by Scott, R. J.
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been a short visit and he had been so damned
overwhelmed.
Leaning sideways on the large comfortable cushions
he pressed a hand to his right temple. He had the headache from hell and only closing his eyes seems to lessen the pain.
"It's part of the healing process," Kayden's voice came from in front of him. Beckett couldn't even summon the energy to open his eyes. "You can have some more pain killers in an hour."
"Hurts," Beckett said softly. He heard the rustle of movement and then was encouraged to sit upright. He
didn't want to move. His shoulders ached, his neck hurt, and his temples throbbed with pain.
"Come here, kid." Kayden insinuated himself behind and to the left of Beckett and encouraged him to lean back against him between his spread legs.
"Not a freaking kid," Beckett mumbled through the pain in his head.
Kayden just chuckled, the bastard. But all thoughts
of turning around and smacking the doc fled as Kayden firmly pressed at the knots in Beckett's shoulders and moved his fingers in a regular rhythm.
"You're tense here and it's causing the blood flow to be restricted and that is why you have the headache. We
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need to ease this."
"'Kay," Beckett murmured. He was tired and sore but he really tried to relax the iron across his shoulders simply because Kayden wanted him to. Kayden's fingers didn't stop their magic; they seemed to find every single tight place and every inch that hurt. Gradually, warmth built up around his neck and throat and as Kayden's touch slid down his arms the heat began to spread throughout his body.
"That's good," Kayden whispered. "I can feel the tension sliding away."
"Uh huh," Beckett managed.
"Relax back against me."
Beckett didn't argue. He allowed his entire weight
to slump back and Kayden held firm. Such a long time had passed since he'd last snuggled on a sofa. God, it was difficult to remember the last time. Probably in college.
Since then his love life had been kind of slow. He wasn't asking for sex or anything like that, but cuddling was nice.
This gentle support and firm grip from Kayden made him able to forget everything that was worrying him. Not his mom, or his dead birth father, or his uncles, or even the silver key that Manny was bringing back here. His head rested in a natural space above Kayden's shoulder and to the right of his head. Eyes still closed, he turned his face.
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Kayden's breathing had quickened when Beckett relaxed back and he was hard in all the right places. Clearly he was enjoying this impromptu massage as much as Beckett.
Kayden's lips met his and Beckett immediately
opened his mouth to taste and invite. The kiss was an incredible mix of one moment being lazy taste and the next impatient need. Kissing like this, open and welcoming and so hot with Kayden's hands sliding down his chest and finding his nipples, was intense. He squirmed and tried to talk but the words were swallowed by Kayden deepening their connection. Beckett wanted Kayden on bare skin and he pulled his T-shirt up until the doctor had access to his chest. Kayden, damn it, chuckled and focused all his attention on Beckett's nipples and abs.
"So gorgeous," he whispered.
Beckett pushed himself up. He wanted those hands
on his dick which was up and begging for touch. The
kissing grew more languorous and Beckett lifted a hand to trace the stubble on Kayden's jaw. He might have his eyesight back but by closing his eyes he could fill his senses with everything Kayden. The scent of him, the pressure of his fingers as they travelled to rest on the waistband of his sweats, and the taste of him, like an aphrodisiac in his mouth. Kayden moved his hand to slide beneath the soft cotton.
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A strong hand encircled him and the other moved
lower to explore. Kayden was testing the weight of him, pressing gently and then sliding his other hand up the full length of him. He moved to press back against the hand but Kayden stopped the movement by moving a hand and
pressing against his hip.
"Relax," he said. "Let me. Beck, let me." The words were hypnotic and he repeated them over and over. His rhythm was smooth, even gentle and it wasn't enough to get Beckett off on its own. He pushed past the frustration of not being able to move and instead he let that last single chain of tension snap and gave himself over totally to Kayden.
He sighed as the movement of Kayden's hand changed in response; firmer and faster with a wicked twist at his tip each time. Sensation chased his spine and he was so close in the space of a few strokes.
Kayden gentled the kiss until it was nothing more
than the taste of each other and the exchange of heated breath. At the last minute, when the point of no return was reached and he knew he was finished, Beckett opened his eyes. Kayden's eyes were heavy-lidded with passion and he was staring directly at Beckett. His balls tightened and fire travelled inside his every nerve as he came, his cry of completion muffled in their kiss. Exhaustion stole over him as, boneless, he allowed Kayden to support every molecule
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of him. Never before had something as intense as this ever happened to him.
"As much as I'd like to stay here, we really need to move," Kayden said.
He helped Beckett stand and supported him as he
swayed. All the blood had clearly gone to his dick because he felt dizzy and lethargic. "Here."
Beckett felt pills pressed on his tongue and he
swallowed them with water from the cup placed to his lips.
Kayden looked amused and for a second Beckett felt shame at what had just happened. Not only had he received the best hand job of his life; the most erotic experience ever.
But he had left Kayden probably still as hard as when they started. Gently he pressed a hand to Kayden's dick and felt damp sweats. With a smile he looked up into Kayden's eyes and he couldn't help but smirk at the evidence he had just found.
"What did you expect?" Kayden offered dryly. "The sounds you were making and the way you just let me—it would test a saint. Now. Bed."
Beckett felt less like a kid being sent to this room than the night before and more like a man who was
severely fucked out and he wasn't going to argue. Using Kayden for support when his legs refused to co-operate they finally made it to his bed. Climbing in, he pulled the
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covers up around his ears and heard the snick of the door as Kayden left.
For a while he laid there and allowed the afterglow
to sink into every muscle. Then, with his head clear of worries, at least until his nightmares chased him down, he slept.
* * * *
"Manny is taking the code, your key and Austin's key to the bank to retrieve whatever is in the box."
Beckett surfaced from sleep an inch at a time and
opened his eyes to see Kayden leaning over him.
Languorously stretching, he reached out to touch the other man but Kayden took a step back and made busy with
checking a folder he held in his hand. Beckett didn't wait to even begin to analyze the movement which at first glance appeared like a retreat. He remained floating on the calm of dreamless sleep and images from the previous day. Nothing was going to spoil his feeling of contentment and safety.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yu-huh," Beckett answered.
"Can you write d
own your part of the code?"
"Manny has the code…" on the letter he had taken from Gregory.
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"Manny has half a code; forensics can't pull out the other part of it."
Alertness filtered through Beckett until he fully
realized what Kayden was saying. Manny was retrieving the box and needed the code that Beckett had read once before being attacked by his uncle. He knew it had letters and numbers in it. But the whole code?
"I don't remember the code." He sat up and winced at the pain across his forehead. Shit. He thought he had chased the headache away. "Not the whole of my part."
"Shit." Kayden ran a hand through his short curls.
Then gripped his hair tight and looked to be deep in thought. "I hoped you weren't going to say that."
"I thought Manny would be able to retrieve the
information."
Kayden took to pacing. With his forehead creased
in a frown he crossed from drawers to door and back again.
"So did I. How much do you remember?" He stopped his journey across the wooden floor, opened the file and waited with his pen poised. Jeez. Beckett wasn't even fully awake.
He recited what he could remember but knew for damn
sure there were at least three letters missing.
Kayden considered the letters and then, tapping his
pen on the folder, he clearly came to some kind of decision.
"Like the idea of a road trip Beck?"
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"Road trip?" he repeated. Road trip where?
"Manny has the keys and Austin's part of the code.
We need to get you to the bank, see if proximity helps you remember."
Beckett sat up and slid back so the pillows
supported him. "Wait. I thought it wasn't safe for me to go anywhere. My eyesight is still blurred and what if I'm being watched?"
"You're safe. No one knows you're here. No one has any idea what Sanctuary is. If they don't know where you're coming from, or where you're heading then they're not going to get to you. There is no obvious connection
between you and the bank. It's a quick in and out when we get there and Manny and I will have your back."
Beckett thought on this for a few seconds. He
glanced over at Kayden who stood by the door with a look of expectation. Manny the IT nerd and Kayden the doctor?
"Manny and you?" He wasn't trying to be offensive but Manny looked like a stiff wind would knock him over and as for Kayden? Kayden was the doctor and Beckett didn't think a gruff bedside manner counted as an ability to kick ass. "Look. No offense, but where's Dale? If we have to do this then surely we need someone to come with us?
Someone good with his fists who at least knows how to shoot." Kayden narrowed his eyes and then crossed his
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arms over his chest.
"Manny and I have received the same training as Dale. I think we can manage to look after one scrawny kid." Raising a single eyebrow he waited for Beckett to reply and when Beckett couldn't think of anything else to say without insulting Kayden outright he backed off.
"Why do I need to go anyway?" Maybe he should try this defense instead. "Can't I just try and think here?"
God. Was he sounding a whiny child or what? Terror at facing the unknown whilst still with blurry vision was merely coming over as being pissy.
"I considered that. But against my better judgment maybe the other letters in the code will make sense when you're at the bank. Hell maybe you can prove who you are another way. Whatever your mom put in there was leverage against the Bullens and we need to get to it before they get to you."
Beckett's stomach sank and his heart raced at the
words. Kayden was right. This wasn't some damn cat and mouse game where he could sit here and wait on things to happen to him.
"I think I can remember more. I'll try to remember."
Kayden looked confused. "You think you can?"
"Unless Manny can decipher what was on the rest of the letter then let's hope I can."
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"Get a shower and pack your things, kid. We're
hitting the road." Kayden left and Beckett looked around at the sterile room. All he had was the clothes he'd found in the wardrobe. He didn't have a cell phone. Or money.
Nothing.
He didn't have 'things'. Tiredly he stood and
stretched. Shower first.
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CHAPTER 10
"Why do you call me kid?" Beckett asked. It was a way of breaking the silence in the car. "I'm twenty-one, you know."
"So you told me," Kayden answered as he indicated to pull out onto the main highway.
"Hell, you're not much older than me."
"Not in years, no," Kayden replied agreeably.
"What do you mean by that?" Beckett watched as Kayden shrugged. The shrug irritated him. They had over an hour to kill in the car and local radio was not cutting it.
"Are you saying that you have had more life experience than having your mom ripped from you at four, being
brought up with another family, losing those parents to cancer, and then being beat up by two men? One who was your biological father and the other your uncle?"
Kayden snorted and then concentrated on pulling
off of the highway and onto a back road. He'd already explained they would be using somewhat of a convoluted route to get to Albany so it didn't surprise Beckett to see the stands of trees that they passed.
"My upbringing was unconventional to say the
least," Kayden finally offered.
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"Unconventional?" This sounded interesting. Was Kayden going to offer something up of himself? Like a back story as to why he worked with Sanctuary and why at the young age of twenty-six he was not only a doctor but was also tasked with watching and guarding. Kayden
glanced at him thoughtfully and didn't say anything at first.
"Unconventional how?" Beckett pressed.
"Have you ever heard of places in the middle of the woods, and when I say woods, I mean forests, where
groups of people get together and live?"
"Like a commune you mean? Don't tell me your real first name is River or Mountain?"
"No," Kayden smiled and shook his head, "not a commune, not like that. No hippies or chanting or weird religious stuff. I mean secure communities on private land where ex-forces guys congregate."
"I saw something like that on Discovery once. A place up in the mountains that was this stronghold for this disparate group of ex-Vietnam veterans. A whole
community with wives and kids…" Beckett's voice trailed away. Kayden had been raised in a community like that?
He didn't even think they still existed. What about
education? Kayden seemed like a well-rounded, normal, intelligent guy who had years of college and medical school behind him; he was a doctor.
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"Yeah, that's the kind. With twelve foot fences and weapons and all the self-sufficiency stuff that goes with it.
My dad was ex-forces, my mom your typical pie making momma. I was six when our family turned from being a normal forces family to being one that got involved in a place in the middle of freaking nowhere in Oregon."
"Wow," Beckett said. "That's one hell of an experience."
"You don't say," Kayden replied. His voice d
ripped with sarcasm. "This documentary you saw. What
happened?"
"The community was disbanded. I think there was some talk of some of the guys getting into trouble with the cops and ending up—" Sudden realization hit Beckett. Was the place that he saw burning on the TV the same one that Kayden had been in? He wracked his brains to try and remember where the compound had been but recalled little except for the remote isolation of it and the fact that the welfare of the children and families there made the law intervene.
"That was my home. I wasn't there when it all went to shit. My dad had told me to go long before that. With an old army buddy of his who promised he would show me a real life away from the compound. I ended up with a
brother in Jake Callahan, the guy who created and funds
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Sanctuary."
"Was he one of the men who died?"
"My dad? Yeah, he was. He wasn't well but I didn't know that at six or even at fourteen. All of them needed help but the reason they were there in the compound was more for other people than themselves."
"You mean they didn't think they were safe to be around?"
"We have twenty minutes to kill before we can get onto the next stage of this." Kayden sighed and pulled off the road and onto the grass verge under the trees. He kept the engine idling and turned in his seat. "My dad was the gentlest, most creative man I have ever met. He could spin stories from thin air and he was also so much in love with my mom. He doted on me and he desperately wanted to
make a secure life for us all and for me to never fight for a country that he felt deserted him when he needed them.
That was on the rational days. They were few and far between. PTSD is a like a whole reprogramming of the way a person sees life. Dad would almost re-experience
