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  Contents

  About

  Debug

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Also by

  About the Author

  A Collar For His Brat

  Part IV: Debug

  By R.J. Moray

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright ©2020 R.J. Moray

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First Electronic Edition

  About A Collar For His Brat

  IV: Debug

  A stubborn brat. A smiling sadist. Perfection...or disaster?

  Ewan McKinney knows what he doesn't want: rules, responsibilities, or having to talk about his feelings. What he does want is harder to pin down, too much damage in his past to see it clearly. But if he doesn't, he risks being scarred again, and losing his new-found Sir into the bargain.

  Nate Scott has caused a lot of pain in his time, but he always knew it was wanted. With Ewan, he's not sure. Nate can't read Ewan's mind; his brat is like a black box, impossible to tease open. But their shared kinks take them into dangerous territory, and Nate must convince Ewan to confide in him before one of them does something irreversible.

  To make this work, Ewan will have to put his trust in the one man who has never let him down. And if he can't? It could mean the end of everything.

  A Collar For His Brat is part of the Santa Rita Doms universe. It contains adult themes including sex, kink, and strong language.

  Debug

  Prologue

  It wasn’t any of his business. He knew that, and he also knew that it was a breach of scene etiquette to approach someone in their vanilla life. But he couldn’t ignore it anymore, so when he saw the bloke alone in the break room at work, Ewan decided on impulse to do it now.

  “Channon. It’s Channon, yeah?”

  Channon looked up from his phone, blinking as if taken by surprise. He had this open, wide-eyed look to him, all innocence and naivete. But clearly he knew his own name, because he nodded. “I, um…”

  “Ewan. McKinney.” Ewan offered his hand. “Do you have a minute?”

  Weirdly, Channon stiffened, like he was bracing himself for bad news. He shook Ewan’s hand. “Sure.” Then he sat at a corner table, as if he knew this was a conversation he didn’t want anyone to hear. Or he just didn’t want anyone seeing him with Ewan. “What’s up?” he asked, falsely chipper.

  What was up? Ewan decided it didn’t matter. He sat down. “You’re dating Jonathan Nash, right?”

  Channon seemed to have expected it. “Yes,” he said, still braced for something.

  Okay. Now what? “I’ve seen you,” Ewan said.

  Channon’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Uh…okay?”

  Best to be blunt. “At the Club.”

  There was no need to say which club, and anyway, Channon blushed tomato red immediately so he knew what Ewan meant. The only club either of them cared about. The Club.

  He knew what Channon was thinking: What has he seen me do? Not much, to be honest. Kneeling. Being tied up in lacy knickers. Collared and leashed while his Dom petted him like a dog. The usual.

  The question, Ewan thought, was what Channon had seen him do.

  Channon breathed out, his eyes widening. “You’re Mac,” he said.

  Ewan nodded, watching Channon intently. “Yeah.”

  Knowing his scene name meant that Channon knew about him, and none of it could be good. Ewan—or rather, Mac—had a reputation.

  But Channon didn’t recoil. If anything he leaned in, concern flashing across his face. “Are you okay?” he blurted out.

  What? It was ludicrous. Ewan snorted. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  By the look of it, Channon considered the question to be just as ludicrous as Ewan had when it was directed at him. “Um, yeah? Wait, did Nate…are you two dating?”

  So, he’d seen Ewan with Nate. Ewan tried not to visibly react to that. “Yeah.” And then, because he had to know— “Listen, did Jonathan Nash just…pick you up at work? Or did you meet him at the Club, or…?”

  Channon ducked his head, his face gone pink. “Um. No. We met…before all that. Hey…you’re not going to tell anyone about—” but he broke off, his mouth open but nothing coming out as his face went redder and redder.

  Ewan couldn’t help his chuckle. “Oh, aye. I’m going to tell everyone, and then you can tell everyone what you saw.” Like he could or would. “No, I just…listen, if anything bad happens, or if—” Or if what? “If he tries to get you to do something you don’t want to, or threatens you, or…I can help.”

  The look on his face. Like he was swallowing his tongue. “Okay. Um. Thanks? And…and the same. If Nate—”

  If Nate what? What the fuck was this kid going to do?

  Not a bloody thing, and Ewan knew it. Just like he knew Channon had no idea how dangerous a man like Jonathan Nash could be.

  But there was nothing Ewan could do about that. He got to his feet. “See you later,” he said.

  He’d done everything he could. Whatever happened next wasn’t his fault.

  Chapter 1

  The trouble with dating a brat, Nate thought as he waited in the doorway to Ewan’s living room, was that they were constantly testing boundaries. Sometimes this was hilarious (like the time Ewan had sworn he could eat three double-cheeseburgers and proceeded to make himself sick) or led to something fun (like the time Ewan had bitten Nate and got his ass tanned for it).

  Sometimes, though, it was just inconvenient.

  “We’re going to be late,” Nate called, slouched against the doorframe. Ewan’s swearing echoed off the bathroom tiles. “You know, every minute you make me late for this I’m going to take out of your hide later,” Nate said conversationally, and Ewan poked his head out of the bathroom, scowling darkly.

  Scowling suited his raw, angular face. Ewan wasn’t classically handsome, not with that beakish nose, but his eyes were stormy gray, flashing beneath the down-draw of his brow, and his mouth twisted into a savage slash that made Nate very much want to kiss him.

  “How?” he demanded, unapologetic about his tardiness. Ewan didn’t like apologies, only using them as a tactic to get himself out of trouble, rarely meaning them unless pushed. So, naturally, Nate did his best to force them out of him: honest apologies, real repentance, pleas for forgiveness.

  Really, Nate just liked listening to him beg.

  “Well, it’s not going to be the flogger,” Nate said mildly. “You’d like that way too much.”

  Ewan scowled harder. God, he might not be handsome, but he was gorgeous when he was being a little shit, the slim length of his body vibrating with irritation. Nate smirked back at him, enjoying his face, the fists his hands made when he was frustrated.

  “You’re
wasting time,” Nate reminded him. “Only making things worse for yourself.”

  Ewan swore again and disappeared back into the bathroom.

  Nate relaxed, no longer concerned about the time. If they were late, he’d apologize, and then Ewan could suffer for it. How, exactly, Nate hadn’t decided. Something sharp. Something rough. Something that left a mark. All the things Nate liked best, up to and including making Ewan beg him to stop. That never got old.

  They’d been doing this for five months now according to Nate, and four weeks according to Ewan, who was only counting since Christmas for reasons of his own. Nate figured that was when Ewan had decided it was official, but for Nate it really had started back in August, the first time Ewan had come home with him.

  Now it was more or less a Thing. They’d stopped using protection. He’d heard Ewan refer to him as ‘the boyfriend’ on the phone last week, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t enjoy that. It was a new experience for him; normally his scene partners were (like his sex partners) casual, noncommittal. Now he had kink and sex and date night wrapped up in one prickly, Scottish package.

  Today, however, they were doing something different. Technically, Nate supposed, it counted as kink, though none of it kink he was particularly into. This was more of a social call, one he felt compelled to make out of obligation. It was the kink equivalent of taking someone to meet your grandmother, neither particularly fun nor interesting, but done out of a grudging sort of loyalty.

  So it wasn’t a surprise that Ewan wasn’t into it either, or that he was showing his reluctance to go by making them late.

  “Your hair is fine,” Nate called. “You look like you slept in a hedge.”

  “How is that ‘fine’?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re going for?”

  Ewan stormed out of the bathroom with a bitch-face so impressive it made it hard for Nate not to laugh. “Fine! I’m done! Let’s get this over with.”

  Nate took a moment to look him over. Ewan’s fair, wiry hair did indeed look like he’d slept in a hedge, tousled into a spiky mess. He was small and slight, almost fragile, and half the time he dressed like he’d found his clothes in the bottom of somebody else’s closet, ill-fitting and crumpled and unfashionable. Today, Nate had told Ewan to wear a tie, and he was, technically, but he’d strangled it into a schoolboy knot so horrendous that Nate had to bite down on a grin. Ewan had tucked his shirt in, and it did fit him for once, but he’d also rolled his sleeves up to the elbows and painted his nails black. And—yep—there was black liner smudged around his eyes.

  “You,” Nate said, crowding Ewan against the wall, “look like a walking dress code violation.”

  Ewan’s mouth turned up in a smirk. “Yeah? You gonna give me detention, Sir?” He slid his hands over Nate’s chest to grip his lapels, tugging Nate down to meet him.

  His mouth tasted of minty toothpaste. Nate bit Ewan’s lip, tugging on it a little. “I like it. Go with that.”

  Ewan let his head fall back against the wall, blinking lazily. “So, we’re skipping the tea party? We could play ‘the Head and the Ned’, instead.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Like you're the headmaster, and I'm a delinquent. Like you show me the error of my wayward ways.”

  Because Ewan liked being caned, and Nate liked caning him, but more than that, Ewan liked being a horrible little brat first, and Nate was tempted to let him have his way today.

  “If we don’t go, you have to call Mr White and tell him why.”

  Ewan’s face screwed up. “Fuck no.”

  “Then get your delinquent ass in the car.”

  Surprisingly, Ewan did. He was restless on the drive over, fidgeting with his phone. He’d gotten into the habit of taking over Nate’s stereo, and Nate wasn’t entirely sure if Ewan was deliberately playing music he thought Nate would hate, or just ended up doing it accidentally, but the outcome was the same. It didn’t help that when he was nervous Ewan liked to listen to about one minute of a song before getting bored and flicking to the next one.

  The way he kept messing with his playlist made Nate think he was nervous enough to break out in a rash. “Hey,” Nate said, reaching over to pet Ewan’s thigh. “It’s okay. Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want.”

  “It’s a high-protocol tea party,” Ewan snapped. He pulled a fist to his mouth, gnawing restlessly on his knuckles. “I don’t want any of it. It wouldn’t be too bad if you lot didn’t fuck up the tea.” Glasgow born and bred, Ewan had definite opinions on tea in the U.S., none of them flattering.

  “High protocol can be fun,” Nate said. Ewan flashed him a deeply distrustful look that made Nate grin despite himself. “Okay, high protocol is tedious, I’ll grant you that.”

  “It’s like church,” Ewan complained. “Ceremonial bullshit.”

  Nate nodded. “Yeah, except I always liked church. You know, when I wasn’t being told I was going to hell.”

  “You’re definitely going to hell,” Ewan said crisply, “for the things you do to my arse if nothing else.”

  “You love what I do to your ass,” Nate teased.

  Ewan made a face, but they both knew it was true. The sexual side of their relationship was good. More than good: amazing. Mind-blowing. At least, Nate thought so. Ewan made it hard to tell, sometimes. Nate was getting better at reading between the lines of him, but it would have been nice to get the occasional verbal confirmation.

  “I met your Jack’s boyfriend,” Ewan said, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Jonathan Nash. Nate’s best friend and business partner, and definitely not the love of his life. “He’s not ‘my’ Jack,” Nate said, though…well. Maybe Nate had thought of him that way, once. But that was long behind them, and Nate was over it, and Ewan had no business looking so sour. “He’s Channon’s. Who you just met, apparently.”

  “I mean, he works for you. I work for you. We share the same break room. Bound to happen eventually.”

  The real mystery was that Channon and Ewan hadn’t met sooner. “What did you think?” Nate asked, aware that his own feelings about Channon weren’t exactly impartial.

  “He’s young,” Ewan said, staring out the window. “He’s…soft.”

  “He was a quarterback,” Nate objected. “I’m pretty sure he’s tougher than you think.”

  Ewan huffed out a snort. “Oh, he looks tough, with them shoulders. Superman jaw, and all. But he’s not.” He glanced at Nate, just a flash of gray eyes. “Your Jack’s gonna eat him alive,” he said, flicking to a new song.

  “He’ll be fine,” Nate told him, and then he winced. “What exactly am I listening to?”

  “They’re called ‘Let’s Eat Grandma’,” Ewan said. “Do you hate it?”

  “No,” Nate lied, and Ewan must have known because he turned it up, smirking to himself all the while. “Hey,” Nate said, raising his voice over the music to change the subject. “If you don’t want to play today, we won’t play.”

  “I do want to!” Ewan frowned at his phone. “I just…don’t want to play like that.”

  “Tell you what,” Nate tried, but— “Turn that down a sec. How about, if you’re having a bad time, you just tell me, and we’ll go.”

  Ewan shook his head, his mouth wrenched in distaste. “How about, if I’m having a bad time, I ruin their stupid fucking tea party?”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking no.”

  “How about I break something?”

  “How about, if you’re a little shit, then I’m going to do something unpleasant to you?” Nate said brightly, and Ewan settled against the window, grumbling to himself.

  Eventually, though, he said, “I don’t want to be good today.”

  Nate nodded, “Fine. Just don’t be annoying.”

  “I’m not annoying!”

  “You are the most annoying person when you want to be,” Nate shot back, eyeing Ewan sidelong. “You’re like ants.”

  “Nate,” Ewan whined, flinging his head back i
n exasperation.

  Nate reached over to squeeze his thigh. “Hey. I still like you.”

  “Even when I’m annoying,” Ewan muttered.

  “Even then. Because then,” and Nate dug his fingers into the flesh through Ewan’s pants, “I get to punish you.”

  Ewan grunted, but he covered Nate’s hand with his own. “Is that what’s going to happen?”

  “If you’re bad today? I mean, almost certainly.”

  It seemed to relax him, tension going out of his muscles as he sunk into his seat. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Seems fair.”

  That wasn’t going to be the end of it, Nate knew. Today was looking more interesting by the minute.

  ⁂

  They had been invited to Mistress Celestina’s Disciplinary Academy—a private house in the outer suburbs of Santa Rita that had been a sort of BDSM play school for as long as Nate could remember. It devoted itself to a rather Victorian style of discipline, all terse protocol and liberal use of the cane, and Nate enjoyed some of the activities but had no patience for tea parties or schoolroom discipline.

  The only reason he was going at all was the same reason he knew Jack was going—they’d been invited by Mr White, and Nate felt obliged to him in ways he didn’t want to examine too closely.

  The thing with Mr White was…complicated. When they’d met him, Jack and Nate had only dabbled in a bit of bondage, some impromptu and under-negotiated power exchange. Mr White introduced them to the concept of ‘the lifestyle’. He had been the one who’d taught Nate how to flog someone to within an inch of an orgasm, a skill Nate appreciated now. Teaching Nate had been a game for Mr White, a lesson in perfection, a chance to show off his skills. That was what Mr White was all about. He liked the role of teacher and liked even better to have an eager and impressionable student, willing to worship him for the joy of his very select attention.

  The whole thing had never really worked for Nate. He liked his play rough and, well, messy. Mr White wanted everything to be perfectly planned and placed, neat and pristine.