James took a few mouthfuls of water, then offered Cal the bottle. If he’d still been in submissive mode, he’d have offered Cal the bottle first. Did that mean something? Was that the line they kept crossing back and forth?
Cal took it. “If you want to talk . . .”
James shrugged and lay down. “Talk about which part?”
Everything. Maybe even feelings.
Cal took a mouthful of water. “First of all, thank you for your trust. It means a lot to me.”
James regarded him silently for a moment. “I just do, Cal. What I said—that was true. I do trust you. Never more than when you push me. I know you won’t make me fall.”
Oh, so he was still open. The walls weren’t back up. Maybe he shouldn’t take advantage of that. Maybe he should wait and then ram his head against the walls that had been put back in place. Or maybe not.
“I’ll never hurt you.”
“I know.”
Cal swallowed some more water, then put the bottle aside.
“Was there something else?” James asked.
Cal hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know if it needs to be addressed right now.”
“It’s bothering you, though.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I know you.”
Do you?
Cal picked up the water bottle again and played with the cap, turning it back and forth just to occupy his hands. “Earlier, you said you trust me, and that’s why you don’t fight me as hard as you fight Nick.”
James shifted, sitting up a little and resting his head against the headboard. “Right.”
“So does that mean things are different between us?” He met James’s eyes. “That even though we’re doing the same thing you’ve done with Nick and the other rentboys, it’s . . . different?”
James broke eye contact and watched his fingers playing at the edge of the duvet. “I don’t know if it should be different.”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
James shook his head. “I don’t . . . I don’t even know. What we were doing down there, yes, I want it. And I guess in some way, I need it. But I don’t know if I should be getting it from you.”
Ouch, James. He’d been in subspace just minutes ago, and now he was back to, well, James. Strictly business.
“You think it’s better to get it from someone you’ve hired?”
“I’m not even sure I’d word it like that.” James looked at Cal through his lashes. “But the rentboys, it’s just a financial transaction. I get that. I can let myself get lost in it for a night, and when it’s over, they’re paid and they’re gone and that’s that. There’s no shame.”
Cal wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I’m not asking for a commitment if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, it’s not that.” James paused, brow furrowing. “I mean, I suppose it is on some level. But, to be honest, all I know about this is what I need, and how to handle it as a transaction. The only . . .” He lowered his gaze for a moment, but then, with what looked like some effort, met Cal’s eyes again. “The only thing I know how to give in return is money.”
“And your submission.”
“Yes. That. But what about when the scene’s over? What happens next?”
Cal reached for James’s hand. “Whatever we want to happen.”
“That’s the part I don’t know how to approach. The way it’s worked with Nick and the others is once it’s over, they’re gone. I’m not . . .” He paused, setting his jaw. Then he met Cal’s eyes again. “I don’t know where the lines are now.”
Cal glanced down at their hands. James hadn’t resisted his grasp, but he hadn’t returned it either. As the pieces fell together, Cal’s heart sank again.
“Do you, uh, do you want me to go?”
James exhaled. “I don’t know what I want right now, Callum.”
Cal slowly withdrew his hand, and James made no effort to stop him. He stood and cleared his throat. “Will there be anything else this evening, sir?”
They both flinched at the title, and for the first time, Cal regretted using it the way he had downstairs.
“No. Thank you.”
Cal didn’t respond. He just turned on his heel, left the bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
Well, there’s your answer, isn’t it? You gave him what he needed, and it doesn’t mean a goddamned thing.
A cold, sick feeling gnawed at him. This was . . . this wasn’t something he could stomach. As a submissive, James laid it all out, surrendering and baring himself in every way, trusting his Dom to push those vulnerable limits and then bring him back, safe and intact. Nick had been emphatic about aftercare, about easing James back to terra firma, but what about Cal? Shouldn’t he have had the same right to walk away at the end of the night without feeling like this? Like he’d been the one to surrender, bare himself, make himself vulnerable, only to be shut out and sent away, as unneeded and unwanted as the used-up condom?
Cal forced back the ache in his throat. He needed a drink. A distraction. Damn it, he needed James to welcome him into that big bed and hold him, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he didn’t even let himself fantasise about it. He paused in the hallway only long enough to step awkwardly into his shoes before he hurried downstairs and got the hell out of the main house. He still felt odd, concerned about the whole aftercare thing, but James was in bed, had water, and would likely just fall asleep. Cal had done everything Nick had taught him to do, and any attempt to do more would just be met with more rejection.
James would be fine. He wasn’t going on any late-night excursions, either. No fucking Market Garden.
And tomorrow was Cal’s day off, which meant he could have a drink to settle his queasy stomach.
Back in his cottage, he poured himself three fingers of whiskey and started the computer. There was no way in hell he could find words tonight, but he could leave the file open and the monitor on to guilt-trip himself about it. It would be a distraction, anyway. He hoped.
Tumbler in hand, he opened his email. His critique group had started the discussion of his literary novel-in-progress. With a sinking feeling, he quickly went through the emails, which ranged from “sorry, no time, real life is crazy” to the self-styled super-talent telling him “I’d keep that day job a while longer. This is pretentious shit.”
Bitch. Just because she’d published a couple short stories somewhere.
Normally, he’d have been okay to engage that woman, telling her that literary fiction didn’t necessarily follow the same rules as whatever writing workshop or cheap how-to book was sitting in her craw at the moment. But he didn’t. He simply didn’t have the energy to defend himself or his chapter.
He took a sip of whiskey. So strange; less than an hour ago, he’d been flying high, James had been in the stratosphere, and now everything had turned to shit.
What if James wanted a repeat?
He took another mouthful, warmth spreading in his throat and chest but somehow never quite reaching any of the places that had begun to feel cold and inert.
Ten years ago, he’d have written a poem in this state. He’d killed plenty of wine and pages and written hundreds of dreadful poems. The day they’d accepted him in the Birkbeck course, he’d sworn to himself to make an honest, serious go of it and had torn the lot up and thrown it out. New start and all that. He wouldn’t regress into writing more of that crap.
So what if James wanted more?
More sex, more humiliation, his inner voice clarified. Not that other thing, Cal, don’t be stupid.
Yeah, what then? Could he keep James out of Market Garden and his own damned heart out of it? He could be . . . a driver with benefits. Four-wheeled sex god and nothing more. He chuckled, but the sound hurt. The thought hurt like a son of a bitch, and somehow, he was close to tears and had no idea when that had happened.
He pressed the whiskey glass against his forehead and just focused on that cool contact. Concentrated on i
t like he could turn it into a focal point for all the bullshit running through his brain.
Physically, he was exhausted. Emotionally, he was wrung out in a way he’d never felt before. The alcohol wasn’t helping. Neither was the cold, or writing, or thinking.
The only option left besides breaking down was sleep.
But somehow, he didn’t think he’d be sleeping tonight.
Though his temples were throbbing from both the liquor and the lack of sleep, Cal got up early the next morning. It was his day off, which meant he didn’t need to be anywhere near James, so he got the hell away from the house and went into the city.
He had his laptop with him, and was bound and determined to find a quiet place to write. Or at least to stare at a blinking cursor and try to convince himself to write. The world he lived in sucked at the moment, and all he wanted to do was dive into another one for a while.
He went to a coffee shop just around the corner from Charing Cross station, one he’d been to a few hundred times. The place wasn’t terribly crowded, and once he had a cup of coffee and a pastry in hand, he found a table in the corner with a power outlet underneath it.
Laptop open. Document open. Cursor blinking.
And . . . nothing.
He sipped his coffee and picked at the pastry, glaring at the screen as he did. There were words coming to mind, they were just the wrong ones. They had nothing to do with his book or its characters or its world.
Why doesn’t he want more from me? And why the fuck do I care? He doesn’t want me as anything besides one of his rentboys. I should just take him to Market Garden whenever he asks, and then I should go find someone and get laid myself. Maybe even in the back of the limo. Yeah. Let him get in the next morning and smell sex with someone else.
Cal groaned and rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t that simple. He cared about James. He couldn’t help the fact that James was too fucked up in the head—from the divorce? From his job? From whatever had happened during his childhood to turn him into an emotional Fort Knox?—to understand that. Whatever. Maybe James really did just want to be dominated by someone who he could pay to go away.
Cal’s breath caught.
“The way it’s worked with Nick and the others is once it’s over, they’re gone.”
James wasn’t paying them to top him. He was paying them to leave afterward.
Oh God, James, you’re fucked up worse than I thought.
Problem was, how to get through to him? If even in that vulnerable, stripped-down state, when James was barely harder than putty, he still rejected Cal. Once he was sated, he didn’t want him anymore. He really only wanted to get off and then get his partner to leave. End of story, done. And there was no way to change that. All the games, all the trust, it was all neatly compartmentalised somewhere in a strongbox that Cal would never manage to break into.
He should just pay Nick and move on. He’d tried. He’d really tried. Tried everything he knew how to. He’d given James what he’d needed.
And he’d disturbed James’s carefully arranged equilibrium where everything was a business transaction.
For the very first time, Cal thought he understood why James’s wife had really left. If everything was business to James, nothing but transactions, then why would his marriage have been any different?
And getting treated like that? Fucking unbearable.
First things first. He pulled out his mobile and texted: Cal here. Just remembered I should really pay you. You got time? I’d like to do it ASAP.
He stirred his coffee for a while and cast a resentful glance at his last paragraph. The words were completely dead on the page. He might have messed with James’s life, but James was messing up the writing in return. The whole thing about having to suffer for art was bollocks. What he really wanted was to be able to concentrate for a few hours without tearing himself—
Sure. You remember our address?
Nick was the unlikeliest of all saviours, but right now, Callum could have kissed him.
Could be there in fifteen?
Sounds good.
Cal breathed deeply a couple times, then closed down the laptop and slid it in his backpack. He grabbed his motorcycle helmet and left the coffee shop. If he couldn’t write, he could at least settle up with Nick.
His guesstimate was right on the money, and he parked in front of Spencer and Nick’s place almost exactly fifteen minutes later. He left his helmet on the bike and went up to the front door.
Spencer answered, and immediately cocked his head. “You all right, Cal?” He stepped aside to let him in. “You look a little, I don’t know . . .”
“I’m fine.” But Cal’s tone said otherwise, and he sighed. “I’ll be okay. I just need to give Nick his—”
Speak of the devil. Nick came around the corner, looking nothing like he had last night. Was that really last night? He had on a faded Funker Vogt T-shirt and a pair of low-slung jeans. Just like Spencer, his expression instantly turned to one of concern. “Wow. You okay?”
Cal waved a hand. “Fine, fine.” He pulled the envelope with the cheque from his jacket and held it out. “Just wanted to drop this off.”
Nick came closer, eyeing the envelope, but didn’t reach for it. “Stay for a while. Have a cup of tea.”
“I can—”
“I’ll put the kettle on.” Spencer brushed past him and headed for the kitchen.
Cal’s shoulders dropped. He had no idea if Spencer was doing that on his own, or if he’d obeyed an unspoken order from Nick. Whatever the case, they were both insisting, in their own ways, that Cal needed to stay. He wondered if they’d block the door if he tried to leave.
He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Nick stepped a bit closer, his expression devoid of any humour, any sadism, anything other than genuine concern. “Is everything okay?”
Cal exhaled. “After you left last night, James and I talked.”
Nick flinched. “It didn’t go well, did it?”
“Nope.”
Nick motioned towards the living room. “Come on. Let’s go sit.”
And once again, Cal found himself sitting in Nick and Spencer’s living room, wondering how the hell to articulate what was going on between him and James.
“To put it bluntly, I don’t think I’m what he needs.”
Nick’s eyebrows jumped. “Not what he needs? That’s not what I saw.”
“Yeah, well. You weren’t there afterwards.”
Nick moved to the edge of the cushion and leaned forwards. “What happened?”
Cal ran a hand through his hair. “Turns out he loved what we were doing, but doesn’t want anything after that. That’s why he keeps going to Market Garden.” Cal clenched his teeth and forced back the lump that tried to rise in his throat. “Because he can pay you guys to go away afterwards.”
Nick’s eyes widened even more. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Right then, bless the man, Spencer came in with two mugs of tea. Cal blew on his, then took a sip, which helped him collect himself a bit.
Spencer went back into the kitchen, and returned with his own tea. “What’d I miss? I thought things went really well last night.”
“They did.” Nick shook his head. “But apparently James just wants to pay for what Cal is giving him. Pay other guys so they’ll leave afterwards.” He rolled his eyes and then sipped his tea. “What a tool.”
Spencer clicked his tongue. “Sounds like he lives by the same creed as my friend.”
Nick glanced at him and then rolled his eyes again. Into his mug, he muttered, “Fucking Percy . . .”
“What?” Cal cocked his head. “What creed?”
“He lives by the saying that if it flies, drives, or fornicates, it’s cheaper to rent it.” Spencer grimaced sympathetically. “Maybe he thinks it’s simpler too.”
“Maybe.” Cal stared into his mug. “Guess all I need to do now is fucking learn to fly.”
Nick laughed, though it was
quiet, and reached out for his shoulder. Cal didn’t turn away. He knew how aware Nick was of space and touch, and this was way too deliberate to be anything but an offer to help, reassure.
“The saying is about cars, not drivers. Planes. And I guess, wives.” Spencer blew over the tea. “I’m sorry, Cal.”
“Well, he did come out of a bad divorce in the last year. I know it hurt him. I know this.”
“And you still hoped.” Nick’s hand grew firmer on his shoulder.
“He’s keeping it all together most of the time. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe he just can’t deal with it. Maybe I’m just making excuses for a douche bag. I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I can’t write, I can’t sleep.” He forced himself to breathe evenly, because although he liked these guys, he didn’t want to end up crying on Nick’s shoulder. Spencer’s, maybe, though strictly speaking he barely knew the man.
“You never told him how you feel, though?”
“I respected that he’s not in the best spot for . . . anything. I don’t want to pressure him, but I . . .” Cal rubbed his neck with both hands. “But I need more than what we’re doing.”
“How long was it again that you’ve worked for him?” Spencer asked.
“Eighteen months and a bit. The marriage was already rocky then. I kept things professional, of course. I didn’t make the first move, that was James. Of course, I should have told him no. Damn. All of this is just . . .”
“Well, I can see how you got there.” Nick squeezed his shoulder again. “And why you’d hope. The chemistry is definitely there. Physical trust. Desire. Most of the good stuff is in place. And you’re pretty talented.”
Cal huffed. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll quit and earn some money feeding some other banker’s driver kink. You think I could do it?”
Nick lifted Cal’s chin, forcing him to look at him. “Do I think you could? You’re capable of it. But you’re not in a place where you should go anywhere near selling your body. You’re too hurt.”
Damn, that nearly did it. Cal swallowed the lump down and wiped his eyes.
If It Drives (A Market Garden Tale) Page 16
