Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5)

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Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 26

by Lauren Gilley


  In the private room, one of the brothers shoved both his hands in Kev’s shoulder-length hair and tugged his face in close. His pupils were dilated, and Kev could feel the strength in his arms, the dangerous tension vibrating through him.

  “No kissing,” Ian snapped from the other side of the room, and the brother with his hands in Kev’s hair froze. It was the first thing Ian had said in his real voice, commanding and sharp, rather than the breathy, put-on moan he used with clients.

  “What?”

  Ian broke away from the other brother; his shorts were pushed nearly off his hips, and his shiny, straight hair was mussed, but his expression was wrathful. ‘There are rules in the private room. You’ll obey them, or you’ll be kicked out. No kissing.”

  “Yeah?” the first brother huffed, fingers digging into Kev’s scalp as he shot Ian a dark look. “And who’s gonna kick us out? You, fairy boy?”

  Oh no, Kev thought. Don’t say anything. He’d rather just kiss the man than risk Ian getting backhanded.

  Ian took a step toward the first brother, his smile nasty. “No, that would be Big John’s job.”

  The other brother caught Ian’s wrist in a grip so tight Kev could see Ian’s bones shift beneath his skin; his face contorted with pain. “Yeah?” the man asked. “And how’re you gonna call Big John in here with your mouth full?”

  Later, Kev would remember that there wasn’t a “no kissing” rule. Ian had made it up on the spot.

  ~*~

  “Loverboy,” Miss Carla said. “Congratulations. You get to go home with the dancing boys tonight.”

  Kev didn’t respond, attention focused on the split in Ian’s eyebrow. He dabbed it carefully with the alcohol-soaked rag, and Ian didn’t make a sound, the occasional facial twitch the only tell that it hurt like a son of a bitch. The skin around the split was red and puffy; the swelling would get worse. He might have a black eye. Makeup might not cover the bruising.

  Kev swallowed and tried to pretend his tongue didn’t taste bitter. He and Ian had chewed a handful of mints each, but the taste wouldn’t go away.

  “Did you hear me?” Miss Carla asked, voice edging toward anger.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll look after him,” Ian said.

  Miss Carla made a disgruntled sound, but moved on.

  It didn’t seem possible, given the sore, exhausted state of his body and spirit, but a small wisp of interest curled through Kev’s stomach. “I get to go home with you?”

  Ian gave him a fleeting smile, but his eyes sparked. That blend of sadness and excitement that always marked his face in Kev’s presence. “It’s not much, but it’s better than the basement.”

  After their shots – the pleasure surging in tides, making his head heavy, fuzzing his eyesight – they shuffled to the garage in the back of the club; they never saw the light of day or night here, only the club and the cars. Drunk off his injection, the pain fading to the periphery, Kev gladly climbed into a backseat and slumped down against Ian. Together. It didn’t matter where they were going, because they were together.

  ~*~

  Ian lived in an apartment with the other dancers. Run-down, sad-fronted building, five deadbolts on the door, bars over the windows. Bunkbeds in the bedroom, futons and sleeping bags in the living room. Fridge full of protein shakes and questionable fruit. Whole wheat bread; diet food. TV, radio, racks of dancing clothes and laundry baskets of threadbare street clothes.

  They were locked in. Some of Big John’s boys lived across the hall. Guards.

  As the prize dancer, Ian had the best spot: a futon snugged up against the window in the living room. It was draped with a ratty plaid blanket, two rumpled pillows at one end, the corners of a few cardboard boxes peeking out from underneath.

  “Here.” Ian stretched out on his stomach and patted the space beside him; the futon was just big enough for two and Kev settled in, mirroring the other boy’s position, on his stomach, braced up on his elbows. The window was open a crack, cool night air slipping in through the bars and caressing their faces.

  Ian leaned over the side, rummaged in one of the boxes, and came out with a crumpled pack of Kools and a lighter. He waggled his eyebrows at Kev. “Mentholated.”

  Kev had no idea what that meant, but he nodded like he was eager and accepted the cigarette Ian handed him. Leaned forward when the lighter sparked and mirrored Ian’s inhale.

  He choked, and thought he might throw up. Ian pounded him on the back a few times and the smoke found a place to settle inside his lungs. A strange numbness swept through him, a touch of calm, a faint tickle of the pleasure the injections brought.

  Ian exhaled a long stream of smoke toward the crack in the window; Kev watched it strike the glass and purl upward, diffusing in the air around them, choking and sweet.

  ~*~

  When Ian kissed him, his tongue tasted like the cigarettes they’d smoked. The other boys had bedded down, breathing deep, some of them snoring. Moonlight fell in through the window, shadow-stripes from the bars masking the full effect of Ian’s expression, the heat and despair in his eyes.

  “Let me make you feel good,” he whispered against Kev’s lips. “Let me show you.”

  He urged Kev onto his back, oh so gently, braced above him on his arms, his kiss deep and wet, searching until Kev felt a helpless pulse in his stomach and arched upward, trying to lean into the dance of their tongues. Ian’s fingertips started a slow, incendiary trail across his skin: along the lines of his collarbones, down his chest, teasing lightly at his nipples until they tightened and ached; his ribs, his stomach, a brief dip into his navel. A crawling, delicate sort of pleasure. A kind touch; he’d never had that. No one ever teased him like this, feather-soft, tender fingers on his tender skin.

  The kiss turned dark, exquisitely demanding, Ian’s tongue flickering deep. He palmed the sensitive skin below Kev’s navel, and then pushed his old frayed boxers down, baring his narrow hips and his rapidly-thickening sex. Ian’s touch seemed to go straight to his cock, and he was breathless, and hard, and his hips wanted to move in the way all his clients’ hips moved. That old primal urge the body knew without the mind’s input.

  Ian wrapped his hand around his cock, stroked him light and steady, pad of his thumb tracing along the head until Kev gasped.

  “That’s it, love,” Ian said, voice low and rough. “Just like that.”

  His hand found a rhythm, a pressure, a pace, thumb flicking over the head each time, spreading the drops of wetness that beaded there, until Kev’s cock was slick and hard, Ian’s hand moving faster and faster.

  He breathed in unsteady gasps, hands clutching at Ian’s shoulders, stunned by the reverence in Ian’s bruised face as it hung suspended over his.

  “Have you ever come before?” Ian asked, growling now, eyes fire-bright in the shadows. “Come now. Come for me.”

  The pressure in his spine built and built…and then he was melting and flying apart all at once. Spinning. Hips stuttering. Wordless sounds catching in his throat.

  Was this why men paid to take him into back rooms? Was this what they were chasing?

  Ian ducked his head, crawled down Kev’s body, and licked him clean.

  ~*~

  He was always hungry, and he always hated the dancing, and what came after, in private rooms with handsy clients who treated him like a doll. But then came the shot, the spreading pleasure, and then after, in the dark of the apartment, there was Ian, and another kind of pleasure.

  They lay in the dark, rutting together, hands tight against hips and ribs, the futon creaking beneath them. Ian held both their cocks in one long-fingered hand and the sensation whitened Kev’s vision at the edges. He’d had no idea friction could feel like this. Before Ian. So many horrible things had happened Before Ian. Good hadn’t exited Before Ian.

  “I want to try something,” Ian murmured, and Kev could only hum in response.

  Then Ian pulled his hand away and Kev whined low in his throat.
<
br />   Ian chuckled. “Just a minute, darling.” He leaned over the side of the futon to dig something from the boxes beneath.

  The crackle of the foil packet was like cold water across Kev’s flushed skin. He pushed up on his elbows, sucking a breath. “What…?”

  “Shh. It’s okay. I promise.” Ian knelt in front of him, between his legs, condom in one hand, small bottle of lube in the other. “Hey.” He dropped both onto the blankets and put his hands on Kev’s thighs, a warm, familiar, grounding touch.

  Kev struggled to breathe past the tight ball of panic swelling in his chest.

  Ian dipped down low to kiss him. Familiar heat of lips and tongue, gentle nibble of teeth. “It’s okay,” he promised. “I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

  It was, as all of the ones passed between them this far, an empty promise. Because they couldn’t be together always. But for this moment, and the moments between them, Ian wouldn’t let him get hurt. Kev believed that.

  He closed his eyes and pressed his face into Ian’s neck. “Okay,” he whispered, shaky. “I trust you.”

  With the clients, sex was about force. It was all rushed and angry. Though it never was with Ian, Kev tightened anyway, his entire body a coil of tense fear beneath his lover.

  But then he felt the pads of Ian’s fingers, cool and slick, and gentle as a whisper. Just a hint. A question.

  Kev released a breath and willed the tension from his limbs. It ebbed by slow degrees, as Ian stroked him, whispering endearments, touching him in a way no client ever had. With such care and patience.

  When Ian finally eased the tip of one finger inside him, he felt the stretch and the pressure, but no pain.

  “Okay?” Ian asked.

  “Okay.” And now Kev’s voice was shaky for a different reason.

  Time spun out, warm and slow, as Ian worked him open, his hair falling off his shoulders, his gaze reverent, like wringing quiet whimpers of awe and pleasure from Kev’s throat was a religious experience.

  “Yes, yes, love. Like that,” he murmured as Kev’s hips sought a rhythm. “You’re beautiful.”

  Ian found a place inside him that shot sparks up his spine. Kev gasped, and Ian’s fingers withdrew. “No,” he said, hands reaching, half-limp and useless. “No, I want–”

  “Shh. Just wait. I’ll take care of you.”

  The foil crinkled; soft sounds of the condom. Then Ian was pressing in closer between his legs, and then he was easing inside, inch by inch.

  And it was good. Sex was good.

  Afterward, tears filled Kev’s eyes, and Ian held him.

  ~*~

  He grew more docile. Not that he’d been resistant before, but he felt the last vestiges of fear, shame, and confusion leave him. He didn’t realize how tense and timid he’d been on the stage or in the back with the clients until he stopped caring. It didn’t feel like giving up; it felt like resignation. This was his life. He gave his body over to the men at The Nest every night, just as Ian did. And after closing time, when they were cuddled up on the futon by the window, they took possession of their skin again; they gave and received affection, pleasure, and tenderness. They took the control back. They allowed themselves the luxury of knowing what it was like to feel good.

  The tips got bigger, and the customers were happy, and Miss Carla noticed.

  She turned up at the apartment one morning, and her long wool coat confirmed what Kev had guessed from peering through the barred windows: it was wintertime outside.

  “We’re going shopping, Kevin,” she said. When Ian reached for his shoes, she said, “Just the two of us,” with a pointed look.

  Since Kev danced on a pole, got fucked up the ass most nights, and lived under lock and key, he figured there wasn’t much danger in going with her alone.

  Not alone, it turned out, because Max was waiting in the car. But it was daylight, and they were going for a drive somewhere, and the air was cold and stinging against his cheeks when they stepped out of the sedan in the parking lot of a department store.

  She held a thin stack of bills. “You may spend all of this. On whatever you want.” Then slipped the money back into her coat pocket.

  Was he dreaming? He could buy things? New things? Things for himself?

  And for Ian, he decided. He had to take a gift to Ian.

  Except…except Kev couldn’t remember going shopping. He didn’t know how, he didn’t…

  He was hyperventilating.

  “Hush, hush, baby,” Miss Carla said, wrapping a thin, strong arm around him, taking his weight as he slumped against her, suddenly weak with anxiety. “I’ll be with you every step. Come on, Max.” And they walked up to the big glass front of the store.

  It was all too much: the soft whoosh of the doors springing open automatically. The sudden swell of noise: voices bouncing off tile, the clatter of the wheels on a rolling rack of clothes, the squawk of employees’ radios, the high strains of tinny music floating from unseen speakers.

  Kev couldn’t breathe. His legs would barely hold him. Look at all the people, all the light, all the colors. It was…it was…it was…

  “Let’s go look for some things,” Miss Carla said in a sweet voice, her arm still around him, steering him toward menswear.

  In his mad panic, Kev retreated to a place deep inside his head, watching the shopping trip as if he was viewing it through a TV, like he wasn’t there at all. He was afraid he’d throw up if he opened his mouth. It was total sensory overload, and he could only nod and whimper as Miss Carla picked up item after item and held them up to him.

  She showed him silk ties, microfiber shirts, and heavy wool sweaters. Told him he was a size small and that he looked pretty in blue.

  Plastic garland, tinsel, and oversized ornaments decorated the displays: it must be coming up on Christmas time.

  A woman walked past them, gaze landing heavy on the tableau of Max holding Kev by the shoulders while Miss Carla held the heavy blue sweater up beside his face. Kev looked down at the floor; he could already feel the phantom strike of Max’s belt across his back, envision the pain he’d earn if he dared to make eye contact with anyone.

  Finally, finally, though, he found his voice. “I…can I…please,” he whispered. “I want to get one for Ian.”

  Miss Carla’s smile froze. “What did you say?”

  Kev closed his eyes and shivered. “I want to get a sweater for Ian, please. He gets cold.”

  For a long moment, all he heard was the Christmas music coming through the speakers, Max’s heavy breathing behind him.

  “I don’t know,” Miss Carla said, voice a low hiss. “You’d have to be an awful good boy to earn something like that.”

  “I will be. I promise.”

  Her face was tight with anger.

  He picked out the dark gray sweater for Ian, a medium, one size up from him.

  ~*~

  It didn’t matter that the cashier looked at Kev for a long, unsure moment, like she wanted to say something. Kev didn’t say anything, didn’t correct Miss Carla when she told the cashier that they were mother and son.

  It didn’t once occur to him to run away. To make a scene and cry out to anyone for help.

  Conditioning at its finest.

  ~*~

  Ian’s blue-green eyes widened, bright with shock when Kev handed him the present. They filled with tears when he saw the sweater, passed his hand down the front of it.

  “Thank you, darling.” He pulled Kev into a tight hug, kissing his temple, his forehead, his lips. “I love it.”

  ~*~

  Dancing was an athletic endeavor. It was all repetition, muscle memory, balance, and sheer strength, moving your own weight in elegant, graceful, gravity-defying arcs and dips. When Kev thought about it as entertainment – about the eyes on him, and the way certain movements of his hips drew cheers and fluttering dollar bills, the way they called for “Loverboy” – it overwhelmed him, heavy on his chest and shoulders, and his feet faltered. So he par
sed it down to what it was: exercise. And he didn’t think about the men watching him.

  ~*~

  Sex was an exercise too, and practice made perfect. Kev learned all the movements, all the little tricks. He moved his body accordingly, and he grit his teeth through the pain, and he allowed his body to be used as the tool it was.

  ~*~

  But what about when sex wasn’t exercise? When it was with Ian. What was that?

  ~*~

  He had food, and shelter, and Miss Carla took him shopping more and more. He was one of the favorite dancers, and the highest-paid boy after Ian. And then Ian – he had Ian, and the cigarettes they shared by the window, and their tumbled nights in the dark on the futon.

  He didn’t know what it was, only that it was his life.

  ~*~

  He’d been fourteen for three months when Miss Carla called him into her office one night. It was the wee hours, and out in the main part of the club, chairs were being stacked on tables and the cleaning crew passed mops across the tacky floor.

  “Sit down,” she told Kev without looking away from her computer, glasses on a rhinestone-studded chain perched on her nose as she scanned the screen.

  He did, squirming a little. He hadn’t had a chance to shower yet, and inside his sweatpants, his ass was still slick and damp with lube, drying now and getting itchy.

  “Kevin.” Carla’s fingers flew across the keyboard, little clicks and clacks. “You like your job, don’t you? You’re real good at it.”

 

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