Ryland's Sacrifice Read online

  “Hush, pet. I’ve got you. Just let your master take care of you now.”

  Ryland nodded against the other man’s shoulder.

  Arslan’s grip tightened around his cock. The strokes sped up. Ryland thrust forward, rubbing himself against the other man’s skin. Arslan’s other hand slid down his spine and settled on his backside, encouraging him to move however he pleased.

  Ryland’s grip on the professor’s shirt tightened as he buried his face in the other man’s shoulder to muffle the sounds of his pleasure. He wasn’t sure how successful he was at concealing his moans and gasps, but right then it was hard to care if every mathematician in the building heard him. Bucking between his lover’s hands, he came hard and fast into the shifter’s palm.

  The force of his orgasm stole all the oxygen out of the room. Ryland couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He couldn’t even bring himself to care about his inability to do any of those things. Arslan was there, the ache that had been building inside him since he’d left the other man’s car had dissolved, and the world was a bloody brilliant place.

  Arslan brushed his lips back and forth across the top of his head as Ryland fell still within his embrace. The shifter’s hand stayed tucked inside Ryland’s fly, holding him in his palm as his shaft softened and he finally remembered how to make his lungs work.

  They remained there, standing in the middle of his tiny office for so long, Ryland stopped doubting that he was the only man who didn’t want to step back and return to reality. Eventually, Arslan moved. He took his touch away. Ryland looked up at him and received another gentle kiss for his effort.

  It should have been awkward, Arslan retrieving a sticky hand from inside his fly, tidying up his clothes, a scrambled search for tissues. It should all have been very embarrassing. In spite of everything Ryland was sure he should be aware of, he could never remember feeling so safe, so right in himself, so accepted.

  Reaching out he touched the lock of Arslan’s hair that had escaped from the leather tie at the nape of his neck. He wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate time to ask exactly what Arslan meant when he’d called himself his master, when he’d called him his pet. Back in the den, the term hadn’t seemed so strange. Even now, when they were in the real world, it felt strangely rude to need to ask what he meant by it. Something inside him nodded its acceptance of it all, as if it made perfect sense, leaving the rest of him to shuffle its feet and feel appallingly slow on the uptake.

  The shifter turned his head and pressed a kiss onto the back of his knuckles. Ryland blushed. That sort of romantic little gesture wasn’t at all what he expected from the older man.

  Arslan wasn’t the kind of professor who wanted to be friends with his students. He was damn near the only one of the staff who didn’t invite them to call him by his first name. It was hard to put the image of him standing in front of the lecture hall, scaring fact after fact into the students’ heads with someone who would offer such a sweet little gesture.

  Then, an image flashed into the front of Ryland’s mind, reminding him of the way the other lions had kissed and nuzzled each other. It wasn’t romantic, it was feline. Ryland felt his blush deepen at how far out of his depth he really was.

  Ducking his head, he nudged the older man’s shoulder with his temple, pretty sure that was considered a friendly gesture between lions. Arslan slipped his hand into his hair and held him close, encouraging him to rest against his body. He pressed a kiss into his hair as if he was as pleased with that little nudge as he had been with the blowjob.

  Ryland smiled against the other man’s shoulder, resting his hands carefully on his lover’s waist as he tried to remember what else he had seen the other lions do, tried to work out what to do next.

  “Your instincts exist for a reason, pet,” Arslan whispered, making an obvious effort to soften his voice. “Trust them.”

  Ryland nodded.

  His instincts told him that nothing more was required of him right then than to lean against the other man and feel content. They also repeated to him exactly what they’d been telling him ever since Arslan made his offer—the only way he could ever convince Arslan to take him seriously was to be able to look him in the eye and tell him why he’d had to say no to him in front of all the other lions, to be able to tell him that he’d fixed the problem and beg his forgiveness properly.

  He could do that. This time, he could fix things with the person he loved. Ryland closed his eyes a little tighter and tried to re-write the thought into something that didn’t involve that particular word. When it became obvious no other word made sense there, he pushed the entire idea out of his head.

  “This Saturday, when someone is thrown to the lions. You’ll be there, sir?” he asked, barely able to make the words a whisper, let alone anything louder.

  “Yes.”

  Ryland pulled back a fraction and looked up at the older man.

  Arslan nodded as if he understood why he’d asked, as if he realized who he hoped he would accept being delivered to the den that night. There was also a certain light in his eyes that made Ryland reasonably sure the other man was merely humoring him by letting his pet come back to him that way.

  That was okay. Ryland’s instincts told him that the lion would understand why it was so important once he heard the explanation. With Arslan’s encouragement still fresh in his mind, all he could do was hope that instinct was as right as the others.

  Nothing else was said before the professor left. A few minutes later, Ryland was alone in his little office, staring at the space his folder of history essays had occupied.

  Sitting down at his desk, he ran his hand through his hair. Dropping to his knees the moment a man walked into his office shouldn’t make him feel less like a whore, but it in some way it did. He’d done everything that day for no other reason than he wanted to give. He’d done exactly what Arslan said a man who wanted to join him would do. Ryland nodded to himself.

  He’d made a little bit of progress. He felt a little bit better about the world. For the first time since he was eighteen, it felt possible for him to be the person someone he cared about wanted him to be. And that was worth anything.

  Saturday. Five days. He looked at the pile of marking he’d picked up. It would earn him a pittance compared to the money he needed to return to the man who’d arranged for him to be thrown to the lions the first time around.

  Spending all the hours God sent tutoring undergraduates probably wasn’t going to scratch the surface either. If he couldn’t get the tuition fees back from the university, couldn’t get a bank loan, couldn’t earn the money legally and he sure as hell couldn’t crawl back to his parents and borrow the money from them, there really was only one option left open.

  He rushed out of the office before he could remind himself exactly why he had chosen to be thrown to the lions rather than borrow money from Jason Burrows in the first place.

  Chapter Four

  “What do you want?”

  Ryland took a deep breath. They guy who’d answered Jason Burrow’s door had obviously seen way too many bad mafia movies. He was wearing sunglasses indoors. It wasn’t even sunny outside. For some reason, it was that stupid little detail that brought it all home to him. He was effectively doing business with the kind of men who thought guys who put dead horses’ heads in other people’s beds were role models.

  The man at the door parted his lips.

  Ryland didn’t give him a chance to repeat the question, or to tell him to sod off and stop wasting anyone’s time either. “Two thousand pounds.”

  The guy stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I want to borrow two thousand pounds,” Ryland rephrased, desperately trying not to sound as freaked out by that fact as he actually was.

  The guy stepped back and let him in. A few seconds later, Ryland stood in front of Jason Burrows. He’d seen him around the university. Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He was supposed to be a genius in all three subje
cts—on those occasions when he had his mind on his studies rather than his sideline occupation of lending money to all the other students. And of making sure he got the money back, of course. Rumor had it that was the part of the business Jason really got off on.

  Right then, the guy seemed to have things other than money on his mind, principally the man who was kneeling in front of Jason’s chair with his mouth wrapped around his cock.

  Ryland wasn’t sure what expression passed across his face as he realized exactly what he was walking in on, but it made Jason laugh. The moneylender took a sip of his beer and rested his head against the deeply cushioned back of his chair, obviously enjoying his visitor’s discomfort. Ryland automatically took a step away from the scene. He jerked and spun around as he backed into the muscleman who’d answered the door.

  “Wants to borrow money,” the doorman grunted.

  Ryland swallowed down his nerves and forced himself to meet Jason’s eyes and ignore what was going on lower down. Technically, he knew that they weren’t doing anything he hadn’t done back in his office with Arslan. He was also aware, in a strictly theoretical way, that it wasn’t any more public than what he’d done with a lion in front of a fireplace not so long ago.

  The comparison didn’t help, it just reminded him that he was as far as any man could get from how he felt when he was with Arslan.

  “Two thousand,” he repeated. “I need to borrow two thousand pounds, please.”

  “On what terms?”

  Ryland’s eyes dropped on their own accord. He dragged his gaze back up to the other man’s eyes. “Whatever percentage financial interest you usually charge a man who can only pay back a little at a time?” he suggested.

  There was a brief pause in the negotiations when Jason’s hands clenched around the arms of his chair and he came into the mouth of the man kneeling at his feet. Ryland turned his attention to the carpet and didn’t look up until Jason spoke.

  “Come here.”

  To his intense relief the man had straightened up his clothes before he called him forward. Ryland stepped closer, until he stopped a few feet from Jason’s chair.

  A huge hand landed on his shoulder and pushed him down onto his knees in front of Jason. Ryland struggled to clamber back to his feet. It took less than a second for him to realize there was no way in hell he was going to shake off the doorman’s grip on his shoulder. Jason caught hold of his chin and held his face still.

  Ryland froze.

  “Pretty enough,” Jason observed.

  Ryland stared back at him, trapped where he knelt, not even able to drag enough breath into his lungs to hyperventilate properly.

  “You can have your loan.” Jason dropped his hand from his face, but the other man’s hand on his shoulder kept him kneeling where he was.

  “I can’t…” Ryland swallowed. “This isn’t what I…” He’d never be able to explain it to Arslan if he agreed to pay back the loan that way.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, pretty. I’ve never seen the point in renting boys by the hour when I can get much better for free.”

  Ryland’s gaze flickered to the man sitting on the floor a few feet away from him. He didn’t look like someone paying off a debt. If anything, he looked very happy with the world as he leaned back against the base of another armchair. He also looked remarkably like Mark Jefferies, one of the second year undergraduates Ryland had seen wandering around the math building, usually with a rather lost expression on his face, as if he was venturing into strange and unfamiliar territory.

  If the marking he’d flicked through while he was collecting it from one of the junior math professor’s office was anything to go by, the guy was also about a week away from completely flunking out of his course.

  Ryland breathed a little sigh of relief as he realized the rumors surrounding Jason were just student gossip. Then, before he could work out how to frame an apology for simultaneously calling one man a whore and another a sexual blackmailer, Jason went on.

  “Still, you’re pretty enough that if you can’t keep up with repayments, they’ll be plenty of men who’ll be happy to help you earn the cash.” His voice was completely expressionless. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a rumor.

  Jason nodded to the other math student. Mark walked out of Ryland’s field of vision. When he came back, he tossed two thick wads of notes to him. He didn’t look as lost here as he did in the math building. He looked deep in thought as he seemed to study Ryland very carefully.

  “Interest is two hundred a month,” Jason told him. Ryland snapped his attention back to him. “First payment due at the end of this month.”

  Ryland nodded his understanding, as he clutched the notes tight in his hand. “I’ll make the payments on time.”

  Jason shrugged as if it made no difference to him either way. Ryland guessed that it really didn’t matter to Jason if he had to call in the collateral on the loan. The doorman finally took his hand off his shoulder, allowing him to rise to his feet.

  As Jason’s henchman deposited him back on the pavement outside the house, Ryland made a conscious effort to push all thought of Jason and how he managed to get hold of the money in his pocket out of his head. It was done. It couldn’t be undone. There was no point worrying about it, or about the repayments.

  Jason might scare the hell out of him, but Arslan was the one he had to concentrate on now. When it came down to it, he could cope with Jason thinking he was some sort of rent boy in waiting, as long as it gave him the means to make damn sure Arslan knew he wasn’t one.

  On the bus journey to Kershaw’s pub on the other side of the university, he kept that thought in his mind, and his right hand in his pocket, clutching the bank notes as if they might evaporate if left unattended for the briefest second.

  This time, there were no agonized minutes wasted pacing along the pavement outside the pub debating if he should go inside or not. With the need to have everything settled between him and the professor burning inside him, there wasn’t a second to waste. He marched straight up to the man sitting in one of the booths along the back wall of the building.

  “I want to be thrown to the lions.”

  Kershaw looked up from his newspaper. Glancing over the top of his glasses, he ran his eyes over Ryland’s body. The last time he’d done that, Ryland had been standing in one of the back rooms of the club stark bollock naked. It wasn’t a particularly nice memory. He waited impatiently for the other man to say something, but Kershaw merely looked back to the article he was reading. Ryland frowned. “I said, I want—”

  “I heard you.”

  Ryland took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the money in his pocket.

  “Come back next week.”

  “What?” Ryland shook his head. “No. I can’t. It has to be—”

  “You’ll come back,” Kershaw told his newspaper as he turned the page, licking his thumb to get a grip on the stubborn broadsheets.

  Ryland hesitated, wondering if the guy only took notice of men who weren’t wearing any clothes. If he couldn’t get to Arslan without ‘auditioning’ again, he really wished the other man would just spit it out so he could get it over with.

  “Either you liked the money or you liked getting done by the lions. Either way, you’ll come back next week, and the week after that, and the week after that too. Your sort always do, once they get a taste for it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Join the queue.” The older man put his fascination with his newspaper to one side for the moment and scanned Ryland up and down again, lips pursing as he weighed him up. “If I run out of fresh blood for them, you might get another shot at it sometime. Leave your name and number at the bar and—”

  Ryland shook his head. “You don’t understand. I spoke to…to one of the lions, and…” The look in the man’s eyes made it look like he’d heard it all before and wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing it all over again.

  Desperation rushing through him, Ryland couldn’t th
ink of anything else to do, he pulled the money out of his pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Kershaw.

  The other man stopped reading his newspaper and set it aside.

  “That’s the money you paid me for last time. You can have it back. I don’t want to be paid for this week either. I just want you to take me to the lions’ den and leave me there.”

  “I’ve been offered a lot more than that for the information about the den.”

  All the oxygen rushed from the room. Ryland closed his eyes as the very real possibility he wouldn’t be there when Arslan expected him turned his blood cold.

  Someone tugged at the money under his hand.

  Ryland flung his eyes back open and tightened his grip. He met the man’s eyes.

  “This and the money you would have paid me for another night, that’s four thousand. Four thousand pounds that your employers will believe you’ve paid out. Money that you can keep for yourself, free and clear.”

  Kershaw considered the equation for a little while.

  Ryland swallowed down a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. He’d been willing to whore himself for half that. The idea that the man in front of him wasn’t even willing to throw him in a car for twice his price turned his stomach, but somehow he managed to push his revulsion aside.

  “I can get more money if I need to,” Ryland whispered. His tone of voice was little short of begging. As much as he hated to admit it, even inside his own head, he knew he’d get down on his knees and beg if that was what it took.

  The man studied him very carefully. He looked back to the money.

  “There might be a space available next week,” he mused.

  Ryland held his breath. Arslan might understand the need to wait a week. Next week felt like a lifetime away, but it didn’t feel like the same death sentence as an outright no. He might survive another week.

  Kershaw glanced up, then back to the money.

  “How much more do you need?” Ryland asked.

  “There’s two thousand here?” the guy asked.