Shadow: Lust and Lies Series Book 1

by Sera, Drew

  I needed to get my head out of the clouds and regroup.

  “Do you have meetings tomorrow, Chloe?” I asked even though I knew she did.

  “Yes,” she groaned. “I’m not looking forward to seeing this client.”

  “Oh, why not?” I asked.

  I was genuinely interested in the reason because it might be info I could somehow relay to my family. It might be of use.

  “I don’t think their…product is as good as the others my father is considering. But he still wants me to meet with them.”

  I temporarily forgot that I wasn’t supposed to know her father was shopping for a new ecstasy supplier. It was her tone when she said “product” that reminded me. I knew that she was meeting with the Heines family rep tomorrow. Chloe seemed to have some intel on their products. I had to see if I could extract some info but make it sound like we were talking about legal pharmaceuticals rather the ones that I knew both our families were in the business of.

  “What makes their pharmaceutical products not as nice as the others your father is considering, in your opinion?” I casually asked.

  She was quiet for a moment as she crafted her story of reasoning.

  “Well, little is known about their…facilities. To me, that’s a concern. If we don’t know anything about their facilities, that’s a downside.”

  I almost laughed at her phrasing. “Facilities,” otherwise known as the lab where they make their ecstasy. I had to hand it to her though. She was making this sound like they were actually seeking legit pharmaceuticals.

  When I shut the light out, she commented about how she wasn’t looking forward to going back to London.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You’re here.”

  While I was happy that she was enjoying her time and was going to miss me, there was a part of me that hated when she said that. It was because that comment gave me hope that there could possibly be something more between us.

  I thought about it through the night and played out many scenarios; none of them played out well. I doubted my family would be accepting or understanding, considering how we met. I was also almost certain that I would not stack up to the expectations of Chloe’s father.

  Exhaustion was the predominant feeling I had when Chloe and I woke up. The sun was already up and streaking through the window.

  “Mmm, don’t make me get up, Wesley,” she sleepily moaned.

  “Okay. You can stay in bed with me today,” I offered.

  I rolled on top of her while supporting my weight with my forearms. I joked and teased about keeping her captive with me today and that she’d be my sex slave. I lowered my head and kissed her stomach and sides while I tickled her with one hand. She laughed and tried rolling away from my tickles. I really thought I could get used to waking up next to her. I loved her accent and laugh.

  “If we get up now, Wesley, we can take a slow shower together.”

  I softly kissed her belly button and then rested my cheek on her abdomen as I looked up at her. A shower with Chloe sounded fantastic, but I was content right where I was.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay in bed with me all day?” I tried one more time.

  I was fully aware that it wasn’t actually a realistic suggestion. Chloe had shit to do, and I had a family dinner meeting tonight. But I had to find time to see her again tonight.

  “I’m sure, Wesley Berlin, lucky number six,” Chloe teased.

  My stomach instantly hurt. WB6. That was my name of the docks while I was there. Not Wesley or Wes...just WB6.

  “Wesley, are you okay?”

  I nodded and sat up.

  “Yes, I think I’m starting to get light headed from being so hungry. You wore me out last night, baby.”

  “I’m only a few years younger than you are, Wesley. Better get in shape so you can keep up,” Chloe said with a smile.

  I followed her naked ass from the bed into the shower. Under the warm spray of the water, our hands flew to one another’s body like magnets. Our mouths consumed one another until she pulled away and began moving her mouth down my body.

  My cock was hard by the time she got to it. I leaned against the glass of the shower door as Chloe took the head of my dick into her mouth.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  Chloe wasted no time. This wasn’t a sweet blowjob, nor was it an awkward behind the school blowjob after class I’d had many times. Chloe could suck cock like any of the professionals down in the Red Light District. The difference was that I actually meant something to her and wasn’t just a client. At least, I thought that I kind of meant something to her.

  “Damn, Chloe.”

  I closed my eyes and put my hands on her head. I wanted to just fuck her mouth, but I let her control this. She took me deep into her throat and swallowed. The swallowing motion sent me so close to coming.

  “Oh, fuck, Chloe!”

  “You like that?” she pulled her mouth away from my cock to ask.

  “God, yes. I love it.”

  She went back to work on my stiff cock and alternated from running her tongue around my head to deep throating me and swallowing. The back and forth was driving me crazy, and I finally went over the edge when she took hold of my balls and swallowed.

  “Fuck!” I moaned as I released my load in her mouth.

  I quickly opened my eyes and looked down at her. Had I overstepped my bounds by coming in her mouth? Chloe was looking at me, and she made a production out of pulling my shaft out of her mouth and swirling her tongue around my head.

  “Jesus,” I panted.

  She smiled and kept her eyes on me as she continued to clean my cock. While she cleaned me with her tongue my cock remained semi-hard. When she finished, I helped her to stand, and I kissed her.

  This was a first for me. I had never kissed a woman after coming in their mouth. Chloe’s kisses were special though, and there was something so sexy to me about her swallowing the load I just pumped into her mouth. It was as though my kiss sealed something.

  What it sealed, I didn’t know.

  I wanted it to seal the fact that we had a chance to be together...though I didn’t know how that would work.

  After the shower, I watched Chloe get ready for her meeting with the Heines family while I smoothed out the same clothes that I wore yesterday.

  Her clothes were neatly stowed hanging in the closet. She pulled out a few hangers; a skirt, a top, and a blazer. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe that she was really meeting with a legit pharmaceutical company to attract business.

  “So, tonight?” I carefully asked.

  I wanted badly to see her again tonight, and I hoped she wanted to see me as well.

  “Of course, Wesley. Would you like to get dinner tonight?”

  Dinner. Shit. I did but had the family dinner meeting this evening. I couldn’t get out of that. My family is priority one. I could just eat light with them and then Chloe and I could get dinner.

  “Yes, dinner would be great. How about 7:00?” I suggested.

  Knowing that my family dinner was at 5:00, that should give me enough time to eat and talk business with them and then get to Chloe. We decided to meet in the hotel lobby at 7:00 and would eat at the quaint restaurant across the street.

  “I’ll see you at 7:00, Chloe.”

  I leaned close to kiss her before I left her suite. Our lips locked and tongues began spearing at one another. Her hands gripped my chest while I weaved my fingers through her hair.

  “I look forward to tonight, Wesley. I’ll be thinking about how good your cum tasted and how thick it was as I swallowed it.”

  My eyes were locked with hers.

  “If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll coat that mouth of yours with it again,” I teased.

  She grinned big and gave me a sweet kiss before feeling my crotch.

  “Hopefully I get lucky tonight, WB6.”

  WB6.

  I hated that. Chloe didn’t know of the horrors behind that tattoo so I couldn’
t be angry with her.

  My mind was all over the place as I rode the elevator down to the lobby alone. I really enjoyed being with Chloe, and I wish I could make it work with her.

  I kept my head down as I walked to my apartment. I could have taken the metro, but I just felt like being alone and walking right now. Maybe it was a mix of depression lingering from the tablet the other night and the fact that it would nearly be impossible for Chloe and I to end up together.

  Like many times when I was depressed, I found that my feet would bring me to the spot where I now stood; across the street from the docks. I sat on the three-foot-high brick wall and stared at the property across the street.

  I looked down at my calloused hands that I earned while I lived there. I worked my ass off from the time I got there. I learned fast. They weren’t people you fucked with or tested. We just did as we were told, at least, most of the time.

  As my eyes scanned the barren property, I could almost hear the other boys. Some were older, and some were younger than me. We all had a lot in common. We were given up or sold to Skagen and were all trapped and afraid.

  So much of where I came from was a mystery. Ever since Thom told me about the people who were selling their boys for money, I’d wondered if I had been sold. Did I have parents out there? Did I have any biological siblings? If I was sold, how much did my parents make?

  All of my questions had built up over the years. I never thought that I’d voice any of them, but I was feeling more and more curious lately. I had a feeling that Thom knew more than he had initially told me. Maybe he withheld additional information on purpose. I was almost sure that Thom had to know more. After all, he somehow got this place shut down.

  I looked at my watch: 9:30 a.m. Time to send a text to Dad.

  Did I have a biological father out there somewhere?

  Even if I did, he obviously was never a father to me; Thom was.

  Wesley: She’s meeting with Heines this afternoon.

  Thom: Thank you, Wes.

  Wesley: There’s something else about the Heines family that I have to tell you. I’ll save it for the dinner meeting.

  Thom: Good, son. Dean and Kyler landed a little while ago, and I’m on my way to pick them up at the airport. We’ll see you at 5:00.

  Proud that I was earning my keep, I felt better as I set off for the apartment. By the time I got there, some of the depression had subsided, and I knew that the walking had helped. I decided to work out for a while, hoping to shake this “off” feeling. Working out and jogging was usually a remedy for me and the slight depression.

  Martin was walking some woman out as I entered the apartment. He gave me a cheesy grin and went into the hallway with the woman while I went to my room. He came into my room as I was changing into my workout clothes.

  “How was your night, mate?” he asked as he flopped on my bed.

  “Not as good as yours apparently,” I joked.

  Truth be told, my night was fantastic. I couldn’t let on though. It was special; I learned so much about Chloe.

  “I’m going for a run. Want to come?” I asked Martin.

  “Yeah, give me a few minutes to change.”

  Soon, our feet were hitting the pavement, and we began to jog our usual route. Our jogs typically were where we talked the most. I was more comfortable talking as we jogged because I wasn’t under his stare and the jog was actually a nice distraction. When I first moved in with them, Martin took to me the best. He helped me build up my physique and stamina with jogging and swimming. And we also became the best of friends.

  He was also a curious bugger on these jogs, and it was during our runs that I opened up the most to him. We always kept the conversations that we had out on the route. We never brought the topics we spoke about back into the house when I was younger, or to our apartment now. For many of our early jogs when I was fourteen, Martin tried getting me to open up. It was probably a good six months of him trying before I finally did. And when I did, I made him promise that he wouldn’t tell Thom certain things.

  Martin and I had built a bond during our jogs. It was my first relationship built on trust, which was hard for me. To this day, my bond with Martin was the strongest of my brothers.

  “You coming off that pill okay?” he asked as we rounded a corner.

  “Yeah,” I panted. “For some reason, this one seemed harder on me.”

  “Don’t give it too much thought. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now with tailing that Olsen chick. Your body might be reacting a little different to it with the stress.”

  I waved my hand in the air to show that I wasn’t too concerned over it. If light depression and feeling down weren’t a common side effect, then I’d be concerned. But this was something that I was used to by now.

  The sounds of our heavy breathing and feet punishing the ground were broken by Martin again.

  “Did you go down to the docks again, Wes?”

  I frowned when he brought it up. Martin knew that when I felt down, I often went down to the docks. Why I did this over and over, I’d never know or understand. It made no sense to me. Why did I continue to go back to a place that I hated? I used to freak out just when we’d be in the vicinity of the Skagen Group Home for Boys. For years now, I’d been going there when I got depressed, and it never made me feel any better.

  “Yeah,” I panted as we began jogging uphill.

  I was pretty sure that even if I hadn’t said anything that he still would have known. Martin knew me really well.

  Martin never gave me any shit about going back there nor did he ask me why I went there. Maybe he knew that I had no clue myself.

  “Did you sit on the wall?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I never made it further. A few times in the past I’d stood up and even stepped close to the edge of the sidewalk. But I never crossed the street. Sometimes I felt like I needed to be able to walk along the grounds again, without fear. It’s hard for me to understand the reasoning behind this feeling, so I usually pushed it out of my mind.

  “Don’t worry about it, mate.” We jogged the length of the city block before he spoke again. “You know that if you ever want company that I will go down there with you.”

  I wanted to get on another topic with Martin.

  “I know, Martin.”

  “We can both piss on the grounds,” he said as he extended his arm to lightly hit my chest.

  A few quick, short laughs burst out of us, and I tried to move the topic away from the docks slightly.

  “Martin, remember when dad said how a lot of the kids had families and had been sold?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Do you think I was one?” He was quiet for a few moments, and then I tried to stop the awkward silence. “Or do you think that I was just an orphan with no family at all?”

  “I don’t know, Wes.”

  Everything that I’d wondered and thought about for years came tumbling out.

  “I wonder if any records were kept...Most orphanages or homes keep records I imagine...Maybe like a record of existence, or something...Maybe there’s something that showed how I ended up there...Or who took me to them or dropped me off there...I wasn’t just born in the streets or a hospital and then ended up there.”

  I paused to catch my breath for a short distance.

  “I was somewhere with someone until I was six years old. Someone had me...Maybe Thom knows...Or has the records...What do you think Martin?”

  Martin slowed his jog until he stopped altogether. I stopped a few feet in front of him and turned to look at him. His hands were on his hips as his chest heaved. I frowned and walked back to him.

  “What?” I asked. “Why’d you stop?”

  “Wes, you should talk to Dad.”

  When Martin said that I felt like maybe he knew more than I thought. Could it be possible that my adoptive family knew all about my past while I didn’t even know? Did they keep it from me? Was there a reason to keep it from
me?

  “Relax, mate.”

  “No,” I shook my head and looked down.

  Did Martin know more and had he deliberately kept something about my past from me?

  “Do you know something, Martin? Do you know where I came from?” I pointedly asked him.

  He was quiet, but his eyes hadn’t moved from mine.

  “What do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything, Wes. I suggested that you talk to Dad so if he does know more, then he can talk to you and share it with you.”

  I nodded and apologized for jumping down his throat.

  “For a minute there, I thought that maybe you knew something and had kept it from me.”

  “Wes, we’re best friends and brothers. I know it’s been eating at you. I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you. But I think you should talk to Dad because he might have more information.”

  “Don’t you think he would have told me if he had?”

  “You were just fourteen when he brought you to live with us, Wes. He hadn’t shut the place down until many months after that.”

  “Yeah,” I said and looked away. “But if Thom knew something, he had lots of opportunities to tell me.”

  “I don’t know if it would have helped you or hurt you though, Wes. And if Dad knows something, consider that he may not have felt it would help you either.”

  “Martin, you don’t know what it’s like to wonder where you came from. You know where you came from. You have a dad.”

  “You do too, mate. Thom loves you just as he loves me or Mason or Kyler.”

  Martin was right. Thom had been a father to me and took me in off the streets. I nodded to acknowledge that Martin was right and looked up the street.

  “Come on, let’s go home,” Martin said as he hit my upper arm.

  We resumed our jog and headed home quietly. I spent the rest of the afternoon alone in my room and thinking about Chloe. For hours, I stared at the few pictures I had taken of her from a distance.

  Pictures that she didn’t know I had of her.

  Pictures that my family didn’t know I had of her.

  Guilt continued to set in as to what I was doing exactly. Was getting close to Chloe going to pull me away from my family?