Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg (18 page)

I know better.
“Fuck off,” Brody snapped, struggling to get out of his hold. “I’ll call the police. I mean it.”

Though how he’d get to his phone, he had no idea. One of his hands was wrapped tight in Matt’s. He tried to wrench free and couldn’t.

“You’re crushing my fingers.” Brody mentally moved back, step by step.
This is not right. This is not what I want. I have to stop this now.
“Let me go, Matt.”

Matt released him, and Brody gave a gulp of relief, but Matt took his hand again and gently stroked his knuckles, lifted his fingers to his mouth and kissed each knuckle.

“I’ve let you down. I’m coming on too strong. I’m sorry.” He gave a rueful smile. “You drive me crazy.”

Brody heard a sound at the door, a cough, and turned to see Aden standing there.
Oh fuck.

Brody groaned. How much had Aden seen, heard?

“Am I interrupting something?” Aden asked, no expression on his face.

Oh shit.
He’d seen and heard enough to get the wrong idea.

“Yes,” Matt barked.

“No.” Brody was flushed with a mix of anger, confusion and acute embarrassment. “Matt, I want you to leave right now.” How many times did he have to say it? At least his fear was sliding away now Aden was there. Just as long as Aden didn’t leave.

Matt finally moved away. “Me? You’re joking. I’ve come all this way to be with you.”

“I want you to go.”

“Brody.” Matt’s hurt voice and it didn’t work.

“Get out,” Brody said.

There was a long silence and Brody hoped Aden didn’t try to fill it. This was something he needed to handle on his own.

“We need to talk,” Matt said finally. “Get rid of him.”

“No.”

Brody watched the darkness sweep over Matt’s face and felt goose bumps erupt on his skin.

“Give me your number and I’ll call you,” Matt said. “We can have a meal. Discuss things.”

“No
.
” Brody stared straight at him.

“I love you.”

Brody said nothing. He felt nothing except for relief that Aden was still there.

“Brody.” Matt tsked, disappointment in his voice now. “You owe me a chance to explain.”

“I owe you nothing.”

Aden walked forward when Brody had expected him to walk out. “Brody knows your number. You don’t need his. If he wants to call you he will. Maybe. Though I don’t think he should. Bye.”

Matt stepped into Aden’s space and Aden didn’t flinch, his arms hanging loose at his sides, eyes narrowed. Aden was tall and skinny. Matt was taller and well-muscled. Older and stronger. Much as Brody hadn’t wanted Aden to interfere, he felt a thrill of pleasure that he had.

“
You
don’t tell
me
what to do,” Matt said quietly but Brody knew that tone, recognized the menace in it.

Aden smiled. “I haven’t. Brody wants you to leave. I’d love you to stay. You seem to think unasked for pain is fun and I have qualifications in torturing. I’m always looking for volunteers. Want to come next door? We can play water boarding.”

Matt gave Aden a vicious glare before he turned. “I’m disappointed in you, Brody. I’ve given up everything for you. You could at least talk to me.”

Brody just wanted to get rid of him. “I’ll call you.”

Matt snatched up his bag and stalked out. A moment later came the sound of a car driving away. Neither he nor Aden had moved. Aden was staring at him and Brody couldn’t read the expression on his face. When Aden turned, Brody’s heart lurched but after the door closed, Aden had stayed inside with him.

“You’ll call him?” Aden frowned.

“I just wanted to get rid of him.”

“So you won’t call him.”

Brody shook his head.

Aden smiled. “Are my chips ready?”

Brody let out a strangled laugh. “Soon. I just need…” He looked down at his ripped shirt, the blood on his chest, the bite marks Aden would be able to see. “I opened a bottle of wine. Want to pour a couple of glasses?”

Brody bolted to his bedroom, ripped off the shirt and pulled on a dark blue T-shirt. He wiped a smear of blood from his mouth and went back to the kitchen. Aden was sitting at the table. He’d poured the wine but not drunk any. Brody had taken the trouble to make everything look nice, a candle ready to light, and Matt had ruined the evening. He took too large a gulp of wine and coughed.

“And I thought I had issues,” Aden said. “Sip wine, don’t gulp it, you pleb. Didn’t they teach you anything at vet school?”

Brody sighed. “I’m pretty sure my issues have yours beat.”

Aden smiled. “You’re wrong, but I’m not going to argue about it.”

Brody turned on the heat under the pan for the steaks and heated up the oil for the third cooking of the chips. “Are you a good listener?”

“Completely crap.”

That made Brody laugh.

“But there’s fuck all on the TV so…” Aden shrugged.

“Why did you stay? Why didn’t you walk out?”

“Because I know his type.”

“He’s not a bad man. Shit, yeah he is. Why am I defending him?”
Brody put the steaks in the pan and stepped back as the oil spat.

“He says he loves you, but he doesn’t. What you’re hiding under that T-shirt isn’t love.”

Brody bristled. It was fine for him to criticise Matt, but not Aden. “You don’t understand.”

“Love? No, you’re right. I don’t understand love, but if you loved him, I’d be the one you wanted to leave and he’d still be here with you.”

Brody touched his chest where he’d been bitten. “This is just the way we were. We got lost in each other.”

“You’re into pain? Okay. What are your rules? What’s not acceptable? What’s your safe word?”

“We… There was no safe word.”

“So this isn’t BDSM. He isn’t a Dom and you his sub. It’s about him being cruel to you, controlling you, hurting you. That’s not love.”

“You don’t understand,” Brody snapped the words again.

“Help me understand.” Aden picked up his wine. “Explain how what you have or had is love.”

Why not tell him? Why not reveal all his dirty little secrets?
Brody had hoped Aden would get into bed with him tonight. Now he didn’t think it would happen. Maybe that made it easier to let Aden see the sort of guy he’d have been getting into bed with.

Brody lifted his T-shirt and exposed the bite marks, the indentations of Matt’s teeth clearly visible. “What do you think when you see this? About me. About him.”

“I’m not averse to biting or being bitten. There’s
pleasure to be had in both. Moderate pain can turn someone on just as much as a talented mouth or tongue. Biting’s a way of saying you want to devour someone, which is fine as long as your name isn’t Hannibal Lecter. But the guy went too far. You let him go too far.”

Brody pulled his T-shirt back into place and turned to the stove. “He’s bigger than me.” He cringed at the whiny sound of his voice.

“Yeah, he is. That makes it even more important you have rules, or at least understand each other’s limits. There’s things you shouldn’t do. You don’t surprise someone with a hard bite, you ease into it, making sure your partner’s into it too. Breaking the skin is unacceptable. He was asserting his dominance and wanted to cause pain not pleasure. Well, if he’s a sadist it might have been pleasurable for him, but it wasn’t for you.”

“How do you know he surprised me?”

“I saw him arrive. Heard some of what was said.”

Brody turned to look at him. “You still came in?”

“Hey, you promised steak and triple cooked chips—right? And I don’t share.”

Brody smiled. He put the plates into the microwave to warm and couldn’t help wondering what might have happened if Aden
hadn’t
come round. What if Matt hadn’t listened to no? Christ, he wasn’t listening to no. There were plenty of other times when he hadn’t, except Matt had always convinced Brody that he’d not meant no.
Only when I was a kid. I’m not that pathetic.
He’d talk to Matt in some neutral—safe setting and make it clear it was over. Brody waited to feel the pang in his chest and nothing happened.

“Do you have any freaky exs?” Brody asked.

“No. I’m the freaky ex. I…tend…tended not to hang around long.”

Was there a warning in there? “How much did you actually hear?”

“You telling him to go. A lot. Him not going. A lot. How does the ex who owned Captain fit into this?”

“Peter.” Brody chewed his lip. “When I met Peter, I thought I’d finally broken Matt’s hold. Peter and I had two great months, getting to know one another, having fun, me thinking maybe I’m not the fuck up I thought I was. Being with Peter made me see what a mess I’d made of my life, the stupidity of being with Matt in the first place, my continued stupidity in the way I kept letting him back in.”

“Sounds like Peter was good for you.”

“He was.” He took a deep breath. “Then he died, and Matt came back. I moved here to get away from him. The first time I’d gone somewhere and not told him. Though coming back to Surrey was a risk because this was where it all started. I hoped he’d leave me alone.” He gave a short laugh. “I should have known better. The TV thing was a mistake.”

“How?”

“Henrik had signed to do it before I went to work for him. He thought I’d be surprised and pleased when I found out, but I worried Matt would see it. I tried to wriggle out of being filmed, but not hard enough. Matt knew I didn’t get on with Des. I was relying on that to put him off the scent. That was another mistake.”

“How did you meet this guy?”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.” Brody swirled the chips in the fat to keep them separated as they crisped up.

“Why not?”

He kept his back to Aden. “Because I don’t come out of it looking good and every time I’ve told someone, not that I’ve told many, something bad has happened. Des guessed without me telling him and told our parents. That was
not
a good time.”

“How long has this been going on?” Aden asked quietly.

“Thirteen years. Since I was fourteen.” He took the steaks off the heat and set them aside to rest. When he turned Aden was staring at him.

“I was ten,” Aden said. “Not that this is a competition. And it only went on a matter of months.”

Oh God. Ten?
“Matt was thirty.” He gave Aden a questioning look.

“Bradshaw was fifty-four. I stabbed him with a pair of scissors.” Aden exhaled.

Brody should have tried that with Matt, except he’d probably have liked it. He scooped out the chips onto kitchen paper to drain off the excess oil.

“Only nail scissors. Maybe just as well they weren’t bigger.”

He knew what Aden was doing, feeding him scraps to encourage him to talk and he was surprised to find he
wanted
to talk.

“I reached my teens with no one guessing I was into boys,” Brody said. “I was the freaky swot. The one who always had his head in a book. Never fiction. I wanted to know everything and have the answer to any question. The boy who was too busy studying to make time for play. When I wasn’t studying, I was with animals.”

“Fuck, we are nothing alike. I was too busy going out to bother with studying.”

“Yeah, well maybe I’d have been better to find out about life outside of my little world before I got drawn into Matt’s.”

He put the plates of food on the table and sat down.

“This looks great,” Aden said.

Brody wondered if he could make himself eat. He’d been hungry, but now he had no appetite.

“Matthew Frazer-Hamilton came to my school as a chemistry teacher. He was different, funny, smart and he liked me. He
got
me. He brought me books to read, arranged work experience when he learned I wanted to be a vet. He cared. He was the best teacher I’d ever had.”

“And the worst.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Brody took a deep breath. “The day it started… We were alone in the lab after school. I’d stayed to finish an experiment. He put his hand on my hip and squeezed. He said he had something to show me in the storeroom and I had this sick thrill inside. Excited dread, knowing it was wrong and yet wanting it so much.”

He glanced at Aden. “Does that make me bad?”

“No.”

“Matt closed and locked the door. I just stood there. He reached down and I watched him stroke my groin. My cock went rock hard the moment he touched me. I saw the wedding ring glittering on his finger, and I didn’t care because he wanted
me.
”

Aden showed nothing on his face. Just sat twisting the stem of the wine glass in his fingers, swirling the wine, and never taking his gaze from Brody’s face.

“He unzipped my trousers, took out my dick, dropped to his knees and sucked me off. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn’t believe the way it felt. When I’d come—embarrassingly fast, he leaned against the wall, took out his cock and kept saying my name over and over as he jerked himself off. His face when he came… agony, ecstasy, but then distress. The whole encounter couldn’t have taken more six or seven minutes. He looked distraught, and I felt guilty. I thought it was my fault he was upset. I said I was sorry.” He pressed his lips together. “I was stupid.”

“You were a kid. He knew how to play you.”

“He wasn’t playing me. He loved me. I believed him. But he had a wife, children not that much younger than me and he’d lose them and his job if anyone found out. I understood that. It had to be a secret. We had to be careful.”

“Eat,” Aden said.

Brody managed a couple of chips. Maybe it wasn’t the right sort of love, but Matt
had
loved him. Still
loved him in his way.

“The police took me to Bradshaw’s home after my parents died,” Aden said. “He was an emergency care worker with a wife and teenage kids. She was okay. So were the kids, but him… He waited until it was just him and me in the house. No love involved. No telling me I was special, that he couldn’t help himself, that I made him want to risk everything.”

Brody released a shaky breath. Matt had said all that.

“Bradshaw raped me, said if I told anyone, I’d be the one in trouble. No one would want me. But if I let him play with me, he’d give me presents. My gift for him was the knife I used on him the next time. He thumped me and knocked me out.” Aden laughed. “I eventually told my social worker Bradshaw was abusing me and he didn’t believe me.”