Deliver Us (47 page)

Meanwhile, back in their own home, Kyle loads the dishwasher and gets the trash ready to be taken outside, emptying the bins from various rooms in the house. He overhears Ben on the phone with Trace when he gets to Ben’s office. Kyle sees him pacing, his jaw set and eyes mean.

“We’ll handle it! In the morning. Sleep it off. Trace?! Sleep it off! I’ll swing by your place. Nine A.M.”

Ben looks up at Kyle and shakes his head once, rolling his eyes.

“If I get a call from Lily or the cops saying that you went over there, I am
not
bailing your ass out of jail. And don’t fucking laugh. I’m serious, you sick fuck. Okay? ...Yeah.”

He hangs up and groans, walking over to Kyle. Ben collapses into him, circling his neck with his arms. After a long exhale, he says, “This sucks.”

“Trace knows, I guess?”

“Yeah, Trace knows. This afternoon he was straightening up after we’d all taken off and left him there alone. He was putting away the video equipment and found the tape. Don’t know why Micah didn’t trash it. Maybe he knew better. But anyway... the dumbass is drunk and angry right now. He’s not thinking straight.”

He releases Kyle and grabs the trashcan from him.

“I’ll do this. I need some air,” Ben says tiredly.

Kyle heads upstairs to bed, hearing the back door open and close as Ben goes outside with the bags. Then he’s back inside, footsteps creak on the steps and the bathroom door clicks shut. Twenty minutes after that, Ben appears by the bed, and slides under the sheet next to Kyle.

Unsure of what to expect, but assuming that Ben’s too worn out to fool around, Kyle decides to ask about what’s been at the back of his mind since he saw Ben reenter Gabriel and Darrek’s house alone after speaking with Darrek.

“Hey, um...” Kyle says meekly, “I was just wondering.... With you and Darrek, today.... You took him out to talk...?”

Ben sighs and rolls over on top of Kyle who’s lying on his back naked, without even the collar on. The circle of leather sits, instead, on top of his bureau, unlocked and ready. Shifting and sliding a knee between Kyle’s thighs, Ben drags it up. He feels that Kyle is soft and asking out of curiosity alone.

“I picked the lock. It wasn’t my place to do it, and Gabe’s probably gonna be pissed if he finds out, but... I did it.”

“Good,” Kyle says in a relieved breath of air over Ben’s shoulder.

“Know what I think?” Ben asks as he rolls his hips, rutting down against Kyle’s upper thigh, dragging his very interested cock over tight muscle to ease the ache.

“Mmm. No, sir,” he replies, using the honorific out of habit alone.

“I think you just wanted me to get my hands on Darrek’s cock.”

Kyle freezes, his eyes widening. He sees in Ben’s eyes that it’s true, and that it also appears to be part of the reason for Ben’s present mood. It’s astonishing—touching Darrek’s dick made Ben hard.

A hand closes around Kyle’s slowly swelling cock and Ben sucks at the sensitive spot behind his ear as he continues to push his own hardness in a slow, constant grind against Kyle’s thigh.

“Did you?” Kyle asks.

Practically able to hear the thoughts and fantasies churning around in Kyle’s brain, Ben chuckles and squeezes his hand tighter around throbbing flesh.

“Come on,” he pleads in a whine when Ben holds out on him, “Tell me.”

A pause and then an amused, “Yeah.”

The admission gets Kyle to moan thickly and it only makes Ben smile wider.

“Got on my knees in front of his bound cock and...”

“
Fuck
...” Kyle gasps, pushing up into Ben’s tugging hand.

He can see it happening, can see the look that must have been on Darrek’s face: fear, need, resignation. He asks Ben a vague, “When you touched him, did you want to...?”

“Play with his dick like I’m doing to you right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe suck him, see what’s got Gabe all hot and bothered. Or maybe order
you
to suck him off instead and watch how crazy it makes you. Blindfold you, cuff your wrists. Make you suck Darrek’s dick while me and Gabe watch. Get your mouth all stuffed full of him while I fuck your tight little hole.”

Kyle whimpers. Ben can feel that he’s close, so he shifts. Straddling both of Kyle’s thighs, he takes both their cocks tightly in hand, pumping his fist in a blur of motion up and down shafts well-slicked with pre-come. Kyle arches up off the bed and makes his plaintive, low kitten-like purrs and mewls that go right to Ben’s dick.

“You, you wouldn’t,” Kyle gasps. “You’re just... fucking with me.”

“Am I?” Ben teases. “Or, am I being serious?”

Kyle stares up at him, lust-addled and pupils blown. His stomach muscles are rock hard, knotted up as he gets ready to shoot. Unable to maintain eye contact, he writhes on the bed under Ben, his head snapping back into the pillow.

“Uuh!
Mmm
.... Ga-Gabe would never go for it,” Kyle mumbles in delirious argument.

“I think he’d want to lick Darrek’s come out of your mouth while I rode your pretty ass. Suck the salty taste of him off of your pink tongue. And Darrek would watch. Watch you take it from both ends, impaled on my dick while Gabe tongue-fucked his spunk out of your mouth.”

Then he’s seizing up, slamming his hips up, spasming beneath Ben’s hand. Grabbing at Ben’s neck, Kyle pulls him down into a rough kiss, as he cries out and unloads onto his chest. Ben is quick to follow.

“You evil fucking bastard,” Kyle pants as he wraps his legs around his lover to keep him there. “God, I love you.”

Ben laughs, kissing over Kyle’s bare neck.

The next morning, a truck pulls up in front of a nice little house two towns over from Diadem. There’s only one car in the driveway, as hoped.

“We clear?” asks the driver.

“Yep,” grunts Trace, taking the proffered switchblade and slipping it under the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

The front door is ajar, letting some of the morning breeze filter through the screen door and into the house. Trace has been here before, knows the layout inside. He gets silently up onto the front porch and waits by the side of the door until he sees Micah’s figure in the kitchen, down the short hallway that leads back from the foyer. Then Trace is moving. He gets inside, eases the screen door shut without letting it bang and then is back through the house to Micah in only a handful of rapid steps.

With a sweep of his foot, Trace gets Micah’s feet out from under him, sending him falling to his knees. Trace pins him there by planting his knees on the backs of Micah’s calves, yanking Micah’s arms behind his back.

“Trace, give me a chance to...” Micah growls defiantly, recovering quickly from the initial jolt of shock.

“Shut up,” Trace hisses with a snarl curling his lips, his eyes blank and dead.

Micah hears the metallic snick of the blade popping open, feels a hand push down the front of his drawstring pants. As a cold, sharp edge is pressed underneath his balls, Micah makes a sick grunt and gets very still.

“That’s right. Don’t move. It’d be
really
bad if you moved so much as a hair right now, so act like a statue and listen to me. Now, see, Benny wanted to get to do this, but then I figured you might not take him
seriously
. ’Cause Benny’s done something like this to you before, hasn’t he? ’Cause sometimes you
like
to be afraid. So, he’d tickle your nuts with a knife. Huh?”

Trace angles his wrist slightly, pushing the well-sharpened edge against the skin. A small, warm trickle of thick fluid slides over Trace’s fingers.

“Don’t!” Micah cries, trying to draw his hips backward and get away from the blade. Trace simply uses his body to prevent escape, pressing closer to Micah’s back.

“But, you know me,” Trace croons darkly. “Don’t you? I don’t fuck around. Not when it comes to this shit. You know I’d do it. Slice ’em right off, right here. Wouldn’t I?”

“
I didn’t mean to hurt Gabriel!
” Micah yells, breathing roughly, his face tight with anger.

“You
did
hurt him, though. And do you know why?
Because you didn’t respect his boundaries
. You saw it was messing with his head, and you didn’t stop. So this is your punishment. Now I’m not gonna respect
your
boundaries. Tit for tat.”

Trace slides his thumb above Micah’s sac, pressing down while pushing the blade up from beneath. It’s gentle pressure, feather-light, and Micah knows that if Trace pushes any harder the blade will cut right through.

“Do I have your attention now?”

“Yes!!”

“What we do with our clients is a very intimate thing. The most important thing to remember is that there are some places it is
not okay to go
. And when you go there,
that
is when it goes from dominating to barbarism and rape. Understand?”

“Yes,” Micah grunts, his rebelliousness growing less vigorous by the second as Trace’s words pierce his fog of fear and sink in.

“Gabriel’s stepdaddy started fucking him when he was just a boy. You know that?”

“Oh,
Jesus
,” Micah groans, and Trace is pleased to see his face twist with nausea.

“And he never stopped. Gabriel was his
son
and Harry raped him over and over again. For
years
. And Gabriel didn’t have anywhere to go, no one to help him, so he ran away. Started staying with me when he wasn’t yet eighteen. So, Gabriel is
my
responsibility. I take care of him when no one else is around to do it. I was here before his little boyfriend showed up, and I’ll be here long after he’s gone. If you mess up my boy? You will fucking
pay for it
.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you want to be talking to,” Micah retorts.

“You think I haven’t tried to get my hands on that piece of filth? Gabriel won’t even tell us the guy’s last name, won’t even say aloud the name of the town he grew up in. Because he
knows
what we’d do if we ever got that information.”

“But Gabriel’s social security number is on his employment papers, right? It’d be nothing to go online and pull up his info using that.”

Micah hears Trace take a slow, deep breath before answering. “There’s two problems with that. First is that I’m not a motherfucking computer wiz. Second, Gabriel is family. You don’t betray family by hiring a private detective to investigate them behind their backs, especially when they have pretty profound trust issues.”

“But you have thought about it.”

The knife twists and Micah cries out, in fear more than pain.

“Drop it,” Trace growls.

“Okay! Okay! Well, if you ever find out where the kiddie-fucker is, count me in on the payback.”

Trace sighs and carefully extracts his hand without doing further damage. He eases back and stands up, letting Micah go.

He struggles to his feet and turns so that he’s face-to-face with Trace.

“It was a bad judgment call with Gabriel, and I know that now. I understand completely.”

Micah’s eyes burn with visible hurt that it was Trace that had to do this, but he accepts the reasons why. He also sees the roiling emotions in Trace, and feels marginally better when he recognizes regret for his actions hidden in Trace’s eyes. Part of Trace didn’t want to ever have to hurt Micah like this, but his loyalties to Gabriel easily won out.

“Take a couple of weeks off. If you’re still interested in the job after that, give us a call.”

His gaze falls to the smattering of blood drops soaking into Micah’s cotton pants.

“Get yourself cleaned up. This is settled now. It’s done.”

Micah nods, crossing his arms over his chest.

Trace wipes the blade off on his shirt before snapping it shut. “But if I get wind of you saying
a word
to Gabriel, or if you even
look
at him funny.... And the same goes for what I told you. That was in confidence. Keep your mouth shut about it. Even with Lily.
Comprende
?”

“Yeah,” he says shortly.

A few heavy footsteps and a slam of a screen door later, Trace is gone. Micah walks to the front of the house to lock up. When he gets there, he watches from the shadows as Ben, Micah’s Dom, revs the truck’s engine and takes off down the road with Trace, Micah’s lover, riding shotgun. Pain, heavy and creeping, threatens to swallow Micah whole, and only some of it is from the wound between his legs.

There isn’t a doubt in his mind what he needs to do. Trace had left the door open for him. All that’s left is for Micah to walk through it. It doesn’t matter that Trace told him to drop it. It’s Trace’s job to say that. It’s part of the act. That’s how Trace’s conscience stays clear. Micah, on the other hand, has no misgivings whatsoever about doing a search on Gabriel Hunter’s past. Trace’s revelations regarding said past make Micah certain that he’s already violated the man in much worse ways than a simple background search would. And if all goes as Micah plans, Gabriel never has to know about any of it. Vengeance can finally be had, Micah can find a way to live with the way he’s betrayed a friend, and he can get back in Trace and Ben’s good graces.

Micah glances at the clock on the wall. It’s early. Sam is gone. Trace and Ben are accounted for. It’s hours before they’re due at the office. Micah would bet money that the last place on Earth Gabriel would be is at Diadem. The building is most likely vacant, and one peek at the parking lot in front would tell him so anyway once he gets there.