Two Good Men [Hell's Delight: Unbridled 3] (Siren Pubishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

by Karen Mercury

  I tried to chuckle, but inside I was deeply disappointed. Deeply. He regretted what had happened. I didn’t. “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. You did what came natural, no regrets. You saw me ogling you and assumed I wanted to participate.”

  “So you admit you was ogling?”

  My smile matched his. Devilish, teasing. “Of course I was. I could’ve turned away the second I saw something private going on, but I didn’t.”

  “You liked what you seen?”

  That was harder to answer. “In a way. It’s sort of…strange. I think what I liked is it reminded me of something that happened in college.”

  “Someone spanked you in college?”

  Why did he assume I’d be in the beta role? “Yeah, sort of.”

  “And you liked it.”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  He took one step closer. The wall of his body heat slammed me. “And it was a man spanking you. Not a girl.”

  “Right,” I had to admit. “A fellow football player.”

  “Oh, this just gets better. You know you’re going to tell me that story sooner or later, don’t you?”

  “I have a feeling I will.”

  “So you are turned on by men. You like what you see?” King clutched his own half-mast penis, cradled as always between the tight leather chaps. The dick bulged as he squeezed, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

  That would’ve answered his question. But I wanted to be specific. “I like it because it reminds me of that college experience.”

  “With other men.”

  “With other men.” Shit. He just got me to admit there was more than one boy there. “But it’s just something I think about now and then. I have no intention on acting on anything. Once I get settled, I’ll date around. Women, I mean. Ryan could use a new, decent mother.”

  “But you’d like to reenact the college experience. I can help with that. I can put on a football jersey, a jock. I can spank the hell out of that sexy ass.”

  “No!” I cried, suddenly terrified. “I mean, no thanks. I appreciate the offer. But I’m flying straight from now on. That experience was just a one-off.”

  “That you don’t care to repeat?”

  I couldn’t honestly say that. In fact, dropping trou right now and putting my bare ass on display for Kingsize was seriously sending thrills through my penis, my balls. “No. I’m good.”

  “Okay then. If you ever need a firm hand though, you know, to keep you in line, I’m your man.”

  “I’ll remember that.” I was honestly flattered. Kingsize must have had a thousand buckle bunnies surrounding him after rodeos. And wherever he got his partner from the other day, he wasn’t lacking there either. But he wanted me.

  And to be truthful, my mouth watered thinking of swallowing that bulging dick.

  In King’s scene with the beta, I knew that had been coming next. That’s what sadists “forced” the betas to do. Depending how experienced the beta was, how far wide his throat had been stretched by other big dicks, he could maybe take three-fourths of King’s massive boner down his throat. I probably couldn’t fare as well. I’d be slapped and beaten for not being able to swallow more meat.

  And I’d love every second.

  “Listen,” said King, “I’d like you to keep your options open. Why don’t you come with me to the Bottoms Up? You can do as much or as little as you like. You can just watch, figure out what you like, what you don’t like. I won’t make you go into any of the little booths with anyone. I usually go stick my dick into a glory hole to get instant gratification. Man, those twunks are hungry as the sea, and can digest as much.”

  Shakespeare. Who was this guy? “Yeah, maybe. Sure, who knows? It definitely wouldn’t be a dull night.”

  “Okay, we’re on, then. Tonight?”

  I could probably get Georgia to babysit. It wasn’t like I’d been getting out and about in a bachelor sort of way since coming to Hell’s Delight. It would certainly be…different. “All right.”

  “Ridin’ high!” declared King. “You’ll see. You won’t regret it, Dodge.”

  We’d see about that.

  The laborer stuck his head in then, handing me my coffee. “Dodge, you got the keys to room 411? I need to get in there, fix the sink.”

  I supposed I was the foreman of the other two workers, because somehow I’d wound up with the keys. “Sure do. Cumon.” With a nod, I told King to follow us. I knew he liked the old hotel and it was fun to walk the hallways of the 1880s building, new burgundy flocked wallpaper and plush maroon carpet already installed.

  I let the laborer and King into the room first. I went over to the window to see what kind of view could be had this high up. Lots of brick storefronts, as Hell’s Delight was an old mining town. It was still vibrant with citizens, not just tourists.

  “Okay if I pee in here?” King asked the laborer.

  “Sure. Everything’s hooked up.”

  “Oh, God.”

  What? Had someone left a mess in the bathroom?

  It being my responsibility, I approached the doorway where King hung, clutching the doorjamb. I peeked over his broad shoulder.

  Oh. Ugh. Two bodies, fully clothed, a woman and a man, lay passed out on the floor.

  King and I whipped into action at the same time. We practically fell on top of the bodies, King getting the woman, me getting the man. Turning the guy onto his back, I felt for a pulse. None. We thumped on their chests and blew breaths into their mouths, but frankly, it was disgusting.

  They had died awfully. The old man’s teeth were clenched so tight I had to insert a screwdriver between them to give him pointless breath. His lips were coated with a dried metallic foam I identified as blood. Both their faces had a blue cast, the skin on their necks and hands spotted with bright red dots. I didn’t want to put my mouth on his anymore, not knowing what’d killed him.

  King and I gave up pretty quick. “Call 911,” he told the laborer, who seemed more than glad to get the hell out of there.

  “Well,” I panted hopelessly. “Never a dull moment with you.”

  “Looks like poison,” said King, “from the foaming at the mouth.”

  “Suicide pact?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. This guy looks familiar.” King pulled out his phone and quickly googled. He showed me the result.

  Mike Seville

  City Manager

  Hell’s Delight, CA

  Holy hell.

  King added, “And this woman isn’t the wife I usually see him with at rodeos.”

  Chapter Four

  King

  “Your dicks must’ve blown out the back of your assholes when you found these two.”

  This was the medical examiner?

  A monstrous, stout guy, Levi Steinbeck had been the first to arrive, even before the cops. He looked only about Dodge’s age, not old enough to be a doctor. But he had the medical bag, the gloves, the lanyard around his neck with his laminated head shot—his cinnamon pyramidal hair that wrapped around his head, its fingers creating a convoluted muttonchops look that would’ve been more at home on Sherlock Holmes.

  “Oh, in a way,” Dodge admitted. We shared looks that said who is this guy? He was getting right to work, have to hand that to him. He tested the body for rigor mortis first, asking us what time we arrived in the room.

  Steinbeck said, “Why don’t you go down to the lobby and check the register or whatever they call it. Find out their names, when they checked in.”

  Dodge said, “We won’t find much. The hotel is closed. That’s why I’m here, remodeling the HVAC.”

  Levi set out a thermometer to check the room temp. I said, “This guy here is Mike Seville, interim mayor while the old one’s being investigated for—”

  “Murder, yeah, I know,” said Steinbeck, brandishing another, larger thermometer. “Now this one gets murdered. Interesting. And who’s the lady?” As he said this, he unceremoniously yanked down her pantyhose with his free hand. Turning h
er over, he felt around under her dress before shoving the thermometer up there, like he’d done it a thousand times.

  “We don’t recognize her,” said Dodge.

  Steinbeck’s sharp, beady eyes glanced at the room thermometer. “It’s a sauna in here. These windows been closed how long?”

  Dodge shrugged. “Days, maybe weeks. The exterior painter has them all taped off. He’s finishing tomorrow.”

  With a flourish, Steinbeck withdrew the anal thermometer. It was fascinating. I’d seen them do this on mounts, horses, and cattle. Steinbeck looked at the stick in his hand, then to the room stick, then back to his stick. “Time of death,” he said to no one in particular. “Ten o’clock last night.”

  He pulled the poor woman’s sweater up, revealing a greenish abdomen.

  “Eyew,” said Dodge, who surely must’ve been used to gore in his orthotic career.

  “See?” said Steinbeck. “The lower intestine is beginning to self-digest. She’s bloating because bacteria is growing, breaking down proteins into amino acids.”

  “And the mottling on the skin?” asked Dodge.

  “This webbing of blood vessels is due to red blood cells breaking down, emitting hemoglobin. Fact, any minute now, due to how swollen her abdomen is, gases are about to escape, perhaps explosively.”

  That didn’t sound good, and I backed away to the wall. Dodge did, too.

  Steinbeck pointed at her face. “See, fluids are draining from her mouth and nose. The skin will peel away like a tomato decaying.” Laboriously, he got to his feet. Whipping off his gloves, he went into the bathroom to toss them away and wash his hands. “See, this scene right here is my Michelangelo’s David, my Motherland, my Thinker. And the entire cornerstone upon which I carved this gorgeous motherfucker is this heavenly little thermometer.”

  Dodge and I looked at each other. His brow was furrowed. Would someone escape from the loony bin just so he could enter a crime scene and take a corpse’s temperature?

  Donning a new pair of gloves, Steinbeck went about the room picking up drinking glasses and sniffing them. On the little table sat a bottle of wine our couple had been celebrating with. Someone had more than likely poisoned the wine, and I said, “Looked to us like a double suicide.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Steinbeck grandly, sniffing another glass. “Let us be open-minded. If this guy took over the mayor’s job of a murderer—”

  “Suspected murderer,” I said.

  “—there are many other far more nefarious causes for this situation. This fine couple met their demise by poisoning, to be sure, but whether they took it voluntarily or it was given to them, perhaps in this wine, will be determined later. I will test their stomachs and lungs in my forensics lab. In the meantime, I think I have a bottle of Cook’s champagne in the fridge at the morgue. Who’s up for a drink?”

  My eyes widened at the thought of drinking champagne in a morgue, maybe while Levi Steinbeck removed the putrefying innards of this dramatic couple, but a few cops entered then.

  I knew Sergeant Marick from his attendance at the rodeo.

  “Kingsize Taylor! You were one of the two guys who found these stiffs?”

  “Uh-huh. I was here talking to my equine orthotic guy, Dodge Hendy. He’s a master at fabricating fake limbs for animals.”

  “Is that so?” Marick seemed to admire Dodge for a second, but he soon turned to Steinbeck, his mood black now, his lips thin. “Steinbeck.”

  “Marick,” Steinbeck spat. “I believe we’re looking at a poisoning here, and you may recognize Mike Seville, so it’d behoove you to keep this on the down-low.”

  “As we do all of our cases,” Marick said sternly.

  Steinbeck slammed his medical bag shut. “Well. Boys. We’re wheels up now, heading to the morgue, so we can shit, shave, and shit again. Good day.”

  We tried to leave, too, after Marick gave us the typical movie warning to stick around and not leave town or talk to anyone. Dodge said he could finish his duct work later, seeing as how the entire hotel was now a taped-off crime scene. I helped him downstairs with all his tools. He didn’t know when he’d be let back into the building to finish his work, so our arms were full of sheet metal stuff.

  On the way to Dodge’s truck we ran into Alex Coldiron, reporter for the Hell’s Delight rag. He was the lover of Shane Jonas, owner of my very own Hardscrabble Ranch. “What’s going on, King? I heard there’s a 10-56 up there. You see any bodies?”

  I had no idea what a 10-56 was, but I knew Alex hovered by the police scanner for news. “We’re sworn to not talk.”

  “Ah, cumon, King. Hand a guy a bone.”

  I looked at Dodge. I couldn’t discern any emotion either way, so I fessed up to my boss’s boyfriend. “Double suicide. Or murder. Don’t know which.” I felt good that I hadn’t spilled the man’s identity. Alex would find out soon enough.

  “Excellent,” said Alex, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape and sprinting for the front stairs.

  “Hey,” I yelled. “I won’t be back to the ranch until late tonight. I know the purse is big tomorrow, but the first event doesn’t start till one.”

  Alex wasn’t in charge of my rodeo schedule—Balt Aquino was—but he was married to the big boss. He waved and darted inside the ornate double doors. Damnation. Some guys at Hardscrabble made it look desirable to settle down, hitch your wagon to someone’s star. Balt Aquino was always banging it out with Oly Chamberlain, this sexy-as-sin fireman who looked like a zombie hunter on TV. I could see myself maybe doing that. But no kids! No kids.

  And here we were, riding in Dodge’s truck back to his house where a kid awaited.

  Dodge said, “I’m just going to tell my cousin that we’re going to a…a…”

  “The arena to practice bareback bronc riding.”

  “No. No! Ryan would definitely want to come along for that. How’s about…”

  “Think of somewhere he’d never want to go.”

  “Bowling.”

  “Bowling?”

  “Bowling. Ryan hates it. Isn’t there a bowling alley out White Fang Street?”

  “Sure, but…” I had to chuckle. “Never fancied myself any sort of bowler.”

  “What about your…clothes?”

  “My clothes?” I looked down. I was just rigged in the average cowboy gear of boots and a plaid button-down.

  “I mean, don’t you want to get some sort of costume for the nightclub? You were wearing this harness when I first saw you.”

  Dodge’s nerves were amusing. He truly was a cock virgin, brand-new to this scene. “That’s okay. I can do without a costume. I want you to feel as comfortable as possible. This ain’t my first rodeo, but it might be yours.”

  “Oh, it most definitely is my first rodeo. What should I wear?”

  I turned toward him on the front bench seat, running my arm along the neck rest. My fingertips touched the warm fabric of his shoulder. “Well, you don’t want to make any statement your first night out. Just dress like me. You got a cowboy hat?”

  He chuckled nervously. “No. Why would I have that?”

  “You got to get one in Hell’s Delight. Haven’t you noticed almost every guy has one?”

  “I did. So a guy can just walk into the Bottoms Up dressed like us?”

  “Most are. Most gays are all hat and no cattle, to be honest. They talk a good game, but it takes a lot of balls to actually participate.”

  “So you participate…in the glory holes?”

  “Those, and I’ve been known to enact scenes as a Dom.”

  “Dom?”

  “Dominant. An Alpha.”

  “Oh. I think of it as an Alpha.”

  “So you and your wife. You were her Alpha?”

  He laughed, shy. “Oh, hell, no. We were plain vanilla all the way. I’m telling you, King. I just had that one school experience. I’m all hat and no cattle, too.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. There are the One True Way guys who think they know it all. It’s their w
ay or the highway. I like a bit of give and take. If I can feel a sub, a beta, is going one way, I’ll let him take the reins, so-called guide me. A real man only needs his beta’s presence to own and direct him. I never make a show of strength by making my beta feel like a piece of shit, like lots of guys do. I don’t use true violence. This gains me respect.”

  “So you…agree on things beforehand?”

  “A contract, uh-huh. A verbal agreement, a safe word—”

  “A word to use if someone goes too far?”

  “Exactly. A true Dom knows that a real man motivates powerful men to get on their knees and honor the chain of command. A true Alpha is gentle and generous, gives a shit about the beta’s state of mind. These are the kinds of men you want, Dodge.”

  “Who said I wanted anyone? I’m just curious what the scene’s like.”

  I snorted. “Bicurious?”

  He made a lip fart, but quickly agreed. “I suppose so, yeah. I just want to know…what the whole scene’s about.”

  Oh, I just fucking bet. I could already see this cute-as-a-possum guy with soulful eyes falling to his knees. I gathered that the college thing involved some other boys “torturing” him, as they were known to do. Fucking college assholes. Denied any shred of gayness while reaming another guy up the ass with a broomstick, and ogling the guy’s hard dick the whole time. I’d had a similar school experience back in Goodnight. Except I’d been so eager for it, so hot and raring to go, I think I scared the two boys who had thought to molest me. I’ve been out and proud ever since, although Goodnight wasn’t the place for that. I moved around the rodeo circuit, balling the few other gay cowboys I met, but it wasn’t until I landed at Hardscrabble that I truly felt at home. Balt Aquino and his lover, Olin Chamberlain, were two men you could run the river with. I trusted all of my fellow cowboys, gay or not, implicitly.