by BA Tortuga
“Yeah, like I’d leave you…,” he heard Sonny mutter as he walked off.
Yeah, yeah. Sonny seriously lacked self-preservation sometimes. He checked around the house, looked in the basement windows, then inside. All clear.
Good girl, Carrie.
He nodded to Sonny, reset the electronic security with another code.
Sonny pulled right up to the door and came around to pop the trunk. That, at least, he did cautiously. But Rick and his… whatever didn’t pop up or anything.
“They still with us?” He headed down the porch step, watching for snakes.
“Yeah. Yeah, they’re breathing just fine. The blond is a little green about the gills, but they’ll be fine. We’ll have to wake them up and get some water in them, though.” Sonny had said that before, earlier, so if the man was that worried, they needed to do that ASAP.
“Okay. Let’s get them in, and I’ll drop an IV line in them both.”
“Oh, good idea, Precious.” Giving him a grateful smile, Sonny grabbed Rick under the arms and started hauling, the strength in that big body always fucking amazing.
“I have one or two of those every so often.” He grabbed some of the bags and dragged them up to the door. “We’ll put them in the basement.”
“Okay. I hope the stairs are short.” Panting, Sonny dragged Rick right on in as he opened the door, heaving the limp form up and over the doorjamb, then toward the basement when he led the way.
The basement was cool and comfortable and secure. “Put him down. I’ll get cots set up and the IVs started, man.”
He didn’t even wait to see where Sonny dropped Rick. He just started hunting sleeping bags and cots.
A few minutes later Sonny was back carrying the other one, and carrying him a little too damned carefully for MJ’s taste. A lot more carefully than he had Rick.
Asshole.
Rick got the cot. Tall, blond, and skinny got the fucking floor.
Bastard.
MJ considered kicking the man. Hard.
Sonny helped him out with the last IV, glancing at him out of the corners of those damned dark eyes and grinning. “So, Boomer. What now?”
“Don’t make me kill you, Sunshine. I just got used to working with a partner.”
“Partner. Yeah. Come on. They’ll be fine down here.” Sonny headed right back up the stairs, long legs driving that ass so it moved just so.
His mouth watered—literally watered—at the sight, and he headed up behind, feet pounding on the stairs.
His.
Sonny turned on him at the top of the stairs, slamming him up against the wall beside the door, that sweet, hot mouth crashing down on his like a ton of bricks. There was no joking or teasing now, just pure need.
He dug his fingers into Sonny’s hair, pulling the sorry, beautiful son of a bitch closer. He opened wide, tongue pushing back, fighting Sonny for more. He got what he asked for. Sonny rocked against him, kissing deep, tasting him. Bruising his lips. God, Sonny knew just where to bite, just where to squeeze.
More. Fuck yes. More. He dragged his nails down Sonny’s spine, hard enough to make his Sunshine hiss. Fumbling a little, Sonny yanked at MJ’s clothes, grunting when cloth ripped but not stopping one bit. Nope, Sonny kept at him until he was naked, pinching his nipples and cupping his cock. The kiss went wild, one of his legs wrapping around Sonny’s hip as he humped. Fuck, he needed. Now.
Sonny put both hands under his ass and yanked, pulling him right off his feet so they could get more friction. Then the man bent and bit his neck, hard, surely leaving a lurid mark.
“Fuck yes!” He got both legs wrapped around, hips rolling furiously so their cocks got the pressure they needed.
“MJ. Precious. I need so fucking bad.” Sonny’s eyes met his, just wild for him, Sonny’s lips swollen from his kisses. His. Not some naked dude in Rick’s apartment.
“Yeah. Yours.” He leaned in, forehead to forehead, knowing they couldn’t wait now, they both needed. “Come on. We’ll get the fucking edge off and settle and you can fuck me until I scream.”
“Uhn.” Just like that Sonny came, the scent of come strong and hot, Sonny’s hips snapping against his. “Oh. Fuck….”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” He reached down, got his fingers wet with Sonny’s come. He shot before he had his fingers sucked clean.
“Christ, MJ.” Sonny kissed him so hard he tasted blood, his lip grinding back against his teeth. He had to grin when they broke for air. That finger-licking thing got Sonny every fucking time.
“Better.” Not fucking done. Not yet. But better.
“Uh-huh. Need anything before we really get good?” His feet touched the floor, Sonny easing him down and patting his butt. “Because I’m gonna tear you up, and I won’t want to stop for a bathroom run or a drink.”
“Just secure the door here and get the fucking lube. I need.”
“Mine.” Sonny got the door, putting a chair in front of it, then followed him to the little bedroom, crowding him, carrying their bag. The man had the right priorities.
“You know it. Yours.” He tugged the blankets off the bed, settling right down so he could watch Sonny move.
Sonny stripped off the rest of their clothes before rummaging for the lube. Then Sonny stalked him, advancing on the bed like the predator he was, cock already rising again. “Ready to ride, Precious?”
“You ready to make me scream, Sunshine?” He spread his legs, fingers wrapping around his cock.
“Uh-huh. I am so ready for that, babe. I tell you what, this whole delayed gratification thing is not my bag.” The bed dipped, Sonny crawling up between his legs, pushing his hand away from his skin. “Stop that. Mine.”
“Prove it.” It was all he could do to not arch up and beg for it, but he didn’t. Go him for having a little self-control.
“Always with the dare.” The cap from the lube went flying, and Sonny slicked up two fingers and shoved them right into him without even a warning, stretching him so hard and fast he saw stars.
“Sonny!” He grabbed his knees, pulling up and back, giving it right up.
“Yeah. Yeah, MJ. God, fucking hot for me.” He wasn’t quite over the sting when Sonny’s fingers pulled out and Sonny’s cock lined up to slam into him, but the burn made it even better. Hotter.
“More. More, now. I need this. You.” The tension in him made his shoulders leave the mattress, belly tight as a board.
“More. God.” He got more, Sonny pushing in over and over, just slamming into him. Those big hands bracketed his hips, yanking him up so Sonny could change the angle, pegging his gland again and again.
MJ just let himself go, crying out over and over, letting all the stress and bullshit out. Yes. Need. Good. Fuck. Grunting, Sonny gave it to him, sweat dripping down Sonny’s face, that fine skin flushed deep red. Sonny always gave him what he needed. Always. One big hand finally cupped his ass, the other reaching for his cock, just like Sonny had promised.
“Sonny….” He groaned, prick jerking, heat spraying over Sonny’s hand, dripping onto his belly.
“Oh fuck, Precious. Fuck yes.” Sonny looked right into his eyes and came, filling him up so hot and good his prick gave one last twitch of approval.
“Love.” He reached up, traced Sonny’s lips. “Much fucking better.”
His finger slipped right into Sonny’s mouth, and Sonny sucked it, licking it. “You know it,” Sonny said. “Needed you.”
“Yeah. Balls to bones.”
“You know it.” Flopping next to him, Sonny grinned, one hand lying possessively on his hip, fingers moving idly. “We’re napping before we think, yeah?”
“Door’s secure, right?” He dragged Sonny’s jeans over, grabbed the .45 and shoved it under his pillow.
“It is. We’re good.” Sonny nuzzled up to him, spooning before he could roll back to his back. Yeah, that was the life.
Even if they were still on dry land.
Chapter Twenty
HIS HEAD might simply f
all off. Neil decided that it might be preferable if it did. His mouth felt like Napoleon’s entire army had slept there on the night preceding Waterloo. His head pounded, and his stomach felt utterly revolting and also like it might revolt.
And someone, somewhere, was… broadcasting.
Moaning, he tried to roll over and tell Paddy to stop—his hangover was too bad to listen to such wild thoughts. But he found himself unable to move, his hands caught behind him, something covering his mouth. And that, naturally, was when he began to panic, thrashing about fiercely.
The babbling got worse, Paddy escalating from wildness to pure hysteria, the thoughts slamming against him. Neil tried to roll, and something crashed down on him, something that felt like supple plastic and a metal pole. The noise became deafening in his head, and he screamed behind whatever it was in his mouth, trying to drown it out.
Something creaked and groaned, and then someone landed against him, all knees and elbows poking against him, weight holding him down.
Neil tried to breathe, tried to get his head together. He knew how to find his center, knew how to build his mental wall brick by brick. It was Paddy against him, confused and hungry and panicky too, and every brick Neil tried to put into place against that bright, sharp mind slipped right out of his mental hands. Paddy’s pointed chin caught the cloth in his mouth, dragged it out of his lips with a tug and a sharp flash of pain.
“Oh. Oh God.” His voice came out raw, like someone had taken a rasp to his vocal cords. But his mouth was free. “Paddy. Paddy, please.”
Paddy went still, the thoughts suddenly sharp, focused. Neil. Neil. Alive. Neil. Oh God. Neil.
Yes. “Yes. Love. I want to try to get to your mouth. Can you hold still?” His own thoughts were working just fine. It wasn’t just Paddy he heard, though. That was what was so… deafening.
Sex. Violence. Boomer. Explosions. Cars. Drugs. Booze. Fear. Worry. They just kept coming, swirling everywhere. Paddy, though, stayed still for him, panic turning to curiosity, fear into crushing relief that he wasn’t dead.
“That’s it, sweet. That’s it.” Ignoring Paddy’s weight and the stinging pain in his arm, along with the deadness in other parts of him, Neil leaned, searching Paddy’s face with his lips. When he found the edge of a gag he grabbed it with his teeth and pulled.
“You’re alive. I thought…. I was so scared. I thought you were…. I really did.” Paddy’s voice was as hoarse as his, rough as sandpaper. “There’s something poking me. In me.”
“I know, love. I can’t figure out….” Neil closed his eyes and fought the nausea that almost overwhelmed him. “I think. I…. It’s a needle.”
Ew. He could hear Paddy’s dislike of that thought, but under that was the fact that his slippery lover was almost out of the cuffs.
Bless him. If they could just have their hands, just sit up, they might be able to handle this. “I’m sorry, love. I should have heard this coming. I did. But you captivated me so….”
Oh.
Oh, ow.
Guilt flooded him, sharp and heavy and overwhelming and black.
“No. Oh. Paddy.” Neil gave up getting free for a moment in favor of a desperate kiss, needing to feel the touch of Paddy’s skin, needing to pass on how much he needed Paddy. In his life, not just as a job.
Paddy sobbed into the kiss, and the memories of a scarred blond overlaced with a much younger man. Boomer. Boomer. Boomer. They broke to breathe, both of them wheezing. “Who…? Who’s Boomer, Paddy?”
“I went to school with him. He’s the one who came to the apartment. I offered to give him money.”
“Well, we’re neither of us dead, are we?” Neil remembered now that there’d been men. He mostly remembered the big one, with the dark eyes and the shaved head.
“No. No. You’re not dead. I’m sorry, Neil. I don’t know what I did….” One of Paddy’s hands popped free, the wince of pain worth it.
“Oh, good lad.” He laughed, the sound rusty and pained, as someone upstairs snorted and rolled over and started nibbling on someone’s skin….
“Okay.” Yes. He needed his hands. He felt like a tiny child, struggling to do the least little thing, his body betraying him. When his hands came free, Neil groaned, his numb shoulders and upper arms starting to come back to life in the most uncomfortable way.
Paddy started crawling, hunting for a light. The worry and the panic were starting again, Paddy starting to think, to get scared. The nausea overwhelmed him, and Neil curled into a ball, clutching his belly as the dry heaves overtook him. Oh God, just let him die. Poor Paddy. Neil felt utterly worthless.
Of course, his Paddy managed, didn’t he? Lights came on, and Neil found himself dragged onto a cot and covered up with a sleeping bag. He wasn’t sure if the constant babble was out loud or not, but the triumph when Paddy found a chest freezer and camping supplies read clearly either way. His fingers scrabbled at the sleeping bag when he tried to sit up, but they fell back to his sides, his arms throbbing. Paddy moved around, muttering, and Neil thought about how Bethany had said Paddy was completely unable to deal with the realities of life. That woman needed to be fired.
Something cold and sweet was pressed between his lips. “Popsicle. Suck. It’ll taste good. It’s purple. Purple tastes good. There’s a propane stove. There’s got to be fuel. I found matches.”
Paddy wandered off again, pulling boxes off shelves and rummaging.
Neil sucked. Oh, grape. Not a flavor he remembered from his childhood in England. Still, it soothed his sore throat and gave him something to focus on.
Whoever was upstairs was awake. Moving. Stalking around.
Paddy wasn’t paying a bit of attention, using a screwdriver and a spatula to tear the back off a radio.
A radio?
“Paddy,” he croaked. “What are you doing, love?”
“Making a taser, if I can find enough wire in here. Maybe a little bomb, but I’m not so good with those.”
“Boomer is. Boomer’s quite good with bombs. Sonny drives. They want bacon and eggs….”
Paddy nodded. “Boomer’s the best. He can put a bomb in a lock, blow it, and you never would know he was there. I thought he died. Everyone thought he died.”
“Paddy, love? Is there a trash can? I need to….” The heaves were about to be less dry.
“Close your eyes and breathe. Don’t puke on the circuits.” Paddy started hunting, thoughts chasing themselves in tight, furious circles.
Dizzying. “Yes. I mean no. I shall try not to. Hurry, please?” Oh, he was going to lose it. He was. Especially as a wave of anger hit him from upstairs.
A mop bucket got pushed into his hands, and then Paddy was gone again, creeping up the stairs to look at the lock, to listen.
Good lad. Neil heaved, his meager stomach contents leaving him, the Popsicle utterly wasted on him. Sighing, he lay back on the cot, the pain in his arms finally starting to calm down, allowing him to think a little again.
Paddy was listening at the door, focused and still, trying to figure out what was going on, what they were doing here.
Neil “listened” as well, trying to get his fogged brain to focus. “Something about money. They took money for you, Paddy, for your work.”
That black guilt was back as Paddy listened, making the sounds of Paddy’s thoughts sluggish and viscous.
“Come here, Paddy. Please?” He needed to touch Paddy’s skin, needed to be with him. More than he needed to know what was going on. They weren’t dead. That had to mean something.
Paddy slipped back down the stairs, face pale as cream. “You want another Popsicle? There’s orange. I think I can make the taser work.”
My fault. This is all my fault. They came for me. Neil came to watch me. They hurt Neil because he was with me. My fault. Oh God. My fault.
“Lovely, all of it, but first I need you. Please, come here to me.” He put every bit of persuasion he could into his voice, all his fondness for Paddy there too. “Come on.”
> Paddy shuffled over across the concrete, teeth working the thin bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
“I should be apologizing to you, sweet,” he said, rolling up to grab Paddy’s hand. “I was supposed to be keeping an eye out for you. Sit with me a minute. I promise to be less worthless soon. The drugs are wearing off.”
“You’re not. They hurt you.” Paddy eased him back down, fingers petting him, mind swinging from an overwhelmed silence to the fluttering of a hundred little birds.
Neil closed his eyes a moment, hanging on to Paddy so there would be no more running about. His mind swirled, then settled, then swirled again. “You’re not exactly unaffected. Now. First things first. Did they leave us water?”
“There’s a hot water heater and a case of gallon jugs that are full. There’s camping stuff.” There was no way those men upstairs would have left them with all this. They were supposed to still be unconscious.
“Emergency provisions, then. Excellent. Well, help me sit up, then, so I can find water and rinse my mouth out.” He grinned, needing to ease Paddy’s mind. “So I can kiss you.”
“I… I have enough propane to blow the door, but it’ll be messy. I’m not good with bombs, but the DC adaptor and the nine-volt and the wire… I could make the taser work.” Paddy headed to the wall of black metal shelves, pulled out a case of gallon jugs.
“Good. Sooner or later they have to come down. You can get one, I can get the other. Blowing the door should be unnecessary.” And dangerous. Not something he wanted Paddy to try in this frame of mind.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Paddy poured a measure of water into the cup of his own hand, tasted it. “It’s not cold, but it’s wet.”
Then the jug was lugged over.
“I’ll settle for wet.” Oh yes. When he rinsed and spit into the mop bucket, then drank deeply, he felt much better. The blanket felt scratchy under him, and really, that seemed a relief. Normal sensations were setting in. “Kiss me?”