West (2 page)

Cody shook his head. “No, but can you get these damn straps off me? And take this catheter thing
out
. Now.”

The doctor gazed at him speculatively and nodded at the nurse. “I think we can take off the straps,” he said as the woman came around and bent over the rails. “So long as your friend is staying for a while?” He glanced over at Jake, who nodded.

“And since you’ve regained consciousness, I’ll send your nurse in to take out the cath.”

“Thank God. When can I get out of here?”

“You’re on a psychiatric hold, Mr. McCall. I’m afraid you can’t leave until the doctors from Psychiatry come down and speak to you.”

“That’s bullshit. I didn’t try to kill myself. I had a little accident, that’s all. You can’t hold me here against my will.”

“I’m afraid we can, Mr. McCall. For twenty-four hours anyway. Just relax and someone from Psychiatric will come down to speak to you.” He glanced down at the clipboard. “Your vitals are good and the x-rays indicated no lasting damage to your neck. You were very lucky, Mr. McCall. If the cleaning lady hadn’t been working next door to your room, and she hadn’t heard you knocking on the wall for help…” He shook his head. “There would have been a very different outcome. It’s fortunate for you that she heard you when you changed your mind.”

“I didn’t change my mind! I wasn’t trying to hurt myself in the first place.” Aware that he was shouting, he tried to make himself calm down. This wasn’t helping his case any. Frantically, he turned to Jake to help him out. “Jake, tell him. Please.”

Tight-lipped, Jake only stared at him for a moment and then he finally relented. “He told me he was trying to masturbate, using autoerotic techniques. I think he’s telling the truth. He’s honest—stupid, but honest.”

The doctor looked back at Cody, a deep frown on his face. “Autoerotic Asphyxia is an extremely foolhardy and dangerous practice, Mr. McCall, particularly when you’re alone. It’s a potentially lethal sexual practice producing euphoria by reducing oxygen to the brain.”

“Yes, Doctor, I know, and I don’t do it all the time. Really. I’ve only tried it a few times and I know what I’m doing. I had no intention of hurting myself. I know how to tie a good slip knot and it’s
always
worked before. When I start to come I just pull the knot and voila! Except…”

“Except it didn’t work this time,” Jake interrupted, his tone grim. “And you almost died.”

Cody couldn’t meet his gaze and dropped his head. “I-I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“No, you won’t. I can promise you that.” Jake turned on his heel angrily and went to gaze out the window.

The doctor cleared his throat and glanced back and forth between them. “You need to rest here the remainder of the day, Mr. McCall. I’ll have the nurse give you a mild sedative to help you rest. As I said, someone else will be in to speak to you this afternoon.”

The doctor left and the nurse bustled around for a few minutes, removing the catheter and then injecting something into his IV. Right away, he found himself growing sleepy, and he glanced over to where Jake was still staring out the window. So he was back to not speaking. Knowing how stern he could be when he got angry, maybe it was just as well. Cody closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.

****

Cody glanced at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes and wondered again if Jake was coming for him. As soon as the hospital had released him earlier that morning, he’d turned to Jake, who had spent the night in the chair next to his bed again.

“Can you take me back to my motel, Jake? I have to get my stuff.”

Jake nodded and told him to get dressed while he went down and brought the car around. He said he had to run a quick errand first, but it would only take thirty minutes or so, and then he’d be back to pick Cody up.

The nurse came back by the room and glanced in on him. “Your friend’s not back yet?”

“No, but he’ll be here soon. He wouldn’t have left me.”

Still, when Jake appeared in the doorway behind her, Cody felt a huge weight roll off his shoulders. He even grabbed his hand as he stepped up close to the bed and barely stopped himself from kissing the back of it. He satisfied himself with a big squeeze. Jake had been so angry ever since Cody had awakened, and while he didn’t think Jake would go back to Atlanta and just leave him on his own, he was still relieved to see him. He gave Jake a huge smile and Jake glanced down at their joined hands and lifted one eyebrow at him.

The nurse turned toward Jake with a big smile. Jake always had that effect on women, and though Cody was used to it, today it made him unreasonably irritated. The nurse made him sit in a wheelchair and she pushed him down the hall with Jake following. When they got outside, she waited while he got out of the chair and into Jake’s car, then simpered at Jake and slipped him a piece of paper that probably had her phone number on it. Jake took it with a polite smile, but Cody was glad to see him ball it up and put it in his ashtray before he started the car.

“Ready to go?” he asked, glancing over at him, and Cody nodded, wishing for the hundredth time that Jake wasn’t so straight or that he’d at least have the decency to try to look uglier.

Since the doctor had left that morning after talking with Cody, Jake had been quietly furious. It only made him better looking. That morning, Cody had admitted to the psychiatrist that he’d been taking anti-depressants on a prescription that didn’t belong to him. “I thought maybe it would help me, and I don’t have time to go see a bunch of doctors.”

“Anti-depressants can actually cause some sexual dysfunction, Mr. McCall, and the dosage you report was much too strong for your body weight.”

“Oh.”

A tiny muscle started twitching in Jake’s jaw. “Is that all you have to say for yourself, dumbass?
‘Oh!’
You could have killed yourself mixing those pills with alcohol.” He turned to the doctor. “He’s been drinking heavily too. Tequila.”

“I’ve cut way down,” Jake said quietly, then shut his mouth quickly when Jake whirled around to glare at him.

“Alcohol can also affect sexual performance,” the doctor said, shaking his head and making another note on his chart.

In the end, he’d managed to convince the psychiatrist that he wasn’t suicidal, anyway, and he’d cleared him to be released. Jake was proving to be a much harder sell.

“Did you get your errands done?” Cody asked brightly, hoping to lighten some of the tension in the car.

“Yes,” Cody replied shortly and then didn’t talk again as he negotiated the heavy tourist traffic on the beach road they called the Miracle Mile. Cody had already told him where he’d been staying, and Jake drove them there without further comment. Cody had paid for the entire week before he’d had his accident.

They got out of the car and went to his room on the bottom floor. It was a cheap motel, but it was on the beach and at this time of year, there weren’t many other people staying there. Cody thought again how lucky he was that a maid had been there to hear him that last morning. He had been drinking all night the night before. Early the next morning he’d decided to take a shower and then sleep it off on the beach. He’d tried to jerk off and hadn’t been able to, so he decided before he went to the beach, he’d rub one out. Instead it had almost been him who’d been rubbed out—permanently.

He’d tied the rope the usual way, he’d thought, but this time when he finished and tried to get free, nothing happened. He tugged at the rope frantically, but his vision grew dim and he was clawing at his neck trying to drag in a breath of air. He began to bang frantically on the wall of the bathroom behind him and then everything went black. He shuddered as they pulled up in front of his room. He could so easily have died. Jake slanted him a look and then unexpectedly patted his knee.

Cody glanced over at him in surprise and Jake gazed steadily back at him. “Do you have any idea how I felt when the hospital called me? How scared I was? Then to drive six hours, not even knowing if you were going to be alive when I got here?” He shook his head. “I had a long time to think on the way down here, Cody, and I made some decisions.”

“What-what decisions?”

“I’m going to tell you all about it. Let’s go in.”

The room had been straightened and the bed made. A short length of nylon rope was neatly coiled and lying on the bedside table. Cody’s face flamed when he saw it and Jake shoved him aside to snatch it up and stare down at it in his hand. He was breathing hard, like he’d been running a race, and looked back up at Cody, his lips a thin line. He put the rope back down and pointed toward the bed.

“Get your clothes off and lie down. Now.”

“Jake, please. I’m really not tired. Can’t I just…”

“I said now.” His voice no longer sounded angry or emotional, just firm, and brooked no arguments.

Wearily, Cody lay down on the bed, but Jake stepped up beside him and shook his head. “Clothes off. All of them.”

“W-what?” Cody felt a slow blush travel up his neck. “I can’t do that in front of you.” Of course, he’d been nude or nearly so in the locker room before with Jake at the station, but this was totally different. They were alone in a motel room together. There was no way he wouldn’t embarrass himself. He raised up on one elbow. “Please Jake. Don’t be so mad.”

“Mad? I’m not mad. I’m furious. Now get your clothes off or I’ll do it for you.”

Cody felt a flush of anger come over him. He did something stupid, sure, but he’d certainly paid for it, hadn’t he? And apologized over and over again. What the hell was Jake so angry about anyway?

“Fuck you, Jake,” he said, swinging his legs around as he sat up. “I told you I don’t need to lie down.”

Without another word, Jake reached down and skinned Cody’s t-shirt over his head. He threw it to the floor while Cody was still gasping in surprise and pushed him back on the bed.

“Hey!” Cody yelled, but Jake had already grabbed his feet and pulled off his shoes and socks. Grimly, he took hold of Cody’s waistband next and pulled down his jeans and underpants with one jerk. His stupid cock popped out half hard and smacked him on the stomach. They both looked down at it and to Cody’s horror, it started to thicken noticeably. Cody sucked in a breath and clasped his hands over himself, but Jake grabbed his wrist and yanked it up to the head of the bed. He held his wrist effortlessly with one hand while he picked up the rope with the other.

Cody tried to pull away and get up again, but Jake fixed him with a look that stopped him cold. “Don’t move. Put your hands above your head and grab the rail. I mean it, Cody.”

Cody’s heart began to slam in his chest, and he glanced up in those cold, serial-killer eyes. Swallowing hard, he managed to nod and put his other hand up to join the first. There was something about Jake when he got in this kind of a mood that made butterflies go wild in Cody’s stomach. He wasn’t scared of Jake, just totally turned on by his display of dominance. Cody had never liked it when anyone else bossed him around, but when Jake did it, it spoke to something deep inside him, something hidden that rarely saw the light of day.

With quick, efficient moves that spoke of experience, Jake tied his hands to the bedrail. He stood back to survey his handiwork and nodded, then reached for the small plastic bag he’d brought in from the car. He removed a small package from it that Cody couldn’t see very well, and then he sat down beside him on the side of the bed.

Cody felt a blush start at his toes and travel slowly up his body. He couldn’t believe he was splayed out here naked in front of his best friend and partner, with a hard-on that would probably cut glass. He glanced up at Jake, afraid he’d see distaste or revulsion on his face, but Jake’s gaze raked over his body and he didn’t say a word. Jake had been Cody’s friend and partner for over five years, but Cody had never seen this side of Jake before. His entire demeanor oozed confidence and control. He looked down at Cody’s cock which was still waving around enthusiastically and then back up into his eyes.

Cody blushed. “I-I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Please don’t beat the shit out of me.”

Without a word he bent over Cody’s shaft, his mouth slipping over the head and enveloping his length with molten lava. Stars exploded behind Cody’s eyes and he bucked his hips up wildly in welcome. He’d never even allowed himself to dream of a day when something like this could happen. He’d been in love with Jake for years, maybe from the first time he ever laid eyes on him, but he’d never, in his wildest imagination, conceived of this. Jake was straight—Cody had put his feelings aside for years, knowing there was no way Jake could return them.

While Cody made noises he’d never made before in his life, Jake worked his tongue and his lips with careful precision. Cody couldn’t have stopped whimpering if he tried. Jake’s tongue licked up his shaft and swirled around the head. He nibbled at the tenderness just beneath the head and held Cody’s hips to the bed when they tried to bounce up in ecstasy. He wanted to touch Jake’s hair, to tangle his fingers in it and hold him in place, but he couldn’t. Jake wouldn’t let him and somehow that made it even hotter. God, if Jake stopped now, Cody would die. His heart would simply shudder to a stop.

Instead of stopping, Jake began to bob his head over Cody’s groin as he worked his incredible mouth up and down Cody’s cock. After only seconds of this treatment, Cody felt himself exploding, his climax taking him by surprise. It racked his body, twisted his guts and squeezed every bit of breath from his lungs. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He wanted more—just as soon as he could breathe again.

Jake swallowed every drop of his cum and licked him clean. The feel of Jake’s tongue on him was almost unbearable now, and he cried out and tried to squirm. Impossible, with Jake’s upper body lying across Cody’s legs, holding him securely in place and right where Jake wanted him.

Finally, he stopped and sat up, releasing Cody, not that Cody was going anywhere. His hands were tied to the bedpost, and he wasn’t sure he could move if he wanted to. Vaguely, he was aware of the sound of tearing paper as Jake opened the small package. Cody felt fumbling at his cock but at first he couldn’t find the energy to look at what was happening. Then he felt his shaft being enclosed in something hard and cold, and he raised his head.