Chapter Three
Eyes closed, Marrick stood in the middle of the room.
The heat from the fire coupled with the sensation of several pairs of eyes watching him intently brought it all back.
He could almost feel leather sneak around his wrists.
It would have been so easy to fall into the idea that a blindfold was still covering his eyes, too.
The memory of being bound and helpless rushed through his mind and dropped straight to his cock.
He opened his eyes, and his gaze fell on a battered leather sofa. That was where they’d curled around him afterwards, snuggling up to him in a way he was sure no one-night stands ever should.
Looking over his shoulder, Marrick found Luther and Blaine both watching him with blatant curiosity, probably wondering why the hell he’d been standing there with his eyes closed for so long.
He was about to laugh off his silliness when he noticed that Arslan was studying Blaine and Luther in turn, an unreadable expression on his face.
“And which kind of human is he?” Arslan asked, never once looking in Marrick’s direction. “Adrenaline junkie, nympho or whore?”
Blaine spun around to face Arslan. “What?”
Arslan repeated the question, word for word.
As Luther moved to stand next to Blaine, Marrick felt Ryland step closer to his side.
“Why do I get the feeling he’s quoting one of them?” Marrick whispered.
“Because you’ve probably got more sense than both of them put together?” Ryland suggested, no small amount of amusement creeping into his voice.
Marrick grinned. His guess at who Luther and Blaine had been talking about when they said it was obviously right. Two minutes in their company, and he already knew Arslan wasn’t the type of man to nod and smile when someone insulted his…his pet.
Luther and Blaine stared at the same time, their words tangling together into a garbled mess.
“It’s not the same as—!”
“He’s nothing like—!”
“Adrenaline junkie,” Marrick cut in, before another feline shouting match could descend upon the room.
All eyes turned toward him.
“With maybe just a tiny bit of the others mixed in,” Marrick added, for the sake of complete honesty.
Blaine swung back to face him. “What?”
Marrick shrugged. “I heard they were looking for volunteers. It’s not often someone offers to pay you to get that sort of rush while you’re getting laid.”
“The money will be returned.”
Marrick looked Blaine up and down. Best start as he meant to go on. And it wouldn’t do them any good to let them think they could ride roughshod over him just because he was human and they could turn into pretty little tabby cats whenever they wanted to.
“It’s my money, not yours.” Blaine and Luther both opened their mouths, the movement so in sync it was hard to believe both jaws weren’t operated by one person pulling both their strings. “Anyway—it’s already gone.”
Blaine glared across the room at him. “Where?”
“Children’s Hospice.”
Blaine’s lips parted again, but he stopped himself short. ”What?”
Marrick shrugged. “I didn’t need the money. They do.”
Blaine looked to Arslan, apparently for instruction.
Marrick turned his attention to Luther, only to find that he was looking at Arslan with much the same expression.
There was little Marrick could do but follow their example. Arslan sat on the arm of one of the sofas now, his hand idly stroking through Ryland’s hair as Ryland knelt at his feet.
Marrick raised an eyebrow at the leader of the pride.
Arslan smiled slightly. Unless Marrick was very much mistaken, Arslan was quietly enjoying Luther and Blaine’s discomfort. One lion in the room seemed to like the fact the lions weren’t having everything their own way. Good.
“So, what happens now?” Marrick asked, briskly brushing the whole matter of money aside.
“You both said you want him to be your pet,” Arslan said. “What do you think should be done with him?”
Marrick watched Luther and Blaine exchange a look.
“It’s late,” Luther said, after a little while. “He should sleep.”
Marrick glanced around the room, wondering if he was the only present who thought Luther should be hit smartly around the head and told to stop treating him like a toddler.
He caught Blaine’s eye first. Blaine didn’t look like he was all that interested in helping Marrick sleep. The amusement shining in Arslan’s eyes implied that he doubted they had any sleep planned at all for the night.
Marrick felt his hackles go down. Okay. That was different. He wouldn’t mind getting laid either. A bed wouldn’t be a bad place to do that. He nodded his acceptance of the whole “sleeping” thing.
Arslan took his hand out of Ryland’s hair. “Show Marrick up to the guest room Luther and Blaine usually use, pet.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryland obediently rose to his feet. Without another word, he led the way up a huge old-fashioned staircase and along a landing to a door at the far end of a corridor.
Marrick glanced around the room as he followed Ryland inside.
It was nice enough. The furniture was so old it had probably passed through second hand and wandered into really expensive antiques territory.
More importantly, the bed was, without doubt, the largest piece of furniture Marrick ever seen support a mattress.
“Plenty of room for three,” he murmured to himself.
“They’re bratty as hell, but they’ll listen if you say your safe word,” Ryland volunteered after a while.
Marrick sat down on the edge of the bed.
Ryland walked across the room to nudge another door open. “There’s an en-suite through here, and there are extra blankets in the wardrobe—not that you’ll need them.”
The room wasn’t exactly scorching hot. There was only actually a thin throw on the bed. Marrick looked across at Ryland, wondering if there would be an explanation to go with the statement.
Ryland lips curved into a slight smile again, but he didn’t have a chance to speak.
The bedroom door swung open.
Luther and Blaine strode in.
Marrick waited patiently for one of them to say something, but they both just stared at him, as if they weren’t quite sure what to do with a man who wasn’t currently bound and blindfolded by the fireside.
The soft click of the door closing behind Ryland snapped Marrick out of his stupor. Standing up, he pulled his shirt over his head as tossed it toward the chair by the desk in front of the window.
A snarl filled the air, making Marrick freeze. Not quite the reaction he expected…
He remained, trapped in the middle of the room by his own instincts, until one brain cell finally bumped into its neighbour, and his brain started working again.
The marks from the fleeting whipping he’d been granted at the club obviously weren’t to the lions’ tastes. Forcing his body into action once more, Marrick looked over his shoulder. Both lions were staring fixedly at his back as if they were going to pounce on him any second.
Pushing that possibility out of his mind, or at least reminding himself he’d probably enjoy it immensely if they did pounce, Marrick turned his attention to his jeans.
Deftly undoing the buttons, he pushed them down until they bunched around his shins, stopped short by his boots.
Bending at the waist, he reached for his ankles and began to undo the laces.
He wasn’t even halfway through the first boot when a rough palm stroked across his arse. Marrick smiled slightly to himself. Feline guys weren’t that different to the human sort in the grand scheme of things. A second later, denim brushed against Marrick’s bare backside.
Strong hands pulled him upright, and Marrick let himself be tugged back against a solid wall of feline muscle.
Whichever lion it was, he already hard. For a moment, the guy held Marrick close, letting the heat from his body soak into Marrick’s skin, then he pushed him toward the bed.
Twisting as he fell, Marrick managed to land on his side.
A little bit of wriggling and he rolled onto his back to look up at his companions.
Blaine was the one who’d given in to the temptation to approach him first. He loomed over Marrick now as he crawled onto the bed, covering Marrick’s body with his own.
As Blaine brought their lips together, Marrick let him have control over everything about the kiss, quite content to see where they were heading before he started making any suggestions of his own.
A knee nudged against Marrick’s legs, trying unsuccessfully to part them.
Marrick reached up and slid his hands into the lion’s hair, tangling his fingers in the shaggy blond strands as he tugged the lion down more firmly against his body.
Blaine leaned back, breaking the kiss as he shook off Marrick’s grip.
When he tried to catch hold of Blaine’s hair again, Marrick quickly found his wrist pinned down against the blanket.
Blaine purred his satisfaction against Marrick’s lips as he went back to the kiss. More confident than ever in his dominance, he tried to part Marrick’s legs again.
With the best will in the world, Marrick couldn’t cooperate, no matter how polite or persistent Blaine’s demands were.
Finally, Blaine pulled back and frowned down at him.
“Boots,” Marrick gasped.
“What?”
“I’ve still got my boots on. My jeans are stuck.”
Blaine stared down at him, his expression entirely blank, as if he wasn’t quite familiar with the idea of having to strip someone down before he could have sex with them.
Finally, his brain seemed to catch up with reality. He looked down Marrick’s body and spotted the problem. Pulling away, Blaine quickly reached for Marrick’s right boot.
A second later, Luther had hold of Marrick’s other boot. He rested back on his elbows, watching with amusement that he only half attempted to hide as the other men battled with the laces.