by Lina Langley
Kings and Butterflies
M/M Gay Romance
Lina Langley
© 2017
Lina Langley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is intended for adults only. It contains explicit sexual scenes and is not suitable for children.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Artist: M. Knepper
[email protected]
http://www.mknepper.org
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Blurb
Even since his father died a few years ago and bequeathed The Butterfly Inn to him, Dallas has been competing with fancier and more expensive hotels on the San Leandre boardwalk, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Even when the inn is at capacity, he’s barely able to pay himself a decent salary. A lot of developers want to buy the inn, but Dallas wants to honor his father’s memory.
He’s trying to think about how to keep things afloat when the most gorgeous man he has ever seen in his life walks into the inn. Despite how attracted he is to him, Dallas finds himself having to turn him away from the inn because he doesn’t have a credit card to check in. The gorgeous stranger offers $10,000 cash to stay for the week and Dallas, who should know better, takes the money and checks him in under a fake name.
He spends the next few days wondering who his guest is, whether he’s a criminal, until Dallas finds himself rescuing his sketchy guest from a drunken club situation. Soon, he’s learning his guest’s secrets—and they’re much bigger than he expected.
Just not in the way he thought. But the kind of thing surrounding this stranger—Dallas is pretty sure it only exists in fairytales. Can he follow his heart and go into the unknown or should he stay at home and safeguard his father’s legacy?
This story is approximately 50,000 words in length and contains adult language & erotic adult scenes. It is intended for mature audiences. Content warning for some power play.
CHAPTER ONE
The Butterfly Inn had been the most popular bed and breakfast on the San Leandre boardwalk when Dallas Strong had been growing up. It had stayed that way when his father had bought it and even through years of nicer and fancier hotels being built around it, the little blue building the only two-story one left on the entire boardwalk. But when Dallas Strong Sr. had died and the inn had been bequeathed to Dallas Strong Jr., things began to take a turn for the worse. The Butterfly Inn was consistently booked simply because of where it was located, but it was normally slammed online on review sites and people went out of their way not to stay there.
Dallas had been approached by more than one developer. The tiny little inn, according to them, could become another piercing high-rise that provided accommodation to increasingly pickier guests.
It would be a lie to say that he had never thought about it. Still, he was trying his best to honor his father's memory, and the last thing that his father would have wanted to do was to sell The Butterfly Inn.
He sighed as he looked up at the analog clock that his father had installed and mounted in the reception area. Dallas couldn't bring himself to take it down, regardless of how dated it looked compared to the rest of the décor. Dallas had done his best to update the room to make it seem more modern than it was, but there was only so much that a coat of baby blue paint could do for The Butterfly Inn. It certainly didn't bring it into the new decade, never mind the new millennium.
It was a little after 10 at night, which meant that the only people that he would be likely to see again during the night would be any drunk guests coming in from a night out in the bars or clubs along the boardwalk. He looked down at his laptop, pressing the button a few times in order to play the movie that he was seeing before his computer decided to listen to him. It was a piece of shit that barely worked and that direly needed to be replaced, but he couldn't dig into his meager savings for himself unless he absolutely had to.
With all the city ordinances and the business taxes piling up, he found that he spent most of the money that he might have earned back on the inn, on wages and on maintenance. He barely managed to pay himself.
Barely.
He was contemplating this when the door chimed as someone opened it. He was about to give the same speech that he gave every night, the one where he told his guests not to throw up on the carpet but rather in the colorful and large trash can that Dallas had kindly provided.
He was bitter of the fact that he had to provide a trash can in the first place, and he wasn't going to give his speech politely, but when he looked up, his gaze found the man that had opened the door to the inn. Dallas had to stop himself from gasping. The man was, well, gorgeous. Six-one, maybe, six-two, with black hair and matching stubble, a dazzling smile and sparkling brown eyes. He looked like an actor or model.
No one who Dallas recognized, because he didn’t watch television that much, but rather someone that spent a considerable amount of time on his appearance. Dallas wanted to judge him for it, but it had clearly paid off. Dallas cleared his throat as he tried to speak as normally as possible. Being star struck was the easiest way to lose potential guests on the San Leandre Boardwalk, especially when someone didn't seem to be that much of a celebrity.
“Hello,” Dallas said. He thought he sounded normal, but he wasn't sure. Welcome to The Butterfly Inn. How can I help you?”
“Hi, yes, hi, hello,” the man said, looking around as he did. He had an accent, but Dallas couldn't tell quite where he came from. That was pretty common when it came to his guests so Dallas didn’t give it much thought.
“Hello,” Dallas replied, wondering why this guy looked so frazzled.
“Do you have any vacancies?”
Dallas nodded. A last-minute cancellation had made it so that there was one available room for the night, which didn't happen very often.
“Great,” the gorgeous man said. “Can I have a room, please?”
“Yes,” Dallas said. “We have a double bed ready right now. The rate is $200 per night plus taxes and fees. There's breakfast available before 10 AM in the common area. There's no room service. You may order in from any restaurant on the boardwalk, and they will deliver to you. All I need from you to check you in is a credit card and a booking fee of $30.”
The man paled. “I only have cash,” he replied.
Dallas raised his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to tell him that he couldn’t do anything with just cash when the man waved his hand in front of his face.
“I can pay you all up front,” he said.
“The credit card is for incidentals,” Dallas answered. “I can’t rent you a room if I have no financial guarantee that you will maintain it. If you have a debit card, that can work, or if you have two utility bills with a local address and your name on them that can work too. They can’t be late, of course, but that would go a long way toward putting my mind at ease.”’
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“You need an address? But I'm staying here,” the man said. He didn't seem irritated, he mostly just seemed confused. Dallas got his fair share of confused foreign guests, so he tried to slow down in order to explain.
“Unfortunately,” Dallas started. “It's a liability for me as the hotel owner to rent out a room to someone when I have no way to charge them if they were to be destructive.”
The man nodded. “How much does a room cost?”
“What do you mean? Like I said, a stay is $200 per night plus taxes and fees—”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean, how much does a room cost?”
Dallas stared at him. “I don’t think I understand.”
The man tapped his finger on his bicep, clearly becoming impatient with him. “I mean, if you were to add everything in the room up, how much do you think it would cost?”
Dallas cocked his head. “The... room?”
“Yes, the room. The bed, the furniture, the bathroom,” the man replied. “The room.”
Dallas tried his best not to laugh. “The room is probably like, $5,000.”
He could see that the man would not let this go, so he decided to humor him. After all, talking to him was better than dealing with a bunch of drunks or fighting with his computer to watch the same Disney movie over and over again.
“Okay, so that’s $200 per night on top of that? So that would be $1400 for the week?”
“Uh… y-yes?”
“I'll give you ten if I don't have to show you a credit card.”
Dallas shook his head. “Sorry, you'll give me ten what?”
“Grand,” the man replied.
“You want to give me ten grand for a week-long stay?” Dallas asked as he raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” the man said as he approached the counter. He leaned over and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can get you more at the end. I promise.”
“I, I don't know, man.” Dallas said. He didn't believe him, but he didn't exactly not believe him either. He looked rich enough, with expensive clothes and the fancy accent, but then everyone who stayed on the San Leandre boardwalk looked rich enough anyway.
He tried his best not to smirk as he leaned over, trying to look as conspiratorial as his potential guest did. “If you can pay me ten grand right now, in cash, then I'll let you have the room for the entire week.”
The man’s face brightened. “Really?”
“Sure, man,” Dallas said. He was growing bored of this conversation, partly because he didn’t think that this man was legit. If he was, Dallas could certainly do with the money, but nobody was that lucky. He found himself wishing that one of the drunks would come in and distract him from this guy. Did he have to be out of his league and crazy? That just added insult to injury.
“Okay, great,” the man said. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and got a leather wallet out. It was fat with money and he started to count out $100 bills in front of Dallas, whose eyes were widening. He couldn't exactly back out of this now, he didn't think so anyway.
But maybe this guy was a criminal—that was the only plausible explanation for this money. Maybe he was getting involved in something weird. He handed him $3,000 in $100 bills, then he started taking more money out of his pockets. Soon, there was a pile of money in front of Dallas, more than he had ever seen in cash in person, and his throat was dry.
“Ten thousand,” the man said, smiling triumphantly at him.
Dallas felt a bit sick.
The man frowned as he set his gaze on him. “Look,” he said. He grabbed a bill and moved it up so that the light was facing it, the security thread visible under the light. He did that with a few more until he looked at Dallas again. “See? They’re real.”
Dallas blinked a couple of times. “Right.”
“So can I have the room or—”
Dallas took a deep breath. He could certainly do with the money, but was this the way to get it? Was he getting in trouble, was he doing something illegal?
Fuck, he couldn't think about it. The worst part of it all was that the guy was for decision and Dallas had already said he would.
He considered himself to be a man of his word and he didn’t want to break a promise. But he also didn't want to jeopardize his business, which made this decision difficult. Then again, $10,000 would go a long way toward easing his issues with taxes. He sighed and looked down at the money. “Yes,” he said. “You can have the room.”
“Great,” he replied, grinning again. His teeth were perfect and his brown eyes shone when he smiled.
“What’s your name?”
The man furrowed his brow. “Why do you need my name?”
“I just need something to put in the system,” Dallas said, his heart beating fast in his chest.
His new guest set his gaze somewhere behind Dallas’ body and smiled at him once more. “Sure, uh, my name is, uh…”
Dallas raised his eyebrows.
“Paul Starr.”
“Your name is Paul Starr?”
“Yep,” the man said, his smile returning to his face. “That’s it.”
Dallas wanted to question him about it, but he knew better. “Okay, Mr. Starr, your room is upstairs, first door on the left.”
He walked back to grab the keys, trying hard to ignore the Beatles poster on the wall. Part of him expected him not to be there when he got back, even though he was only gone for a couple of seconds.
But he was there. Still smiling, still waiting for him. He handed them to his guest. “Let me know if you need anything, okay? My name is Dallas.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thank you so much. You have no idea what you just did for me.”
Dallas watched him walk away toward the stairs, wondering what the fuck he had just done, full stop.
***
Dallas waited a little while longer. He wanted people to come in from the bars, and he wanted to get to work on cleaning up their messes if they made any. He was also keenly aware of Paul; whose name was clearly not Paul. He tried to forget about it.
He hadn't called on him or anything, but a few hours had passed and since he had first checked in and Dallas felt like he was starting to go a little bit crazy. He had been wondering what he was doing, because Paul had just given him $10,000 in cash, as if that was a thing people did. Dallas had never seen that much money in his life in person and just having it at the till was giving him anxiety.
He would take it down to the bank tomorrow and then he would go see his accountant. Or rather, his father’s accountant. Jackie Pardo was the most no-nonsense person that Dallas had ever met.
To Dallas, she had always seemed old, with silver hair tied up in a neat bun and wrinkles around her eyes. She was always severe and non-nonsense and Dallas felt like he had spent the majority of his childhood in her office, entertaining himself with the trainset that she had in the waiting room right outside her little consultation room, then with his phone.
Until his father had died, that was.
He had spent more time crying in her office than he had at his psychiatrist’s office. It wasn’t that his therapist was bad—quite the opposite, really. But his therapist, as compassionate and educated as she was, had never known his father, so she could never understand.
Not like Jackie could.
She was the last person that Dallas had who felt like family, which worried him. He didn’t want her to think that he had gotten involved in something sketchy, though for all he knew, he had. San Leandre had been a hub for cocaine and the drug trade once, but that had been way before Dallas’ times. Now it was a mix of a tourist hub, a fashion paradise and a bunch of people working the service industry, living in tiny apartments that overlooked the beach.
Maybe he wouldn’t go see Jackie after all. He knew that she was discreet, but she was also going to judge him, as she should. Dallas knew that he deserved to be judged, but still. He had taken the money, it was too late to back out of it now. What was he going to do, go up to
Paul’s room, knock on his door and tell him to get the fuck out?
The man probably had a gun.
Dallas shook his head as he sighed. He was being overly paranoid. The money wasn’t helping, but he needed to get over it. Plus, this wasn’t a problem he could deal with today.
It would have to wait until things were open, more importantly, until banks were open. He would take the money up to his room because he didn’t feel comfortable at all leaving it in the reception area and he would go to the bank first thing in the morning.
The moment the clock hit twelve o’clock, Eros walked through the door, looking like he had just come running from somewhere. He was never late—not technically—but there was barely any parking around The Butterfly Inn, which meant that he often spent half an hour to an hour looking for somewhere to put his bike. He always made sure that he walked into the hotel on time to relieve Dallas from his shift, but Dallas would have preferred that Eros was ready to take over before twelve.
He had thought about firing him before, but Eros was an intimidating guy, which was a lot better for third shift. He also tried to be on time, which counted for something. If Dallas had the room, he would have let Eros stay at the inn himself, but he didn’t.
Eros couldn’t afford to stay somewhere near The Butterfly Inn. Dallas couldn’t blame him for that.
He looked up at the analog clock. “You’re…”
“I know, I know,” Eros said. He had relatively short blond hair, but it always looked wavy when he took his helmet off, which he was carrying on his hip. “I’ll start coming earlier. Did you have any trouble tonight?”
Dallas smiled. “Not trouble per se.”
Eros walked up to him and smiled back. He walked behind the desk, taking off his leather jacket to reveal a perfectly pressed white button-up shirt. Dallas had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
Eros never struggled to look put together, even when it was clear that he had been in a rush from the way that his cheeks were tinted with red. He kicked off his boots and grabbed the dress shoes from under Dallas.
