Death By C*ck (Fetish Alley Book 2)

by Susan Mac Nicol

  Tate frowned. “I have no clue.” He wasn’t a fan of sweets or gum.

  Rick nodded. “I suppose you didn’t see any faces, or get a name, even the gender of the killer?” he asked wistfully. “You know, anything to make my job a bit easier in finding a murderer?”

  Taylor shook his head ruefully. “No, mate, sorry.” He frowned. “I did get a glimpse of the colour red, it seemed to be everywhere. Like a cloud floating around the room?” He closed his eyes, seemingly thinking back to his experience. “I know this won’t make much sense either, but I kept seeing a bear.”

  Rick’s jaw dropped. “A bear? What kind of bear?”

  “A bear,” Taylor said impatiently. “A brown one, short glimpses of one flashing in and out. It seemed important somehow.” He opened his eyes and stared up at the others. “Does that mean anything in the context of your investigation?”

  Tate pursed his lips. “Well, there’s that godawful stuffed one out in the shop, but I doubt he killed anyone,” he said drily. “And while he’d make a great witness, being there at the time, I’m pretty sure we’ll get nothing out of him.”

  “Sorry, guys. That’s all I can see. It’s not much, but I hope it helps.” Taylor brushed long, curly dark hair away from his face. He gratefully accepted the bottle of chilled water Tate held out to him, having finished the one he brought. “Thanks, mate. Scrying is thirsty work.”

  “Scrying?” Tate frowned. He hitched his arse farther onto the desk and nudged Clay, who sat next to him, with his elbow. “Look at you, using fancy words.”

  Taylor smiled tiredly. “What we in in the trade call peeking or revealing stuff in events. Past, present, future…” Taylor shrugged. “Whatever. It gives us a window into something that happened.”

  “Thanks, Tay.” Rick reached out and squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t know what all of it means, but I’m sure it will make sense at some stage of the investigation.”

  Given Rick’s earlier promise of an ice cream cone, Tate insisted they get their reward and poor Rick was sent out to procure ice cream for everyone.

  Ten minutes later, ice cream cone in hand, Taylor was on his way and after having said their good-byes, Clay and Tate made their way to the tube station for the journey home. Tate lapped at his ice cream and hummed with pleasure. “This is good,” he mumbled as he licked the sweet, cold nectar from his lips.

  Clay nodded, his mouth rimmed with white. “Better than a Big Mac.” Tate wanted to kiss the residue off Clay’s lips but restrained himself. A busy tube station entrance wasn’t really the place for a PDA.

  Finishing their treat, the two men made their way down to the lower level of the tube station. “It’s weird seeing Taylor do his thing,” Tate murmured as they boarded the train and stood squashed in the packed entrance. “Any idea what he said have any relevance?” He wrinkled his nose as a particularly pungent-smelling man lifted his arms to grip the overhead rail. Even Clay caught the whiff of stale sweat and body odour.

  “Well, he knew JJ’s chest was compressed, which corresponds to the autopsy report, and he knew JJ had choked on something. Plus he smelled the perfume, as we did, so it did affirm certain things. I have no idea what the floating red bit was,” Clay said. “I guess we’ll have to keep investigating and figure it out.”

  Tate leaned in closer. “Something about the colour red is drifting around the edges of my memory. I’m sure someone’s said something about it before, but I’m damned if I can remember who and what it was about.”

  Clay chuckled. “God, we make a right pair, don’t we? Growing old sucks.” He steadied himself as the train swung from side to side then stopped. “It’ll come to you,” he murmured as Mr BO got off the train. They both breathed a sigh of relief. “Until then, we keep plugging away at whatever we find. Do another interview with the awful Ms Vos and keep looking. Something’ll turn up. It always does.”

  Chapter 8

  The nightclub in Graffiato Animé was down in the basement of the house that served as the formal club. Access was gained via a set of huge wooden doors, inset with peepholes.

  Tate and Clay had been admitted entrance half an hour ago, after Clay airily waved a note at the bouncer. It was a handwritten one from Aurelio allowing them free entry instead of paying the twenty-pound entrance fee. Tate had grinned to himself at that. Clay had no problem digging deep into his pockets to leave homeless people money, but he baulked at paying what he called an exorbitant entry fee when the owner happened to be a personal friend.

  His lover was a mass of contradictions.

  Tate now watched in fascination and horror as a woman clad in a tight Lycra bodysuit twirled above him. She was suspended from a chain fixed to the nightclub’s ceiling with only the hooks in her shoulder blades and back keeping her there. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what that felt like other than it must fucking hurt.

  Even Clay looked a little green. “Jesus,” he shouted over the music. “That’s not something you see every day. When Relio said tonight was a full-on fetish event, I had no idea I’d be seeing that.” He scrunched his eyes up in concentration. “I mean, how the hell does she not tear the hell out of her body?”

  The nightclub was humming, packed to the rafters with people of all shapes, sizes, and proclivities. Trance music blared from a stage filled with equipment and lights, the DJ rocking it bare chested with the biggest mohawk Tate had ever seen.

  People milled around in various costumes and attire, and the club seemed somewhat edgier than some Tate had been to, but it wasn’t all unusual.

  Saying that…Tate’s eyes bugged as a particularly large man dressed in nothing but leather chaps and a large semi-hard cock pierced with various metal doo-dahs brushed past him with a sly, inviting smile. Tate ignored the man’s beckoning finger and sultry lick of his lips and aloofly averted his gaze back to the woman above.

  Clay laughed. “I think he fancies you.” He came closer, murmuring in Tate’s ear as his fingers brushed Tate’s. “Fancy a leather daddy?”

  Tate shook his head. “I’ve got all the leather daddy I need right here.” His hand reached out to lightly cup Clay’s balls under the leather trousers he wore. “I’m pretty sure we have a pair of chaps like those at home. Maybe a little role play wouldn’t go amiss.”

  He smiled at Clay’s hissed “Jesus” as he gave one last squeeze to Clay’s groin. Not for the first time his gaze travelled over Clay. When his lover had come out of the bedroom wearing a tight pair of deep brown leather trousers, showing every line of his cock (which was tucked snugly to the left), and sporting a bronze mesh cut-off shirt, through which rosy nipples protruded, Tate had wanted to fuck Clay there and then. He’d seen Clay dressed for clubs before, but never quite as sexy or commanding as he looked now.

  Relio had told them in no uncertain terms that if they came to the club night, they needed to look the part, even if neither of them had any piercings. Which was why Tate was wearing a similar outfit, but his was in black. And his shirt wasn’t mesh, it was some sort of tight, matte black lycra—the shiny stuff made him look too BDSM and besides, he sweat like a bitch in the material—that showed off every line of his torso and sleeves gripped his biceps like a snugly wrapped python. It wasn’t a shirt that Tate had in his wardrobe already and it had taken shopping at a few places to decide what he felt comfortable in.

  Clay’s gaze had expressed quite clearly what he thought when he’d seen Tate dressed up for the first time. Their mutual turn-on had prompted an emergency jerk-off session in the bathroom to relieve them both.

  When Aurelio had invited them to the event tonight, billed in the media programme as “Body Art and Piercing,” Tate had imagined a lot of people decked out in metal, sure, but not to the extent he’d seen tonight. He’d had no idea you could even put things in places he’d seen pierced.

  On his left, a man knelt on all fours with a puppy tail protruding from his backside. His proud owner, the woman holding the leash attached to the collar around the
man’s neck, gave Tate a toothy smile and a wink. Her face was studded with piercings.

  “When Aurelio said, ‘come along to the club night, it’ll be fun,’ I should have known his aim was to get me to see all this,” Tate growled as he waved a hand around the dance floor. A strobe light hit him in the eyes and he closed them instinctively. When he opened them, all he could see were light flashes. He grabbed Clay’s hand, grounding himself. “The bastard thinks I’m all vanilla and shit, but what does he know? Sure, it’s not all my thing but who cares? As long as they like it, that’s all that counts.”

  Clay stared at him. “Babe, one thing you aren’t is vanilla, I promise. Stop letting Relio get in your head. You know he loves to fuck with you.”

  Tate preened at Clay’s words. “Too fucking right. I’m a badass and I can do kinky.” A hand pinched his backside and he whirled around. “What the hell?” The same leather daddy who’d eyed him up earlier was walking away with a swagger. “Jesus, dude, boundaries much?”

  Clay grinned. “Relio thought it would be good to see the club in full swing for a change. I know he wants a progress report on JJ’s murder.” He snorted. “We can meet him in his office around eleven-thirty, so another half an hour. He was doing his thing as an MC somewhere for a private group.” Clay tightened his fingers around Tate’s. “So not too long to wait. You know, I rather like seeing people hit on you. Makes me feel good knowing I’m the only one who gets to take you home.”

  “Yeah? Maybe we should show these fuckers who owns who.” Tate pulled Clay over, fitting snugly against his body, and took his boyfriend’s mouth in a kiss that would leave people in no doubt to whom Tate belonged. Or whom Clay belonged to either. Whatever.

  Standing there on a crowded dance floor, surrounded by the beat of the music, the musky scent of sweat and pleasure, Tate let the man in his arms know he was the only one for him.

  Both of them were turned on when they pulled apart, and the tight trousers were doing fuck-all to hide it. Tate grinned as he tried unsuccessfully to adjust himself.

  “I guess we should grab a drink before we go to see Aurelio. It’ll take a while to get one, that bar is heaving. Come on. I’ll lead.” He forged his way through the crowd toward the back where the bar was, a long swathe of metal and wood that ran half the length of the room. As expected, they waited fifteen minutes to get a drink from a bartender who couldn’t keep his eyes off Clay. Then they stood at the counter, Tate sipping his bourbon and Clay his whisky.

  “I think he likes what he sees,” Tate murmured in Clay’s ear. “He is eye-fucking you.”

  Clay looked over at the man, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two if that. The young man was dressed in nothing more than tight leather briefs that rode up the swell of firm ass cheeks, and a leather harness across his chest. His nipples were rouged red, and curly blond hair was styled artfully over one side of his face and shaven on the other side.

  “That’s trouble with a capital T,” Clay chuckled. “More Aurelio’s type than mine. Cute and sexy is his style. I like dark and dangerous.” His eyes lazily swept up Tate’s body. “And I intend on making the most of you in that outfit when we get home tonight. Or should I say, out of that outfit.”

  Tate’s groin flared with heat. “Jesus,” he groaned. “Don’t give me more of a hard-on than I’ve got or else we’ll have to make another bathroom trip. These damn trousers are fucking cock traps.”

  Suddenly, Clay nudged Tate. “Look over there. Isn’t that Tomas?”

  Tate squinted across the room at the slim figure of a young man dressed head to toe in a shiny silver bodysuit that left little to the imagination. His short brown hair was slicked back, revealing sharp features and a pouty pair of lips that shone in the dark with a surreal blue glow.

  “It is Tomas,” Tate acknowledged as the young man disappeared into a small room, shutting the door behind him. “We knew he was staying here, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. I guess he decided to join in the festivities.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “He looked pretty hot I must say. Aurelio must be enjoying himself.” He grinned wickedly. “I bet he knows where every piercing is on Tomas’s body by now.” He crinkled his forehead. “Crap, now I want to know where they are too.”

  Clay huffed in amusement. “Pervert.” He frowned. “I’ve never had the urge to pierce anything, even when I was a teen. Does that make me the weird one? Nowadays, it’s all about tattoos and piercing and body art.”

  Tate chuckled. “I have the tattoo, but like you, I’ve never fancied getting metal bits stuck in me.” His stomach roiled as a memory hit him, and he pushed it back. His now deceased lover and torturer wheedling him to have his dick pierced with a Prince Albert wasn’t something he wanted to think about. Ever. Tate took a fierce gulp of his drink, finishing it, and slammed the empty glass down on the bar counter. He waved to the bartender for another round, knowing it would probably take a while given the crowd still swamping the bar.

  Clay raised an eyebrow. “Thirsty?” His eyes narrowed and Tate cursed the fact Clay knew him so well. “You okay? You seem a bit edgy all of a sudden.”

  Tate nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He shifted and leaned back against the counter.

  Clay nodded, but he was watchful. He reached out and stroked Tate’s hand, which was currently perched on the bar top tapping a nervous ditty. “Not too long now. We can have another drink and then make our way to his office.”

  Tate nodded, enjoying the slow strokes of Clay’s fingers on his, grounding him. Things didn’t go to shit when Clay was around. He was a strong, calming presence in Tate’s life, and Tate didn’t know how he’d ever gotten so lucky.

  The bartender finally got their fresh round to them. He gave Clay a lascivious lick of his lips as he handed the drink over. Tate didn’t miss the brush of the other man’s fingers against Clay’s wrist. Clay didn’t pull back but watched in amusement as slim fingers danced along his arm.

  “You are so damned hot, Daddy,” the youngster said, eyes gleaming with promise. His nametag showed his name: Fabian. “You and your partner fancy a third tonight? I’m throwing my hat into the ring for that if so.”

  Tate swallowed the laughter that welled up. Daddy? He supposed Clay did give off that air. Clay skilfully extracted his wrist from the grasp the server had on his arm and shook his head ruefully. “I’m flattered, truly I am, but we’re not into sharing. I’m sure you’ll find someone else willing to take you up on your offer.”

  Fabian’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “What a pity. I would have loved to be spit roasted by the two of you. Another time, perhaps.” He blew a kiss at them and sashayed off to service another customer.

  Tate sniggered. “It’s not every day we get an offer like that. I mean, spit roasted?” He dragged a finger down Clay’s cheek. “The only spit roasting we do is on the bloody BBQ.”

  Because I’d never be into seeing you with anyone else, even with me in the foray.

  Clay burst into laughter. “Christ, how boring are we?” He drained his drink, still chuckling. “Come on. Let’s go see what’s up with Relio.”

  They fought their way through the nightclub, back toward the wooden doors guarded by three of the biggest bouncers Tate had ever seen. He certainly wouldn’t want to meet up with them on a dark night. One of them looked as if he’d use human bones to pick his teeth.

  Once they’d passed through the doors that shut softly behind them, the rest of the club, while not quiet, was less frenetic. The foyer teemed with people drinking, picking glasses of champagne off trays borne by smiling people of all genders, dressed in identical costumes of the club colours—tight, shiny black unisex shorts and gold lamé t-shirts. The hum of laughter and chat, the occasional squeal of disbelief, and the exuberance of the crowd slid into Tate’s ears like the slow slide of silk across skin.

  He followed Clay over to Aurelio’s office, and stood behind him as Clay knocked on the door. “Aurelio, it’s Clay. We okay to come in?” He winked at Tate. “I’d hate hi
m to be doing someone over his desk. We don’t need another Rick situation.”

  Tate burst into laughter at that. He too remembered the day Rick had come to Tate’s place uninvited and found him and Clay in the throes of fucking over the couch. Clay had been balls deep in him and poor Rick had seen everything.

  There was a moment’s silence then, “Yes, please enter,” rumbled out from behind the door. Clay opened the door and stepped in, Tate on his heels. The door clicked shut behind them.

  Aurelio sat behind his desk and stood up to greet them with a smile. “Clay, Tate. Welcome. I trust you had some fun in the nightclub first?”

  He came around the desk to greet them. Tate admitted the man cut a fine figure in his tight-fitting dove grey silk suit. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms rich with dark tattoos. The black mesh shirt he wore beneath showed off his torso and Tate’s eyes were drawn to the silver rings in each brown nipple.

  Jesus. Tattoos and piercings. Who knew the man could look so…badass? I wonder where else he has piercings?

  Tate’s stomach fell. I wonder if Clay knows where all his piercings are? The thought pissed him off and he tried to tamp his jealousy down to a slow burn rather than the one that made him want to drag Clay out of the room by his hair while beating his chest.

  Jesus, caveman much?

  Eyes narrowed, he watched as Aurelio embraced Clay and they shared some soft laughter then Aurelio turned to Tate, eyes appraising him in appreciation.

  “You both clean up so nicely,” he teased as he shook hands. Tate noticed he didn’t merit a hug. “I’m sure you’ve had quite a bit of attention in the club, looking as you do.”