When the Dead Speak

by Bailey Bradford

  “Jesus, Sev.” Laine chuckled softly, and Sev wanted to look at the man but his eyelids were too heavy. “That was…”

  “I know,” Sev mumbled, hoping he’d actually spoken the words but unsure since his body felt like it was floating on a cloud of satiated bliss. He quit trying to fight it and let himself doze off, unable to deny his body and mind the rest they needed.

  * * * *

  Laine stood in the bathroom doorway and tossed the damp cloth he’d used to wipe his lover clean over his shoulder in the general direction of the sink, unwilling to turn away from Sev’s sleeping figure long enough to be sure of his shot. Maybe he shouldn’t have jumped the man so soon, but he hadn’t been able to turn away from the hurt he’d put in those beautiful eyes. Laine snorted softly and rolled his eyes. Who was he trying to kid? Yeah, he wanted to take that pain away, but he’d also wanted to bury his cock so deep in Sev that he’d never feel the need to leave, never want another man inside him. He’d planned to seduce Sev, take his time and make love, stretch it out for hours and show Sev how good it could be between the two of them. Instead, he’d plowed into that tight, silky heat like a horny teenager. Well, he had a bit more finesse than a horny teenager, but still.

  And now that he’d had Sev, Laine was very much afraid he’d been ruined for other men. Sure, he hadn’t ever intended to take another lover any time in the near future, but he hadn’t intended to die a lonely old man, either. Now, there, lying in his bed, was someone Laine knew he not only wanted but needed, and it scared him as much as it thrilled him. He didn’t know if he could convince Sev to stay—then again, once the people of McKinton found out that their sheriff was gay, staying here was probably not going to be an option. It pained his heart to think of leaving his job and his friends—the only two people he would really call his friends—behind.

  But as Laine took one last long, lingering look at the warm, sexy man sleeping in his bed, he knew he’d do whatever he had to in order to keep Severo Adulio Robledo.

  * * * *

  The sauce had been simmering on the stove long enough that the scent of oregano and basil filled the house. Laine slid the garlic bread in the oven then went to the refrigerator, his cock swelling as he thought about the way Sev’s body had felt against his, those soft, wide lips moving under his and the sweet taste of the man’s skin. He would never be able to open that damn refrigerator again without popping wood. Laine opened the door and grabbed what he needed then heard the muted shuffle of feet behind him. He turned and found Sev standing in the doorway, sleep rumpled and so sexy it made Laine ache.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  Sev yawned and nodded, padding over to the table and pulling out a chair. “Can I do anything to help?”

  Laine thought it would be enough for Sev to sit there looking gorgeous, but he set the makings for the salad on the table.

  “You think you can take care of this? And—” Laine walked back to the refrigerator and took out a beer. “I reckon you might want this now.”

  Sev chuckled. “Yeah, I’m past ready for it. You have something for me to put this in, and maybe you could tell me where a knife is? And a cutting board? Unless you don’t mind your table getting a few nicks in it.”

  No wonder Brendon called him a dumbass on a regular basis. Laine opened the beer and passed it to Sev before finding a large bowl, a suitable knife and the cutting board. Placing them on the table, he couldn’t resist leaning down and placing a chaste kiss on Sev’s smiling lips, pulling back before he lost control and ended up spreading Sev out on the table.

  “You feel up to explaining what happened earlier now, or do you want to eat first?”

  “That depends.” Sev looked up from the tomato he had started to slice. “How long until the food’s ready?”

  “All’s that’s left is the pasta and the salad, so maybe fifteen minutes.” Laine turned a knob on the stove to start the water boiling.

  “How about after, then? It’s going to take longer than fifteen minutes, and I really want to eat first. It smells good.” Sev winked at Laine’s nod and went back to preparing the salad.

  They worked in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Once Sev had the salad put together, he let his gaze roam over the kitchen. Like every other room he’d seen in Laine’s house, it was undecorated, the white walls bare. The whole place lacked adornment, as though this wasn’t a home, merely somewhere Laine existed in.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  Laine looked up from stirring the pasta, one eyebrow arched. “About three years now, I guess. Why?”

  Sev glanced at the bland room, white everywhere—appliances, the tiled floor, even the countertops were a pale gray, close enough to colourless that they blended in rather than standing out. At least the damn pot on the stove is copper-bottomed!

  “It just looks so, I dunno.” He shifted slightly in his chair, trying to decide how to say what he wanted to without being rude. “Bare, maybe? Like there isn’t really anything of yourself here.”

  Laine blinked, then looked around the kitchen as though seeing it for the first time. “Well, yeah, I guess there’s really not. I’m not the kind of guy who gives much thought to decorating, but you do have a point. This place has less character than your hotel room.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Sev thought about that statement. “Not necessarily. I mean, at least your couch and chair are dark blue… and so are your sheets and blanket—and the curtains. Kind of fond of blue, Laine?”

  Laine’s grin was sheepish, his cheeks tinting as he chuckled. “Well, yeah, it was my favorite color.”

  “Was? You got a new one?”

  The flush on Laine’s cheeks darkened, spread up to his forehead and the tips of his ears, but his gaze held steady with Sev’s. “I’m thinking that I’ve discovered a new color I like even better.” He walked to the table, bending until his nose was almost touching Sev’s. His pupils dilated, the black centers chasing away the silver until only a thin ring of it remained.

  “And w-what…” Sev stuttered as he fought his body’s impulse to shiver under the pressing need that coursed through him. “What would that be?”

  Laine’s slow smile demolished Sev’s control, his body quaking inside and out. “I’m not sure what it’s called, really, but it’s…fascinating, this pale green.” Laine’s index finger traced the line of Sev’s jaw. “This close, I can see just the slightest streaks of gray in there, too. What color is that, Sev? You tell me, ‘cause I don’t have a word for it.”

  Melting, he was melting inside. “My grandmother said it was celadon.” Sev’s breath hitched, his chest squeezing tight. “I always figured that was a big word for ‘dull green’, you know?”

  “Sev”—Laine’s warm breath teased Sev’s lips—“there isn’t a dull thing about you.” Before Sev could utter a protest, Laine cupped his jaw and Laine’s lips were covering his, mastering Sev’s mouth with a kiss that threatened to make him come where he sat. The stove timer went off and Laine ended the kiss, saving Sev from losing his dignity along with his load. He was still trying to recover when Laine sat a plate piled high with spaghetti and garlic bread in front of him.

  Garlic bread… “You do know that no amount of brushing is going to get rid of the garlic, right?”

  Laine nodded, his lips quirking as he picked up his piece of bread. “Yup, so I reckon we better both eat it. Kind of cancel each other out, you know?”

  That warmed Sev all over, and he hummed in agreement as he reached for his fork. Neither felt the need to speak as they ate quickly, casting occasional heated glances across the table. The food was good—well, Sev thought it was probably good. He was too distracted by Laine to really pay much attention to anything else. And he was nervous, having to constantly stop himself from reaching up to finger the necklace that always seemed to calm him. Before long, their plates and salad bowls were empty. Sev leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stomach, trying to get his brain into gear. “Tasted better t
han it smelled.”

  Laine’s embarrassed grin was fleeting, his urgency to find out what had happened with Conner palpable. He started to speak, but Sev cut him off with a hand gesture.

  “First thing you should know, Conner didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Laine looked at Sev like he was crazy, which made Sev bite his lip against the laughter bubbling up inside him.

  “How do you—or how does a ghost—accidentally nearly freeze someone?”

  “Inexperience, lack of control…” Sev met and held Laine’s gaze, all traces of humor gone. “An urgency to get a message across. Look, Laine, today is the first time I’ve ever seen a ghost. Sure, I’ve heard them since I was a kid, and damn near ended up locked away in a psych ward for life because of it, but seeing one coalesce? That’s a new one for me, and I doubt it would have happened had Conner not felt desperate.”

  Laine sat back, arms crossed over his chest. “You gonna explain that, about nearly ending up in a psych ward?”

  Sev glanced away, his lips tightening to a thin line. “I thought this was about Conner?”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute.” Laine sat forward, elbows on the table. “That’s twice today that you’ve mention that you were almost shut up in a mental hospital. I think maybe you want to talk about that.”

  Did he? Was that why he’d brought up something he never talked about? Well, he’d already blurted it out twice, so what the hell? Sev stared at a spot over Laine’s shoulder. “Would you believe your kid if he or she told you ghosts were speaking to them? Or would you drag the kid to a psychiatrist, then another and another? Listen to them when they told you your kid was showing signs of juvenile onset schizophrenia and needed to be medicated and regulated and—”

  “Sev.”

  Sev closed his eyes, squeezing his lids tight against images popping up in his head. “They put me there, you know, after the medications didn’t help. You’d think I would have learned, would have shut up instead of trying to convince them. Even when I would tell them things that could be proven, things I shouldn’t have known, they wouldn’t listen. Or maybe they did, and they were afraid of what I was, what I could do, so they stuck me away—”

  Strong arms lifted him, pulling him into Laine’s embrace, but Sev couldn’t stop. “If my grandmother hadn’t found out, I might still be locked away, my brain scrambled from whatever treatments the psychiatrists felt were necessary.”

  Laine’s arms tightened around him. “But your grandma, she got you out of there quick, right?”

  Sev shuddered, the memories threatening to overwhelm him. The state hospital was underfunded and understaffed, the number of patients grossly out of proportion to the workers on hand. Some of the things he’d seen there, experienced, would haunt him always. “Five weeks. Not so quick, but at least she got me out.”

  “Damn.” The word was whispered, Laine’s breath tickling Sev’s ear. “I’m sorry, Sev, sorry it happened and that you were there for so long. I can’t imagine a kid… How old were you, can you tell me?”

  Sev’s stomach roiled, but he reached around Laine, clinging with something bordering on desperation as he held on to the one man who made him feel safe. “I was twelve. Not the youngest kid there, either. It was like a nightmare, something that couldn’t possibly happen in real life, but it did. When my grandmother found out, she threatened to disown my parents unless they got me released, then she took care of me.”

  Laine didn’t speak, just began rocking gently, his hands smoothing over Sev’s back until Sev stopped shivering, the tension seeping out of him slowly. He thought he should be embarrassed, but he couldn’t manage it, not when he felt so soothed and protected, his head resting on Laine’s chest, the steady thumpthumpthump of the man’s heartbeat lulling Sev into a peaceful sense of belonging. A niggling worry kept him from giving himself over completely to the experience, though. There was a message he needed to pass along, an explanation Laine needed to hear for his own peace of mind. Sev forced his eyes open and tipped his head up to find Laine’s steady silver gaze on him.

  “We really need to talk about Conner.”

  Laine studied the man in his arms, trying to discern if Sev was evading any more questions about his past. God knew Laine felt torn open from learning about it. Hooking his ankle around the leg of a chair to maneuver it closer, he sat, pulling Sev down onto his lap.

  “Okay, let’s do that.” Then Laine was going to take Sev to bed and fuck away all those shadows lingering in his celadon eyes. “So, what’s the message, Sev? What was so God damned important that he nearly killed you? You don’t think, that all things considered, his timing was a little suspicious?” Because it sure seemed so to Laine.

  Sev smiled, just a faint echo of his usual breath-stealing smile. “Let me ask you this, was Conner a liar when he was alive? Was he a cruel, vengeful person? Or was he a truly decent person who maybe, sometimes, acted rashly, didn’t consider the consequences of his actions, but never intended harm? Because what he was in life, he still is even in death. The things that make us, us, the core center of our personality—death doesn’t change that, it can’t. It doesn’t work that way.”

  Laine didn’t even have to think about it. “Conner was… He was excitable, that’s how I always thought of him. Energetic and eager, just bursting with life. Not a cruel bone in the man’s body, either. He could be impetuous, but only because he was so enthusiastic…” He was surprised that it didn’t hurt to do this, to share Conner with someone else, or to remember the man. “The police thought that might have been what got the attention of the bastard who killed Conner. He was just… He had this shine, I don’t know how to describe it.”

  Sev stiffened in his arms, pushing at Laine’s chest. “There you go then, Sheriff—”

  Laine’s head snapped up and he pinned Sev with an angry look. “Sheriff? I had my dick buried in your ass not more than two hours ago. How did I go from being Laine in that bed to Sheriff right now?”

  Sev’s only answer was a shrug, but Laine wasn’t letting it go so easily. “Explain that to me.”

  “He wanted you to know that you’re in danger. Someone is coming for you. Soon.”

  “Duly noted. Probably someone like Irma.” He couldn’t fathom anyone really wanting to cause him harm. Laine stood, keeping Sev in his arms. “You didn’t answer my question, Sev. Explain to me why I’m back to being Sheriff.”

  Laine could see the anger flash in Sev’s eyes, his lips tightening and his jaw clenching. “Fine! Laine, then. Conner—”

  “I know what he told you. I got the message—someone wants me dead.” Laine shrugged the statement away and lifted Sev until their lips were almost touching. “But I think maybe you’re not getting mine.”

  Laine closed the distance between their lips, brushing across Sev’s once before pressing in and teasing Sev’s tongue. Sev tensed then melted against him, the implied trust making Laine’s knees weak and his heart pound. Laine kept it gentle, sharing instead of taking, giving Sev the tenderness Laine doubted the man had much experience with. Sev opened for him beautifully, and Laine poured as much as he could into each stroke of his tongue, each press of his lips. He couldn’t tell Sev how he felt, the need he had to protect and comfort the man, but he could damn sure show him. Judging by the startled gasp that flowed from Sev into Laine, he must have gotten the message. Laine pushed away the flicker of hurt, unsurprised when Sev turned his head and broke the kiss.

  “We should…we should clean up the kitchen.”

  The panic in Sev’s big eyes broke Laine’s heart. His lover was so afraid of trusting, and now Laine knew why. He wasn’t going to give the man time to think. Laine dipped his head and began kissing a line down Sev’s jaw, down to the sweet spot right by his ear.

  “And I didn’t finish telling you what happened. We…we…” Sev groaned and tipped his head back. “I can’t…can’t think when you’re doing that!”

  Laine laughed softly and continued sucking, scraping his tee
th on sensitive skin, not letting up until Sev’s protests died away and the man was writhing against him. When Sev’s legs gave out, Laine took advantage and encouraged Sev to wrap them around Laine’s waist. He carried Sev into the bedroom, only letting go of him long enough to set Sev down and strip his clothes off. This time, he was going to show Sev there was more to sex than just getting off.

  Sev felt heavy with lust, so much so that he couldn’t even express surprise when he found himself lying on the bed, the long, hard stretch of Laine’s body pinning him down, and still, Laine’s lips never left Sev’s body. He tried to help when Laine began removing his clothes only to have his hands shoved away. Sev was naked and aching, his very existence narrowed down to feeling. Then Laine’s hot mouth swallowed Sev’s cock, a slow, tight slide of wet suction that caused pinpricks of color to burst behind Sev’s lids. Moaning, he drove his fingers into Laine’s hair, gripping the silky strands, not guiding or encouraging, just holding on to the one thing, the one person who had suddenly become his entire world.

  Laine kept his movements slow and languorous, his tongue sweeping almost lazily over the length of Sev’s cock. One hand rolled Sev’s balls, while the other slicked up his body to tease his nipples. Sev was going insane with the pleasure, his breaths released in a stream of whimpers. The tip of Laine’s tongue dove into the slit of Sev’s dick and Sev felt his balls pull up. Another quick flick of tongue across his cock head, a twist of his nipple, and Sev’s fingers clasped spastically in the dark strands of hair. His stomach and thighs clenched, muscles quivering as he came in Laine’s mouth, that talented tongue pushing and caressing, swiping as Laine sucked down every drop of spunk.

  Laine let Sev’s cock slip from his mouth and scooted down, dislodging Sev’s fingers from his hair. Those strong hands smoothed their way to Sev’s ass, thumbs sliding in the dark cleft to open him up to Laine’s seeking tongue. Sev barely had the chance to breathe without moaning when Laine’s tongue laved over his hole, then Laine suckled and nipped at Sev’s opening, working the tight muscle until finally his tongue slipped in.