Tough Love

by Heidi Cullinan

  He said his farewells silently, and then he whispered for Steve to please take him home.

  Chenco said goodbye to everyone at Taco Palenque—they weren’t close friends, but he would miss some of them—and he gave Lincoln a tearful hug on their last night out at Club 33, promising to keep in touch. Lincoln said Chenco had better or he’d be cashing in some vacation time to check in on him in Vegas.

  “Maybe I should check in on you regardless.” Lincoln waggled his eyebrows. “It’s been a decade since I was last in Sin City.”

  “You’re welcome anytime.”

  Lincoln’s expression turned serious, and he touched Chenco’s arm. “Be careful, okay? I know things are going well with Mr. Benson, and I’m glad for you. But be safe. If you ever need me, I’m a phone call away.”

  With another hug, this one piercing deep into Chenco’s belly, he promised he would be careful.

  He really was leaving. Not just the valley, but everything and everyone in it. Maybe forever.

  Of course, Steve was leaving too, which still blew Chenco’s mind. At the same time, it didn’t seem that big of a deal, not as much as it was to Chenco to get out of the RGV. When Steve packed up his house, he said goodbye to his friends and handed his keys over to a caretaker—the friends clearly hadn’t seen him much except for the day in the flats. They seemed more glad for Steve than sorry to see him leave, and unlike Chenco’s parting with Lincoln, nobody shed a tear.

  Mitch seemed excited to take a road trip with his husband and brother and Steve—Sam was positively giddy as he gave Chenco a tour of the cab and showed him how to turn the fold-down bed into a couch and raise the dining table.

  Sam seemed eager to have a traveling companion. “We can sit back here and play cards while they drive.”

  “Do you ever drive?” Chenco asked, and almost laughed at Sam’s shudder.

  Chenco kind of wanted to drive. Obviously not now. But he found himself hoping one day Mitch would offer to teach him.

  When they finally pulled out of McAllen, Chenco sat in the front seat of Old Blue, leaving the only place in the world he’d ever been. He’d never traveled farther north than Austin, never crossed the border to Mexico. Now he was going all the way to Las Vegas.

  He wasn’t just leaving the valley, he was leaving with his brother. And his brother-in-law.

  And a card shark, a casino mogul, and a gangster.

  And his boyfriend and his madman fresh from the attic.

  Once they were out in the brush country, Chenco moved out of the passenger seat, surrendering his place to Sam so he could sit with Steve on the couch. Steve pulled him in close and rubbed his arm.

  Chenco sank into him. “It seems stupid, feeling sad for leaving. Nothing good ever came of being here. Why am I sad to go?”

  “You lived your life here, and change is always hard.”

  “I didn’t get to see Booker. I tried, but he wouldn’t answer my calls.”

  Steve kissed him gently. “It’s okay. He’ll come around. Or he won’t. But you’re going to be okay.”

  It was such a sappy, stupid thing, but he couldn’t keep himself from saying it. “You’ll be with me?”

  “For as long as you’ll have me,” Steve promised. “For as long as you want me there.”

  I’m going to want you with me forever, Chenco thought, but that was really sappy and stupid, and he kept the words to himself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  MITCH DROVE NORTH to San Antonio, then headed east on 10 toward Ciudad Juarez—they didn’t ever dip into Mexico, only skirted it via Fort Bliss, and to get that far took eleven hours. Part of Chenco had been hoping to see some of those great big leafy trees he’d seen in movies and picture books, but of course they were going from brush country to short grass to desert. In addition to the scenery not being much—and only visible if he sat up front with Mitch—there was precious little to do. Chenco had grown tired of cards with Sam well before then, and he was relieved when they indulged in an extended break at a truck stop. It had absolutely nothing he wanted to eat, but Sam had stocked the mini fridge in the cab with fruit and veg and hummus, and Chenco made a small picnic with Steve under the shade of a mesquite tree.

  “I can’t believe we’re not out of Texas yet,” he said, leaning against Steve as he twirled a grape between his fingers.

  “Nearly there now.” Steve popped a piece of hummus-laden carrot into Chenco’s mouth. “We’ll get to Arizona before nightfall. I don’t know if I can get us all the way to Phoenix—been a few years since I drove a rig in a big city. Mitch might well be rested enough to drive again by then, since he’s used to driving long distance.”

  “I can’t believe I have a brother and a boyfriend who can drive big rigs.” He settled into Steve’s arms and stared out at the interstate. “You drove a truck in the Army, right?”

  “Slightly different kind of truck, but yes.” He stroked Chenco’s arms idly. “Man, I was younger than you when I did that.”

  “What were you doing sixteen years ago when you were my age?”

  “It was 1998, so I was just about done at Stanford. Had big dreams of running a tech company.” He laughed, the sound tinged with regret. “Hell, I knew Larry and Sergey pretty well. I can’t say they’d have brought me in on the ground floor, but…well, things went a different way, so none of it matters.”

  “Larry and Sergey?”

  “Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google founders.”

  Whoa. “You left all that for Gordy?”

  “I did.”

  Now it was Chenco stroking Steve’s furry arm. “How’s he doing? Have you heard?”

  Steve’s reply was careful, but Chenco could feel the mild tension in his body. “Crabtree has made it clear I’m out of the loop for a while. He’s told Randy and Ethan to simply report everything is fine. Randy did leave a tracking app on for me, so I can see where they’re at. It’s all I get, though.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “It’s smart.” Steve caught Chenco’s hand and twined their fingers together. “Gordy’s relied on me for a long time, and he’s pretty messed up.”

  Chenco was starting to think when it came to Gordy, Steve was messed up too. “So what’s he doing, exactly? Crabtree, I mean. Is he…maybe this is a stupid question, but are they having sex?”

  “I doubt it, but…well, I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not privy to much information.” He rubbed his thumb along the inside of Chenco’s wrist. “Mostly he’ll be setting boundaries, trying to give Gordy a routine. Making sure he takes his meds. Crabtree probably has to pull pretty hard on him sometimes, and travel isn’t going to be easy. They’ll take an extra day at least to get to Vegas. I think I heard Ethan and Crabtree talking about making time for a scene, though I doubt Ethan or Randy will be part of that.”

  “So he’s using BDSM to do this rehabilitation, right?”

  “Yes, but probably not the way you’re thinking. It’s not about tying him up. It’s about giving him what he needs. Much like you, really, except your needs are different. More like the first scene we had. Rougher, but that kind of connection.”

  It was hard for Chenco to think he had anything in common with a man who holed up in an abandoned building. “You always seem to find things I need I didn’t know about.”

  “That’s my job.” He nuzzled Chenco’s ear briefly. “Crabtree’s doing the same thing—reading Gordy, trying to find out what he needs to feel safe and strong. It’s what I should have been doing, what I tried to do, but I was blinded by my own feelings, my guilt.”

  “Why should you feel guilty? It’s amazing you gave up a career to help your friend, but nobody would expect it of you.”

  “Gordy did. I did.”

  That was tough to argue with, especially since right now Chenco was the recipient of some pretty generous and wildly unnecessary aid. He watched the interstate some more. “I suppose we should head to the truck.”

  Steve lifted his phone from the blanket beside the
m and shook his head. “Not yet. Mitch said he’d text me when he’s done.”

  “Done? With what?”

  “Fucking the ever-loving shit out of his husband.”

  Chenco glanced at Steve to check the veracity of this. A sly smile played on Steve’s face.

  “No shit?” Chenco’s head was full of images of his brother and Sam that made him a little bit tingly inside.

  When they did finally go to the rig, it swelled with the smell of sex and freshly brewed coffee. Mitch—naked from the waist up and wearing low-hanging boxers—handed a travel mug full of black brew to Steve and went over some of the readouts and implements on the dashboard. His arms, Chenco couldn’t help notice, were full of hard, red lines.

  Fingernail trails.

  Chenco tucked his feet under his body as they drove onto the interstate, watching the ribbon of highway roll out before them, thinking about sex. He watched Steve work the gears, expertly shift lanes, a hot shock of man driving a big, sexy truck.

  Once Chenco got up to use the bathroom and get a glass of water, and he couldn’t help steal a gaze at Mitch and Sam, tucked in their bed, a bed that looked barely big enough for Mitch yet somehow held the two of them. Sam was clearly naked, Mitch’s arm wrapped around his waist, hand cupped over Sam’s cock and balls. His heavy leg swallowed Sam’s thigh, and his face, slack with sleep, was half-buried in Sam’s messy hair. The sight arrested Chenco, made him happy and lonely at once. It made him horny too.

  Steve noticed.

  At first he didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t long after Chenco buckled into his seat, his erection making him squirm, Steve said, “Take it out and play with yourself.”

  Chenco hesitated. Steve didn’t look at him, but it was clear he waited for his order to be obeyed. Chenco felt weird. He hadn’t ever masturbated in front of anyone before. He’d done a hell of a lot with Steve, but not this. Not with Steve sitting there driving. Not with his fucking brother ten feet away, asleep or no.

  “Chenco,” Steve said, a hint of warning in his tone.

  Swallowing his nerves, his awkwardness, Chenco undid his fly.

  He may have felt weird, but his cock still could see the fucked-out look on Sam’s face, those scratches on Mitch’s arms. Chenco wanted some scratches. He wanted to feel the burn echoing through his skin, that soft heat. He wanted Steve’s teeth on him biting hard into the meat of his shoulder.

  Chenco cried out softly at the thought, jerking himself.

  “That’s right.” The acrid smell of a match filled the air with a sharp hiss, followed by the scent of seared tobacco. “Should have put a plug in you at the rest stop. Should have stripped you down in the men’s room, made you spread your legs and stuffed you up.”

  Chenco’s cheeks burned scarlet fire at Steve’s words, and he couldn’t help a glance backward at the curtain.

  “They’ll hear you, boy. Not yet—they’re still asleep. But when they wake up, I’m going to bend you in half on the floor, and they’ll hear everything I do to you.”

  Something ugly and scary turned inside Chenco. His hand stilled on his cock. “Yellow.”

  He’d never used a word before with Steve, just the one blind-fear scream of red with Randy on the way to Edinburg, so he was almost more nervous after he spoke.

  Steve didn’t seem to share his anxiety. He relaxed a little and reached over to stroke Chenco’s arm. “Tell me what part was yellow.”

  Chenco didn’t want to talk about it, but he made himself. “Them hearing. Knowing what you’re doing.”

  “Because Mitch is your brother? Or because someone will know?”

  Both? Except as he thought about it, the someone will know part was what felt so gurgly and dark. He swallowed and cupped his penis protectively. “Because they’ll know. I’ll let go like you make me do, and they’ll know.”

  Somehow this pleased Steve. He didn’t smile, but he had this look about him as if this was a road he knew well. “There’s no sin in letting down your guard. Not when you’re in a safe space. It’s not shameful to let someone see you when you’re vulnerable.”

  Chenco knew this, and he agreed in theory, but… “It’s not shame. It’s…” He wet his lip. “It feels dangerous.”

  Steve stroked Chenco’s arm again, this time the touch a long, sensual caress with his thumb. “Do you trust me, Chenco, to keep you safe?”

  Was it bad Chenco had to think about it? It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Steve, it was…Chenco didn’t know what it was. Fear, maybe. Old, deep, nameless fear attached to something but long since tethered, snarling nastily in the darkness of his soul. Fear of being exposed and injured. Fear of not stepping onto the stage deliberately in Caramela’s armor but dragged out unexpectedly into a harsh glare in the middle of jeering laughter. It made Chenco’s breath catch, his erection wane, his heartbeat quicken.

  “Chenco?” Steve’s strong, sure voice cut through the fog like a lighthouse. “Do you want me to pull over so we can talk?”

  No, Chenco didn’t. “Keep—” His voice broke, and he swallowed. “Please keep moving. It’s…something about the road. Everything moving. Makes it okay.”

  “I understand.”

  Steve let the silence expand between them now, and Chenco stared into the sunset, off to the northwest. The soft colors moved Chenco, soothed him. Eventually, he spoke.

  “Nothing ever happened to me.” His voice was soft, and it seemed to come from far away. “I don’t have a story like Gordy’s. Nobody ever hurt me. I never thought about playing until you.”

  “It’s not a contest. You don’t have to have been hurt in your body to be wounded. Sometimes all they have to do is ignore you.”

  The tears pricking Chenco’s eyes shocked him, and he blinked them back with a terror. Once they were beaten down, he said, “They didn’t know they were ignoring me. I wouldn’t let them see. Not my family, not Cooper, not my friends. Not Booker.” This time the tears got him in his solar plexus, and it was tough to sit upright. He made himself do it anyway, his eyes trained on the distant horizon. “You saw me, though. In the alley. You looked at me and you saw me. I was hiding, but I couldn’t hide from you.”

  He swallowed several times, letting those words echo inside of his head. They echoed for a long, long time.

  When he finally emerged from his strange meditation, the sun was almost gone. Dust colored the sky with rich, blood-red hues.

  I want to bleed for him, Chenco thought, but he didn’t say. Not here. Not yet.

  He heard stirring from behind the curtain, the soft murmurs of Mitch and Sam waking. In his half-trance, he felt their connection, and it made him ache. I want that. The yearning was a whisper in his head. I want to feel that connected to Steve, not just about sex but about life. I don’t have any right to it, but I want it so badly I could sob right here in this seat, if I let myself feel.

  The problem was, he couldn’t seem to stop feeling tonight. He shut his eyes.

  “They can hear you take me,” he said, very quietly, “but I can’t bear to let them hear me cry.”

  “Don’t push yourself for me. Not out of fear. Don’t you ever, ever yield to me in fear.”

  Chenco wanted to deny this, but he made himself examine his reactions anyway, just in case. He shut his eyes, drew a deep breath as he felt inside himself, then shook his head. “Not fear. More…more like I want to beat fear. I want to show you I’m strong. To show me I’m strong. Them too.”

  “All right,” Steve said.

  Doubt crept in. As Steve pulled the truck over at a rest stop, Chenco hastily did himself up and left the cab, wrapping his arms around his body in the evening chill, dark voices whispering in his ears.

  He’s never going to give you what Mitch gave Sam. He thinks you’re going to get tired of him. He thinks seventeen years age difference is too many for anything more than fun and games. He might be right.

  Chenco didn’t want him to be right. He wanted his papi to wrap him up and steal him away. To make all
his dreams come true and keep him safe. He shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t be dependent on anyone else. It was too dangerous. But he couldn’t stop wanting that and more.

  Chenco didn’t just want Steve to see him. He wanted Steve to see him—and keep him.

  It was wrong to ask for this. Wrong to fixate on someone, to decide they were the one. Steve was right, they could play together, maybe for years, and then Chenco could find someone his age, or closer to his age, someone who hadn’t been fighting a war when he was a toddler. It was smart. It was logical and safe.

  It made Chenco want to rend his hair.

  I want to stay with the one who found me when no one knew to look. It’s the only thing I want.

  Chenco could never let him know.

  When they got back to the truck, Steve laid him out on blankets on the floor, folding him in half as promised, securing his hands and ankles together and fastening them to bolts on either side of the captains chairs in front. The curtain hung down, but Chenco could see underneath it. They’d be so close. They’d hear every sound he made.

  Except no sooner did he think this but Steve squeezed his jaw open and forced a thick ball inside and fastened it at the back of Chenco’s neck.

  Chenco swallowed around the gag, his tongue playing helplessly behind it, beneath it, around it. He stared up at Steve, who looked down at him in wicked pleasure. Chenco felt himself go slack in mind as well as body, his ass and cock exposed, his belly, his heart.

  Steve pressed a hanky into Chenco’s hand. “This is your safe word.”

  Just like the time after the big flogging, with the penis gag. Chenco nodded. He gripped the hanky tight in his hand, hoping he didn’t have to let it go.

  Steve tortured him slowly. He teased Chenco’s nipples, his abdomen, his cock. He fondled his balls, edging close to but not quite giving Chenco the aggression he wanted. He drifted soft fingers over Chenco’s groin, his hole, maddening Chenco until he grunted behind the gag and thrust up desperately against Steve’s too-gentle hands.