“It’s Gavin Montgomery. I’m so sorry to trouble you at work, but I wasn’t sure we had established that more personal contact was appropriate.”
Tai translated that as Gavin wasn’t sure Tai would take the call if he knew it was from David’s friend.
“Yeah?”
“I know it’s short notice, but this Saturday we’re doing a volunteer cleanup at the residence. You were kind enough to make a generous donation, and I sensed you were really interested, so I thought you might want to come down and help out.”
Right. And in no way was this some kind of ploy where he’d end up either listening to another one of Gavin’s for-your-own-good speeches or trapped working side by side with David.
He had to admit Gavin was good at manipulation, though. He already felt bad about turning him down.
“I do think the shelter is worth working toward, but it is kind of last-minute. And besides, Gavin, I thought you wanted me to let David go.”
“I’m sorry about my intrusion. I misread the situation. But I didn’t even tell Beach about the cleanup. Even if his hand wasn’t all messed up, it’s not his sort of thing.”
“What happened to his hand?” Tattoo sucker on Tai’s forehead, but he couldn’t help himself.
“He won’t really talk about it. All I know is it happened the night he was arrested. Twelve? No, sixteen stitches.”
David had a smart mouth, but the cops would be used to worse. Tai hadn’t heard anything about resisting arrest.
His phone lit up. “I’ve got another call.”
“Will we see you on Saturday?”
“If I’m there, I’m sure you will.”
Tai spent the rest of the day digging around, but there was no arrest record because David hadn’t been arrested. Just held for questioning. But the lawyer was as sharp as money could buy, and if David had been hurt by the cops, there would have been press all over it. Unless that was how the lawyer got David out without charges?
No matter what Gavin said, Tai was pretty sure David would be down at the shelter on Saturday. He could ask him then. He’d see David. And then?
Then Tai would know.
TAI SAW the dumpster first, hard to avoid when it seemed to take up half the street. But though he saw Gavin’s matte-black car next to a shining ’60s Ford truck, David’s Spider wasn’t around.
Tai buried his disappointment as he climbed out of the car. The letdown told him what he should have already known. They weren’t done. After he put in some help, he was going to go see David and make this work.
“Looking for something, Fonoti?” Jamie passed him and hurled an overstuffed trash bag into the dumpster.
“Just the man in charge.”
“Hmph.” Jamie’s cheeks were red under his freckles. “Gavin’s throwing stuff down the chute.” He jerked his thumb at the spot where a funnel made of plastic spilled from the upper story into the dumpster.
There was a rumble, and the plastic buckets shook. A cloud of dust billowed up. “Did he get a permit for this?”
Jamie shrugged. “I’ve learned it’s better sometimes not to ask.”
On the first floor, a guy with salt-and-pepper hair was working a crowbar on the boards over the windows. As Tai climbed the stairs, he heard laughter and the sound of tiles clanking together. In the hall a tall, thin blond with a medical mask on and a kid with dark curly hair were emptying trash cans into the chute.
The kid was doing most of the giggling.
The blond punched him in the arm. “For fuck’s sake, Marco, enough with the what-should-we-stuff-in-the-hole crap.” He lowered his mask and narrowed his eyes at Tai. “Can I help you?”
“Gavin?” Tai said.
“Back there.” The blond waved behind him.
In a bathroom a guy too small to be Gavin stood in the tub, knocking out the tiles. “Hey, Gavin. Did you ever think of designating the bathrooms by orientation?” He spun around. One hand on his heart, he tugged down his mask. “Yowza. You are not Gavin.”
“What? Another rat’s nest?” Gavin came to the door. “Tai. I’m glad you came. This is—”
The guy in the tub stripped off his glove and offered a hand. “Eli. And I am deeply regretting a commitment to monogamy at the moment.”
At Gavin’s chuckle, Eli turned to him. “What, like you’re the only size queen in the room?” Still hanging on to Tai’s hand, Eli delivered a slow once-over. “Hon, you are proof that God loves queers and wants us to have lots and lots of dick.”
“Thank you, I think. Nice to meet you, Eli.”
Eli’s hand went back over his heart. “That voice.”
“Gavin, how can I help?”
Gavin led Tai through the doorway. “I really appreciate you coming. Especially after my behavior the other night.”
“Forget about it.” Tai would rather not spend too much time thinking about Gavin’s opinion of David.
“I wish I could. I was wrong. I can see how much he’s changed for the better. And I’m going to be horribly inappropriate again, but I feel like I owe him. If you don’t want to be there for him in that capacity any longer, do you think you could steer him toward someone else to offer it?”
Tai’s head hurt trying to wrap around Gavin’s words. The guy wanted Tai to send David to another Dom? Or was that coming from David?
“You got something you want me to do, or you just want to pimp your friend?”
“You could start in there.” Gavin gestured toward a room like he was doing Tai a huge favor by letting him clean up a pile of broken furniture.
“Fine.”
However “horribly inappropriate” David’s friends were, Tai had made this commitment to help out and for a good cause. He knew what happened when kids didn’t have a place where they felt safe. He’d seen too much of it.
So he’d do this thing and then go find David and figure out what the fuck Gavin had been talking about with his “steer him toward someone” bullshit.
Hauling furniture—and smashing some of it into more portable bits—then flinging it into the dumpster was a productive way to burn off some anger. Tai figured he’d made four trips to one of Jamie’s with whatever he was hauling in trash bags. During one slog out to the dumpster, he saw two more guys come in. One ended up helping yank down the boards over the windows while the other spent as much time making suggestions as he did tossing stuff in one of the wheeled bins.
All that was left from Tai’s pile was an armchair with an exploded seat cushion courtesy of the rats Gavin had mentioned. As Tai lifted it, the kid, Marco, called from the hall, “¡Oi, papi! Throw that one from the window. I want to watch.”
Tai looked through the dirty glass. It was a clear shot to the dumpster, and that would be one hell of a satisfying toss.
As Marco shoved open the window, another car rolled to a stop in the alley. “Thank God, more people.”
Eli came up behind them. “I hope it’s the lesbians Gavin said were coming. We could use some butch help.”
Marco giggled and shoved Eli.
“Nope,” the blond called from the hall. “Hair’s too long. It’s Zeb.” He took off down the stairs, almost instantly appearing in the alley below.
A man with hair down to his shoulders only had a foot out of the car when the blond grabbed him for a solid kiss.
“You going to throw it now, papi?”
The passenger door opened, and David stepped out, balancing a bakery box and a tray of coffees.
Tai sucked in a hot breath of air, more aware—more alive—in his body than he’d ever been. The expansion deep under his ribs was big enough to take in all the dust motes flying out into the sunshine, all the thuds and bangs and rumbles of the city. And more. To take in all of the man now turning to look up, to know David held a big piece of Tai in return. And that was all right.
He gave the chair enough momentum and arc to land squarely in the middle of the dumpster.
David’s eyes grew wide, the chair crashed and shattered, and the big tray o
f coffees wobbled. His bandaged hand shot forward, and then the whole tower spilled and splashed against the side of the car.
“Whoops?” Marco patted Tai’s arm.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BY THE time Tai made it outside, David was mopping at himself with a shirt. Judging by the tank top on the guy who’d been driving, Tai figured out where it had come from.
“Why did it have to be the coffee?” the tall blond muttered. “How could you put it in Beach’s hands? How much more proof of klutz do you need besides a bandaged hand and a cane?”
The driver laughed it off. “In his defense, there was an incoming chair.”
One of the other recent arrivals stared at the scattered cups as if they were the fallen bodies of his friends. “Did anything survive?”
The driver reached back into the car. “Cooler full of water.”
“Great,” the blond said. “Just don’t let Beach carry it.”
Tai stepped forward. “I’m the one who threw the chair.”
“Yeah, you are.” The blond eyed him. “Fuck you very much.”
“Anytime.” Tai nodded. He moved closer to David. “Did you get burned?”
David held the shirt off himself. “No.”
“Is your hand okay?”
David examined the brown-streaked gauze. “Probably should change the bandage.”
“Good idea.” Tai grabbed the shirt and tossed it back to its owner. “Thanks.” He put his hand on David’s arm way above the bandage, a zing from the touch like a freshly completed electrical circuit. “Get in my car.”
David glanced up, and the hope in his eyes made Tai want to say the hell with anything else and kiss him.
“Yes, Sir.”
With the AC blasting and the windows down enough to let out the heat, Tai gripped the wheel, though he left the car in park. “What happened to your hand?”
“I punched a mirror, sliced up my hand.” David’s voice was uninflected.
Tai exhaled. “Why did your buddy Gavin ask me to hook you up with another Dom?”
“He did what?” David’s voice cracked. “Jesus. I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Not your idea, then.”
“No. God, no.”
“Good.” Tai slid his hands over the wheel. “Because you’re mine.”
“Am I?” David’s voice held a grin.
“Yes, you damned well are. Don’t be a brat.”
“No, Sir.”
Tai turned to look at him.
The smile faded. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“You did.”
“And today—I didn’t plan it. Gavin said he needed help and sent Zeb to pick me up.”
“He’s a manipulative bastard.”
“You have no idea. Everyone thinks I’m the wild one. He just doesn’t get caught.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking that asking me about another Dom for you was also part of his setup.” Tai didn’t realize how hard he was gripping the wheel until it squeaked.
“If I thought of it, I might have tried it. But I want—I don’t want you to be here only because of that.”
“I’m not.” Tai let his hands slip from the wheel. “I’m crazy about you.”
“Ah—is that why you threw the chair at me?”
“I didn’t throw the chair at you.” Tai snapped his head around to glare and got a face full of David’s grin. “C’mere, brat.”
David leaned in. Tai rested his hand on his cheek and then slid it down to his throat.
Chin arched, David pressed forward.
“No.” Tai gave him a soft kiss. “Don’t push.”
David relaxed, and Tai slowly increased the pressure until the motion of first David’s larynx, then his breath, and finally his pulse were in Tai’s hand. They stayed like that, David settling in deeper, eyes blinking, dark even in the bright sun. With that dreamy look, no wonder his friend had thought he was stoned.
Tai had never seen a sub slip under so fast, no stimulation to rev the endorphins, nothing to trigger it but a light touch and this connection humming between them. And it was all his.
“I’m going to do better for you, David.” Tai let his thumb sink in against David’s pulse, a hint of pressure.
David made a small sound, a sigh and a groan barely escaping his throat, straining as he tried to get more sensation.
“Stop that.” Number one, Tai was going to make the boundaries clearer, stop letting David jump ahead. Tai released him. “Who is in charge?”
“You, Sir. But I missed—” David stopped himself. “I’m sorry. So sorry about everything.”
Tai slid his palm under David’s arm and eased the bandaged hand into closer view. “Tell me about this.”
“I was frustrated. That night when you left. I knew I’d fucked up. I was just—I looked in the mirror, and the anger flew out of me.”
“Did you break anything?”
“Only the mirror. In addition to whatever bad luck I accumulated, they had to dig a few shards out from under my skin.”
David wasn’t the only one who’d fucked up.
“If we’re going to do this, you need to understand this. You do not punish yourself. Ever. You can ask. But I’m the only one who decides. And your punishment might be no punishment at all.”
David’s eyes rounded with anxiety, but there was no rebellion in them.
“I forgive you for not telling me about your father. I understand it was an impossible situation. But if something big is going on in your life, I want to know about it. Not just because I’m your Dom, but because I love you.”
David blinked rapidly, throat working, then lowered his head.
“David?” Tai reached for David’s chin.
“Yes, Sir.” His eyes were wet, and he bit his lip. “I meant it when I said I wasn’t choosing him over you. Not even when I didn’t know—” There was a catch in his breath, and he tried to look away. “—what he was. But God, I should have known. I should have asked. Found out.”
“No. That’s not on you. That started when you were only a child. David, he never…?” Tai let the question trail away.
David shook his head violently. “Never. I remember fishing and riding and learning to shoot a rifle. Guess I was lucky to be a boy.”
“Okay.” Tai released him. “You aren’t wearing the cuffs.”
David glanced at his unbandaged wrist. “I wasn’t sure if I still had a right to.”
“You did and you do. Are you ready to put them back on?”
“Yes, Sir.”
BACK IN David’s hotel bedroom, Tai put his boy on his knees, wrists bound together, Tai’s cock headed for his throat, like the first time. David waited, all sweet obedience and hunger, while Tai rubbed his dick over David’s lips and cheeks.
“Open.”
It started okay, and then David jerked, a tooth catching Tai on the edge of his glans, and he yanked his hips back.
“God, I’m sorry. So sorry. I’ve been practicing. I know I can do this.” David’s words ran together.
Tai wanted to make things clearer this time, not let David push so hard, but he didn’t want him groveling. “It’s okay.”
David swallowed and settled back into position.
“Easy.” Tai caressed David’s cheek and traced fingers through his hair. “Open.”
Just the head in, David’s mouth soft-hot-wet around him, Tai rocked, rubbing against the silky pressure of palate, the motion of David’s tongue lapping underneath.
“That’s it. Suck now.”
He did, a solid pulse of pleasure flooding out from the heat and the tug on the head. Tai let his head drop back and cradled David’s skull. “Good. Now.” He slid forward until he felt the back of David’s tongue flutter against him. “Relax. Swallow.”
David gagged immediately, choking, eyes watering.
Tai pulled off.
“Sorry. I can do this. You know I can do better than this.” Tai knelt and removed the clip connecting David’s wrists. “
Wait. I can do it.” David’s plea held more than frustration.
“It’s okay. Things don’t always have to be perfect.” Tai pulled David up onto the bed, tucking him close, pinning his forehead under Tai’s chin.
David didn’t resist, but there was a waiting stillness in his body. Not fear. But not the patient anticipation of sub space either.
“Worried about your sentencing on Tuesday?” Tai suggested.
“I’m trying not to think about it. Not much I can do now.”
That was a reasonable answer, but something about it coming from David was off. “Maybe I should be in jail anyway. I know I have it coming. If not for dragging Gavin out there, then for everything else.”
Tai squeezed him. “You’re a good man, David. Just impulsive sometimes.”
“Like in harboring a pedophile.”
“I told you that wasn’t your fault.”
“And hiding it from you.”
“I forgave you for that.” Then it hit Tai like a bat to the back of the head. Christ. He’d forgiven David, but David hadn’t forgiven himself.
“I’ll tell the judge everything. I deserve to be in jail.”
“No, you do not.” Tai shifted him so he could see David’s face. His eyes were flat—when he would even meet Tai’s gaze. Tai grabbed his chin. “You don’t punish yourself, remember.”
David jerked his head free. There was some spark. Then he sighed. “Yes, Sir.”
Tai let his body remember the shock of David’s admission, the anger. In a quick motion, Tai rolled them off the bed and put David on his feet. “Kneel, boy.”
David sank down immediately.
“You broke the law. And then you betrayed me by not telling me.”
David hung his head.
“That is something very serious.”
“I know, Sir.” But there was something new in his voice. Hope. David lifted his head.
“It’s not something that can be made up for with a simple punishment.”
“I know.”
Before David could slump again, Tai put his hands on his boy’s shoulders. It had to be something harsh. But quick. Tai couldn’t stand to hurt his boy like this over something he’d already thought was behind them. “Do you deserve to be punished for it, boy?”
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