Games Boys Play by Zoe X. Rider Page A

roll free and smoothed the edge of the tape with the side of his thumb. Brian pushed against the seat, but he was stuck. He jerked in his bonds.
    “Look at me,” the intruder said.
    Fuck that. He leaned forward as much as the tape allowed and tried to work his arms free.
    The intruder put a hand to Brian’s forehead, the leather glove bringing with it the smell of the road, and pushed his head up.
    Fuck that.
    The intruder grasped his chin, tilting it higher yet, and bent down toward him.
    They stared at each other for two seconds, three, Brian glaring, the intruder searching, until he got whatever information he was looking for and let go, turning away.
    Filling his chest with a long pull of air, feeling the tape restrict even that, Brian watched the intruder’s boots walk across the floor to where the pack still sat, a dark lump near the wall. Scooping it up, he turned and headed back, the toes of his boots pointing toward Brian.
    Brian held his breath, forcing the tape taut across his chest. As the boots neared, one came up and propped itself against the seat of the chair, between his thighs, close enough to see the black stitching on the boot’s welt, even in the poor light the table lamp by the couch gave off.
    Slowly the intruder straightened his leg. The chair slid over the smooth laminate floor, six inches, a foot, until its seat back came to a stop against the wall behind it.
    Brian’s chest collapsed in as he let his breath out.
    The intruder leaned forward, his foot still planted against the chair, his toe tilting toward Brian’s crotch. He gripped Brian’s jaw, squeezing his cheeks in. The whites of the intruder’s eyes were all Brian could see in the blackness in front of his face.
    He tried to fold his hands small, tried to jimmy one free of the tape that bound them together while the intruder said, “New safe word.”
    Brian stopped. What was this? Who changed a safe word during a scene? He looked up.
    The intruder pulled away and started a fresh strip of tape— rrr-rip . He tore it free and held it out, sticky side facing Brian once again.
    Swallowing hard, Brian watched it come toward him. He started to shake his head, but the intruder’s glove grabbed his chin again, twisting his face forward.
    “No,” he said just before the tape touched his lips. The intruder’s hand pressed down on top of it, holding it, holding Brian’s head from the back at the same time, sealing the tape over his mouth.
    “ Shh .”
    Brian swallowed thick breaths of leather, thick breaths of cigarettes and motor exhaust and adhesive, through his nostrils. His hips strained forward, his cock throbbing like a heartbeat. If Dylan put his foot back on the chair and leaned his boot against Brian’s crotch, he’d come. He’d fucking come. A small, choked noise worked itself free of his throat.
    The intruder dragged the edge of his hand across the tape, from the middle of Brian’s mouth outward, smoothing it, sticking it fast to Brian’s cheeks. The outside edges reached all the way to the corners of his jaw. The breath spilling from his nostrils was amplified against the back of it.
    Four words chased themselves inside his head: oh my fucking God.
    A mixture of panic and freedom rose in his chest. The freedom to not be in charge anymore. He couldn’t even speak for himself anymore.
    The panic of being seen like this.
    Another strip rrppt off the roll and went across his mouth, overlapping the first, the intruder ignoring his groan of dissent. A third strip went higher, its upper edge skimming just below his nose. The intruder forced his chin up to take a good look at his work. Brian jerked free, twisting his head away. Behind his back, he tried to work his wrists out of the tape.
    I can’t.
    Hard leather fingers grasped his jaw and dragged his head around.
    I can’t get out.
    The intruder pressed both hands against Brian’s face, making a V, a pair of wings, joined where the thumbs touched in the middle of Brian’s