Bound by Lies (23 page)

Once in the bedroom, he closes and locks the door. Brayden is sitting up in bed, wide-eyed. He mouths, “Who’s that?”

Jenner, exponentially more freaked out than Brayden has ever seen him before, stands frozen in the middle of the room. “My mother,” he whispers. Rubbing a hand over his shock-slack mouth, he tries and fails to figure out what the hell to do.

Brayden gets out of bed and starts to look for his jeans. When he finds them, he pulls them on one leg at a time, keeping an eye trained on Jenner. “Fire escape?”

Rolling his eyes, Jenner hisses, “You’re not going out the fire escape. I don’t even know if that ladder works anymore, anyway.”

“There’s only one little bed in here,” Brayden points out. “What’s she going to think?”

“Goddammit,” Jenner groans. “Okay, fire escape.”

They walk to the window. Brayden grabs his duffel and stuffs his shoes inside it, but by the time he gets to the window and Jenner, he reads the scowl on his lover’s face and blurts, “What?”

“This thing looks like a deathtrap. It’s rusted all to hell and I’m not making you jump from the second story down to asphalt.” Frantically, he scans the room, settling on the closet.

Brayden sighs, “Seriously, dude? Must we live the cliché?”

From the hall, Jenner’s mother calls, “Honey, who are you talking to?”

“Oh, for the love of God,” Jenner complains, praying for lightning to strike just to have an excuse to not deal with the situation at hand.

“It’s fine. Let me handle it. Moms love me,” Brayden assures him.

“I was just
fucking you
a few hours ago,” Jenner says quietly through gritted teeth, jabbing a finger at the bed. “Don’t you think she’ll be able to sense that?” He sees something from the corner of his eye. One of the ankle cuffs is still attached to the bed. Muttering another prayer under his breath, the panic close as ever now, Jenner hurriedly detaches it and holds it up for Brayden to see, proof that they’re doomed.

“Trust me. It’ll be fine,” Brayden says soothingly, gesturing widely with his arms. Quietly, he mouths to Jenner, “When a mother’s son has a male friend stay over, she doesn’t
immediately
jump to the assumption of fuckbuddy, you know.”

Not buying this at all, Jenner covers his face with his hands and takes a deep breath before going to find his own pants.

While Brayden double-checks that there isn’t any more visible sexual paraphernalia scattered about, Jenner slides his makeshift bed to the far wall, putting more space between it and the bed than there had been. Then, resigned to his own personal hell, he opens the bedroom door, leading the way.

His mother is there in the hallway and only sees Brayden after a moment or two, as she’s distracted with trying to figure out her camera’s settings. When she does look up, faced with two young men rather than just the one, she blinks and says, “Oh!”

“Ma, this is Brayden. He bartends for me and crashed here last night, too.” Jenner steps aside to let Brayden past as he holds out a hand to shake with Mrs. Parrish.

“Ma’am, nice to meet you,” Brayden says with his friendliest, warmest smile, the one that makes it seem—to Jenner at least—like he’s radiating the sun itself, he glows so much.

Helpless but to smile back, Bette takes the offered hand. “Oh, I didn’t realize…” She glimpses the blanket and pillow on the floor beyond the boys, and tsks. “Are you kidding me? You made this poor child sleep on the floor, Jenner Parrish? How could you?”

“Mother…” Jenner starts, weary with it all.

“Nope. Don’t give me your excuses. Come on, let’s get out of the hall.” She ushers Brayden out to the main room, murmuring with disapproval, “And you don’t even have a crumb to offer him to eat.”

“I have an entire bar full of food downstairs—” Jenner starts, but is cut short with a hard look. “Ma, about the renter. I was thinking of moving in here myself. I’m staying over so frequently lately, it’s simpler than traveling across town to get to my bed when I can just come upstairs.”

“What about the rent? The potential income?”

“I’m sure Art and Max can find someone else to take my room at the house. I can handle doing without the rental income. At least for now. It doesn’t have to be permanent.” He chances a glimpse at Brayden, whose expression is unreadable.

“What do you think about this, Brayden?” Mrs. Parrish asks with an undecided sigh.

“Uh, I think if it gets him to splurge on a few more pieces of furniture and a loaf of bread, then I’m all for it.”

“When you inherited this, it was supposed to be an asset, not your home,” she presses.

“I know,” Jenner tells her. “I know you want more for me, but this would make things easier. Plus, I like my privacy. I don’t have that at the house.”

For a moment, he slips and glances at Brayden’s bare chest. Brayden’s nipples are darker than usual, with faint bruises from the clips and from Jenner sucking on them. It’s sexy enough to wipe all rational arguments from Jenner’s mind. Forcing himself with effort to look away from the objects of his distraction, he clears his throat and tries to keep his eyes trained only on his mother. But he feels Brayden looking back at him now and it makes heat rise under Jenner’s skin—the secret they share, the way they’re both lying to conceal it from his mother.

Bette is muttering, “I don’t know,” and wandering about the space as she thinks it over. In flashes, Jenner remembers what Brayden’s skin tasted like. He wants to suck on Brayden’s bruised nipples some more to see what sounds it would get him to make. But then he realizes that Brayden’s sphincter must be stretched out still, looser from taking the plug and getting fucked twice and, horribly, Jenner’s cock stirs with interest, ready for round three. Out of his peripheral vision Jenner thinks he sees Brayden smiling, but that could be his imagination running away with itself.

Jenner wanders behind the counter in the kitchen, wanting a solid barrier between himself and his mother and Brayden.

“How long have you been working at the Pub, Brayden?”

“Just a few months, ma’am.”

“Oh, call me Bette, please. I’m not a ma’am. You like it there?”

“I do, yeah,” Brayden nods, bubbling with barely concealed amusement as he watches Jenner shoot invisible daggers from his eyes in his desperation to get his mother out of the apartment.

“And you two are friends? You must be. Jenner has always had limited patience for most people, except for the very few he keeps close.”

Sighing heavily, Jenner idly traces the ridge of his brow. He’s bent over the counter and just waiting for it all to be over at this point.

“I heard that,” his mother tells him.

“Well, he must not hate me too much if he let me crash here,” Brayden answers.

“Or I do and it was just your consolation prize for working into the dead of night for your slave-driver boss,” Jenner says, dripping with exasperation. “Are we done? Mother, if you’d like to stay, I’ll go get some food and walk Brayden out.”

“I suppose,” she relents, but sounds unsure of the decision. She packs up her camera, stuffing it low into her purse. “Though I think it’s rude of you to not also invite your friend.”

“He’s not my—” Jenner starts, then stops abruptly. “He was on his way out anyway. He’s expected at home. He’s got a shift in a few hours and I doubt he wants to spend his free time here.”

“Brayden, let me apologize for my son’s poor manners,” Bette tells him. “I promise you, I raised him better than that.”

“No problem, ma’am. I mean Bette,” Brayden smiles.

“Come on,” Jenner says to Brayden, putting a hand on the dipping curve of Brayden’s bare lower back to hurry him along. Something in the gesture catches Bette’s eye, but Jenner is too determined to escape to pay much attention. As the two walk to the door, barefoot, Brayden with his bag, Jenner’s hand slides and shifts, but stays right against Brayden’s skin.

“Nice to meet you!” Brayden calls back to Mrs. Parrish with a wave.

“You too, Brayden!” she returns, watching Jenner pull the door closed after them. “Hmm.”

It’s not the chill in the weather that has Brayden shivering as he walks home, dressed now in shoes and a warm shirt as well as pants. He can feel the tingle in his lower lip from where Jenner had kissed him in the stairwell, then bit the flesh before licking over the hurt with the tip of his tongue. Brayden can hear the remembered growl of Jenner’s fevered words as he’d mouthed against Brayden’s ear, careful not to touch him other than to grip his left nipple between two fingers and twist. He had arched into the touch, his smile dying, replaced with something else, something darker, and Jenner asked if Brayden was sore, if it hurt. With a tight nod, his hand braced on Jenner’s arm, Brayden gave his answer.

“Do something for me,” Jenner said. He pulled something from his pants pocket and slipped it into Brayden’s hand. It was the two, tiny clips used on him the night before. “When you get home, put these on. Leave them on for twenty minutes before you leave to come to work, but come early and meet me here.”

“Jenn,” Brayden gasped, brow creasing with delicate lines as Jenner twisted the abused flesh the other way.

“I need to fuck you,” Jenner nearly moaned, his parted lips skimming over the shell of Brayden’s ear. “Tell me you want it.” He rolled the pad of his thumb over the hardened peak of the nipple, felt Brayden shudder.

His control breaking, Brayden took a half-step backwards, leaning against the wall behind him. Jenner’s hand slid up wrapping around Brayden’s throat, his thumb caressing the soft skin just under his ear.

“Tell me.”

“I want it. Please fuck me, Sir.”

With a swallowed moan, Jenner let him go, unable to meet his eyes. Brayden struggled into his shirt and shoes and nearly bolted to get away.

He slows more the further he gets from the building, gradually feeling more certain that he wouldn’t be followed or seen. The throbbing in his nipple is what he focuses on, but it isn’t enough. To think that Jenner knew it wasn’t enough is incredibly arousing. He gave Brayden those instructions to keep him tethered, like part of him is still there, chained to the bed. Brayden will do as asked and attach the clips to his sore flesh, but he will also forbid himself relief and keep himself from masturbating, like he wants to already. He will save himself for Jenner, waiting to feel Jenner’s thick cock filling his ass, pounding into him, and if he’s good, and Jenner approves, maybe then Jenner will let him get off.

With the fantasy firmly fixed in his mind, Brayden heads home.

Later that afternoon, Jenner excuses himself and leaves the bar for a break. A few minutes later, Max sees Brayden cross in front of Parrish Pub on the other side of the street, walk right past and avoid the bar entirely. She turns to Jackson, who is helping her restock the bar.

“Hey, is that Brayden?”

Jackson glances up after setting a few bottles on the shelf. “Um, where?”

But Brayden is gone from sight. “Never mind,” Max sighs.

Outside, Brayden crosses the street, waving to Marla, the florist, who’s busy appraising her window displays, but not too busy to shout hello and watch him go past. He jogs in a straight line to the door of Jenner’s apartment, feeling like many sets of eyes are on him, making a wide circle around the entrance to the Pub though knowing it might not do any good anyway. He checks for onlookers, sees Marla is back to admiring her windows, and slips quickly inside. Hurrying up the steps, his breath coming quick and not only from the exercise, he knocks twice on the heavy wooden door.

“Finally,” Jenner groans. He opens the door and pulls Brayden roughly inside. Impatiently, Jenner pushes his guest up against the wall just beside the doorframe. When Brayden almost grabs the hem of his shirt, then hesitates, Jenner urges him on, saying, “Take it—take it off. Come on.”

Brayden looks everywhere—the windows free of curtains or blinds for privacy, the kitchen where Bette had been not hours before—but into Jenner’s blown-black eyes as he twists the shirt off. No sooner does it clear his head, than Jenner is moaning, “Fuck.” Then he’s on Brayden. Gripping the slightly swollen, tender pink flesh of Brayden’s left nipple between his knuckle and thumb, Jenner dips his head and closes his silken lips around the dark, bruised circle.

“Oh my
god
,” Brayden gasps, palming the back of Jenner’s head, his fingers combing through twists of black hair. The pointed tip of Jenner’s tongue flicks at his sore flesh. His teeth scrape, his lips graze, then he sucks, making Brayden cry out.

Part of him suspected that maybe Jenner was kidding about the quick fuck and the nipple play before work, especially after having the time and space to get a clearer head. But Brayden figured he’d go with it just in case it wasn’t all bullshit, despite his reservations and self-doubt. Now he’s glad that he did.

On the walk over, he’d been distracted, and not just by the countless neighbors waving or saying hello from front porches, sidewalks and passing cars. Andre had called right after Brayden put the merciless clips on his nipples, lying on his bed in his room. He’d let the call go to voicemail and listened to the message after. It was a warning of sorts. One of their mutual friends, Enrique, is passing through the area on his way to New York and is going to stop by to see Brayden, probably that afternoon. Enrique wants it to be a surprise, which is why he hasn’t called Brayden himself, but Andre, knowing how much Brayden dislikes those kinds of surprises, figured he’d call ahead.