by Amber Kell
Seducing Rain
Amber Kell
Two stubborn men try to find love, balance and the path to escape a killer's hold...
Rainier Lemmon had taken one picture too many. After accidentally capturing a shooting on film, he finds himself in danger and needing a place to hide out.
Greg Carter has wanted Rain back ever since their one and only weekend together. But when Rain returns, it’s meant to be only temporary.
Can Greg seduce Rain into staying longer? Possibly forever.
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement of the copyright of this work.
SEDUCING RAIN
Alpha Series
Copyright © 2015 AMBER KELL
ISBN: 978-1-936387-85-4
All Romance eBooks, LLC Palm Harbor, Florida 34684 www.allromanceebooks.com
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First All Romance eBooks publication: February 2015
Chapter One
Greg Carter walked through his club. Music vibrated the floorboards masking the groans and gasps from club members as they gave into passion. People seeking privacy slinked in and out of the rooms lining the back walls.
Bored. Greg could admit it if only to himself that his club had lost some of its appeal. His general manager took care of the day-to-day stuff and after years of hiring and firing until he had the right combination of employees, he now had a great staff he trusted to do their jobs. He’d recently expanded and added a nightclub for the non-BDSM crowd. Even the rush of money from that venture didn’t dent his boredom. The challenge had faded from his life as soon as the club had opened and proven to be a success.
Shoving his hands into his pockets he scanned the crowd for potential problems. Everything appeared peaceful. Damn it. A hollow ache twisted his heart but Greg refused to acknowledge the pain as anything other than restlessness. It had nothing to do with a stubborn, beautiful sub that refused to stick around or return Greg’s phone calls. He’d moved on to sending random texts, but received the same results.
Snarky, gorgeous Rain with his defensive gray eyes and high pain threshold had given Greg one of the best weekends of his life, then disappeared. Over the past few weeks Greg had called Rain several times but when his messages weren’t returned he’d stopped. If Rain wanted Greg he knew where to find him. Unfortunately when Rain left Greg’s townhouse without a backward glance he took Greg’s libido with him. Even standing in a sea of gorgeous and willing twinks Greg’s cock didn’t even twitch. Now, nothing. Fuck.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent another text to Rain with little hope. What had he done wrong? Rain had left smiling and relaxed even if no promises had crossed either of their lips.
He spotted his brother and headed toward his table. The boy Greg had watched over his entire life had transformed into a grown man with a thriving art career and a devoted lover of his own. Every struggle in Greg’s life had been worth seeing his brother happy.
“How’s it going, bro?” Stephen grinned up at Greg from Victor Jones’s lap. An ever-present sketchbook lay across his knees and he clutched a pencil in his right hand.
Victor nodded in greeting but Greg could tell every millimeter of his attention was focused on Stephen, as it should be. Greg had struggled with their relationship at first, not wanting his brother to get involved with the older and much more experienced Dom. Now, Greg couldn’t imagine his brother without Victor; they were two halves of a matched set.
“Everything’s great. How about you?” Stephen appeared happy but his brother tended to have an easygoing outlook on life. Luckily Victor protected Stephen with the zeal of a hungry guard dog watching over a plate of steak. Examining his brother’s face, Greg spotted nothing but joy. Good, one less person he wanted to kill.
“I’m taking care of him,” Victor said. The Dom met his gaze with an amused one of his own as if he could read Greg’s mind and knew even now he was still on trial.
Greg nodded. “Good.”
From conversations with Stephen the only complaint his brother had involved Victor’s reluctance to introduce Stephen to deeper forms of submission. Stephen longed to enjoy Victor’s expertise with a whip. Victor still refused. Greg tried to keep out of their business but he had encouraged Stephen to talk to his lover.
Relationships were too much fucking work. He subdued the little voice in his head whispering that Rain would be worth the effort. Scowling, he gagged the nagging voice and tied it up in a St. Andrew’s cross in the corner of his mind.
“Have you heard from Rain?” Stephen’s compassionate gaze prodded Greg, urging him to spill his secrets. Greg resisted the temptation. He’d been the one to perfect the look, after all.
“No. I think we’re over. He’s ignoring me right now.” He played it off as unimportant. For anyone else it would’ve worked but Stephen knew Greg better than anyone on the planet.
“He’ll come around. If he doesn’t I’ll talk to him.” Stephen stated, confidence filling his tone.
Greg laughed. He’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Skittish, cautious Rain chatting with Stephen who never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome with sheer perseverance. Hell, he’d sell tickets. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m not going to chase someone who doesn’t want me.”
If Rain refused to be caught Greg would have to admit defeat.
“Just because he’s not calling you back doesn’t mean he’s not interested. Maybe he’s a complex guy. Don’t give up on him yet. He could still come around,” Stephen urged.
“Maybe.” Greg patted Stephen on the shoulder, refusing to grab that bit of false hope. “See you later. You two should come have dinner with me next week.”
He hadn’t missed the tightening of Victor’s grip. The Dom still worried Greg would try to separate them. Greg didn’t know what to do to allay Victor’s fears. He might have tried to keep them apart at the beginning but he could see how his brother thrived in Victor’s care. All he’d ever wanted was his brother to be happy.
Stephen grinned. “I’ll call you and we’ll find a time.”
Greg met Victor’s gaze. Victor nodded his agreement. He had no doubt Stephen had the Dom wrapped around his little submissive finger but he didn’t want to cause a fight between the pair. “Great, see you soon.”
Leaving the happy couple, Greg continued searching the crowd. It struck him that his gaze always stopped at slim brunets. He might have convinced his head that pursuing Rain was a big mistake but his heart still liked the idea.
* * * *
Rainier Lemmon traipsed through puddles and mud searching for crows. Usually they were all over the place but the one day he was trying to finish his photography series they completely disappeared. Evil little bastards. The black birds had it in for him. Crows did well in photo sales on his web store but he needed more of them to expand the line. His last series on crows had sold like hotcakes on a freezing winter day. People liked the mythology behind them and the way he captured their spirit. If only he could get the feathered beasts to cooperate today.
Sighing, he continued his walk, ignoring the bright flowers and blue skies. Ever since he left Greg’s bed everything had seemed darker. Depression weighed him down almost as heavy as when he’d first left the army without any prospective jobs or ideas of what he wanted to do with his life. The rainstorm the previous night had perfectly reflected his mood. He needed to get his shit together a
nd either get over Greg or call him and beg Greg to take him back. He didn’t even care if their relationship devolved into a series of booty calls. He craved the Dom with a fierce need he’d never experienced before. Doms in his past had come and gone with little regret. Greg consumed Rain’s dreams both day and night and left him jittery during his waking time as he fought to resist the siren call of the hard-eyed Dom.
Greg had stopped leaving him messages a few days ago. The lack of contact had Rain checking his phone with the ferocity of a junkie waiting for his drug dealer to call. Groaning, Rain pulled out his phone again. Nothing. He shoved it back into his pocket.
Idiot.
Why had this one man gotten under his skin? Rain didn’t do relationships. He’d not once had a boyfriend who wanted to stick around and he’d rather have one bright shining memory than months of slow decline. Sure, he might have a few abandonment issues but nothing a good run from his problems couldn’t fix.
A crow hopped through a puddle of water in front of him but before Rain could do more than pull off the lens cap and bring his camera up for the shot, the bird flapped away. Rain tracked its flight and smiled when it land in the mouth of an alley a few yards away.
Finally! The blister on his right foot ached and his arms hurt from holding his camera for hours trying to get the best photo. He was ready to call it a day even if it had barely passed noon.
Eager to finish his shoot, Rain walked as fast as he could without spooking the bird. He slowed when he came closer. He crouched down and took a rapid series of photos, the camera clicking madly away as he held down the button. The crow tilted its head and regarded Rain with its beady black eyes.
“Thanks for the photo op,” Rain muttered as it flew off, indifferent to a photographer’s need to put food on the table.
Surely one of those pictures would work out. Quiet satisfaction eased through him. The last crow shots he’d taken had sold well as both photos and postcards. His friend Ruth had talked about transferring some of them onto the aprons she hand sewed for her small craft store downtown.
He’d worry about more plans after he saw what he’d shot. Sometimes pictures came out completely different than he’d envisioned when he took them. Rain loved how images could be transformed with a few strokes of his keyboard. He’d often thought he’d been born at the perfect time. He adored technology.
After sliding his camera into his backpack equipment bag, he headed home. He eyed the espresso shop on the corner with a wistful glance but he barely had enough money to pay his rent. Buying the triple mocha he yearned for wasn’t in his tattered deck of cards.
He forced his feet away from the shiny brass door across the street and resisted temptation. If he imagined drinking down a hot peppermint mocha on the way home, no one else was the wiser. Ten minutes later he was climbing up the four flights of stairs to his apartment. The elevator hadn’t worked since he moved in three years ago despite the sign plastered to the front claiming repairs were coming.
Stepping up his usual pattern Rain skipped the third step, walked on the second half of the fifth step and jumped over the next three. Rain didn’t trust the rotting wood with his weight. Some of the other tenants had fallen and broken bones. Management counted on them not having enough money to sue. Assholes.
Rain shrugged it off as one of those things. Overall the building was clean, they might not do repairs but the janitorial staff did good work. Rain made them cookies every Christmas as thanks. He doubted the two ladies were properly compensated. He knew for a fact most of their pay came in the form of a free apartment on the ground floor.
He shoved his key into the lock and jiggled it around before it popped open. The wood had warped a bit and didn’t budge without a good shove. Rain didn’t relax until he got inside and the homey atmosphere of his apartment surrounded him. Turning, he closed then locked the door behind him.
His meager belongings left quite a bit of empty space. Not a fan of knickknacks, Rain left gaps in his bookshelves without bothering clutter them up with stuff. Bright colors burst over the carpet and brilliant pillows tumbled across his secondhand couch in a riotous display only another visually oriented person would appreciate. Would Greg understand his design style? Considering the Dom kept his brother’s artistic touches splashed across his walls, Rain suspected Greg would tolerate his taste if not condone it.
Rain set his camera on the kitchen table that doubled as his work desk. Because of the small size of the one-bedroom apartment, he kept his place clean and made sure no food was left out to encourage the growing rat population. He’d thought about getting a cat once but he could barely take care of himself, and cat food got expensive. “I need to get myself a Sugar Dom to take care of it all.”
Rain laughed hysterically at the thought. He’d never be obedient enough to be anyone’s kept boy. He only played at the lifestyle; it didn’t consume him. A twenty-four/seven sub lifestyle would result in him killing the asshole trying to boss him around. It was also the main reason he didn’t call gorgeous Greg back. Greg had possessive Dom stamped all over him with permanent ink and Rain refused to belong to anyone. He’d seen subs who hung on every word dripping from their idiot Dom’s lips like it was ordained from the skies. Rain preferred to think for himself. Granted, he’d love to have a regular partner who understood his needs but the tiny pool of good potential Doms was buried in a tumultuous ocean of bad ones.
Rain brushed away the negative thoughts regarding his love life and opened his laptop lid. He had once considered getting a dark room and going old school, but he didn’t have the funds for a proper setup. Scraping by got old sometimes but Rain didn’t like to fixate on the bad things in life. He preferred to concentrate on the good. Right now his pile of positive things had shriveled to collection of anemic ashes but as long as he could make out a few happy nuggets Rain would get by.
Plopping down on his computer chair, Rain plugged the USB cable attached to his laptop into his camera then clicked on the button to start transferring his pictures. He’d put every dime he had into a top-of-the-line computer and camera. He watched the numbers add up as he uploaded all one hundred and twenty-three pictures he’d taken that morning. It had rained the night before and the city streets had shone with reflective pools of water. Rain couldn’t resist the imagery despite his ultimate goal of taking crow shots.
The pictures began to pop up across his computer screen. He smiled at the beauty of some of the captured images. Photography was a combination of luck and skill, getting the perfect frame at the right time. Luckily computers helped fix things, but if the initial photo was poor he didn’t bother wasting time enhancing it.
When it finally finished loading he scrolled through until found his latest crow pictures. The camera hadn’t been centered but the perspective had an interesting angle. Some blurry shapes in the background had him scowling. “I hope to fuck those aren’t people I need to Photoshop out.”
Rain knew all kinds of tricks to change the background of pictures but he could almost always tell when a photographer used a Photoshop cheat to rearrange a shot and he didn’t like how they looked. He clicked onto the next picture to see if the blurs had vanished. Why were people in the alley anyway? Maybe they were restaurant workers?
Rain clicked his mouse trailing the pair from picture to picture. They slid into focus in the second shot and he wished to hell they’d remained fuzzy.
“Oh fuck.” It was like watching a sick flipbook. One scene flowed to the other and the sequence of events became clear. The first picture showed a man pulling out a gun, the next two showed him shooting his companion. Even in the dim alley lighting the shine of the shooter’s badge glowed. With his high definition camera Rain had picked up the gun firing and the subsequent murder in brilliant detail. In the clear shots he could make out the familiar structure of the killer’s face.
“Where do I know you from? Fuck, that wedding!”
Despite his aversion to bridezillas, Rain had agreed to take the ph
otos for a friend of a friend. He would bet his camera that the guy in the photo had been at that wedding.
Rain’s stomach churned when he got to the last shot. The second man lay on the ground, his eyes open and unmoving. The bullet hole in his head came across as a vivid red splash of color against the man’s pale skin. Racing from his computer Rain made it to the bathroom just in time to purge the small amount of food he’d consumed. He continued to hurl until there was nothing left but stomach acid burning his esophagus. He slumped to the floor enjoying the feel of the cold linoleum against his cheek. Germs were no doubt fighting to swarm across him, but he didn’t care. Weak and close to tears, Rain pondered his options and came up blank.
Chapter Two
Rain didn’t know how long he stayed lying on the cold tile but eventually he pulled his ass up off the floor. His head spun from the sudden shift of position and the many possible scenarios that all ended in him being a murdered witness.
“This isn’t my fucking day,” he groused.
What the fuck was he doing to do? If he took this to the police he couldn’t be certain it would go to the right person. After all, a cop was the killer in his photos. Besides, what if the man hadn’t been working alone? Just because the camera had only picked up two people didn’t mean there weren’t more around somewhere. For all he knew a carload of accomplices could’ve been sitting in a vehicle around the corner. One wild scenario after another ran through Rain’s head. Ideas spun and spun until he sat on his kitchen chair paralyzed by fear.
Fuck! What should he do? Who could he call?
After he got back from Iraq Rain had been too much of a mess to let anyone close. His job as an independent photographer didn’t exactly give him workplace friends, and the people he did know he kept at a distance. He only kept in touch with a few old friends and even they weren’t the type he could bring into this kind of danger.