...“Did you think I might want to spank you improperly?”

Scott looked up from the glass of Coke he’d been staring into for the last fifteen minutes, while patiently waiting for Joe to finish his late shift at the club.

The words in the note he’d handed over at the start of their date played through Scott’s mind as he met the other man’s eyes across the stained mahogany bar.

I’d like you to spank me properly, please.

Joe raised an eyebrow. He obviously wanted an answer now, and not whenever the hell Scott felt like giving one.

Bidding for a little extra time to pull his thoughts together, Scott took a hasty sip of his drink and cleared his throat. “I just meant that you wouldn’t have to hold back on my account.” He peered down into his drink as he turned his glass around and around on the bar. “I know you’ve been doing this for years and I’m just getting started, but you don’t have to make allowances for me.” He risked a glance up.

Joe’s folded arms rested on the bar directly opposite him. His attention never wavered from Scott’s face. His expression didn’t change as their eyes met.

Somewhere on the other side of the room, someone called time and the other guys who’d been hanging around the bar gradually began to make their way toward the door. Scott remained on his bar stool. Even if he hadn’t been pretty sure that was what Joe expected him to do, he couldn’t have moved if his life had depended on it. Looking away from Joe’s eyes was unthinkable.

The room slowly fell silent around them. Minutes crawled past. Scott’s heart beat faster and faster. Finally, Joe’s lips quirked into a smile. The world swung back in motion. When Joe stepped back from his side of the bar, Scott took the opportunity to glance into every shadowy corner of the room. Scott took a deep breath. They were the only ones left in the building.

If it was going to happen, it was going to happen now. Scott wiped his hands on his jeans as his palms turned slick with sweat. The skin across his buttocks tingled, and Joe hadn’t so much as looked at them, let alone struck them.

Adrenaline rushed through Scott’s veins, making his throat go dry. He was going to be spanked by Joe. He smiled at that knowledge, unsure how the hell he’d managed to get so lucky.

Incapable of sitting still for another moment, Scott carefully stepped down from the high bar stool he’d perched on for what felt like years. His trainers squeaked against the floorboards. Joe looked up from whatever he was doing on the other side of the bar.

Scott froze. “Should I…?” He waved a hand vaguely toward the empty room.

“Should you what?” Joe asked.

Scott fiddled with the end of his belt as he tried to think of a sensible way to finish the sentence. Should he set up whatever Joe needed in order to spank him? Should he bare his backside in readiness?

“Your arse will get very cold on the ride home if you drop your jeans now,” Joe warned, when Scott failed to utter a single word.

“Home?” Scott repeated blankly.

“What?” Joe asked, turning to face Scott properly. “Did you think I was going to spank you right here in the middle of the bar? And then what, send you off home before you could even sit comfortably behind the wheel of your car?”

“Um…Yes?” Scott nipped at his bottom lip. “Or in a taxi anyway—my car’s still in the garage and…”

His words died as Joe shook his head in apparent disbelief.