Chapter Nineteen
Cai gingerly touched the tender areas on his face as he bent down to pull his overalls up. He blinked a few times and wiped his eyes and nose. Too dazed to think, he coasted for a minute, or ten, on feelings.
So that just happened.
Wait, what exactly was that?
The room came into focus slowly, blurred at the edges, but his eyes soon adjusted to the dark. Riley’s heat had imprinted into his body and the loss of it drove a chill up his back and neck. Once he started shivering, he couldn’t stop.
Is this shock? Am I in shock? But I’m happy. Ish. I’m happyish.
Aren’t I?
Yes. And wrung out.
Why am I shivering like I have a jackhammer under my feet?
His face and butt ached. Not just ached, screeched with pain. Actually, lots of places hurt. The insides of his mouth had been pushed into his teeth until he was sure they nearly split apart. His nipple throbbed. Scalp stung.
He tried to duck under Riley’s arms, but his legs wobbled, and he nearly tipped over. Riley caught him tightly by the shoulders. “I’m okay,” he whispered.
“Cai—”
He shoved Riley away. Why did I do that? “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m o-o-okay.” His teeth chattered. He stumbled down the hall wincing as the sticky, cold splotches in his briefs brushed against him. “Shower.” In his rush to get away, he bumped into the armchair and agony ricocheted through his butt.
Riley came up behind him and took his elbow. “Let me help.”
Cai pushed him away again.
It seemed like someone had cut him into pieces and rattled him around in a jar. Nothing made sense. And Riley terrified him. Not in a bad way, really. In the same way he liked riding that thing at the amusement park that dropped you down suddenly. Still, he wasn’t ready to be touched yet.
“Don’t. Little scared. That’s all. Little intense.” Cai made a choking sound and whooshed out a breath. “Lot. Lot intense. Terrifying. Not you. That. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
It wasn’t fine. He wasn’t fine. His heart ached from smashing against his chest. But he didn’t want Riley to get the wrong impression. To feel guilty and brood. Riley was a terrible brooder. It didn’t suit him. “I-I liked it.”
Riley lifted his head. “What?”
For years, Cai had thousands of fantasies about his first time with Riley. Up against walls. In bed. The kitchen counter. On the hood of Riley’s car. That was about as weird as it got. Normal sex. With the occasional rough toss onto a bed.
None of those fantasies had his butt hurting.
Well...
None of them had included a whoopin’. Especially a brutal one.
He pointed at Riley. “You really liked it. There, um, there was a whole lotta liking things that shouldn’t be liked! I’m going to go take a sh-shower.”
Riley rested against the living room wall, eyes closed, small, almost sad smile on his lips.
Cai limped past Fuzz’s cage in the bedroom, and then flipped on the bathroom light. He needed to think. After he closed the door, he pressed his back against the wood, and then sank to the floor. “Ow ow.” He scooted up a bit.
Okay, Riley got off on pain.
He could work this out. He had to work this out.
Riley got off on inflicting pain. Very freaky.
But manageable. Sexy too.
Sexy?
What did that mean? He found what Riley did sexy? He found his own pain sexy? That couldn’t be right. He wasn’t sick and twisted like that. All he could remember from three years ago was the pain. Vomiting. His muscles aching because he’d fought until he couldn’t. The sting of antiseptic from the nurse. His eyes burning from constant tears. Rachel pressing concealer into his bruises. He didn’t enjoy that.
Oh, but spanking works for me? Clawing my face until my cheeks could be used as dental impressions?
Hot, breathy grunts as skin met skin. Riley’s voice shaking while he’d waited to see if everything was okay, like his need was so great his whole body could barely contain it. Tongue rough and commanding. Now that was sexy on any planet.
Digging into his front pocket, Cai scrounged his remaining cylinder of candy out and looked at the pastel tablets. A sweet thrill of endorphins already buzzed along his skin. Huh. Sex worked too. Well, sex with Riley, anyway. Interesting.
Okay, so, this wasn’t the fantasy he’d imagined. It was confusing and…different. He expected to discover new things about himself as he matured. Not once, in all his internal debating, had pain-enthusiast come up, but he could roll with it. Couldn’t he?
Cai licked the taste of Riley off his chin.
Yeah, I can roll with that a few times a day.
He tucked the candy back in his pocket just as Riley knocked on the door.
“You okay?”
“I’m taking a shower.”
“You’ve been in there fifteen minutes without the water running. Are you licking yourself clean?”
Cai grinned. Riley’s jokes always reset everything to normal. “Austin says the bathroom’s the best place to think.”
“Do you want me to call Peter?”
Cai twisted and glared at the door. What the heck? “Peter doesn’t solve my problems!” What did Riley plan on saying to his brother anyway? “I can tell you that ‘I just spanked Cai’s naked butt’ will not work in favor of your private parts!” He got up and turned on the shower, drowning out Riley’s answer under the spray.
* * *
Riley waited twenty minutes after the shower turned off to knock again. “I put some clothes out on the bed for you.”
“Thanks.”
He should ask if Cai wanted to leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Part of him knew they should go back to how things were. The other part indulged in stupidity thinking that this might work. That they might work. “Do you need to talk?”
“Yes.”
“To someone else?”
“No. To you. But probably not through the bathroom door.”
“Point taken. I’ll be in the living room.”
“I meant you can come in.”
“Or you could come out.”
“It’s freezing out there because you’re stingy with the heat, and you left the door open while you tenderized my butt.”
Riley chuckled, grabbed the clothes off the bed, and twisted the knob. “I thought you might be shy.” His mouth went dry. Cai naked was a sight to behold. Riley hadn’t been expecting the lean body he faced right now. Thin, yes, but well-defined thighs and arms. Jagged ridges slashed across his hips. Slim cock glistening between a patch of cropped black hair. And thick silver hoops for the nipple piercings.
The scars held most of his attention, though. Lettering looped together in an oval along Cai’s side between his ribcage and hips.
When had Cai become so fucking sexy?
Riley braced his shoulder against the door jamb, completely forgetting the clothes under his other arm.
“People have the strangest ideas about me.” Cai reached out, took the bundle, and then tugged on the sweatpants. “Peter and Darryl thought that if they didn’t talk about sex, we could pretend they weren't selling themselves to pay for rent and my meds.” He pulled the t-shirt over his head and jammed his arms into the sleeves. “Julian thinks that my IQ means I should know everything about everything. And you think...Why would I be shy about nudity? I’m an artist. I see naked people all the time. Plus, you obviously like the way I look.”
“It might be all that blushing you do.” Yes, that blushing, Riley wanted to add, but found he couldn’t speak clearly with how dry his throat was.
“Sex,” Cai said.
“Already? Well, the condoms are closer.”
Pink spread to Cai’s neck and ears. “Sex makes me blush. It was the off-limits topic growing up. The thing Peter and Darryl made secretive. They made it wrong.” He picked up his dirty clothes, raided the pockets, then tossed them in the laundry basket. The bounty of pills and candy got hidden in the sweatpants pockets. Then he sighed and made a frustrated noise. “I didn’t need another quirk.”
“We all have quirks.”
“I have trainloads of them. None useful, as Julian points out. I don’t need to be a masoch... Why are you brooding again?”
“I didn’t think about Julian. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Cai stepped forward, leaving less than a foot between them.
“No,” Riley admitted. He curled a wet strand of hair with his fingers. A drop twisted down to his wrist, disappearing under the cuff of his shirt. When would Cai learn to use towels?
“He’s not my boyfriend. We were just there for each other. I love him, but it’s not the same as you. It’s the difference between pink and red. You know?”
“Yeah.” That part of Cai he always understood. He was red. Pure love. Julian pink. Diluted love. He didn’t know how to respond.
Cai stepped further into Riley’s space, like he owned it. “You can touch me. I want you to touch me.” He added quietly, like he was sharing a wicked secret in a room full of people, “You can hurt me.”
Cai hadn’t put on underwear. A gentle tug of the sweatpants would bare his cock. Riley fought the compulsion to drop to his knees and feel him harden in his mouth. The craving sucked his breath away. What the hell did Europe teach Cai? Whatever it was, it made Riley’s brain create a strong case for ignoring logic. He had to keep fighting, because he’d already made one mistake tonight.
They’d been lucky nothing had triggered Cai. Or maybe it had, and later he’d hear Cai screaming in his sleep like so many times before.
Not that Cai had slept much back then, what with constantly painting and drowning in cups of coffee while Riley read and watched him create. Sometimes Cai would forget he had a wet paintbrush in his hand. He’d tilt his head and tap the brush against his chin, leaving a streak of paint behind.
Riley berated himself for getting caught up in memories. He tucked his hands into his pockets.
“Why are you making this so difficult?” Cai asked as he propped a hip against the sink and looked down at his feet. “I freaked out for a minute. It won’t happen again.”
“I can’t offer you what you need.”
“What I need?” Cai lifted his head. “It’s you, Riley. It’s always been you. It will always be you.” He splayed his hand over his chest, hurt and pain bleeding through each word. “You’ve carved yourself inside of me. Layer by layer, year by year, until I have no room for anyone else. There’s nothing I can do about it now. Nothing I want to do about it. And there’s nothing you can do about it either.”
Riley rubbed his hand over his mouth. He’d fucked up worse than he thought. “C’mere,” he said with a tilt of his head toward the bedroom. He felt for the key above the wardrobe and then used it to open its doors. After flinging them wide open, he backed off to the window. His heart slowly climbed into his throat with Cai’s every hesitant footstep toward him.
He wasn’t worried about condemnation or rejection. Judgmental was not a word in Cai’s vocabulary. “This is me, Cai. I don’t dabble. It’s my lifestyle. It’s my partner’s lifestyle. This is why there can’t ever be an ‘after’ for us.” The questions would come and then the understanding and finally the acceptance that this, he and Cai, would never work. The part of Riley that clung to the possible also feared the inevitable.
As Cai approached the closest, he tilted his head to peer around the door. His frown slowly morphed into wide eyes. The slight parting of lips permitted a slow, indrawn breath. He backed into the edge of the bed, his knees buckling him into a seat. “Yes. Well.” He lifted his hand in a half-hearted pointing gesture and then dropped it. “There, um,” he said faintly. “There it is.” His cheeks went fire-engine red.
“This is why we won’t work.”
Cai’s gaze darted to each item and finally settled on a shelf. He reached into the closet for whatever item caught his eye and snatched it out quickly, as if the closet doors would suddenly bite him. “This one isn’t bad,” he said. “I, um, I guess. How does it, you know...” He made a gesture.
“That is a feather duster.” Riley yanked it out of Cai’s hand. “It gets inserted into shelves, not people.”
“It was in the closet.”
“Stored. It was stored in the closet. Along with shoes, dress shirts and ties.”
“It has a beaded handle.”
“It’s a feather duster, not a sex toy.”
“But it was in the closet with”—Cai swept his hand over the general area without looking at it—“those.”
An incredulous laugh burst out of Riley. “Only you could look at a closet full of whips and S&M sex toys and end up having a discussion about where to stick a feather duster.”
“It was the safest thing in there,” Cai admitted.
It hit him that Cai was trying to lighten the mood and put both of them at ease. It also hit him that it wasn’t working.
The radiator sputtered and clanked, loud enough to distract Riley from the shy glances Cai snuck at the closet. He turned the heat higher just as Cai took the spreader bar off the bottom shelf.
Cai’s hair rained over his expression. “To, um, keep my legs apart?” He fiddled with the ankle cuffs and hiccuped.
The radiator knob snapped off in Riley’s hand. He tried to fit it back on, but his hands shook too much. He gave up and slammed it on the windowsill. His voice tumbled out like gravel down a dry riverbed. “Put that away,” he ordered. His mouth refused to produce saliva to coat his throat.
“Do you want to put it on or should I?” Cai held the thing out while looking through that curtain of black.
“Whoever taught you that expression should be jailed for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
“If you keep referring to me as a minor, it’s going to get really uncomfortable when we have sex again.”
Retreat! “I didn’t show you this as foreplay for a kinky encounter. I did it so you can understand why I don’t want to get involved with you sexually.” He advanced close enough to see a mist of fear dotting Cai’s skin.
“We already had a kinky encounter. I’d like to, um, t-to try another now. Please. Sir.”
“Cai,” Riley said with a frustrated growl, “you can’t even look in there.”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once. I’d already figured you were kinky, but I thought you’d want me to bark or crawl around on all fours and lick your boots. Which is...different. Fine. That would be fine. But there aren’t any boots in there, just a lot of things to make me scream.” The overhead light revealed the quaver and twitch as he battled fear for a smile.
“Listen, when something makes you that uncomfortable, you shouldn’t do it.”
“I haven’t had any time to absorb it. Or try...things. Did you know right away?”
Cai’s pulse throbbed in his neck. Riley read panic in each wild beat. “No, but I hadn’t been—” He cut himself off before he fucked up again.
The forced smile dropped instantly. “Raped. You hadn’t been raped,” Cai finished quietly. His eyes were stone. “When something makes you that uncomfortable, maybe you shouldn’t talk about it.”
“I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”
“No.”
“No?” Riley stepped back and rubbed his temples. “‘No’, what? Care to elaborate?”
“Yeah.” Cai stood up and flung the bar at the closet. The rod clanked against the wood and tumbled to the floor. “Fuck you,” he snarled. “How’s that for elaborate?”
Riley’s jaw dropped. He grappled for something to say, barely comprehending that he suddenly stood alone in the room. The shock wore off when the front door slammed.
* * *
Cai pressed his fist against the front door, his fingers slowly uncurling against the grain. He clutched his coat in the other hand, nails digging into the fabric until pain forced him to loosen his grip. The coat fell to the floor as the soles of Riley’s shoes whispered across the hardwood and halted behind him. A warm sigh filtered through the hair at the nape of his neck.
“I got nowhere to go,” Cai said, more to break the disquiet than to explain himself.
The living room clock ticked in time with frozen rain pelting at the roof and windows. White noise serving as background to Riley’s unnerving silence.
Thirty seconds.
Forty.
“I thought you wanted to talk.” Riley’s calloused hand closed gently on his neck. A carpenter’s hand, blistered and rough and offering comfort with a gentle touch.
Cai turned around, rage and frustration gave him the strength to fight when he really wanted to give in. To be kissed again. “I did want to talk. I didn’t want to be pulled back and forth between your guilt.”
“You’re right,” Riley said, “I sent the wrong message.”
“Which message? There were all kinds of conflicting messages.”
“I know. I’m sure it was confusing. I decided to take it slow. Then I got angry.” Riley grimaced. “Then… then I got lost in you. It was a hundred percent my fault.”
“Oh, a hundred percent your fault. Good thing you’ve got it under control now, I might wither under the considerable weight of choice.” Threat or no threat, he’d rather be a moving target on the street than deal with Riley’s guilt. He yanked the door open.
Riley slammed it shut. “You were terrified! I can’t let that happen again.”
“People better quit making decisions for me. Like I don’t know how to give consent? That’s bull—” Cai broke off, cringing as he remembered Peter and the bad taste of a bar of soap. Actually, on second thought, fuck Peter . “It’s bullshit! I may be ignorant about some things but give me the courtesy of trusting that I know my limits.”
“You don’t know! I can’t trust that you know your limits. What you’re offering...” Riley jammed his fingers through his hair. “When it comes to me, you’re not submissive, Cai, you’re a doormat. I won’t take the chance of triggering you because you were so intent on pleasing me that you didn’t say no.”
Cai wanted to reach in and rip Riley’s heart out. “You don’t get to paint victim on me!” Channeling all his fury, he smashed his palms into Riley’s chest and shoved him away. “You don’t get to do that.” Cai spread his arms wide and dropped them as he stepped backward. “I won’t let you.”
Riley extended his hand but pulled back at the last second. “No, not a victim, just a minefield of triggers that I don’t have a map to navigate.”
“Don’t you think I had to learn how to combat triggers? They are everywhere! At night, the restaurant smells like a meth factory from your mom’s obsessive cleaning. There’s a trigger.”
“All right.”
“Sweat and urine. In bathrooms, locker rooms.”
“I said all right.”
“That smell of filthy socks. It used to make me gag when I took my shoes off, like they were still stuck in my throat, soaked with my spit and puke. Rachmaninoff from my cell phone ringing over and over. The ticking sound our fan makes until I want to smash it down from the ceiling. Seeing him walk down the street!”
Riley’s head snapped up. “Seeing him?”
“There’s your trigger!” The rage ruptured and burst forth again. Cai couldn’t stop, even as his voice grew hoarse, and his throat burned. “There’s your goddamn trigger! And I’m not cowering like some victim, am I?”
“Cai, Prisc is dead. This is what I meant. You’re not ready—”
“Iss wasn’t the only one there!” Tears clung to Cai’s lashes and blurred his vision. Despite the cold room, sweat broke out at his hairline. “He wasn’t the only one...” His throat clogged with unvoiced sobs.
The clock ticked on. Cai counted the seconds to keep sane, clutching his stomach as nausea roiled and bubbled inside him. All this time, burying it to keep it from everyone. It had burst forth like a ruptured boil.
Fuzz trotted out, head cocked sideways, tail hesitantly wagging twice then drooping.
Twenty seconds.
Fifty-five.
“Who?” Riley grabbed Cai’s arms and gently shook him. “Who else was there? I swear to you, I’ll put him away.”
Cai twisted out of his grasp. “Put him away? I don’t want to put him away!” Spit foamed at the edge of his lips and sprayed out as he shouted. “I want to put him in the ground!” With one swipe, Cai hurled the lamp off the table and smashed it against the far wall.
The dog yelped and darted out of the room and then a knock vibrated the door. “Agent Cordova?”
“Four Four Nine Four. We’re okay, Johanson. I’ve got it under control.” Riley eased closer, his voice calm and even, like Cai was a feral animal he needed to put down. That wasn’t too far off. “That’s not the answer,” Riley said.
“It’s my answer.” In the bedroom, Fuzz’s cage rattled as if he trembled against its walls. Guilt washed over Cai. But his anger wasn’t spent yet. “He can’t keep—”
“Keep what?”
“Breathing,” Cai seethed, slapping his fist against his own chest. “Breathing the same air as me.”
The admission hung in the air, etching lines of sympathy in Riley’s face and drawing a sigh as he picked his badge up from the floor and sank into the recliner. Nothing else passed between them for minutes while he traced the raised gold lettering.
What happened now?
Drained by confession, Cai slid down the door, thighs protectively pressed against his chest.
A small sadistic part of him wanted to detail everything they did that day—to replace pity with hate. Hate was better. Hate was fuel.
But Riley didn’t understand hate. It wasn’t in his character. Captain Latin America. One thing heroes all had was the common belief in truth and justice.
“It won’t work,” Cai said quietly.
“Reading my mind again?”
“Your kind of justice doesn’t work for people like him. Too much power. Too much money. It won’t work.” Cai fumbled in his pockets for candy. There wasn’t enough hate in the world to power through his exhaustion at this point. He’d left his soul open and defeat had settled in. Oh well, easier to battle the Dark than The Crazy. He couldn’t fight crazy. Crazy made sense of nonsense. Nothing but Thorazine could fight that. Skittles, however, were his chemical warriors against The Dark.
Riley’s shadow swallowed up the light as he crouched down inches away. “Listen, the options available aren’t murder or arrest. The options are arrest or let it go. Which is it?”
“If you arrest him, he won’t go to jail. He’ll drag it through court and rip me to shreds in the process.” Cai dropped his head down. “Then Peter will kill him and go to jail.”
“Peter is smarter than that. He has a family now.”
“He’ll blame himself. He’ll hear what happened to me and all he’ll think about is that he brought Iss into our lives.”
“Then you’ll just have to convince him otherwise.”
“I can’t.” Cai didn’t bother to wipe away the tears and snot. His voice grew thick with shame. “I can’t because I blame him too.”