips of leather and wedged between two sleeping bodies, and one of them is extra cuddly.
Waking up like this is confusing, a reminder of being in a classroom full of sharper students. That’s a blast from the past. My chest doesn’t need to burn like I’m still a kid hoping a teacher won’t ask me to read in front of everybody. Those days are long gone now that I’m over thirty, but like back then, I got no right answers about this three-way situation. I can’t even see the face of whoever is tucked in tight to my left side.
All I do know is that the leg slung over mine is heavy enough to make the leather looping my wrists redundant. I’m pinned down by quads of steel, and I’m a big fucker who carries heavy loads all over London’s East End to make my bread and butter. The man currently giving me a cuddle is just as solid.
I won’t get free without a struggle.
It’s the second time I’ve felt trapped recently, only it isn’t my cousin holding me hostage with a partnership offer this morning. Going all in with him in his house-move business shouldn’t feel as constricting as these leather bindings.
I glance up at the headboard.
Are they horse reins?
Reading aloud might have given me hives at school, but the mathematical part of my brain kicks in to add these clues together. Thick thighs plus access to reins equals me sharing a bed with the sole member of the Household Cavalry in my phone contacts. I’m being snuggled by another member of a group chat I was added to a few years back—one I don’t truly belong in—and I only know him by his nickname.
Massive Cannon.
I’m not ready for an eyeful of what earned him that label. I turn to my right instead to face someone whose group-chat nickname could be written all over this threesome in lube and semen, his playing is so legendary.
“Crabs?” My voice could give Phil Mitchell’s a run for his hoarseEastEndersmoney. “Tell me we didn’t bang.”
Again, no shame on anyone who does get off on a bit of slap and tickle with more than one bedmate. Been there and done that in my early twenties, which is how I know it only ever leads to more of that front-of-the-class feeling for me. Always felt the odd man out. I’ve got the same urge to get gone and fast today, the same prickling need to hurry away.
Frankly, I need to.
My cousin will be waiting for more than an answer to his partnership offer. He’ll be waiting for me to help him lump furniture from one high-rise in Tower Hamlets to another. Shifting beds and sofas might not call for much critical thinking, but I still can’t help analysing my situation.
Did we really fuck last night?
My dick isn’t telling.
My arse has firmer opinions.
It clenches tight to say a firmno,although I’m not sure it can be trusted. I mean, I’m usually a giver, not a taker, but the man to my right has a reputation for being persuasive. And for leaving broken hearts at every boat show where he sells vessels worth a fortune to people with cash I could only dream of.
My aunt Stacey would have called him a charmer straight out ofDownton Abbey. But it would take a lot more than charm and an upper-class accent to let someone tie me up and spank me, so I clear my throat and speak up even louder.
“Oi, Crabs.”
Sea-green eyes blink open. “How about you start calling me Harry?” he asks, all warm and friendly, like waking up with me has made his morning. He yawns and stretches. “Only seems right, now we’ve slept together. And I can’t keep calling you Carpet Burns.” He smiles at my own group-chat nickname. “Although I would like to hear the story one day about how you got it. I’m Harry Lancaster, and you’re actually Vincent, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Vincent Smith.” I bet I sound a tad less happy than him. “But what do you mean by slept together?” That comes out as gritty as the banks of the Thames my ancestors picked through to earn their living and, until recently, my aunt picked through for her treasure-hunting hobby.
Harry is way posher than any of us mudlarks. “What do you remember about last night, darling?”
No one from my corner of London would call me by that D-word, or by the nickname Harry checked off a list at my very first in-person meet-up with members of the group-chat. Today, he does something else no one from my neighbourhood wouldbelieve if they saw it happen. Harry pushes aside a few overlong strands of my hair to maintain our eye contact.
I dunno why that makes me even grittier. “What do I remember? I don’t remember nothing.”
That last word cracks out gunshot loud—nuffin—and the soldier to my other side launches out of bed, instantly combat-ready. He takes his heavy artillery to my bathroom, and I nod to the doorway he left through. “What’s he doing here?”
“Blake?”
“Yeah, Blake,” I say, as if I already knew his real name. “Did the whole group meet last night?” That makes no sense. “I thought the next meet-up was scheduled for this evening.”
