“Legal stuff,” he answered, an edge to his voice. “A lot of it relating to the shelter, transferring the lease of the property and the accounts to the new administrators, among other things.”
And that required him to drop everything and take off at a moment’s notice?
“You didn’t have any warning?” I lifted my head to look at him.
Robin shrugged, his eyes evading mine. “Some of it was time sensitive.”
“Ohh-kay.” I could sense I wasn’t getting the whole answer from him, and that sort of pissed me off, considering he was adamant about full disclosure of all my shit.
Now the silence was definitely awkward, and Robin looked annoyed. He blew his breath out in a puff. “A lot of it had to do with my ex. Kyle.”
“The one who was embezzling?”
He nodded. “It was more than that.” I could hear the tension in his voice, feel it in his body next to mine. “I cooperated with the investigation when it became apparent that funds were missing. I was the one who spotted some of the stuff linking Kyle to the discrepancies. So he—”
Robin pulled away from me and sat up on the edge of the bed, gripping the rim of the mattress. “He wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was my sub. And he tried to make my testimony about the embezzlement look suspect by accusing me of abuse. He used marks left over from our last scene as his ‘evidence.’”
I froze in the process of sitting up to reach for him. He’d been accused of domestic violence? Shit. Was I getting involved with an abuser?
Robin peered at me over his shoulder. “I swear to you, I never laid a hand on Kyle without his wholehearted, enthusiastic consent,” he said, turning to face me fully. “Yes, I left bruises and welts on him, but he expected— Hell, he demanded them. He was always pushing me for harder play, edge play, things that crossed a line I wasn’t comfortable crossing. The scene where I left those marks on him happened at a friend’s play party; I had witnesses that he had consented and had even begged for more. Luckily, the police and prosecutor who investigated the charge were both LGBT-friendly and knew a little about kink, or it could have gotten bad. Eventually Kyle recanted and the charges were dropped.”
Trust. Robin had been hammering away at the importance of it since we’d met. But this was . . . Jesus. Of course, no one wanted to be involved with a batterer, but for me, even a comparatively mild assault could be catastrophic. Was I endangering my life?
His pale eyes radiated fear. And . . . resignation?
“I know that must sound scary. Who in their right mind would want to start seeing someone who’s been accused of abuse, no matter how they try to explain it? I’m not sure I would chance it, especially if I were in your situation. But hiding it would look worse, so . . .” He trailed off on a sigh. “Better to let you know now if we’re getting into something long-term.”
I bowed my head, flashing over our relatively short acquaintance, looking for anything that could be a warning sign of an inclination toward domestic violence. But how did you even look for such a thing?
Trust. He was entrusting me with this confession, wasn’t he? And it wasn’t the first time he’d extended his trust since calling me earlier. He’d asked for my trust, and he was giving me his in return.
I met his eyes. “Thank you for telling me.”
The tension drained out of him in a rush, leaving him slumped and somehow smaller, sitting there on my bed, bare and vulnerable. A golden Norse god shrunk to a mere human. I laid a hand along his chin to bring him in for a kiss. It was maybe a more tender gesture than anything we’d shared so far. Was I giving away that I’d started to develop feelings for him? Did I particularly care if I was?
If I inadvertently clued him in, Robin didn’t seem put off by it. I ended up beneath him again, in an entirely different way. Wrapped around each other, sharing kisses for the sheer enjoyment of kissing, no intention of taking it further than our sated bodies cared to.
Eventually we paused to catch our breaths and get his weight off me. I stretched out, plastered against the side of his body, my head on his furred chest.
“It still amazes me that you went from spending your life helping homeless LGBT kids to opening an art gallery in a Lake Michigan tourist town,” I mused. “I mean, I know you explained about the donors and the politics, and of course, now I understand about Kyle, but—”
“Yeah, well, that was only part of the story. I left for several reasons.” He sighed and shifted to lie on his side facing me, curling his arm under his pillow. His eyes flicked to the dark ceiling for a long moment, then back to me. “One of the biggest is that I couldn’t cut it.”
I lifted my eyebrows and lay there silently, not prompting. He let his fingers walk up my arm to my shoulder, stroking lightly before he finally continued.
“It takes a special type of person to do that work, especially the counseling. Someone with a fortitude that it turns out I don’t have. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I started out intending to help kids I saw heading the same direction Isaac went in, so I felt a personal connection to them all, or— I don’t know. Could be I’m just a spoiled rich boy who can’t understand when things don’t work the way I think they should.” He briefly tightened the hand that had been caressing my shoulder and then released, as though he was afraid he might grip me too hard.
“Whatever it was, I couldn’t get enough emotional distance and perspective to deal with their pain and keep my own sanity. I internalized it too much. Every tragic story, every failure to help a kid who decided to run off rather than be helped.”
Something in my chest shifted, beginning to ache, though I couldn’t say if it was for him or merely in sympathy with him.
“Even before Hurricane Sandy and the embezzlement mess, I was drinking more than I should have. I was a problem drinker heading for alcoholism. I’d lost my emotional bearings. Things kept hitting me too hard, so every minor crisis blew up into a catastrophe in my mind.” He blew out a long sigh. “I was on the verge of a breakdown. Then the rest of it happened, and I realized I wasn’t doing anyone any good that way. I couldn’t help the kids, and I definitely couldn’t help myself. The best thing I could do for everyone was to step back and leave it to people who were better able to do the work.” His fingers squeezed mine. “I went to Michigan to start over because I couldn’t even be around New York without trying to be involved. Honestly, it’s just best for everyone if I stick to writing checks.”
“I’m sorry.” I drew his hand to my face and pressed a kiss to it. “For you to care as much as you do, that alone is a big deal. More than other people even bother with. I don’t think it’s a failure that it turned out to be work you weren’t suited to.”
“No.” He tucked our joined hands under his face, pillowing his cheek on them. That twisting ache in my chest grew tighter. “The failure came in that I didn’t let go early enough. I held on too long, and almost destroyed everything we had been working to build.”
I frowned. It sounded like he blamed himself for the embezzlement as well, even though that was clearly all on his ex. He didn’t offer any clarifying details to go with that statement.
I heard water running in the next room and realized Jace had finally come home. The silence once again stretched out into something that threatened to become uncomfortable. The only thing that saved it was the intimacy of his face tucked against the back of my hand.
“When did you reschedule your flight for?” I asked, for lack of anything better to discuss.
“Tomorrow evening. I have to be back in Saugatuck the day after tomorrow. “But . . . There’s no reason I can’t return. Regularly.”
His pale eyes held mine. I swallowed, clueless as to how I was going to navigate this thing but unable to resist its allure. “There’s no reason I can’t make the drive up to Michigan either.”
“Good.” Robin withdrew his hand from mine and planted it on my shoulder, rolling me onto my stomach with a single pull. His mouth found the junction of my neck and sh
oulder as he draped himself over my back. He didn’t bite—he never had, not since I told him not to—but his teeth scraped my neck, and in a way it was like the blade of the knife that had caressed my face. Skirting the edge. Hinting at danger enough to charge my nerves, making me feel electrified.
Alive.
I writhed beneath his weight, humping the bed as my dick swelled. I could feel his firming up, first against my hip and then along the crack of my ass, which was already slick with his semen. I loved that thought for the same reasons I loved the scrape of his teeth.
His fingers laced with mine and stretched my arms above my head, wrapping them around the slats of the headboard. He ground against me hard enough to make me whimper after the way he’d already pounded me into the mattress.
“Are you sore?” His voice was a menacing purr behind my ear.
“Yes,” I gasped, even as I shoved my ass against his cock.
He drew back, his hand moving between us, lining him up until he pressed tauntingly against my tender hole.
“Good,” he growled, and pushed inside.
“Sore” didn’t begin to describe my state the next morning. Really, it was closer to noon, judging by the light creeping in around the blinds. Robin had taken me at my word that I wanted to hurt. In the process, I realized that my fantasies had barely scratched the surface of the reality.
I was frustrated by the lack of paraphernalia this unplanned encounter entailed, because he couldn’t hurt me by brute force. I’d set limits on pinching and biting and things that would strain my joints or impact my deep muscles, and even at his most brutal, Robin abided by them. It never got to the point where I needed my safeword.
He woke me up by making good on the threat he’d issued the night before—forcing his cock down my throat. If I hadn’t so recently infused, I wouldn’t have dared do it. We’re warned that mouth and throat bleeds can cause swelling that could block the airway. But when I came abruptly to consciousness with Robin dragging me so that my head hung upside-down off the side of the bed, I didn’t try to stop him. He stuffed a pair of underwear—his or mine, I wasn’t sure—in my hand and told me to drop it if I needed to stop. Then he commanded me to open my mouth, because he intended to use my other hole this time.
My throat was elongated, a straight line from my mouth down my esophagus. I was open. Vulnerable. At his mercy.
“Think you’ll be okay like this for a few minutes?” he asked. While his tone was relaxed, the look he gave me was sharp enough that lying wouldn’t have been a good idea.
“Yeah, I think it’s fine right now.”
Robin simply nodded, which made me really glad I hadn’t tried to downplay anything. Trust.
He fucked my mouth in shallow thrusts until I got used to the position and the angle. Then he rammed himself down my throat, cutting off my air and making me gag. I flailed involuntarily, my body struggling for life-sustaining breath even as my mind exulted that I was checking off another fantasy on my mental wish list.
He drew back to let me cough and splutter, drool wetting my face, and then shoved in deep again. His taint pressed against my nose, his balls swinging against my eyes. He laid his hand on the front of my throat, and said, his voice harsh and choked, “Fucking hell. I can see my dick moving in your throat.”
I would have given him a needy groan if I’d had the breath for it.
He fucked my throat fast and hard, with the same heedless roughness he’d used to ream my ass three times during the night. By the time he went still and shuddered, his spunk gushing down my esophagus in thick spurts, I could add saliva and tears to the list of fluids soiling me. At that point I was nearly delirious. Lack of breath and a strange Zen made my struggles and suffering irrelevant. I was hard and didn’t even realize it until Robin eased me back up onto the bed. He curled around and over me, jacking me off while he spread kisses on my begrimed face. The orgasm that rushed up from my nuts was gentle, a sweet lassitude spreading through me as I came all over my stomach.
When I finally caught my breath, he left the bed, pulling the covers over me with no regard for the mess. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
Dazed and lethargic, I nodded and let myself drift. I was vaguely aware of water running in the bathroom next door, and the sound of voices outside the bedroom as Jace greeted Robin. The word “coffee” was spoken with all due reverence and longing. Then Robin was back, sitting on the bed and washing me with a wet cloth, starting with my face and belly and ending with my aching ass.
“How you doing?” he asked, setting the cloth aside and pressing a kiss between my shoulder blades as I lay half-melted into the mattress. “Hungry? Thirsty?”
“Yeah. Tired.” I blinked at him sleepily, feeling so incredibly good that I wanted to crawl inside him and stay there, basking in him and this feeling for as long as possible.
He smiled, his teeth white and straight and perfect and his eyes warm despite that cool, pale blue. It occurred to me that maybe I should try to rein in the sex-drunk bliss before I got downright moony, but I couldn’t be bothered. Especially not when he was giving me that indulgent look and touching me with such care.
“I don’t blame you. Jace is making eggs and coffee. Let’s get some breakfast in you. Then you can get some more sleep.”
“What about you?” My voice was a harsh rasp, my throat sore. I managed to regain enough muscle control to lift my head off the pillow. “You were up most of the night too.”
“I can sleep later. Jace is going to show me some of his work at the studio. But I’ll be back for at least a couple hours before I have to go to the airport. You rest while we’re gone.” There was a doting softness about his smile that made me think I wasn’t the only one feeling moony. “Once I get home, we can work out a schedule for when would be the best time to visit.”
“’Kay.”
He leaned over, and I rolled to my back to meet his kiss. I lingered in it, grateful for the peace that made it feel unimportant to question how this had turned into . . . whatever it was. Maybe by the time I came down from the high, I would acclimate and not freak out or feel insecure about it.
After a moment, he drew back. His eyes searched mine, and it seemed like he wanted to say something. But he smiled again and helped me out of bed.
I did sleep while Robin showered and gathered his stuff near the door. Just before he and Jace left, though, I woke to a feeling I’d been dreading since I met him.
The bleed was in my left wrist, a tickling, prickling, bubbly feeling that would eventually blossom into agony. I didn’t think we’d done anything to cause it, but sometimes there wasn’t a reason; it just happened. It was already painful: white-hot flares radiated from the joint with every movement.
I went into the kitchen for water to wash my Percocet down, and for a bag of frozen peas to use as a cold pack. Robin paused by the door. “Can’t sleep?”
I shrugged and blinked sleepily, pretending I wasn’t wide-awake and pissed off with the universe for giving me a bleed right now.
“Thirsty,” I said, trying for a drowsy smile. I closed the freezer door and opened the refrigerator as if I were too out of it to know what I was doing. I turned my back to dig in the fridge for a bottle of water, trying not to look like I was only using one hand.
He’d be leaving in a few hours. If I could play it low-key, he’d never need to know I was having a bleed, never need to question himself and whether he’d done something to cause this. He’d never get that cautious look in his eye that people got when they suddenly began thinking of me as breakable.
“Okay.” His smile was as dotty as before. “Be back in a bit.”
When the door closed, I downed two Percocet and wrapped my wrist before mixing my factor and sitting down at the table to infuse again.
By the time Robin and Jace got back, I’d returned the peas to the freezer to let them chill again. The pills had muted the pain, but it was bad enough that I’d had to take something stronger. I was on my way to we
ll and truly stoned. Bleeds always made me irritable, and this one even more so. Of all the fucking rotten timing. It couldn’t have waited four hours? I was half-drugged and half-furious and one hundred percent irrational.
Fuck. I was probably too loaded to keep it on the DL. Robin would see and know. He’d start to question whether he really could play with me the way I wanted to play. Those glorious few hours between the time he’d arrived at our door and the time he’d left with Jace would be the last time I’d experience the sort of dangerous pleasure I craved from him.
Jace looked at the pill bottles on the coffee table. I hadn’t put them away because I was worried about staggering into something and causing another injury. I could see him weighing his options, trying to decide how best to offer assistance while respecting my right to choose what to tell Robin. He also knew that bleeds made me cranky as fuck and that I would want to be left the hell alone.
Sucking on his cheek, he murmured something and went to his room.
“Hey.” Robin greeted me with a kiss and a smile, and I returned them, reaching for him with my good arm and trying to force my fury at my stupid fucking disorder aside.
“Hey.” I was high, and I’m sure my smile must have been lopsided. Or maybe I swayed. Something gave it away. Robin looked at the pill bottles and back at me.
“Something wrong?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said tersely.
He frowned at the bottles again, his jaw flexing. His eyes passed over me, assessing, but I had my wrist tucked where he couldn’t see how swollen it was.
“Where’s the injury?” he asked softly.
“It’s not an injury, it’s a bleed. Seriously, don’t worry about it.” I curled my good hand around the back of his neck and drew him closer, angling for a kiss. Frankly, I wasn’t much in the mood for sex with my wrist throbbing, but I’d ignore the fucker and try to show him a good time until he left. “I can handle it.”
“Handle what, exactly?” Robin let me pull him close, but he held back from the kiss, his expression shuttered.
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