Page 40 of Under Control

“Good idea. See, Alex, I knew all that studying was working.”

Getting Iglesias’s trousers off proved to be another difficulty, and Alex had to choke him for a bit to get him to still enough to remove everything.

Tracht put the trousers on, which were a bit baggy on him, but the belt kept it all in place.

“Can we take him into the other room with the couch? Throw him over the side of it, and I can make use of the whip.” Tracht frowned. “No, not can you. Do it. Yes. Thank you for bringing the whip, Alex. I’m looking forward to—”

“What are you doing!”

They both looked in the direction of the kitchen, where Espinosa stood, horrified expression on her face.

“Oh. I forgot about you,” Tracht said. “Hmm. Espinosa—Ms. Espinosa—why don’t you head back to the ship? Alex and I will handle things from here.” Then he frowned. “No. Can I trust you? You’re the one who told customs. Stay here. We can’t risk you doing anything.”

“I don’t even know what I would do!” Espinosa’s eyes darted around the room. “I knew Alex was trouble. I knew it! Look at what he did, Captain. He just—and now you’re talking about whipping somebody. About killing him! You can’t just—that’s—” She shook her head. “That’s horrible!”

“Ah. These drugs are making it very hard for me to remember how to act in public.” Tracht looked at Iglesias. “I like that look of fear in your eyes. You don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know what I’ll do either right now. I want to hurt you so badly. It wouldn’t be like hurting Alex, but I think I’d get off on it anyway. Maybe I’ll have Alex fuck you?” Then Tracht hissed and looked away. “Espinosa. Right. I’m sorry you have to witness all of this. Or, no, I’m not sorry right now, I’m feeling much too pleasant to care.”

“Let’s just go!” Espinosa shouted. “We have you, I’ve got—I’ve got a massive database. All of their client info, and some shipping routes. We can hand it off to the authorities, they’ll take Iglesias, bring down this entire ring—”

Iglesias started struggling again, and he bit down on the inside of Alex’s hand. Alex cried out in pain and let go, but collected himself enough to hook his arm around Iglesias’s neck. “Don’t fucking say anything, asshole,” Alex growled.

Tracht looked between Alex and Espinosa and made a frustrated noise. “I can’t decide. Alex. What should we do?”

Before Alex could answer, Espinosa walked towards them. “We’re going. Come along, Captain.”

Her voice wavered as she spoke, but it was still an order, and Tracht started to follow her.

Fuck. Alex threw Iglesias to the ground and kicked him hard, driving the steel toes of his boots into him and reveling in the loud scream of pain. Hopefully the fucker suffered internal bleeding. But the elevator showed up, and Espinosa was frantically pushing the buttons. She wanted to leave Alex behind.

Alex managed to get through the doors just before they closed, and in the next second he had Tracht in his arms, kissing him, groping his ass. Fuck, he loved making out with Tracht, especially after they’d roughed people up. Shame that they didn’t actually get to fuck up Iglesias, because that would have been so much fun.

“Can you stop! I’m right here!” Espinosa said.

Tracht broke the kiss, but he settled against Alex and mouthed at his neck instead.

“Why are you such a little bitch,” Alex growled at Espinosa. “First you don’t want us to punish that fucker for what he did to Tracht, and now you’re mad that Tracht is being nice?”

Espinosa gestured wildly in their direction. “I don’t actually want to see the captain’s erection! Is that too much to ask?”

“Fucking liar,” Alex countered. “You just want him for yourself. You’ve been jealous of me since day one.”

“No. I was never jealous. I was uncomfortable because I don’t like bondservants, I don’t like the system, I don’t want to see public sex, and—”

The elevator stopped and the door opened. Tracht hugged Alex tighter before stepping away and facing Espinosa. “I never forced you to watch anything. I kept all public scenes to times when you’d be unlikely to visit.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just get back to the ship before Iglesias frees himself and calls for backup.” She jogged off towards the entrance, past the blood stains they’d left behind. Alex took off his jacket and set it around Tracht’s shoulders.

“Ah, thank you,” Tracht murmured. “Yes, I don’t think I want to walk through the streets shirtless.” He stayed close to Alex, and Alex risked wrapping his arm around Tracht’s shoulders. Or maybe it wasn’t a risk, with that collar still around his neck. If Tracht decided to punish Alex later, that was fine. Alex couldn’t bear the thought of not touching Tracht right then.

Chapter 12

They got back to the ship with little trouble, although the sailor on guard duty gave them all wide-eyed stares.

“You breathe a word of this to anybody, you’re gonna find out just how much blood is in your body,” Alex growled. The sailor stumbled backward and looked at Tracht.

“No, Alex won’t hurt you. But if you decide to gossip about this, I will most certainly fire you.” Tracht gave Espinosa a crooked smile. “See? Not violent at all. I’m a very reasonable man.”

Now that they were out of danger, Alex couldn’t help but laugh at everything Tracht was saying. Like, it was weird as hell, but he was being as much of a dick to everybody else as he usually was to Alex. And he was being nice to Alex instead.

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