“You can if we keep silent.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Even if I screamed the truth from the rooftop, do you think anyone would believe me?”
“Perhaps not initially, but when I didn’t buy you a thrall and never took a companion, your brothers would start to believe you.” All it would take was one or two loose words in town and McBride would be sunk.
“Then buy me one and get yourself another man.”
“Knowing that we don’t really want them?”
“Perhaps they will want each other and we can keep up appearances with their consent.”
It was thoroughly unlikely, but McBride couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wanted to be with Caleb, and he found himself willing to do almost anything to get where he wanted to be, but he hesitated, too. Just because he could get away with something didn’t mean he should do it. Breaking the law as the sheriff was serious business.
“I’m supposed to set an example.” Why in the world was he trying to convince Caleb this was a bad idea? The person he really needed to convince was himself.
“What better example could you set than defying a set of ridiculous laws that keep you away from what you truly want the most?” Caleb lifted McBride’s hand and kissed his way down his fingers to his palm. He licked him and looked at him at the same time.
McBride’s cock swelled to full hardness so fast it hurt.
As he watched, mesmerized, Caleb licked his way along his index finger. He did this with slow sensuality, as if he were licking McBride’s cock. And then he lightly scraped his exposed canine over the tip. Not enough to draw a lot of blood, but enough to give himself a taste. He drew McBride’s finger in his mouth and sucked hard.
Even though it was a minute amount of blood, it was enough for McBride to feel the pull. His heart sped up, and something in his body changed so drastically he felt profoundly altered. Unable to determine what was different, all he could think of was something changed on a cellular level. As much as he thought he should yank his finger out of Caleb’s mouth, he refused. It felt good. Each swirl of his tongue eased a bit more blood out of McBride’s body and made him hunger to taste Caleb in turn.
Summoning the last of his strength, McBride stepped back, which yanked his finger out of Caleb’s mouth with a pop that echoed in his house.
“Feed from me.” Caleb again offered up his neck, but McBride shook his head.
Reaching behind him, he twisted the doorknob and stumbled out of the house without taking his gaze off Caleb. Turning away, he strode over to Ollie’s house. He knocked once and entered. Ollie was in his kitchen, making something that smelled so good McBride now had dual hungers.
“Are you here to feed?” Ollie looked exactly like Gannon, but he didn’t have a scar on his face. He did have one across his belly that stood out since he was very deeply bronzed and he was cooking without a shirt on. “Let me put this aside to rest and I’ll be ready for you.”
McBride entered the kitchen, and the glorious smell was even stronger. Ollie was the only brother who didn’t use the cookbot. He said it was good, but cooking was one of the things Ollie enjoyed the most. Since he often made more than he could ever eat, he shared things with his brothers.
“I should hire you to cook up at the big house.” Everything Ollie made smelled better than what McBride’s cookbot had managed to produce.
“And then who would work your fields?” Ollie grinned as he took a roast out of the oven and settled it on the stovetop.
“I would put my cookbot out there.”
Laughing, Ollie settled at the table and tilted his head to the side. His easy acquiesce was what Caleb should do when McBride wanted to feed, but he never was so accommodating. Ruthlessly, McBride cut those thoughts off. He had to stop thinking about him and comparing him to his brothers. Even if it killed him, McBride wasn’t going to be drinking from the eldest Morgan ever again.
Teasing his finger across the scar caused Ollie to moan. “Does it hurt when I bite you?”
“It does when your teeth first reopen the wound, but when you start to pull, it feels incredibly good.” Ollie stayed very still. He was one of McBride’s favorites to feed from because he made the entire thing effortless. “Do you mind if I climax while you feed?”
“No.” McBride would enjoy watching him stroke his cock. Ollie had a frank, straightforward way of masturbating that made him seem almost clinical. It was visually interesting to watch but didn’t arouse McBride the way that watching Caleb did. Damn. He couldn’t even control his wayward thoughts for two minutes.
Ollie exposed his cock and warmed himself up as McBride teased his scar. The smell of the roast blended with his blood hunger, making his mouth water as his teeth itched. Lowering his head, he bit hard into Ollie, loving the way he tightened his body so he didn’t jolt and throw McBride off his hold. Against his will, McBride found himself pulling hard on Ollie while thinking of Caleb.
He slowed the strength of his pulls because he wanted to taste if Ollie’s climax changed the taste of his blood. Last night, when he’d tasted Gannon while he drank from his mate for the first time, McBride had been astonished at how much richer his blood tasted. He felt no powerful bond toward Gannon, but the sweetness of his blood had been delicious. It was only when he thought of Caleb that he’d made a mental mess of things and had lost his enjoyment of the moment.
“I’m close.” Ollie’s frequency of movement increased. “So close.”
McBride looked down and saw Ollie’s fist was concentrating strokes at the tip of his prick. Faster he flicked his wrist, cupping up around and under the crown. At the precise moment when he ejaculated, McBride pulled hard. He was rewarded with a powerful taste. It wasn’t as sweet as Gannon’s, but he’d been pulling blood from Alden. And then he realized that as good as it was, it was nothing compared to the taste of Caleb.
Letting his slammer down easy, McBride finally finished and licked the wound closed.
Ollie stayed seated.
“Ollie?”
“I’m okay.” He shook his head, tucked himself away, then rose to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
“What happened?”
“I just felt it more.”
“Felt what more?”
“You pulling.” He shook his head again as if he were trying to shoo away the feeling. “It was like I could feel each cell of blood going from my body into yours.”
“That’s never happened before?”
“No. Even with Jonas, and he—” Ollie’s eyes went very big, and then he dropped his gaze to the floor.
McBride had a terrible foreboding that if he asked, he was going to hear something he didn’t want to know. But he felt he had to know. “What did Jonas do?”
“Nothing.” Ollie moved to the stove and checked his roast. “Do you want some?”
Knowing that he should say no didn’t stop his stomach from letting out a great grumble.
“Well, that answers that.” Ollie smiled, but it didn’t quite touch his eyes. It was clear he wanted to share but just as clear he didn’t want to talk about Jonas.
“I don’t want to intrude.” Sharing a meal with one of his slammers was a little more intimate than McBride wanted to get with them. After the mess he’d made of things with Caleb, he didn’t want to start another kerfuffle with a different brother.
“Please, it’s not a problem. I always make more than I can ever eat.” Ollie set another place at the table. “And truly, it would be nice to have someone to eat with.”
“I’m hoping to get you a mate tomorrow.” McBride settled at the table watching Ollie hustle about his kitchen. He had knocked out the wall between the living room and kitchen so that he could put in more cabinets. It created a wonderfully open feel that the other brothers’ houses didn’t have.
A look of happy surprise transformed Ollie’s face, but just as quickly it vanished. “I’m happy just to serve.”
“Liar.” That caused Ollie to jerk his
head up. “You want a mate. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I don’t want to seem pushy or like I think you owe me.”
“I don’t think of you that way at all. I really am getting thralls as quickly as I can.”
“I know you are.”
“Then what was that look for?”
“I just—nothing.” Ollie took the seat across from McBride, unfolded his napkin, dumped it in his lap, and then started serving himself while McBride did the same from the dishes nearest to him.
“Please tell me what Jonas did. I have a feeling it ties to why you’re worried about getting a thrall.”
“I’m not worried.” Ollie tried to smile, but joy never managed to light his eyes.
“You are.” McBride took a small portion of everything then tasted the roast first. It was beyond good. He’d never had meat so tender that he was able to cut into it with the side of his fork. “This is incredible.”
“Thank you.” When Ollie smiled this time, his honest pleasure transformed his whole face.
“Please tell me.”
Ollie dropped his attention to his plate and took several bites. McBride couldn’t force him to talk, but he thought if he were calm and open, he might be able to compel him to share. Whatever it was, it bothered the young man and seemed to embarrass him as well.
“Jonas was my father’s companion, and he’s the one who brought you here?” McBride already knew this for a fact, but he thought it would help to get Ollie started talking.
Ollie nodded. “He bought us when Bailey was finally old enough to be sold. Usually brothers get separated, but Jonas wanted all of us.”
“Were you happy to stay together?”
“I was. And I think my brothers were, too, even though Caleb would never admit the truth.”
“Caleb is different from the rest of you.” McBride tried to give it a rest, but he clearly couldn’t.
“Not so very much.”
“Jonas never fed from him?”
Ollie nodded, and McBride was pleased to have his suspicions, and Caleb’s claim, verified by a disinterested third party.
“Jonas was afraid of Caleb.”
“I can understand why. Wasn’t Jonas smaller than him?”
“He was smaller than all of us.”
“Then why did Caleb bother him and the rest of you didn’t?”
“Because the rest of us know our place is to serve our master.” Ollie nodded slightly in McBride’s direction. “Caleb didn’t like Jonas, so he refused to let him feed.”
“And Jonas didn’t punish him?” McBride took another bite of the roast and tried not to drool all over his plate. The vegetables were good, but the meat was divine.
“Oh!” Ollie shot out of his seat. “I have gravy, too.”
He fiddled with something on the stove then settled a pourable container near to McBride. Dutifully, he lifted it up and poured some over the meat and whipped potatoes. He took a bite and decided then and there that Ollie had to come and cook for him. Hell, he had to cook for everyone on the farm. His talents were utterly wasted in the field. Surely the cookbots could be retrofitted to plant the tallos. They wouldn’t be able to pick it, but they could surely drop the seeds into the ground and cover them up.
After praising Ollie to the heavens for his food, McBride asked again about Jonas and Caleb.
“When Jonas bought us, we lived with him in his house. Not here in Woven Spire, but over in Curve Port.” Ollie pointed in the general direction of the massive seaport town. McBride had been there once to conduct business for his farm. It was crowded, smelly, and noisy. He was very glad when he returned to Woven Spire. “We each had our own room, and he would come to us when he was…in need.”
The way Ollie said that made McBride’s belly tighten. “In need of what?”
“Blood.” After a very deep breath, Ollie added, “And sex.”
McBride pushed his plate away. He wasn’t hungry at all anymore. “He took you against your will?”
“No.” Ollie pushed his plate away as well. “Oh, I’m making a mess of this. Jonas only fed from my brothers, and he didn’t force me to—that is, I wanted to do—Jonas just had me…”
McBride almost didn’t want to hear him say it. If he spoke of what had been done to him, it seemed to make the pain more real. But then McBride thought of Alden, and how talking about the abuse helped him to realize he wouldn’t be treated that way here. McBride wasn’t a man who solved things with his fists, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else do so under his watch. Moreover, he wasn’t going to let one of his men suffer needless regret for what a landed gentryman had done to him against his will.
“Jonas had me do things to him.” Ollie turned very red and then rose to clear off the table.
Rising in turn, McBride reached out for Ollie, taking his hand gently and leading him into the living room. There was one small couch and a table. McBride put Ollie on the sofa and settled on the table directly across from him.
“What did you do to Jonas?” McBride needed to be clear if he was going to help. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions or make Ollie feel worse about what had happened.
“What does it matter?” Ollie looked out his front window toward the big house. “He’s gone now.” Ollie sounded sad, almost as if he missed Jonas desperately. That stunned McBride and made him think he had the situation wrong.
“I need to know. I can’t help you or your brothers unless I understand.”
“It won’t help you with Caleb.”
For a moment, McBride thought his liaison with Caleb had already been exposed, but Ollie’s next words disabused him of that notion.
“Jonas didn’t make Caleb so angry and rebellious. Caleb has always been that way. Although, the last few days he’s been nicer.” Ollie smiled. “I think he really took to heart that you won’t get him a thrall unless he behaves.”
“I’m not worried about Caleb.” Not outwardly, at any rate, McBride thought. “I want to help you.”
“Me? I’m fine.” Ollie fiddled with the seam on the side of his pant leg.
“You’re scared.”
“No.”
“You’re afraid of everything tumbling out when you get a thrall.” It was a guess, but apparently a good one.
Reluctantly, Ollie nodded. “I don’t want to think of Jonas when I’m with my mate.”
And that explained what Jonas had his slammers, or at least one of the Morgan brothers, do to him. Ollie had fucked Jonas at Jonas’s prompting. A part of McBride was so stunned he tried to push the information away, but he couldn’t. Once he knew, he couldn’t unknow the specifics. Like what his father had done with Jonas to a thrall, he now knew even more shocking details. Just what kind of a man was this Jonas?
“What you did with Jonas was what he ordered you to do. It’s not your fault.”
“Ordered me? No, you don’t understand.” Ollie’s gaze went soft focused and dreamy. “I did what he asked me to do because I wanted to do it. Jonas was so beautiful. Since he was smaller than me, I could pretend that he was my thrall.”
“And Jonas enjoyed that?”
“He loved it so much that he said he wanted to run away with me.” A mixture of shame and lust twisted Ollie’s features.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Jonas never should have asked for such things from you.”
“I know, but I also feel that maybe it was my fault that he did. I liked when he fed from me, so I was always stroking myself and I think he thought—well, it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone.”
“You stroke yourself with me and I don’t think that gives me the right to push you into a situation that isn’t of your choosing.”
“You’re different.” Ollie met McBride’s gaze. “You’re a man of law and order. You wouldn’t do something that broke the rules like that.”
The implicit trust Ollie had in him caused McBride a bit of shame for the wrongs he’d already committed with Caleb. And probably Gannon and Alden.
He racked his brain trying to think if it was wrong for him to drink from his slammer while he in turn drank and fucked his thrall. McBride didn’t think the law was as exact as that, but the fact that he was ashamed by being pushed by lust to do such a thing made it inherently wrong. He hadn’t forced either man to do his bidding, but he hadn’t discussed the situation before he simply acted on impulse.
“And I don’t want to lie.” Ollie looked down and then up. “I wanted to do those things to Jonas. I…I think I was halfway in love with him.”
Something softened in McBride’s heart. “Did Jonas love you back?”
“I think he did.” Ollie dropped his gaze to the floor again. “But Caleb said he was just using me.”
Was that why Caleb seemed so driven to lure McBride into a compromising position with him? It was just a way of getting back at the upper class.
“What do you think?” McBride asked softly. He thought Ollie was devastated when Jonas left without him and that was what had caused his stricken look at the notion of getting a thrall. Ollie wanted Jonas, but he realized that could never be.
“I think Jonas loved me in his way, but we couldn’t be together because of who he is.”
That was exactly what McBride had been thinking about Caleb, but now he was even less clear on what Caleb’s motives were. Revenge? Honest interest? A perverse need to see just how far he could go before McBride slapped him down? One thing was certain. Whatever Caleb’s reasons were didn’t matter. McBride was in charge, and he was the only one who could call a stop to the situation before it got completely out of hand.
Chapter 11
“Are you ever going to tell me the tale of how you got this scar?” Alden traced the line that went from Gannon’s hairline, down and across his eye, finally ending at a spot on his left cheek.
Gannon never wanted to tell that tale to anyone. Only his brothers knew the story, and he’d like to keep it that way. But Alden was his mate now. Lying to him was wrong and then Gannon would have to tell his brothers that he fibbed, so he decided he’d better tell the truth.
“When I was younger, I was very nosey.” Gannon recalled the dark and stark hallways of the slammer house. “Do you know where slammers come from?”
Gannon Morgan [Seven Brothers for McBride 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 10
