The Administration Series (48 page)

"Then probably we're both dead." Warrick's tone didn't change. "However, I'm confident he'll keep quiet. Think about it."

"I'm not in the mood for twenty fucking questions."

Warrick lowered his head slightly, looking at up at him thoughtfully through his eyelashes, and then nodded. "Very well. Personally, I doubt that the Administration — at the top level — would ever approve a plan involving the frank destruction of a corporation simply to avoid paying technology licenses. However, that isn't relevant. If everything came out, the Administration would start looking for sacrifices to appease the corporations. The upper echelons of Psychoprogramming would direct the blame downwards to whoever came up with the plan, and they in turn — "

"Would swear it was a few rogues, acting without approval. Howes. Tillotson. Fuck — me, even."

Warrick nodded. "Quite so. And once they were tied to Nissim's death no one would be inclined to help them. As the liaison with I&I, Howes's would be the first neck on the block. Very probably, he's the only one at the Psychoprogramming Division who knows exactly what happened at I&I today. What do you think the odds are of him passing my threat, and his failure, too far upwards?"

"Pretty fucking small, I suppose." Self-interest was a motive Toreth liked even more than money.

"If I were him, I would inform my superiors that Marian simply refused to cooperate at the last moment. That for whatever reason she changed her mind about destroying SimTech. In fact, that's what I suggested he say."

"Why the hell didn't you do this straight away? No — I'm being stupid. You didn't have a name."

Another nod. "And now I do — a name I made quite sure is all over the documents the corporations would receive, along with Tillotson's. Without the name, I would've had to threaten the whole of Psychoprogramming. Suicidal, to say the least."

The trick to health insurance was knowing who to tell about it. Toreth leaned back in his chair, thinking over the plan and finding no glaring flaws. Unable to keep the admiration out of his voice, he said, "Tanit was right. You're a natural fucking corporate, you know that?"

Warrick paused, then said, "Is that a compliment?"

"Not really." Another mouthful of champagne, and he added, "So it's over."

"Indeed it is. I made quite sure that Howes understood that your safety was as important as mine. We're free to go about our respective lives."

Toreth stared into the glass, watching the bubbles rise and die while he thought about that. He owed Warrick his career and his life. . . and Warrick owed him SimTech, and possibly his freedom. Not too much of an imbalance there, but a hell of an entanglement, something he always avoided at all costs. A mutual debt like this could never be wiped out.

Still, as Warrick had said, there was no reason ever to see him again now the case was over. Provided, of course, that Warrick's blackmail plan held up, and Mindfuck didn't come after one or both of them, wanting blood. Maybe it would be sensible to keep tabs on Warrick for the time being.

It wouldn't be too much of a hardship — just fucking, in fact, finally cut free of the mess of the investigation. Time in the sim — SMS and whatever other weird and wonderful things Warrick had available. Toreth wouldn't mind the occasional evening in the real world, either. Playing the game with someone else who didn't like to have too many rules.

He stole a glance at Warrick, who was slowly twirling the stem of his glass between his fingers, quietly impassive. Fucking control freak, indeed. However, floating on champagne and relief at survival, Toreth found that he didn't mind making an exception to his principle of never openly doing the pursuing.

Perhaps it was because when he asked the question, he was already sure of Warrick's answer.

Toreth smiled, and Warrick lifted his eyebrows enquiringly.

"So," Toreth said, "do you want to fuck?"

Four months after Mind Fuck . . .

"God, it hurts. Hurry
up
."

Toreth tried the lock on the cuffs again, without much hope of success. His pessimism proved justified. "Sorry, it's stuck."

"Don't fuck around, Toreth." Anger temporarily masked the pain in Warrick's voice.

"I'm not. I'm serious. They won't open. The lock must've fritzed when the chair went over. That's the problem with electronic controls. If I was at work, I'd be able to get the mechanical override key, but they're sign-out, sign-in and tagged so they can't leave the building."

While he was kneeling there, he cast a professional eye over the damage to Warrick's wrists. In the four months they'd been fucking regularly this was the first serious accident, which Toreth considered to be a decent enough record considering Warrick's tastes in fun. All inside the damage waiver. However, this time things couldn't be glossed over with an analgesic spray and a long-sleeved shirt, which might prove awkward.

Warrick shifted on the chair, and then swore under his breath.

"Can't you break them?" Warrick asked.

"No." Toreth stood up. "They're long-term restraint cuffs, designed to be left on unsupervised prisoners. If it was that easy, there'd be no fucking point using them, would there?"

Warrick closed his eyes. "Think of some other way to get them open, then."

"I'll have to call an ambulance. They'll be able to cut you free at Casualty."

His eyes flew open again. "No! Can't you do
something
?"

"Nothing I can think of, not unless you've got a hacksaw and a few hours. I can't chew through alloyed steel. We could always wait until your wrist swells up, the cuffs cut off the circulation, and you get gangrene."

"Compared to being carried out of the hotel stark naked and handcuffed to a chair? I think I'll take the gangrene." Warrick stared down at the floor for a moment, then up again. "Yes, all right, call. Maybe I'll be lucky and I'll die of shock before they get here."

"Of course you won't. You've broken your wrist, that's all."

"
All
?"

"Yes, all. It's not going to kill you."

He found the comm earpiece, but before he could make the call, Warrick said, "Wait a moment. Couldn't you break the chair?"

Toreth considered. The chair was solid enough that he'd thought it would be okay to cuff Warrick to it in the first place, although in the end it had proved rather badly balanced. However, it was only wood and therefore an improvement over the cuffs. He'd been looking at the wrong part of the problem.

He moved back behind the chair and examined the structure. The linking bar of the cuffs went behind a thick brace between the legs. There was, however, an obvious weak point in the system.

"Grip the bar with your good hand."

"I don't have a good hand."

"Yes, you do. The left one's just bruised. Probably."

Warrick's fingers closed tentatively around the wood.

"Harder."

Hiss of indrawn breath. "I can't do better than that."

"Okay." Toreth put his hands on the chair back. "Now, tilt forwards — just enough to take the back legs off the ground. I've got you, so you won't go over. Perfect." Unpleasantly precarious, actually, but Toreth wasn't the one with the broken wrist.

"Right. I'm going to kick the chair leg away from me, and try to split the glue, or whatever's holding it together. The first one probably won't do it, but hold on as hard as you can, because when it breaks you don't want the bar pulling downwards. On three. Ready?"

Silence.

"Ready?"

"Yes. Get on with it."

"Okay. One, two,
three
."

With a splintering crack, the leg gave a few centimetres, unexpectedly enough that Toreth almost overbalanced. He slammed the chair back down onto its legs, and Warrick screamed.

"Jesus!" Toreth said. "Shut up!"

"Sorry." Warrick breathed harshly, panting. After a few moments, he nodded. "I'm all right."

"Good. If hotel security kick the door in, you can explain to them that you do this for fun."

Warrick laughed weakly. "Carry on."

He'd misjudged it, or the joint was weaker than it looked, because the bar was free. With one hand Toreth eased the splintered end away from the leg; with the other he slid the cuffs along it, taking it as slowly as he could. Warrick's heavy breathing modulated into whimpers of pain every so often, but he didn't scream again.

"Right, you're free."

Warrick stood up, and immediately headed for the bed. Toreth caught his shoulder. "Don't. Sit down on that and your hands'll end up pressed into the mattress. And if you lie down, you'll regret it when you have to stand up again."

Toreth grabbed the second chair in the room, and helped Warrick into it, sitting him sideways to keep his wrists away from the back. He couldn't help thinking that Warrick looked pretty fucking good, even — or maybe especially — pale and sweating and biting his lip hard.

Toreth crouched down beside him. "Okay?"

"No. I don't think anything has ever hurt so much in my life."

"Yeah, most people are surprised by how bad it is, even with small bones."

"And you know that because . . . ?" Warrick asked with a glimmer of his usual iciness.

Sometimes, the 'no mention of I&I' rule was a pain in the neck. Toreth shrugged. "You know how. Pull yourself together, and then we'll get you dressed and over to Casualty."

Where there would be a lot of tricky explaining to do, if he was unlucky and anyone started asking questions.

"I'm going to need a few minutes, I think." Warrick shook his head. "And I thought I liked pain."

"You do. More than you think, in fact." An idea occurred — a challenge, rather. He loved a challenge. He reached up and smoothed Warrick's damp fringe back away from his face. "Actually, I bet you could get off on this, with enough build-up."

Curiosity was better than painkillers where Warrick was concerned. "Do you really think so?"

"Yeah. Or at least, possibly. Much more difficult starting from this point of course." Toreth gave it a few more seconds' thought, then said, "Close your eyes."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm going to make you come, and it'll never work if you've got your eyes open."

"Come?" Warrick snorted. "Rubbish."

"Want to bet? Loser pays for dinner at the place of the winner's choice?"

An extremely sceptical look, then Warrick closed his eyes. "Very well."

Toreth stood up and moved round behind the chair. He closed his eyes briefly, pulling up a game voice, then said, "I know I'm going to win, because I know you've thought about this kind of thing before, plenty of times."

"I don't —"

"Shut up. I wasn't asking a fucking question, I was telling you. Don't think I don't know what you get off on. Don't think I don't know why it matters that it's me. I know what you fantasise about. This is just games, it's not what you dream about, is it? How does it start?"

Silence, but Warrick's breathing was already easier, and faster.

"All right, I'll guess." He crouched down again. "I ignore the safe word, don't I?"

Quick intake of breath, cut short, and Toreth smiled.

"I told you I knew." It had been a guess, but a likely one. "I hurt you, I go too far, and then I ignore the safe word. You tell me to stop, and then you beg me, and it does no fucking good, does it, because the only reason I ever stop is because I want to. If I didn't, there's not a fucking thing you could do about it. Especially not now. Right now, you're mine, and you're exactly how I wanted you."

He ran his palm gently down his unbroken arm, but the reflexive jerk jolted Warrick's wrists and he swore softly.

Toreth leaned closer, mouth nearer Warrick's ear. "So, when you're lying there on your own, thinking about begging for your life while I rape you, are you already tied up, or do you get to fight back? Tell me."

No response, so he moved his hand to the injured arm, resting it lightly on Warrick's upper arm. "Tell me."

"It depends." Warrick's voice was deliciously controlled. "If I want to make it last, then forcing me into the cuffs, or . . . whatever, is part of the fantasy."

Pity the control didn't reach everywhere.

"You're getting hard already. I'm going to win my bet." He shifted round, sliding his hand down Warrick's chest, hair slick with cooling sweat. "Just from hearing about it. That's nothing." Warrick whimpered as Toreth's fingers closed round his cock.

The impromptu scene meant that he had nothing worked out, and under the circumstances, improvisation was best kept limited. Fucking Warrick, while incredibly tempting, offered too many ways of things going wrong. Still, no reason not to make use of the idea.

"I can do whatever the hell I want to you, and you can't stop me. Bend you over that chair, have you kneeling on the floor. Make you beg for it. You can't fight me, not like this. Not that you ever could. I'm stronger than you, I'm trained — what could you do? Scream?"

Warrick moaned, and Toreth lengthened his strokes. He was hard himself now, although not any harder than Warrick. Much too easy.

"I could really give you something to scream about, if you like. If
I
like. I could put you on your back on the bed and fuck you, lying on your wrists. And keep you quiet while I do it — there's a gag in the bag. Add some cloth, just to make sure, because I don't care if you fucking choke. If you pass out, I'll just bring you round . . ."

Warrick was sweating again, pale except for the flush of arousal in his lips and spreading over his chest. Every involuntary twitch, every shiver, jolted his wrist. They needed to finish soon, or it would aggravate the fracture too badly. Luckily, it wouldn't take much longer.

Toreth leaned down, licking salty skin, tongue tracing over a nipple, and Warrick gasped.

"Clench your fists," Toreth whispered.

"I can't."

"Don't argue. Do it."

"I —" Warrick's eyes flew open, lashes glistening. "Ah, fuck.
Fuck
."

A glance down showed Toreth his instruction was being obeyed. He began to move his hand faster, fisting tighter around Warrick's cock. He twisted his other hand into Warrick's hair, pulling backwards. "More. You can do better than that."