The Hunter (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (3 page)

Cortez Abernathy
: Present
-Chapter Three-

The whisper of fingertips on my chest awakens me, enlivens me.
They glide over the ridges of my abs, circle around my tightening nipples, and run along the seam of my parted lips. I’d know these fingertips even in nonexistence, and they just may be the very death of me. The fierce hunger I feel, the pit of ache in my stomach, causes a starvation that threatens to emaciate me unto death.

“Ezra,” his name flu
tters, quivers from nervousness from my parted lips as I press his palm to the center of my chest, directly over my rapidly beating heart. The warmth of Ezra’s palm seeps into my flesh, soothing me as much as it arouses me.

The kiss is soft, a declaration of love as much as a silent apology of guilt and remorse. Ezra hovers over me, hands pressed into the mattress on either side of my shoulders. It’
s just him and me, laying in our bed, as it should’ve always been. Gray eyes, the same shade and shape as my own, gaze down at me in wonder. Twin storm clouds asking for redemption… forgiveness.

Before the words
of mercy flee my mouth, Ezra’s lips descend and consume me, suck my life down within himself, exactly where I belong.

This is like breathing. This
is
breathing, for without Ezra I cease to exist. We may not have shared a womb, a fact that I would’ve felt jealousy over if it weren’t for the problem of being in love with one’s twin brother. It’s bad enough that we are both men, men who are related by blood. We shan’t complicate it any more than it already is with pure incest- cousin is bad enough, but not illegal.

Ezra is my world. Ezra is my obsession. He builds me up and destroys me time and time again, and I gladly take it just to be near him. Ezra is my Sun, and I am a budding planet on the fringes of ou
r solar system. I can never be close enough to him as I reverently revolve around him. I’d do anything to be as one entity. I crave the sensation of slipping my skin and entering Ezra, or him entering me, joining as one. Just as the Sun does to the planets that are sucked within its orbit- I implode. Ezra destroys my very being with a simple kiss.

“Please,” I beg, salaciously
offering myself to anything Ezra may want. A sardonic brow pops as a smirk pulls at Ezra’s cruel lips. I put all of my need into my expression, voicing without sound how very much I need him, how much I need to be
with
him. Ezra’s answering smile catches the very breath in my throat. It’s the smile that is reserved only for me. No matter who Ezra is: Ezra, Master Ez, or Ez, they all smile at me like that- just me, only me. Just as it should always be.

Muscular thighs part my own as Ezra settles his lower body along mine. I eagerly allow it, I crave what I shouldn’t. But this is not about fear, or right or wrong. This stolen moment is about Ezra and me, us, as it should always be. I allow Ezra to touch me in ways that most men would beat another for stealing, for violating a sacredness of privacy. But between Ezra and me, there are no line
s worth drawing.

Betrayal, lies, the agonizing torture that Ezra has put me under means
so very little when I can smell his musky masculine scent and feel the movement of his chest against mine as he pants from excitement. The sensation of Ezra’s skin caressing my starving flesh has me whimpering in disbelief. It’s been too long. I’ve allowed hurt feelings to warp my love for the man that means the world to me- the man that is my life.

“Make love to me,” I forcefully demand while raising my lower body o
ff of the bed, trying to grind myself into Ezra. My heels dent the mattress, toes curling for leverage. “NOW!”

“With pleasure,” Ezra murmurs with a smile. His tone is part sarcasm, part lust, and a whole hel
luva lot of amusement. His fingertips skate down my chest, outlining my abs, and to my disappointment they veer around my cock. I watch in wonder as Ezra grips his thick flesh in his punishing fist, and then pushes himself into me. I shudder, bucking on the mattress as Ezra slowly slides through the resistance of my passageway.

“Ezra,” I scream his name in
exquisite torment, ecstasy isn’t a strong enough word. As a word weaver, I don’t have a word in my mental thesaurus to use for the sensation of Ezra joining us as one, as we should be… forever.

“Holy Fuck,” Kitten shouts
with a sharp laugh. “That surely wasn’t a nightmare you were having.”

My eyelids fly
open, hating the fleeting dream, despising myself for going there, even in my own mind. With a hand covering her mouth and her flesh blazing red with embarrassment and arousal, my wife stands beside our borrowed bed at Whittenhower Estates, fresh from Restraint and her naughty games with Dexter and Monica. She looks amused as she gazes at the sight I’ve made of myself.

My body is twisted in our sheets, sheets that only cover one of
my thighs. Sweat slicks my body as I pant from exertion. I’m still stuck in my imagination. It’s discombobulating, the sensation of being in another time and place. The time was the future or the past, hell if I know which. The place was Ezra and my shared bed at ShadowHaven- the bed I miss, the bed I’ve shared with the love of my life since I left the cradle.

Torture
d, I cry out in misery, hating that my abs and chest are covered in the obvious reaction to my fantasy. I’m covered in my own ejaculate. Rivulets of semen speckle my flesh, covering me in an outrageous amount of proof of what I am, what I refuse to acknowledge. I never cum this much with anyone but Ezra, even in my dreams… No one but Ezra ever visits my dreams…

I shade my eyes in humiliation, quickly ripping
away the sheet that is twisted around my quivering thigh. I scrub my shame away, and then try to cover myself with the blankets. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

“Make love to me,” I beg my wife, but the tone is different than the one from my dreams- distant, pained… desperate. Obvious. Katya’s amusement disappears
in an instant. Her vibrant green eyes change, but not to lust as I’d hoped. I need her to distract me from the agony. Her vibrant green eyes glaze with pain- deeply lancing pain. 

“It’s against the rules,” Katya says as an excuse, an excuse as obvious as the reason I
’d asked her to make love to me in the first place.

“You’re my wife. Don’t we make the rules? If you really wanted to touch me, you would,” I easily manipulate, shoving the pain down and employing my charm. “Kitten, I’ll make you purr until I render you speechless.” The desperation is only thinly veiled. I need touch. I need centered. I need comforted and cared for. I need Ezra. And in his place, anyone can substitute. Katya is the substitute Ezra provide
d me, but she won’t comply. Kat is too smart for our game, our ruination. She’s too smart to lie still while the avalanche of torment sent from the fates buries her with the rest of us. Katya is a fighter- a survivor.

“Go to him,” Katya breathes out, and agony is written across her face. “You reall
y have to go to him- forgive Ezra. I heard you. I watched you as you dreamed. Just as I’ve witnessed since we started sharing a bed. You don’t dream of me, you don’t dream of anyone… but him. Get over yourself and fix this.”

“I can’t,” I cry out in shame. The pain tightens my chest, threatening to kill me
with the vise-like grip clenching my heart. “You don’t understand,” I whine, and how could Katya, I can’t tell her the fucking truth.

“You are a selfish piece of shit,
Cortez” Katya viciously growls at me, disappointment and anger shading her expression. “Grow up and fix this! Not for me, not for you, not for Ezra. Because I don’t know what is going to happen to us. Do this for our children!” Katya screams at me.

“It’s not my fault,” I shout back. “Everyone blames me when they should be blaming Ezra!”

“Bullshit,” Katya calmly says over her shoulder a second before she locks herself in the en suite bathroom.

“But it’s not,” I whisper to the Heavens. “If you only knew
, you’d stop blaming me.” But I’m not speaking just to Katya, I’m speaking to everyone. I believe the world revolves around Ezra, as does he. But instead of everyone else coming to terms with this notion, they simply blame every heinous action Ezra commits on me… because I’m always Ezra’s punishment- his whipping boy.

Everything is my fault… even if I didn’t have a hand in it, even if I didn’t even know about it… always.

Frustrated, pained, and horny, I stalk from the bed and yank on a pair of pajama pants. I can’t sleep. But I could write. With a deep breath, I smile. I can write again. The block is gone, and it’s time to heal with my words.

Whittenhower Estates is a strange, place- ominous. It’s perfect if you wanted to write a gothic novel of pain and misery. You can feel it bleeding from the walls, weeping from the mortar. I catch a flash of black and purple as Faith ghosts down the hall and
rounds the corner. Yeah, just that split-second opens the wound in my heart and I start to bleed out. I lean against the wall, holding my chest against the suffocating nature of betrayal.

Another flash of color and my world fractures. I stare at the door with a cheery teddy bear plaque. I want to gouge that reminder of the past from the door with my fingernails, leaving blood and flesh from the splinters. I love Daniel, Whitt, Pretty Boy, whatever name you want to call him. Whitt is like the brother I never had, and I truly love him. Better yet, I like him. But right now, I could take a page from Fait
h’s playbook. I want to twist Whitt’s nutsack until it pops from his body and shove it up his virgin asshole.

That flash of color was the absence of color- white. The
white-blond hair on the top of Ezra’s head as he snuck into the door with the taunting teddy bear plaque. At least Ezra asked this time, it’s not a true betrayal. Hot twenty-something pretty boys who eagerly shout their gaydom are a huge draw for my husband. Whitt is so gorgeous that it hurts to look at him, and then you melt when you hear his voice.

I’ve never wanted Whitt, I’ve never seen him as anything
but a brother. But I can see Whitt’s appeal to both sexes. The perfect bastard has always wanted to take what’s mine, and I allowed it because it was a test- a test Ezra failed miserably. I’d be angrier if it weren’t for the fact that it’s caused Ezra to be even. I love Ezra enough to be happy that he is happy- that he is even. Yeah, I’m so jealous I could… tear my flesh from my body while screaming like a lunatic… but my name isn’t Dr. Ezra Zeitler.

I retreat towards my office, surreptitiously wiping the betraying tears that flow from my traitorous eyes.
I’m not sad. I’m not crying because Ezra is happy from playing gay-games with Whitt and his exotic boyfriend, Dalton. Ezra must feel like he died and went straight to heaven.

I stare at the floor as I enter my office, not giving a shit if obstacles take my life. It’s too bad that my office wasn’t on a different floor, I’d chance the grand staircase with my eyes shut. It would be a sweet surrender to exit this torture. Some days I feel as if I were the tortured hero written within a dark and twisted novel.
Will my creator finally set me free?

“Ah, you look like hell,” Marcus wryly
says, a smirk on his taunting lips as he sits at my desk, researching something on my laptop.

I sigh in relief- comfort. Thank you, Lord, comfort. “I’
m no longer blocked,” I announce.

The Hunter
: Past
-Chapter Four-

“What is your issue tonight, Cort? You’re positively bei
ng a jackass.” Marcus snidely says from his seat across the dining table from me. The feral tone of his voice does nothing to me. I’ve heard it countless times at this table. But what I hate, what shames me, is the disappointed quality to Marc’s tone.

I glare back across the table at the infuriating man
, the man I respect above all others. Hell if I know what my issue is lately. I feel unstrung and unsettled. I shrug at Marcus, and toss a taunting smirk in his direction, baiting him. Marcus growls again and I feel like I’ve just won a match. Getting a rise out of the always-in-control Master of our Universe is a high that I’ve become addicted to.

“I’d rather be a jackass than a bastard, Master.” I sneer and say master in a completely disrespectful manner.
The grimace that flashes on Marc’s expression fills me with sadistic pleasure. Marcus isn’t a bastard or a jackass, but I am both. One hurts me more than the other, and if I hurt, Marc usually does, too.  

I ge
t so lost in our antagonizing exchange that I don’t see anything or anyone other than Marcus. Our world narrows down to the tableaux that is before us.

M
y daughter nudges me in the arm. “Be good, Dad. Don’t get Pop started. He’ll take it out on the rest of us. I’ve been good lately.” Ava’s voice holds worry and small lines form between her white-blonde brows. I reach over and smooth the furrows out with a fingertip. I would promise Ava that I would be good, but we’d both know that was a lie. I don’t want to lie to my children or disappoint them, either. But I manage both on an hourly basis.

“
How was school today, Monster? You too, Mini-Whitt? Is Hillbrook turning you into entitled idiots, yet?” I smile at the pair who is proving just how good they’ve been lately. They sit like teenaged angels with innocence radiating off them. Innocent, they are not. I know their Generation Next secret. I keep quiet because it will be hilarious when Marc finally finds out.

“School’s school, there is nothing new t
o tell. How’s the manuscript?” Ava eagerly asks. While Ava may not be my daughter by genetics, we’ve bonded as father and daughter. She longs to know all there is to know about me, and I feel the same way she does. I momentarily feel bad for interrupting dinner with my bullshit. My daughter is trying her hardest to keep my attention off the man that fucks with my mind. I know I’ve embarrassed Ava lately. I don’t worry about Niel- he’s seen us at our worst and he doesn’t care. But Ava channels Diane, and a ruined dinner is a ruined dinner.

“Yes, Cortez,” Marcus drawls slowly
, tauntingly, knowingly. Lately he’s been just as patronizing as I have been. I don’t know what my issues is, and I’m starting to wonder if Marcus doesn’t know what his own problem is, either. “Do tell us how your latest masterpiece is coming along.” He glibly says, smirking, challenging me to speak the truth. Frustration slams into me and threatens to come out of my mouth in the form of childish snark.

“I have the main-outline written up. I’ve yet to start any
actual writing on the story.” The bastard smirks at me. Yeah, motherfucker, it’s your entire fault I can’t concentrate for five minutes at a time. Guilt is suffocating me. I so badly want to gush the truth, fill Marcus’ ears with the truth that will turn his stomach. But I can’t, and not because I fear the hellfire Faith would rain down with her Game Master gavel. I fear breaking Marc’s heart, which it surely will.

I feel Kitten’s patient g
aze and cringe. I’ve ignored Katya lately and it’s a knife to the heart. I can’t even meet Kitten or Ezra’s eyes anymore. I don’t meet their patient gaze now, either. I pretend I don’t feel them trying to convey some silent communication. Ezra and I have been able to speak with a single glance since childhood. Now it’s the same with Katya. But I’ve been a rat-bastard lately and I don’t deserve them.

I turn from my spouses and meet Diane’s
curious gaze. She has always freaked my ass out. Nothing changes now as she examines me and her husband. A smirk plays along her lips as if she is enjoying our discomfort. I’d never say this to Ezra’s face, but his mother is a fucking scary bitch. Diane is a whole new level of sadist and not the kind that delivers pain in the dungeon. She is the kind that would kill your puppy just to see if you cried salty tears. The family sees Diane as the ethereal being that she looks like. I can see inside Diane, and it’s a scary place to dwell. But not nearly as scary as it is to be Ezra.

“How long ago was the outline completed?” Marcus catches me off-guard since I was contemplating his wife
’s sanity, or I wouldn’t have answered honestly. I don’t want them to know the depth of my issues.

“I don’t know- a couple months maybe.” I wave my hand in the air as if it doesn’t matter. It does- the muse has left me and I feel dead inside.
I am a utter void of blankness, and it’s suffocating me.

“It’s a
wfully late in life to develop Attention Deficit Disorder, isn’t it, Cortez?” The dark-haired man goads me. Marcus is as twisted as his ringlets. I don’t answer because the crazed sensation runs through my veins as it has for more than a year. Every day is worse than the last. It started just after Katya came into our lives. I was extremely territorial over Ezra. As I got to know Katya, I learned she loves Ezra just as much as I do. My territorialism spread to the small beauty, and then Marc barged into our lives with his insane demands and I’ve held deep-seated resentment ever since. Most of it is directed at the man across from me, and I can tell by the look on Marc’s face that he is about to bait me and I won’t be able to control my reaction. This is how it plays out- whichever one of us makes the other crazy first is the ultimate winner. I’ve won many battles, but the war I’ve already lost.

Marcus baits me because he wants me to forgive Ezra for the unimaginable acts he isn’t even privy to. If Marc knew the truth would he still
blame me? Probably. Everyone walks on eggshells around Ezra, fearing the insanity that will spring from his depths. Every punishment Ezra has earned, we’ve all taken. The mantra is just blame the selfish, childish Cort. I’m the rich bitch’s whipping boy, just like in eons past.

I’m on edge for a myriad of reasons, but Marc is on edge because his woman just married the Pretty Boy. Yeah, that ought to rile up a man. If Pretty Boy
ever tries to get my man… I’ll go postal.

Marcus
’ warm eyes twinkle as he sinfully grins at me.
Don’t do it, Marc. Please, for the love of our family, bite your fucking tongue.
I don’t say it aloud and I don’t need to, he knows I’m thinking it. Marc’s wicked grin spreads, and the rest of the family sinks into their seats as they fitfully wait in anticipation. I do the only thing I can do- I cockily smirk back at my instigator.
Bring it on, bitch!

“What’s distracted you lately, Cort?” Marc says as his fingers tousle those annoyingly perfect, dark ringlets that corkscrew around his head. I want to twist my fingers in those curls and yank. And do what afterwards? Hell if I know. Part of me wants to bald him, the other part want to…
Shut up, pervert. No thinking that kind of shit!

Marcus
leans back in his chair and clasps his hands together over his silk shirt-clad chest. The fabric tauntingly pulls over his well-formed pecs. I divert my eyes, but it’s too late, his satisfied smirk screams that he already caught me checking him out.

“It wouldn’t happen to be me, is it,
Cort? Am I distracting you?” Marcus points at that salivation-worthy chest as he widens his eyes and feigns innocence. I see red. All sound, sight, scent, touch, and speech flee me. I am in a universe of Marcus’ making. He is the only thing that fills it. It pisses me off so much that I want to punch the smug from Marc’s face. I hop from my chair with a slam, planning to walk away and be the bigger man. But I’ve never been the bigger man.

Bef
ore I can process the thought of movement, I jump up on the large dining table, scattering china, crystal, and silver. I lunge across the spans of the table and tackle Marcus in his seat. I can hear glass breaking and the snap of wood, but it’s all just background noise to the man’s grunts as I punch his perfectly smug face as I ride his body to the floor.

Ava’s voice warble
s in fear, but the words wash over me. Everything narrows down to the whisky eyes blazing back at me from the bronze skin of Marc’s face. His eye blackens before my sight- a mix of fury and something hotter wages within their fiery depths. Shame slams into me and wars with the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

“Are you
feeling better now, Cortez?” Marcus’ velvet voice rubs me the wrong way and my elbow snaps back, readying to throw another punch. Hands pull me from my crouch over the fallen man. I struggle and can’t get back to where I need to be. I scream inside and out in frustration.

“Calm down,” Ezra’s voice commands me. I freeze up at the tone. I struggle under the need to obey. I hate obeying even when it’s the right thing to do.
I blink away the need to heel to Ezra’s commanding tone. I pull away and try to get back to Marcus. I need… I need… I don’t know what the fuck I need… but I want it, and I want it now. I scream again in frustration.

Ezra’s arms wrap around my chest
from behind, but he can’t contain me. It’s not because of my immense strength, it’s the unbridled rage that resides within that makes me extra powerful. I may have a good thirty pounds on Ezra, most of it chub when he is all lean muscle. Damned desk job! I need to hit the gym. My lack of fuckage has made me soft.

Niel steps in fr
ont of me and pushes me back with just a firm fingertip to the center of my chest. Niel is bigger than me, a whole helluva lot bigger, and taller. I growl deep from my chest because my daughter’s boyfriend can take me, and the little shit is only fifteen. The youngest Daniel Whittenhower is like Howdy Doody on steroids. His large green eyes are bright and shiny with excitement. He doesn’t hold my attention for long before my eyes dart to Marc.

Marcus
slowly rises from the floor, like a phoenix from the fires, dusting his clothing off that is littered with food and debris. He calmly turns without a word and walks from the dining room, and out the terrace doors. I watch as Marc’s back walks away from me, and I scream again in confusion. I feel insane and I can’t put what I need into words.

“Let me go. I’m fine.” I say
, and even I can hear the lie threading my voice.

“No, you’ll go after Pop,” Ava’s voice quivers in fear, but it’
s fear for me. Ava knows her grandfather can kick her Daddy’s ass without breaking a sweat.

I look to my family. Ezra had let go of
me when Niel blocked my exit. Ezra and Katya stand side-by-side with resigned expressions on their faces. They expect no less or no more from me, and it thoroughly kills me. Diane is still seated at the table, privately smirking into her wine glass. I hate Diane at this moment, but one doesn’t attack their mother-in-law, at least not while their spouse can see. Only the kids give a shit. Ava is freaking out, and I feel badly about her stress. I want to comfort my daughter, but I don’t know how because what I need to do is outside the terrace doors- waiting for me.

Niel blocks my path and I need him to move. Since I can’t physically
move him I use another tactic. “Daniel, Ava is very upset. Can you please comfort her?” Niel’s green eyes dart between his girlfriend and me. I calmly stand, not projecting my intent.

“Are you alright? You’re
not going after Marcus, are you?” Niel naively asks. Seriously, in the house of chaos he’s grown up in, he should know better than to believe a word from anyone’s mouth. 

“No, I’m just going to go lie down. Really, I’m fine.” I
calmly say, and I notice Ezra and Kat shake their heads at that in defeat and disbelief. I’m glad the kid didn’t see them. I am surprised that they don’t seem to give a shit what I do. It worries me, but not as nearly much as my driving force.

“Don’t do anything stupid, s
ir.” Niel says with a comforting yet warning pat to my chest. He steps away and goes straight to Ava. He’s a good boy. Niel knows how to take care of girls after growing up with so many of them. I act as if my mind isn’t whirling in chaos as he chats with my daughter.

I turn as if I am goi
ng to walk from the dining room towards the foyer, instead I quickly circle back around the table and run head-long for the terrace doors. “Dad, stop him!” Ava is screaming as I run from the mansion. I feel small and weak and like a shitty father, but I can’t stop myself.

“Ava, let Cortez
go. They need to settle this,” Ezra’s sad voice floats from the house. The disappointment causes me to feel shame.

“They’ll kill each other,” Ava says in a panic
, voice warbling.

“So let them,” Diane’s haughty voice mocks. It’s almost enough to make me turn around and beat her instead of my quarry.