He urged Dougie off his lap, and Dougie went willingly but warily, propping himself against the pillows Nikolai vacated. Whatever pills Nikolai had given him, they weren’t morphine, but they’d definitely helped; moving was no longer torture, and holding still was almost painless, even if he didn’t dare sit on his ass. He watched Nikolai cross the room to the little table where he’d draped his pants and suit jacket, watched him retrieve his smartphone from the inside breast pocket.
Nikolai returned, perched on the edge of the bed. So strange to see him in his boxers and an untucked shirt. Two top buttons undone, throat exposed. He looked . . . human. Vulnerable, almost. Still such a commanding presence, though, even half-dressed. Powerful and handsome as ever.
“Look here,” Nikolai directed, holding the phone out for Dougie to see. There was a video queued, the frame frozen on an image of Mat at a little table just like Dougie’s, the back of Nikolai’s head in the foreground. Security camera footage, no doubt. It made Dougie’s stomach roil, filled him with absolute dread. He was suddenly, blindingly certain he didn’t want to watch this.
Nikolai’s free hand clasped his shoulder. “I need you to be strong for me now, Douglas. Can you do that?”
“I . . . I don’t think I can, sir. I . . .” Tears sprung in his eyes, falling as he blinked.
“You can. I’ll help you, Douglas. I’m right here. I won’t let you fall. And I promise, once you see this . . . it will hurt, but I think it will give you the new perspective you need to move forward. Free you. Don’t you want that, Douglas?”
He did, oh God, he did. He didn’t want to hurt anymore. He didn’t want to feel guilty or so crushingly alone. He didn’t want to miss Mat anymore. He wanted to fill up this hole in his heart however he could—with Nikolai, he’s your only choice, he’ll let you—and never look back. He wanted to be safe.
“Even after everything that’s happened, you still, in your way, worship your brother. You’re so in love with your vision of him, even the evidence of your own body isn’t enough to dissuade you. Maybe this will help. I hope it helps, Douglas. I really do. I only want what’s best for you.”
Nikolai hit play.
His voice flowed from the phone, a little on the tinny side but perfectly clear, perfectly identifiable. “What I would really like to talk about is your brother,” video-Nikolai said, in that same firm-but-gentle interrogative tone he used on Dougie. “Will you tell me about him?”
Mat shrugged, face screwed up like he found the mere thought of Dougie unpleasant. “He adapts. He does what he’s gotta to get by.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Judgmental, obviously. Disgusted. Just look at him.
For a moment, Dougie couldn’t. Had to turn away, it hurt so bad. He’d rather have faced another session with Nikolai’s client than any more of this.
Mat’s answer was perfectly candid, and all the more heartbreaking for it. “Makes me feel like . . . like I dunno him. Can’t know him. Scares me.”
“Do you think if it would save himself, he’d hurt you?”
“Done it already, hasn’e. You saw. At the auction. Fucking raped me with that . . .”
“Stop!” Dougie mashed his finger against the pause icon on the touchscreen. A fat tear splashed beside it, running down the phone. In his head, he saw that horrible metal plug, the way Mat’s body had struggled and then given in to its force. Opened up. Been taken. And Dougie had the audacity to be mad at Mat for watching him be tortured? As far as Mat knew, if it had been Dougie in that room with that sick client, and Mat bent over the bed, Dougie wouldn’t have just watched, he’d have used the bat himself. Mat obviously thought that’s what he would’ve done, obviously thought Dougie would’ve done it to save his own ass, and he had every fucking right to think that, didn’t he, every fucking right in the world—
“Stop, please, no more,” Dougie sobbed. “I can’t . . .”
“I’m sorry, Douglas, but I think you need to see all of this. You’re being brave for me, remember? I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Nothing about this changes the way I feel about you, and it shouldn’t change the way you feel about yourself, either. You are a good man, Douglas. And you are worthy of love. If your brother can’t understand that, well, it’s his loss, not yours.” Nikolai curled a hand around Dougie’s head, pulled it to his shoulder, kissed his hair. “Trust me.”
He pressed play again. “—that thing,” video-Mat said, right where he’d left off. There was no misinterpreting his expression. Disgust. Horror. Fear. Remembered pain. But more than just that: Distrust. Loneliness. Betrayal. He looked like he’d bitten into a lemon as he added—no, spat, “Tortured me. Held me still while I begged him to stop. I can’t . . . I can’t trust. Him.”
“Do you think you give up too much for him?”
Mat’s face was suddenly hard and serious—when had he gotten so grave, anyway? It was so fragmented, like a nightmare—and without hesitation, he said, “Yes.”
The video ended.
True to his word, Nikolai held Dougie as he cried.
Whatever brother Dougie had once had, however that brother had felt about him, whatever love and loyalty and history had been between them, it was gone now. Just like everything else in his past, left there in the sand on the wrong side of the line between Before Madame and After Madame. Sure, Before Madame, Mat wouldn’t have stood by without coercion or drugs or something and watched Dougie be tortured, but the Mat of the video, the Mat Nikolai had just shown him?
The Mat I created the night of the auction. It was never Madame. It was me. My cowardice. My choices. My consequences. I drove him away.
That Mat needed no coercion.
And that Mat was a stranger. Not a hero. Not even a brother, not really. No, the only one left to love him now was Nikolai. Nikolai, holding him tight, stroking his hair, whispering gentle words in his ears. Nikolai, who loved him even after seeing him at his worst, even after everyone else had stopped loving him, given up on him.
He couldn’t lose Nikolai too. Couldn’t.
He sniffled, willed the tears to dry up—stop being such a baby stop being so weak stop crying over someone who doesn’t give a shit about you anymore just stop stop stop—pried his arms from around Nikolai’s waist and wrapped them around his shoulders instead. Looked up at Nikolai and tried on a hesitant smile, kissed him on the chin again because it was the one thing he was sure of now, the one thing he could depend on, that he could kiss Nikolai on the chin and Nikolai would like it.
And Nikolai smiled right back, nuzzled him nose to nose even though he was sure his own was red and swollen and gross and so were his eyes and his cheeks but Nikolai was still smiling at him like he was the most beautiful thing Nikolai had ever seen.
Dougie didn’t bother with words, partly because he didn’t really think he needed them—Nikolai knows everything, Nikolai always knows—but mostly because he was afraid that if he opened his mouth he’d just screw everything up, ruin this like he’d ruined everything else that’d ever mattered. No, he just tipped his chin up, leaned forward, put gentle pressure on Nikolai’s neck until Nikolai leaned forward too and their lips met, soft and hesitant at first and then hungry and hard and this was right, this felt right, and bit by bit as Nikolai kissed him the chasm in his chest filled, one piece after another, gratitude upon relief upon need upon, yes, even affection. He realized in that moment that he could love this man if he really tried, that he had it inside him, that the anger was gone and only need was left behind, need Nikolai could—wanted to—fill, and Dougie wanted so badly to trust him with that, to show Nikolai that Dougie could trust him, that he did.
“Please, sir,” he begged, and he was crying again, when had he started crying again? He pulled back, down, onto his elbows and knees, hands clutching fistfuls of Nikolai’s shirt, Nikolai’s boxers, nose nuzzling Nikolai’s crotch and Nikolai was hard for him, always hard for him because he wanted him, because he loved him, and this Dougie knew how to d
o, knew for certain he wouldn’t ruin because Nikolai had taught him so very patiently to do it right. “Please,” he moaned, mouthing Nikolai’s erection through the silk of his boxers. “I want . . .” No. Honesty. He wants you as you are. He wants your truth. “I need . . .”
And Nikolai understood, of course he did. He lifted his hips from the bed, let Dougie slide his boxers down and off, threaded gentle fingers into Dougie’s hair as Dougie cupped his balls in one hand and his shaft in the other and swallowed him down, sucked and licked and hummed just the way he knew Nikolai loved, and Nikolai petted his hair and moaned his name and Dougie swallowed every drop as Nikolai shot down his throat crying “Yes, yes Douglas, oh yes!” every word an affirmation, every word a declaration, every word saying Welcome home.
To be continued in
The Flesh Cartel, Season 3: Transformation
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Rachel Haimowitz and Heidi Belleau’s The Flesh Cartel, Season 2: Fragmentation!
We know your time is precious and you have many, many entertainment options, so it means a lot that you’ve chosen to spend your time reading. We really hope you enjoyed it.
We’d be honored if you’d consider posting a review—good or bad—on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Goodreads, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and your blog or website. We’d also be honored if you told your friends and family about this book. Word of mouth is a book’s lifeblood!
For more information on upcoming releases, author interviews, blog tours, contests, giveaways, and more, please sign up for our weekly, spam-free newsletter and visit us around the web:
Newsletter: tinyurl.com/RiptideSignup
Twitter: twitter.com/RiptideBooks
Facebook: facebook.com/RiptidePublishing
Goodreads: tinyurl.com/RiptideOnGoodreads
Tumblr: riptidepublishing.tumblr.com
Thank you so much for Reading the Rainbow!
RiptidePublishing.com
Rear Entrance Video series
Apple Polisher
Wallflower
Straight Shooter
The Professor’s Rule series, with Amelia C. Gormley
Giving an Inch
An Inch at a Time
Inch by Inch
Every Inch of the Way
To the Very Last Inch
King of Dublin, with Lisa Henry
Bookended
First Impressions. Second Chances
Blasphemer, Sinner, Saint, with Sam Schooler
(Bump in the Night anthology)
Bliss, with Lisa Henry
With Violetta Vane
Mark of the Gladiator
Cruce de Caminos
The Druid Stone
Coming Soon
The Burnt Toast B&B, with Rachel Haimowitz (A Bluewater Bay novel)
Power Play: Resistance, with Cat Grant
Power Play: Awakening, with Cat Grant
Master Class (Master Class, #1)
Sublime: Collected Shorts (Master Class, #2)
Counterpoint (Song of the Fallen, #1)
Crescendo (Song of the Fallen, #2)
Anchored (Belonging, #1)
Break and Enter, with Aleksandr Voinov
Coming Soon
Where He Belongs (Belonging, #2)
The Burnt Toast B&B, with Heidi Belleau (A Bluewater Bay novel)
Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write. She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centered on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with unironic papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!) When not writing, you might catch her trying to explain British television to her newborn daughter or standing in line at the local coffee shop, waiting on her caramel macchiato.
You can find her tweeting as @HeidiBelleau, email her at [email protected], or visit her blog: www.heidibelleau.com.
Rachel is an M/M erotic romance author and the Publisher of Riptide Publishing. She’s also a sadist with a pesky conscience, shamelessly silly, and quite proudly pervish. Fortunately, all those things make writing a lot more fun for her . . . if not so much for her characters.
When she’s not writing about hot guys getting it on (or just plain getting it; her characters rarely escape a story unscathed), she loves to read, hike, camp, sing, perform in community theater, and glue captions to cats. She also has a particular fondness for her very needy dog, her even needier cat, and shouting at kids to get off her lawn.
You can find Rachel at her website, rachelhaimowitz.com, tweeting as @RachelHaimowitz, and on Tumblr at rachelhaimowitz.tumblr.com. She loves to hear from folks, so feel free to drop her a line anytime at [email protected].
Enjoy this book?
Find more unconventional kink at
RiptidePublishing.com!
Bump in the Night
www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/bump-night
First Watch
www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/first-watch
Earn Bonus Bucks!
Earn 1 Bonus Buck for each dollar you spend. Find out how at www.RiptidePublishing.com/news/bonus-bucks.
Win Free Ebooks for a Year!
Pre-order coming soon titles directly through our site and you’ll receive one entry into a drawing to win free books for a year! Get the details at www.RiptidePublishing.com/contests.
Fragmentation Page 25