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“Well…” Fiore bit back a grin and shrugged. “Not horses.”
A bark of laughter escaped Enzo. He set the crop aside and continued delving. Some gentlemen might look askance at the blindfold or the coiled hemp or the cat-o’-nine-tails, but Enzo seemed more intrigued with every item he uncovered. Only the fids and belaying pins gave him pause. These he didn’t touch, but merely gave Fiore an enquiring glance.
“The fids are just for knot-work,” Fiore assured him. Certain past gentlemen had asked him to do otherwise, but Fiore knew better than to stick a long tapered wooden stake into any hole without a means of retrieving it.
Enzo appeared relieved. “And the pins?”
“A parting gift, alongside the chest. To the best of my knowledge these ones haven’t been used for anything besides belaying.”
Enzo hesitated. “Are there others?”
“If gentlemen wish to use them, I make them supply their own.” The belaying pins, after all, had a flared base—and a handle besides.
Enzo didn’t look averse to this idea, either. “How did you stumble onto these notions in the first place?”
“I worked with one particular sea captain,” Fiore explained, “with very particular tastes. After a while I acquired a reputation for a deft hand at that sort of work.” He indulged himself in a smile. “And the sailors came pouring in.”
“Fair enough,” Enzo replied. His hand fell to the riding crop again and he began rolling its handle idly between his fingers.
“And you?” Fiore asked.
“There were a multitude of societies and conclaves at university. Some more secret than others.”
“Were you a member?”
A very fetching rosy tint bloomed over Enzo’s sharp cheekbones. “Of some.”
Throughout the discovery and subsequent conversation, they had retained their respective positions; Enzo kneeling before the sea-chest and Fiore standing over him with watchful eye. Now Fiore bent to pluck the crop from Enzo’s fingers. Enzo relinquished it without even a hint of resistance. Fiore turned it over in his hands, noting how Enzo’s dark gaze followed it all the while. Then, ever so gently, he laid the end beneath Enzo’s chin and tilted his face upward to look him full in the eye. Enzo’s breath caught. A hard swallow travelled down his throat. And those dark eyes grew darker still as the pupils flew wide.
“Do tell,” Fiore murmured.
Enzo drew in a ragged breath. “What do you wish to know?”
Fiore let the leather loop trail down Enzo’s throat to rest in the hollow. “Your part in it.”
The scarred lip caught between his teeth. “Not quite so involved as I would’ve liked.”
“Why not?”
“My peculiarity,” Enzo said, to Fiore’s surprise. “I don’t like revealing it to strangers—or near-strangers. It’s… hard to tell how it might be received. And while the society itself might’ve been secret, we all knew each other through the university. I didn’t need every fellow student knowing the whole of me.”
“Fair enough,” Fiore replied, though the words hardly sufficed. “How did you involve yourself?”
That enquiry brought the most welcome return of a scarred smile. “I found the knot-work intriguing.”
As the conversation had continued, Enzo had folded his hands behind his back. He now knelt in a posture of perfect obedience. Fiore wondered if he even realized he’d done it, or if it came so naturally to him that he could hardly do elsewise once Fiore had taken the crop from him.
Aloud, however, Fiore asked, “Because of the nautical connexion?”
A soft breath of laughter escaped Enzo. “At first. I found a way to involve myself there, however small, in assisting my classmates in restraining each other and themselves. Most assumed my expertise came from erotic experience and gave me respect accordingly. In truth…” He shrugged. “I could never have done my family proud if I didn’t know my way around a ship’s lines. But really—I just liked to make myself useful. And to witness the result.”
“Which was?”
Enzo hesitated. “Surrender. And then—ecstasy. There is… something of a relief, in relinquishing command.”
Fiore couldn’t relate. But he’d seen enough of other men to know there were some who truly craved such a thing. And he delighted in granting it to them. “Did you enjoy watching for its own sake?”
“Yes,” Enzo admitted—which was more honesty than most men would give Fiore and which he greatly appreciated. “It was a beautiful thing.”
