Retired secret agent Ben Smith will do anything for his husband. So when Simon's brother calls from London to say he's being blackmailed, Ben and Simon pack up and head to the glittering world of English aristocratic younger sons and parties and incriminating photographs. The mission itself isn't complicated -- but it's a reminder of the past, even as Ben's been trying to move on.<br><br>Simon Ashley adores his husband, and loathes most of his family ... except for the older brother who once gave him a home. He's here because Stephen needs help, but being back in the family house stirs up too many memories, none of them pleasant.<br><br>In London, Ben and Simon will confront a blackmailer, face the past, and find comfort in each other ... with some leather and tea, of course.

Leather and Tea in London

That wasn’t true, of course. Simon could say no, could say red, could say the word that meant stop everything now. They’d stop. Ben would stop. Ben would stop and take frantic desperate care of him, and love him, and do anything Simon asked, ever, forever.


Simon did not ask him to stop. Only exhaled and relaxed even more: body supple, pliant, contented under dominant hands.


“Six,” Ben told him. “Only six. So you can feel it. Hard, though.”


“Yes,” Simon said peacefully. “Yes, sir.”


Ben lifted a hand. The crack of the impact echoed.


He held his breath for an instant, in the wake of it. Despite earlier confidence, he had been a littleworried about noise if Stephen were to wander upstairs in a haze of scotch at precisely the wrong moment, hence the low number with regard to spanking.


But nothing happened. Nothing except the bloom of pink over fair skin, and the tingle of his fingers and palm. His marks. His hand. On Simon. His.


Chapter 11