Free Taken in Hand by Barbara Westbrook Page B

ached, and he was damned good and
    well aware Adam knew he was standing there with a hard-on
    even before he spoke.
    “You need to release some of that tension, Chad, or
    you’re going to explode.” He laid aside his papers. “Men in
    your profession need a release valve to keep from—”
    “Don’t start telling me something you don’t know
    anything about,” Chad told him coldly.
    “I know a gay man when I see him,” he said, looking
    Chad up and down slowly. “One way is to watch his eyes.
    There’s a certain look a gay man gives another man, a kind
    of focused attention. Most straight men don’t catch another
    man’s gaze and hold it in that way.”
    “You’re saying I’m gay?”
    The professor shrugged, and Chad swallowed down the
    angry words he wanted to yell at him. Did he do what Adam
    just described? Had he done it when he first met Adam? As
    usual, Chad’s mind skittered away from facing the idea he
    might be gay. He changed the subject. “I fucked up last
    night. If it ever gets out, I’ll never be able to live it down.”
    “It will never leave the club. All the members have an
    unspoken mutual agreement to keep what happens there
    private, and yes, you did, as you say, fuck up.”
    “We’ve got a week for me to learn about all this before
    we go back to the club. I’d like to practice with this meeting
    of yours. I want to learn how to do it right. Can we do that?”
    “Practice, you mean? Sure.” The teasing smile was
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    back on his face. “Come over here and sit down.”
    “I’m not doing real well with sitting today, thank you.”
    “Your discomfort will remind you what happens when
    you disobey,” Adam said, a slight, teasing smile on his lips.
    Chad didn’t move.
    “Or we can call this entire thing off right now. I have
    never been a patient man, and if you rebel against everything
    I tell you to do, you’re wasting my time.”
    Grumbling under his breath, Chad crossed the room
    and stood, glaring down at him. “What you would do with
    your sub in the privacy of your home is not what I need to
    learn.”
    Adam blew out an exasperated breath. “Of course it is.
    You have to learn the process. What you need to learn is to
    obey me without argument, without question. Damn it, this
    has to become familiar enough to you that it’s second
    nature. Anyone with any knowledge of the lifestyle could
    spend five minutes in a room with us and know this is a
    sham. If you want this killer to notice us—and believe we’re
    a couple—you have to learn more. I need to train you enough
    that you can carry this off believably by acting the way you
    should without even having to think about it.”
    Chad settled on the firm leather sofa across from him,
    squirming to keep as much weight off his tender ass as
    possible. He looked up and caught Adam’s gaze. “Look, I was
    thinking of a possible way to—”
    “Not now. Now we need to have a serious discussion
    about your training. You’ll need a safe word, a word you
    wouldn’t normally use in conversation. Then if we’re in the
    middle of a session and it becomes too intense for you, all
    you have to do is use that word and everything stops.”
    “It does?”
    “Of course. We might come back to what we were
    doing at a later time, but safe words stop all play. I actually
    like to use two words, one to stop and one just to slow down.
    For example, ‘red’ and ‘yellow,’ like the stop and the caution
    lights. If you say ‘yellow’ then everything slows down or
    pauses while we discuss what’s happening. Then we could
    either move on or decide you’ve had enough. It’s all a
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    negotiation, you see, a complete power exchange.”
    “I’m not following the power exchange thing. Seems to
    me the Dom has all the power.”
    Adam shook his head. “Not at all. Some people say the
    sub has all the power, but I think power is somewhat
    shared. A Dom directs what happens, but the sub