by Peter Styles
“Shut up, Suarez,” he bit out.
“Oh, Suarez again? I thought we were past that, cariño.” I leaned forward to leer at him. “Always so bossy, is that part of what you think about? Telling me what to do? I could get into that. Be into that.”
“Nico, just leave it.” He gripped the steering wheel, and I could tell his temper was close to boiling over.
“What else? Wanna dom me? Is that it, sweetheart? Maybe tie me down with some leather cuffs, have me lick your boots? Is that it?” I asked. It was fucking stupid that he wouldn’t talk about this, wouldn’t just call things what they were.
“What the fuck are you trying to prove, kid? You got a death wish?”
I leaned over the armrest, getting closer to him. “Or,” I said, voice quiet now in a teasing whisper. “Maybe, I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe you’re just one of those butchy subs. Likes to call all the shots until someone whips you silly and you come all over yourself.”
“Nico. Enough.” Close. I was so close.
“Could be a virgin, I suppose? Maybe that’s why you can’t tell me. You don’t know. That’s okay. There’s no shame in it. We all were once upon a time. I can help you with it, you know. Your cherry.”
I was jerked forward when he slammed on the brakes, pulling the car to the side and parking it.
“What the fu--” I started.
“Suarez,” he said. “This is your last fucking warning. Shut the fuck up.”
“Hmm, that’s more like it, papi chulo. I can think of some ways to make that happen, but I doubt you’ve got the balls for it.” His eyebrow was arched. I knew I was daring him. Whatever. I wanted to see him prove it.
His rough hand shot up, twisting in into the hair at the base of my neck and pulling sharply, before pulling my head down to press my face into his crotch.
Oh. Fuck. Yes.
I gasped, surprised, as he ground his bulge against my cheek.
“Is that what you think, Nico?” His voice was deep, quiet. He was watching me, his eyes locked on mine. “What on Earth makes you think any of this is your say? What part of this has anything to do with what you want?”
I should have been embarrassed by the moan I let loose, but I couldn’t care less.
“Listen to you, you’re already drooling to suck my cock, isn’t that right? Well? Answer me.”
The hand in my hair twisted harder, and I moaned again, higher as he wrenched my head up a few inches.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Yes?”
I thought for a second, confused by what he wanted from me, until suddenly it dawned on me all at once.
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Good. That’s a start.” The praise shot to my cock.
He unzipped his pants and undid the button, but then stopped to look down at me expectantly. “Well? What the hell are you waiting for? Take my cock out.”
I reached in, pulling his cock out. But not before assessing it. He was thick, long. I imagined it filling me up, hitting all the spots inside of me that I wanted. My mouth was watering, and I went to see how much of him I could take before Landon stopped me again.
“Can’t you listen to instructions, boy?” he asked. “Did I tell you to suck my cock?”
“No, sir.”
“Why should I let a little slut like you suck my cock? It’s what you want, yeah? Then, go ahead. Beg me for it.”
“Fuck, please, Case,” I paused to see if that would satisfy him, but I guessed not. “Landon. Sir. Let me suck you. I want your cock in my mouth. I want…”
“You want…”
I could feel my cheeks heating as I continued.
“I want you to use me.”
“Fine, you asked for it.”
He shoved my face down, pressing his cockhead into my lips.
“Come on, open wide,” Landon prompted.
I opened my mouth, and a he thrust inside, just barely holding back enough not to press down my throat.
“All right, kid. Come on. Show me what you’ve got.”
His cock was heavy and full in my mouth, its weight perfect against my tongue. I groaned around him, and he sighed.
“Look at you, so fucking hungry for it.”
I closed my eyes and grunted before trying to gag myself on his massive cock.
“Come on, slut. Surely you can suck dick better than this. Use your tongue. Show me how much you want it. This is what you wanted, isn’t that right? Well, prove it.”
Spurred on, and more than a little fucking angry, I sucked harder, my tongue laving the underside of his shaft and head as my mouth slipped back up. He tasted bitter, and I wanted more. I looked up, and he met my eyes.
“God, you’re so turned on by this, aren’t you? No one’s even touched you and you look like you’re about to come. Come on, harder, Suarez. Jesus, have you ever sucked a cock before?”
The hand on the back of my head forced me back down until my nose pressed into his pubic hair. He pushed his hips up again, and I struggled to accommodate his thick cock as it forced its way down my throat. I forced myself to calm down, and then, just like that, the head of his cock nudged further and further down my throat.
“Fuck. Do I have to do everything myself? Fine. Stay still.”
I relaxed further, realizing what was coming. Sure enough, he was straight up fucking my face.
“Fuck, come on, take it! Take it all. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Despite his words, he was losing it. The rhythm of his hips, first a steady, brutal tempo, was becoming erratic. Finally, he slapped his hips into my face again and began to come, first down my throat, then in thick jets across my lips and jaw. Shamelessly, I licked what I could reach with my tongue, reveling in the taste.
Landon groaned and pulled me up to press his mouth to mine in a hard, unforgiving kiss. His tongue forced its way inside. I couldn’t do anything but submit, leaning in against Landon’s chest with my own and surrendering my mouth to him all over again. I was so hard and aching, my cock feeling as though it would explode, but somehow that took a back seat.
He shoved me back and raked his eyes over me as I sat crouched sideways in my seat.
“Go on,” he said, sternly. “You’re dying to. Don’t try to lie to me.” He stared pointedly at my crotch. “I’m not helping you, so you better do it yourself.”
Part of me wanted to refuse. Well, part of me wanted to want to refuse. But, after a second’s deliberation, I was tearing at the buttons on my fly and shoving my hand in my pants.
“Oh, you’re not getting off that easy. Show me,” Landon demanded.
I was too close to the edge to argue. My cock was out in a moment, hard and stiff in my hand, the fat head poking out of my clenched fist on every drown stroke. I rucked my shirt up to give him an uninterrupted view of my stomach, the dark curls at the top of my groin, and the veins and shifting muscles of my forearm as I continued to play with myself.
“God, you really do love all this, don’t you? Me telling you what to do?” It was still commanding, but there was an element of wonder buried somewhere in his tone.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re desperate to come, aren’t you? But, this isn't how you’d like to do it, is it?” he asked.
“No…” I panted.
“I’m sorry, what?” His voice was all sharp again.
“No, sir.”
“How do would you want to come? Use your words.”
“Fuck,” my hand was a blur on my cock. It was hard not to be distracted. “I want… Fuck, I want to come with you inside me.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to have to earn that. Go ahead, show me. Show me how much you want me to fuck you, and, maybe, I’ll think about it.”
“How?” I asked desperately. I was so close.
“I want to watch you come all over yourself. Do it, right here where anyone could see. You don’t care, do you? You don’t care who sees you, do you? All desperate and slutty? That’s what you want,
right? Deep down? For everyone to know what a fucking whore you are for a cock?”
“Fuckkkk, no,” I denied.
He laughed. “Bullshit, don’t lie. You’re about to come all over yourself at the idea of someone seeing you and knowing how hungry you are for a hard fuck, how quickly you’ll spread your legs for a thick cock to split you open. For my thick cock to split you open.”
My head fell back against the headrest of my seat, my eyes closed. However, they snapped back open when I felt Landon lick up the column of my throat.
“That’s what you want most isn’t it, Nico?” He whispered into my ear, deep voice rattling my brain. “You don’t just want to give it up to any cock. You don’t just want people to see you. You want me. My cock. You want everyone to know you’re mine to fuck and whip and own.”
Fuck. I was so close. There was a noise, a high-pitched whining. Later, I’d realize it was me.
“Do it. Do it right now. Come, Nico. Now.”
“Oh God. Dios. God!”
And just like that, I came all over my clenching stomach with an orgasm that felt like it would never end, wave after wave of it making me spasm and jerk.
“Good enough for now,” he breathed, before pulling back.
Neither of us spoke as I tried to clean myself up with some napkins from the glovebox and Landon busied himself with tucking his soft cock back into his jeans.
Landon pulled off and continued to drive as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
“You’re good at that,” I said, breaking the silence.
He snorted and shook his head. “Shut up, kid. Wasn’t that the point?”
* * *
We finally made our way to the address Landon’s friend had given him, and he knocked on the door to a small house. A red-eyed, younger guy answered.
“Afternoon. My name is Landon Case. I’m looking for Nina Thurston,” Landon said, voice taking on that steely, take-no-shit tone it did when he was in cop mode.
The guy’s face screwed up. “Is this some sort of fucking joke, dude? If so, it’s not fucking funny.” He seemed like he was in pain.
Landon seemed confused. “No, son. I need to talk to her. I’m a sheriff’s deputy from Worthington.”
It was the man’s turn to look confused. He looked down before shaking his head, like he was trying to shake off his disbelief.
“Nina killed herself two weeks ago. Funeral was Tuesday.”
It was Friday now. Fuck.
10
Ordinarily, I might have reminded myself that the ‘rules’ that I’d set up for myself ever since this whole thing started had been steadily disintegrating over the course of knowing Nico. I wasn’t going to reopen the Suarez case, I was only going to run a name for him, I wasn’t going anywhere with him, I wasn’t going to Warton with him, and so on. But, well, we were already in Warton and Nina’s brother himself suggested that we could talk to his parents if we wanted to know more about Nina and it turned out they didn’t live too far away, anyway. At this point, I began feeling like we might as well follow the lead, if for no other reason than to do what I could to wipe that broken look off Nico’s face. If nothing else, I understood the frustration of not being able to do anything in a situation like this, and I at least wanted him to feel that we’d exhausted every lead before we headed home.
The drive to Nina’s parents’ house after speaking to her brother was quiet and even longer than any of the drives so far had been. I don’t mean distance or anything. All of the drives were through long stretches of arid country with not much of anything along the way. I mean because of the weight of the silence in the car. Previously, the rides had been full of bickering back and forth, Nico metaphorically putting himself forward and then dancing back out of reach just to come back towards me. Even if they weren’t like that, he was asking questions or talking about school, mouthing off about something, or just being a general brat.
This, this was different.
He’d never seemed older. With his baby face, I figured people usually underestimated how old he was but the news that we’d missed Nina so narrowly and so permanently seemed to weigh on him and made him look older than he was. From what I could tell anyway. There wasn’t much distance that he could put between us but, how he could, he did. I think he must have stared out the window the entire time it took us to get to the Thurstons’ house.
Even when I tried to shake him out of it, he stubbornly stayed crushed. I tried starting conversations, baiting him into a minor argument, anything, but he was as quiet as I’d ever heard him and, Nico being quiet? It was almost eerie. Not that I could blame him. If I hadn’t been so experienced in leads that went nowhere myself, I think I’d have felt the same way, never mind the fact that this was his family on the line here
He stayed quiet until we pulled into the driveway of the address we’d received from Nina’s brother. Blinking as if out of a haze, he looked at me questioningly once he didn’t feel the car moving anymore and shook the rest of the trance off. Wordlessly, he started getting his things together to go inside and talk to the Thurstons.
“Are you good?” I asked as he still avoided looking at me. Nothing in response, just a quick nod. “It’s okay, if you’re not,” I pressed. “I get that this is high stakes for you but when I—"
“I’m okay,” Nico said, quickly. “I’ll be good.”
I think I was getting ready to try and explain why I understood his situation so well, but, maybe he was right. Maybe parked in the Thurstons’ driveway wasn’t the time or place for it, so I nodded back.
“All right. Let me do the talking. We’ve got this. Come on,” I encouraged, as he finished gathering his things and let himself out of the car.
Nina’s parents were older, suburban people. They’d obviously loved their daughter to pieces since, as soon as I introduced Nico and myself and explained what we were after, Mrs. Thurston’s eyes grew wet with tears that she tried to blink back. They were kind people, though. How obviously upset she was didn’t stop Nina’s mother form inviting us into their living room, making sure we had lemonade and bringing out cookies for us.
While the Thurstons weren’t looking, I caught Nico’s eyes and jabbed my head at the cookies. Take one, I communicated. Sometimes people who’d just lost a loved one that they nurtured felt the need to keep on nurturing, and it was important to accept the gesture. Police work had taught me as much. Nico got it, I think, and did his best to force down a cookie, for as little as he must have felt like eating.
She hadn’t mentioned the murder. She hadn’t mentioned what she had seen. She had avoided telling her aging parents about the danger that she’d been in because, well, of course she had. You knew from looking at them that you didn’t want to worry the Thurstons anymore than you had to because they must have worried about Nina constantly.
“Mrs. Thurston, ma’am, I know it’s hard and I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t very important, but—” I gestured at Nico. He understood and slipped the letter out of the folder he kept it in and handed it to me to hand to Mr. Thurston. “Do you by chance recognize or remember hearing or seeing anything about this letter? We think it might be by Nina.”
Mrs. Thurston, who kept dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, moved closer to her husband to read the letter. At the same time, both of them glanced up at each other, and Mrs. Thurston shook her head at him before excusing herself out of the living room.
“I’m sorry, officer,” Mr. Thurston said, refolding the letter and handing it back to me. “I wish we could help. Some parts of it sound like our Nina but, unfortunately, I can tell you one hundred percent that this isn’t Nina’s handwriting. I don’t know whose it might be. I’m sorry.”
As soon as Mr. Thurston said as much, my heart dropped, and I knew immediately what was coming. It was our turn—me and Nico’s—to glance at each other, but I was already prepared. Keep it together, I thought, hardening my gaze. Keep it together. These people are grieving, too. For his part, Nico
couldn’t help the look of shock and disappointment on his face, but he must have caught my meaning again because he quickly composed himself and put a brave face on.
In the meantime, Mrs. Thurston was returning from the kitchen with a brightly colored piece of paper in her hands. A Christmas card, it turned out.
“It’s not Nina’s writing, officer, and it may not look just alike but, maybe it looks a little like this?” Mrs. Thurston asked, as she showed us the Christmas card. Normally, handwriting analysis wasn’t the kind of thing you just eyeballed in the field or anything, but she wasn’t wrong. Holding the letter up to my face and then the Christmas card, I could be convinced that the same person had written both. The letter seemed deliberate and neat and the card seemed quickly scrawled, but there was definitely something there. I looked at the signature and offered Mrs. Thurston her card back.
“Zane?” I asked.
“Nina’s roommate in Gaton,” Nina’s father explained, “Zane’s family to us. He was such good friends with Nina, and he made sure that she was alright even when she left home. He’s been like a son to us through all of this. Zane Starr,” Mr. Thurston emphasized as he saw me hurriedly jot down the facts.
We apologized for disturbing them, but they assured us it was fine. We thanked them for their time, and they hoped that they’d been helpful. Nico only spoke towards the end to express his condolences and to say our goodbyes before we climbed back into the car.
“Unwrap that and eat one,” I told Nico in reference to the bundle of cookies Mrs. Thurston had insisted on handing him on the way out. “She’s watching you from the doorway.”
Nico checked to verify that this was true and broke off a piece of cookie into his mouth out of politeness. Either way it worked, and the look on Mrs. Thurston’s face softened into a sad smile as she waved her last goodbye to us and went inside. As I pulled out of the driveway and Nico gave up on his half-cookie, I shook my head. People have strange ways of coping with grief. I’d joined the force hoping to beat up any thugs I could in place of the ones that attacked Noah and Mrs. Thurston had taken one look at Nico’s babyface and immediately started mothering and fussing again. It would have been hard not to even if she hadn’t been in her situation, I thought, he looked vulnerable, and younger, like he was nursing an invisible wound and like he needed taking care of.