Chapter 1
Chapter One
brAX
After putting my car into park, I glanced over at what had now become a familiar sight to me.
For the last twelve months, I’d been receiving these velvet gift boxes from a secret admirer.
Most contained innocuous gifts along with cryptic notes written in some sort of calligraphy.
They’d all been discarded until the one last month.
Its offering contained a thin cell phone I’d now been using to exchange sexual text messages with the sender. It wasn’t surprising that they’d intensified into more. This latest particular gift box contained a long silver key hanging off a small rope chain. The card had been simple, too.
Roses are red... And your balls are blue... It’s time to meet face to face... Arrive on time at the given place... If you don’t, I walk away forever...
After I’d followed the instructions given via GPS and had arrived at the given destination, I turned my attention away from the box to the large building in front of me. The decrepit structure looked to have once been some sort of warehouse. Now, it looked like something out of a horror movie.
It didn’t help that it was pitch dark outside.
All day, Mother Nature had started setting the scene by unleashing torrential downpours upon the city, although it’d now turned to more of a steady drizzle.
It was also cold and windy, causing the bare trees on the side of the door to sway back and forth.
I started to question whether I actually wanted to go through with this. For the better part of a year, I’d ignored everything received. It’d only been when I’d started talking to my secret admirer that this became real.
A slight frisson of apprehension passed through me, and after realizing I was acting foolish, I retrieved the key and got out of my Lexus RC coupe.
I also grabbed my cell phone and the blade I kept under my seat.
I might be curious, but I wouldn’t be stupid.
There were a lot of crazy people in the world, so I needed to have something on me that could be used to defend myself.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that, and we could pick back up where we’d left off in our latest set of text messages.
I walked to the door, and when I entered the large hallway, I noticed the series of numbered doors. Not remembering a specific number given, I turned the key over in my hand, then noticed a small metallic charm on the rope.
It appeared my destination was on the fourth floor.
I walked from one end of the lower level to the other and cursed upon realizing there was no elevator.
Finally locating the staircase, I saw how dim the overhead lighting was as I glanced upward at the solitary fixture at the very top of the building, which made the spiraling sets of stairs seem that much more ominous.
Sucking it up, I started to ascend each set until I reached the last few before my floor.
Taking those final ones two at a time, I was out of breath when I reached the top one.
My lungs burned in my chest, and my throat stung as if it had been attacked by a swarm of bees.
I took a few seconds to regulate my breathing once more, then walked down to the end of the hallway where I found the door that matched the number on the small charm.
I stuck the key into the keyhole, then took a step or two back when the knob creaked as I turned it.
The door slowly swung open, illuminating the hallway with lighting from inside.
There was no way to know what I was walking into, so I made sure to clutch the handle of the blade in my hand as I stepped forward.
Once inside, the entire place was lit up via candles. There had to have been at least a hundred of them. As I closed the door behind me, I cleared my throat.
“Hello. Is anyone here?”
I saw one unlit candle, so I picked it up, then lit the wick with one of the nearby flames before returning it to its holder. The candle itself was one of the monthly gifts I’d once received. I supposed that everything received had its place in this game.
A game. I hated to play them, although my life lately had been one.
I was here to meet a woman who might end up being my destruction, but it could also be a man.
The latter should’ve filled me with at least some sort of unease, but it didn’t.
If being honest, the very idea of being thrown down, restrained, and forced to take another inside of me made me hard.
“Hello,” I said once more as I ventured even farther into the space.
My foot hit something and my eyes darted down to see what it was.
On the floor, there were several dark rose petals, black if I had to guess, and their thorny stems. Also, gifts I once received.
I bent down and plucked one of the stems from the concrete, and when I rose back to my feet, a dark, shadowy figure ahead made me jump, causing me to prick my finger.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath before dropping the stem. My finger was now bleeding, and bringing it to my mouth, I tried to suck the few drops of crimson from it to at least slow down the bleeding, even if I couldn’t stop it. “Who are you?”
“Brax William Palmer,” I heard, and my blood ran cold.
That voice was one I knew all too well. Swallowing hard, I opened my mouth to speak, but ended up closing it and shaking my head profusely. “Colson?” I finally asked softly when I found my voice once more.
My best friend turned in that moment and drew the moonlight with him.
I could see him now, and he didn’t seem nearly as shocked to see me as I was to see him.
Still, I stared ahead at someone I’d known my entire life, but somehow it was like seeing him for the very first time.
His face had always been a goddamn work of art chiseled with prominent cheekbones and a jawline carved from fucking marble.
Colson’s hazel eyes were narrowed, which added to his already broody expression.
And I stared at those lips that I half expected to see curved into a shit-eating grin or smirk, but were not.
Beneath those full lips of his was a perfectly manicured beard. I’d known him since we were in preschool together, and I’d never done more than give him a quick glance over. Now, I was remembering how graphic those text messages had been, and I was seeing him in a completely different light.
My gaze raked up his face to the top of his head, which was covered in short curls I now wanted to run my hands through. And hands that were shaking so damn hard that the blade fell to the floor, causing a clanging sound which echoed off the concrete walls.
“Do you always bring a knife to a romantic liaison?” he finally asked before smirking at me.
It all made sense to me now, and after bending down to pick up the knife, I straightened, then stared at him with all the irritation I now felt. “What the hell, Colson? Is this some sort of joke?”
His taunting expression from earlier disappeared as he came closer to me. When standing just a few inches from me, he grabbed the knife from my hand. I had no idea why I hadn’t secured it in my grip tighter, but what was done was done, and the blade was now in his hand.
Colson brought it to my chin, then used the dull side to raise my face upward until my eyes were level with his. “Was it a joke when you described jacking yourself raw to me a few nights ago? Or a joke when you told me that you wanted someone to force you to lose control? Or a joke when you—”
“I fucking get it,” I said to him. “Now that you’ve fucked with me for an entire year, you can consider yourself the goddamn victor. I have no idea what you expected to gain from this outside of a few laughs, but—”
“I expected to get what I’ve wanted for an entire fucking decade, Brax. I want to fuck you, and—”
I barked out a laugh, cutting him off. “You expect me to believe you've wanted to fuck me all this time?” I asked, then added in reminder. “I’m not gay.”
He reached down and rubbed my cock through my pants. “I'd tell you not to be so hard-headed about that, but this has real potential, Brax.”
I smacked his hand away, then grimaced as the edge of the blade dug into my throat. Grabbing it from his hand, I tossed it away and gripped his throat with my hand as he smirked devilishly at me.
“Tonight, I’m going to show you what your body is made for. Hell, I’m going to show you who it is made for. You and I both know the idea of being tied down and taken by me has you hard as fuck. There’s no need to deny what’s inevitable between us.”
“This is surreal as fuck. We've been playing together since we were young boys in our playpens...”
“Now, we're going to play a very different game in a different bed together...”
“Where is everyone else?” I looked around and called out even louder. “You’ve gotten me, so come on out.” When no one surfaced, I turned back to Colson. “You have to be fucking with me.”