by Mary Calmes
My dick trapped between us, between the heat and the sweaty slide, I climaxed moments later, spurting over his belly. His laughter was a surprise.
“I should beat you for making me wait so long to be this fuckin’ happy,” he rushed out, arms wrapped around my neck again as he mauled my bruised and swollen lips.
“Yeah?” I asked as I carried him to the bathroom. “You’re happy?”
“Oh baby, I’m so happy,” he said, laying his head on my shoulder for a moment before lifting his gaze to meet mine. “And I can’t wait for you to meet my family so everyone will know you’re mine.”
I had no idea I’d fallen so hard until I had him looking at me how I’d always dreamed—possessively, lovingly, like I was the whole thing, right there.
“I want you, I want all of you. Don’t doubt me. I swear I’m already in this for the whole ride, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed and took that as a vow.
“Finally,” he sighed, wrapping tight around me.
It took a while for me to put him down.
WE ATE in bed, where he told me how hot it was that I’d held him before our frottage in the kitchen, during, and then all the way to the bathroom.
“You’re so strong,” he breathed, and the way he said it made me hard all over again. There was something very primal about the guy I had just made love to telling me the power in my body turned him on. I had the ridiculous urge to flex my muscles for him.
We fell asleep with dishes stacked on the edge of the bed, both of us naked and him curled into my side. I could not remember being happier—even with Haru—because none of our moments were ever ours, every one of them stolen. With Scott, there was no rush, no worry, no fear for our lives. I drifted off with his body curled around mine, his lips on my skin and my arms locked around him. I couldn’t imagine sleeping without him ever.
HIS PHONE woke me with an annoying text tone that sounded like nails on a chalkboard mixed with bad trance music. I could feel it run up my spine and settle at the base of my skull. I was surprised it was so bright already, but I figured maybe the light diffused differently at his place and I just didn’t know because I’d never slept over.
Scott jolted and sat up. “Oh shit, what time is it?”
It was that horrible moment when we both thought it was afternoon and I’d missed the day, having never opened the gallery, and he’d missed all the prep time needed to open the restaurant.
Rolling sideways, I checked my watch on his night table through squinted eyes and realized it was actually only nine. “Not late,” I sighed, falling back and reaching for him.
“Fuck,” he said instead of cuddling back up to me.
I wasn’t completely awake. “What’s wrong?”
He was holding his phone and staring at me. “Is today the twenty-fourth?”
Checking again, I confirmed that it was.
“Fuck,” he said again.
“That’s a lotta swearing first thing, huh?”
His expression was pained. “My father is parking the car.”
I sat straight up. “I’m sorry?”
He nodded fast. “Yeah, I, uhm… fucked up the date. I thought today was the fourteenth, not the twenty-fourth.”
“You’re over a week behind?”
“Yeah, I’m over a week behind.”
“But I showed you how to use Outlook on your phone and—”
“That’s why I need a watch!” he snapped.
“So it’s my fault?” I asked, giving him a look that I hope conveyed his hypocrisy.
“No, honey,” he soothed, scrambling close to kiss me hard. I was just starting to lean in when he pulled back. “But again, let me stress the fact that my father is searching for a parking spot—as we speak.”
“Oh shit!” I barked, the horror of our present predicament finally hitting me.
He reeked of cum and sweat—so did I.
His bedroom appeared as though a Roman orgy had taken place and the servants hadn’t cleaned up yet. His kitchen was in a state he never allowed the one at work to fall into: utterly destroyed. Normally a clean-as-you-go guy, he’d left it looking like a tornado had blown through.
“Fuck!” he yelled again.
“Clothes,” I ordered as his phone rang, the tone a classic rotary sound. He answered on the third ring.
“Hey Mom.” He greeted her like he was standing in front of a firing squad, and I gestured him off the bed. “Well, actually, I was thinking I’d take you guys out to breakfast. You want regular food or beignets?”
I gave him the thumbs-up for his quick thinking as he moved the iPhone away from his mouth to speak to me.
“That leaves you here doing everything?”
“Who the fuck cares?” I whispered harshly. “Do not let them in this goddamn apartment!”
He huffed before going back to her. “Oh yeah, sure, I’ll be right down.” Quick exhale. “Oh no, just leave all your stuff in the car, it’ll be fine.”
He hung up after telling her he loved her and then scuttled off the bed to reach his armoire. I had never seen him get ready so fast. He grabbed clothes and bolted for the bathroom, washing his face and brushing his teeth in record time. It was cute to watch him hop on one foot as he pulled on jeans, a black T-shirt, a heavy hooded gray sweater that matched the color of his eyes, and a beanie that made him look like he was leaving for college. When he noticed me not moving, he stopped.
“What’re you doing?”
I pointed at him. “You’re really pretty.”
He scoffed but came around the bed, bent over, laid another hard, claiming kiss on me, and then told me to get my ass up and clean, before he ran out the front door. Seconds later, as I was searching for my underwear under his bed, the front door opened and I nearly had a heart attack since I was still naked.
He tipped his head to the side, admiring the view.
“Ass,” I proclaimed.
“Yeah, yours is fuckin’ nice.”
I got to my knees and threw up my hands. “Is there a reason you’re back?”
His smile was evil and rolled my stomach. “Yeah. I forgot to say thank you. So, thank you. You’re the best boyfriend ever.”
“Get out,” I ordered, pointing at the door.
He was cackling as he closed it on his way out.
In the thundering silence that followed, I realized the enormity of my task. His apartment was trashed. First things first, I needed clean sheets on the bed for his folks. I was betting they wouldn’t want to sleep on the ones currently half on and half off the mattress.
Lord.
HE TEXTED me that they were going to The Ruby Slipper, which was great because the food was amazing—but he and I usually got in line there before it opened, so the fact that they were there around nine thirty meant they were in for a wait. So thankfully, I had a lot more time, depending on how many people were in front of them and how slowly they ate.
An hour later my phone rang, but it wasn’t Scott. Instead, Eiyad.
“What?”
“That’s a charming greeting. You should always answer the phone that way.”
I chuckled as he explained that he didn’t think it was anything but Sanaa had made him call me. “You’re not making any sense.”
“That’s because she’s not—”
“Boone?”
I smiled. She had taken Eiyad’s phone away from him so she could talk. “Yeah?”
“Baby, there are men checking out your gallery.”
“That’s because it’s supposed to be open already.” I grunted. “I’m gonna be late today, so if I miss some sales that’s my own—”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, clearing her throat. “There’s admiring pretty artwork from the street, and there’s casing the joint to figure out how to get in. One guy hopped the wrought iron gate to your alley and checked the back door.”
“Yeah, that’s solid steel. Good l
uck getting in.”
“No, you’re not hearing me. I don’t think they want to get in, and they’re dressed really well to be planning to rob you. Every one of these guys is in Hugo Boss or Ralph Lauren.”
“Every one of—how many guys are there?”
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “Let me… I count six.”
“There are six men in front of my place?”
“Yes.”
“What do they look like?” I teased her. “Are they hot?”
She didn’t laugh. Not a good sign. “They’re all Asian, and they’re all wearing black suits and black shirts and black shoes except for one guy who’s older—he’s got this fantastic white hair and he’s wearing a navy suit—and another guy who’s younger than everyone else and his suit is brown.”
I froze where I was.
“Not that you care about all that, but now you have all the information I have up to this point.”
I knew who was there.
“Okay, so they all just piled back into a couple of big-ass black SUVs, but Boone, I really don’t think they’re here to collect any art.”
“No,” I said hoarsely. “They’re not.”
“So do you know them?”
“I suspect so, yeah.”
“And is it okay? I mean, are they friends of yours?”
“The old man and I have some talking to do.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, then exhaling sharply. “I was just worried. I mean, my friend Margo had a stalker boyfriend who used to bring his boys with him to track her down, and it used to look just like this at her house.”
“So you have an eye for trouble.”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank Eiyad too. He was the one who first noticed them. But just like a man, he figured it was nothing.”
“Lucky he has you for backup.”
“This is what I’ve been telling him.”
After I hung up, I tried to think of why Masuya Fudo was hunting for me at my place of business after so very long. If he was going to kill me, he should have done it while I was still living in Japan. My body would have been a lot easier to get rid of there.
Chapter 7
I LEFT Scott’s apartment lemon-fresh with his sheets tumbling in the dryer, his bathroom sparkling, his kitchen cleaned and mopped, and his dishwasher running. Since I had a key—like he did for my place—I locked the front door on my way out and was gone before he returned with his family, which I was happy about. I looked terrible, I smelled worse, and I needed to get home to handle whatever was going on before I did anything more with Scott.
I didn’t want to drag him into something I wasn’t going to live through. And while in the past when I had imagined seeing Haru’s father again, I had only counted on one outcome, because of Scott I was now hoping for more.
After Masuya Fudo discovered Haru and me together, he’d sent Haru out of the house, told him that he and I needed to talk. The old man promised Haru he wouldn’t kill me, but I wasn’t stupid; “not killing” was not the same as “not crippling.” I had defiled his precious son, the man poised to take over the family business, and that business concerned not a multinational conglomerate or real estate, but instead drugs, prostitution, and gambling.
An example needed to be made.
I hardly remembered the beating that followed. It went on too long and remaining conscious hadn’t been possible. Being held under water over and over, strung up by my wrists, and then finally beaten again until I couldn’t see were the only pieces left in my head. One of Masuya’s men suggested they rape me, and he had been killed with a bullet to the brain right there in front of me.
“This is my son—he will not be raped!”
He’d always told my mother, his beloved mistress, Lauren Walton, that he thought of me as a son, and apparently it was the truth. But Haru was his blood, which made the transgression mine, put the sin on me and therefore I would pay. So because of her, because of my dead mother, he would kill me, but he wouldn’t allow me to be assaulted. That was a line not to be crossed.
“Chain him.”
From that day on, hearing heavy links dragged over concrete could stop my heart. It was why I had an electronic lock on the gate to the alley behind my gallery. Having to use a chain and lock would have made me gag. I’d spent too much time suspended over a grate in the cement. I watched the water drain away, along with my urine and my blood. I could hear the rats in the sewer and see them when they came up at night, as well as the flies and the roaches.
By the time they let me out, I’d lost weight and muscle. But the change in Haru when they let him in to see me was worse. His long beautiful hair was cut short like a salaryman’s. His eyes were flat and dull, and he wore no easy grin, just the hard line of a clenched jaw.
I couldn’t stand and I knew I stank to high heaven, but he moved quickly, kneeling down beside me, wanting to touch me, but careful not to press against my ruined cheek, split open and blood encrusted.
“Daijobu?”
Normally we spoke in English, since it was easier for me and he was trying to learn more of it, but his voice, husky and low, was deserting him, so I was guessing the language he’d been trying to master was too.
“I’m okay,” I assured him, trying to smile. “You look terrible.”
I got a trace of a grin from him. “I am taking my place.”
I shook my head. “No, don’t—we’ll figure it out.”
“To see you,” he rasped. “See you were okay. This was the price. We’re done.”
“No, please,” I begged urgently, staring into his big beautiful chocolate brown eyes. From the first moment I saw him, when he came to live with his father—and therefore me and my mother—I’d been a slave to them.
He’d been raised lavishly in Ashiya with his mother and her family, but when she died in a car accident, he moved to Tokyo to join his father. He was scared and alone, but my mother’s warmth, demonstrativeness, and smiles helped him through the transition. And on top of it, there was me.
We were inseparable, and what started as friendship became brotherly and finally, one day, something more. He was leaning down over me, I was standing up, and we bumped. He lost his balance and toppled into my lap. Since I’d been pining for him for two years, I fisted my hand in the front of his shirt and tugged him forward into a kiss. My infatuation had started a little after I was thirteen, picked up steam when I turned fourteen, and became a raging boner every night by the time fifteen struck. His body was so slender and graceful, his skin was smooth and flawless, and his mouth was a seductive destination for mine. All I wanted was to kiss him, just once, and I was sure I’d be sated.
But he kissed me back.
We had no clue what we were doing, just hands and mouths everywhere until he got comfortable on top of me, straddling my hips, and we both got our cocks out and I jerked us off together in one of my big hands.
When he collapsed, his breath puffing over the side of my neck and our cum pressed and spread between us, sticking our abdomens together, I figured I was as close to heaven as I was ever going to get.
“Aishiteru yo,” he whispered into my skin.
“I love you too,” I promised and meant it from the bottom of my heart.
When my mother died a year later when I was sixteen, he was my anchor. When he was learning his father’s business and I was his shadow, I kept him from accepting the invitations to have a drink, do a line of coke, drop some acid, shoot up, or get stoned. Always I kept him moving, walking away, no time, gotta go, never stopping, no dirt getting on him. I kept him clean. The only thing I didn’t have to remind him not to do was fuck around. There were always women, all whores, some so beautiful it made my eyes hurt to look at them, some all used up and strung out. But he never even slowed, finding me wherever we were, reaching for me, for my bicep, my wrist, tugging me forward, away, as fast as he could. Many times it was his hand on the small of my back that grounded me as he ste
ered us out of a club to the street. Always he’d find an alley, a car, whatever was close, and push me down or up against a wall. I’d argue, tell him it was too dangerous, but he’d need me, need to be inside my body so he could remember who he was by loving me. We were balanced, neither always giving nor always taking; we took it for granted, the ebb and flow of what flared between us. I loved Haru with everything I had, body and soul, and so when he was taken from me, kept from me, I went mad in slow increments.
But that day I came out of the hole, I had no idea we would be separated. I was so certain we could run away together. We just needed to make it outside to the street. We just needed space so we could go.
“We have to meet tonight so we can make a plan to—”
He shook his head.
“What’re you talking about?” I asked, realizing how hard it was to breathe. The beatings had been so much worse than I realized.
“This is good-bye,” he said softly, and I saw the tears fill his gorgeous warm eyes.
“What?” I tried to grab hold of his hand. “No.”
“Yes,” he told me before my world went black.
They knocked me out and dumped me at the hospital where I spent a month recovering from broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and multiple fractures. My medical bills were paid, but back out on the street, right leg in a cast, everywhere I went—doors were closed. My apartment was gone, my stuff was in storage, and I had no access to anyone I used to know. No one spoke to me, people ignored me, I was nothing, invisible, and because I had no money, no skills, I took a job on the docks and got a room behind the fish market. The first winter, I was certain freezing to death was a distinct possibility.
I got thinner and smaller, but I found Haru and started tracking him night after night. I was always there, wherever he looked, and even when he had me beaten by guys I used to call friends, I went back.
They held me while Haru himself hit me, and still I went back.
He met me secretly and hurled horrible words at me, and still I went back.
He told me I was shaming him and he beat me again, and still I went back.