Bad Behavior

by K.A. Mitchell

  The organ dirge of Beach’s curfew alarm made panic shoot through him. He jumped, mouth full of a sour, metallic taste, body shivering. Tai squeezed him and then slid him onto the couch.

  “I’ll get it.”

  As full and content as Beach had been a second ago, it was gone. He was hanging, stretched thin and empty across space, heart racing above a rolling stomach, pounding like the one time he’d tried one of Westie’s “study aids” and learned that speed and Beach were a bad match.

  The funeral chords cut off.

  “David, what’s wrong? Are you dropping?”

  “No.” Not unless you counted being wrapped up by those muscular, inked arms an addiction and this as a withdrawal. “But….” He was terrified to get through the rest of that sentence. He’d hit on more people than he wanted to count and had more than his fair share of polite or rude rejections. Yet pushing this simple request past his lips seemed like the biggest risk of his life. He rolled his ankles, staring down at them, then looked up to face Tai. “Would you spend the night with me?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  DAVID EXPECTED a no. Tai read it in the dip of David’s shoulders, the flicker at the corners of his eyes, the flatness of his smile.

  Tai had been about to suggest David take a shower and slide into Tai’s bed where he could show how much he appreciated what David had given when the phone went off. The funeral music was a fitting choice.

  Until the alarm sounded, it had been easy for Tai to forget about David’s curfew. Forget anything but how amazing it had been for David to offer himself, to push past his fear. Something had shifted in him, and Tai didn’t want to do anything but wrap himself around David, taste and touch every bit of this new connection between them. He didn’t know how he could possibly go to work the next day and not have David filling his head and his dick. The chance to have him in bed all night wasn’t something Tai was going to turn down.

  David sweetened the offer before Tai could respond. “Jez is welcome too, of course.”

  Tai stepped forward and kissed him. “Then I guess I’ll come along to keep her company.”

  IN THE semidark of David’s bedroom, Tai opened his throat and took David’s cock deeper, squeezing his ass, while David tried desperately to stay as quiet and still against his mattress as Tai had ordered him to be.

  A ragged moan slipped past the fist David had crammed in his mouth, and Tai let David slide free with a last lick on the head. This groan was louder, provoking a sigh from Jez, who had finally stopped pacing around her new surroundings and fallen asleep on the blanket David had put down for her.

  Tai climbed up and straddled David’s waist. “Shhh. If she wakes up, she’ll need to go out and water the tires of the Mercedes that stole your spot again.”

  David’s smothered laugh shook against Tai’s muscles. Jez wasn’t the only one they were trying to stay quiet for. David’s houseguest had slammed his way around the kitchen and living area twenty minutes ago. It wasn’t until the fourth hoarse whisper of “Beach, you still up?” went unanswered that Clayton gave up.

  Rocking against David, cock enjoying the friction of the hair trail below his sternum, Tai murmured, “She’ll wake up and he’ll wake up and I’ll never finish what I was doing.”

  “Please.” David breathed it out.

  Tai leaned down. “Please what?”

  “Please don’t stop.”

  Tai pinched one of David’s nipples, hard.

  “Sir,” David added quickly, a soft smile on his face.

  God, he was so beautiful like that. Not only in the way he’d lucked out in the genetic lottery, but here, like this. Every time he got that blissed-out look of submission on his face. The harbor lights shone through the balcony doors, streaming across the bed, bands of brightness across David’s face and chest. He fought hard to keep his eyes open.

  Because Tai had told David to watch.

  The constant battle with his eyelids, focus fading and coming back into his eyes as Tai reached behind to stroke David’s cock, was such a small piece of surrender. Each time David’s eyes fixed on Tai’s, heat bloomed under his skin, flowing out from his chest like lava to catch heavy and thick in his throat. Until he was the one who wanted to look away, hide that he’d been stripped to nothing but the need to bury that heat inside David. To find belonging in the acceptance David’s obedience offered.

  He yielded to it, dropping his full weight onto David, sucking a bite into his shoulder, working their dicks together with hard snaps from hips and thighs. David’s hands had stayed up by his head where Tai put them, but now they clenched into fists, tendons popping on the wrists. Tai circled his fingers around those bones and veins and muscles, tighter than a cuff. He wanted inside, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t wait for condom and lube, couldn’t stand all that time not touching, owning. He took David’s mouth, hard, deep tongue thrusts. David gave it, hips open, tilting and arching for more friction, a frantic, eager lick into Tai’s mouth, wrists jerking in Tai’s grip.

  Tai lifted his head.

  “Please, Sir. Please let me touch you.”

  David’s fingers, his hands sliding all over Tai’s back, gripping his ass to drag up more pleasure from the grind. Yeah, he’d like that. But they both wanted this more.

  “You’ll take what I give you.”

  More than the whispered agreement, Tai felt the answer in the hot pulse of fluid from David’s dick as they moved together. David’s neck arched back, skull a bare inch from the wooden headboard. Tai licked up the exposed throat, teeth closing on the stubble-rough jaw still tasting of soap from their quick shower.

  “Don’t close your eyes.”

  David looked back at him, eyelids pinned open.

  “That’s it. You want to be good for me, right, David?”

  “Yes, Sir. Fuck me. Please.” David rocked up into the rut of Tai’s hips.

  “No. You’re mine. You don’t get to decide. If I want to suck your cock or fuck your ass or grind off on you and leave you hungry, I will.”

  David’s answer was a long hissed s, between tight teeth.

  “Watch.” Tai humped, letting the heat and friction and power of it build.

  David’s eyes flickered and then opened, mouth slack, panting. He had that look again.

  Absolute surrender, like he was drunk with it. It pushed Tai over the edge.

  “God, yes.” He sprang to his knees. “Watch me come all over you, boy.” He took his cock in his hand to finish it, not needing much. A tight, hot pressure in his balls and then he went up and over, coating David’s chest with ropy shots. Long, shuddering blasts that emptied him and left him hunched and shaking.

  David’s eyes stayed on him, tongue wetting his lips until they shone like the streaks on his chest in the light from the window, his dick hard, straining up against his stomach.

  Tai squeezed out an aftershock, rubbing the head of his dick in a pool of come on David’s belly. “Good boy. So good.”

  David’s tongue flickered back over his lips. Tai smiled and bent to lap come off one of David’s nipples. Licking and sucking up to his ear, Tai murmured, “You should get a reward.”

  David’s mouth stayed closed, but a whine escaped his lips.

  “And I’ll decide what that is.” Tai sucked another bite right behind David’s ear, earning an answering pant and tremble. After dropping a kiss on each of David’s wrists, Tai stroked his beard across them and kissed them again, teasing the throbbing vein with his tongue. “Leave your hands right there.”

  Crouching between David’s legs, Tai palmed David’s ass and lifted him, shoulders keeping his legs open wide, fingers pulling his cheeks apart for a flick of tongue on his hole. David’s muscles jumped, squeezing, and then he relaxed. Oh yeah, Tai had to put a spreader bar on the schedule, watch David’s face as he gave in to that helplessness. Tai swept his tongue along the crack, tasting the mix of shower damp and sex sweat. He teased the rim, over and over, until David’s legs shook, and then t
raced the shape of his balls, leaving his poor cock straining into the air.

  Tai went back to the rough-edged hole, kissing and sucking, tiny stabs of his tongue that made David buck into Tai’s grip. He dug his fingers into David’s glutes and pushed harder against the ring of muscle. There was no sound in the room but the harsh grate of their breath and the wet noise from spit and flesh. Tai added a hum into David’s tight skin, and he bucked and jerked.

  “I can’t take it.” David’s hoarse whisper curled low in Tai’s gut. He drank it in with more pressure, thumbs spreading David wide enough to let Tai barely scrape with his teeth.

  The strangled sound in response made him raise his head to see David cram his fist into his mouth.

  “You don’t have a choice, boy.” Tai lowered his head, losing himself in texture and taste and every attempt David made to control his body’s reactions to Tai’s mouth.

  David’s muscles kept convulsing, even after Tai lowered him to the mattress. “Open your eyes.” Tai demanded, pressing into David’s ass with one finger.

  David managed for an instant, but it turned to a blink as Tai found the point inside he was looking for and started rubbing.

  David’s hands went to his hair and tugged it, fingers twisting to hang on to something. “You can come now, David.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You will.” Tai leaned in and swallowed David’s dick, pulled off and then down again to the root, working him between tongue and palate.

  “Fuck. Shit. God.” The groan was loud, but David was coming and Tai wasn’t stopping until he’d sucked him dry.

  David’s ass crushed Tai’s finger, then pulsed as the first spurt hit Tai’s throat, filling his mouth and spilling past his lips faster than he could drink it down. As soon as he released him, David curled into a little ball on his side and Tai wrapped himself around him. “Okay, baby?”

  “Jesus, yes.” David grabbed Tai’s arm, dragging him closer. A shiver had Tai raising his head to look into David’s face.

  “An aftershock.” David patted his cheek. “But I wouldn’t mind….”

  “Go ahead.” Tai kissed David’s ear.

  “Can we stay like this till I fall asleep?”

  “Sure.” Every fucking night would be just fine with Tai.

  TAI STILL had an hour to sleep when his bladder forced him awake, out of David’s bed and into the bathroom. He was going to crawl back into that warm, sleepy space when a human yelp and confused woof hit his ears at the same time.

  “Holy shit. What the—Beach?”

  Tai slid into the living area right as Jez skidded into his shins. Tai had to slap his hands onto the coffee table to keep from falling into David’s houseguest, who was clutching a blanket around his chest like a terrified virgin.

  “Who the hell—Beach?” Clayton gripped the blanket tighter. His thin, dirty-blond hair stuck out from his scalp, but whether that was fear or just really obnoxious bedhead was hard to say.

  Jez came back to butt Tai’s knees with her head with an anxious whine. “What did you do to my dog?”

  Clayton gathered the blanket tighter, eyes growing wider, the whites glowing in the dawn light. “N-nothing. I—He—stuck his nose in my face and—I would never hurt a dog.” He managed to sound indignant and frightened in the same breath. “Beach?” Clayton’s gaze shifted to scan Tai from head to foot, forcing the realization that he was towering over the man, tackle swinging in the breeze.

  Tai straightened, but that only put his equipment at eye level, and damned if he was going to cover up like he’d done something wrong. He looked back at Jez. With Tai between her and the stranger, she was sitting, stub wriggling, jaw open. “It’s not funny,” Tai told her.

  “Yeah. It kind of is.” David strolled out of his bedroom, and apparently he didn’t see the need to cover up either.

  “Beach,” Clayton muttered and then stared down at his blanket-covered knees. “For Christ’s sake.”

  “Clayton.” David put a hand on Tai’s back. “I see you’ve met Tai. And Jezebel.”

  David’s matter-of-fact introduction made Tai feel he should offer his hand, but they’d kind of moved past that moment.

  Clayton reached around to rub the back of his neck, adding more chaos to his hair. “You, uh, didn’t mention you’d be having another guest.”

  “I didn’t know I would be.” David looked at Tai and grinned, and if they didn’t get back to the bedroom, Clayton was going to get more of an eyeful than he’d already had.

  Clayton rooted around on the floor and came up with a T-shirt, which he jerked over his head, finally letting the blanket fall away. “So, is he—that is—is this your—?”

  Was it possible Clayton didn’t know David was bisexual? Assuming that was what David meant when he said he had sex with women.

  David’s grin got impossibly wide. “He’s my Dominant.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  IN THE doorway of his apartment, Beach bent down to give Jez a good rub behind the ears in goodbye before standing to offer a different sort of rub to her human. He wished he hadn’t conceded a pair of boxers and a shirt to Clayton’s modesty, or the contact would have been far more interesting.

  When Beach reached for Tai’s face to kiss him, Tai caught Beach’s hands before they landed on his jaw, lacing their fingers together, arms outstretched.

  “I’m not so easily had for an ear rub,” Tai murmured, his gaze flicking over Beach’s shoulder to where Clayton puttered around the kitchen like some demented duenna.

  “That’s because you’ve never had one of mine. Tell him, Jez.” At the mention of her name, she bumped their legs.

  “Sit.”

  Beach knew that was aimed at the dog, but the strong voice made him want to crawl right inside the man in front of him.

  “And you behave.” Tai’s demand rumbled along Beach’s bones.

  Beach adopted a hypnotized monotone. “Yessir.” He didn’t know the last time he’d felt this kind of happy, free. Before the trip off the bridge he still couldn’t remember, and possibly before that.

  Tai stared down. “Call for your PT appointment. And call your uncle.”

  Not even the reminder of that duty could chase away the feeling that kept making Beach smile, that made a laugh threaten to burst out of his throat for no reason than that it felt so damned good.

  “Sore anywhere?” Tai breathed the words close to Beach’s ear.

  “Some beard burn.” Beach grinned, then leaned away so Tai could see the accompanying wink.

  “Sorry about this.” Tai swung one pair of their linked hands between them and lifted Beach’s bruised wrist for a delicate kiss.

  “Didn’t mind at the time.” Though, when Beach had noticed the dark imprints as he dressed, he’d opted for something with long sleeves.

  Tai brought the opposite wrist to his mouth. The soft pressure from his lips and the trace of his tongue made Beach shiver, and not only because of the tingle on an overlooked erogenous zone. Tai was hard enough, strong enough to make those marks, and gentle enough to soothe them the next day. Like when he’d been… spanking Beach.

  “Hmm.” Tai made the skin vibrate, prickle under the hair of his beard. “If you don’t want to find out how long two minutes can be”—he released Beach’s hand, stepped back, and clipped the leash to Jez’s collar—“you won’t forget to make those phone calls.”

  He was gone, but Beach’s good mood wasn’t. Even with the face Clayton pulled as the door closed behind Tai.

  “Acts god-awfully like a policeman.”

  “No. Gavin’s the one dating a cop.”

  Clayton’s gape put fresh-caught carp to shame. “Montgomery?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Something in the water?”

  Beach turned away from the fridge. “What?”

  “Really? Him? That’s your type?”

  “I thought we established I don’t have a type. I enjoy variety.”

  “Like in havi
ng a Dominant. Do y’all get in the leather stuff for that?”

  God bless internet search engines. But Clayton’s question only provoked a smile and a shrug, unlike the discomfort from Gavin’s overbearing scrutiny. Clayton’s curiosity came across as if Beach had ordered something bizarre in a restaurant that Clayton was trying to be brave enough to try.

  “Costumes are optional.”

  “But he—ah—bosses you around?” Clayton tugged on an ear.

  “With my permission.”

  “So just theatrical, then.” Clayton nodded, looking as satisfied as if someone had offered to pick up the tab. Again.

  It was easier to let him think it. Easier to think of it that way himself. What happened between Beach and Tai was like a play. Unscripted, but still for pretend. Except when it was happening, Beach wasn’t faking giving up everything because Tai asked him. And feeling like this now. Like he’d thrown all the ballast overboard and was riding so high in the water he could fly. This was real. It wasn’t alcohol or some other chemical shift in his brain. Hell, he hadn’t even had coffee.

  “Well then.” Clayton slung his ass onto one of the barstools as if he’d been having a tough time standing and thinking at the same time. “Meant to tell you last night. Talked to Iris.”

  “Oh?” Beach tried not to spook him. He’d heard from a cousin about an Earnshaw who had stopped by for a drink and didn’t leave for three years.

  “Yeah. Calmed down some. So, figure to shove off today. ’Bout eleven.” Beach nodded and concealed his relief in a big glass of orange juice. “Unless, that is…?”

  Beach would have been happy to supply Clayton with the rest of his sentence and an answer but didn’t have any idea where it was headed. He put down his glass and opened his hands in encouragement.

  “You need the company?”

  “Not at all.” Damn, he’d said that a little fast for civility. In compensation, and to ensure a swift departure, he added, “It’s fine. I’m fine. Thank you, though. I can drop you by the marina.”