Page 7 of Branding the Bat

Trevor was crouched by a pole in the center of the room, arranging something on the floor. He looked up when Sero entered, and the smile he gave was nothing like the arrogant grinfrom Halloween. This one was focused. Expectant. The smile of someone about to start work they loved.

"I see you made it." Trevor rose in one fluid motion. He crossed the room and took the deli tray and the bag of grapes from Sero, leaving him with the lemonade. He kissed Sero's cheek again, the same spot, the same softness, and set the food on the floor against the wall.

"Finish your drink," Trevor said, "and then take off your clothes."

Sero's face went hot. "All of them?"

"Yes." Trevor was already moving back toward the pole, where a pair of silver handcuffs lay on the floor. Shiny. Solid. Real. "If you're staying, then I want you naked. Is there anything I can't do to you? I need to know your hard limits before we start."

The shift from casual to clinical was jarring and, unexpectedly, arousing. One second Trevor was kissing his cheek; the next he was asking for a consent inventory with the brisk focus of a doctor before surgery. Sero took a sip of lemonade to buy himself a moment.

"Nothing that leaves a permanent mark," he said. He always said that. It was his line in the sand. Until he found someone worth carrying a mark for, no one got to leave one.

"No permanent marks," Trevor repeated. "Got it. Anything else?"

Sero shook his head.

"Then here's what you need to know." Trevor selected a piece of sliced chicken from the deli tray and ate it with his fingers. "I'm going to tell you exactly what I have planned, give you a way to stop this completely, and give you a safe space to figure out your own limits. The club's safe word works here, 'lioness,' everything stops, no questions. But I also have this." He reached into the black duffle bag, which was sitting besidethe pole, and pulled out a small air horn. "You press this button and everyone in the building knows you've had enough. It's not subtle. But it works."

"And what are you going to do to me?" Sero asked. The lemonade was almost gone. His hands were steady, which surprised him. The rest of him was vibrating.

Trevor stalked toward him. Slowly. Deliberately. L

Sero was able to track every step.

When he stopped, they were close enough that the warmth radiating off his skin nearly burned Sero.

"I'm going to make you cum until you beg me to stop," Trevor said. "My goal is seven times in an hour. That would be a new record for me with a man."

Sero snorted so hard lemonade almost came out of his nose. "You're insane. There's no way you've made a guy cum even four times in an hour."

"On Halloween I made a wolf come five times." Trevor's eyes were steady, blue, completely serious. "Take off your pants. I've been dying to see you naked since the first time I saw you sitting at the bar, pretending you weren't interested in me even though every bit of you was screaming that you were."

Sero set the empty glass on the floor and pulled his shirt over his head. His fingers only trembled slightly on his belt. "I was interested. But you reeked of other shifters."

"And now?"

Sero breathed in. Cedar. Black tea. That electric charge underneath. Nothing else. Just Trevor.

"Now you don't." Sero kicked off his shoes, pushed down his jeans, and stood in front of Trevor in his underwear. One more barrier. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband and paused.

"Take your time," Trevor said. No mockery. No impatience. Just those blue eyes, watching.

Sero pushed the underwear down and stepped out of them. He was naked in a room with a man he'd met two days earlier, and the man was holding handcuffs, and there was a duffle bag full of things Sero hadn't seen yet, and somehow he felt safer than he had on any date he'd been on in the last two years.

"Good." Trevor reached for the cuff.

Chapter Three

The handcuffs were cold.

That was the first thing Sero registered, the bite of metal against his wrists as Trevor clicked them shut. Not painfully tight. Snug. The kind of pressure that said you're here now without saying you can't leave. Trevor tested the fit with one finger between the cuff and Sero's skin, checking for circulation, then looped the chain through a ring bolted to the base of the pole.

"Pull," Trevor said.

Sero pulled. The chain clinked but held. His arms were above his head, wrists together, the pole at his back. He could sit, kneel, or stand. He could twist. He couldn't walk away. The position stretched his torso long, ribs visible beneath lean muscle, and Sero felt himself displayed in a way he never had before, not just naked but presented, like something arranged for inspection.

Trevor's gaze traveled down his body with the slow deliberation of a hand that hadn't touched yet. Sero's cock stirred under the attention, and he didn't try to hide it.