Bound by Honor (Men of Honor) Read online

  Dedication

  For you, because you came and asked.

  Chapter One

  Tanner James had been to hell and back more times than he could count over the course of his twenty-six years and was always pretty sure he’d live to make the trip again. But this time, even as adrenaline raced through his body and every muscle tensed for battle, hell beckoned with a one-way ticket and without a goddamned firefight in sight.

  No, that would’ve been easier, much easier than this slow crawl to the door of Crave—a BDSM club with the reputation of being both accessible and safe—the week before Christmas.

  He looked up at the dark sign with white lettering at the entrance and thought about turning back and going home.

  If he hadn’t promised Jesse that he’d do this, that he’d look up Jesse’s former boyfriend, he’d be home right now, having just returned from a month-long mission, not about to offer himself up like some bondage sacrifice.

  This wasn’t his scene. Not really. He was all about rough sex, was bisexual with a definite preference to men for as long as he could remember, used to having to don’t ask, don’t tell, thanks to his military career—but this? Having to go in and greet the owner with a message from his dead lover? Well, that was fucking weird and could get him thrown out on his ass.

  Jesus Christ, this was going to suck.

  The man checking patrons who entered was dressed in bright, loud colors. Tight black leather pants. Guyliner. And he flirted in an over-the-top manner with anyone he deemed hot enough.

  Tanner knew he’d be the subject of the man’s flirtation. Although he’d shrugged it off his entire life, the looks and stares and come-ons he’d been on the receiving end of forever told him he was handsome.

  He was more interested in being the best Army Ranger he could, spent most days knee-deep in jungle crap with paint on his face and men who only cared that he could shoot an M-14 with dizzying accuracy.

  “Hey.”

  “Hello, gorgeous. Please tell me you’re alone.” The man peeked behind Tanner, saw no one and clapped his hands. “Alone. There is a God.”

  “I’m looking for Damon Price.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” the man said with a shake of his head. “Shame, really, that they all want what they can’t have.”

  “I just need to talk to him.”

  The man erupted into peals of girlish laughter and Tanner rolled his eyes. He’d never been into queens and this was why. If he was going to fuck a man, he was going to fuck a man. “Tell him I’ve got a message from Jesse.”

  The man stopped, nearly choked, but before he could answer, he was elbowed out of the way by a much taller blond man—ruggedly handsome although unsmiling, and Tanner wondered if he was face to face with Damon himself.

  But rather than introduce himself, he asked, “What did you say about Jesse?”

  “You heard me,” Tanner bit out.

  The man nodded slowly. “I heard you. I just don’t know how Damon’s going to feel about this.” He paused. “Are you sure you want to go there?”

  Tanner reacted before he could stop himself. “Why the fuck would you care where I want to go?”

  The man raised a brow and held up a finger, indicating for Tanner to wait a minute, before disappearing down a back hallway.

  Last chance to head for the hills. And despite the ease with which he could do so, Tanner remained rooted in place.

  He couldn’t see very far into the club at all from where he stood—it was designed purposely to let the incoming patrons hear the familiar sounds of sex occasionally rising over the music. The smell of sex was also unmistakable, partially hidden and mixed with whiskey and smoke. It was meant to beckon, to lead men astray…and Tanner didn’t bother to hide his hard-on.

  A few minutes later, Tanner was being led by the blond man who introduced himself as LC back to a private office with a big Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

  No doubt, this counted as disturbing Damon, but it had been eating away at Tanner for a year now. He had to rid himself of this burden, do what Jesse asked and then go home and pretend none of it ever happened.

  Before going in, he glanced at his watch. Just after midnight. Exactly the way Jesse had wanted it.

  A hard growl of a voice called, “Come in.”

  LC stared at him, and Tanner, in turn, stared at the floor for a long moment. And then he opened the door and realized he’d been anything but prepared for Damon Price. Tanner was big and broad and strong, stood six foot three and turned heads wherever he went. But Damon—he was well over six foot five, with jet black hair and chiseled features. He stood, hands at his sides in a deceptively casual stance, dressed in full black leather and looking like a fucking badass.

  Tanner nearly hyperventilated, because Jesse hadn’t mentioned this part.

  “He’s my boyfriend and he owns a club,” was all Jesse said. “He’s strong—reminds me of you. He’s a Dom.”

  “I’m not a Dom.”

  “No. But you could probably use one. It would be the only kind of man who could handle you.”

  Jesse had closed his eyes then before Tanner could tell him he had no interest in being anyone’s bottom boy. Because Jesse had been talking to him about boyfriends and Doms when he’d been dying, slowly and painfully in the middle of a jungle in South America where he and his Ranger team had been on a mission, and Tanner had been fucking helpless to stop it.

  Fuck.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets so Damon wouldn’t see the fists he couldn’t uncurl and hoped the pain didn’t show in his eyes.

  This was supposed to bring closure—to both Damon and Tanner. There was no way to break a promise to a dead man.

  Damon studied him for a few minutes. Tanner wasn’t the type to squirm and he wasn’t about to start now. Finally, the man said, “I hear you have a message from Jesse. And I swear to Christ, if you’re fucking with me, I’ll put your head through the wall.”

  Tanner snorted in spite of himself. “Okay, sure. I’d like to see you try.”

  Damon pushed away from the desk and stood toe-to-toe with him. “Talk.”

  Talk. Yeah, like it was that easy. “Jesse told me to come here—to ask for you. To tell you that…” Fuck. He shifted, aware that the proximity of Damon was freaking him out. If he hadn’t been Jesse’s, Tanner might’ve made a move without a second thought.

  As if he knew what he was thinking, Damon arched an eyebrow at him, his lip curled into a half sneer.

  Fuck it all. “I’m supposed to tell you to have a session with me. Jesse wanted it that way.”

  “A session?” Damon repeated.

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to let you Dom me. It was Jesse’s dying wish.”

  Damon paled, took a step back from Tanner, and then another. “Is this a sick joke?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “You little fuck.” Damon had Tanner’s shirt bunched in his fists, was slamming him against the office wall hard. “You sick bastard. You think you can ingratiate yourself to me by using Jesse?”

  Tanner ground his teeth together hard and tamped back his anger. He’d known Damon wouldn’t take this well. If Tanner had been in the same position, he doubted he would either. “He asked me to wait a year before I came here. He died after midnight.”

  “How do you know that?” Damon demanded. “Even I don’t know that.”

  No, he wouldn’t. The mission was deemed classified—and Jesse’s time of death a closely guarded secret. “I was with him when he died.”

  Damon let out a long, hissing breath and let go of Tanner’s shirt.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t know how else to tell you. Jesse made me promise—”

  “S
top saying his name,” Damon growled hoarsely.

  “He made me promise I’d wait the year. Said you wouldn’t be ready before that. That you’d need to be dragged back into the land of the living, kicking and screaming. He said to tell you…to use the skull-and-crossbones collar with the broken latch.” He spoke fast, stopped to catch his breath at the end. Gauged Damon’s reaction.

  The man hadn’t moved a muscle during Tanner’s speech. Simply stared, and Tanner tensed more, wondering if he was going to have to fight tonight.

  Fighting and fucking were definitely two of his favorite things to do, sometimes all in the same night—or hour—or hell, the same time, but he had a feeling that he’d be pushing his luck taking on this guy.

  He was in way over his head. And he couldn’t remember the last time—if ever—he’d felt that way.

  Damon’s features relaxed slightly. He sat back on the top of the desk, folded his arms and stared Tanner up and down. A hard, assessing stare that was enough to make Tanner hard with desire and anticipation.

  He wasn’t sure why the sudden thought of Damon taking him got him hot, but that was short-lived, because he saw the tension in Damon’s stance, the pain in his eyes. Tanner wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t sure what for. Wanted to tell Damon that he was scared to fucking death that the Domming would actually happen—and also scared that it wouldn’t.

  He was so fucked up he could barely see straight.

  Damon finally spoke. “I wouldn’t touch you. You’re not man enough to handle me.”

  Jesse’s words echoed in Tanner’s ear. It would be the only kind of man who could handle you.

  Tanner hadn’t been able to handle a relationship—or being touched, really, since what happened to Jesse last year. And so he nodded and he said, “You’re right about that. This was a mistake.”

  The failure hanging on him heavily, he pushed out the door, went through the club and headed for the parking lot.

  Jesse.

  Damon had mourned over that man, cried over him, beat his fists against the wall, up until three months earlier. Things had eased, but he still wore the cloak of grief that sometimes threatened to choke him.

  Now was one of those times. He’d waited until the gorgeous man left his office before he fell apart and tried his best not to hyperventilate.

  Use the skull-and-crossbones collar with the broken latch.

  The boy who’d just left his office would have no way of knowing that—wouldn’t have known that Damon kept that collar in his loft, had fixed the latch right after Jesse died because it was one of the only things he could do.

  Damon wouldn’t be able to use the damned collar on this boy—Jesse knew that collaring meant something—that it didn’t happen on a first night together.

  You don’t even know the boy’s name.

  He shuddered involuntarily that he’d thought of him as the boy. Because that’s what he’d called Jesse—and only Jesse.

  Jesse had been the first to ever thaw what Damon had considered a heart of ice. First, and the only.

  But something tugged at his gut.

  He could’ve been lying. This could be part of an elaborate scam.

  The only thing was, the man had definitely been military. A Ranger, like Jesse, or so he said. Damon didn’t doubt it, had a nose for those things, having been in special forces himself what seemed like a lifetime ago. And the timing was exactly right. Jesse had died a year ago, nearly to the hour, although he’d lied to the boy about not having that information.

  Fuck.

  He called through the open office door, “LC, grab that guy who just left.”

  “I’m not your bitch,” LC drawled, and no, LC was no one’s bitch…not since Styx left. “And he’s already in the lot.”

  “Dammit.”

  LC held his gaze for a second and then called to one of the bodyguards. “Renn—grab the guy in the brown leather jacket who just left. And bring a few guys—he won’t come willingly.”

  LC didn’t say anything more, didn’t have to, and just headed to the front of the club to supervise. And Damon waited in his office, trying not to pace. Trying not to picture what the boy would look like, bound and spread for him.

  Trying to pretend he wasn’t hard at the thought of it.

  He shifted but could do nothing to hide the erection in the pants he wore, and when LC barged back into the office, it was the first thing he noticed.

  Thankfully, he didn’t comment on it, just said, “They’ve got him and he’s not happy.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  “Did he really know Jesse?”

  Damon nodded. “He says that Jesse sent him here—wanted him to have a session with me.”

  LC’s eyes widened, but wisely his mouth remained closed. He was part owner of Crave, working mainly behind the scenes. He was also Damon’s best friend—the only person Damon confided everything in. The only one he trusted enough to let him run the business in those months after Jesse died, when Damon couldn’t get out of bed most days. LC had finally gotten him up and functioning.

  Just then, the boy was dragged back in by three men—he was pissed for sure, but not fighting as hard as he could. Damon knew that, and whether it was grief or curiosity or both, he couldn’t tell yet.

  “Let him go,” Damon commanded, and the men dropped him and left the room with LC, the office door shutting behind them as the boy stumbled forward until Damon caught him, held him hard by the biceps and stared at him again.

  He was handsome as hell—all-American-looking, a blond haired, blue-eyed devil, even with his lips twisted into an angry grimace.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The boy jerked out of his grasp and yes, he was strong. Damon had suspected as much. Earlier, when Damon had him by the shirt, backed against the wall, he hadn’t flinched. It was the calm of a man who knew how to fight—who knew how to kill.

  “What’s your name?”

  A jut of a chin, a glint of wild eyes and he ground out, “Tanner.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Because I made a promise to Jesse when he was dying. I don’t break promises like that.”

  “And you’re willing to follow through on what he wanted.”

  Tanner pressed his lips together—he wanted to say no, that much Damon knew. For some reason, this handsome, strong, brave man wanted nothing to do with being Dommed, and it didn’t appear to be for the usual reasons.

  No, he wasn’t uncomfortable, either in this club or with Damon and his leathers. But something was most definitely wrong with him.

  “I’ll do what Jesse wanted, yes.”

  “But you don’t think you’re man enough.”

  He waited for Tanner to snap an answer back, but none came. Instead, he shrugged.

  “Well then, there’s no time like the present. But no collar.” He motioned for Tanner to follow him, out the door of the office, down a small hallway and into a room marked Room Four.

  Once inside, Damon pressed a few buttons to bring the lights up and to remove the shading from the plate-glass divider that separated the room from the rest of the club.

  As soon as he did so, the bar began to cheer. Damon activated the two-way speakers as well, so the sounds went from muffled to completely clear.

  Tanner’s eyes widened. “We’re doing this here—where everyone can see?”

  “Yes. That’s what Jesse would’ve wanted.”

  Tanner couldn’t have known that was the furthest thing from the truth—that Jesse understood the value of privacy at the start of a D/s relationship.

  That Jesse would hate him for this.

  Well, Damon hated Jesse for dying and leaving him. For refusing to quit the military and let Damon take care of him for the rest of his life.

  For recognizing that Damon had been slowly dying inside during the last year of their relationship and continuing to satisfy his own needs instead.

  Tanner swallowed hard and then he nodded.

 
Yes, let’s see if this man is for real.

  Chapter Two

  Tanner pulled his focus off the crowd and back to what was about to happen in this room—and why. Focus had gotten him through a lot during his missions—it would have to do so again now.

  Damon came up behind him, pulled Tanner’s back to his chest in a quick move he hadn’t expected. He started, readied for a fight but realized there was no need for one, not when Damon whispered in his ear, “I hope your ass is ready for this.”

  And even though his cock got harder thanks to Damon’s touch on his chest, Tanner was pretty sure he’d never be ready for any of this—not the bindings or the crowds in this context. Not for that spanking bench with the restraints in the middle of the floor.

  He’d been trying to push the panic from his mind from before he walked into Crave earlier—told himself to focus on the mission and forget the fear.

  It had worked well, until now.

  He knew the D/s relationship wasn’t all about fucking, but in this case, it looked like that was exactly what would happen. He’d pushed that possibility from his mind, hoped for whips-and-chains shit—pain and control—but he’d never bottomed. The fact that he’d made a promise to start here, like this…

  Damon might not fuck you.

  He held on to that thought like a lifeline.

  He’d been through far worse than what was to come tonight, hated that it could possibly break him.

  He never should’ve come here.

  Damon’s hand was moving along his chest, pinching his nipples through his T-shirt and Tanner drew in a sharp breath. Took comfort in the fact that Damon was definitely hard too.

  He heard “strip him” and “take him” and “fuck him” called out from the crowd, and his face flushed at the thought even as his body ached for it.

  He didn’t understand where the strange need was coming from, pushing up past the fear, but for the moment, he was grateful.

  “Is that what you want?” Damon asked, and Tanner’s throat was so dry he could barely swallow, let alone speak.

  He had no idea what he wanted anyway.