by Adira August
“We’re walking in together?” Cam had often fantasized entering the club with Hunter on his arm. It was part Alpha ego, showing so many Doms he’d won the prize they lusted after. Camden Snow liked winning.
But it was more. Cam wasn’t much for analyzing himself, and he didn’t need more reason than being uber-competitive. But if he had looked inside himself, he’d have found his own delight at being chosen by a man as fine as Hunter Dane, and the simple human desire to share joy with friends.
“We are walking in together,” Hunt answered. He leaned into the car and took Cam’s lower lip gently between his teeth, one hand on his soft-stubbled cheek. His hand slid down and his thumb pressed one of Cam’s nipples, tightly peaked beneath the layers of cloth.
Cam grabbed Hunt by the hair, forcing his mouth open. A half-minute of lustful stroking and sucking and clutching, and Hunt pulled back, both of them flushed and panting and hard.
“Perfect,” he said, and then did, indeed, hand Cam out of the car like a British Princess. He led them up the stairs to the wood deck.
“Wait.” Cam hesitated before Hunter could open the door. “So, you want to meet back here at eleven?”
“Poker nights run late.”
“You want to be back before midnight?”
“Is my Bronco turning into a pumpkin?”
“Possibly. And the bet expires at midnight. I thought you wanted to have sex with me?”
“I wanted”—Hunter moved closer, caressing Cam’s ear with his lips—“to make love to you.”
“And now you don’t?”
“And now, I am.” He palmed Cam through his jeans and kissed him until the fabric stretched and Cam locked Hunt tight to himself with strong arms. Hunter broke the kiss and put his hand in Cam’s.
Hunter Dane and Camden Snow entered Scene and Not Heard together. Very few of the members around the entranceway missed the bulging of both crotches. And those who did had it pointed out.
These two men were singularly private. They came with no one; they left with no one. They did not speak of their personal lives. Everyone knew Hunt had knelt for Cam last winter. Since he had, they’d never seen him in sub mode with anyone, only as Dom with female subs.
The gossip machine concluded that the Full Metal Dom, the man who did not allow safewords or any input from a sub, had broken Dane so badly he was afraid to give up control, again. Several Doms had approached Hunter with reassurances. He had politely declined their offers.
Now, Camden Snow led Hunter Dane through the club like a steady onto the dancefloor at Homecoming. They stopped at the semi-circular red banquette in full view of the entrance and the onlookers.
“You’re a fucking tease and you’re going to pay,” Cam whispered to Hunt as Chez scurried up to put Cam’s usual glass of room-temperature water on the low coffeetable. Seeing he only had eyes for Hunt, Chez withdrew. He was an excellent host.
“I told you, collecting on the bet has no penalty,” Hunt said.
“And your opponents never try to get their own back?” The gleam in Cam’s eyes promised Hunter a reprisal he looked forward to fearing and desiring and suffering and savoring.
“I have to talk to Sherrilynne, it’s almost time,” Cam said. “You distracted me and I left my bag outside. Grab it for me?”
“Always.” Hunter pressed his body into Cam’s, reached between them and found Cam’s softening shaft, which made a swift and impressive recovery.
“Bag.” Cam pointed firmly at the entrance. “And put my phone inside.”
With a quick kiss on the mouth, Hunt left a grinning Cam shaking his head and adjusting himself.
IT WAS PITCH BLACK outside the limit of the car’s headlights on the winding road up Sandy Gulch, except for an isolated light through the trees every few miles.
Mike Merisi caught a glimpse of a small barn with a bright security light under the eaves that a shadow swooped through as the deputy’s car rounded a curve in its climb to the top of the canyon. Soon, even those sparse glimpses of habitation disappeared.
Content to ride in silence except for brief crackles of voices from Deputy Wes’ police radio, Mike used the time to review his performance. The scene was secured, the uniform officers were standing by for the M.E. to finish up, and would stay with the vehicle until he and Twee returned.
Mike asked himself what he was assuming; it was the Lieutenant’s favorite question. When he found an answer, he automatically reached for his notebook—no light. Rolling his eyes at himself, he pulled out his cell to make a note and was surprised to see he had service.
The car slowed to a crawl and Wes directed his spotlight to the opposite side of the road. There was another road, unmarked but well-paved, the lining white and crisp, the shoulders wide and flat.
“That’s Hanging Valley Road,” he told them. “We’ll be back to it in a few.” He shut off the light and moved on. “Road we’re on is Sandy Gulch Road. Main road up this side canyon, only way in and out. It dead-ends ‘bout three miles on. There’s a turnaround at the end.”
A few minutes later, Merisi and Twee were following the deputy to the front of his car and the edge of the turn-around. Wes pointed with his flashlight beam again, this time at the ground near the drop-off. “Look here, see the tracks?”
Twee edged forward and squatted. “Mike, can you grab my case?”
“Before you do, take a look down there,” Wes said, throwing the powerful beam as far down slope as he could. “Angle here isn’t as steep. You go down about a hundred yards and you cross the Mount Morrison Trail.”
Twee started down. Mike hurried back to the car and grabbed her scene kit, then followed her over the side. Deputy Wes thought about waiting for them in the car with the heat running, listening to the radio.
“Oh, well, shit.” He popped the shotgun out of the rack. He figured it’d be just his luck those two would cross paths with a cougar and somebody’d blame him. Big cat would take that gutsy little Twee in one mouthful.
A FEW MINUTES AFTER nine, the members gathered in the entranceway to watch the Full Metal Dom deliver Sherrilynne’s anniversary present to her husband. Anticipation ran high.
Chez was a pleasant little man of fifty, a bit neurotic and a lot in love with his Domme wife. Scene and Not Heard was their offspring. Sherrilynne maintained the physical plant, but Chez was the genius behind the concept.
It was he who’d designed the playrooms, as well as the large entranceway. It was a place to transition from everyday persona to hidden kinkster. A place to meet a friend, get a first drink and cruise potential playmates. Those who hooked up or had brought someone, then gravitated into the lounge or the playrooms down one of the two passageways leading away from the entrance.
Camden Snow held court in the large red banquette, surrounded by fans and sycophants, scanning the incoming members for a submissive in need or want of his unique brand of Domination.
For Cam it was as simple as catching the eye of a potential sub, who inevitably froze beneath his scrutiny. Once Cam decided if he was interested, he either looked away—his rejection clear—or nodded once and waited for his prey to drop to his knees.
They always did.
Hunter watched from the entrance to the hallway leading to the game room. Chez carried a tray of drinks toward the banquette. At the critical moment, someone “accidentally” bumped him and the tray upended onto the low table, splashing everyone, including Cam.
Cam dismissed his retinue with a gesture. Forewarned, they withdrew quickly, while Chez babbled apologies and went to his knees to retrieve a glass that had rolled under the curved bench.
From his position across the room, Hunt just heard Cam order Chez to “Stop” in an arctic tone. Chez looked up. His beloved Full Metal Dom loomed over him, face as cold as the slopes he skied down, fully focused on Cheswick Cannon.
J. Addington Symonds, “Ad,” joined Hunt. He’d just bumped Chez into his fondest fantasy—Cam giving him
the look.
“You get hard just looking at him, don’t you?” Ad stared pointedly at Hunt’s crotch.
“Oh, yeah,” Hunt agreed. If Ad wanted to fluster or embarrass him, the District Court judge would be disappointed. Nothing about his relationship with Cam discomfited Hunter Dane.
Ad, a longtime SANH regular, had been one of Hunt’s go-to Doms in the days before Cam. Ad had informed Hunter he’d allow no one else to take his anal virginity. He hadn’t known that Cam already did.
“You’ve been with him since last winter? Since you knelt?”
“I heard a rumor there’ll be blood in the water tonight.” A reference to the poker game they were both regulars at, ignoring the Dom’s question.
Ad’s lips pressed, but he didn’t push it. He was used to Hunt’s reticence. “Already at the table. I’m heading back now. Dax is keeping him company, but this is a billionaire fish; we don’t want to lose him.”
Across the room, Cam had Chez on his feet and was speaking into Chez’ ear. He always gave a sub his terms.
“There are no limits. You have no safeword. You do nothing I do not order. I don’t stop until I’m done.”
“You have one chance to walk away. Once I restrain you, nothing and no one can or will rescue you. I am all there is.”
When Hunter had heard those words from Cam, he’d leaked precum all over himself in an agony of anxiety and arousal. He wondered that Chez didn’t shoot and crumple at Cam’s feet.
Ad turned his back on the Cam and Chez show. “You coming?”
Hunter joined him and they headed down the corridor. The game was why he was there.
“So what’s Chez’ fantasy that Sherrilynne can’t fulfill?” Hunt asked.
“Bad boy and headmaster.”
“Caning?”
“Old-fashioned, over-the-lap, bare-assed, by-hand spanking. In front of the ‘student body’.” Ad eyed him. “Sure you don’t want to stay and watch?”
“Not as much as I want to cast my line.” They neared the game room at the end of the hall. “Who is this guy, anyway?”
Ad shrugged. “No idea. They only need chips, not I.D., and he bought in for a half mil.”
They both grinned. When a fish pretends he’s a shark, it’s always a good night at the table.
CAROL TWEE IDENTIFIED THE exact place the PEV had turned onto the trail. After taking several molds, she climbed back up to the deputy’s cruiser. Then, she walked back down, videotaping the path the vehicle took while Merisi held two flashlights for her camera. They spooked a few critters they heard rustling away in the underbrush. They froze when Mike’s light landed on a skunk, waddling hurriedly away with its tail in the air.
Packed up and back in the cruiser, Deputy Weston turned onto Hanging Valley Road. “This is all private property, including this road. Lotta rich queers. Most of ‘em keep to themselves and are real cooperative if we have to come up here. That’s mostly ambulance calls. Had a fire here once, was bad. Coulda took out the whole mountainside.”
“What did you mean by ‘a lot of rich queers’?” Merisi asked.
“Just that,” Weston said as they came to a T-intersection. He crossed it to a small paved lot bounded by yellow bollards, the posts set too closely together to allow a car to pass. “Bring your lights.”
He walked them to a space wide enough for a golf cart to pass through. On the other side, Merisi and Twee found themselves on a well-maintained track. Twee squatted and picked up some of the cinders. She smiled up at Weston. “You know where the HighRoad came from, don’t you?”
“C’mon. You can get that when we come back,” he said. He led them down and along the path for about one hundred feet.
“What you got here are twenty building lots on the side of the mountain. This track runs by all of ‘em.” He pointed the flashlight to show them; they could see lights from a large structure through the trees.
“And, yeah, detective, it’s mostly queers. Don’t know why, never asked. Up at the top, at number twenty, you got Ms. Houston. Pretty sure she’s a straight gal, but she’s got a whole stable of boys livin’ with her.”
“Boys?” Merisi asked.
“Oh, they’re grown men. All look in the twenties, ones I seen.”
“Straight boys?” This from Twee.
“Young lady, I’d rather not know who’s putting what into who.” He led them back toward his vehicle. “That PEV with the body register to her?” He asked Merisi.
“If she’s at number twenty.”
“I figured. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
MINNIE HOUSTON WAITED for Deputy Wes in a papasan chair suspended from the ceiling of a porch extending across the front of her very large house. Merisi couldn’t see her well in the shadowy depths of the chair, backlit by bright light filtered through gauzy white curtains over a picture window. The three visitors faced her, so the light made them visible to her, while Houston remained featureless in darkness.
Merisi wasn’t sure, if pressed, he could pick her out of a line-up. He also wasn’t convinced the effect was unplanned.
The curtains concealed little of the brightly-lit interior of the house. As they’d mounted the stairs to the porch, he and Twee caught sight of two men walking through what looked like a living room. They were both nude. Pausing, they exchanged a few words and moved out of sight. Twee entered their description on her cell.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Minnie Houston asked Twee.
“How many men live with you, Ms. Houston?” Twee asked.
Deputy Wes took a step back from Twee.
“It varies,” Houston said, not seeming put out by Twee’s bluntness. “But you have me at a disadvantage, as they say, Ms….?”
“Carol Twee. I’m a crime scene technician with the Denver Police Department. This is Detective Merisi.”
Merisi nodded to Houston but didn’t say anything. He wanted to watch the interaction between the two women. Twee was repressing her lisp.
“I see,” Houston said. “But this isn’t Denver and my home isn’t a crime scene”—she turned to Deputy Wes—“that I know of. Is it, Wes?”
“Don’t know,” he shrugged. “Depends on how one of your PEVs ended up down to Red Rocks today.”
Houston hesitated. They saw the light of a cell phone through the weave of what was apparently an afghan she wrapped up in against the night chill. She was texting someone.
“Leon will be right here,” she said. The cell went dark. “He’ll know where my carts are.”
“It’s hardly a cart, though, is it?” Twee asked. “It’s a street legal version of one used by the military.”
“Is that right?” Houston asked pleasantly.
It occurred to Merisi that this woman was way ahead of him and probably smarter than any of them. Except maybe Twee. “Ma’am, would you mind very much showing me some identification?”
Wes started. But Mike Merisi had learned this lesson the hard way during the Tamil burial jars case when he took for granted that the old woman who opened the door of a house, was the person who lived there. And while he expected Deputy Wes did know who he was talking to, Merisi was more interested in how Houston would respond.
“I probably should mind, but - Leon, would you mind getting my driver’s license for the detective?”
A tall, muscular, and totally naked black man had appeared in the doorway to their left and slightly behind them without either cop noticing. He disappeared as silently as he had appeared.
Twee was texting again.
“Are you recording, Carol?”
“Technician Twee. Or Ms. is fine,” Twee told her.
Merisi did not let his surprise show. He’d never seen Twee be anything but courteous and professional to a civilian, including a suspect.
“If it were me, I’d consider following her lead in certain situations.”
When Leon reappeared holding the license out to Merisi, Mike pointed him to Twee
. Her phone lit up. The big man had to step past Merisi to reach her.
She didn’t touch the license.
“Would you hold it steady for me, please?” she asked Leon. Her lisp was back. She gazed up into the man’s eyes. Tilted her head. And smiled. When her eyes moved down to her phone, they took the scenic route over the hills and valleys of his torso.
The cell made a shutter click noise.
She looked up at him again. When she spoke, her voice was a little breathier. “I need to see the other side. Would you mind?”
His eyes locked on hers for a moment. She licked her lips and looked down quickly. A pause, and they heard another click.
Wes’ mouth had dropped open. Mike Merisi bit the inside of his lip hard to keep from grinning. Leon was, indeed, a beautiful man, a study in chiaroscuro: a soft glow of light illuminated one side of his body, just finding the rising fullness of his rather impressive cock. It also caught the shiny streak of a scar running over his hip bone, and a bit of one at his waist.
The young detective wished he had a picture of him in this light and darkness to be mounted and framed. He imagined Cal would appreciate Leon, at least as much as Twee appeared to.
“Thanks,” Twee said, the light from her phone going out. It left them all surprisingly night-blind for a few moments. Leon retreated to the darkness near the door. Deputy Wes studied the porch ceiling. Merisi reckoned the angle of Leon’s body had blocked Houston’s view of his semi.
“Did you check on the carts for me?” Houston asked.
“Number two is missing,” Leon said from the darkness. “No one’s been out today, so I don’t know how long it’s been gone.”
“Seems there’s been a theft,” she said to Deputy Wes, who kept his eyes fixed firmly on her. “I guess this means my home is a crime scene.” Turning to Merisi, “But it’s still not in Denver.”
Twee peered around into the darkness. “Ms. Houston, are you the highest house?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I can see lights down there.” Twee pointed off the end of the porch, walking down that way. “The view must be amazing! I bet you can see that whole jogging track from here.”
