by Peter Styles
I did keep walking the ‘rules’ for myself back, didn’t I? I kept finding one reason after another to go the next step in this case, to follow another lead, to drill down a little deeper just in case we’d missed a clue and so on. But, I couldn’t in good conscience drive him back to Worthington like this. I could almost hear every thought that I imagined going through his head. He was probably thinking about how he’d failed his uncle, he was probably thinking about what life was going to be like going forward, he was probably feeling stupid for having even tried to reopen this case, he was probably remembering every promise that he’d made to his uncle about sorting this out for him. He was probably thinking the exact same things I was thinking at Noah’s hospital bed as I watched the ventilator breathe for him.
It wasn’t right. Maybe we’d never find anything to exonerate Nico’s uncle and maybe there wasn’t anything to find. Maybe I was only halfway thinking of the possibility of exonerating Oliver. I think, instead, I was suddenly convinced that regardless of whether Oliver was guilty or not, Oliver wasn’t Nico and for Nico’s sake, this couldn’t end here. It would feel cruel to end it without seeing it through, and how the hell could I do that when he kept on trying to hide the fact that he was blinking back the beginnings of tears?
I took a deep breath and then exhaled, preparing myself to say what I had never in a million years imagined myself. For some reason that I just knew wasn’t going to let me sleep in peace at night, I, Landon Case, was about to convince him, Nico Suarez, to keep on prying into the Suarez case.
“We’ll stop and run the address when we get closer to Gaton,” I announced. Nico was curled around himself in the passenger seat still staring out the window and trying to subtly wipe at his face every so often.
“We’re going to Gaton?” he asked, lowly.
“I figured.” I nodded as I drove, trying to not look at him to give him his privacy. “Zane Starr, right? We’ve come all this way we might as well.”
Nico looked at me but shrugged and turned away again. I alternated between keeping my eyes on the road and looking at him. I thought for sure the fact that there was still one more lead would have lit a fire under him again.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, “We might have found the trail again,” I tried to point out, but Nico just shook his head slowly.
“Thanks. You know. For everything. I mean it,” he said, still quieter than he usually was.
“Hey? Hey. What’s wrong, kid? This is a good thing.”
“It is?” Nico asked, turning once again to look at me. “If Nina’s dead, I don’t know that any of this matters anymore. Maybe none of it ever mattered. It’s like you said at the beginning, she might have seen something, and that was already kind of iffy. But now she’s gone, so we don’t even have that. We don’t even really have a letter written by her. We have a letter that might have been written by some Zane Starr. Or, might not have. I appreciate what you’ve done, but I think it’s been pointless. Maybe my tio was right. Maybe I should just be in class right now.”
“No, none of that,” I shook my head at the steering wheel. “No. Yes, you ought to be in school, yes, your uncle was right about that. But, we’ve come this far, and we won’t know if it helps until we see it through. So…” I looked over at him and at least now he was looking at me, so that was progress. “So, we’ll see it through. I promise.”
Nico didn’t say anything, but, he readjusted again to curl back up. This time, though, he curled up to face me and to fiddle with his phone instead. Well, I counted that as a progress, too.
We wound up making it back to Gaton late, so pretty soon we found ourselves back in another hotel room-- me, running the report on Zane’s address and Nico showering.
I was getting my notes together and comparing the pictures I’d taken of the Christmas card with the letter when Nico walked out. Once again, completely naked.
“We have the room,” Nico said, holding his towel in a way that covered absolutely nothing, still deadly serious after the streak of bad news we’d been getting lately.
I blinked at him. This would have been a great time for cop instinct to kick in, and to tell him that I was focusing on making the most out of this Zane Starr lead. It would have been a great time to be so distracted by work that I could not look at him—at the way his tattoos wrapped around his arms to emphasize the contours of his muscles, the way his hip bones jutted out under the cut of his oblique muscles, the way that trail of dusty brown fuzz started at his belly button and tracked your eyes down all the way to that cock of his, growing longer and darker the longer I stared—but, I wasn’t distracted. Not by work, anyway.
God, every second was making it harder and harder to stay in cop-mode. I couldn’t be objective when he was standing there dripping, asking for it. Not when I felt like this and not when I knew that all he might be after his release from a hell of a day and still didn’t care. I couldn’t stay focused. I couldn’t say no. At this point, it felt stupid to even try.
Nico was taking himself into his hand and rubbing the pad of a thumb over the head of his cock. He was looking down, waiting for an answer, and when no answer came, must have grown impatient. He tilted his head up, looking at me through his eyelashes, and that was that for me.
“Come here,” I said, giving up. “Drop the towel and come here.”
His eyes seemed to burn into mine as he did what I’d asked. And even though there was so much on offer, all I could do was look back at him. He seemed almost haunted, the eyes I’d seen in the faces of desperate people time and time again both on the battlefield and on the streets of Worthington.
All that tension needed an outlet. He couldn’t fight Nina Thurston. He couldn’t fight the system. But he could fight me—the memory of the sweet sting in my jaw was evidence of that.
Nico said nothing. His lips set in a grim line. I reached out and took his square jaw in my hand.
“You’re mad,” I observed. There was part of me that wanted to comfort him. I knew, by now, though, that wasn’t what he wanted, what he needed.
“No shit, Case.”
My thumb slid lazily across his plump bottom lip.
“I thought we’d solved the problem of your smart mouth earlier today.”
Quick as a flash, he’d bitten the pad of that same thumb, and I hissed in sudden pain.
“You thought so?” he mocked.
“Dangerous,” I warned.
“Hardly, Papi.”
I wanted to grin at his impertinence. I also wanted to whip him until he bruised. Instead, with my hand still on his jaw, I slammed into the wall. Before he could catch his breath, I had him flipped around, his cheek now pressed into the plaster and me pressed up against him.
He made a sound somewhere between a groan and a whine.
Bingo.
“Sure about that?” I asked calmly into his ear.
He tried to arch, tried to press back into me more fully where my cock, still clothed, rested at the top of his ass. I watched a drop of water follow down from his still damp hair and onto his neck. Unlike this morning, I let myself do what I wanted, and lapped it up, the ozone of fresh water and the salt of his skin bursting across my tongue.
He tried to buck me off him, again, his temper still red-hot, but I slammed him back into the wall.
“You know what I think, Nico?”
He didn’t say anything. His shoulders were still tense, high and tight.
“I think,” I continued. “This is what you wanted from the very beginning. As soon as I had you face down in the pavement this was all you could fucking think about, wasn’t it? Hmm? Answer me.”
“Dios,” he breathed.
“Not quite. Not yet.”
My hands slipped down to press into the muscles of his lower back and I let up just enough to palm his ass.
“Shit. Knew your ass would be amazing,” I praised. “Can you be good for me?”
“Fuck you,” he snarled.
Crack. My hand snapped agai
nst his ass.
“Let me rephrase that. You will be good for me, or there will be consequences. Put your hands up above your head.” Finally, after an age, he hands went up, palms flat against the wall.
My hands moved from his ass, up his sides, up and up to his mouth.
“Get them nice and wet.”
His mouth opened, and he sucked on them as if he’d never tasted anything better.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” I rasped.
My other hand worked down Nico’s stomach I began to stroke him with a firm hand, but far slower than I knew Nico wanted. He groaned around my fingers, but diligently kept sucking as I fisted the crown of his cock.
Eventually, I pulled my fingers out of his mouth, and traced instead down the base of his spine until finally they found the tight pucker of his hole.
As I traced his rim, Nico’s head tilted back onto my shoulder.
“Fuck, look at you. You’re so desperate for it, aren’t you? Hmm?”
“Yes, please. Come on. Do it.”
“What? This?” I asked, just barely pressing one of my fingers inside him.
“Fuck. Landon. Yes, yes, yes. Sir, please.”
I pressed farther inside, his ass clinging around my fingers as a stretched him slowly. Time had slowed and sped up. I could have spent hours there pushing in and out in a sinuous slide. I may have.
He was begging--nonsense words in a garble of Spanish and English that weren’t quite recognizable as either.
Finally, I couldn’t take any more. There was a condom in my wallet and a small packet of lube. Before he could groan too much at the loss of my fingers, I was slipping inside him. I paused as the head of my cock made it past his tight muscles, waiting for him to adjust. Once I felt him give, my hand went to grip in his hair, arching him back into me as I fucked him savagely, my hips pumping as hard and as deep as his body would let me go.
It felt like flying. Fuck, it felt like drowning. I watched my cock disappearing into his ass, his cheeks shaking with the power of my thrusts.
“Is this what you needed? Someone to fuck the attitude out of you?” I asked.
His only response was a high-pitched whine.
“That’s it. Give it up to me. Do you want to come?”
“Sí, papi.”
“Tough,” I replied coolly. “Do you think you’ve earned it? Hmm? Do you?”
“Sir, please. Please!”
I could feel myself getting close. I wanted to mark him. I wanted him to be changed forever.
“Who do you belong to, Nico? Say it. Say it and you can come.”
He didn’t respond immediately. My hips went even faster, but I stayed there suspended in time until I heard the words.
“Come on, baby. Say the words. Who do you belong to?”
“Fuck, fuck. You. I’m yours, sir. Fuck, I’m yours.”
My other hand went down to strip his cock rapidly, and it only took a few strokes between he was coming around me and I was pumping him full of my come.
The moments afterward were calm, oddly peaceful. Nico was fucked out, all thought of anything other than sleep seemingly driven out. After I’d cleaned him up, guided him carefully into my own bed, me curling around his back did he say anything at all.
“Thank you,” he sighed.
I chuckled. “Any time, kid.”
It worried me how much I meant it.
11
“The only thing that I don’t get—” I said, my legs sprawling around the car as I reviewed the details of the case with Landon, “is why Nina’s roommate would write a letter and then sign it as Nina. Is he one of those people that you mentioned?”
“Well, I guess that would depend on what people that I mentioned you’re talking about,” Landon shot back. “What people that I mentioned?”
“You know, one of those people who gets all excited about a big news story or a case and wants to be a part of it? That was my tio’s first instinct, too, when I showed him the letter.”
“Could be,” Landon agreed, “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions about it just yet. Usually, when there’s something funny like that going on, it’s easy to write it off as people being crazy or dumb, but assuming that can mean you miss out on people’s real intentions and motivations.” Landon shrugged.
Well, that made sense. Getting to know him as well as I had on our road trips from Worthington to Gaton to Warton and back, it was clear to me that Landon was at least a good cop, if not a good guy who also happened to be a cop. I appreciated what he’d done for me yesterday. Yesterday, I’d felt as though all hope was lost and was trying to find ways to picture the future without my uncle. To be honest, what scared me the most is that I heard in my own voice the same resignation that I’d heard in my tio’s voice when I’d gone to see him at the prison.
With the news that we were so close to meeting Nina and the news that she’d never be able to testify now and the news that maybe the letter that had started this whole thing may not have even been real, I was beginning to see no way out of prison for my tio. I’d walked out of the shower, though, and seen Landon trying to piece things together and, maybe for the first real time in my life, I’d known what I needed.
What I needed then, more than anything else, was the ability to let go of all the fears, hopelessness, and guilt that’d been chasing each other around in my mind all day. What I needed was the ability to let myself fall and have someone else catch me. I’d needed release and somewhere on my knees between Landon’s thighs as he praised me and corrected me, I’d found it, and I felt ten times better today. I hadn’t been able to appreciate the Zane Starr connection that Mrs. Thurston had made for us yesterday. It seemed such a remote possibility. But, today? After yesterday, today felt like a good day to pick back up where we’d left off and see what, if anything, this Zane Starr might be able to tell us.
Turned out Zane Starr wasn’t living at the address the Thurstons had given us anymore, but he was still in town, just with a new roommate. I couldn’t blame him. It was hard to go back to my tio’s house after all the anxious waiting and terrible news we got there. I wouldn’t be living in the apartment that I shared with Nina if I were Zane, either. At least this time we weren’t travelling out of Gaton anymore. On the other hand, I was beginning to mind the long goose chases up and down the dusty highways of Texas less if it meant having to get a room to ourselves almost every night.
Still, I was eager to see what Zane Starr had to say, so the fact that the address we had for Zane was still in town wasn’t so bad after all. We tracked down his new address, but just when we were closing in, we hit another bump in the road. Sure, it was pretty minor, but this close to what felt could be the final, definitive answer, it felt jarring, like our leashes were being yanked once again. I especially didn’t appreciate the fact that we were losing time, and it was dark when we did get to the address. Even then, Zane Starr didn’t come to the door. Someone else answered, instead, and all it took was him opening the door for me to decide that I didn’t want us to talk to him any more than we absolutely had to.
Nothing against him, personally. It’s just that as soon as he’d opened up and got a look of Landon standing in the doorway, he seemed like he almost couldn’t help the smile that spread over his mouth and the once-over—or, more like twice-over—that he gave Landon. Up and down, and up and down again. I knew that face. I’d probably made that face myself.
“Zane Starr? I’m Officer Case.” Landon asked, as professionally as he could, considering that he could almost definitely tell that he was in the process of being ogled.
“Close. Jake Starr. Zane’s my brother.” Jake paused after a second and realized that this could be bad and probably required him to think with his big head instead of his little one. “Is Zane okay?”
“As far as we know. He’s not in trouble or anything. We’re just looking for him,” Landon shook his head against Jake’s concern.
“We’re friends,” I said, pointedly.
“Friends of Nina’s. His old roommate, that is.”
“Well, he’s not here,” Jake told me, a little less sharply than he’d spoken to Landon just then.
“Well, can you tell us when he’ll be back?” Landon asked. He looked at me when he asked, and I must have been hiding the fact that I wanted to talk to Zane as soon as possible pretty badly because he added, “Or, tell us where he is?”
“I can,” Jake said, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, smiling again at Landon. “But maybe you don’t want to go find him where he is or, I don’t know,” Jake shrugged, exaggeratedly, “Maybe you do? Who knows? He’s at The Black Room downtown. Probably won’t be coming home tonight.”
Landon thanked him and turned away to go, both of us pointedly ignoring as Jake called mockingly, “I could go with you, Officer Case.”
* * *
“Dios mio,” I said, unable to hide my admiration for the Black Room. The Black Room went out of its way to be upscale. It was probably nicer than most regular clubs that I’d been to. There seemed to be all kinds of hallways that led down to places that you couldn’t see from the main showroom where people were drinking, hallways that promised all kinds of things that were really inconvenient to think about right now, even while I hungrily watched subs being led down them. Most subs, though, weren’t being led anywhere. Instead, they sat politely at their masters’ heels watching the show or were completely turned away from the show, mouthing in between their masters’ legs. It looked like we’d come in midway as the focus of attention, the center of everything, was a tall man in the middle of the room, enjoying the literal and metaphorical spotlight. He was leaner than Landon, though not by much, and he was dressed in a tight black t-shirt, black fatigues, and military boots. He was handsome-ish, but that’s not why everyone was looking at him.