by Onley James
Loved one? Ashes? That didn’t sound like a pet. Had Calder lost somebody recently? If he had, he clearly wasn’t interested in sharing that information with Robby. He backed up a few steps and made a production of clearing his throat so Calder wouldn’t feel like Robby had snuck up on him.
“That was fast,” Calder said, turning around to look at him, that slick half-smirk on his face. The one Robby hadn’t seen since their shower that first day. Robby called it Calder’s ‘casanova look.’
“Shit, Casanova,” Robby cried, earning a confused look from Calder. “I didn’t give him his meds or his breakfast.”
He noticed then that his beloved dog was curled up sleeping on the back of Calder’s couch. There’s no way Cas would have let him forget to feed him. Robby turned to narrow his eyes at Calder. “Why’s he so quiet? Did you drug him?”
Calder shook his head. “Yes, I did. I fed him too. Before you even got your butt out of bed this morning.”
“Oh. How did you…”
“There are pet-sitting instructions in that box of his. I took care of him while you were in the clink, remember?”
Robby flushed. “Thank you.”
Calder backed Robby up against the wall. “Well, I figured if I let that gremlin die, you wouldn’t let me see you naked anymore.”
“You’re right,” Robby murmured, initiating a kiss. “What should we do until Wyatt and Charlie get here with my clothes?”
Calder wrapped his arms around him and kissed him thoroughly. “I’m going to teach you something useful.”
Robby liked the sound of that. His hands slid down to Calder’s ass, pulling him closer. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”
Calder grinned. “Self-defense.”
Robby could feel his face contorting into a sour look against his will. “What?”
“Self-defense. I’m worried you won’t know how to protect yourself when this is all over. I can be your Mr. Miyagi.”
Robby blinked at him. “My who?”
Calder gaped at him. “Mr. Miyagi? Daniel-san. The Karate Kid? Christ, angel. We’ve got to get you up to speed on your classic films. This is downright embarrassing.”
“I was raised in a cult. I didn’t see a computer until I was fifteen. Movie nights weren’t really a thing until my dad took over and decided we needed to modernize,” Robby reminded him.
Calder shrugged in a ‘fair enough’ gesture. “Good point. Luckily for you, angel face, I happen to be gifted in many things. We will watch all the movies, I’ll teach you all the ways to protect this hot body of yours, and I’ll teach you all the fun things to do with said body… Well, not all, but almost all.”
Who was this man? How did he let everything just roll off of him like life was just one big joke while Robby felt like every decision was life or death? Maybe Calder could show him how to not take things so seriously? “Calder Seton, life coach. How very LA of you,” Robby mused.
Calder grinned, wiggling his brows. “I prefer your sexual sensei.”
Robby rolled his eyes. “Of course, you do.”
“Come on. Let me teach you how to protect yourself.”
Robby’s heart sank. That was the thing, though. Calder couldn’t teach him the one thing he truly needed to know. Robby didn’t care about protecting his body. That’s what he had Calder for. What he needed was to protect his heart, and he was pretty sure it was far too late for that. “Okay, fine. You win.”
“Gotta hit harder than that, angel face.”
Robby blew air out through his nose, his jaw clenched tighter than his fists, which he dropped to his sides as he glared at Calder with a hostility he hadn’t thought the boy possessed. Sweat glistened off his chest and forehead, Calder’s borrowed joggers hanging low on his hips. “I’m hitting as hard as I can.”
Calder let his eyes roam Robby’s well muscled body. “I find that hard to believe, beautiful. You don’t get a body like yours without working out hard.”
Robby flushed and glanced down at himself as if he’d never seen his body before. “I got this body because a guy named Sven yelled at me every morning for a year and forced me to lift weights and eat things that taste like cardboard. If I wasn’t an actor, I’d probably be a big pile of mush because working out sucks and food tastes good.”
Calder barked out a laugh. “Well, for now, you are an actor and you can hit way harder than you are, so come on, let’s do this.” Calder slapped the pads covering his hands together. “Pick up your fists. Protect your face with your left and jab with your right.”
Robby did as Calder instructed. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, his irritation seemed to grow with each swing until he was snarling whenever he jabbed or crossed, hitting harder, making Calder’s palms sting. Every time Robby dropped the arm guarding his face, Calder thumped a pad against the boy’s cheek hard enough to remind him to pick up his hands.
As time passed, the boy’s fatigue grew evident. His swings became more wild, less accurate. When he missed Calder’s pads entirely and socked him in the jaw, Calder dropped them to the floor and caught his fist with his hand, spinning the boy around and pinning his arm behind his back, careful not to hurt him. “And here I thought you didn’t have a mean bone in your body. That hurt, angel face.”
Robby panted hard as he craned his head back to look up at Calder, blinking sweat out of his moss green eyes as he fluttered long lashes at him. “It was an accident,” he said, voice filled with mock innocence.
“I think you’re lying to me,” Calder purred against his ear.
Robby shrugged, his expression flirty. “Prove it.”
Fuck. Calder knew he needed to keep the boy focused, but it was awfully hard when everything about him screamed for Calder to pin him to the wall and fuck him. He let himself trace the shell of the boy’s ear with his tongue. He tasted like salt and clean sweat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to distract me so you could get out of practice.”
Robby turned his head and let his lips graze Calder’s jaw, ducking out of his grip just as Calder tried to capture his mouth, dancing away with fancy footwork like he was suddenly Mohammed Ali. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we don’t know each other,” he quipped, grabbing his water bottle off the table and taking a big swig.
Calder raised a brow. “Careful, angel. Nobody likes a tease.”
Robby locked eyes with him as he drained the bottle, water escaping the sides of his plush mouth to fall on his chest and slide down the ridges of his abdomen. “You’re the one who decided this would be a better use of our time, not me.”
Calder gave him a half smile. He wasn’t wrong, but it was a job and he had to at least try to earn his paycheck. “We have plenty of time for whatever dirty thoughts are swirling around in that pretty head of yours later . This is important.”
Robby stomped his foot and whined in what Calder could only describe as a hissy fit. He bit down on his lower lip to keep from laughing as the boy said, “Is it? Why? I hired you to protect me. I don’t want to hit anybody, and I don’t want anybody hitting me. I don’t like being hit in the face. I don’t like being hit at all. The whole point of hiring you was so that you will keep people from hitting me.”
The boy was a ball of emotions, the living embodiment of chaotic energy. Loud one minute, quiet the next. Timid one minute, bold the next. Scared all the time but had no filter at all when it came to his thoughts. Calder couldn’t figure out how the world seemed to just pass Robby over. It was like Calder had some supernatural gift to see something the rest of the world couldn’t. Robby was a ghost that seemed to appear only to him. It seemed a shame to squander such a generous gift, but now wasn’t the time.
“Okay, how about this? I’ll teach you some basic self-defense moves and then we’ll call it a day. I’m going to come at you from behind, and I want you to just do your best to try to get away. Okay?”
Robby eyed him warily but eventually nodded before turning away.
Calder allowed himself a moment to ap
preciate the swell of the boy’s ass and the perfect dimples that sat just above it on the boy’s lower back. Calder wanted to lick his way along Robby’s spine, wanted to dip his tongue in those dimples. Wanted to spread Robby open and taste the very core of him. He shook the thought away, noting the boy’s tension. “Relax, angel. You’re not supposed to see this coming. You need to be able to respond instinctively.”
Robby shot him another sour look over his shoulder. “We’ve been at this for two hours. I’m tired. I’m obviously not a fighter. Why is that a bad thing?”
“Ordinarily, it’s not,” Calder drawled. “But somebody broke into your house with nefarious intentions, and even if you can’t—or won’t—throw a punch, you still need to be able to defend yourself if somebody comes after you again. If you hate fighting that much, I won’t make you, but you have to know some self-defense strategies. At least give me that.”
Robby rolled his eyes. “If they come at me from the front, hand to nose, knee to groin. If they come at me from the back, elbow to the ribs, heel to instep. I’ve seen Miss Congeniality too, you know. I’ve got it.”
Calder sighed. “Please take this serious, angel. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Then you should stay close and do your job,” Robby snarked.
Calder shook his head at the sass. “I have every intention of staying close, very close, but I need to know, for my own peace of mind, that you can take care of yourself.”
“I mean, I’ve only been attacked twice and both times I walked away,” Robby pointed out, his tone almost smug.
Calder grinned. “Well, you won’t always have a cheese knife or a sex toy to defend yourself with.”
Robby’s cheeks went pink, and he whipped his head back around so Calder could no longer see his face. He was so easily embarrassed. Calder had never thought he’d find this shy, bashful shit attractive but everything Robby did turned him on. He just always found himself wanting to touch him, inhale his scent, taste his skin. Calder drifted closer, all thoughts of safety gone by the wayside. He slid his hands around Robby’s waist, pulling him back against him.
“Is this your attack?” Robby whispered, breathless.
Calder’s hands slid up, playing with the bars through Robby’s nipples. “Depends. Is it working?”
Robby moaned, his back arching to rub his ass against Calder’s already hard cock, straining against the zipper of his jeans. “I don’t feel much like defending myself.”
“No?” Calder murmured.
“Uh-uh.”
“What do you want?”
“Kiss?” Robby asked, his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath Calder’s splayed hands, like he anticipated Calder’s refusal.
As if Calder would say no to that. He turned him around and tilted his chin up. Robby lifted up on his toes to lick over Calder’s open lips once then twice before closing the distance between their mouths. He wrapped his arms around Robby, hands sliding over the slick muscles of the boy’s back. But he didn’t stop there, he slid his hands into the boy’s pants, gripping his ass and lifting him up. Robby didn’t hesitate, his legs wrapping around Calder’s waist, his arms encircling Calder’s neck.
He briefly thought of dropping the boy onto the sofa but decided the living room wall worked just fine. Robby must have thought so too because he moaned into Calder’s mouth, biting at his lips the way Calder had done to him earlier. There was nothing gentle or slow this time. Their kisses were all teeth and tongue and then Calder was fucking his hips up against Robby without any thought to technique or Robby’s lack of experience. This was just about getting off.
Calder shifted Robby’s weight, bracing him against the wall so he could shove their clothes out of the way and grip both their cocks in his hand. Robby’s pupils were blown wide and he swallowed hard as he watched Calder jerk them off, tiny half-bitten cries falling from his mouth before he clamped his teeth down hard on his bottom lip and let his head fall back against the wall.
Calder worked them both hard and fast, helped along by sweat and precum. Robby’s heels spurred him on, digging into his thighs as he drove himself into Calder’s fist with abandon. “I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come,” he chanted, almost like he didn’t know he spoke, then Calder’s fist was slick with Robby’s release. He continued to jerk them both, using Robby’s cum as lube. Robby brought his forehead to Calder’s whispering, “I love that I can make you come. I want to feel it. Please.”
It was the please that did it, rocketing Calder over the edge, pleasure licking along his spine as he came hard between them. “Christ, kid. The mouth on you. Who would have thought it?”
This time, it was Calder who didn’t let go, clinging to him as he waited for his heart rate to return to normal. Robby took advantage of their close proximity, reaching between them and gathering their cum on his fingers and holding it up for Calder in silent askance. Calder took the boy’s fingers between his lips, sucking his fingers just as Robby had his that morning. The boy’s eyes grew wide, like part of him had expected Calder to refuse.
He should have refused. He shouldn’t have let Robby lick his fingers clean that morning. He should have warned him about safe sex and condoms, that was the responsible thing to do. But Calder knew he was clean. He used condoms. He was tested frequently, used PrEP. He was careful and Robby was a virgin, completely untouched in almost every sense of the word. The one type of lover Calder had avoided like the plague. Yet, now his worst nightmare had somehow become his hottest fantasy. Calder wanted to pretend it made no sense. That it was the novelty of the boy, but some annoying voice in the back of his head kept calling him a liar and Calder had yet to figure out a way to shut it up.
Robby jumped as a loud buzz echoed through the space. Calder sighed, setting the boy on his feet and righting his jeans. “I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be Wyatt and Charlie. You should probably go clean up real quick if you don’t want to answer a million questions.”
Robby gave a hesitant nod before fixing his joggers and walking towards the bathroom, head down like Calder had done something wrong. Had he? Probably. It was just who he was as a person. It was better if Robby got used to disappointment now. When it came to Calder fucking up, that train was never late.
Calder let Wyatt and Charlie in while Robby cleaned up and then excused himself to the bedroom to let them talk in private. He needed to start doing his job. Robby had hired him to keep him safe and Calder intended to do just that, but guarding Robby’s body wasn’t Calder’s only skill. He was a private investigator. He didn’t need to sit back and wait for the officers to do their job. Somebody had tried to harm Robby, and it was imperative that Calder determined whether this was just an accident of circumstance—wrong place, wrong time—or whether Robby actually had a target on his back.
He pulled up a number on his phone and hit call.
A smooth, unbothered voice answered. “Tex-ass. What’s up, brother?”
Calder rolled his eyes at Webster’s nickname. “Sup, poindexter. Think you could step away from your mirror for five minutes? I need a favor.”
Webster was Elite’s resident computer expert, though he looked more like an underwear model who was trying to make himself look like a computer nerd. Nobody would really know he was actually a fairly lethal fighter too.
“What’s the matter? Give your laptop herpes again looking at porn?” the man quipped. There was a sound like movement, and then Webster was mumbling something Calder couldn’t make out to whoever he was with. Suddenly, he was back. “What do you need?”
“An ME report.”
There was a long-suffering sigh. “Can’t you just request the findings like a normal person? Hacking municipalities is boring. It takes literally no skill on my part. It’s insulting, really.”
Calder snickered and shook his head. “How quick can you get it to me?”
“Twenty minutes if it’s in their system. Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
Calder knew what he was l
ooking for but he didn’t want to get so focused he missed something. “Yeah, but just get me everything that’s back.”
“Yeah, man. You got it.”
Webster disconnected the call without another word, and Calder opened his laptop, positioning himself in the chair in his bedroom that allowed him to keep Robby in his line of sight while he started digging into Magnus Dei. Twenty minutes into his search, he stumbled upon a group on reddit started by former members. The horror stories turned Calder’s stomach and left him looking at Robby in an entirely new light.
What the fuck had this kid been through? How had he remained so positive and sweet after a monster like Jeff Deaton, aka Brother Samuel, had entered their lives, and later, the evil machinations of his own father? Would Calder end up being another monster who hurt Robby? Deep down, he already knew the answer, and it made him hate himself even more.
Robby was both relieved and disappointed to take off Calder’s clothes and replace them with Wyatt’s. The white joggers and black Chanel hoodie fit perfectly and were far more luxurious than anything Robby currently had in his closet. But they didn’t smell like Calder and Robby found he really liked smelling like the older man, even if he smelled like oil paints all the time. His visit with his friends hadn’t lasted long because Wyatt had therapy and Charlie had an audition, but it was still nice that they seemed like they weren’t bailing on him despite how high maintenance his friendship probably seemed to them now.
Robby put the duffle bag full of borrowed clothes on the floor of Calder’s bedroom and wandered around the house aimlessly before settling on the sofa and flipping on Calder’s huge television and surfing through the channels, unable to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. His head swam with thoughts of dead bodies and paparazzi swarming around his old place just waiting to grill him and ask him invasive questions he had no way to answer.