It wasn’t long before I felt the knot in my low belly tighten, and I was over the edge again.
This time, the come dribbled out from the tip of my cock as I moaned, flowing down the bumps of my knuckles like a fountain.
Not long after I came, my Sir moved his hands down to my hips and burrowed his fingers into my flesh, pulling me onto his cock as hard as he could.
There was a breath sucked in through teeth followed by a grunting noise, and then I felt more hot liquid inside my ass.
His cock was pulsing inside of me, and for a moment, it felt like my heart was beating in time with it.
I slid against him, the sweat of our bodies lubricating us as I leaned my head back on his shoulder in relief.
Complete nirvana coursed through me.
“Good, boy, good boy…” my Sir whispered in my ear.
I could feel his heartbeat racing through my back.
I’d never felt so close to someone in my entire life. I didn’t know you could feel this close to someone.
With a few breaks in between, we continued for three or four more sessions. By the end of playtime, I was completely spent, laying on the mattress next to my Sir.
I was so mired in the bliss of multiple orgasms that I was barely conscious. But sometime in there, I was aware of being carried up a flight of stairs and tucked into a fresher, cleaner bed.
The person that got into bed next to me wasn’t my Sir; it was Adam.
He’d taken off his Dom outfit and donned a pair of soft boxer-briefs. He wrapped his thick arm around me and pulled me into spooning.
“I love you so much, Luke,” he said, kissing the back of my neck gently. “You did so good today in the playroom. And before then, at the munch.”
He ran a thick hand through my hair, caressing me.
“I love you too,” I managed to whisper, my voice raspy from all the orgasms that had ripped through my vocal cords. “You’re so perfect.”
“I worship you, you know that?” he said gently into my ear, holding me close. “Do you even know how amazing you are? At the munch, there wasn’t a single eye in the room that wasn’t on you. You’re magnetic.”
My memory went back to the munch and the conversation I had with Lily. The discussion about collars, and the feeling of wanting to know what it was like to have one around my own neck.
To carry even more of a visible symbol that I belonged to Adam. It would be a symbol of pride — of being part of the kink community as well as a mark of my loyalty to Adam.
“I… kind of want a collar,” I admitted.
Adam
In the next few days at the station, I did everything I could to research Fenwick. No luck; the guy was squeaky clean. On paper, he was some Harvard grad who’d risen to the top ranks of wall street. There was a lifetime of donations, philanthropy, and good deeds in his wake.
Though every time I thought about him, I’d feel that tingling on the back of my neck.
A unique kind of madness took over me. There had to be a word for it — this feeling of knowing something to be the truth with your heart, but unable to prove it. Only my intuition could be sure that Fenwick was the killer.
But intuition wasn’t enough to hold up in a court of law, or even enough to start an official investigation. So I was stuck spinning my wheels, knowing that only I knew the truth.
The only way to verify it would be for him to wait to text Luke — because he surely would — and invite him over.
“You still thinkin’ about Fenwick?” Claire asked me as we drove through the slushy streets in the squad car.
“How could you tell?” I said grumpily.
“Cuz you got that focus, man. It’s like OCD. If it makes you feel any better, know that I’ve been thinkin’ about it too.”
“You believe me?” I asked, trying not to let the surprise course through my voice too heavily.
“‘Course I do. You’re my partner and I trust you. You said you got that tingly thing on the back of your neck — well, I got it too. And what you told me about this Fenwick guy doesn’t sound right.”
I’d told Claire about meeting him, but I left out the circumstances. When she asked about details of where I’d met him, I just told her me and Luke were at the Speakeasy.
I made sure not to mention that it was a munch. Though, I didn’t know how long I could conceal that fact from Claire. She was curious and observant — a perfect combination for an excellent cop.
And it wasn’t lost on me that she was trying to surprise me with questions so that I might betray more details about meeting him. She’d lead me off to another subject, like some drama with her and her boyfriend, or what her parents were up to, or other mundane details of her life. Then pow! She’d fire a question about meeting Fenwick at me.
She would make an excellent interrogator.
I was doing an excellent job of avoiding her questions, though it began to make me wonder… why was I hiding my kink life from her? From the world?
Well, there was my job, for one. My reputation. None of my friends knew about it, none of my family. What I did in the bedroom could stay in the bedroom.
Though, when it came to Luke’s safety, did it really matter what Claire knew?
I chanced a sideways glance at her.
A small smile curled across her face like she was enjoying herself.
Abruptly, the car stopped.
“What the hell, Claire?” I growled as my body jerked forward.
“Oops, didn’t mean to break that hard,” she said.
I looked up and realized we were in Murder Central — that place with all the shipping containers down by the dock. No other cars were around.
“Are we going to take another look at the factory?” I asked, wondering why we were here.
She put the car in park and turned to face me. “Adam, you’re not being honest with me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my heart thrumming against my ribcage.
“You were at a munch, weren’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Her eyes were boring into me, digging for the truth the way a tick digs into skin.
“…yes,” I admitted. “How did you know?”
“You’re so obvious,” she said with a smirk. “It’s easy to tell when you’re being sketchy. You’re bad at lying.”
“…I can’t disagree with you there,” I said, looking at my hands. “But I was only there for research.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Excuse me?”
She rolled her eyes at me, and her chestnut hair spilled over her shoulder. “Big Guy, please. I have a sensitive nose.”
She touched the tip of her nostril.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means I sit two feet away from you most days, and I can tell when you get in this car smelling like rubber and leather.”
Oh.
A sinking feeling collapsed inside my chest. Was I that obvious? Did I reek? I always showered after Luke and I had playtime, but that wasn’t always enough to get rid of the smell from new equipment…
“Don’t worry, Big Guy. I don’t think anyone else figured it out. The only reason I put it together is because my boyfriend and I… we partake sometimes. I know what the gear smells like.”
Relief rushed through me.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I said in a low voice.
“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” she said, looking me in the eye. “Here, I’ll pinky promise you.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Yes it is! Pinky promise!”
She held out her pinky between us. It was like a juvenile contract hanging in the air.
After a second’s hesitation, I wrapped my thick sausage-like pinky finger around hers.
“There. It’s pinky promised. Might as well be an unbreakable vow,” Claire said.
I raised an eyebrow, certain that I’d never understand th
is strange woman. It didn’t mean I wasn’t a little delighted by her, though.
“So. You met the guy at the munch. What did you get on him?”
“The only thing I haven’t told you is that he’s a Rigger. Which means—”
“Yeah, I know what that is.”
“…who are you?” I asked, scrunching up my face and turning towards her.
She smiled, plucked a pair of mirror aviators from the visor, and slid them onto her face.
“A Dom, that’s who I am.”
Claire pulled the squad car into street parking next to one of the fancier high-rises.
“This is where he lives?” I asked.
“This is where our boy lives,” Claire said, peering out the window.
It had been a while since I’d texted Luke. I worried about him every second, wondering if he was safe. My personal phone was back at the precinct in the drawer at my desk.
It filled me with guilt that I wasn’t escorting him everywhere myself. That I wasn’t around as his bodyguard to protect him from whatever might happen 24/7, but I couldn’t let him onto the fact that I thought Fenwick was the killer. Hell, I couldn’t let him onto the fact that there was a killer out there at all picking off people that looked like him. That would make his anxiety so bad, he wouldn’t be able to function. And I didn’t want to fill him with fear when he didn’t need to be — he already had plenty of fear to go around for both of us.
Deep inside, I knew he was safe for now. There was no tingling on the back of my neck, no intuitive alerts that anything was out of the ordinary. Though, I couldn’t quite quiet the shadow that was creeping its long fingers over my shoulders again.
“Come on, let’s go ask the staff some questions,” Claire said as she opened her door.
The lobby of the building was the picture of decadence. Tall cathedral-like ceilings towered over us, our boots clattered on the marble floor, and art deco-style decorations hung on the walls.
“Huh. Bougie,” Claire said as she snapped her gum. “Can you imagine having money like this?”
“Nope,” I said, looking around. For the first time in a long time, I felt… intimidated. Inadequate. Sure, I had my own stash of money that would last Luke and me for the rest of our days, but nothing compared to this. It made me wonder how much of my persona as a Dom was tied to my wealth.
As soon as the staff began to see us, they walked straighter. More upright. Some of them that had been slacking off snapped back to work.
The police effect sure was fun to watch sometimes.
We questioned the concierge, but he was entirely unhelpful. Then we went to the leasing office and asked the woman inside. She was quite firm that she couldn’t give us any information about any residents without a warrant.
We left empty-handed. I felt vulnerable; I felt weak. Like this predator could do anything from the safety of his gilded nest and I wouldn’t be able to see it coming.
As if reading my thoughts, Claire said, “Don’t worry about Luke, I’ve got him covered.”
“What? You’ve got eyes on him?”
“Yeah. He's fine. I get a ping every five minutes that he’s still in class,” Claire said, holding up her work phone.
“How did you convince the station to spend resources on that? When I asked them, they said there wasn’t enough evidence—”
“I didn’t ask the station. I asked Chua.”
“Friggin’ Chua?!” I exclaimed. “I thought you didn’t like each other.”
“Oh, I like him just fine,” Claire said. “I just… like you more.”
I couldn’t stop my heart from swelling with joy and acceptance.
“Plus, Chua owes me a favor. All those days you were stuck inside doing paperwork, we drove all the way into Jersey to patrol the most boring area, just so we could be near his favorite Applebees. You believe that?”
“But they all taste the same.”
“That’s what I said! But he was insistent that this one used a different kind of butta’ to cook their food. So we had to go to it every day for lunch. I swear that guy has Aspergers or somethin’…”
As we were talking, another message bloomed on her screen from Chua.
“Still in class.”
Claire showed me the message. “See? Your fiancee is safe.”
Relief flooded through me. “Thank you, Claire. You have no idea how much that puts my mind at ease.”
She chuckled. “No problem, Big Guy. You’re part of the NYPD family now, and we take care of our family.”
Family. Maybe that’s why this felt so good; maybe that’s why this act of kindness from Claire was so fulfilling. I’d been missing that feeling of family — that feeling of people looking out for each other no matter what.
I glanced at the small brunette woman bouncing next to me as we walked down the sidewalk, and suddenly I was kicking myself for ever not liking her.
She was amazing.
She stopped in her tracks next to the mouth of an alleyway. “I just thought of something!”
Claire hurried past me into the alley behind the bougie building.
“Where are you going?”
“Service elevator,” she explained, weaving between a few parked trucks.
I could see that there were grunts heavy-lifting furniture. Someone was moving in.
A grin lifted the corners of my mouth.
“Hey guys,” she greeted happily.
The two movers she was approaching nearly dropped the couch they were carrying.
No one liked being surprised by a cop.
“Chill,” she said, smacking her gum. “Me and my partner here are just taking a look around.”
“This is a private residence,” the hulking man on the right said. “You need a warrant to step anywhere in here,” he gestured to the building’s garage.
Claire held her hands up with her fingers splayed. “I gotcha, boys. This alley is city property though, so we’re just going to take a look around.”
I followed Claire through the alleyway where she began to examine the backs of the trucks. Several of the gates were open.
“Claire, what are you looking for?” I asked in a whisper.
“Any weird-shaped packages with a number on 'em,” she said, pulling out her notepad. “You’ll notice every box has a number on it. That’s the unit number. And if this guy’s a Rigger, there’s a chance he’s got something custom coming for him. If he’s anything like you described, trying to act like he’s extravagant and gentlemanly, he probably gets big furniture. Especially when there’s someone he’s planning to impress.”
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach. From the testimony we got from the Luke lookalike we found restrained on that bed, the killer never showed his face. What he did show his victims was extravagance. He locked them in what looked like a five-star hotel suite for days or weeks, completely cutting them off from human contact. He’d get meals delivered to their rooms — five-course dinners. That would drug them. Then they’d wake up and there would be some kind of weird equipment there. Since the Luke look-a-like refused to get into it, the killer tried to sell him into the sex trade.
That’s why we found him tied to the bed in that random house.
“Is Luke okay?” I asked Claire, feeling my anxiety monster rise out of my shadow and loom over me.
Claire checked her phone. “Yep, see?”
The last text Chua sent was only three minutes ago.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“You should pick him up from school today, walk him home,” Claire encouraged.
“I will.”
For the next few weeks, I walked Luke to and from Parsons.
It turned into a pleasant routine for us, those walks. Although, he could still sense I was hiding something from him. The more he tried to poke at it, the more I clammed up.
Before he started seeing Dr. Brinkman, he would have lashed out. Exploded at me like he used to, driven to say things he didn’t mean by his anxiety. Bu
t now, things were much better. Instead of steaming like a teapot, he would drop the subject and start talking about something else.
It was like his emotions were the steady flow of a river, and he’d diverted the angry ones into a tributary away from our relationship. That tributary of feelings was flowing into a reservoir to be studied, sampled, and treated by Dr. Brinkman.
And from that, the overall health of our relationship improved. I felt happier, Luke said he felt happier, and we were saying “Solid” to each other more than ever to prove it.
I’d never felt closer to him. But the one thing that kept nagging at the back of my mind was the grain of suspicion that it was because he needed me. That I was being possessive and controlling in the name of being protective.
It wasn’t something I could talk about with Luke — I had to keep him in the dark about Fenwick, at least until we caught the guy.
Luke was still too fragile to know. No, this was a load I had to carry myself.
“How are you feeling?” I asked one day after meeting him outside the building.
I looked left, then right, taking in all of our surroundings. There was no prickling on the back of my neck. I relaxed and tried to enjoy the conversation.
“Oh, a little stressed, that’s all,” he admitted.
“About what?”
“My show is in a few days, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I said, nearly kicking myself for forgetting. The end of Luke’s semester was approaching fast, and he would need to show the collection he designed in a big runway show on fifth avenue.
“Today I had to fit a few models.”
“That sounds exciting,” I said.
“It was a little exciting, but it made me nervous, too. Some of my clothing — the really ropey ones — don’t fit a few of them. These girls are like bean poles.”
“You’re like a bean pole,” I said.
For a moment there was a seed of panic in me, wondering if I’d offended him. But to my delight, he chuckled.
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