Chapter 3
I CALLED Landry and told him what had happened, and it took everything in me plus Conrad getting on the phone to keep him from coming to the hospital. Landry was scared that whoever had killed the other runners was coming after me, but I reminded him of who exactly my guardian angel was and that Gabriel had told me that as long as I stayed out of sight, all would be well. Kady and his guys weren’t actively looking for me. They would just find me if I was hanging out in my usual haunts. No one was hunting me; it was more a question of opportunity, and even then, even if they found me, there was still Conrad to consider.
Landry didn’t understand, but he had met Conrad, so when the man said I was safe, he believed him.
My friend had excused himself at the hospital for a while, and when he returned, he reiterated Gabriel’s words to me and told me to lie low, steer clear of all the casinos and my regular clients. He promised that I would be fine as long as I didn’t try to conduct business as usual. It was a clash beyond my scope; I did not need to be involved. They had killed the runners to interrupt Adrian’s cash flow and that was it. As horrible as it was, if I stayed out of sight, no one was coming after me.
“Won’t the cops be all over this?” I asked Conrad. “I mean, he was murdered. Won’t there be an investigation?”
He shook his head. “You watch too much TV where everybody works and takes any death seriously. You have to realize, in the real world, with the way bodies pile up in any big city, no one is killing themselves to find out what happened to Benji.”
I nodded.
“If anything, they might go question Adrian if they can make the connection, but he’s careful, right? I mean, if anyone checks, you guys all work at his health club or some bullshit like that, right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
“So,” he shrugged. “Even if there is an investigation, you’ll never know.”
“I guess,” I said, then dropped it.
Talking to Benji’s father was exhausting, and when I finally got to put the nurse on the phone with him, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I did not want to be the one to coordinate with the morgue or to figure out how Benji’s body would get back to Atlanta. It couldn’t be me, and I was relieved that it didn’t have to be.
“Kady should pay,” I told Conrad in the car as he drove me to my mother’s work later that day. I had to see her before she left for her trip; I wanted to give her some money. I had planned to stop at the bank, but Gabriel’s gift made that unnecessary. I had all the cash I needed on me. “He shouldn’t get away with torturing Benji.”
“No, he shouldn’t,” Conrad agreed. “But from what you told me, Gabriel was on his way to see Kady already. My guess is that whatever revenge you’re planning, Gabe’s gonna try.”
I looked out the window at the gray sky, the drizzle already beginning. “The doctor said he was stabbed and beaten, that it would have taken hours to inflict that kind of damage.”
“Sure.”
I turned to look at him. “If Gabriel can’t get to Kady, can you?”
It took several minutes for him to answer me. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He cleared his throat. “Just so you know, it’s a big jump from defending yourself to killing someone. You’re talking about premeditation, right? That’s a whole other thing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, taking a breath.
He cleared his throat. “Did Kady come on to you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I ain’t pretty enough for Ellis Kady, or white enough.”
He scoffed.
“What? I’m not,” I said, holding up my arm, pushing the sweater up so he could see my dark-bronze skin. “I’m darker than you, man.”
He grunted because that was a slight exaggeration.
“And you’re prettier than me,” I teased him. “And you’ve got the cool green eyes; mine are just boring-ass brown.”
Deep annoyed sigh, and I smiled just a little.
“I wonder why that is; your eyes, I mean. I bet there’s a white guy back in your family tree somewhere, huh?”
He was ignoring me.
“I should have the green eyes, since in with the Cuban, there’s Spanish and some German and some French too.”
“Are you still talking?”
“You know, if we were coffee, I’d be something with caramel in it and you’d be, like, a cafe mocha or some shit.”
“Please stop talking.”
I chuckled, turning back to my window, the raindrops hitting it hard now, blurring the world outside.
“Tell me the truth. Did Kady come on to you?”
I coughed softly. “Once.”
“And?”
“He wanted to see what a guy from the hood was like in bed.”
He scoffed.
I turned to look at his profile. “Why is that funny?”
“You? From the hood?” He snickered. “That’s good.”
I grunted because I knew it. My mother had married my father and they had moved to Troy, supposedly away from all the things that could hurt them. After my father was killed walking across the street on his way home, my mother went to work as an office manager for a man who owned a string of dry cleaning stores. She liked it, but it wasn’t enough to take care of her and my sister. So I helped out, putting my sister through college, helping my mother pay the mortgage and her bills, making sure that I stepped in where my father, Donald Bean, would have. I missed the man a lot.
Even after ten years, I still could have used his advice. Mostly I missed that he had never met Landry. I would have liked to see them sit together and talk. I had told him I was gay, and my dad had given me the nod and said okay. He wasn’t sure that I knew everything at fourteen, but he agreed that my sexual orientation was one of those things I could be sure of. He had been surprised but never judgmental or angry or anything. He was the sort of father every kid should have: kind, supportive, and loving.
“Are you listening to me?”
I hadn’t been, I realized. My mind was drifting instead of listening to Conrad. “No, man, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, but look, now, I need you to go into that glove compartment and get the gun there.”
I didn’t really want to, but what was I going to do if somebody broke in during the night? The bat I kept under my bed wouldn’t help if the guys invading my home were armed, and I had to be really close to use my butterfly knife.
“You need a gun.” Conrad shrugged. “The life you have, the life I can’t convince you to leave… you need one.”
“What’s with you and Gabe wanting me to open my restaurant now? You both know I don’t have enough, and I ain’t ready to go yet anyway. I figure three more years, maybe two, I’ll be done, but not right now. I only got sixty saved, man; I need more.”
“Landry can’t—”
“Landry’s money and mine don’t mix for dreams.”
“You used your money to get him started, and then he took out a loan for the rest.”
“Which he’s still paying off,” I told him. “Until what he sells completely covers his costs, all his profit has to go right back into his business. I mean, he’s close, you know. We go see the accountant together and I see his books, but there’s still a way to go.”
“It’s up to you.” He shrugged. “I just need you to understand that I don’t want to see you hurt. Gabe’s trying to get you out; that’s his idea of protection. Mine is a gun.”
“Okay.”
He nodded and tipped his head at the glove compartment. “Go ahead.”
I was expecting something out of The Matrix, of course, but what I got was a Glock 22. It was what most policemen carried, and basically once the safety was off, you aimed and pulled the trigger. Conrad promised to take me to his gun club on the weekend to show me how to shoot it properly, but until then, he wanted me to have it.
“Is it registered to you?” I asked him.
The look I got, like I was just so stupid, was one I actually deserved.
“Sorry. Do you have any guns that are actually registered to you?”
“Of course, just not one I would give you.”
“So what do I do if I’m being chased by a policeman?”
“Why are you suddenly contemplating a scenario where you would be chased by law enforcement?”
“It’s just a question.”
“Jesus,” he groaned.
“C?”
He growled at me. “If you’re being chased by cops, ditch the gun. If you’re being chased by some guys from the neighborhood or someone from Kady’s crew, shoot at them.”
“Cop, ditch; bad guy, shoot,” I teased him. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
“I will shoot you myself.”
I started laughing even though I shouldn’t have. He was very dangerous.
“You’re really a wiseass, you know that?”
I did know that, I thought, as some of the tension in my shoulders and neck finally started to dissipate.
“When we get out of the car, I’ll help you with the holster.”
And then it wasn’t funny anymore. “I wish Benji had had a gun.”
“Me too,” Conrad agreed. “At least that way it would’ve been over faster.”
“Why?”
“He would have shot at them, and they would have killed him right then.”
I shouldn’t have asked the question.
MY MOTHER was happy to see me. It was her last day of work, since she had asked off starting the following day, Wednesday, to go to Dallas to visit her sister, my Aunt Janet, who just had a baby. It was strange. Her sister was forty-three and having her first child, and my mother at just forty-six had been finished bearing children years ago. I was twenty-four and my sister was twenty-three. She’d had me at twenty-two, when she met and fell in love with my father. Everyone had said she was too young, but now, when she was still really young with no children in her house, she was free to do whatever she wanted.
“When are you going to take a real vacation?” I smiled at her from where I was leaning on the counter above her.
“After the first of the year,” she said softly, her eyes flicking up to me and then away. “Marissa and Clover and Patrice and Judy and I are going to Jamaica.”
I chuckled, and when she looked up, she was scowling.
“What?”
“You know what,” I teased her.
“No I do not, or I would not be asking.”
“It’s like that movie, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.”
She growled at me. “I’m gonna hit you.”
I smiled bigger and braced for the smack with her pen.
“You and I both know that a man for me is out of the question,” she assured me, making my knuckles sting where she hit them with the pen. “I won’t be—”
“Don’t say that,” I told her, reaching into the breast pocket of my coat. Gabriel had given me money, which had shortened the number of places I’d had to go. Not having to stop at the bank had been nice. I had separated the cash out in the car on my way over. “Here, this is for your trip and for the mortgage payment this month.”
She took the envelope and looked inside. “Trevan.” Her head snapped up, her dark brown eyes on mine. “There’s twenty-five hundred dollars here.”
“I know, but you might need to get Aunt Janet stuff, and you need to pay the mortgage, like I said. I was gonna come see you tonight, but my plans changed, so this is better. I wanted to hit you up before you left.”
“Honey, you have a restaurant to save up for and—”
“I know, Mom, but you need things too.”
She nodded. “Thank you, baby, this helps, and now I don’t have to owe Aunt Janet for the plane ticket. I felt bad about that.”
“There, see.”
She stood up, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek. “How’s Landry?”
“He’s fine,” I lied, realizing that I was more than tired and really not able to hold onto my good mood or my fake smile much longer. I loved her and I’d wanted to see her before she left, but I was beat. “I gotta go, though; he’s expecting me for dinner.”
“Of course, you go ahead and go.”
I smiled at her, my mother, Serena Bean. “You’re so beautiful.”
“You’re full of crap, but I love you.” She beamed at me. “Come around here and hug me proper and then get out.”
I did as she said, very careful not to let her put her arms anywhere but around my neck. All I needed was her bumping the gun. I would never hear the end of it, and the questions about the true nature of my business would be interminable. I was in no way prepared to get into that with her, and I didn’t want her getting on the plane tomorrow pissed off at me.
“When I get home, I want you and Landry to come for dinner. He wants to learn to make bouillabaisse, and I promised I’d teach him.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I smiled at her, squeezing her tight, unable to help myself.
“I love you,” she sighed, letting me go. “But these barrels in your ears are just—”
“Plugs, Mom,” I teased her. “Rico has barrels—they’re hollow—but I have plugs.”
She made a face. “Why you have to put those in your ears? You and your cousin? Why?”
“’Cause I like it,” I teased her. “Just like I like the huge-ass tattoo on my back and shoulders and arms that you hate.”
She had never wanted me to have the tattoo, but it had been for my father, to honor him and his belief in the afterlife, the wings around the cross to represent heaven, my testament on my flesh for him. It was enormous, covering my back, shoulders, biceps, and triceps, the lines tribal but intricate, done lovingly by my cousin Manuel, scrolling and delicate and thick and heavy, all of it flowing beautifully, seamlessly. It had taken a year for him to finish it all the way he wanted, his masterpiece. He appreciated me letting him take pictures of it to put in his book at his shop. When he had had to add onto it for Landry, finally putting color to my skin as well, he had been thrilled. I had never told him how necessary it was.
Outside on the street, I was surprised to see Conrad parked at the corner. When I reached the black SUV, the tinted black passenger-side window rolled down slowly.
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I want to drive you to Landry’s gallery, and then I won’t worry.”
I sighed heavily. “So can I go out? Can I go to a club, see a movie—I mean, seriously, how fucked am I?”
“You’re not. You don’t go near any casinos, any of your regulars, and if you see anyone out and they ask you anything, you say you ain’t working. But you do need to get out of town for maybe a week. Can Landry do that?”
I suddenly thought of his brother Chris. “Maybe. You wanna hear something funny?”
“Yeah, funny would be good. Get in the car.”
As he drove me to Landry’s gallery, Asil, I explained about Landry’s brother showing up out of the blue.
“That’s fucked up.”
And I agreed that it was.
“You’re doing it again.”
I was snapped from my explanation. “Doing what?”
He smiled at me. “Whenever you’re worried, you either rub the top of your head or over your heart with your right hand.”
“I knew about rubbing my head, but I rub my chest?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh, I wonder why.”
“’Cause that’s where the L is.” He assured me.
ALONG with my entire back and shoulders being covered in a heavy black tribal tattoo, another design had been added above the cross: a ribbon that looked like it was laid over my skin. It spilled over my left shoulder, thickening and thinning down over my left pectoral and branching out, becoming roots over my heart where the Old English L was, entwined with roses and thorns. That was Landry, a rose with horrible, deadly, wicked, sharp thorns. He had nearly fainted when he saw it; he had needed it there, so ready to mark me himself if I had not asked Manuel to do it for me.
I never told anyone about waking in the night to him standing over me with a knife. It was small, one of my switchblades, chosen for carving, not stabbing, but still sharp, still able to kill me. He was breathing hard, stroking himself and looking at me with glazed eyes.
“Whatcha doin’, babe?” I asked him, voice calm, swallowing down my fear, reaching for him.
He didn’t even see me, intent on my chest, tugging and pulling on his hard, heavy cock, his breath catching, his body trembling.
I waited and he let go. His seeping dick twitched as he bent toward me, his slick left hand went down on my sternum, the other holding the knife like a scalpel.
“What’re you gonna do?” I asked, reaching for him, my fingers closing around his hard, wet length.
“Carve my name in your skin so everyone knows you’re mine.”
I squeezed and he hissed out his pleasure, head back, eyes closed, his intent to cut me forgotten as he moaned my name. Rolling out of bed, I went to my knees and took his cock down the back of my throat fast and hard, sucking violently so he could feel it even through the haze of whatever had come over him.
He palmed the back of my head, as there was no hair to grab hold of, and tried to push his way in even deeper. When I brushed his hand off and pulled back, he whimpered loudly.
“Are you awake?” I asked, licking from the base of his long, beautiful cock to the tip and back again, too turned on to worry about the fact that he still had a switchblade in his right hand. I fondled his heavy balls, loving the feel of them. “Baby?”
There was only gibberish coming from him, only sounds, no words, as I licked the glistening head before stretching my lips around it, taking the length of his thick, leaking erection back into my mouth.
“Trev,” he managed to get out as I sucked and nibbled and stroked, my cheeks hollowed out with the force, my tongue creating swirling pressure. “Gonna come… swallow it all… drink me.”
I moaned and he exploded in my mouth, hot semen hitting the back of my throat as I swallowed frantically, gulping, hearing him yell, one of his hands digging painfully into my shoulder as he fucked my mouth.
Knowing that he loved to see his spunk on my skin, I shoved him off me. He froze, standing there, letting cum spurt from the flared head as he shuddered through his climax. I watched and waited, and when he was done, still frozen, I watched thick wet semen slide back down his shaft to his balls. I saw some of it drip to the floor, and some of it was on me, on my collarbone, cooling on my skin. Only then, when he was shuddering with aftershocks, did his eyes flutter as he suddenly saw me.
“Trev?”
I squinted at him as I stood up, the two inches of height I had on him still enough to make his head tip back.
“Oh shit,” he gasped, realizing he had a knife in his hand, letting it drop open to the floor.
“Jesus, Landry,” I griped, jumping back. “You never drop an open knife.”
“What the fuck?”
I picked up the weapon, retracted the blade, and placed it on the nightstand.
“Trevan?”
“Were you sleepwalking?” I asked gently, turning back to him, putting my hands on his face. I knew he did that sometimes, having had entire conversations with him when he was not awake.
“No, I….” He shivered and moved closer to me, his hands sliding over my hips. “Your dick is hard.”
Of course it was. I had just given my boyfriend a blowjob. “Never mind, what were you doing?”
“I fell asleep on the couch,” he said, fingers sliding around my painfully hard erection, “and I had a dream that you… this is like velvet in my hand.”
I couldn’t help pushing in and out of his fist; it felt too good.
“I was thinking that if I just put my name on you, marked you… branded you… that no one would ever be confused about who you belonged to.”
Instantly, I had understood.
We had been at a party earlier in the night. There was a girl who had asked me to dance and she was cute and funny. She had a snake tattoo on her upper arm, and I told her how much I liked it. She wanted to know if I had any tats, and when I said I did, she wanted to see. It was just conversation to me, forgettable. I had obliged her interest because it meant nothing, but it had meant something to Landry. It had, in fact, meant a great deal to Landry.
Later, the same girl had been cold outside where we were all hanging out on the patio. I had pulled the heavy wool sweater over my head and given it to her. She had put her hand on my back, tracing my tattoo the second time before she helped me pull my T-shirt down.
When I had gotten up and gone to look for my boy, as he had not returned from the bathroom, I found him in the hall, hugging himself tight, shivering hard.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hands on him, leaning our foreheads together as I inhaled.
“Oh, now you love me?”
“What?” I chuckled, leaning back to look at him. “Are you all right?”
His eyes were dead.
“Landry?”
There were sudden tears.
“Oh baby, what’s wrong?”
And he had breathed suddenly, it seemed, like he hadn’t been but now could. I had pushed him up against the wall, shoved my tongue down his throat, and mauled him. I pressed into him, broke the kiss and bit down on the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder. He arched up into me, his now familiar chant beginning again.
Need me… over and over.
Always the same, like I didn’t already or could stop. And as I stood before him in our apartment later that same night, staring down into his hooded eyes, feeling the clench of his fingers on my hard, hot shaft as precum dribbled from the tip and he smeared it with this thumb, I understood. He didn’t just want to have his mark on me; it was a necessity for his continued sanity.
“Tomorrow,” I managed to get out. “Gonna go put you over my heart forever.”
The eyes were so lost and so hopeful, all at the same time.
“I swear,” I said, hand over my left pectoral. “Gonna have an L right here so everyone can see. An L for Landry.”
“On your body.”
“Yes.”
“Like a brand.”
I nodded.
He sucked in his breath. “Fuck me before I die.”
“You’re not gonna die.”
“I could. I thought I was. It felt like it before.”
Jesus. “I’ll get in bed, and you ride me.”
“No,” he whispered. “Wanna be fucked.”
I moved fast, grabbing the back of his neck, hurling him face down on the bed, landing on top of him, stretching for the lube from our nightstand even as I pinned him in place.
“You can’t do it,” he taunted me, and this too was his way. “You can’t fuck me, you don’t even want to. You want that girl that you gave your fuckin’ sweater to.”
The thoughts that consumed him were so stupid sometimes.
“We left without it, you know, and fuck her if she brings it back. Fuck her! I’ll burn it, I swear to God, and if you even try to—”
“Shut up,” I ordered him, spreading his legs, feeling the tension in his shoulders, the fatigue from where he had been clenched earlier, frozen in pleasure.
His hands were fisted in the blankets, still warm from where I had been sleeping. I dribbled lube over the cleft of his ass, more than I needed but wanting to make a mess. Gently, even though he was verging on madness, I slid my fingers inside of him, scissoring, stroking, slow but steady, relentless as I curled them over his gland, feeling him jolt under me, twist and squirm with shallow breaths.
“Can’t make me yours; I won’t be. I’ll find someone that won’t pay attention to stupid girls who say they’re cold.”
“Idiot,” I told him, adding a third finger, pushing deep, circling wide, adding my thumb from my left hand. He was whining, the words incoherent but pleading, writhing under me, and the mantra of my name became demanding. I didn’t slide my fingers free. I yanked back, and he gasped in outrage before I grabbed his tight, firm ass, spread the cheeks open, and thrust hard and deep in one long, smooth glide.
He howled his rage and drowning, devouring pleasure.
“Oh fuck!”
His muscles were like a fist closing around me, holding tight, rippling and hot. My whole body tingled as I eased back and thrust in again, deeper, shifting my angle, finding the spot that made him scream. There was the first thump of poor Mrs. Chun’s broom against our floor. We had woken our neighbor yet again.
I smiled as I pumped in and out of my boyfriend’s ass, pounding him down into our bed, bucking as hard as I could so he’d know it was only him I wanted to fuck.
“Trev!”
I knew.
I pushed my fingers through his hair, made a fist, and jerked up, arching his back, lifting his ass, putting him into a position of submission, taking away all his power. He was there only for me to use.
He was sobbing, I could hear it, and I wasn’t sure what was most needed.
“Shall I come on you or in you,” I asked, my mouth next to his ear as I reached under him and squeezed his rock-hard shaft.
Between the panting and gasping and crying, I understood that I needed to fill him up; he wanted it to leak out of him for hours.
I was too close, my control was gone, so I grabbed his shaft, stroked and pulled, and when I felt his muscles clamp down, I plunged into him, lifting him with the force.
We were a bad porn movie together—not pretty, not gorgeous, but loud and messy and sticky with fluid and awash in tears.
My orgasm was endless, and I held him tight until it was done, until the flood receded and I could realize where I was again and care. We were covered in lube and cum and sweat, and I wiped my hands on the comforter and laughed huskily in his ear.
“Jesus, Trev, I think I’m dead.”
“You’re not dead,” I told him, chuckling, kissing his ear, his cheek, licking the salt from his skin, dabbing at the blood on his lip. “But you’re gonna feel like shit in the morning when all this nice euphoria bails and all you’ve got are bruises and laundry to do.”
He shivered hard.
“Hold on, lemme move so you can—”
“No,” he stopped me, reaching back, fingers grazing over my ass. “Stay there. I can still feel your dick pulsing inside. It hurts.”
“Well if it hurts, idiot, lemme pull—”
“I’m stretched and full and fuckin’ sore, but ohmygod how bad did I need that? How bad did I want it? Jesus.”
I was basically lying on top of him; I needed to move. “Baby, I have to be crushing you, and your ass needs a break.”
But he clenched his muscles just to make sure I didn’t move, which almost killed me, my skin overly sensitized, my penis slowly softening inside of him.
“I’m sorry I gave that girl my sweater. I’ll never do it again.”
“I wouldn’t have cared about the sweater if she knew you were fuckin’ mine.”
“Honey,” I soothed him, my voice hoarse and low, freeing myself from his still clenching channel, the tightness and heat too much to bear. “Everybody knows I’m yours.”
“They will once I carve my name into you.”
He sounded crazy again, but I was beyond being scared because I knew what needed to be done. Rolling over on my back, I patted my chest as he rose over me. “Come here.”
He was on me fast, wrapped so tight I barely managed to get the blankets up over us before we froze. Snuggled close, his mouth open on the side of my neck, I slowly traced my fingers up and down his spine, over and over, like he loved. The man craved me petting him like nothing I had ever seen. Putty in my hands.
“Right where my heart is, right there. Gonna have the L for Landry so everyone will know that it’s you it beats for. Only for you.”
His skin sliding over mine was sleek and smooth as he lifted and plastered his mouth to mine, the kiss to taste me and suck and nibble and build heat all over again. He felt so good twining around me, and I felt the roll deep inside of me and the desire rise and slowly ripple.
“Fuck, Landry.” My voice gave out on me. “What will make it better?” I had not realized that what I thought had been nothing, talking to the girl, had filleted him open and exposed all his vulnerability and insecurity, his bleeding, oozing heart.
“Inside you,” he said simply. “Now.”
Whatever he needed.
He flung the covers away and grabbed the bottle, which was still on the bed beside my leg. His hand was on his cock, slicking it, lube running through his fingers as he coated it, brushing some over my entrance although what he had on his shaft was more than enough.
I planted my feet and lifted and he got to his knees, lined up his cock, and plunged inside of me hard and fast, burying himself deep.
The pain was jarring, instant and overwhelming because there had been no prep, nothing, and I was still recovering from my own orgasm. For a second, I thought I would throw up. I hardly ever bottomed because he loved to and told me often. But there were times when he needed to let me know that not only did he belong to me, but I belonged to him. And it was never good because he was a poor top, erratic and rushed. Angles were lost on him. As far as I knew, he couldn’t even come when he was inside me. It was instead an exercise purely in power.
“Hey,” I breathed through the pain, reaching for him, determined to try and enjoy it this time. “Stop, look at me.”
His eyes slowly lifted and I saw them swimming with fresh tears.
“It’s okay.”
“No, I’m fuckin’ hurting you for no reason.”
“No,” I lied, my voice coaxing, kind. “Do this, slow down, lemme put my legs on your shoulders, okay? Roll forward and see how deep you can go.”
His eyes never left mine as he followed directions, the angle making me gasp as the long, thick length of him grazed over my prostate.
Different, better. Just with small changes, his speed and his descent, I felt an electric shock run through me.
I moaned loudly.
“I should do that again?” He sounded so hopeful.
“Fuck, Landry,” I panted, my back bowing up off the bed. “I gotta grab my… I gotta get myself off. Just hammer me right there, okay? Don’t fuckin’ stop.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh baby could ya please…. Fuck!”
The sizzle was there, the heat, the bubbling, verging, consuming rush that I had never felt on my back before except when he was riding my cock.
“Does it feel good?” he asked, his voice guttural as he bucked into me—harder, faster, deeper with every stroke. “Because your whole body is shaking; you feel fuckin’ amazing. You’ve never felt…. Jesus, Trev, your ass is so tight and so hot. I’m gonna come! I’m gonna fuckin’ come!”
I came, spurting over my stomach, my fingers, my hand, my wrist, making everything slick and wet. And then he pulled out and added to it, splattering over my abdomen and on my chest, watching, staring, and missing nothing.
We were both heaving for breath, panting and exhausted, but the way he was looking at me, the predatory gleam, had not left.
“Am I marked enough now? Have you done enough to me or does there actually need to be blood? Tell me.”
The look in his eyes terrified me for a second before he bent and lapped at my stomach. Our seed, together, mixed, that apparently was finally enough. He slurped and sucked and swallowed, and when I dragged a finger through it and licked it clean, he shuddered. When I did it again, moving my finger toward my mouth, he leaned forward, lips parted.
I should have been freaked out, grossed out, anything, but all that mattered was bringing him back from the dark place he had gone to. So I touched my fingertip to his tongue and watched him lave at it, suck and taste, then move downward to my wrist and elbow. He licked and nibbled to my shoulder and then beneath, his face in my armpit, still licking before he moved across my chest, his mouth opening to suck my nipple, tug it, pull and finally bite down hard.
I gasped but he didn’t care, and it hurt and didn’t, everything blurring together, becoming the same.
“Your skin is driving me fuckin’ crazy.”
He was manic and he had to sleep, but he was still in a frenzy of need. And it was my fault. I knew better. When we were out, especially when we were out, he needed to be in my lap, holding my hand, close to me. I had forgotten that if we were home, had people at our place, it didn’t matter; a woman could use me like a pole and wrap herself all over me and it was fine because he knew where he was, knew I was his. But out, when he couldn’t look around and get his bearings, there was only me, and if I didn’t keep tabs… then it was on me.
“I need water,” I said suddenly because it was my last gambit.
“You do?”
I nodded.
He left and I could hear the ice trays in the kitchen being cracked, dumped into the tray in the freezer, and then the water running as he refilled them. When he came back, I saw the splotches of dried cum all over him and how he shivered. I thanked him and drained the glass. I saw it then; saw Landry back behind his eyes. That I had needed a favor, small, simple, and domestic, that had grounded him, reminded him of who he was, who I was, and about the two of us together.
“Let’s strip the bed and take a shower, okay?”
He nodded because he was coming down—quiet, contained, and worried suddenly about what he had done.
I ran the shower and put him under the warm spray before I went back to take care of the sheets. We had two sets of linens for the bed and that was it. Lucky for us, the apartment had come with a washer and dryer, so that was really all we needed.
By the time he padded into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, I was done.
“Okay, I’m gonna go jump in the shower. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded, but I heard the stilted breath so I stepped in front of him on my way out of the room.
“Are you mad at me?”
I put my hands on his face. “Hell no, why would I be mad? You fucked me good.”
He didn’t like the answer, too glib, so I bent and kissed him, softly, tenderly, my tongue tracing over his bottom lip until he whimpered in the back of his throat. When I lifted away, he leaned with me.
“I love you, I will always love you, everything’s fine and I’m not mad. I just need to sleep. You wore me out.”
Lots of nodding, lots of smiling, and he let me go. By the time I was done with my shower, he was passed out in the bed. He didn’t even move when I slid under the covers with him and turned off the light. That night we had both learned something, I understood my absolute place in his life and what he needed, and my boy learned how to top. It had been win-win in my mind from something that had started out very scary.
“TREV?”
I looked over at Conrad, the spell of my memories broken.
“Listen, you’re not in any danger if you just are smart. Stay away from places you do business, simple as that.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay? What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Can you focus, please?”
“Sure.”
“About the gun. If you go out of town, put the gun in the lockbox I gave you, and it goes in the hamper with the dirty clothes.”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
My eyes flicked to his. “You know I appreciate it, right? Everything you do for me. I don’t know how to show it without giving you money so you know I’m sincere.”
“I know you’re sincere, it’s why I give a shit.”
I nodded and then yawned, my eyes watering.
“You’re so fuckin’ tired.”
“I am, shit.”
“Just get Landry and the two of you go home and go to bed.”
I grunted as he patted my knee.