Rough Canvas (39 page)

When he let himself in, Thomas dropped his bag in the foyer and then moved

through the kitchen. The light had been on in Marcus’ office area, but he found Marcus sitting in the dark living room, just inside the open balcony doors. He was in the shadows, next to the fluttering curtains. Thomas might have missed him, except he was smoking and the faint glow of the cigarette tip drew his attention.

Now Thomas leaned against the kitchen doorframe, considering the man he loved.

His fastidious lover was wearing just a pair of jeans, the top button open. The pack of cigarettes was half empty, ashtray full. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack sour mash and Chopin brand vodka sat companionably together.

He was staring. It didn’t seem to be at anything in front of him, so Thomas assumed it was at something inside him, something worth making himself shitfaced drunk. As Thomas watched, he lifted the bourbon to his mouth and chased it with the vodka in an impressive swallow. Straight from the bottle, both of them, and Thomas was willing to bet it didn’t even make his eyes water. Wiping the back of his mouth with a hand, Marcus picked up the cigarette again.

“Marcus.”

Marcus froze in the act, turned his glance toward the interior of the apartment. The eyes glittered in the darkness and Thomas had the sudden impression he’d walked into the den of a wounded tiger.

“What are you doing here?”

“You forgot your cell phone.” Thomas lifted it, moved across the room. Taking a position in the open door to the balcony, he made sure he was square with Marcus, where he wouldn’t be ignored. Deliberately, he hooked his thumbs in his pockets, curling his fingers loosely on the front of denim. Watched Marcus’ eyes center where 203

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he’d intended, then run up his body with a greedy look gripping his features, causing prickles of heat to move across Thomas’ skin.

Yeah, Marcus was drunk. But not too drunk, which meant he could hear, and

maybe listen some.

Thomas didn’t know what he was going to do or say, though. He was here. That

was what mattered. The rest would come. “Your brother needs you to transfer six thousand to the account to cover the burial expenses.”

Marcus’ gaze shifted back up to Thomas’ face. Deliberately, he crossed his legs, leaned back further in his chair. Took a deep drag on that cigarette with a style only Cary Grant could have emulated. Thomas could almost see the internal machinations clicking into gear to put the usual shields in place. “You couldn’t call and tell me that?”

“I would have been here a couple hours sooner, but there was someone else I

wanted to talk to. A story I wanted to hear. I didn’t get all of it. I want it from you. But I got enough to get my foot in the door.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Are you fucking with me, Thomas? You think I’m in the mood for that?”

“Do you really think you can love someone without making yourself vulnerable? I told you. That’s not how family works.”

“I’m not your family, Thomas. I wouldn’t even know how to be. Go home. Go

away. Go to hell. I don’t care.”

“Nice try,” Thomas said mildly, though Marcus’ words spiked against the ball of nerves in his stomach. He knew he was playing against a master poker player. A

Master, period. But he wasn’t going to back down.

“Owen told me about a street kid they called Dodger. With slick hands and the kind of looks that made sure he could stay ahead of hunger. Just. Over time, two other kids got attached to him. Toby and Emile. He ran with them, protected them. Kept them clean while he did whatever he needed to do. Fifteen years old. A runaway from Iowa.

From a father who couldn’t accept what he was and a mother who wouldn’t stand for him.”

Marcus flicked ashes in the ash tray. “You’re telling me a story I already know. Go tell it on a street corner. If you set it to music, someone might flip you a quarter.”

But Thomas’ sharp eyes caught the slight tremor in the fingers. Drink, but also nerves.

“Every Dodger has to have a Fagan,” he pressed on, though the images the story

had created in his head had made him sick, made him hurt for Marcus. “Yours was Mike Winshire. He’d grown up a street kid as well, become a small operator. Graft, gambling, prostitution, but according to Owen, a strangely gentle man who loved you in his odd way.”

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Marcus rose out of the chair, swift, but without his usual animal-like grace. Paced out onto the balcony. “I chose every step of my life, Thomas. Mike taught me to survive, taught me to play the right games. If he needed sex, he got it from me and counted himself lucky to be tapping the ass of a pretty kid, because he was an ugly son of a bitch, hung like a damn moose.

“We only had one rule. I’d make him money and be his fuck toy, but my kids were off limits. They ran scams, worked some honest gigs.” A muscle flexed in Marcus’ jaw and he shook his head. “I made it, they didn’t. I stayed in control of my life from the beginning to where I am now.” He gestured to the view in front of him, the apartment behind him.

“You can handle anything,” Thomas agreed. “So can I. So can my mother. So can

Rory. But we all have a breaking point. When we get there, there’s got to be someone or something that helps you hold it together. You can handle anything,” he repeated.

“Except being out of control. What I’ve been wondering is…are you strong enough
not
to be in control?”

When Marcus turned, his eyes narrowing, Thomas kept going. “You could throw

me out of your place, but how do you get me out of your heart? Your head?” His voice quieted. “Your soul. I know I haven’t figured out a way to get you out of mine. I guess as long as I figured I wasn’t in yours, I could handle that.

“Hell, I could always go home, hide behind my commitment to my family and

never acknowledge that the reason I didn’t come back is because I didn’t truly believe you wanted me so much that it would make standing up to my family worth it. That you’d really be there forever.”

He had Marcus’ attention now. His Master had gone very still. “But here’s the kick in the ass,” Thomas continued. “Somehow it finally got through. You do need me as much as I need you. Maybe even more. And in the past twenty-four hours you’ve

needed me more than you ever realized was possible. It’s scaring the shit out of you, to the point you’re standing there wanting nothing more than for me to get out before it spills out all over both of us.”

Thomas pushed up off the frame. Marcus was motionless, though his jaw was held

so tight Thomas was afraid it might fracture. His eyes had gone from angry to cornered rage, a rage tinged with desperation. The shadows of his past had him in such an obvious stranglehold that Thomas acted on instinct. Just as he had the first time he’d decide to creep into Marcus’ bedroom and lay his hand on his foot.

Reaching out, he put his hand on the side of Marcus’ neck, threading his fingers under his hair, finding his nape, massaging him with light fingertips. “Sshh…”

Marcus moved forward a reluctant step, every muscle rigid. Thomas took the

cigarette from his tense fingers, put it in the ashtray. Brought him in another step.

Inside the doorway, away from the balcony. Tugging the sliding door closed, Thomas enclosed them in hushed silence, shutting out the sounds of the street. It brought him 205

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near enough to press his chest against his lover’s, the cotton cloth of his T-shirt against Marcus’ bare skin.

Thomas dipped his head, pressed his lips to Marcus’ shoulder, the fine line of bone.

When Marcus’ fingers brushed his hips, hooked onto his jeans to grip him tighter, Thomas felt a surge of triumph, and relief. There was a way in. Moving on to Marcus’

throat, he nuzzled him there, smelled the abrasive combination of liquor and cigarettes, but Marcus was under it. Thomas set his teeth to him, tasted.

Marcus’ breath expelled on his temple as he moved into Thomas now, his

hardening groin touching his hip. Thomas reached down, found him and opened the jeans. When Marcus caught his wrist, Thomas stopped in the act of pulling down the zipper. Raising his head, he met the brilliant green of his Master’s gaze. The only man he’d ever let own him, body, heart and soul.

“I want to take you, Master,” he said. Marcus’ attention settled on Thomas’ lips in a way that had his own cock rising. He knew how much Marcus liked to make him go

down on him. Almost as much as he liked doing it. But something else was driving Thomas now. “Take you deep and hard in the ass, be where you’ve never trusted me to be before. I want to tie you down when I do it. I want you to surrender to me the way I’ve surrendered to you, so you’ll know I’m yours and you can trust me. Now and always.”

“I…can’t.” It took a moment to register, but then Thomas realized he wasn’t

mistaken. Marcus, over six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds of hard, solid muscle, was starting to shake. As Thomas had done the first time Marcus had ever told him he was going to do exactly this to him. When Thomas had started shaking, Marcus’

eyes had flared hot…much as his were doing now, he was sure, because the shaking told Thomas that Marcus was going to let him do it.

Marcus moved back, away, dropped into the chair. Thomas followed. Dropping to

one knee, he covered Marcus’ hand, resting tensely on his knee. The curved knuckles, the veins marking out the finger bones beneath.

Marcus turned his head and watched him, saying nothing, just staring at him with that haunted, fierce expression.

“It’s hard for you…the idea of it.” Deliberately, Thomas circled one of Marcus’

wrists, keeping his attention on his face. As he held the restraint, a quiver ran through Marcus’ shoulders, something shifting in his eyes. Fear.

Abruptly Marcus jerked away, throwing the other fist. Thomas blocked it with his forearm. They froze there, their wrists crossed, Marcus’ fist juxtaposed in the air with Thomas’ open palm.

”Owen said there was one time, a group of men. That was when you went to the

hospital, the first time he met you…”

”No.
No.
” Marcus’ jaw clenched. “It wasn’t like that. No one forced me, no one held me down except when I went willingly. I’m not some rape victim, a molested kid. I worked the streets, I protected what was mine.” Something darkened in his eyes as if 206

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somewhere his soul was falling into a deep pit. “It was just sex, Thomas. It doesn’t mean anything, bending over and taking someone’s dick.

“Like us? Just sex?”

“Yes,” Marcus snapped.

Thomas smiled. “Don’t be a bastard,” he murmured. “It’s not going to work on me.

Not ever again. I love you.”

At Marcus’ closed expression, he cocked his head. “It never occurred to you the day might come when you’d win me over and I’d surrender to you, did it? I’m yours,

Master. All yours. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to be a prick or are you going to surrender and let me love you, the way you want me to?”

Thomas turned his hand then. Slowly, he closed his fingers over Marcus’ wrist

again. Under his grip he thought he felt the manacles of Marcus’ memories, the things Marcus called choices.

He’d never thought of Marcus as one of the damaged. His polish was so bright and brilliant. But it was there in his eyes now, so raw and violent. It confirmed what Thomas now accepted, what finally made him and Marcus make sense. The key had

been the unfinished thought Marcus had spoken at the farmhouse.
I need that core of
you…
The core Marcus had lost.

Thomas rose to his feet, tugged. Brought Marcus to his feet, coaxed him one step, then another. They were moving down the hallway, Thomas moving backward, his

footing sure, keeping his eyes on Marcus’, like a dance. If the eye contact was broken, the rhythm could be lost. Marcus’ chest expanded with a deep breath as Thomas

stopped at the threshold to the bedroom.

“You can do this. You will. Your slave is begging you for the privilege. Please, Master.” Thomas grazed his thumb over Marcus’ wrist pulse. “I know everything about your body. I know the way your cock likes to be touched, how to suck you into my mouth and make you come. How your fingers clench in my hair when my mouth and

teeth mark your skin. I know how your ass tightens when I squeeze it, and I’ve wanted to get between those cheeks with my fingers, my mouth, my cock.”

He was a bottom with Marcus. Always had been, even when he’d topped or taken

turns with other men. But he’d wondered and wanted, at least once, to feel this.

They’d moved into the bedroom now. Thomas reversed their positions so Marcus

was turned to face the bed while Thomas stood behind him. Another step and Thomas was pressed against Marcus, his cock a tight bulge under his jeans against Marcus’

denim-covered, luscious tight-as-a-drum ass.

Reaching under Marcus’ arm around to his flat abdomen, Thomas stroked the

ridges of muscle before descending to the half-opened pants. Unzipping them fully, he pushed them down far enough to be out of his way. When he ran his hand over Marcus’

buttock under the stretched cotton of the briefs, he felt the reflexive tightening. But Thomas sensed some of the tightening was tension.

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“It’s just me.” As he reached over to the night table, he noted the slight tilt of Marcus’ chin, his attention following him. There were restraints still in the drawer, as he’d hoped and suspected. Thomas set the bottle of lubricant on top of the nightstand.

“Kneel down, Master.” He put a firm, inexorable hand to Marcus’ shoulder and

began to press.

“Thomas, I…” Marcus shuddered. Thomas slid his hand into Marcus’ underwear,

his thumb playing in the crease between his buttocks, just a teasing caress before he moved to palm one cheek. To squeeze. With the other hand, he reached around from the other side and gripped the thick root of Marcus’ cock. Marcus’ head fell back, hair brushing Thomas’ temple. Thomas pressed his face into it, inhaling.