Liability Read online

  “Yeah. As settled in as I’m going to get. Finally got the last boxes unpacked this week. I’m officially a Floridian again.”

  “Don’t want to buy a house, huh?” Leah asked.

  “No, not going to jinx myself.” Mason smiled. “Besides, I sort of got spoiled not having to mow or do yard work the past eight years.” He’d rented an apartment in Nebraska. Moving back to Florida, he’d found an older condo that needed some upgrades and freshening up, but was a far easier purchase on his wallet than a home would have been. Not to mention the absence of any external upkeep on the grounds meant his free time was his.

  And he planned on spending as much of his free time as he could catching up with his friends.

  Seth smirked. “I didn’t think the Arctic tundra had much call for landscaping.”

  Yes, all his friends, even the submissive ones, had taken great pains to send him pictures of Florida beaches every winter, teasing him with sunshine and balmy temps while he was ass-deep in ice and snow.

  “I won’t miss my ice scraper, that’s for damn sure.”

  “You toss it?” Tony asked.

  “Hell, no. Repurposed it. It’s in my toybag now.” Mason smiled. “Makes a great slapper.”

  Chapter Two

  Mason enjoyed talking and getting caught up with his friends, watching others play. As he got involved with the community again, he’d have a talk with Marcia and Derrick about volunteering at the club as a DM, like he used to. Wasn’t like it would interfere with his own play time.

  Mason didn’t have anyone to play with, and hadn’t for…well, a while. Freddie hadn’t been kinky. At all.

  Another reason Mason wasn’t eager to have Freddie move to Florida, much less move in with him.

  Mason had tried to make friends within what passed for a kinky community while in Nebraska. It wasn’t that the people weren’t nice—in fact they were very nice. And he had made a lot of friends, both kinky and vanilla, gay and straight.

  Unfortunately, nothing more than friends. A guy could only sit on the sidelines for so long and watch others playing without being able to play himself before he called it a lost cause and gave up.

  Which was basically what he’d done. Other than going to the occasional munch just to stay in touch with people and not become a hermit, he really hadn’t had any kind of a kinky life.

  Online dating wasn’t his thing, and he wasn’t into one-night-stands. He needed to have an emotional connection to a person before he could be in a relationship with them.

  Okay, question answered.

  As he sat there, surrounded by his friends, he truly understood what had been missing in his relationship with Freddie.

  Yes, the guy was nice enough, at first. Handsome, fun in the sack, but Mason hadn’t felt anything…deeply romantic for the guy. Especially not once he realized Freddie, despite eagerly agreeing in the beginning that he was kinky and submissive, was about as kinky as a flat, straight stretch of Nebraska highway.

  And Freddie damn sure wasn’t submissive.

  Yeah, Mason had been falling out of what little lust he’d had for the guy for several months, even before the new job had materialized. Hell, he hadn’t even told Freddie he was flying down to Florida to interview for the job until he’d already done it and had fielded a very snarky phone call from the man at the time. Freddie had decided to drop by his apartment unannounced on his way in to work that evening, and had wanted to know where the hell Mason was when he “should” have been home.

  Which had irritated the snot out of Mason the Dominant, so he’d flat-out told Freddie where he was and what he was doing.

  That had immediately earned Mason whiny apologies and less-than-subtle hinting about moving Freddie to Florida with him.

  Thankfully, Mason had never given Freddie a key to his place in Nebraska.

  Yeah, Freddie needed to stay in his rearview mirror. With two full months of space and over a thousand miles between them now, despite Freddie’s increasingly plaintive daily phone calls and texts, Mason knew he had to firmly end things between them once and for all.

  Again.

  Officially, they were free to date whomever they wanted. When Mason had last seen Freddie in Nebraska two weeks before his move, he’d refused to sleep with him that night and had left things settled—so Mason had thought—that they were on a permanent hiatus and nothing more than friends in an attempt to try to spare Freddie’s feelings.

  Although Freddie seemed bound and determined to ignore that.

  Maybe it was the fact that Freddie was only twenty-five and Mason had four months before he hit forty-five. Nearly twenty years and a lifetime of experiences separating the two of them made Mason less inclined to want to try to make things work with the guy long-term when he could already see how doomed they were.

  Best to have this out now.

  In his shirt pocket, Mason felt his cell phone buzz from a phone call. Without taking it out, he reached in and hit the button on the top to silence it as he rose. “Be right back. Need to check this.”

  He had a work phone but left it in the car. They knew if there was an emergency and he didn’t answer his work phone to call him on his personal cell.

  Walking out to the office, Mason pulled the phone from his pocket to see who’d called.

  Freddie.

  Dammit.

  As if thinking about the guy had conjured him.

  Mason had already sent three calls from the man to voice mail earlier that day. Freddie hadn’t left him any messages yet—

  Scratch that. His voice mail notification bubble popped up, indicating a new message.

  With a sigh, Mason stepped outside the office, away from the entrance, and played the message.

  “Well, I guess you’re just too damn busy to talk to me. If you decide you want to talk to me, give me a call.”

  Fuck him. Mason angrily punched the delete button and seriously considered adding Freddie to his blocked caller list.

  Thank god I never gave him my work number.

  He was about to put his phone away and head inside the club again when his phone buzzed with a text message alert.

  YRU not ANSWRING ME?

  Mason felt his right eye begin to twitch. No, he was no English major, but he despised text-speak with a passion and had told Freddie that countless times.

  Okay, this was starting to go beyond pissing him off. Mason could tell that if he didn’t respond to Freddie soon, this kind of bullshit would continue, cycling between petulant and nearly sickeningly sweet apologies until Freddie got what he wanted.

  Freddie might not consider himself to be kinky, but he was definitely being a brat.

  Mason called him.

  Freddie answered before the first ring even went through. “Oh, my god, I was getting so worried about you! Why haven’t you answered your phone? I thought you didn’t have to work today?”

  Mason decided that this was the time for Freddie to see the real him. The Dominant, the sadist, the man who would no longer tolerate this kind of bullshit. The side of him he’d mostly kept cooped up around Freddie because he hadn’t wanted to be an asshole to the guy.

  The side he probably should have shown Freddie all along instead of pulling back and settling, which wasn’t fair to either of them.

  “Because I’ve been busy, and I’m out with friends tonight. What did you want?”

  There was a long pause from Nebraska before suspicion layered the younger man’s tones. “What friends?”

  “Not that it’s your business, but old friends I haven’t had time to see since I’ve been back. What did you want that was so urgent?”

  Freddie predictably switched to the sweet voice. “I miss you. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “We’ve talked every day this week. I told you yesterday that I am not available to talk at your whim.” Freddie worked at a credit card call center and frequently worked nights, so his daytime waking hours were spent texting Mason, or so it felt like.

  F
reddie’s behavior also seemed to be cyclical, settling down for a couple of weeks at a time after Mason had to put his foot down before slowly ramping up again.

  They were now approaching the upper limits of Mason’s tolerance for this.

  “Don’t you miss me?”

  Mason pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re friends. Just friends. Please stop doing this. I told you that I’m not doing a long-distance relationship, and that you need to go out and meet new people and find someone else. Start dating.”

  “I’ve been looking online for a job down there,” Freddie quickly said, totally ignoring the latter half of Mason’s statement. “I was thinking about applying where you’re at. Wouldn’t that be great? Tell me the name of the company you’re at, and I’ll apply. You could put in a word for me with HR there and maybe we could commute together and everything.”

  Oh, fuck no.

  Mason, fortunately, hadn’t told Freddie the company’s name, although anyone who wasn’t a total Google idiot could probably figure it out. Fortunately, Freddie usually wasn’t ambitious, or able to remember a lot of fine details that he didn’t think were incredibly important.

  “No, I’m not going to do that.”

  Another long pause from Nebraska. “Why not?” Petulant hurt crept back into Freddie’s tone.

  “Because for starters, I don’t think it’d be a good idea to be working at the same employer. Secondly, I told you that you are a free agent now. We are not a couple, and we have not been a couple since before I moved. Go out and meet…someone.”

  Mason had almost said someone your own age, which he knew would be a horrible mistake because then Freddie would go off on him like crazy. Apparently it was an emotional trigger, courtesy of his asshole family.

  Aaaannd back to whiny petulant voice. “Is that what you’re doing tonight? Meeting someone?”

  “Again, that’s none of your business. I was honest about myself from the start.” Time to go for broke. “You aren’t kinky. You aren’t submissive in the slightest. You damn sure aren’t a masochist, and—”

  “But we had a lot of fun in bed!”

  “And I told you from the get-go that we needed more than that to make a long-term relationship. I warned you from the very beginning that I would be honest with you and I wasn’t making you any promises. I’m a Dominant who needs at the very least a submissive partner. Preferably a masochistic one. Hell, you’re still figuring out who you are. I thought you wanted to go back to school. Didn’t you say your mom told you she’d help you out with that if you did?”

  “But I miss you.”

  Mason tried not to hold it against the guy, but he was over this and definitely over Freddie and his cute bubble ass and eager mouth. Which in retrospect weren’t nearly as cute when considering all the bullshit he’d had to put up with during their time together and since then.

  “Tell me, exactly, what do we have in common?” Mason asked.

  More silence. “We have fun in bed.” Mason could practically picture Freddie’s pout based on the man’s tone of voice.

  “You hate my music. You don’t like the same books or movies that I like. You don’t—”

  “They say opposites attract.”

  “I think going back to school, there, would be a good option for you. You’re single, so hopefully your family will quit being a dick to you for now. Use the money your mom is willing to throw at you to go get a degree. A two-year, at least. You might even meet someone while you’re in school. That would be the most likely place to meet new people.”

  “But I don’t want to live here anymore.” Whiny.

  God, that grated on Mason. Why had he put up with Freddie and that whiny shit for so long?

  Oh, yeah. A five-plus-year-long dry spell, at the time, when he’d met Freddie.

  Ugh.

  Never. Again.

  “Freddie, I’m hanging up. My friends are waiting inside for me.”

  “Inside where?” Whiny gave way to petulant again. It’d be funny if Mason was watching someone else go through this. In fact, he’d counsel a friend to grow a pair and just cut all contact with the guy.

  Not nearly as amusing when it was happening to him, and not nearly as easy to do. He didn’t want to be a dick, although it seemed Freddie was bound and determined to force him into that role.

  “One more time. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m at a BDSM club. You need to go out tonight with your friends.”

  Then again, Mason couldn’t name any friends Freddie had that hadn’t been his own to start with. Mason had made plenty of vanilla friends, straight and gay, while in Nebraska.

  Freddie…not so much.

  Now Mason could see why. Freddie clung like a damned sandspur when he got his hooks into you.

  Freddie’s pendulum swung back to sweet. “It’s not the same without you here.”

  Mason bit his tongue not to say it, that if Freddie wasn’t being such a clingy whiner and would go out, he might actually have friends of his own.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Freddie. You’re not moving down here to live with me, and you’re not coming down here and staying with me even just to visit. If you move down here, we’re still only going to be just friends. Stay up there. You don’t have any kind of degree that will help you get a better-paying job down here. I have been honest with you from the start. I will be your friend, and I will give you encouragement, but that’s all. Nothing more. Just friends. You have a life to live, I have a life to live. The end.”

  Maybe he should have been an asshole and cut off all contact with the guy months ago when he knew for certain he was moving to Florida, but he’d felt genuinely sorry for Freddie. Figured that maybe Freddie would pick up some life skills he didn’t get from his asshole family.

  Freddie was the youngest of five siblings, three older brothers and a sister. He’d come out to his family two years before, but they basically treated him like it was a phase he was going through.

  Mason had only met them twice, and Freddie had introduced him as just a friend both times.

  “Why are you being so mean to me?”

  It was like talking to a teenager.

  And this is why I don’t want kids.

  “I’m not being mean.” Mason rubbed at his forehead. “You want mean? Here’s mean. I’m a damn sadist, so I can give you mean. If you want to stay friends with me, you will start adulting, quit guilt-tripping me, and grow the fuck up. We are not in a relationship. I broke up with you before I left Nebraska. We are not ever going to be in a relationship, other than friends, ever again. Period. I’m damn sure not putting myself through this kind of bullshit with you again. You want to stay friends with me? Start acting like one. Stop calling and texting me every day and get out and find someone else to try that whiny act on, because it’s not working on me. I’m getting off here now. Do not spend all night calling or texting me, or you’ll force me to block your number. Good night.”

  Mason hung up before Freddie could reply. He stared at his phone for a moment, irritated and more than ready to block Freddie’s number if the guy immediately called him back or texted him.

  He didn’t.

  After a few moments, Mason took a deep breath and slid his phone into his shirt pocket before heading inside.

  He also fought the urge to feel like the world’s biggest asshole. This was exactly the kind of scene he’d hoped to avoid with Freddie, but the guy refused to grok the message.

  I have a life to live. I refuse to feel guilty just because he doesn’t know how to have one.

  Chapter Three

  Early Sunday evening, Cole Singleton nervously drove south on US 41, heading for his girlfriend’s apartment to pick her up. He and Kim had been dating for nearly two years now, and while she hadn’t exactly dropped a bombshell on him the other night when she’d brought up going out tonight, it certainly had been an unexpected surprise.

  She wanted to openly explore BDSM by going to a munch.

 
Before now, they’d had what he’d already considered a frisky sex life. He’d readily gone along with her wanting him to blindfold her in bed, or tie her hands, or talk dirty to her, but now he wasn’t sure to what other lengths she wanted him to go.

  And he wasn’t exactly comfortable trying to force himself into a more heavy-handed role.

  When she’d brought it up, about going to the munch, she’d also immediately insisted that if he said no they weren’t going, that she’d drop the subject and not mention it again.

  Which had made him feel guilty, because he loved her and wanted her to be happy.

  The least I can do is go with her tonight and see what’s what.

  He was no prude. He’d seen Secretary and Fifty Shades of Grey, but he couldn’t identify with the Dominants in those movies. He wasn’t a sadist, he didn’t consider himself fucked up, and he didn’t have mommy issues.

  Of all his friends, he was probably the most boring when it came to being well-adjusted.

  Hell, even in college, his girlfriend at the time had gotten him and a guy friend of his drunk and they’d had one hotter-than-hell night together.

  Most of which he unfortunately couldn’t remember, between the tequila’s effects and his horrendous hangover the next day. What he could remember and fill in the blanks about had been pretty hot.

  Hot enough to give him a chub when he thought back on it. Even though he vaguely remembered some of the experience, including intimate contact between him and the other guy, especially gauging by the feel of his ass the next morning, it didn’t leave him freaked out or questioning his sexual identity. Sure, he’d had sexual thoughts about guys before. He’d never met one to seriously turn his crank to the point of wanting to get more curious about it than just a fantasy or two, though. He was into women, but he could appreciate a nice, tight ass on a guy.

  Maybe it was his family’s accepting nature. He had a younger cousin, Art, who’d come out as gay over ten years earlier. The strongest reaction from anyone in the family had been from Cole’s aunt, Art’s mom, who’d wondered if any future husband of her son would allow her to help plan their wedding. And how would she throw the bridal shower? Would it be for Art, or Art’s husband?