Derek closed his eyes, letting his other senses take over as he felt the weight and the length of what he was holding. He wrapped his hand around Brad’s cock, sliding it up and then down and back up again. When Brad groaned, Derek did it again, letting out a small laugh of delight that he was able to get this kind of reaction from such small movements.
Brad chuckled. “I think you might be liking this.”
“It’s…fun?”
“Making me suffer is fun? Let’s see what I can do in return. Keep your eyes closed.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so?” Brad unwrapped Derek’s fingers, dropping to his knees seconds later.
“Oh hell,” Derek gasped when Brad took the head of his cock between his lips. “Just…damn.” He felt his knees go weak and grabbed Brad’s shoulders, his hands tightening convulsively when Brad took him into the heat of his mouth, his tongue doing things that made Derek moan with pleasure. Brad continued his delightful torture until Derek thought he couldn’t stand one more lick or suck without coming.
As if he’d read Derek’s mind, Brad gripped his hips, drawing him deep into his throat, swallowing hard. That was all it took. Derek came, unimaginable ecstasy flooding his body. He would have collapsed if Brad hadn’t been holding him.
Releasing him finally, Brad stood, wrapping Derek in a tight embrace. “Lesson one, completed.”
“That was…extraordinary. Now you have to let me try.”
“Was planning on it. But first…” Brad stepped away long enough to take a condom out of his wallet and sheath himself.
“You didn’t do that with me,” Derek said.
“I know. Technically, I should have, but since this was your first time ever, I doubt I had to worry about it. However—” he paused, looking Derek straight in the eye “—you are never, ever to have sex with a man if they aren’t using a condom and you will always wear one yourself—no matter what—if you are penetrating someone, orally, vaginally, or anally. Understand?”
“Yes,” Derek whispered.
“Good.” Brad took Derek’s hand, leading him to the bed then lying down with his legs spread, one arm under his head while he watched Derek.
Derek got the idea immediately. He settled between Brad’s legs, stroking his cock while trying to figure out how he would be able to get more than a little of it into his mouth without his teeth doing major damage. Brad obviously figured out what he was thinking because he said, “Wrap your lips over your teeth at first, until you get the hang of it.”
“Umm, okay.” Derek did then lowered his head while gripping Brad’s cock tightly in his hand. He managed to get enough of it into his mouth to use his tongue the way he remembered Brad had. He felt a spurt of elation when Brad groaned deeply then he took in as much of Brad’s cock as he could. He moved his lips up and down over it, tightening them with each stroke.
“Damn, D-Boy,” Brad said breathlessly. “I think you’re a natural.”
Derek stopped long enough to say, “But how do I get all of you in?”
“Slowly. You’ll gag, probably, but that passes. Then, you just swallow.”
“I can do that.” He did, fighting the gag reflex, feeling triumphant when he had achieved his goal. He pulled back then did it again—and again. Suddenly Brad arched up, thrusting in hard, and came. Instinctively, Derek cupped Brad’s balls, even as he pulled back enough so he wasn’t choking, rolling them in his hand until Brad finally stopped shaking from his orgasm. Then he released him.
“Yeah,” Brad whispered, gripping Derek’s shoulders to pull him down against his chest. “You are definitely a natural.”
Derek started to smile then found he was being kissed, which made it difficult to do anything other than kiss Brad back. They broke apart, eventually, and Derek planted his elbows on each side of Brad’s head, looking intently down at him.
“What’s going through that mind of yours?” Brad asked with a smile.
“I liked what we did.”
“You sound a bit surprised.”
“A bit. Not a lot, I guess. Not after last night at the club. Well, both clubs. But—” he frowned, shifting to rest his head on Brad’s shoulder “—being with you is much different than having to ‘do’ some john, if it comes down to that.”
“I would hope so,” Brad replied with a small chuckle. “What you need to remember is you’re doing it to get the goods on the gang. Just keep that in mind and you’ll be fine, the same way you are when you go after a drug dealer. After all, you’ll be halfway to getting in with them if they’re giving you an initiation test.”
“I hope they want me to steal a car or a necklace from a fancy jeweler,” Derek muttered.
“You know how to steal a car?”
Derek thought about it and frowned. “I do, but…”
“But what?”
“I never have. Not since—since the accident. But I know I can. It’s like it’s up here—” he tapped his temple “—all the details.”
Brad nodded. “Another snippet from your past coming back to you?”
“If so, and it has to be, it doesn’t say much for what I did before the accident. Maybe I wasn’t as innocent as I’d like to think.”
“You were a punk, and you weren’t on vacation when the accident happened. Your folks were taking you off to military school so you’d be forced to change your evil ways,” Brad replied, grinning as he tapped Derek’s nose.
“Uh-huh. I hope that’s not the case. Still, I don’t like the idea I even know how steal a car.”
“Think positive. It could be the result of a high school prank. You learned, you did it, and were grounded for a month.”
“That I can live with.”
“So, my young auto thief, I should get moving. It’s late, we’re both tired, and tomorrow we have plans to make if this is going to work.”
“You could stay here,” Derek said hopefully.
“I could, but then I’d have to give you lesson number three and I don’t think you’re ready for that, literally or figuratively.” Brad eased Derek’s head off his shoulder and sat up. “Get some sleep and I’ll come by in the morning to pick you up. We can do breakfast and go from there.”
Even though he was disappointed Brad was leaving, Derek smiled and nodded. Then laughed when Brad muttered disgustedly, “I should have done this earlier,” as he removed the condom, tied it off, and went into the bathroom to get rid of it.
After cleaning up, he came back, dressed, and bent to kiss Derek. “Be up and moving when I get here.”
“And if I’m not, I get lesson three?”
“Nope. You get me tapping my foot impatiently while you get ready.”
“Well, damn. Okay, I will be.”
“Good. And good night. Sleep well.” After kissing Derek again, quickly, Brad left the bedroom. A moment later Derek heard the front door close, but not before Brad called out, “Come lock the deadbolt.”
Derek saluted, even though Brad couldn’t see it, and hurried out to do so. As he headed back to the bedroom, he realized that, as tense as he was about the upcoming job and what it could entail, he was also happy. He’d discovered something about himself tonight. Even if what happened with Brad was nothing more than a one-time thing—and he hoped it wasn’t—he now knew that preferring a man over a woman was a part of him, and he could live with that idea.
* * * *
“You know,” Brad said the next morning as they walked back to his bike after breakfast, “the success of this operation is going to depend as much on luck as planning.”
“Yeah. If I can’t find Mario, or if I do and I can’t convince him I’m interested in what he does without making it seem as if I have some ulterior motive, the whole thing goes down the chutes.”
“Exactly. So we have to come up with a way to make that happen.”
“Make it go down the chutes?” Derek asked with a grin.
“No.” Brad shook his head. “Get serious. We only have a vague description
of Mario. Hell, you could be him if you were taller and a bit older.”
“True.” Derek tapped his lip thoughtfully then veered off the sidewalk into Washington Square.
“What are you doing?” Brad asked, following.
“Getting away from people so we can talk,” Derek replied, heading toward a nearby bench and sitting.
“I thought we were going back to my place.”
“It’s…safer here.”
“Ah ha,” Brad replied knowingly as he sat down. “Okay, back to the discussion at hand. You do look Italian—at least enough to give you an in with Mario.”
“That’s presuming he’d give a damn, but yeah, it can’t hurt. I have to look down in my luck, but not like a street kid. More like I’m out of a job and getting desperate.”
“Hold on a second.” Brad took out his phone and made a call. When it was answered, he asked, “Where did our man actually meet Mario?” He listened for a moment then hung up. “Apparently Mario hangs around an area called Little Italy. Specifically at a restaurant called Bel Cibo.”
“You sure this gang isn’t Mafia connected?”
“No clue.” Brad called Samson again to find out. “Nope,” he said, after closing his phone. “Our man asked. Oh, and Samson said if I’m going to keep bugging him with questions, we should just come in to the office.”
Derek shook his head, took out his smart phone, and brought up a map. “It’s not close to the downtown area, which is where you’d think he’d spend his time if he’s looking for victims.”
“There are things called cars.”
Derek flipped him off. “The area, at least from what I can tell, is residential with a few apartment buildings. Most of the shops and restaurants are on the main street. If I can get a small apartment…”
“We’ll get one of our people up there to arrange it and back date the lease.”
Derek tapped his lip as he scrolled the map. “Make it closer to downtown. I’m supposed to be down in my luck so somewhere cheap. I go to Little Italy because of the food and the atmosphere, but hang around the day-labor places.”
“Makes sense. Should I have Samson set that up now or do you want to think about it some more?”
“Now. We’re supposed to be in Cleveland tomorrow, so there’s no time to waste.”
Brad called, again, chuckling and saying, “Yeah, yeah, tell that to Derek,” before hanging up. “We’ll both have places when we get there.”
“Good.” Derek rested his elbows on his knees, staring down at the ground as he went over the basics of what they were planning. It would be the first time since he joined the Company that he’d be working anywhere but in and around New Orleans. That thought both scared and excited him.
He snapped his fingers, turning to Brad. “I’m new in town—been there maybe three weeks. Came up from down south, which would explain any accent I might have.”
“Which isn’t much of one, but it’s there. Why Cleveland?”
“I heard there were jobs and…yeah, my uncle used to live there, a long time ago. He’s dead now. So’s my dad. He was fifty-five when I was born. I was the only child he had. My mom’s remarried and is God only knows where, at this point.”
Brad thought about it. “The only child of his second marriage. You don’t know your step-siblings because their mother took them in the divorce and moved to somewhere out west, California maybe.”
“Okay. So I’m on my own, hurting, and wishing to hell I’d stayed where I was because there’s no more jobs in Cleveland than there are down here.”
“What do you do?”
“Since I dropped out of high school, I do whatever I can get, but mainly I’m a short-order cook.”
“Falling back on your past experience, which is a good idea. You do know what’s what about it.”
“That’s what I’m figuring.” Derek nodded slowly. “It also means I can be hitting up restaurants in the evenings to see if they’re hiring.”
“Which is a better explanation than that you’re in the Little Italy area because you miss the ‘atmosphere’.”
“True. Okay, I’ve got the basics. From there, I wing it and hope to hell I can make contact with Mario.”
Chapter 8
Derek looked around an apartment so small it made his in New Orleans look like a mansion. There was one room, furnished with a bed, a table, a sofa, and a nook for a tiny kitchen. The bathroom was communal, at the end of the hallway. The only window looked out on a vacant lot with a manufacturing plant on the far side. He knew, because he’d walked past them on his way from the bus stop, that there was a supply company, a second-rate insurance agency, and a radiator shop on the same block, as well as a temp agency.
Home sweet home. He grimaced when he saw a bug of the roach kind skitter under the kitchen cupboard. I even have a pet, probably more of them than I want.
He opened his battered suitcase, putting most of his clothes, other than one pair of decent slacks and three shirts, into the dresser. The good clothes went into what passed for a closet in the corner by the kitchen. Thankfully, whoever had set this up for him had left a box with linens, towels, and a few dishes.
He checked the refrigerator and found, somewhat to his surprise, that it actually worked, as did the gas burners on the two-burner stove. Since it was mid-afternoon, he decided to see what else was in the neighborhood and hopefully find a grocery store.
* * * *
There was a mom-and-pop grocery store in a strip mall two blocks from the apartment building. The mall also held a Chinese restaurant and a diner. Getting into his role as an out-of-work cook, he checked with both of them to see if they were hiring. They weren’t.
He stocked up on essential food and went back to the apartment. After making supper, he went out again, this time to go downtown and see what the situation was like a far as the street-kid population was concerned.
He found, as he’d expected, a lot of teens walking the streets, sitting in doorways of closed stores, and populating the alleys. Much to his surprise, he also found them hanging around the Rapid station in Tower City. They moved quickly when security people came into view, then settled back down when they were gone, hands out, hoping someone would give them a dime or a dollar to eat on.
It didn’t take him long to spot the predators looking for prey. Not the johns, although even in such a public arena there were a few who would walk slowly by one or another of the young men and give a slight nod toward a restroom. It was the ones who sidled up to a teen, seemingly concerned about him or her, offering consolation and ‘help’. Derek knew what the help consisted of, and it had nothing to do with telling them where the nearest shelter was or where they could safely go for food and clothing.
And soon enough, if things go the way we planned, I’ll be dealing with some of these kids—and not in a good way. He hoped to hell the plan worked so they could close down one of the more vicious gangs preying on the weakest members of an often uncaring society.
* * * *
At first impression, the Little Italy section looked like any other part of any other city. Shops with what probably were apartments or offices above them, nice older houses. True the restaurants were predominately Italian, and he heard the old people he walked by chattering away to each other in Italian, but that was it—until he turned the corner onto the street where the Bel Cibo restaurant was located. It was brick paved, some of the shops were ivy-covered, and homes had well-trimmed, tree-shaded lawns.
Probably not like Italy but nice and atmospheric.
Before venturing down to Bel Cibo, he returned to the main street through the area and made stops at several of the restaurants there. Pasting a hopeful but discouraged look on his face, he would ask to speak to the manager. When they were available, he asked if they needed a cook. The reply was always ‘No’, as he’d expected. He briefly wondered what he would have done if someone had said ‘Yes’. Fill out the application and figure they’d look at it, realize my last job as a cook w
as over two years ago, and say, ‘I’m sorry, but…’
Finally, after setting the groundwork, he walked down the side street to Bel Cibo. There was a small patio out front with several tables, shaded by umbrellas advertising an Italian wine. Since it after lunch hour, only three of the tables were occupied. Again, pasting a hopeful look on his face, he pushed open the front door and entered the restaurant proper. There were more people inside, most of who looked up when he came in then went back to what they had been doing.
As Derek started toward the back of the restaurant, a silver-haired man wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a dark vest intercepted him.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I was hoping to speak to the manager about a job,” Derek replied hesitantly.
The man looked him over appraisingly then shook his head. “I don’t need any waiters at this time.”
“To be honest, sir,” Derek said, smiling slightly, “I’d make a lousy waiter. I’m a cook—and a fairly decent one.”
“I see.” Again the man studied him. “Can you make Italian dishes?”
“I never have, but I can learn.”
The man chuckled. “At least you’re honest. I’m Tony. Tony Benini. I own Bel Cibo. Let’s go over there and you can tell me about yourself.” He walked to a vacant table at the back of the restaurant and sat, waiting for Derek to join him. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Derek Parrino,” Derek replied, using the name on the ID he now carried.
Tony cocked an eyebrow. “Derek isn’t Italian even though your last name is.”
“My father was Italian, my mother wasn’t. I was named after her father.”
“You talk as if they’re no longer around.”
Derek nodded. “Father was in his fifties when I was born. He died three years ago. My mother remarried not too soon afterwards, to a man closer to her age. When they decided to move away, I told them I wasn’t going.” Derek smiled wryly. “That didn’t seem to break my stepfather’s heart and my mother went along with my decision. I think deep down she was just as happy not to have a seventeen-year-old problem child tagging along in her new marriage.”
D-Boy Page 9
