The Boss

by J. Calamy

  “Graves,” he said, his voice no more than a rasp. “I’ve never done this. Never done anything even like this…”

  “Don’t think,” Graves said, wishing his voice was steadier. “Only do what feels good to you. Don’t worry about me.”

  What “felt good” in this case was to lick up the drop of precome—the drop that was more of a string now. Nick curled a delicate tongue underneath its hanging edge and slurped it up. If Graves had not just had an orgasm—that would have done it.

  He made a strangled grunt and snapped his hips, completely unintentionally, rubbing the head of his cock over Nick’s lips. Nick followed it back down, nuzzling against it, rubbing the thick shaft over his face, breathing deep with his face pressed into Graves’s groin.

  “Smell’s good; always love the way you smell,” Nick muttered. Graves kept his jaw clamped shut, breathing hard through his nose.

  “You’re right, I been looking. Looking at this thing. Wondering how big it was. You think you gonna fuck me with this?”

  “Yes,” Graves said. “I am. You’re going to beg me for it.”

  Nick looked up at him and Graves softened, looking down into the boy’s eyes, the blue the barest ring around his blown pupils.

  “I want all of it,” Nick said. “I didn’t get to—with Roger I mean. I want to know what it’s like. But you gotta go slow, okay?”

  Pushing aside the jet of anger at the thought of Roger fucking Yeung, Graves curled up and pulled Nick against his chest again. He kissed him slowly, hands cupping Nick’s cheeks.

  “I’m going to be so good to you,” he said. “Turn over and I can show you. Let me spoil you a little.” He wasn’t proud of how much the idea of being Nick’s first pleased him. He was going to kill Roger Yeung for what he did, but without jealousy now. He hurt him, almost broke his spirit. I’m going to crush Energen to dust.

  They rearranged themselves, Nick on his belly, with Graves draped over his back, nuzzling the back of his neck. The weight of him made Nick go completely limp. Touch starved was touch starved, he supposed. He had a lot to make up for.

  Still kissing the back of Nick’s neck, Graves purred into Nick’s ear.

  “That’s it, relax. I’m not going to fuck you tonight. This is just for you.”

  The last sentence was a lie. Graves was very much doing this for himself as well. His fantasies about Nick didn’t start and end with taking his virginity—though many did.

  He wanted to touch and taste every single part of him, devour him head to toe, peel him apart layer by layer until Nick begged him. He was willing to invest significant amounts of time into this process. Into making Nick his and only his.

  “Ah these freckles…” he murmured, pressing his lips against Nick’s shoulders.

  “What’s with you and freckles, anyway?” Nick asked. “People been telling me that since the first day.”

  “Both my wives were blonde, freckles, surfer girls—a look I love. All sunshine and fresh air after cold, wet England. My brother teased me about it and it caught on. I don’t care. I love them. Now I’m going to kiss every single one of yours.”

  “You do that,” Nick sighed. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna object.”

  Graves did more than that. He massaged Nick’s back and shoulders, trailed his tongue in the dips and turns of his muscles.

  “You’re the first swimmer I’ve had,” he said against the deep line of Nick’s spine. “What a body you have. Beautiful. So strong.”

  By the time Graves got down to curling his tongue in the dimples on either side of Nick’s ass, Nick was not especially verbal anymore. He was whimpering curses and nonsense into the pillow, breathing hard.

  Graves lifted his head a moment, admiring the constellation of kiss marks and red bites and little wet trails connecting them. Nick’s thighs, spread on either side of Graves’s waist, were covered in goose bumps.

  “This,” Graves purred. “This. Do you know how many times I’ve beat myself thinking about this? I can hardly stand it.”

  He dug his thumbs in, hard, and pulled Nick’s cheeks apart.

  Nick let out a high-pitched moan, tried to choke it off, but couldn’t stop himself from arching his back, tilting his hips up.

  “That’s it, show me,” Graves said. He didn’t say anything else, completely caught up in the perfect little pink curl in front of him. All he could do was stare, the heels of his hands digging in hard.

  “Perfect,” he breathed. He slid his hips forward, sliding his shaft over that pink mouth. Just to see.

  I’d tear you in half, Graves thought to himself. He bucked his hips a little, smearing a little precome on Nick’s opening. Graves didn’t think much about his cock one way or another. It was big. But he was big. So it wasn’t something he bragged about. He was lucky to still have it—the blast that took his legs could have been a few inches higher, and he’d have lost it all. But in moments like this, seeing it as big around as a bottle nestled in Nick’s pale little ass made the inner sadist in him purr to life.

  Instead, he propelled himself over to the side of the bed on his hands to retrieve the oil out of the bedside table. Then, he positioned himself back between Nick’s thighs, sitting up.

  “Lift your hips, baby,” he said. “Get up on your knees.”

  Nick did, keeping his shoulders flat on the pillow. It had the effect of dropping his back into a deep, perfect arch. Graves had to close his eyes a moment. Finally, I can take my time and enjoy this. Keep him here a week if I want to. Then, after New Year’s…

  Graves leaned down and placed a single gentle kiss, right on Nick’s opening. He relaxed his hands, holding those perfect cheeks more loosely, stroking his thumbs along the edges of nick’s cleft, making more goose bumps trail up and down Nick’s legs.

  The boy was right. They had gotten the initial rush out of the way. Graves’s head was clear to take his time, to make Nick squirm. He kissed and licked and nipped at Nick’s rim until it could barely stay closed, swollen and dark pink.

  Graves prided himself in his skill. He liked making his lovers feel good—men or women. And he knew exactly how far he wanted to push his Nick. He watched Nick’s fists opening and closing in the sheets, listened to his increasingly vocal moans. He didn’t let Nick come until he had two thick fingers in all the way alongside his tongue. He had been stroking Nick’s prostate, the slightest pressure, teasing, teasing.

  “Please, please, please, please…” Nick was chanting it, snapping his hips back into Graves’s hand.

  “Come for me, sweetheart,” Graves said, curling his fingers and giving Nick’s prostate one last stroke. Nick came untouched, his slender pink cock spraying out onto the bed without any friction at all.

  Nick collapsed forward, body shuddering, and Graves slid his fingers free. He had used enough oil that he probably wouldn’t have to re-lube the boy for days. Which was good. Because Nick’s body had been so responsive—Graves didn’t care if the ship sank—he was claiming that ass before the week was out.

  But now…

  Balanced on one prosthetic and a crutch, he went to wash his hands and splash some cold water on his face. He came back to see Nick asleep, legs still spread, face slowly losing its flush. Graves stopped by the bed, looking down at his lover’s face.

  “I don’t know what you are doing to me,” he said softly. “But I’m going to handle this business with Hong Kong, and then we are going home to Scimitar, you and I. All the rest be damned.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Hey big guy,” Nick asked, dropping down beside Graves on the upper deck. “I have a question. Why are you such a dick, anyway?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Graves looked up from his book, blinking in surprise. Nick handed him a glass of water. They had been rolling around in bed all morning, and now it was after lunch, and they were sitting out in the sun, drinking cold beers and reading.

  “You heard me. Why are you such a dick?”

  “Your language is charming,�
�� Graves snorted and set the water on the side table.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s the Louisiana on my mother’s side. I’m asking a serious question! All this ‘have to keep my hand on the tiller, old boy; can’t take my eyes off the road, wot, wot, old chum’ bullshit? What’s that even about?”

  “I don’t say wot, wot!” Graves gave Nick a little push.

  Nick didn’t expect a real answer. But this time Graves looked serious. He rubbed the back of his neck, tapping his fingers on the cover of his book before answering.

  “There was a woman,” he said. “A doctor. I was… Christ, Nick, I was obsessed with her.” Graves set his book down and stared at his hands. Nick sat up.

  “Oh my God, this is the truth!” he said. Graves gave him a wry look. The tattoos on his cheeks made his mouth even more expressive.

  “I wanted to marry her,” he continued. “Chased her all over the world, lied to her about what I did and who I was. When I finally told her the truth…she left.” He paused a moment. “And she was right to. Once my ego had recovered, I came back,” he said, his voice cold and angry. “I found that, while I had been completely drunk on her—my organization had fallen to bits. Filled with thieves and rats who hurt my people, stole from them, exploited them.” Graves’s voice slipped into its lower, angrier register. “The people who grow my dope back home, my people, thought I had died. Died and left them to the wolves.”

  “Do you have a picture of her?” Nick asked, insanely curious and—is that jealousy? No. No definitely not.

  “Of course, I do.”

  Graves pulled out his phone and brought up an image, handing it to Nick. Who whistled. A stunning, full-figured, golden-skinned woman with a cap of black curls and full, beautiful lips. She was wearing a bikini top and a sarong slung low over wide hips. She had dark eyes, intelligence and good humor crackling through the photograph. She held a book loose in one hand and was leaning slightly forward, caught in an unguarded moment.

  “Goddamn… Is she Puerto Rican?”

  “Cuban, a mix of things, like me.”

  “No, no,” Nick said, still staring at the photo. “You ain’t gotta make excuses for this. She is gorgeous. Wow. Pfft. Give up Red Sky? I’d give up a limb.”

  “Perhaps,” Graves said, and his eyes crinkled to slits. “But I’m rather low on limbs.”

  Nick snorted. Graves did. The laugh fed into itself like a storm system until they were howling, Graves clutching his bad hip. Nick recognized it of course. The small part of him that was always watching, watching, watching—noted that Graves’s laugh was a mix of relief and an outrush of carefully dammed emotion.

  They pulled themselves together as men do—by fighting—Graves perfectly willing to use his size advantage. He rolled Nick under him and bit his neck, mouthing along his throat in a way that always made Nick go limp.

  “So you think,” Nick said, twisting himself free, “that because you were caught up in her, that’s why you have problems in house?”

  “Of course,” Graves said. As if the answer was obvious. They resettled themselves. Nick sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “What was that sound for, Nick?”

  “I don’t get how someone so smart, so… I dunno…strategic? Can be so stupid,” Nick said.

  “What?” Graves gave him another shove.

  “How long you been this giant international warlord crime-boss-type person?”

  “A long bloody time.”

  “Don’t you have…some kind of…assistant warlords? Like, I get you’re the big boss, but don’t you have deputies or whatever?”

  “I do. Of course, I do,” Graves said.

  “Well that’s where the fuckup is, man. In the movies, it’s always the number two guy.”

  “That’s David Bishop you are talking about,” Graves laughed. Nick kicked at him.

  “You know what I mean. And David Bishop is always with you. So he don’t count.”

  “Nick darling…this isn’t a movie.”

  “I’m just sayin! Whoever the highest ranking guy—who isn’t with you all the time—that’s your fuckup. You can’t blame it on this beautiful goddess.”

  “I don’t blame her!” Graves was frowning at the photo. “Nick, that isn’t possible. It doesn’t—”

  “I bet it is. I bet, if you look real close, you’ll see this shit been in the works for a while. Before the hot Cuban doctor,” Nick said. He lay back on the warm deck, hands tucked under his head and started humming to himself. When he realized it was the theme from The Godfather he snorted again and sighed.

  “So stupid,” he muttered.

  Staring at the softly purpling sky his slurred mind gradually picked up on Graves’s silence. His silence and perfect stillness. The big man was frozen in place, eyes far away, full mouth slightly open.

  “You okay, big guy?” Nick said, worried. “You know I’m kidding right? I ain’t saying it’s like a movie. I’m just busting your chops a little.”

  Graves got to his feet, slowly and carefully. The little shift of his hips he always did to calibrate his prosthetics and their brief whirring were the only things Nick recognized. Otherwise he was a stranger. Nick sat up in alarm. Graves’s face was distant, closed off, and dark with anger.

  “Graves? You okay?” Nick asked, backing up a little. Graves blinked and patted him absently on the shoulder.

  “Fine…” he said faintly. He turned and walked inside without another word.

  Nick stared after him, unsure what to do or what had happened. He shook his head to clear it. That didn’t help, so he dithered a moment on the deck, drinking his water, and then Graves’s water, then eating the last of the sesame balls.

  “Shit. What if I was right?” He went indoors and found Graves pacing in his office, the wide windows shining feverish afternoon light onto his face. He looked old, old and angrier than Nick had ever seen. David Bishop was there, sitting in a chair, his head flung back, arm over his eyes. Russ and Charlotte burst through the door, pushing Nick out of the way.

  “Tell me you’re joking!” Russ shouted. “Tell me, right now, eh, that you are fuckin’ about.”

  “I’m not,” Graves said. He stopped his pacing and stood with his back to the room, breathing hard through his nose and twisting his head on his neck.

  “No,” Russ said. “I won’t believe it.”

  “Tony is looking now,” Graves rasped. “But I know what he will find.”

  “You were right,” Tony said, coming in. His shoulders were slumped, face tight with anger. He handed Graves a tablet.

  “Thank you, Tony,” Graves said but put it down without looking at it. He stayed with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him. Russ sagged, resting his forehead against Bishop’s and saying something to his friend under his breath. He turned and stormed out.

  “Bishop, make the call,” Graves said. He still hadn’t turned. “Then all of you out.”

  When they were gone, Graves sighed and turned. He startled to see Nick but then let out a deep sigh.

  “Nick,” he said softly. “Please stay?” His face was tight with strain, fists still in his pockets.

  “Yeah, big guy, of course. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Distract me, Nick,” he said. “If I can avoid chewing off my own arm until tomorrow it would be good for everyone. Maybe we can watch a film, or perhaps play cards, or—”

  “Yeah, sure man, I’m pretty sober now. I’d like to stay that way—”

  So they settled on the couch, Nick sitting up with the remote, Graves lying flat with his head in Nick’s lap. His face was still drawn and angry. Nick couldn’t help himself. He ran a hand over Graves’s brow, smoothing the furrows there.

  “Relax, man, don’t think about nothing for a couple of hours,” he said.

  Amber eyes blinked up at him.

  “You’re a wise man, Nick, wiser than me.”

  “You figured it out, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Graves said. “Clear as day.” />
  “Nothing you can do until tomorrow, apparently,” Nick said. “So let it go, man. Relax. It’s all gonna work out.”

  “Is it?” Graves asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” Nick said. “Then you can stop being pissed at that chick and stop being such an enormous asshole all the time.”

  “Your language is a delight,” Graves said, dry as a bone. He let his eyes close. “Keep doing that.”

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “Rubbing this over-tired brain of mine. Maybe I’ll sleep,” Graves said.

  “Yeah, man, I mean it’s not a very subtle excuse to get me to pet you like a fucking cat, but I’ll let it slide this time.”

  “I’ll be subtle later,” Graves said. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll be terribly subtle and cunning.”

  *

  Graves let his mind wander, thinking about how many betrayals he had to endure before he could just…stop. And how could he stop? What if…what if you really did retire, old boy? Could you still take care of your people? The thoughts could barely form. They were too improbable, too difficult to think about with Nick’s hand on his brow. The whole world was Nick’s hand, warm and dry, smoothing away his worry. If I do nothing else but keep this boy—that would be enough. Just him.

  “Graves, how did it happen?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re the boss of Red Sky.”

  Graves turned his head with a frown, trying to look Nick in the eyes.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Why? I suppose, but not really—I mean—how? You don’t seem—”

  “Like an international criminal mastermind?”

  “God your ego… No, you’re definitely a gangster. But I suppose I don’t understand how you got this way? I don’t really know what I am asking… You’re a Kiwi, Māori, and then an English lord, a soldier, and then a billionaire running a drug cartel?”

  “It is a bit of a ramble when you put it that way,” Graves said.

  “I guess I want to know the part about getting from being a soldier to Red Sky. The rest maybe can wait.”