Chapter 15
“I need you.” The broken voice comes down the line.
“Drake? Babe, what’s happened?” This is not good; he sounds bad. “Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”
“No! No ambulance, just you. I need you.” He’s crying. I’ve never heard him cry before, and it sends a dagger sharp pain through my heart.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I end the call and grab a bag, shoving a few changes of clothes and some toiletries, and I’m out of the house and into my car. I’m grateful for the lateness of the hour, making the roads quiet. I can make the most of the speed this vehicle is capable of.
When I follow the SatNav to the car park of an expensive block of apartments, I find a visitor space and park the car.
I need a few moments to gather my thoughts.
I have no idea what I’m going to face when I get to Drake’s apartment.
After a couple of deep breaths, I switch off the engine and grab my bag from the passenger seat.
Thankful he gave me the code to enter the building.
I reach the lift, which is thankfully quick, and I’m on the eighth floor in no time.
The door is open a crack, but I still tap lightly.
“Drake, it’s me.” There’s no reply, so I push the door open and step inside.
The door closes with an almost silent click.
The open plan living room and kitchen is dark and empty.
I continue into the apartment and follow a hallway down to four doors.
There’s a light coming from under the door at the last room on the left.
I nudge the door open with my foot. “Drake?”
I’m in his bedroom, but he’s not. The en-suite bathroom door is wide open, and I can see Drake sitting on the floor. His head is down, and his hands are in his lap.
He lifts his head and looks at me. He’s gaunt, dark rings around his bloodshot eyes. “Thank you,” he says, his voice dry and cracked.
My bag falls to the floor as I rush over to him. As I cup his face, he starts to cry again. “What the fuck happened?” I ask him again.
“Warrior,” he says, flatly.
Warrior? I’ve heard this name before, but it doesn’t jump back to mind straight away. Then he speaks again. “He found me.”
The memory floods back to me. The story of Drake’s childhood and his abandonment when he was twelve. “Jesus Christ, what did he do? Did he beat you up?”
“He tricked me by being a Dom. We’d met at the club, got on well.
He seemed level-headed, a reasonable Dom and good enough to have a couple of easy scenes with, then he suggested a full a scene together.
It’s my fault; I should’ve seen the signs, to have recognised the bastard. He tormented me for years as a child.”
“No way, this is not your fault. Let me help you up, and I can get you cleaned up. Can you stand?”
I help him up—he’s naked from the waist down. I can see dried blood on his thighs. He’s been raped. Fury floods me; our eyes meet, and he knows I understand. “Turn around so we can get your shirt off. I’m going to get it wet, okay.”
After, I grab some towels from the rack, dump them in the sink, and turn the taps on. I want them warm on his skin. “What did he use?” I place the first towel on his back, letting it soak the fabric, then swapping it for another. I repeat the process until the shirt starts to lift from his back.
I can’t hold back my moan when I see the mess. Has he been whipped or caned, both can leave red welts like the ones under his shirt. “What did he use?”
“A flogger, at least to start. He switched to a cane. I stopped trying to work it out. I just gritted my teeth and tried to get through it.”
“Can you manage a shower? I’ll help.”
“Please.” He leans against me, and I wrap my arms as softly as I can around him. We stay like this for long enough for Drake to shiver. He sits on the toilet lid while I get undressed and sort the shower out.
I don’t take too long to clean him up. Enough to get the blood gone and to warm him up. I find some antiseptic cream in a bathroom cupboard.
We lie in bed together, him on his front, the cream soaking into the stripes over his back and buttocks, even the top of his thighs. He’s had some painkillers, and I’m hoping they kick in soon. “What are you going to do about him?” I ask quietly, our voices hushed in the dark room.
“Ruin him,” Drake says simply,
I push his soft hair from his eyes. “Why didn’t you call your brothers? Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad you trusted me to come. They would’ve been here a lot quicker.”
“They would’ve hunted him down. I want to hurt him for a lot longer and harder than a fist and some bruises,” he says, his words hard and his eyes dark, full of plans and promises. It would be frightening, if I didn’t know him so well.
“Good. You should sleep,” I tell him as his eyelids flutter. “I’ll still be here.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and I think he’s asleep, but his whispered words break me. “How can a man hate a child so much that he’d do this sixteen years later? What did I ever do wrong?”
“Nothing, babe. He’s a sick and twisted man. It was all in his head. What will you do?”
“Best you don’t know.” He pauses. “Thank you.”
He does sleep now. I stay awake, remembering everything he told me about his life before he met me.
The army, the men that fostered and then adopted him.
His brothers and the bond they share. But there’s a gap, a space before me that he hasn’t talked about.
A time he always brushed over, but for him to be able to ruin someone, he’s got to have some contacts in cyber security or whatever is used to spy on people.
Fuck, was he a spy? It would make sense. How cool is that.
It’s a couple of days later when I wake up alone, but the sheet is still warm, and I can hear running water in the bathroom. I look at the cover he’s discarded and see it’s got some sticky marks from the cream and the welts. That can’t feel good, so he must be in the shower.
I get up and pad barefoot over the hardwood floor to the half-open bathroom door. I tap it, lightly, then peep around the door. “Can I come in?”
Drake’s back is to me, and the marks are still vivid, and vicious. He turns his head to look at me and smiles. “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he says, turning to face me.
“True,” I say and slowly take him in. He’s a beautiful man, so fit and muscular without looking like he lives in the gym. “But I’m nothing if not polite. How’s it feeling?”
“It’s not good, but better than yesterday.
It’s going to take a while before I go shirtless again.
” He shrugs as if it’s not a big deal, but I know him, and his pride is hurt too.
Not as much as his back, but he let someone hurt him.
Someone that purposely chose how to hurt him the most with words as well as the whip or cane, whatever he used.
He whispered the taunts the bastard had said, how it broke his heart to know that he’d shattered his mother as much as he could.
He wanted to break his mind, to leave him with the torment of not only what he forced on him, but the mental pain of his mother being forced and kept away from him.
“Do you think you should put a message out to your family that you’re out of town; they’ll start calling if you don’t.”
“Maybe later. I’ve got some stuff to sort out. It’ll take a couple of hours. Shall we have breakfast?” he says, as if nothing has happened. That his back isn’t a mess of stripes and bruises, that his bum isn’t black and blue.
“Drake, sweetheart, you need to take this seriously. You’ve got to take some more painkillers, let me put some cream on your back. You’re still recovering; you need to rest,” I tell him as I turn the water off. “Your stuff, whatever it is, can wait.”
“I need to do this. I’ve got to end this while I’m still angry enough to do it. Then I’ll rest, I promise.” He leans close and presses a kiss to my mouth. It’s soft and gentle, and I want more. I will always want more from him, and it’s not fair, not to either of us.
Yet I return it, parting my lips, allowing his tongue to slide inside my mouth.
His taste is so familiar that even with the gaps between our meetings, I’d know him anywhere.
How can I tell him goodbye again? The kiss deepens as Drake clasps my hips in his tight grip and pulls us together, and we touch from our chests to our thighs.
My cock that I’d had under an invisible lock and key swells alongside his own.
As my hands slide into his hair, he moans deep into my mouth.
I swallow it down greedily and match it with my own.
As we dip in and out of each other’s mouths, Drake takes our hot, swollen, pulsing dicks in his hand, and with a tight grip, pumps his fist. The friction is incredible.
When did he lube his hand? It’s gotta be soap.
I don’t fucking care; all I want to do is feel—his touch, his energy, his emotions—his everything.
“I’m going to come,” I pant breathlessly into his mouth.
“Then come. I’m right with you.”
We come together, our releases mixing together over our fists. I rest my head on his shoulder, my eyes closed as I pant, trying to get my emotions as well as my breathing under control.
“I love you.”
His words are in the steam swirling around us, lost as soon as he says them so quietly. I’m not even sure I was meant to hear them, but my reply is as heartfelt as his. “I love you too.”
We separate and rinse again. “Food,” I say, after an embarrassing growl from my empty stomach sounds.
“Food,” he chuckles back. “Then I need a few hours to be sure Warrior is never around again.”
I can only nod. Even if I ask what he’s planning, he won’t tell me. I worry about the legality and if it can come back to haunt him. We have bacon sandwiches, then I leave him to his work.
I spend the time writing some songs I’ve had buzzing around in my head for a few days.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I finally look up from my laptop.
It’s quiet in the apartment; the sound of Drake tapping on his keyboard has stopped.
I’m not sure what he’s doing, so I get up from the sofa and wander down to the bedroom.
Drake is on his stomach, his back bare and looking so painful, but he’s asleep.
I get on the bed and lie down with him, and it’s not long before I can feel the shock of such a brutal attack on someone I hold so dear to me catching up with me. I let my eyes close and sleep.
We stay together, me making sure he doesn’t push himself too much and him feeling angry at Warrior, and sorry he dragged me into this mess.
It’s a couple of days later that he finally accepts a call from one of his brothers and agrees to let Saint come and check for himself that his baby brother is alive and well.
His outrage at the marks on Drake’s body instantly makes me like him, his anger at who Rees really is has Drake trying to calm him down.
He insists he’s dealt with it, and Saint seems to trust his response.
His interest in me isn’t a surprise, more surprising is he has no idea who I am outside of being Drake’s friend. It’s refreshing.
Two days later, Drake says he’s okay by himself, and I agree.
The hard part is saying goodbye, mainly because it would be so easy to be with him again.
We’ve already started to slip back into our old ways, and it’s not a good idea.
We have different things in our lives now, his work and mine are not conducive to an easy life, but admitting it is hard, almost as hard as leaving him.
As I stand, my packed bag on the end of the bed, we just look at each other. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I am, and I will be. Thank you for dropping everything. I owe you one.”
“I may take you up on that. Goodbye, Drake.” I kiss his cheek and do what I always do—walk away.