Title: Bowtie Ball
By: Tara Keezer
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Grissom/Stokes
Warnings: Slash, graphic depictions of M/M sex.
Summary: Nick is a man with a mission; Grissom gets dragged along.
Author's Note: This is my first pure non-BtVS fic. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Giles Fan betaed this for me, and you have her to thank for spotting a couple of nasty, discordant blunders before I posted.
Disclaimer: If I owned any of these characters, do you honestly think I'd still have a day job? Of course not. Anthony Zuiker and various corporate entities own the rights to the characters and world of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. I own a spiffy new dishwasher that actually works.
Warnings: This is slash. Specifically, this is Grissom/Stokes slash with a few kinks thrown in for good measure. The D/s elements are consensual, as is the hot monkey sex.
“Stokes! My office. Now.”
Nick looked up, his mouth slightly open as Catherine stalked off. Without turning away from the break room door, he said, “She doesn’t sound too happy.”
Warrick said absently, “She’ll be even less happy if you make her wait.”
“Yeah.” Nick stood. “Wish me luck, man.”
“You’re gonna need it.”
Nick stepped into Catherine’s office with more than a little caution. “Hey, Catherine. You wanted to see me?”
“No, I wanted to throttle you,” she said, glaring at him from behind her desk. “Fortunately for everyone concerned, Gil managed to talk me out of it.”
At that point, Nick noticed that Grissom was also in the room, leaning against the wall. He wore a grim expression, and Nick was never more grateful than at that moment that the man was no longer his direct supervisor. Nick gave him what he hoped was an easy-going-nothing’s-wrong-here-move-along-people kind of grin. “Hey, Griss. What are you doing here?”
“Sit down, Nick,” Grissom said, unimpressed by the grin.
When he took a seat, Catherine began with, “You know, when Sara talked to the FBI behind Gil’s back a few years ago, I thought he overreacted to the situation.”
Beads of sweat popped out on Nick’s forehead. “Catherine —”
“After all, she just wanted to help catch a killer, and she had the right physical type to match the victim profile,” she continued.
“I can explain —”
“It wasn’t until I got a call from Ecklie about how happy he was that you volunteered to help the FBI on a case I’ve never even heard of that I realized just how much restraint Gil showed with Sara,” she said, her voice rising as she stepped on Nick’s attempts to defend himself. “How could you? You didn’t even talk to me about it first.”
“I just —” Nick broke off, frustrated at his sudden insecurity. “Did he tell you why they need to go in?”
“It doesn’t matter, Nick. You’re a CSI, not a police officer.” Her voice becoming increasingly shrill. “You can’t just go off like this behind my back. Do you have any —”
“Catherine.” Gil’s quiet voice managed to break into her rant. “I know how you feel, and I don’t blame you. But yelling won’t do you any good, and it may end up getting you on suspension.” He flashed a quick smile at her. “Trust me on that.”
She took a deep breath and then nodded once in acknowledgement of his point. “Fine. You talk to him, because right now, I can’t. Not without shouting.” She stood up, her movements as abrupt as her words. “I’ll be in trace.”
Nick winced at the sound of the door slamming behind him then looked at Grissom. “Okay, so you know some of what’s going on. But what you might not know is that this is really important. You have to talk to her — get her to go along.”
“Is it important enough to risk a highly valued member of this lab?” Grissom cocked his head slightly. “Because I’d really like to know why you think your health and well-being aren’t as important as anyone else’s.”
“What? No!” Nick stood up and paced. “It’s not like that.”
His patience slipped a little at that, and Grissom frowned. “Oh? From where I’m standing, it’s exactly like that.”
“I didn’t volunteer for an undercover drug operation —”
“No. You didn’t.” Grissom took a steadying breath before continuing. “You volunteered for something worse.”
Genuinely confused by the older man’s reaction, Nick stopped pacing. “How can it be worse, man? It’s just a party. There won’t even be any weapons.”
“It’s not ‘just’ a party. It’s a party for a specific subsection of the domination and submission scene.” Grissom pursed his lips as he stared up at Nick. “There’s not a chance in hell they’d buy you as a dominant, so you would have to go as a submissive.”
Nick worked his mouth as a blush stole up his face from his neck. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you’ve been acting since you walked in doesn’t lend itself to making anyone believe you can be a dominant. You’re squirming, Nick, all but begging for approval,” Grissom said, his voice matter-of-fact.
Scowling, he answered, “That’s what Lady Heather said.”
“I know.”
Nick blinked. “How?”
Grissom sighed. “She called me after you talked to her.” When Nick just stared, he added, “She was concerned over how little you know about any part of the local scene, let alone the Bowtie Ball.”
“I just wanted her to give me some pointers — you know — so I can play my part,” Nick said, his voice taking on a hint of pleading. He hated that he was proving Lady Heather and Grissom’s point about his personality, but even more, he hated the idea that Grissom might raise a big enough stink to get him pulled from the operation.
“Your part,” Grissom said flatly. “You see this as a role, nothing that can touch you personally.”
“Well. Sure.”
“Who’s going to play the ‘role’ of your master?”
Nick flinched slightly at the question. “Special Agent Carsters said she’d do it.”
“She can’t. The Bowtie Ball is a men-only function.”
His earlier blush had faded somewhat, but now it returned in full bloom. Still, Nick dug in his heels. “Then Special Agent Fisher can play the role.”
Grissom asked, “Was he the one who approached you about this?”
“Well. I talked to him first, but yeah, he’s in charge.”
Grissom shook his head. “He didn’t even do enough background research to understand the dynamics of the Bowtie Ball. Is this really the man you want to trust to keep you safe while you’re wandering around naked in a room full of strangers?”
Gulping once then twice, Nick stammered out, “Naked?”
“Submissives don’t get to wear clothes at the ball, Nick. Makes it easier to treat them like sex toys. It will be up to your master to ensure that you aren’t too badly abused.” Grissom took another deep breath. “I’ll ask you again — do you trust Special Agent Fisher to keep you safe and sane?”
After a long moment, Nick’s shoulders drooped and his head hung down. “No. I guess not.”
“So this is an end to this nonsense, right?”
Before Grissom could take a step to leave, Nick looked up, saying firmly, “No. It isn’t.”
“Nick —”
“I may not trust Fisher, but I trust you,” he said, his face animated with the excitement of coming up with an acceptable compromise.
“What are you talking about?”
“You could go as my master,” Nick said quickly. “It would be perfect!”
Grissom stared at the younger man as if he’d just grown a second head. “No — it wouldn’t.”
“Yes it would!” Nick started pacing again, his excitement showing on his face. “I trust you with my life, and this isn’t nearly that dangerous. You could do it, and —”
“No!” At Nick’s crestfallen expression, Grissom added more gently, “I don’t know what this is all about, but even if —”
“Pedophilia,” Nick interrupted. When Grissom didn’t respond, he said, “The FBI got a tip that one of the men attending the ball was bragging about bringing fourteen-year-old twins along this year. Said something about selling them as a matched set.”
His eyes narrowed, Grissom remained silent for a moment. “You sound like you’re personally involved. You shouldn’t do this.”
“How could I not be personally involved? We’re talking about kids here. Boys who don’t have a say in what happens to them — who have to do whatever the grownup tells them to do.” Nick stopped pacing a couple of feet from Grissom. “If the tip is real, this may be the only chance anyone has to get those boys out of a bad situation.”
Grissom said softly, “You don’t know what you’re getting into — how dangerous it is.”
“It’s not like there will be guns there,” Nick said confidently. After a pause, he asked uncertainly, “There won’t be guns, will there?”
“Most of the time, it’s possible to survive a gunshot wound,” Grissom said. “What you’re talking about doing — Nick, the danger is to your emotional well-being. Recovering from that kind of injury is a hell of a lot harder than recovering from a physical injury.”
Mule stubborn, Nick clenched his jaw in the face of Grissom’s concern. “I’m doing this with or without you, Griss. I have to.”
Shaking his head, Grissom said, “It’s a bad idea, Nicky. Really bad.”
After two days of ceaseless nagging, Grissom finally agreed to give Nick a chance to prove he could handle it — under the close supervision of Lady Heather. The two men sat in her back parlor, with Grissom waiting patiently while Nick fidgeted nearby.
After a few minutes, Gil said, “If you’re serious about doing this, you need to learn to sit still.”
Startled, Nick froze in the act of picking up yet another magazine. He sat back slowly, watching Grissom the entire time. “Yes, master.”
“Stop that.”
“Actually, if you truly plan to take Nick to the ball, you should encourage him to continue to call you master,” said Lady Heather as she stopped just inside the door. “I suggest that you use a paddle to reinforce the idea that he should never speak to you disrespectfully again.”
Grissom stood up when she entered the room. “Lady Heather, thank you for agreeing to provide guidance.”
“As I’m the one who tipped the FBI in the first place, I could hardly turn you down.” She sat in a large armchair, ignoring their startled glances, and motioned to Grissom to take his seat again.
“The call came from you?” Nick’s foot started tapping. “How long have you known about what was going to happen at the ball?”
“Since about two hours before I spoke with Special Agent Fisher,” she said, unperturbed by the younger man’s sudden anger. “And before you ask why I didn’t call immediately, it’s because I wanted to verify the information. Would either of you like tea?”
“I would,” Grissom said. “New china?”
“I found the set the last time I went to London.” She put in a lump of sugar and handed the cup to Grissom. “Mr. Stokes? Would you like anything in your tea?”
About to answer with an impatient no, Nick caught sight of the warning in Grissom’s eyes and forced himself to back down. “No thank you, Lady Heather. I’ll take it plain.”
She gave him an approving smile and handed the cup over before pouring her own tea. To Grissom, she said, “Have you told him everything he can expect, should he choose to go through with this plan?”
Grissom frowned slightly. “I would rather the information come from you.”
“Understandable, all things considered. We can discuss it later.” Lady Heather looked at Nick for a moment. “You said on the phone that you can handle anything that’s thrown at you.”
“That’s right,” he said easily, sitting back in his chair.
She gave him a small smile and looked at him through half-closed eyes. “Stand up and remove your clothing.”
His teacup halfway to his mouth, Nick froze, feeling uncomfortably like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck. “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”
“Your clothing, Nick. Remove it.” After a heartbeat, she added, “Now.”
Nick slowly put his cup down, looking to Grissom for a bit of direction and hoping for encouragement to stay dressed. When the other man just sat and waited without expressing an interest one way or the other, Nick bit back a sigh and stood. He pulled off his long-sleeved t-shirt and was about to unbutton his pants when Lady Heather stopped him.
“You did that too quickly. Put your shirt back on, then follow my instructions.”
His face was bright red by now — he was sure of it. “You have to be kidding me.”
“She’s not. And if you can’t handle submitting to another person in the safe company of a colleague and a close acquaintance, how do you think you’ll be able to handle it a month from now when you’re in a ballroom with two hundred other men?” Grissom sipped his tea as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening, and that, thought Nick, might be part of the problem. Grissom was handling this far too calmly.
He put his shirt back on and looked at Lady Heather, waiting for her direction.
“Grip the hem of your shirt with one hand and pull it up slowly.” When he did so, baring his abdomen, she said, “Run your hand languidly across the skin of your belly.”
Grissom’s eyebrows went up, and he looked over at Lady Heather. “‘Languidly?’”
She glanced at him. “It’s a good word and describes perfectly what I want Nick to do.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. I was simply curious.” Grissom turned back to Nick. “I believe you were told to do something with your hand.”
“Geez, Griss —”
“I’ll ask again: if you can’t handle it here, with just two of us watching, how are you going to handle it at the ball?” Grissom’s expression grew distant. “Either do as you’re instructed, or I end this now.”
Nick stared at him as he tentatively moved his hand along his abdomen.
“That’s good, Nick. Keep looking at your master,” Lady Heather said softly. “Use your hand the way you want him to use his on you.”
Her comment stalled Nick’s movement. “Um, his what?”
“His hand, Nick,” she said with mildly exaggerated patience. “Pretend that your hand is his hand, and touch yourself the way you want him to touch you.”
It took a few tries for Nick to find his voice. “I never — I just — I mean —”
Grissom, his face closed and distant, rescued him. Sort of. “It’s a men-only party for dominants and submissives, and you’re talking about going there undercover. Did you think you would be able to get through the party without at least one display of sexual submission to me?”
“Well, no. But I didn’t think that would be, you know, totally public,” he said, his embarrassment reaching near-lethal levels.
Irritated, Grissom asked, “Does the phrase, ‘submissives go naked at the ball’ ring any bells for you?”
“Yeah. I just wasn’t thinking.” Nick ducked his head.
“Clearly.” Grissom took a deep breath and shook his head slightly. “Have I mentioned that I think this is a bad idea?”
Nick grimaced. “Yeah. A few dozen times.” He began touching his belly with short, hard motions.
“Is that truly how you like to be touched?” Lady Heather leaned forward. “Generally speaking, even masochists prefer caresses to be just that — caresses.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled. Nick took a shaky breath and slowed down the movement of his hand. He closed his eyes and —
“Eyes open and on your master, Nick.” She sat back again and took a sip of her tea. “When you close your eyes, you close yourself off from him, and you can’t do that.”
Nick’s face went an even brighter shade of red as he caught Grissom’s eye, uncertain if it was better or worse that the man was sitting there as if this kind of thing happened all the time. Deciding it was irritating, Nick barely noticed when Grissom’s apparent disinterest sparked a determination to make him sit up and take notice of what was happening.
He pulled the hem of his shirt just a little bit higher and ran his fingertips lightly along his abdomen. With the second pass, he paused at his belly button, swirling a finger around the edge of it once then twice before briefly dipping into it. When Gil blinked, Nick tilted his head forward to look at him from beneath his eyelashes. He dragged his fingers along the waistband of his cargo pants, returning to the button to play with it.
Her voice soft and low, Lady Heather said, “Unsnap your pants then raise your shirt above your nipples.”
Though she didn’t quite break the spell Nick had put himself under, he fumbled slightly at her words. His eyes still locked on Grissom, Nick did as she asked then took it one step further, tweaking his right nipple to hardness.
“Take your shirt off, Nick, and let it drop to your feet,” she said.
Nick did so, biting back a smile when Grissom shifted in his seat.
“Grasp the tab of your zipper and pull it down slowly.”
About to follow Lady Heather’s instruction, Nick realized his hand was refusing to exert the necessary downward thrust to unzip his pants. He stood there for a moment, frozen, trying to understand why his little dance wasn’t working any longer. When Lady Heather said, “Nick?” he looked at her, his mouth working as he tried to form words.
“If I’m not mistaken, Nick is having trouble with that last order.” Grissom finished his tea and set the cup and saucer on the tea tray before standing up. “Lady Heather, I want to thank you again for —”
“I can do this, damn it!” With a sharp tug, Nick lowered the zipper. He gave up on the possibility of finesse for this particular striptease and simply shoved his slacks and underwear down his legs. It wasn’t until that moment that he remembered he was wearing —
“Nick?”
“Yes, Lady Heather?” He forced himself to look at her, steadfastly ignoring the heat spreading along his skin.
“When stripping for your master, you should bear in mind that it’s always best to start after you’ve removed your socks and boots,” she said with perfect sincerity. Nick might have believed she was serious if not for the amusement lighting up her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am.” Nick shifted from foot to foot, trying to find a way to be comfortable with the situation. In the end, he settled for standing at rest.
“Hands at your side, Nick.” When he complied, Lady Heather studied him as she sat there sipping her tea.
“Don’t you think he has a good body, Mr. Grissom?”
Nick held his breath as Grissom looked him over. It might not have been so bad if he’d just stood there, but no. He had to walk over to him and then around to his back, which meant — “I know what you’re thinking.”
Still standing behind Nick, Grissom asked in an interested tone, “You do?”
Nick dropped his chin to his chest. “It was a dare. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You have a tattoo of Paddington Bear on your left buttock, and it doesn’t mean anything?”
At that, Nick squatted down to pull up his pants and get the hell out of Lady Heather’s Dominion. He should have listened to Grissom in the first place and left it up to the FBI to figure out, but no, he had to get stubborn. About to stand up, he recalled the reason — reasons — for his determination to see this thing through. Nick took a moment to compose himself then untied the laces of both boots. Without saying a word, he finished undressing, leaving his boots and socks in the pile of clothing on the floor as he stepped aside.
Lady Heather murmured, “Very good, Nick.” In a louder voice, she said, “Presentation is everything. As Mr. Grissom’s toy, you’ll naturally be expected to show proper obeisance to him, but it’s important to remember that you must also show pride in your situation.”
Nick blinked. “Pride? You mean like standing tall?”
There was a suspicious cough from Grissom, even as Lady Heather smiled. “In more ways than one. Bear in mind that your arousal must be evident at all times.”
“Oh hell.” Surely by now, all the blood in his body was at the surface of his skin. With nothing flowing to his brain, maybe he would pass out. Quickly.
She continued, “The other masters will expect you to be entirely attentive to your own master’s desire at every single moment.”
Nick, who had come to the sad conclusion that violent blushing wouldn’t make him faint after all, said, “I’m not sure I can, uh, keep it up like that.”
“It would take a solid six months of training to get you to that point.” Her smile deepened briefly. “Fortunately for you, allowances are made for new slaves. Your master will be allowed to use a cock ring on you to ensure that you don’t embarrass him in front of everyone.”
“Oh god.” Nick broke into a sweat at the mental image she’d given him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, that wasn’t the only —
“This experiment is at an end,” Grissom said from the left, startling Nick. “Look at him. He’s too humiliated at the thought of it. He’d never survive the party.”
“I’m looking, though not at his face.” Lady Heather gestured downward. “Humiliation arouses him.”
Grissom frowned as he examined the evidence before him, and Nick found himself getting just a little bit harder. “He’s standing naked in front of a beautiful woman. How could he not be aroused?”
“He’s looking at you, not me,” she said, amused. “Nick, I don’t believe I ever told you to stop caressing yourself.”
Startled, both by the turn of the conversation and by Lady Heather’s admonition, Nick began again to stroke his fingers along his belly.
“Remember to touch yourself the way you want your master to touch you,” she said softly.
His eyes on Griss — his master, Nick imagined what it would be like to have the older man’s hands on him and found the thought of it wasn’t too bad. Okay, yeah, there was a what-the-fuck factor, because really, he’d never been into guys except for that one time at the frat, but with Lady Heather and Griss — his master staring at him, Nick was starting to see the attraction. In a weird kind of way that he’d never admit to, even under penalty of —
Damn, that felt good. Nick couldn’t remember ever just taking the time to touch himself other than in the shower or to jerk off. He never realized that patch of skin just below his belly button was so damn sensitive. Without thinking about it, Nick started to wrap his fingers around his cock.
In a sharp voice, Lady Heather admonished, “Stop that. You’re only allowed to touch yourself when your master permits it.”
Nick mumbled, “Sorry, ma’am,” as she crooked her finger for his master to go over to her.
Grissom leaned down as she whispered something — something that made him frown and shake his head. Nick wanted to ask what they were talking about, but he’d slid a little too deeply into the moment and discovered he couldn’t have asked if his life depended on it.
Scary? Hell yes. And oddly, it was safe, too. Grissom — his master could be a lot of things, but right at the top of that list was trustworthy with a capital trust.
The short argument over with, his master caught Nick’s gaze again. “Run your thumb around the head of your cock.”
He did as he was told and waited for further instruction.
His master frowned at him. “Nick, who am I?”
He blinked lazily. “You’re my master.”
“Who else am I?”
Something in the older man’s voice — the tension, maybe — snapped Nick’s link to the fantasy he’d gotten lost in, and suddenly, he recalled himself and the situation. “Shit.”
Still looking concerned, Grissom asked again, “Who else am I?”
Embarrassed, and not in the toe-tingling way, Nick’s hand dropped to his side. “You’re Gil Grissom, night supervisor at Criminalistics.”
Grissom shot a hard look at him before turning to Lady Heather. “Thank you for your time this morning, but I don’t think we’ll need your services any longer.”
“What? Hang on a minute, Griss!” Abruptly recalling that he was naked, Nick covered his groin with both hands. “I was doing it — getting into it. You know I was.”
“Yeah. You were,” he answered. “In fact, you were so into it that I could have had you do pretty much whatever I thought might be amusing, and you would have gone along with it, wouldn’t you?”
More than anything, Nick wanted to be able to lie. Too bad he couldn’t. “Maybe not whatever you thought of, but probably a lot of it,” he said, his head hanging down.
“We’re not doing this. You’re too vulnerable.” Grissom shook his head and walked to the door. “Get dressed, Nicky.”
“Like hell we’re not!” Nick surprised the other two with his outburst. “There are a couple of kids in danger, and I’m not letting them stay that way.”
Grissom didn’t look at Nick when he said, “Let someone else rescue them.”
“No.” The word was as flat and unyielding as the expression on Nick’s face. “And if you don’t go with me, Fisher can be my master.”
Pausing at the door, Grissom turned to face Nick. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment before Lady Heather murmured, “He may have gotten lost, but he was able to find himself.”
Grissom focused on Lady Heather. “What makes you think he’ll be able to find himself later on?”
“What makes you think he won’t?”
Nick was bolting down a sandwich in the break room when Catherine found him. “Gotta minute?”
He finished chewing his bite and swallowed it. “Are you gonna yell at me again?”
She flashed him a wry grin. “Not at the moment, but no promises about later. However, I do need to ask you something.”
“Ask away,” he said before taking a smaller bite of his lunch.
Catherine stepped closer to the table, lowering her voice despite the fact that only the two of them were there. “Have you told Gil why it’s so important for you to go to that idiotic party?”
Confused, Nick said, “Wouldn’t he already know? I mean, minors in danger and all.”
“I’m talking about your personal history,” she said gently.
“Oh.” Nick’s gaze darted nervously around the room. “That.”
“It’s important, and you need to tell him.” After a moment, she added, “You should have told him before now.”
Nick spotted his quarry in the hall and called out, “Hey, Griss. Gotta minute?”
Grissom stopped and looked back at him. “If it’s to tell me you’re giving up on going to the ball, I have all the time in the world for you.”
“Sorry, but no. Not that.” Nick glanced around. “Could we talk in your office?”
“Sure.”
Once inside, Nick closed the door behind them and took a seat in front of Grissom’s desk. His heart started racing a little, and he felt even more nervous than he had the first time he got all the way naked in front of Grissom and Lady Heather. Talking about that thing when he was nine just wasn’t something he did — except for that one time with Catherine, and she more or less spooked the truth out of him. Now, however, he was supposed to say something on his own, without the other person prompting him.
“I don’t know how to start,” he said, his voice sounding a little shaky to his ears.
Grissom narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It doesn’t really matter where you take that step, as long as you take it.”
“I was molested by a babysitter when I was nine,” he said abruptly, the words escaping before Nick had any idea he was about to say something.
As Grissom started to speak, Nick added quickly, “It’s why I have to do something for those boys. I didn’t have anyone who could rescue me. They do.”
Grissom sat very still, making a visible effort to breathe slowly. “And you didn’t think to mention this before now?”
“It’s nothing, okay? Happened years ago,” he said, his defensiveness rising.
“If it’s nothing, how come you’re still reacting to it?”
Irritated now, Nick asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Pedophilia.” He all but spit out the word. “It’s a hot button issue for you, and it’s why you’re determined to go through with this, no matter what anyone says.” Grissom shook his head. “How many people have you told?”
“Catherine. You,” Nick said, trying to calm down from his overreaction to Grissom’s anger.
“What about therapy?”
“It happened a long time ago. I’m over it.” Nick stood up and started pacing through Grissom’s office, letting his attention get caught by the various oddities the older man kept on hand.
“You’re not.” Before Nick could respond, Grissom said, “Three days ago, you blackmailed me into continuing training with Lady Heather. Now it’s my turn. Every day, before you go over to her Dominion, you’re going to chat with Dr. Kane about your history and about this case.”
“What? Why?” Nick felt the flush rising on his cheeks, and he couldn’t tell if it was due more to anger or humiliation.
“You’re still getting lost in the fantasy, Nick, and I think it’s because you were molested,” he answered gently. “It’s only going to get worse, the deeper into this we get.”
Nick stared at him, feeling more than a little helpless. “Don’t you like it when I do well there?”
Grissom hesitated before answering. “I like it. I like it a little too much.”
Nick knelt on the carpet at Master Gil’s feet. He was naked but for a dog collar, and he was fully erect. His arms were behind his back, and his head was bowed down. In all, he was the perfect picture of submission as an argument went back and forth between his master and Lady Heather.
“I can’t believe you won’t teach him,” Master Gil said, his frustration evident in the tone of his voice.
“You know perfectly well that prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas,” she said calmly.
“This isn’t prostitution. It’s training.”
“Training for which the county will pay, right?” Nick looked at Master Gil’s feet, wondering what they looked like without shoes.
“Of course.” Master Gil crossed his legs, just narrowly avoiding a kick to Nick’s face.
“Then we’re back to prostitution, and my answer is still no. I won’t put any of my people through that particular humiliation,” she said, her voice taking on a finality that indicated the discussion was over.
Not, of course, that Master Gil was paying the slightest bit of attention. “Then how the hell is he supposed to learn?”
Lady Heather sounded greatly amused when she answered, “You have a cock. Teach him yourself.”
With two weeks of training under his belt (so to speak, given that he was always naked for his training sessions) and another two weeks before the Bowtie Ball, Nick found himself in a dilemma. Worse, he wasn’t completely sure how to resolve it. The argument between Grissom and Lady Heather the day before had been about teaching him how to give a blowjob.
Considering that Nick had never sucked a cock in his life, the need to learn before the ball was more than a little urgent. The incident with his frat brother involved mutual masturbation following a long day of celebratory drinking. Even before the wet spot was dry, they went off to separate corners, the moment never to be mentioned again.
So Nick agreed that lessons were necessary, but — and this is where the dilemma came in — he’d been in full slave mode when they discussed it, which meant he shouldn’t talk about it outside of Lady Heather’s Dominion. On the other hand, he was a CSI who’d volunteered to go undercover for the FBI, so it wasn’t like the slave thing was real to begin with.
Nick sighed and settled against Grissom’s Tahoe as he waited for the man to leave for the day. He’d considered talking to Dr. Kane about it, but Phillip was fixated on Nick’s need to please and how it related both to that thing when he was nine and to his plans for getting those kids out of a bad situation. Personally, Nick didn’t see the point, though he was willing to admit that his sessions were helping him keep track of which persona was appropriate at any given time.
Grissom left the building walking at a fast clip, slowing down only when he caught sight of Nick. He reached the truck and said, “You have the weekend off, remember?”
“From the lab and Lady Heather’s Dominion, sure,” Nick said, sounding more at ease than he felt. “From getting ready for the ball? Not a chance.”
Grissom couldn’t open the driver’s side door without pushing Nick away, so he settled for glaring at the younger man. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do.” Turning so that his back was to the building, Nick reached down and stroked his cock through his pants. “There are a few things Lady Heather won’t teach me, and you know I need to learn them.”
Grissom’s eyes followed the movement of Nick’s hand. “You shouldn’t —”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t. You didn’t give me permission, did you?” It was a calculated risk, but Nick thought it was worth a shot. Grissom needed to be in master mode to teach him, and since Lady Heather had banned the two of them from practicing at her house, that meant working the problem somewhere else.
“Nick —”
“I need to learn,” he said, continuing to stroke his cock to hardness. “You’re the one who has to teach me.”
Master Gil clenched his jaw briefly. “In the truck, Nicky. And get your hands off yourself.”
The drive to Master Gil’s place had been silent, and Nicky was grateful when he was finally able to get inside. He was so thoroughly in character that his hands were working the buttons on his shirt before the door was closed.
“Nick!”
He looked up to see Master Gil frowning at him. “Sir?”
“Who am I?”
Nick blinked at the familiar phrase. He and Grissom had both come to depend on it over the last couple of weeks as a way of getting Nick back into his usual headspace. The trouble was that Nick didn’t want to be in his usual headspace. He wanted to be Master Gil’s Nicky just then, not a Las Vegas CSI.
Sighing, he answered, “You’re Gil Grissom, night supervisor of the Las Vegas Crime Lab and a huge pain in my ass.”
The last comment earned him a dry look. “Nice of you to recognize it. You have no idea how hard I work to be a pain in everyone’s ass.”
Frustrated, Nick dragged his hand along his head. “What’s going on, Griss? We were doing great.”
“Yes, we were. Nick Stokes, a fine and capable CSI left the building four hours ago, and by the time my shift ended, he was gone and there was Nicky.” Grissom shook his head and started to pace. “I thought we agreed to keep that confined to Lady Heather’s Dominion.”
Shaking his head, Nick said, “Huh? I never agreed to anything like that.”
“You should have.” Grissom stopped at the far wall and put his fingers to his neck. After a minute passed, he said, “My pulse is up to ninety. That’s how pissed off I am right now.”
Nick took a tentative step toward the other man. “I don’t get it. Why are you angry? Is it because I slipped into submission so easily? I told you — I know what I’m doing now. It’s no big deal.”
Grissom turned quickly. “Isn’t it? You were nine years old when your babysitter, an authority figure, sexually abused you. How is that situation any different from me, another authority figure in your life, taking advantage of your willingness to go to any extreme for this operation?”
“You’re not taking advantage.” Nick took another step toward Grissom. “This is something I want to learn how to do.”
“I’m looking for someone to teach you,” he said. “Someone who isn’t emotionally involved.”
Nick looked at Grissom in disbelief. “Are you kidding? I don’t want to practice on a stranger. I want you.”
“Don’t say that!” Grissom scowled as he again started pacing around the perimeter of the room. “We’ve destroyed almost every professional boundary we had in place. I don’t want this last one to go until it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I don’t get it. Are you worried that I’ll confuse you with my babysitter? I won’t, I promise I’ll be alright,” Nick said, standing still as he watched Grissom move around his home.
“It isn’t you that I’m worried about,” Grissom muttered.
Hesitant, Nick asked, “It isn’t?”
Grissom stopped about five feet in front of Nick and looked him over from head to toe and then back again. “Do you have any idea what you look like when you’re kneeling at my feet, naked and open to whatever I might decide to do with you?”
His mouth suddenly dry, Nick croaked out, “Griss —”
“Some days, it’s all I can do not to bend you over a chair and fuck you until you forget everything but me.” With that, Grissom stepped toward Nick. “I dream about your cock and about how you must look when you come.”
Caught by the intensity of Gil’s gaze, Nick could only stand there and whisper, “Jesus.”
“I’m glad you think you can keep it all in nice, neat compartments, Nicky, but I can’t. At the Whittaker scene, I stared at your ass for a good five minutes, wondering what kinds of pinks and reds it will turn when I finally get around to spanking you.” Gil was suddenly closer than Nick remembered him being. “I was on a case, and all I could think of was getting you home and marking you.”
Before Nick could even process Gil’s confession, the other man was holding his head between his hands and kissing him as if his life depended on it. Lost in the sensation of being at the absolute center of Gil’s attention, Nick barely noticed when his shirt disappeared. He did, however, notice when Gil opened his pants and reached in.
“Damn it!” Nick could barely see straight, let alone think coherently, with Gil’s hand wrapped firmly around his cock.
“Listen well, Nicky,” Gil said, his mouth close to Nick’s ear. “This is still a role to you, but there’s no guarantee it’s still a role to me. When I let you go, I want you to get dressed and leave.”
“Gil —”
“If you don’t leave now, don’t expect to go back to your old life after the ball.” With that, Gil released him and left the room.
“You can’t grab a guy’s cock like that and expect him to think straight while you’re doing it.” Nick leaned against the doorframe of Gil’s home office.
Without looking up, he answered, “I thought I told you to leave.”
“You did. And then you told me the consequences if I didn’t leave,” he said in a casual tone of voice.
“Well?”
“For a guy as bright as you are, you can be awfully dumb sometimes, you know?”
At that, Gil turned around to see that Nick had managed to lose the rest of his clothing somewhere along the line. “Be sure. Be very sure.”
“I am sure. The real question is, are you?”
After a long, tense moment, Grissom closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Master Gil was in the house. His voice low and intense, he asked, “You want to learn how to give me a blowjob, Nicky?”
In a harsh whisper, he answered, “Yes, sir.”
He remained seated, facing Nicky with his legs splayed. “On your knees in front of me.”
Nicky moved into position and looked up, waiting for further instruction.
“Some masters like their slaves to use their teeth to open a zipper.” When Nicky leaned forward to do that, his master said, “I don’t. I prefer dignity. Use your hands.”
Swallowing hard against the gaffe he’d nearly made, Nicky did as he was told, adding a soft caress against Master Gil’s hardening erection. “What next, sir?”
“Reach in and take my cock out. Don’t worry about being gentle,” he said, his gaze locked with Nicky’s as the younger man tugged. “Good. Wrap your hand around the base, then lick around the head.”
Eager to get it right the first time, Nicky did as he was told, his nose flaring slightly at Master Gil’s musky scent. An old girlfriend — Karen — once told him that sticking a penis into a mouth took an act of faith on both sides of the transaction. The owner of the cock trusted that his partner wouldn’t bite down at the wrong moment, and the owner of the mouth trusted that her — his — partner was not only clean, but was also controlled.
The last remark had been directly aimed at him. Nick had forgotten that at the back of a mouth was a gag reflex, and he’d ended up spending the next hour apologizing for triggering Karen’s. She’d forgiven him eventually, but she never again trusted him to control himself.
It was with that in mind that Nicky kept a firm grip on Master Gil’s cock. A gag reflex could be desensitized, but he didn’t think either of them wanted this to be the time to learn that particular lesson.
Nicky’s lips slid over the head of his master’s cock, and almost immediately, there were fingers sliding through what was left of his hair. Master Gil put both his hands on Nicky’s head and jerked it up. “One — you’re not allowed to get a hair cut again until I give you permission. Two — don’t anticipate. For now, just lick. Got it?”
Nodding as much as he could with his head in Master Gil’s firm grip, Nicky answered, “Yes, sir. Sorry about that.”
He hmphed and released Nick’s head. “Start again, and remember, lick, don’t suck.”
Nicky leaned forward and began again, being careful to maintain his grip as instructed and to lick, not suck. When he changed the motion of his tongue to short, stabbing touches, Master Gil’s cock twitched in his hand. As for Master Gil, he groaned at the sensation, moving restlessly. Nicky took that as a good sign, switching back to circular sweeping motions after a few minutes.
An endless time later, Nicky had slipped into a headspace where the only thing that existed in his world was Master Gil’s cock and the many ways it responded to his licks. When he heard his master’s command to start sucking, he left off with a sense of minor regret that he hadn’t been allowed to use his tongue on anything but the head.
“Suck it a little harder, Nicky.” Master Gil’s voice was harsh, but his hand was on Nicky’s head, gently stroking through his short hair. “That’s right. That’s just perfect. Take it in a little more, then suck hard as you move back.”
Nicky was hard pressed to keep Master Gil’s hips still as he sucked in the man’s cock, and he appreciated the fact that he’d been told to keep one hand around the base from the very start. When a hint of salt was added to the mix, Nicky’s mouth started watering. He swallowed, trying to keep it from running out of his mouth, and the action was enough to trigger a loud exclamation from his master.
“Jesus, yes. Just like that,” he said, his hips jerking up as much as Nicky would allow. “Suck harder, Nicky. Harder!”
His jaw aching, he followed Master Gil’s ever more strident orders, and when everything went still for a moment, Nicky suddenly realized he never asked if he was supposed to spit or swallow. He had only a moment to panic, because Master Gil was coming in long, slow spurts. Though not fond of the taste of seminal fluid, Nicky was even less fond of the idea of disappointing his master, so he swallowed, clenching his jaw against the too-salty flavor.
When Master Gil started to soften, Nicky returned to the soft licks that he started with, taking great care to clean the cock he still held. After a moment, his master said breathlessly, “Enough. It’s enough.”
He sat back on his heels, looking up as he tried to ignore his own arousal, unexpected in its intensity. Until that moment, Nicky had never understood why Karen enjoyed fellatio so much. Having experienced the power of controlling another man’s orgasm so directly and intimately, he finally started to get it.
Master Gil nudged a loafer-clad foot between Nicky’s legs, toeing his erection for a moment. “I want to see the way you come.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
Nicky didn’t bother spitting into his hands. As turned on as he was at the moment, it wouldn’t take more than a few sharp jerks to get off. Just as his orgasm was peaking, he moved one hand up to collect the fluid as it came out, not wanting to make a mess on his master’s floor.
After catching his breath, Nicky looked up just in time to see Master Gil slide away and Grissom return. “What the hell have I done?”
“He refuses to speak to you?” Lady Heather poured a cup of tea for Nick and then herself, adding cream to her cup before sitting back.
“Mostly, he’s been avoiding me.” Nick looked down, his shoulders hunched forward as he felt the weight of failure.
“Did you both enjoy your first overtly sexual contact with one another?”
“I thought so.” He looked up at Lady Heather. “He came, I came. It was good, you know?”
Her voice gentle and non judgmental, she asked, “Did he say anything else that day?” At Nick’s blush, she added sternly, “I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”
Ducking his head, Nick offered tentatively, “He said something about it getting to be too real for him.”
Lady Heather’s eyebrows shot up. “And you didn’t think this was relevant?”
“Guys say stuff when they’re turned on. I didn’t think —”
“That much is obvious,” she interrupted sharply. “Have you ever known your master to say anything he didn’t mean?”
“Well no, but to be fair, I’ve never known him to grab a guy’s cock before, either,” he said defensively. “At least — not a living guy’s cock.”
Lady Heather gave him a long, considering look before shaking her head. “He’s hiding because you saw too much of him. You’ll have to make him feel safe again.”
At that, Nick gave her a confused look. “Isn’t he supposed to make me feel safe?”
“The submissive always has the power. Mr. Grissom understands this, but it’s apparent that you don’t.” When he failed to understand what she was saying, she tried again. “Do you remember me telling you that you had to pay attention to your master at all times?”
Nick’s gaze sharpened. “Yeah. To make sure I can take care of him, right?”
“And also to make sure that you can get his attention when the scene becomes too intense for you to continue.” She leaned forward. “You have to show an awareness of what’s going on around you so that he can trust you to say ‘stop’ at the right time. Did you show that awareness when you fellated him?”
With a quick, shy grin, he said, “Probably not. I kind of got lost in the moment, you know?”
Lady Heather rolled her eyes. “You’re going to have to talk to him about this.”
“How can I? I told you, he’s avoiding me,” he said, his frustration evident.
“Go upstairs to the Headmaster’s Office — second door on the left,” she said, standing up. “He’s learning how to wield a paddle today.”
Nick blinked as she left, feeling a faint outrage that it wasn’t his ass Grissom was smacking.
Nick stalked up the stairs and entered the blue room with a very bad attitude. It was bad enough that as soon as he walked through the door, Grissom was shooting him a dark look. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” When Grissom put down his paddle and tried to leave, Nick caught him by the arm and wouldn’t let go. “Stop running, damn it!”
His head bowed, Grissom said, “I told you before — I can’t compartmentalize what’s happening with us.”
“Yeah, you gave me fair warning. Remember what I did next?” Nick tried to catch Grissom’s eye. “I stripped down and seduced you.”
“I shouldn’t have let it happen.” Grissom looked up, then, and Nick could see the conflict in the other man’s eyes.
“I’m not a kid, Griss. I’m an adult, and I’m more than capable of making my own decisions.” Nick stepped into Grissom’s personal space and put a hand on his chest. “I put my mouth on your cock because I wanted to, not because you ordered me to.”
As Nick watched, Grissom’s eyes darkened, his breath sped up, and hallelujah, Master Gil was back. “Nicky.” And then gone again. “Nick —”
“Lady Heather said you need to practice paddling someone,” he said, even as he stripped. “I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t let me know.”
“Lady Heather also said I should use a paddle on you to keep you from speaking so disrespectfully.” Grissom’s dark look got even darker, and Nick thought there might even be traces of Master Gil again. “I should have listened to her.”
“Would’ve been nice if you’d listened to me when I said I was sure,” Nick grumbled as he stepped out of his underwear.
“I was listening. I was waiting for you to tell me, ‘Stop, don’t do this.’ But you never did.” Grissom looked at Nick and shook his head in confusion.
“Didn’t it occur to you that I didn’t say stop because I didn’t want to?” Nick, naked as the day he was born and a hell of a lot less innocent, stepped up to Grissom and straight into his personal space. “You gonna let me get away with sassing you like this?”
Grissom, his eyes showing his struggle between accepting what was freely offered and trying to obey the dictates of his conscience, said, “Tell me you know how to say no, Nick.”
“I know how to say no, Master Gil.” Nicky ran a finger down his master’s chest. “And just in case it gets to be too much for me, I promise I’ll use a safe word.”
“What —” Grissom’s façade of cool was starting to crack. “Which safe word are you going to use?”
“Dallas.”
Grissom closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the last vestiges of doubt were gone, and Master Gil was back in town. “Close the door, Nicky. For now, I’m the only one who gets to look at your ass.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Grissom — and there was no doubt in Nicky’s mind that it was Grissom — paced around Lady Heather’s receiving room.
“Then you will fail, and the last three weeks will have been for nothing.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t appreciate having the gifts of my knowledge and effort being thrown away so blithely.”
Her tone brought Grissom up short. “I’m not — It’s not like that.”
“It is from where I’m sitting.” She made an obvious effort to relax her posture and said in a more conciliatory tone, “You and Nicky have come a long way since you started. But you haven’t gone far enough. You need to make love with him.”
Grissom snorted, “He gives me a blowjob once a day, whether I need it or not.”
“Oral sex doesn’t qualify —”
“Tell that to Bill Clinton,” he muttered as he started another circuit.
“Congress is many things, but an expert on sex, it isn’t,” she said, acknowledging his point. “There’s every chance you’ll be called upon to fuck Nick as a way of introducing yourself. Do you really want his first experience with anal sex to be under those circumstances?”
Nick blinked at that news, working his mouth as he attempted to form the words to a question. He could have kissed Grissom when he demanded, “Excuse me?”
“I warned you that there would be public sex,” she said calmly.
“You talked about blowjobs and mutual masturbation being the most likely activities this year.” Grissom stopped in front of her chair. “You said nothing about intercourse.”
She shrugged, the movement as elegant as anything she did. “My mistake, then.”
After a moment, Grissom said, “You’re still angry about being a suspect in that murder investigation two years ago. That’s why you didn’t say anything.”
“That incident may have provided strong motivation for me to forget until now,” she admitted. “However, it doesn’t change the fact that you and Nicky need to spend a significant amount of time together in intimate circumstances. Your physical relationship can’t be in doubt when you arrive at the ball. Otherwise, your efforts will have been in vain.”
Nick stood on Grissom’s doorstep, a duffle slung over his shoulder, and rang the doorbell. Technically, he and Gil were both on vacation for the next week, but in reality, they would be working on their personas for the Bowtie Ball. Nick blinked at the early morning sunshine while he waited for Grissom to answer the door.
When the door opened, Grissom — no, Master Gil — looked at the bag and asked, “What’s in there?”
“Clothes.” At the blank look, Nicky added uncertainly, “You know, for the next week. While I’m staying here?”
“What makes you think you’ll need clothing?”
Naked and bent over a table, Nicky started to lose himself a little in the paddling his master was giving him. They were two days into the scene Lady Heather had developed for them, and if all went according to plan, Nicky would have the experience of his master’s cock in his ass later that evening. And imagining that might have been enough to make him come right then and there, if not for —
“God, Nicky. If you could see your ass right now, you’d see why I like spanking it so much.” Master Gil followed up the compliment by running a slick finger along Nicky’s crack. That same finger eased inside, and as Master Gil started to make Nicky just a little bit crazier, he asked, “Are you ready for me?”
After a couple of false starts, he managed to say, “Yes. Please. Now?”
“Lady Heather’s agenda has me teasing you for the next hour or so and then spanking you again.” Master Gil pushed his finger in a little deeper and wriggled it a little more. “Do you really think I should disregard her advice at this late date?”
Nicky whimpered, “Please, Master Gil.”
Dropping a kiss on his shoulder, Master Gil murmured, “Soon, Nicky. Soon.”
On his hands and knees, his excitement at fever pitch, Nicky waited as Master Gil took his own sweet time getting them ready. The state he was in at the moment, he would come the minute his master took him. Well. He would if he weren’t wearing a damned cock ring. Of all the ways his limits and boundaries had been pushed and redefined over the last three weeks, Nicky hated the cock ring most of all. Its presence was both a rebuke and torture: a rebuke because he didn’t have enough self-control yet; and torture, because he was no longer in charge of his own orgasm.
Warm oil trickled down his ass, and Master Gil began a wonderfully dirty commentary of everything he was doing. “If you could see what I see, you wouldn’t be able to hold back. Lady Heather knew what she was doing when she suggested that extra spanking. Your ass is going to be red for hours.” He paused to insert first one finger, then two. As Nicky clenched around them, Master Gil continued, “I can hardly wait to get my cock in here. Do you know how hard I am right now? I almost think I’m twenty again.”
Nicky whimpered as his master scissored his fingers before withdrawing them entirely. Their absence was brief, and when they returned, they were joined by a third finger and the resumption of his master’s litany. “Just a little bit more, Nicky. As soon as you’re relaxed enough, I’m going to be inside you. I’m going to own you.”
It was enough to make him move back hard and fast, trapping his master’s hand between his cheeks.
“You like that, don’t you?” With a slap to Nicky’s ass, Master Gil removed his fingers. The rip of a condom packet later, his master was behind him again, and this time, in place of small, tortuous and wriggling fingers, the smooth, solid head of a cock was at Nicky’s entrance — or exit, depending on how he looked at it.
Before he could stop himself, Nicky breathed a simple, “Please,” and between one breath and the next, Master Gil entered him.
“So fucking tight.” Nicky pushed back at the compliment, wincing a little as he took in his master’s length. “Damn it, Nick. Not so fast. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Can’t. You can’t,” he said breathlessly. “Never knew a burn could feel so good.” Ignoring all the lessons he’d learned at Lady Heather’s hand and Master Gil’s paddle, Nick lost all pretense of submission and just went with it. Despite the care they’d taken in creating the characters they were to play, it didn’t matter, because in the end, it was Grissom’s cock in — well — in his end, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. “Faster, Gil. Please — faster.”
Grissom paused, then taking him at his word, he started moving with short strokes until he was fully sheathed. “You ready, Nick?”
“I was ready ten days ago. Fuck me already, would you?”
The night of the ball, Nicky kept himself very still and quiet in the living room as he waited for Master Gil to finish getting ready. His own preparations primarily involved putting on a dog collar and an overcoat beforehand and a cock ring at the ballroom, so he’d spent much of the day in a state of ever-increasing anticipation of the night to come. Nick Stokes, capable CSI level three, was hyped about finding the kids who might be up for offer. Nicky, owned by Master Gil, was nervous over the possibility of embarrassing them both with one wrong move.
When Master Gil, dressed in a very nice tuxedo, entered the living room, Nicky was about to drop to his knees when he heard, “Who am I?”
Nick took a careful look before answering, “Gil Grissom, night shift supervisor.”
“Good.” Grissom moved to the kitchen bar. “Do you want something to drink before we leave?”
He looked down at his cock, half-erect just from standing naked in front of his clothed master — colleague, and said, “Probably not a good idea, Griss. No way of knowing if I’ll be able to get to a restroom once we’re there.”
“You have a point.” Grissom poured himself a shot of whisky and looked at Nick. “We’ve been ignoring Lady Heather’s instructions for the last five days. You realize this could be a problem, right?”
“Only if I forget myself,” Nick said. “Not likely to do that in front of a room full of strangers.”
Grissom sipped his drink. “I didn’t think you were likely to do it with me.”
“Then you were in denial, man.” Nick stood at the counter and waited for Grissom to respond to that bit of information.
Eyebrows raised, he asked, “Denial? Explain.”
Nick smiled. “You’re a pretty bright guy. I think you can figure it out on your own.” With a glance at the clock, he asked, “What time is our ride getting here?”
As the doorbell rang, he said, “Right about now, if I’m not mistaken. And Nicky? Don’t think you’re getting out of explaining yourself.”
As they pulled up to the back of the Tangiers, Grissom tested his transmitter and had Nick do the same. Nodding, he tapped on one of the studs in his dog collar and said, “This is CSI Stokes. Testing. Testing.”
A small, tinny voice sounded in his ear. “You’re coming in loud and clear, CSI Stokes. And your GPS transmitter is working as well. You’re cleared to go in.”
Grissom got the same message at roughly the same time, and he winked at Nick as he opened the door. “Now that we know everything is working, shall we?”
“Yes, master.”
As he’d hoped, his smirk and sarcasm earned him a smack on the ass on their way in.
“Name, sir?”
“Gil Grissom,” he said, sounding as dispassionate as he did when giving evidence at a trial. For a brief, irrational moment, Nick was pissed that Gil hadn’t been hit with a sudden attack of nerves the way he had as soon as they got inside. He reminded himself as firmly as he could that Gil had no reason to be nervous, since he wouldn’t be naked. And as long as he was taking a trip down Memory Lane, Nick remembered how often he’d been given the chance to stop this.
“And your slave?”
“He goes by Nicky.” Grissom held out his arms as another security guard ran a metal detector along his body.
The first guard made a notation on the clipboard he carried and said, “This is your first time here, Mr. Grissom?”
“As a master, yes.”
It was all Nick could do not to demand an explanation immediately. Of all the things he and Gil had talked about over the last month, Gil’s personal and direct experience of the Bowtie Ball was not one of them.
The security guard made another notation. “Very good, sir.”
Gil put his hand on Nick’s shoulder, grasping the fabric of the overcoat. “Are we all set, then?”
“You’ll need to go before the Council to confirm your change in status, Mr. Grissom.” The guard gestured to a single door further along the corridor. “They’ll be waiting for you in there.”
Just inside the door, Nick was stripped of his overcoat, and a firm set of hands pushed him to his knees. Gil stepped forward to the three men seated at a conference table, and when Nick started to follow, he was held still.
“Gilbert. It’s been some time,” said the man on the left. Nick thought he looked to be in his sixties and wondered just how well Gil knew him.
“You’re right, James, it has.” Despite the soft-spoken response, James twitched. Nick thought it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.
His mouth somewhat tight, James said, “There was a time you would have spoken with more respect.”
“There was a time when you earned that respect,” Gil said, not giving an inch.
The man in the middle interrupted with, “I think that’s enough. James, you’re recused from this particular interview. Please wait outside.”
Though he looked like he wanted to protest, James looked away and replied, “Very well, Marcus,” before leaving without another word, much to Nick’s relief.
The man on the right said, “I apologize, Gil. James assured us he would be fine.”
“And you believed him?” Gil took a deep breath. “Never mind. How can we prove our sincerity?”
“We’d like to see you put Nicky through his paces,” said Marcus. Nick was urged forward by the unseen man behind him, and still on his knees, he moved next to Gil. “How long have you been together?”
“A year, but it’s only in the last month that Nicky has become a slave.” Gil reached down and caressed Nicky’s head. “He’s proving himself to be fairly adept.”
From the man on the right came, “Yet he needs a cock ring?”
Master Gil answered mildly, “As I recall, Robert, you needed one for a full eight months when you first started.”
Robert acknowledged the point with a nod then said, “Have him suck you to orgasm, Gil.”
“You heard him, Nicky. Bring me off,” Master Gil said, his hand tightening briefly on Nick’s head before he turned to the side. Nicky followed suit, and reached up to unzip his master’s trousers.
Nick heard Marcus say, “You let him use his hands?”
“I prefer dignity in submission,” he answered, even as he encouraged Nicky to continue what he was doing.
“Hardly a surprise,” Robert murmured.
It was the last thing Nicky heard as he began to lick the head of his master’s cock.
An hour later, in a darkened corner, Nick moaned and writhed and generally carried on while his master licked, touched and pinched every bit of flesh he could reach. Between licks, they held a low-voiced conversation.
“Are you ready to head back to the auction area?” Gil followed the question up by mouthing along the top of Nick’s shoulder.
Shifting restlessly as Gil fondled him, Nick managed to make some sound that was affirmative. And then he whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been to the ball before?”
After a long pause, Gil mumbled softly, “It would have been too distracting for you.”
Nick bucked into Gil’s hand and said, “When we get back home tonight, I want to hear about it.”
Gil gave Nick’s cock a firm squeeze. “It’s personal.”
“Fuck personal.” Nick caught Gil’s gaze. Speaking too softly for the microphone to pick up his words, Nick told him, “You’ve had your dick up my ass, Gil. That’s about as personal as it gets in my book. You owe me.”
Closing his eyes and nodding slightly, he answered, “You’re right. I do. But after.”
Two hours later, Nick was dressed in his overcoat once more, and he was giving a preliminary statement to the FBI about what he’d found in the auction pit. “Turns out the guy putting them up for offer was lying,” he said, feeling more than a little embarrassed by the whole situation. “The so-called fourteen-year-old twins were actually twenty-three-year-old twins who were just really short.”
“It’s a shame we couldn’t shut down the party.” Special Agent Fisher looked as if he’d just swallowed a cup of sour lemon juice. “Fucking perverts. When that guy told you to suck, how the hell did you manage to do that without puking your guts out?”
“Your empathy is underwhelming, Mr. Fisher.” Nick almost wept for joy at the sight of Grissom scaring the bejeezus out of Fisher. “Sexuality takes on myriad forms, and as long as it’s consensual, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Yeah,” Fisher snorted. “Whatever.”
Grissom raised an eyebrow at Nick then asked, “Are you done debriefing my CSI?”
If Nick hadn’t been so down about the way the bust went bust, he probably would have snickered at the pun. At the moment, though, he felt like an idiot ten times over, no matter that the young men in question really could have passed for fourteen or fifteen years old. It was the principle of the thing, and —
“Come on, Nick.” Grissom shot him an uncertain look as he said, “I think it’s time to get you out of here.”
Nodding, he slid off the trunk of Special Agent Fisher’s piece of crap government-issue car and joined Grissom. “We can probably catch a cab out front.”
“Or we could just get into my truck,” he answered, pressing a button on his key fob and nodding in the direction of the Tahoe.
“When did you bring it over?”
“Earlier this afternoon.” Grissom put his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to have it here just in case things went sour tonight.”
Still distracted by the events of the evening, Nick only barely took note of the other man’s tone of voice. Instead, he concentrated on reminding himself that the fact that there weren’t any children at risk was a good thing, not a bad thing. It took a moment for him to realize that Grissom was waiting for a response, and then he mumbled, “Good idea,” as he climbed into the passenger’s seat.
When Grissom got in, he started the truck but didn’t put it into gear. Instead, as he sat staring through the windshield, he said, “I’ll talk to Catherine and Ecklie about moving you to day shift.”
“That’s nice,” Nick murmured absently. And then he replayed the words a couple of times before turning to Grissom. “Wait — what? Why?”
“Do you really want to see me on a daily basis, Nick? Think about it — I’ve not only seen you at your most vulnerable, but I’ve been responsible for that vulnerability.” Grissom pursed his lips. “It’s not fair to you.”
Nick looked at him in disbelief. “How long did it take you to convince yourself that I’d let that load of horse shit get you out of telling me about James?”
Blinking, Gil turned to him and said, “I don’t —”
Nick cut off what he was about to say by the simple expedient of kissing the daylights out of him. He figured it didn’t hurt that at the same time, he was giving Gil a quick hand job.
When he broke the kiss, he said, “You told me not to expect to go back to my old life after this was over, and I haven’t. Don’t even want to.”
“Nick —”
“You own me, Gil,” he said, offering the other man a few more kisses. “And you owe me some honesty.”
Gil looked into Nick’s eyes before reluctantly conceding, “You’re right. I do.”
Back at the townhouse, Nick relaxed on a soft rug at Gil’s feet, and he tilted his head back on the sofa cushion so he could see his lover’s face. “If I need to get dressed, I’ll get dressed. Now stop stalling and spill. Who’s James?”
“You suck as a submissive, Nicky,” Gil said with a grimace.
“I can suck when I’m not a submissive, but you haven’t let me show you that yet. Who’s James?” Nick wrapped an arm around Gil’s leg and started caressing it with light, gentle strokes.
On a sigh, he answered, “James was my first and only master. He was the one who introduced me to the Las Vegas scene when I first moved here.”
“Lady Heather said you told her you only knew about dominance and submission from reading about it.”
“That would be because I lied to her.” Gil ran his fingers along Nick’s scalp, and both men moaned in appreciation at the contact.
“You lied.”
“I lied. Lady Heather already had me off balance at the time. I didn’t want to give her any more information than necessary,” he answered.
“How long were you with James?”
Gil sighed again. “Two years. He taught me a lot about who I am and what I want out of life.”
“Who ended it? You?” Nick squeezed Gil’s leg gently.
“James couldn’t understand why I refused to stop working at the lab. He wanted me to be with him at all times, naked and ready to do whatever he told me.”
“And you hated that?”
The hand on Nick’s head stilled its restless movements. “No. I liked it. A lot. I started to lose myself to James and his plans.”
Nick asked softly, “What made you find yourself again?”
“James was fond of using humiliation to control me.” Gil paused again, struggling with his answer. “One day, he went too far.”
“How far?”
“He showed up at the lab and demanded that I service him then and there.” Gil clenched his jaw. “I might have gone along with it, but he pulled that stunt in front of my boss.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Nick got up on his knees and turned to Gil. “Are you afraid you’re gonna do the same thing to me one day?”
“A little. Yeah.”
His hands on Gil’s knees, Nick asked, “So you think I’m still getting too lost in the game?”
“Sometimes.”
Nick wanted to shake Gil out of giving his one-word answers, but he restrained himself. Instead, he said, “The fix is easy.”
Gil frowned at that. “The fix?”
“Yeah. The fix.” When Gil continued to look puzzled, Nick rolled his eyes. “If you’re afraid I get too lost when we’re playing at master and slave, the answer is that we stop playing at being master and slave.”
Hesitantly, Gil asked, “You want to go back to our working relationship?”
“Hell no. I want us to keep jumping each other’s bones,” was Nick’s firm response. “We’ll just save the master and slave stuff for special occasions.”
“You’re sure?”
“I was sure when I seduced you two weeks ago.” Nick chuckled as he reached for Gil’s zipper. “And I’ll be sure next year, when I start bugging you about going to the Bowtie Ball again.”
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