Bad Behavior (Bad in Baltimore) (13 page)

There had already been so many of those moments with Tai. A sharp conviction that this was the moment he’d remember but could never recapture. And then it went on. Building. Dizzying.

“I’ll hold the orange slice for you. You suck the flesh off.”

It was awkward, and he’d pulled a hand free for an instant before he tucked it back. Tai feeding him the cheese had been sensual. This was control.

Beach bit into the membrane, felt the individual pockets of juice burst into his mouth, sucked and tugged. Sticky juice ran from his lips and over his chin as Tai pulled the rind away.

He wiped Beach’s jaw with a thumb before following with a warm kiss.

“Very good.” Tai picked up some of the eggs.

When Beach opened his mouth, Tai said, “No. You’re anticipating again.” He held the eggs on his palm, chin level. “Take it out of my hand.”

Beach wasn’t sure he was still in control of his own movements. He was aware of every sensation, but it was like someone else had slipped into his skin.
This must be what it’s like under hypnosis.
His head dropped enough for his mouth to reach Tai’s palm, for his tongue and lips and teeth to nuzzle up the bits of scrambled egg from among the calluses, the valleys between his fingers. The egg was gone, but Beach kept licking the skin.

“God, David. That’s…” Tai’s hand moved to cup Beach’s cheek. “So good.”

The kiss that followed was hard at first, shocking Beach out of his daze. He wasn’t sure if it was allowed, but his hands slipped free and grabbed Tai’s shoulders for balance as he opened his mouth to Tai’s tongue.

Beach had been entirely mistaken about mixing food and sex. Or maybe he’d gone about it the wrong way. Even a two-hundred-dollar mouthful of white winter truffles couldn’t be as amazing as this.

Tai pulled back, still stroking Beach’s face.

“If that was punishment, I think I will be very naughty.”

Tai pressed his forehead into Beach’s. “From what I’ve seen, that’s your default setting.”

C
hapter Nine

T
he key to having a good time was knowing when to leave the party. Beach knew all the signs. And they were there. He just didn’t want to go.

There hadn’t been any of that sub drop after Tai fed him eggs and cheese and fruit from his hand. They kissed, Tai pulling Beach toward him until he was straddling Tai’s knee. The making out became more about holding each other, and when Jez nudged at Tai’s leg, the last sign lit up. Not just neon. Tai went for a billboard-sized LCD display. No way to misunderstand.

With a sigh, he eased Beach off his lap. “David. I want you to go home now.”

Beach wasn’t unfamiliar with an abrupt end to an interlude. He’d been given the number to call a cab, sent out for coffee to find no one there when he got back, and once been handed his clothes while he was standing on the front step. Though that one was his fault. He had gotten the sisters’ names mixed up.

Those dismissals had been easy to shrug off. Not this. He stared down at the silk weave of his shirt and rubbed it between his fingers. Nothing. He’d gone numb from the neck down. Full weight on his bad leg didn’t bother him at all, as he didn’t really know the floor was there. Still, the muscles all took signals from the brain. Put him on his two feet, pulled the shirt over his head, got his shoes back on.

When Tai caught Beach’s chin, he didn’t feel that either. Numb all over then.

“Listen. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Beach understood the words, but they didn’t seem to fit inside his head.

Tai brushed his thumb across Beach’s lips. “You were perfect.” The soft voice threatened to melt the numbness in a way Beach didn’t want to stick around to deal with.

“Thanks.”

“You need to spend some time away from me to think about this.”

This? What was this? “Being submissive?”

Tai’s fingers tightened on Beach’s jaw, and for an instant he thought Tai would kiss him again.

“Being
my
submissive.”

“Oh.”

“There are things we should have talked about, limits, expectations, but…” Tai tapped Beach’s lips then released him, “…we seem to be more about doing than talking. There’s a checklist.”

Now that Beach’s body appeared to have shaken off the numbness, his brain was going. “A checklist?”

“About things you might want to try or that are absolutely off-limits. I’ll email it. I want you to fill it out at home so I don’t influence you.”

“How delightful. Homework. Though I must say that sort of assignment would have done wonders for my grade point average back in school.”

Tai’s eyebrows came to a sharp point on his forehead. “Don’t be a brat.” He reached into his back pocket. “Here.”

Instinctively, Beach held out his hand, and the cuffs slapped into his palm with a light sting. He closed his fingers around the pain and the leather.

“In case you get bored,” Tai added. “I’ll call you Monday.”

“Monday?” Surprise forced a humiliating supplication out of him.

Tai nodded. “Don’t forget to set up a physical-therapy appointment. And stay out of trouble.”

T
he heavy, hot air bounced off the water, reeking of marine diesel and decaying seagrass as Beach left the pavement for the dock at the marina. The shift in his footing made him lean on the cane for a step or two, and then he was able to move with the bounce and sway. Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend, most of the slips were empty, except for the one with his sport cruiser the
Fancy Nancy
.

The judge and the damned all-seeing monitor might keep him from taking the
Nancy
out, but he could at least stand on the deck and pretend to be bouncing over the waves on his way to any place but here.

Damn his leg and caution and probation. He vaulted over the gunwale.

The shock of landing sent a steel blade through his shinbone, pain to make him sweat and almost drop to the deck. Hell. What if he’d rebroken it? He squeezed his eyes tight, fighting the waves of nausea. He slapped his hands on the aft bench, the cane clattering onto the fiberglass before spinning out onto the swim deck.

One wave, one wrong shift of weight, would send it rolling into the bay. And that would be a hellish crawl back to the car, assuming he hadn’t snapped the damned bone again. His eyes were still slits, focused on the gleaming black cane against the teak, his breath shallow, whistling between clenched teeth.

How the holy hell did these things happen to him? A curse on the Beauchamp line? The sins of the father being visited on the son? He shuddered through another stabbing bout of pain. The longer he waited, the more likely it was a wake or wave would tip the cane into the water. The polished wood should float, but the steel finishing might drag it down, and Beach didn’t fancy a swim in the brackish water.

As the sweat dripped off the end of his nose, Tai’s voice, his Sir voice, rumbled in Beach’s mind.
Breathe, David.

Picturing Tai standing there, wishing for a touch to make it easier, Beach forced his jaw to relax and drew in a long, deep breath. It didn’t move the cane any closer or stop his leg from feeling like a demonic version of Jez was chewing on the bone, but after a second slow breath, the tight panicky edge faded. Imagining Tai watching, aching to show he could do something as basic as stand on his own damned boat without disaster, Beach blew the air back out and balanced on his good leg while stretching over the bench and bow. His fingers brushed then latched on to the shaft. He snatched it up, straightening and brandishing it over his head.

“Aha!”

Imaginary Tai only folded his arms. Perhaps if Beach had been a little more impressive—

You were very good, David.

—he’d still be there at Tai’s apartment, discovering what else it meant to be…a submissive. Tai’s submissive.

“Ahoy, the
Fancy Nancy
.”

Beach swung the cane tip down to the deck and looked starboard. A thirty-foot Sea Ray at idle approached. Shading his eyes and squinting, he made out the waving figure from the flybridge. Clayton Earnshaw. Beach supposed it was too late to take that dive overboard.

“Ahoy.”

“Need a hand?” Clayton dropped the idle lower.

“No. Everything’s fine.”

“Okay. You were waving like you were sinking.”

“No.” Just waving at an imaginary Dominant. “Saw you coming.”

“Has been awhile. Let me tie her up. Unless you were headed out.”

“No.” Definitely not as long as he was shackled to Baltimore County.

“Right.”

Beach calculated the time necessary for his long hobble out to the car versus Clayton berthing his boat and came up with a dead heat. Hardly worth the effort. Especially when there was nothing to run to.

Not with Tai making Beach wait until Monday. What was wrong with tonight, or tomorrow?

Beach took advantage of the few minutes to make his awkward way off the
Nancy
without Earnshaw’s questions or feigned concern. Feeling like a feeble geriatric, Beach used the ladders to climb back onto the main dock.

When Clayton came striding up a moment later, Beach was ready with a distraction. “What are you doing up from Charleston? Figured you’d be doing the holiday with the clan.”

“Had enough holidaying with the clan on Carolina Day.”

Beach did a mental head scratch and came up with the name of Clayton’s fiancée. “Iris turning up the pressure on a date?”

Clayton looked as morose as a hound in a cartoon, mouth drooping with his frown. “Iris. Mama. Grandmother. Iris’s mother. Iris’s aunt. My aunts. If it’s female and I’ve seen it in the past month, it’s demanded a schedule. Thank God for these ladies.” Clayton nodded at the
Nancy
. “No demands and always good for a quick escape. Surprised you’re not out chasing marlin or someplace else chasing tail.”

“Can’t.” Beach tapped the ankle monitor with the cane.

“The other kind of ball and chain. Heard you ran into trouble.”

To Beach’s ear there was a satisfied suggestion of
about damned time
in Clayton’s tone.

Beach shrugged. “A bit.”

“Rumor is you threw an illegal party out on Fort Carroll.” Clayton jerked his thumb east-southeast toward the harbor. The island was far enough away to be hidden by the hazy sky.

Beach clapped Clayton on the shoulder. “Not without inviting you. No, I got wind of a family heirloom going missing there at a party back in the seventies. The authorities took a dim view of my trespass on the bird sanctuary or something. The lawyers will all hash it out in fines. No worries.”

“Busted your leg though.”

Beach suspected Clayton was sifting for the best story. The Earnshaws were gossips and tightwads, every last one. Clayton was lucky Iris would have him since he’d have trouble finding anyone else who wasn’t a cousin to marry.

“It’s healing. Make a good story in a month or two. Are you staying on your boat?”

“Soon as I realized the way the wind was blowing, I lit out like my ass was on fire. Christ, I only proposed at Christmas to get them out of my hair.”

Beach clenched his back teeth together. “Be glad to have you stay with me.”

“Thanks. Knobs together—”

“Always together.” There was something to be said for enduring the misery of hazing together as knobs, otherwise known as Citadel freshmen.

“I’ll grab my bag.”

Clayton gave a thorough dental examination to the gift horse when they arrived at Beach’s apartment. “Just the one bedroom.”

Beach hadn’t taken the apartment with an eye to acquiring a roommate. Still, Southern hospitality had its demands. “You’re the guest. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I couldn’t let you do that,” Clayton protested.

They went on through rounds of escalating demurrals, covering the rules of hospitality, Clayton’s long trip up from Charleston, and Beach’s four additional inches of height, until Clayton played a trump card. “And you really should take care of your leg. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

You’ll take care of your body as long as you’re offering it to me.

It took every bit of control Beach possessed not to shiver. And since Tai wasn’t here, Beach could damn well answer back as he pleased.
Since you threw me out of your apartment, I’ll thank you to stay out of my goddamned head. Sir.

“Please help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”

“Wouldn’t say no to a beer.”

“Ah. Sorry. The only alcohol is what was already opened at the bar. This…” Beach pointed with his cane, “…ball and chain monitors me for alcohol intake. I removed the more obvious temptations.”

Clayton ran a hand through what hair he had left. “David Beauchamp condemned to sobriety? Thought you said it wasn’t a party that got you in trouble.”

“It wasn’t.”

Clayton went right for the seventeen-year-old Pappy Van Winkle, of course. A generous pour sloshed into the tumbler. “Find what you were looking for? Your heirloom?”

Not so much an heirloom as proof that the charges keeping Beach’s father out of the country were a lie, that the accusing girl’s ring was a fake. “No.”

“Did you think of looking sober?”

For a man knocking back Beach’s three-hundred-dollar bourbon, Clayton was a fine one to talk.

“I was sober. I’d just gotten out of the hospital.”

“Heard about the bridge.” Clayton moved the drape in front of the glass balcony doors. The balcony five stories up. “You never seemed the type.”

“I’m not the type. I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” Hell, Beach wished he could remember that night. But everything after leaving Ruben’s party was a blank until he woke up in the hospital.

And why the hell was Clayton Earnshaw grilling him about it in the living room of Beach’s own damned apartment? His leg ached. If he couldn’t be with Tai right now, Beach could at least be asleep and dreaming about it.

In answer to Beach’s glare, Clayton shrugged. “My Aunt Bobbie Lynn and your mama went to Sweet Briar together. Guess she’s worried.”

“Your aunt?” Because he sure wasn’t referring to Beach’s mother. She’d never shown up at the hospital, despite the large window of opportunity afforded her by his coma.

Clayton turned away and looked out of the window toward the harbor and Dundalk. Beach rested his ass on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter.
See? Taking care of my leg,
he told no one in the room at the time.

“So you can’t even have a beer with dinner?” Clayton said with another sip of the finest bourbon ever to grace a man’s lips.

“When they arrested me for trespassing, the police report from the bridge got a good looking into. I wasn’t sober then,” Beach admitted. “So no. I can’t. Or go into a bar or liquor store or leave Baltimore County. I can get called in for drug tests.” And that wasn’t the worst part of being on probation. Because if the terms of his release didn’t include the GPS tracker proving he’d been in this apartment from eleven p.m. to seven a.m., maybe he could have spent the night— Never mind. “Worst thing is, I have a curfew.”

Not only did Clayton do grief like a cartoon dog, he tipped back his head and howled with laughter. “Sweet Mary, Beach. The whole damned Corps of Cadets at school couldn’t keep you in your room all night. This is too much. Like the opposite of catching the Pope in a whorehouse.” He finished off his drink. “Well. That’s one smooth bourbon. Too good for me.”

If that wasn’t an understatement.

“Let’s go get something cheaper. I feel a bender coming on, and my designated driver’s got a curfew.” That set Clayton off again, and he howled all the way to Beach’s rented Lexus.

Ta
i stabbed the intercom button at the front door of Nic’s town house.

“Come in and come up. You know the way.” Despite the scratchy sound from the speaker, Nic’s dry humor came through in the last part. The lock buzzed, and Tai went in to the hall. He leaned against a solid, brightly polished table to unlace his running shoes and slip on the sandals Nic kept at the door.

Tai wouldn’t ever be able to tell Stickley from sticks, but he knew nice when he saw it, a comfortable home when he was in one. Which he supposed was good for Nic’s sake because Tai had never seen the man outside of it.