Recoil

by Evelyn Drake

  When Tobias whimpered into Kyle’s mouth, it was all that he could take and his hand went to Tobias’s pants, yanking and jerking at his waist until he’d gotten his pants open and his fly down.

  Tobias did the same with Kyle, his practiced hands getting Kyle’s pants open and pushed half-off his hips with quick ease so that they were left shoe to shoe, pants leg to pants leg, shirt to shirt and—with Kyle’s legs spread to lower his stance—naked cock to naked cock.

  Kyle groaned, his entire body shaking with pleasure when Tobias wrapped his hand around both their cocks and held them snug together. Then, when Tobias pulsed his hips so that the length of his soft flesh rubbed the sensitive underside of Kyle’s long, hard shaft, Kyle’s eyes rolled back in his head and he lifted his face to the sky and released a sound of raw ecstasy that filled that small alley.

  Tobias buried his face in Kyle’s neck, nipping tender skin as their cocks rubbed together—flesh against hot flesh—as Kyle fought his way back to sanity.

  Pushing Tobias’s hand aside, Kyle wrapped his larger hand around them. Then, bending his knees and leaning in with his hips, he pressed their groins together while leaving room between their flattened abs for their swollen shafts. Thrusting up with use of his powerful thighs, Kyle rubbed his ballsack against Tobias’s as he slid his hardened, throbbing length over Tobias’s. Giving extra attention to their heads, Kyle made sure to rub the underside of their mushroomed heads together as he pulsed his hips up and down in small, measured strokes.

  With laser focus, Kyle watched Tobias’s expression change from searing want to ecstatic pleasure as he moaned in small gasps of growing need. Tightening his other hand in Tobias’s dark hair, Kyle brought their mouths together so that he could force Tobias’s cries of pleasure to be given directly to him.

  The depths of Kyle’s abdomen tightened with a growing pressure as he heard and felt Tobias’s moans grow stronger and more desperate. Between them, precum had made their cocks, bellies, and the palm of Kyle’s hand slick, and Kyle could hear the gentle slurp of wetness with each measured thrust of his hips.

  I’ve never wanted anyone like this before. It feels so good! Oh, God! This can’t be wrong. It can’t!

  Against him, Kyle could feel Tobias’s body begin to shake as the smaller man’s hands twisting themselves with an iron grip into Kyle’s shirt. His breath came in broken gasps, and Kyle stole each one, taking them inside of himself, claiming control of Tobias’s very life. His head felt dizzy from not enough oxygen, but Kyle kept his mouth over Tobias’s, pressing their noses together so that Tobias was forced to breathe him.

  In his large hand Kyle felt Tobias’s cock thicken as its throbbing intensified. Knowing that Tobias was near, that he was having this effect on him, made Kyle’s own cock swell to the point of being almost painful. It swelled with an intensity that went beyond anything he’d ever experienced before.

  I want this. Forever.

  Tobias’s body bucked against his and then hot cum surged in hard squirts over Kyle’s and Tobias’s bellies. With a heavy moan from Kyle, lost inside of Tobias’s mouth, Kyle released the torrent of pressure that had built up within him until he too was shaking and thrusting with hard, short bursts of power that soon had his hot seed spilling onto their joined bodies. There, their cum mixed, becoming one.

  One mind. One heart. One want… each other.

  17

  Tobias

  On a sidewalk bench across the street and several businesses down, Tobias sat with his legs crossed and his arms spread out over the back of the bench. His black leather shoes absorbed the late evening sun in their matte finish, and his khakis and polo shirt had a comfortable, lived-in feel that he could never capture in a suit.

  Tobias didn’t look at his notes. He didn’t look at his phone. He just sat and took in the surroundings. He let his mind wander and his thought percolate. When stuck this far into a case, he often found that it helped him to take one step back and to the side—sometimes literally—in order to get a different perspective on things. It almost always helped him see something he’d missed before, but for now that thing had not come to him yet.

  They had petitioned the surrounding stores and traffic system for any video that might have been captured of The Derriere’s rooftop at the time that Ginger fell… or was more likely was thrown. So far, nothing had showed up. None of the surrounding surveillance cameras captured the club’s roof.

  So far, they had two dead bodies and no evidence to connect to a killer. Tobias had attempted to track who had sent the sex tape of Kyle, but all leads had come up cold. He’d interviewed the women in the video multiple times—without yet disclosing the video—but nothing had connected. And, they had run extensive background checks on each of the women. So far, other than that two of the women on the video were now dead, the only thing that seemed to connect them was Kyle.

  Everything seemed to come back to Kyle.

  Could he be the killer? Tobias again asked his gut. Again, the answer was a resounding, No. But he was in love with the man. How much could he trust his gut this time?

  Of course, there was still Therman Johnson. He was out on bail during the time of Ginger’s attack. As to Victoria’s death, another dancer corroborated his alibi as being inside the club with her, but the time of death for Victoria wasn’t down to the very minute and Tobias felt there could still be a chance that Therman had snuck away and had killed her. Possibly it had been an abduction gone wrong and his interest in the other dancer had been his way of covering for himself.

  Tobias sighed heavily and switched his crossed legs.

  The sad truth was that even Therman, with his abduction dungeon dug out and ready inside the bowels of his house, was a dead end. All efforts to find him since his release from jail had been total non-starters. Even the person who bailed Therman out turned out to be a investigative dead end. That person had used a stolen identity, that of a man who had died two years prior. No links from that man had been connected to any of the persons of interest from the club, though.

  “Dammit,” Tobias mumbled to himself, finally getting off of the bench. He stretched his muscles and felt a couple of them in his back pop. He’d been carrying around too much stress and he knew it. He scooped up his to-go cup of coffee from the sidewalk and took a swig. He was tired. Fatigue tired. The type of tired that wasn’t solved with one night’s sleep. It was solved with a week’s worth of sleep and rest—but that wasn’t going to happen. So, he drank his energy out of a cup and pushed on.

  There was nothing to do now. It was time to take care of himself as well as try to fit in some rest before trying to further the investigation with more interviews that night. Something had to break. Some piece of the puzzle had to reveal itself. He just had to keep digging.

  He headed back to his car. Again, wanting to see the club through a different approach—and hopefully new eyes—he’d parked at a distance and had walked the rest of the way. Ahead of him, a mother pushed a young toddler in a carriage, who at first cooed, and then coughed and sputtered, and then began to cry. The cry started out tentative, as if it were trying it on for size, but then with confidence gained, the cry turned into a wail. As unnerving as it was to be around, it was unnerving to hear. The sound of the baby’s cry effortlessly found Tobias’s spine and was well on its way to climbing up it.

  The mother stopped her carriage and moved to its front to pick her baby up, but just as Tobias approached to pass her, her face turned toward her and her expression turned to sheer terror as she instinctively clutched her baby’s face into her shoulder. That’s when Tobias heard the screech of tires and the hard thud that followed when they hit the curb.

  Without looking, Tobias lunged forward and pivoted the woman and her child in a twirling fashion that had them huddled against the brick wall of the nearest business. He did his best to cover their bodies with his own, blanketing them.

  Searing pain bloomed in his hip as the car sped by. Its brunt had missed both him and
the mother and child, but its passenger side mirror had slammed itself into Tobias’s body as the car rushed past. His body shook as he absorbed the pain, clawing his way above it, but thankfully the level of pain that threatened to overcome him quickly subsided into mere agony.

  Too rattled to do more than take her wailing baby, put it in its carriage, and leave for greater safety as fast as her feet could carry her, the young mother did not thank Tobias for whisking her and her baby out of the path of the car. And, in truth, Tobias suspected that it was his apology to her that was left unsaid—rather than her thanks—as he strongly suspected that the curb-jumping car had been aimed at him. That whoever was driving was willing to put a mother and child at risk spoke volumes more than he ever could about whoever had made the attempt on his life.

  Before she ran off, Tobias was able to get her name and ascertain that her knowledge of the car’s or driver’s description did not exceed his own. As it was, his knowledge of the car was make and model only—Honda Accord. Whoever was behind the wheel might as well have been a ghost because he hadn’t seen them at all.

  It was a long, slow painful walk back to his car, but Tobias made it. He texted Officer Roberts to get on to obtaining video feed from the neighboring businesses and stop lights in hopes that the driver could be identified, and he logged the time and all of his recollections regarding the incident.

  Having reached his car, Tobias paused to do some high knee bends and then backward extensions with his leg to check for range of motion. He was pretty sure that it was not broken, though he was sure that it would leave a bruise that sank bone deep. Getting into his car and achieving a sitting position set his hip on fire, but he breathed through it and headed for home.

  It was five hours later, filled with as much over-the-counter pain killers as he could take, that Tobias reached the club. He walked with an obvious limp, and he scanned the expression of every single person’s face looking for any hint of awareness or knowledge as to why he would be limping. But no one seemed to even notice. When the choice was to stare at customers promising lots of money or stare at shapely women promising so much more than money, noticing the plain-clothed cop who had been there almost every night they’d been open in the last week was outside of anyone’s circle of interest.

  But, there was one person who had noticed, and his face held so much concern that Tobias could see it clearly from across the dim, strobe-lit room. Kyle stood with his arms out at his sides, his focus on no one else, staring at Tobias as Tobias limped his way across the club’s floor to him.

  When Tobias reached Kyle, the bigger man didn’t say anything. Instead he let the intensity of his furrowed brow and parted lips say it all for him.

  “I’m okay,” Tobias reassured.

  “What happened?”

  “First, tell me where you were at five this afternoon.”

  “Really? You think I did this to you?”

  “No, but I need to rule you out all the same.”

  “I was having an early dinner with Monica.”

  Tobias wished that Kyle’s alibi wasn’t with someone dedicated enough to him that she might lie for him, but it was better than nothing. So, Tobias gave a curt nod of acceptance before revealing the events of the day.

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “We’re looking into it,” Tobias answered with a non-answer. It made him feel like a bastard not to be able to talk straight with Kyle, but it was the situation they were in. If things were different, if they were a couple and Kyle were not a person of interest in two homicides, then he would eagerly share everything with Kyle. It would be an incredible weight off of his shoulders to be able to tell someone everything, but some things were impossible.

  But, there was one thing that Tobias could tell him, and he decided he would. It was time for Kyle to keep his large talent in his pants.

  Stretching up to be closer to Kyle’s ear so that his words could be heard crystal clear above the body-throbbing music, Tobias said, “I think that someone is targeting your lovers… including me.”

  18

  Kyle

  Kyle grabbed Tobias by the arm, wrapping his huge hand around Tobias’s muscle-hardened bicep and pulled him along beside him. Then, realizing what he was doing—that he was making a spectacle of both of them in front of over a hundred people—Kyle released Tobias’s arm and moved to walk ahead of him, trusting that Tobias would follow.

  He headed to the door that would lead to the operational guts of the club. He needed a chance to be alone with Tobias. He needed a chance to sort things out.

  People know what I am!

  Kyle paused next to another bouncer, leaning in to ensure that he’d be clearly heard. “I’m going off the floor with the detective. I’m taking him to the roof.”

  The other bouncer nodded to show his understanding and the hard glint in his eye told Kyle that the bouncer was eager for whoever was hurting their “girls” to be found and stopped. Given that the roof was where Ginger had fallen, Kyle knew that the bouncer would attach Kyle’s leaving with Tobias to go up to the roof as having everything to do with the murder investigation, and nothing to do with Kyle in the alley frotting with Tobias last night.

  They walked in silence, Kyle leading and Tobias following, as they made their way through the building and up the stairs to the roof. Finally, when the heavy steel door had been thrown open and then allowed to shut solidly behind them, Kyle turned on Tobias. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming fast. His whole body was pumping with the need to fight or fly—and he’d always preferred to fight. So, standing alone on the poorly lit roof, Kyle’s hands clenched and unclenched as he tried to master the tidal wave of emotions flooding his senses.

  “People know about us?” It wasn’t so much a question as it was an accusation, and Kyle emphasized each word by jabbing his finger down at the roof. If he jabbed it in Tobias’s direction, he feared that he’d do more than just try to poke holes in the air. “Who did you tell!”

  “No one,” Tobias said, putting his hands up to either side of his head, and his expression was one of uncertainty—that look a person gets as they’re trying to figure out whether or not they should run… whether or not they were in impending and serious danger.

  Kyle growled his frustration at the sky, turning to stalk away with his fists clenched and wanting to beat the uncontrolled elements of his life into submission.

  Spinning to face Tobias once more, Kyle yelled, “No one was supposed to know! Ever!”

  “Your dirty little secret,” Tobias shot back without missing a beat as he squared his shoulders and stepped forward. “Here’s a newsflash. I didn’t tell anyone… and I won’t be anybody’s dirty little secret. Not even yours.”

  Kyle felt as if he’d been struck, but instead of inciting him into a greater need to attack, he felt the anger drain from him as he faced a loss he would never be able to replace.

  “You would leave me?”

  “You’re not mine to leave.”

  Kyle took in what he’d said and then he shook his head as if to clear it. He’d known that Tobias wasn’t his—he just hadn’t believed that Tobias wasn’t his. In his heart, in his soul, Tobias had always been his.

  Moving to the side, Kyle walked to and sat on the low encasement of an enormous cooling fan. Rather than drown out the night’s noise, it added a gentle background hum.

  Looking up expectantly at Tobias, Kyle asked him to come over without actually speaking the words, instead entreating him with pleading eyes. To his great relief, Tobias had mercy on him and came to stand before him. Watching Tobias walk was painful for Kyle, and as Tobias neared, his eyes studied not the man but instead the hard limp.

  With his face upturned to Tobias and his entire being now filled with sadness rather than anger, Kyle asked, “Someone did this to you because of me?” His arms moved and held Tobias by the waist in his cradling hands.

  Tobias said nothing, he just stared at Kyle with a sadness of his own th
at seemed to hold a sense of knowing that Kyle hadn’t seen in him before.

  “What?” Kyle asked.

  “You remind me of a woman I met today. She was near me with her child when the car came up on the curb.”

  Kyle’s mouth fell open slightly and his eyes rounded in shock.

  “The way that woman held that baby,” Tobias continued, “it’s like you with me now. It’s like… you’d do anything to protect me from harm.”

  Kyle’s eyes burned and a tear slipped free. He felt exposed and naked. Other than Monica, no one had ever seen him so completely and so honestly as Tobias. Everyone saw the big man, the good looks, and the troubled eyes. They saw someone they could use to fight for them or someone to take to bed and use in other ways. But it was the rare person in his life who looked at him and saw someone with more to give than just his body. He had a heart to give, too.

  “I would do anything,” Kyle said, his voice choked with emotion.

  “I don’t want you to do anything,” Tobias said, cupping Kyle’s cheek in his palm. “I don’t want you to have to protect me.”

  “So that’s it? You get to protect everyone but no one gets to protect you?”

  Wincing in pain, Tobias sank to his knees between Kyle’s open thighs. “Do you think that’s what I do? That I protect people? I fight for people who are already dead, Kyle.” His face twisted with anguish. “That was your legacy to me.”

  Kyle’s mouth dropped open in an “O” as he connected the dots of Tobias’s life. He felt like a fool. For years, he’d thought Tobias had moved on with his life, had left Kyle to mentally rot in his own filth—stuck in a time forever lost to him—but instead Tobias had carried the past forward with a constant search for answers. He’d lived his life, but he’d lived it with his eyes looking at a past that he’d somehow pushed into his future. He’d been chasing Kyle, trying to find him, through any means possible. Mediums, witches, meditation… anything that carried even the dimmest sparkle of hope. And all the while, he searched for answer through death… if not Kyle’s death, then somebody else’s.