Silence.
Tristan gritted his teeth. “And what do you think you’re doing, anyway? Don’t you have better things to do than stalk your patients at night?”
“Not when those patients are spoiled idiots who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I knew you’d do something stupid.”
“What I do in my free time is none of your business,” Tristan said.
“It is my business when you might fuck up your injury.” Zach’s voice could have cut glass. “I tell you to lay off sex, and a few hours later, I find you in a seedy sex club, with your pants around your ankles, ready to let some unwashed stranger fuck you and mess up all my work.”
“I just wanted sex. It’s not a crime to want sex. If I want to get laid, I damn well will!”
“You aren’t allowed to have sex unless I say so.”
Tristan blinked. “Excuse me?”
Zach didn’t speak immediately, his gaze fixed straight ahead. “You wouldn’t know when it’s okay for you to have sex. That’s why you can have sex only after I tell you it’s okay.”
Tristan’s eyes bored into him. Zach’s words were reasonable enough. But…
“Despite what you think, I’m not an idiot,” Tristan said, watching his personal trainer carefully. He couldn’t see him all that well in the semi-darkness. “If I’m not the one who does all the work during sex, it should be okay. I wouldn’t have re-injured my groin in the position I was.”
A muscle in Zach’s jaw pulsed. “Last time I checked, you weren’t a physiotherapist.”
Narrowing his eyes, Tristan studied him. The nagging feeling that something was off about Zach’s behavior remained, but he didn’t push.
“Aren’t you surprised to find me in a gay sex club?” he asked instead. He should have probably been more bothered by this. A part of him waited for the panic to come—his sexuality was a carefully guarded secret—but he was oddly unconcerned.
Zach just scoffed.
“What?” Tristan said.
“I knew from the first day. I would have had to be blind not to notice.”
“Notice what?” Tristan said, a stone of anxiety settling in his gut. Was he really obvious? “How did you know?”
Zach kept driving in silence.
“Notice what?” Tristan repeated, harder. “Zach!”
“You have that come-hither look in your eyes,” Zach said irritably. “All the bloody time. Even when you’re being a dick.”
Tristan opened his mouth and closed it.
Glancing at him, Zach chuckled without much humor. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. You look that way at everyone. Now stop changing the subject. You will promise me you won’t do anything so stupid again. When I say no sex, I mean it.”
“You were clearly born in the wrong century,” Tristan said. “Sorry, but I’m not your little slave, and you can’t throw me in the stocks for disobedience. You’re forgetting yourself, Hardaway.”
Zach swerved the car to the right, off the road, and slammed on the brakes; the tires screeched as the car came to a halt. Tristan glanced around. They weren’t far from his neighborhood. At this hour, this neighborhood was dark and relatively quiet.
“Let me get this straight,” Zach said through his teeth, grabbing Tristan’s chin roughly. “I’m responsible for your recovery, but you ignored my instructions again and risked fucking your groin up, and I’m forgetting myself?”
Tristan wet his lips with his tongue. There was something unnerving and exciting about Zach tonight, just like yesterday, when Zach got far more worked up than the situation had called for.
“Do you do everything to spite me, brat?” Zach said, in a soft voice that completely contradicted the punishing grip on Tristan’s chin.
“Not everything is about you,” Tristan said, just as softly. “I wanted a fuck. I wanted a nice, thick cock in me. I went out to get it. And I’ll do it again. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Zach sucked a breath in. He opened the door, grabbed Tristan’s shoulder and hauled him over his knees. It happened so fast that Tristan could only splutter and gasp as he found himself flung over Zach’s lap, his head sticking out of the car. “What—”
Zach jerked down Tristan’s pants and briefs, and delivered a swift smack.
Tristan’s eyes widened, his face flushing with outrage. “Let go!” He bucked, trying to roll off Zach’s lap, but Zach was holding him firmly in place.
“I’m injured, you imbecile! What sort of therapist are you?”
“If you’re fit enough for fucking, you’re fit enough for spanking,” Zach bit off. “Maybe it’ll finally teach you a lesson.” He smacked him again. In this position, it didn’t hurt his groin at all, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
“You’ll be sacked for this—I’ll tell Jared!”
“Do it.” Another swat landed on his buttock.
“I’m serious, Hardaway. You’ll be fired first thing in the morning! Even Jared won’t object when he hears of this.”
“Go run and complain to Jared,” Zach said, smacking him again. His voice sounded harsh and odd. “You’re nothing but a spoiled, self-centered little boy used to always getting his own way. If you keep being an unreasonable child, you’ll be punished as a child would be.”