A Collar For His Brat 3_Reboot Read online

  Contents

  About

  Reboot

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Also by

  About the Author

  A Collar For His Brat

  Part I : Crash

  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 ©2018 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

  Part I

  Nate has his life under control. He’s got more money than he knows what to do with, a partnership in the hottest security software company on the planet, and a townhouse overlooking the bay. What more could a single billionaire Dominant want?

  Obviously someone who knows when to get down on their knees and beg. But Nate needs more than an obedient submissive, demurely bending to his every whim. He needs someone with teeth.

  When trouble-making (and brilliant) programmer Ewan McKinney walks into Nate’s office and recognizes him from the Club, he seems like the worst possible candidate for the role. He’s stubborn, unpredictable, and fiercely independent. Nate knows he should keep his distance, but he can’t stand back and watch Ewan tear his own life apart. Not when it’s becoming painfully clear how Nate wants to take care of him.

  Ewan has nothing in his life under control. If he had, he wouldn’t have ended up the pet project of his new boss, who just happens to know Ewan’s kinky little secret. But instead of blackmailing him, Nathaniel Scott seems determined to fix him somehow. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic

  Ewan is determined to prove he doesn’t need Nate’s pity, but the closer they get the more obvious it becomes that Ewan needs someone in his life to tell him ‘no’.

  But does it have to be Nate? And why does this feel so much like falling in love?

  Part II

  Spending the night with his boss, even just for play, was a mistake. It must have been, because if it wasn’t then walking out on him afterward was an even bigger one. Ewan refuses to believe that, determined to stay away from Nathaniel Scott and the possibility of something more than just kinky fun. But Nate is a part of his life now, inescapable, and as he’s pulled deeper into Nate’s orbit Ewan can’t help wondering if submitting to Nate is not only inevitable, but everything he’s ever dreamed of.

  Whatever it was Nate did to screw up with Ewan the first time, he’s determined not to do it again. If Ewan wants him to stay away then that’s exactly what Nate’s going to do. No harm, no foul. But watching Ewan fall to pieces without him is more painful than he can stand, and every bone in Nate’s body screams at him to take care of Ewan the way he deserves. Can he make Ewan happy by letting him make his own mistakes? Or will Nate lose the one thing he never knew he wanted?

  Part III

  Nate knows what he wants from Ewan, and it’s not just play. He wants everything Ewan is, every secret desire, every fear stripped bare for Nate to tease out and enjoy. More than that, he wants Ewan, just Ewan, the whole bratty package. All he has to do now is prove it, and hope that Ewan wants what Nate can give him in return.

  Wanting Nate has never been the problem for Ewan. Trusting Nate with his secrets? That’s another thing entirely. So long as what they have stays shallow, Ewan can handle it, can keep Nate at arm’s length safe in the knowledge that Nate doesn’t know what he’s messing with. But it’s clear that Nate wants more than that, and Ewan can’t keep denying that he wants Nate back just as hard. Can he keep it together long enough to get away intact? Or will Nate find out what Ewan’s been keeping from him, and discard him the way Ewan is so certain he deserves?

  A Collar For His Brat is a spin-off from the ongoing serial His Boy Next Door. It contains adult themes including sex, kink, and strong language.

  Reboot

  Chapter 1

  “Good morning, Ewan.”

  Ewan looked him straight in the eye, fighting the flush of blood to his cheeks. “Morning.”

  They were in the staff room, Ewan cradling a mug of vanilla coffee in his hands, blinking into the brightness of the morning sun streaming through the blinds. He’d never been so early to work before; he hadn’t realized that at eight-thirty the sun came in on this side of the building this fucking bright and cheerful. He hated it a bit, but also…well, it made everything feel a little surreal, which added to this whole surreal situation.

  Nate grinned at him. He looked good, relaxed, in a v-neck cashmere jumper the same shocking blue as his eyes. It brought out the ginger highlights in his hair and the stubble around his jaw, and it made Ewan want to kiss him.

  “How are you?” Nate asked, wryly amused.

  Ewan decided hating him a little was okay. “I’m good enough.”

  “Get a good night’s sleep?”

  Ewan grit his teeth. “Yes, thanks.”

  He had, actually. He’d slept like the dead, and woken up five minutes before his alarm feeling weirdly awake. There hadn’t been any point in staying in bed so here he was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at work before the last possible second for once, and enjoying a cup of coffee with his boss.

  His boss who, over the weekend, had taken him home and flogged the hell out of him.

  He shivered, feeling the phantom lash of tassels across his skin. Nate had thrashed him, and held him, and (embarrassingly) not fucked him when Ewan begged for it. That part he felt cheated about. It had been, in all other ways, almost completely perfect.

  That was in itself dangerous. Ewan knew that, but this time? He was finding it harder and harder to convince himself he needed to get away.

  Now, Nate put on an earnest expression that was about as sincere as a plaster duck. “I’m glad to hear it. You’ve been frazzled lately. I hope whatever you’re doing about that works out.” He blinked, all fake innocence. “Do you have plans this weekend?”

  It was only Monday. The question seemed inappropriate, unless Nate was asking him out. “I did, but they’ve fallen through.” Or, rather, he’d broken it off with Laurence, whatever ‘it’ had been. Nothing much, in the end, and he wasn’t bent out of shape over it anyway, but…the upshot was that he wasn’t going gin-tasting or antiquing or to IKEA. He was sitting home in ratty boxers playing Wolfenstein and eating toast out of a bowl because he couldn’t be bothered doing the dishes. At least he expected so.

  Nate was watching him, with those too-blue eyes and that crooked smile. “Would you like to come over to my place?”

  He said. Just like that. As if it was nothing when it was something and they were at work where anyone could hear. Ewan
pressed his lips together hard. “I don’t have anything better to do,” he said, and Nate grinned at him, clearly amused. It got Ewan’s back up sometimes, how easy Nate was with him, how he tolerated Ewan’s moods. He wasn’t sure he liked being tolerated. It made him want to push Nate to see how far his temper could bend before he snapped.

  (And when he snapped? Would he put Ewan over his knee and spank him to tears? Or tear strips from his back with a whip? Or cuff him to the bed and fuck him, hard and rough and selfish, while Ewan begged and pleaded for a release he never got? God, he hoped so.)

  Ewan shuddered, feeling it all the way to his toes. “I mean, yes. I’d like that.”

  “Good. It’s a date,” Nate said, and then he winked and left and Ewan finished his coffee and tried not to let anyone see his dick print as he made his way to his desk.

  Nate, Ewan decided, was dangerous.

  He’d always been dangerous, of course. Ewan had known that the moment he’d realized that he wanted Nate, and that Nate might want him back. That danger was an old fear, that someone might get under his skin, get too close to him, find out what really pushed his buttons and then push them until they rewrote him into something in their own image. Ewan had known that, and avoided Nate accordingly.

  But now that he’d stopped avoiding Nate, he’d discovered that Nate was a new kind of dangerous.

  He was comfortable in himself, so much so that he skirted close to exposure. Maybe it was an exhibitionist streak, maybe there was kink at the bottom of this particular well, but the manifestation of it was Nate not-so-openly flirting with him, Nate asking him on a playdate in the work kitchen, Nate looking at him with ‘fuck me’ eyes before slinking off to his office as satisfied as a cat full of butter. Nate, who’d come into work today with an enormous grin, and looked well-fucked enough that people noticed. Ewan found it excruciating to watch them smile behind their hands, or smirk at Nate’s back. The whole team seemed aware of the fact that Nate had got laid on the weekend, somehow.

  No-one said anything to him, of course, they respected him too much.

  Marjorie and Bianca, though, were talking about it over morning tea. “I didn’t ask him,” Marjorie said. “I know Jack Nash is in town, though. Just like last time, remember?”

  Bianca snorted. “They’re totally doing it. I swear to God, they have lunch together all the time.”

  “We have lunch together all the time,” Marjorie said. “He’s so cheerful. It must have been good, whatever it was.”

  “Good for him.” Bianca said it forcefully, as if willing it to be true. “He deserves it. I hope it works out, anyway.”

  Ewan took his coffee back to his desk and tried to put the whole conversation out of his mind.

  So Nate was radiating general happiness to the office, so what? Like Bianca said, he deserved it. At least the girls weren’t making fun of him for it.

  But Jack Nash? That was Jonathan Nash, co-founder of JNNS Incorporated and as much Ewan’s boss as Nate was. He’d seen Nate and Nash having dinner together. He’d thought it was a date at the time but forgotten about that in the rush of things with Nate the other night. He hadn’t even asked.

  It bothered him. What if it was true? What if Nate really did love Nash, and only wanted Ewan for kink on the side? It would explain, maybe, why Nate had stopped himself when Ewan had been on his back with his legs spread sluttily, begging to be fucked. Some weird sense of loyalty, maybe.

  Ewan didn’t know, but he didn’t want to be something Nate kept on the side, away from his life. Or, at least, he wanted things out in the open.

  Jonathan Nash. Ewan glared at his monitor. Jonathan Nash was who Ewan was ultimately writing this code for, so Nash could sell it for a fucking fortune to corporations that paid minimum wage and left Nash with the kind of money that bought five thousand dollar suits. It felt strangely icky to think of it like that. Ewan didn’t like it, so he didn’t think about it.

  For the rest of the week, though, he kept an eye out, going for a stroll up to the executive level at one point pretending he had every right to be there. He caught glimpses of Jonathan Nash between meetings, coming in to work with his perfect creases and designer stubble. Once, down on the dev level, talking to one of the guys from helpdesk. Ewan didn’t know the helpdesk guy, he’d started after Ewan was moved to Nate’s team. He looked painfully young, though, with a sort of heavy-muscled athleticism to him that made Ewan dislike him on principle. Too many memories of blokes like that and violent schoolyard confrontations. Still, he was fit and handsome, and Ewan was gay enough to appreciate the view.

  Jonathan Nash reached out to tweak the guy’s chin, which made him turn his head, a blush coming up in his cheeks.

  Jesus Christ.

  Ewan legged it, ducking into a photocopy room to process what had just happened.

  Was Jonathan Nash flirting with someone from help desk? What did it mean if he was?

  Did Nate know?

  Ewan shook himself. It was none of his business. He didn’t have to do anything about it.

  And Nate? Nate could take care of himself.

  ⁂

  Life, Nate decided, was good. He had his work on track, his finances in order. His sister, much to his surprise, had invited him to Thanksgiving on the actual day of Thanksgiving, not a week early to get it out of the way. (He had a feeling that was his nephew’s doing, but if Cameron had nagged his mom into inviting Nate then Nate wasn’t about to let the kid down by not showing up.)

  He was healthy enough and fit enough and had finally found a good Sunday brunch place, and now, to top it all off, he had someone attractive and willing to be cuffed to the furniture and hurt in all the ways they wanted him to hurt them.

  Life was good.

  He figured it must show. His office manager kept shooting him satisfied looks, as if she had personally orchestrated this. It was fine. Marjorie’s whole job was to make sure Nate could get things done and she did it impeccably. She deserved a raise. He made a mental note to tell that to HR.

  In the meantime, Marjorie’s smug looks only inflated his sense of satisfaction. So he looked pleased with himself, then. So what? He was pleased with himself.

  He coasted on that feeling all week, and it made the atmosphere in the office lighten considerably. That was something of a surprise. He hadn’t realized his mood made such an impact on the team. He supposed that was natural, though—they were his team and he was their boss.

  In the middle of it all, though, he couldn’t help but see Ewan’s frown and scowl, and the way he glared sidelong at the others for being bright and chipper. It was cute. Nate told himself it wasn’t cute, but it so was. Ewan looked good, honestly, well rested and together, and his work was good too, but those adorable scowly faces he made just…okay, yes, very cute, and probably not endearing himself to anyone but Nate.

  He wasn’t the only one to notice. On the Wednesday, Nate had a catch-up with Marjorie, who reported that morale in the team was good, that they’d clawed back some time and were well on track for productivity, which was fantastic.

  Then she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “About Ewan.”

  Nate couldn’t help his grin. Here we go. “What’s he done this time?”

  “Nothing, except…he’s not really a team player.”

  Nate shrugged. “I think everyone’s been pretty hostile to him so far. That’s probably my fault, if I’m honest.”

  “No!” She looked horrified. “No, I don’t blame you for this.”

  “Then you blame Ewan?”

  “I mean…he really doesn’t engage with anyone.”

  “Is it his job to engage with people?

  “Not exactly, but it helps.”

  She had a point. Nate nodded. “I’ll talk to him.” It didn’t make Marjorie look any better. “What? Did you want me to give him detention?”

  She blushed darkly. “I mean, when you talk to him…does it have any effect?”

  Nate thought about it. She was pr
obably right. He’d tried so many things over the past few months, and really, nothing much made an impact on Ewan.

  Well, that was going to have to change.

  He bailed Ewan up the following morning. “So, you’re a fucking ray of sunshine this week,” he said, cornering Ewan near the lifts. “Let’s talk about teamwork.”

  Ewan looked stubborn and prickly, and grit his teeth into Nate’s grin. “I’m on a team. I do my work. What more do you want?”

  “Engagement? Civility? Maybe try bonding with someone?”

  “Like who? Simon hates my guts. Ti and Kwan don’t talk to me. Bianca—” and he broke off, his mouth pressed into an unhappy line.

  “What’s wrong with Bianca?” Nate asked, conscious that they were in an open corridor and Bianca or anyone could come waltzing around the corner at any moment.

  Ewan frowned. “She gossips.”

  “About you?”

  “About you,” Ewan snarled. “Probably about everyone. She’s always digging for information and I’ll not give it her!”

  Oh. Well. That made sense. “Okay. That’s not the whole team, though. Surely there’s someone you can tolerate?”

  “Other than you?” Ewan looked disdainful, but Nate took it as a compliment.

  “If it’s just me, then I guess you should have lunch with me.” He tapped the strap of Ewan’s messenger bag, right on the buckle. “I’ll see you at twelve o’clock.”

  He turned to go, leaving Ewan silently aghast against the wall. Then— “Don’t you want to know what kind of gossip about you?” he demanded angrily.

  “Tell me over lunch,” Nate called back, grinning because this? This was working out fine.

  Chapter 2

  “Ready?”

  Ewan looked up from his monitor, where nothing was working ever. “I…have to finish this.”