Bad Behavior (Bad in Baltimore) (24 page)

What was the point of dwelling on Beach’s failings with his father? His uncle? Entire months of his life went by without any contact from his family. He hadn’t heard from his mother since her Christmas card.

He’d been frustrated after the phone call. And now that was gone. The end.

Tai had said Beach couldn’t talk, but not that he had to stay on the couch. He slipped off, kneeling next to Tai’s legs, foot flexed to avoid strain to that healing shin. Tai’s hands sifted through Beach’s hair.

“Very nice, boy. But it’s not going to get you out of what you’re supposed to be doing.”

Beach was supposed to be thinking about how he felt. What he felt was that tug that made him want to be here. Kneeling at Tai’s feet. Obedient. And horny. There was also that.

So that was what Beach concentrated on. How it felt. He shut his eyes, because the pictures on the TV were distracting. They took away from how right it felt to be there, to belong to Sir. He started to float on that connection, his chest full of heat and light, breaths even and slow. Time never mattered when he got there, so it might have been a few minutes or an hour when he was aware of Tai moving, his voice settling into Beach’s head.

“Keep your eyes closed. Open your mouth.”

Sweet and sticky, airy fragments of buttery phyllo and rich filling flooded his mouth. After he chewed and swallowed, Tai urged him to open for another bite. Baklava should always be eaten like this. His senses swam with texture and smell, the dizziness that came with that absolute surrender. Tai held a glass to Beach’s lips.

“Tip your head back.”

Water. Had it ever tasted better? Beach swallowed. Then swallowed the swell of feeling in his throat that made his eyes prickle with moisture. As amazing as submitting to Tai felt, yielding this made Beach feel the most cared for, the most grateful for the caring. The simple act of food from Tai’s hand fed parts of Beach that had always gone hungry before, filled him and took away that endless desire to anticipate the next distraction. The completion found every hollow, left him full and sated but alive with energy.

When Tai said, “Open your eyes,” and urged Beach to eat the rest of the pastry from a cupped palm, it felt natural to lick all the traces of flavor from Tai’s skin, then kiss the pads of his fingers in gratitude. Beach smiled into Tai’s hand, remembering the husky whisper of
My job, boy
when Beach had licked his fingers earlier.

“What? You can speak.” Tai’s voice was as breathless now as it had been then.

Now that he could, Beach found he didn’t want to, didn’t want his usual bland banter to come between them. He shook his head.

Tai grabbed Beach’s chin. “Are you being a brat?”

Instead of his default reaction to push back, Beach opened his eyes wide and shook his head again.

“Hmm.” Tai leaned down to kiss him, beard a tingling rasp against Beach’s evening stubble. “I’ll take that as a challenge then.”

He tested Beach’s control, kissing him into the bedroom, examining the strength of it in a steady stroke of his cock before pushing him onto the bed.

Beach held out as long as he could, sounds and pleas confined by a tight jaw, until Tai swallowed and groaned, lips brushing the base of Beach’s shaft, that pulsing, hot, wet throat so tight, drawing his cock deeper.

“Please. God, please, Sir. Can I come?”

More perfect agony, Tai drawing off and then sinking back, slick pressure on every inch and the rough texture of throat on the head. Beach’s muscles cramped as he fought to hold back the fiery flood in his balls.

Tai pulled off all the way, abandoning Beach’s dick to the chill of the room. “Not yet.”

Beach didn’t care. He needed, God, how he needed. His wrists were locked together over his head, legs pinned open by Tai’s weight. “Anything. I’ll take anything, do anything. Please, Sir.”

“No bargaining. You will take whatever I give you.”

“Yes.” It was true. The knowledge wound more tightly through his balls. He would take whatever Sir gave him, craved that control, and for the first time the knowledge came free of any shame. What did it matter what other people thought if he had this?

Tai took him back to the edge, making Beach frantic with the added sensation of a spit-wet finger rubbing around his hole.

Beach wasn’t sure what he was saying now. Like in all that silence he’d forgotten words, but when Tai stopped again and the tension rebounded inside, tears squeezed out from the corners of Beach’s eyes.

“This, David.” Tai loomed, brows in a deep, serious V on his face, but his kiss was silky soft. “This is what I want you to take. What I want you to feel for me. You can do this for me, boy.”

“Yes, Sir.” The answer came out on a sob, but Beach tried to relax while still holding on to the orgasm burning in his balls and dick, all the way through to his shaking thighs.

Tai scraped his beard down Beach’s chest, teasing his cock with the soft prickle of it.

Oh, he could come from that, couldn’t he? If it was just a little harder. Higher.

The finger teasing his hole became two, slicker, a rough push in that went right to Beach’s dick.

“When I tell you to come, you do it right then or you won’t get another chance tonight.”

Fuck.
Beach’s head fell back, throat, stomach, legs, balls, everything straining, caught on the knife-edge where Sir kept him.

Tai’s fingers fucked fast, hard, and the burn helped Beach hold on until the friction turned to stroking stabs of pleasure against his gland and his legs shook. Though his eyes were squinched shut, he could feel Tai watching, and he tried to find a place where the tension wasn’t so terrible, where he wasn’t need but was surrender. He spread his legs wider, tipped up his hips, opened his ass.

“You are so fucking beautiful like this.” Tai’s voice sounded like he still had a cock in his throat. He pressed a kiss to Beach’s belly, then demanded, “Now,” before swallowing Beach’s cock again.

It should have been easy, he’d been waiting so damned long. But it wasn’t. He bucked up against Tai’s shoulders, trying to get the rhythm, the pressure to meet the need.

He shuddered, mind frantic. Tai would leave him hanging here, but even worse, David would disappoint Sir.

Another twist of fingers, along with the slide of a hard hand on his shaft, brought him closer. Exquisite suction and Tai’s tongue flicking over the head had the rush taking over, a flood of it, endless spasms of pleasure, blasting into Tai’s mouth. Muscles cramped and ached as the shocks rang through him until it ended in a bone-melting lassitude.

“So good.” Tai freed Beach’s hands. “That’s it. Good boy. Roll over for me now.”

Beach’s body wasn’t exactly cooperating, so Tai twisted and shoved, and Beach ended up with his ass up, hips tilted over the wadded-up sheet, dick protesting even the contact of the satiny thousand-thread-count percale.

It would hurt to be fucked, but Beach really didn’t care. In fact now would be a perfect time to be branded, or tattooed, or for another round of surgery on his tibia.

Tai’s cock slipped along Beach’s ass crack. Beach shoved back toward him, squeezing.

“Yeah, just like that.” The voice was more gravelly, abraded from—God, from having
Beach
’s dick in so deep, so long. Tai’s voice, rasped and shaky with want.

I gave him that. Me.

Beach shuddered, then pushed back harder, shifting to try to line them up. Satisfaction pulsed hot in his belly.
I can give him this too.

Tai pressed him down, full weight pinning Beach to the mattress. “Not gonna fuck you. Keep it tight for me.”

Beach did, clenching his muscles and rocking against Tai’s thrusts. The pressure on Beach’s hole sent a painful throb of blood to try to fill his dick. The desperate, hoarse groans from Tai only made it worse, like the pleasure spilling out from where Tai sucked a bite into the back of Beach’s neck. But the unbroken chant of his name before warm, slick come sprayed between them made the ache worth it.

Tai didn’t move off, arms wrapping through and around Beach’s, the anchor holding back any threat of a drop as they drifted off.

When Beach woke up with an urgent bladder and the need to stretch a cramp out of his hip, Tai peeled away with a sigh.

“Y’okay?”

“Everything’s good. Be right back.” Beach swung his feet onto the floor.

Jez was sprawled on her side, not even giving a twitch of an ear as he passed. After he pissed, he executed some contorted maneuvers with a washcloth to despunk his back and decided he could do with a glass of water.

His phone sat on the counter in silent rebuke. After eyeing it through his emptying glass, he resigned himself to seeing if he had a message. Three texts from Gavin, and a voice mail from his father. He chose the lesser evil first.
Be sure you have something to wear to charm some donations out of grande dames on Saturday. Garden party at the Manor.

Why the hell would Beach willingly subject himself to that when he could be subject to Sir?

There was a follow up.
You. Owe. Me.

And finally.
Wear blue. The ladies like it when it matches your eyes.

Beach rolled the orbs in question, though he knew guilt would win and he’d be there. Guilt also had him gingerly bringing the phone to his ear to listen to the voicemail.

“Might have a way out of this shit. Be ready to wire two point five to an offshore account. I’ll call back with the information.”

Two point five million would pretty much empty Beach’s accounts. The
Fancy Nancy
was his, free and clear, and the town house in Charleston. This apartment, docking fees here and at other favorite spots along the coast, the place he kept in Juno Beach, all that drained from his account. He earned it back in dividends—the trust fund had a steady stream of investment income—but he wasn’t like Gavin. He couldn’t sneeze a million dollars into his hand. He’d barely cover the next two months if he wired that to his dad. And he certainly wouldn’t be able to make a splash at Gavin’s fundraiser.

Though if Beach did…if he cut that check to his father, handed it over, maybe he’d finally feel free of it. Finished. Done with the expectations of what family should be.

He pressed the button to call back. A computer voice answered,
“El número que usted ha marcado no está en servicio. Por favor revise el número y trate de nuevo.”
Beach had taken French and German, but he got enough to know the number was out of service.

It stiffened his spine with a jolt of alarm.

No real reason. Beach might believe in ghosts, but he sure as hell wasn’t a psychic. There was nothing unusual about his father dropping one burner phone for another.

The unease came from all those things. A sudden demand for cash after refusing it. The desperation in the voicemail. The promise to call back to get the money and now the out-of-service answer.

Beach left the phone on the counter and padded into the bedroom, stopping for a moment to peer out through the windows.

He loved predawn light. The first shift from black to deep indigo. All the promise in a new day—though he much preferred to catch dawn from an all-night-out perspective rather than needing to be up at a crazy hour. He slipped back into bed and stared at the shadowy block that made up Tai. In Beach’s absence, Tai had clutched onto a pillow, face relaxed as he curled around it. Tenderness rolled through Beach, and he stroked a hand through the long black curls. So satiny and scented with a sweet oil, almost almondy. Tai curled closer.

It was like having a sleeping tiger in his bed. Lethal power with a deceptive feline softness. And somehow, Tai chose to share that with Beach. Gave him the gift of the terrifying and tender places they went to.

Beach wanted that now. Wanted Tai’s solid, emphatic control poured over the tangle of fear and confusion in Beach’s mind. He stared at Tai’s face, willing him to wake up.

Couldn’t he feel it? Didn’t that connection, David to Sir, still vibrate between them? Beach felt it all the time, like something rooted right under the bottom of his sternum, a cord that pulled him to Tai.

Beach made another stroke through Tai’s hair, contemplating a tug, an accidentally purposeful kick to his shin.

I’m not going to play stand-in for your father.

That wasn’t what this was. Beach was completely over the desire for any parental guidance in navigating life. And he certainly didn’t want Tai to be—what had Eli called Quinn when they were joking around the grill?—Daddy. Beach didn’t want any kind of a stand-in. Not for Gavin off focused on Sergeant Boyfriend, or their other friend Lee, who was caught up in his wife’s Machiavellian manipulations. He wanted this. Brand new. And all Tai.

But maybe that was all Tai saw it as. Why he listened patiently when Beach whined about the family disaster. Why he urged Beach to take care of himself, to go to physical therapy for his leg. It was Tai’s job, straightening out the miscreants so they could go on to be good little members of society. He’d just found a better than usual way to help out Beach.

When his probation was over, when Beach was trained to good behavior, Tai would find a new cause. Beach wished he had enough courage to be bad enough to keep that from happening.

Chapt
er Nineteen

9:23
a.m.
Last night was sweet, boy.

10:08 a.m.
Did you unstick yourself from the sheets yet?

10:42 a.m.
Didn’t wake you when I left. Too much temptation when you’re conscious.

11:18 a.m.
What dessert should we try next?

Work went by both faster and slower spiked with anticipation created by exchanging flirting texts with David. Which was why the silence of four unanswered texts was damned distracting. Tai jabbed at the screen again, trying to force it to answer. Sub drop? It had been a while since David had had a bad drop, and never this far removed from a scene.

If something was going on with him, Tai wanted to know. When he got back from letting Jez out at lunch, he called. It rang until he thought it would roll to voicemail, but David answered.

“Hi. I’m kind of busy. I’ll call you back.”

Tai was left frowning at the call-ended screen until he shoved away from his desk and vented some frustration with forceful filing. It bugged him more than he wanted to admit. He was used to David hiding with some humor or pushing at him with a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it brattiness, but not to him sounding flat, brittle.

It was this shit with his dad, that Tai was sure of. He could easily run a background check, find all the skeletons David was reluctant to dig for. Tension seized the back of his neck and squeezed. He’d done that for Gina—for
Sammie
—when Josh had come back, and Gina hadn’t been grateful. The exact opposite. The memory of being compared to a psycho stalker still stung.

Tai retrieved his lineup of drug-test packages for the afternoon. He’d suggest running a check to David. When he wasn’t in sub space. If David wanted, then Tai could do it.

The endless stream of afternoon check-ins and drug tests weren’t enough to keep Tai from checking his silent phone. Every whined excuse from a probie cranked the vise at the base of Tai’s skull tighter. And because that wasn’t fun enough, one of the teen girls he’d inherited from Bob Meade got out of summer school and went home to hold a knife at her mother’s throat.

By the time the Violation of Probation had been signed off on and filed, and Lizzie Borden, Junior was safely locked up, it was seven thirty. Even after Tai collected Jez for her much-needed walk and fed her, David still hadn’t called back and a double dose of extra-strength painkillers hadn’t scraped away any of Tai’s headache.

Tai wasn’t going to get another uninformative brush off. He’d go over and find out for himself what was going on.

His phone rang in the car, and he snatched it up instantly.

It wasn’t David.

It was DiBlasi.

“How’s that trade working out for ya, ya big bastard?”

“What the fuck?”

“You were all bent on dumping that rich twat on me. You like your ride up to Towson tonight? Having fun filing the VOP? Sutton ream you out?”

Tai put a hand on the back of his neck and tried to flatten out the pain or at least spread it out. “Actually, Sutton was glad I was the one on it, so shit got done faster than the newsfeed could pick it up. As opposed to dicks who leave an hour early and stay on the clock.”

DiBlasi faltered a little on that. “You try and say no to your wife and baby girl when they’re planning a wedding. Just thought you oughta know what you traded.”

David. A chance to get to know his boy. Who was today hell-bent on making Tai crazy by ignoring him. “Oh?”

“For a one-percent motherfucker, he’s been all right. Shows up for his meetings, tests clean. Today he calls, all polite and proper, asking about how he files a change of address.”

The headache turned into red-hot spikes being driven into the back of his brain. Where the fuck was David going?

“He can’t leave the county.”

“Don’t snarl at me, Fonoti. I ain’t your probie. Yeah. He knows. Says he’s been having problems with his lease and landlord. Thought those rich bastards were the landlords. But the point being, he called me. How many addresses you been to, chasing Meade’s other girl juvie around the fucking county?”

“Fuck. You.”

Tai shut off the phone and threw it in the footwell. Jez nudged at his armpit with a whimper, and he reached back to reassure her. David was going to be goddamned lucky Jez was there. She was the only thing making him keep control of his temper.

David answered the door, then folded his arms and leaned against the frame, lashes dropping in that lazy way he used to piss Tai off. “Did we have an appointment, Sir?”

There was nothing remotely respectful about his tone.

“Do I need one to come over?” Tai swallowed back the
boy
he wanted to use to finish his question. Safer to keep this way out of D/s space.

Jez was looking anxiously between David’s kitchen and back over her shoulder to plan a retreat.

David bent to her. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m very pleased to see you.” He rubbed her head. “I got you a special toy today.” He grabbed a long, furry squirrel-shaped chew toy off the counter.

Jez sat as she’d been taught, her eyes bright and fixed on the toy.

“Catch.” He tossed it up in front of her, and she lunged, jaws snapping on it and head violently shaking any remaining life from her prey. She flipped it in the air, then caught it, delighting in the squeak from inside, and trotted off to rend it to pieces.

Tai let out a frustrated breath. “You could have run it by me.”

David stepped up to him. “Is there an approved-toys list? I need your permission for that?”

“You need my hand on your ass.” Tai squeezed the back of his neck. “What the fuck is going on, David? When were you going to tell me you were moving?”

David’s shock and surprise was the worst kind of answer. He retreated to the other side of the counter. “Do you check up on me at work?”

“No.” And thank God he hadn’t run that background check. “Your PO said something to me.”

“He knows about us? I thought that would be very bad.”

“No. He— Never mind. I think the point is you planning to move and keeping it from me. Christ, it’s the only thing I’ve asked you for. To be honest with me.”

“And when the hell have I lied?”

“Running and hiding isn’t very honest.”

“For your fucking information, you opinionated asshole, me moving was all about you.”

“What?” The headache spread into Tai’s jaw. He interlocked his fingers behind his head and tried to stretch the agony out. He’d never seen—heard David so angry. Never had it directed completely Tai’s way.

David stomped over to the small bar near the balcony, ran his fingers over one of the bottles and then came back and poured himself an orange juice. “Want something?” As quick as the explosion began, it was over, David’s voice mild as he held up a glass.

“An explanation.” Tai planted himself on one of the stools at the counter.

David paced on the other side, his orange juice untouched. “The management company here has a very selective policy regarding pets.”

“You said they were allowed.”

“They are. Except those that become a nuisance or are perceived as a threat, which means…” David made air quotes, “…such dog breeds with a reputation for violence, including but not limited to American pit bulls, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers and rottweilers, are not permitted.” He sighed and stopped to wrap his fingers around his glass. “Nothing about that rabid dachshund on the third floor who goes berserk in the elevator and tries to make off with my Achilles tendon.”

“So it’s about Jez?” The headache eased back from a ten to a nine and a half.

“Apparently, if you both continue to visit, I’m facing a sheriff eviction in fourteen days. That probably won’t look good to the court.”

“They can’t evict you with just one notice.”

David took a sudden interest in his orange juice, his words half swallowed by the glass as he drank. “Ah, they can when it’s the third notice.”

“What?” The skull pressure ratcheted back up to eleven.

“I had an email. And a voicemail message. The certified mail today was a bit more peremptory. I guess we shouldn’t have let her piss all over the tires of that prick’s Mercedes.”

Tai’s fingers itched to grab David and haul him across the counter, but he slammed an open palm against the sealed granite as his next best option. “You ignored the first two notices?”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another is that their policy is asinine and prejudicial.”

“That was irresponsible. Now you have to—”

“How is it irresponsible? I know I have to keep an address on file with the probation office, and I damned well knew it couldn’t be yours.”

“You should have—”

“I found a hotel that will, for an exorbitant deposit, allow Jez as a guest. Your Officer DiBlasi didn’t think highly of my plan to take up residence on the
Nancy
.” David turned to the sink and began washing out his glass.

“David—”

“If you’re going to say my name with that amount of disgust in your voice, call me Beach,” he said to the running water. “I thought you’d— I wanted to present it as a done deal. Something I took care of the right way. On my own. Something you’d approve of.”

Tai wanted to wrap his arms around David, ease the protective hunch in those shoulders. But Tai had come over here furious, and that wasn’t a good time to start a scene. Telling himself that didn’t do a damned thing to ease the need to get his hands on his—David. Tai stepped around the counter.

David spun the faucet off but spoke with his back to Tai. “I like you spending the night. The evenings are short. And even on the weekends, well, I know you have Sammie this Sunday, and that is really important, and I have to do this thing for Gavin. I owe him. I really do. He may be milking it for all it’s worth, but he saved my life and—”

Tai lost the fight with his better nature and reached out to drag David against him. “Take a breath.” He brushed a kiss behind David’s ear. “I already have a headache.”

David pulled free, moving to the end of the counter. “Wow. That’s a new one. I’m usually much too incompetent to inflict anything more serious than fleeting frustration.”

“That’s a pretty big jump from what I said.”

“At least you won’t have to come in after me.”

Tai rubbed his forehead. “Exactly what are we talking about now?”

David shrugged. “I’d just as soon forget about it all.”

The pressure inside Tai’s skull was nothing compared to the boulder slamming into his diaphragm. His nuts hiked up tight and hard. Over. Like that.

“I think there’s an Orioles game on again, if you want to watch it.” David started toward the couch.

Tai’s lungs stopped seizing and a bit of oxygen reached his brain. Forget the
conversation
. Okay. That was fine. It didn’t seem to be doing them much good anyway.

“Baseball’s like that. Pretty much every night for six months.”

David nodded, picking up the remote. “What channel is it then?”

“You pick something.”

David arched a brow, blue eyes wide, then nodded, flicking around to some kind of mysteries-of-the-supernatural documentary, if you could call that bullshit documented. He didn’t join Tai on the couch but bounced around, filling the water bowl he had for Jez, playing with her and her new squirrel toy.

“Do you want to watch this?”

David threw the toy for Jez and then came over to the couch. “I’m fine with baseball.”

“C’mere.”

David walked around to Tai’s side, lowering himself to kneel on the floor.

Tai stopped himself from the instinctive stroke of David’s hair. Things were too unsettled to go there right now. “No. I meant sit here with me.” He patted the couch.

“Are you tired of us doing that?”

“No.” Tai’s voice had so much force Jez stopped shaking the soggy strip of fur. He softened his tone. “I’m not tired of it. Or of you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

David sat next to him but still felt miles away. “The hotel is right downtown. You can park in the garage for free.”

“Do you need help moving?”

“No, I’ll take a suitcase. My stuff can stay here since I still have a lease. That is, if you want to see me there.”

“David…” Tai pulled him in against his side, “…yes. I want to see you there.” After running a hand down David’s arm, Tai closed his fingers around the cuff on David’s wrist. “You’re my boy.”

As they settled on the couch to watch, Tai tried not to mock the overly serious tone the narrator was taking about the dramatized events that took place in the Richardson home over the course of “one mysterious summer”, confining himself to a deriding snort when the word
mysterious
was also applied to a figure, a sound, a room and a clock. The program might have been stupid but the company wasn’t. His fingers wandered around on David’s arm, rubbing the cuff, stroking his fingers, massaging the hard, muscled shoulder. Tai rolled his head on his neck, the tension melting into the comfortable cradle of David’s sofa.

By the time wild theories were being flung around in summary, Tai’s headache had faded to a faint pulse, though the muscles of the arm and back resting against him were still rigid with tension. Tai would see what a little making out on the couch could do about that, but before he got started, David pushed to his feet and went into the bathroom.

Tai switched the channel over to check the score of the O’s game and then stared as David came back out with a bath brush that he put in Tai’s lap.

The Internet could be a hell of a dangerous place for information, especially on D/s.

That was one serious escalation, from a limit forbidding spanking to an implement that easily bruised even toughened, hard-to-mark sub asses. Had David discovered a masochistic kink? No, the crotch of his cargo shorts was untented, though his eyes were dark and his breath came fast.

“Sit down.”

David folded stiffly onto the couch.

Tai turned the brush over in his hand, feeling the weight in the flat-backed wooden head. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Last night, you said if I broke silent mode, it wouldn’t be your hand. I wondered what—then I saw this.”