by J. M. Dabney
“It’s foreplay. Little pisses Poe off just for the make-up sex.”
“That’s true. I wonder if Poe had some Stockholm—”
Derrick’s loud snort cut him off. “Little only had Poe a few hours. Little’s cute, I don’t know how a beast like him can be cute, but when he gets in trouble, he starts batting those lashes with his pretty green eyes and Poe is in a fucking puddle. And don’t even get me started on Liv and Fielding.”
“If I have to talk to Liv and hear Fielding moaning and shit in the background, I’m shoving pens in my ears.”
“You gotta admit it’s nice being wanted that much.”
“There’s more to a relationship than sex.”
“Is there? And what might that be, Gage?”
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder to find Derrick watching him. The innocent little drop of his lashes and that peek of Derrick’s tongue moving over his bottom lip. He clenched his hands so hard they hurt.
“My boy will know his place is on his knees beside my chair and not to be a mouthy brat who asks for a spanking.”
Derrick’s eyes widened, and the boy’s face was flushed pink. The boy looked away and ignored him.
“Um, I have to go, gotta get home.”
“Goodbye, Derrick. Please tell them I won’t be attending tonight.”
“Yes, s-sir.”
He felt his mouth pull into a smirk at Derrick running in the opposite direction. Maybe he should’ve tried that approach earlier. Seemed his—fuck, not his—the boy wasn’t up to playing the game Derrick started. He pivoted on his toes and continued toward Trenton Security.
He wished he could forget. He was too old for the boy, but his body didn’t give a fuck. The things he wanted to do to Derrick, hearing his boy beg to be fucked was only one of them. He required a certain level of control and someone who trusted he knew what was best.
He raised his hand to rub his beard and shook his head as he breathed through his irritation. He made it this long without giving in to his desire and his baser need to dominate one of his best friend’s son. He didn’t want to deal with the hell Hunter, Linus and Wren would bring down on him if he decided to sully Derrick. No matter the threats, it didn’t change years of wanting someone who he considered forbidden. He was right where he wanted to be in life—loved his job and the place he lived, settling in Powers was the first place he didn’t feel the need to run.
His demons weren’t in this town, and their memory didn’t taint everything around him. Decades of nightmares muffled but not silenced, and he couldn’t chance someone learning the truth about what a broken man he was. He wasn’t fucking up no matter how much his brain and body screamed Derrick Thorpe was made for him.
Did Gage Want to be His Daddy?
Derrick locked his bedroom door behind him and leaned back against it. He'd barely made it through dinner as Gage’s words repeatedly played through his head. On his knees…did he want that with Gage? He had known since he was seventeen that he'd wanted Gage. The night Little and Wren brought him and his brother, Craig, to the Trenton Security office and he’d spotted the older stoic man, he'd lost his heart.
Gage’s voice was a whiskey-smooth baritone and held so much command that he'd instantly relaxed. Gage had made him feel safe for the first time. The older man’s dominant nature seemed to ground him. He’d lived his life in fear for so long that it was just normal. Almost a decade later, he still found it impossible to relax around men until he knew them. He always anticipated the first strike. The possibility of the cycle of abuse continuing frightened him, and it would become so easy to fall back into the pattern of the familiarity of it, but he refused to allow that to happen.
Away from home and his safe spaces, he’d made his masculinity unquestionable. He’d even avoided questions about his parents. What was he supposed to say? His dads, all three of them, were happily in a ménage marriage. He’d grown weary of being someone he wasn’t, and although that was the main reason he’d come home, it wasn’t the only one.
He sighed heavily and pushed away from the door. He strode to his bed and fell face first onto it. The years passed and his need hadn't changed. He belonged to Gage, but the older man treated him like an annoying kid. He’d tried everything to make Gage see him as a man. Nothing had worked and all that today’s encounter had done was prove that he wasn’t someone that Gage would want.
“You locked your door,” Craig aka Pride accused.
“That means I wanted privacy.” He rolled to his back and studied the stubborn expression on the twelve-year old’s face. He felt like an outsider because he hadn’t come to live with their new family until he was seventeen, but Pride had settled in and found himself. He was proud of his brother. Smart, confident, and knew himself. His brother could be who he was without judgment. “Practicing a new talent?”
“Bedroom doors are no problem. Raul is teaching me to pick locks.”
“First pockets, now locks.” He shook his head as Pride dived onto the bed and he stretched his arm out for Pride to rest his head.
“Raul said they’re useful skills.”
That was Pride’s go-to answer for just about everything, and he wondered what his dads thought about their youngest son’s mentor. Pride seemed to be readying himself to join the family business.
“You break in for a reason?”
“I kinda like these two people.”
“And?” Having three Dads, then two Uncles both married to two men, ménage or poly relationships seemed natural when it’s what someone grew up with. One man was just fine for him. He was greedy and longed to be the sole focus of one man.
“Is that wrong?”
“Is it wrong that our dads love each other, or that Uncle Elijah or Uncle Pelter love their husbands?”
“No, but it’s a boy and a girl.”
“Do you want to tell me who?” He already knew or in his gut, he’d always known. Ricky, Sawyer, and Pride were inseparable for years. Like with all the Crew Hellions, they were insanely protective of each other. He’d noticed a few who he already predicted their closeness would turn into more as they reached their teens or twenties.
“Not really.”
“Pride, you’re my brother, I love you, and I’ll support you. As long as what people do together is consensual and safe, then if you like these two people, I’ll be there. Maybe it’ll be confusing now at twelve, but if sometime in the future you want to tell them, do it.”
“You’ve never brought a boyfriend home. Don’t you want one?”
“I want one a lot, but sometimes what we want isn’t what we get. Maybe one day.”
As with Pride’s usual modus operandi he drifted into silence. His brother tended to drift into a world of his own. He turned his head to brush a kiss to Pride’s temple and then brought his attention back to the ceiling. His own thoughts were too chaotic. For almost a decade, all he’d wanted was Gage to see him as a man. To have all his fantasies of having Gage as his own come true. Unfortunately, Gage still saw him as that broken, seventeen-year-old who needed saving.
“Pride, come on, bedtime. You have school in the morning, and you still have homework. I’m not dealing with another parent-teacher conference, and you’re not hacking into the system to change your grades.”
Pride groaned and rolled off the bed as Hunter yelled through the door. He told his brother goodnight, and when he left, Pride locked the door behind him. His brother was smart as hell. He’d wanted to learn everything Hunter did, and in hindsight, he believed their dad might regret teaching Pride. His baby brother had a lot of skills a kid shouldn’t have. Pure, another member of Trenton Security said Pride was a natural when it came to sniper practice. What had they expected when they’d adopted them and Pride spent more time at Trenton Security than anywhere else? Pride had quite the education.
He’d had two goals in life, to prove he wasn’t like his biological father and to make Gage his, but he’d only half succeeded at one of them. How did he get the o
lder man to look at him like the people in his extended family looked at their partners? He hadn’t believed love existed until he’d met his adoptive parents’ extended family. All the devotion was there for all to see. The touches just to be able to feel someone and take comfort in their presence.
As much as he wanted love like that, only one man would do. He’d worked his ass off to come back to Powers to prove to Gage that he was a man. The age difference didn’t bother him, but he also had never seen Gage with anyone or heard anyone talk about someone Gage was dating. He’d acted like a starving man for any scrap of information. He’d held his breath waiting to hear about a boyfriend or someone more important.
His heart soared every year that passed, and Gage remained single.
A job in law enforcement wasn’t where he’d seen himself. He actually thought he might take on a position at Trenton Security. He’d gone to college, received his criminal justice degree, and applied to the academy. They told him he could be anything, but he wanted to come back to Powers and prove that he wasn’t anything like the man who’d fathered him.
Pelter reluctantly hired him and only because of who he was, Linus Trenton’s adopted son. He hadn’t changed his name from Thorpe to Trenton, but he’d wanted that. Yet being connected to the Trenton name caused as many problems as Thorpe. Linus hadn’t made many friends in law enforcement during the man’s days as a cop. The Trenton Crew weren’t the most law-abiding people around. They had a way of twisting laws to suit their purposes, and with the help of Peaches Phelps, they rarely paid for their crimes.
He spent the first seventeen years of his life afraid and covered in bruises or ignored. Too many years he’d watched the murderous rage in Thorpe’s eyes as he spewed hate and he was one of those people his father hated. Out of terror, he’d denied who he was, dated girls in high school, fumbled through make-out sessions. Fingered his date until she came and imagined her hand around his cock was harder and rougher. Shame had nearly killed his spirit.
His thoughts depressed him and then suddenly another horrible thought hit him, what if Gage was straight? Just because he worked around gay and bisexual men and called them his best friends didn’t mean he was gay. What if the man of his dreams was straight but just went along with the boy talk to embarrass or scare him off? He groaned as he covered his face. Of course, Gage wouldn’t be offended—the older man didn’t find anything offensive about being considered gay.
Fuck, just what he needed, falling in love with a man who would never love him back. One that would eventually find the woman of his dreams and he’d have to watch Gage date, fall in love and marry a woman who would have the right to love and touch him in return.
He felt the tears against the pads of his fingers and slipping down his cheeks. His heart broke with that one realization and thought about having to move on while trapped in the same town as Gage. His only saving grace was he’d never told anyone about his crush, but he’d asked Gage out. The man probably had a good laugh about that. All his dreams shattered and he wondered what the hell he was going to do—how was he going to get over a love that would never be reciprocated.
Markers Called In
The stinging burn of the razor danced across his skin in a lethal waltz. The pain pushed the blackness of his thoughts away. The sallower complexion of his mother’s bloodless face. The emptiness of her glassy eyes. He imagined what she’d felt in those last moments. Did she feel peace knowing her pain was at an end? Did she rejoice that her body would never bear the marks of his father’s fists—his fingertips?
He pictured her smiling as she had when she looked at him. As if her happiness was a gift that he gave her just by existing. Next line, exactly an inch from the one before. His forearm was a twisted landscape. Each mark told a story—a thought of violence. A tear shed in weakness. Every hard-on caused by the cute boy or man he’d met since he learned he was gay. Reminders of why he had to be alone. Warnings of the monster hidden away, birthed by the violence of his father.
Almost forty years of cuts. Of tales told in the flesh. Accepting the pain. A hiss pushed past his compressed lips as the third cut went deeper than the last. Was his mother at peace? Did she find happiness on the other side? Did she burn in Hell for her last act of escape or was there nothing beyond this life? All he wanted to do was find that one vein. He traced it with the edge of his sanitized razor. All it would take is one second of increased strength.
All of this was his touchstone, and he dragged his fingertips over his flesh as if they told the stories of his agony. Each cut was proof of the danger he was to those he would love—the man he would destroy. He refused to be the reason his partner/husband would end up in a tub of bloodied water.
He pushed, felt his flesh split, and sighed in relief as it all flowed away. All he had to do was sink it deeper, fall asleep, but again he was a failure. He tossed the razor aside, cleaned and dressed his wounds to make sure they wouldn’t bleed through the expensive linen of his dress shirt. Just one more day, another twenty-four hours and he’d be able to do it again. He allowed himself to cut once a day and no more.
He cleaned up his mess and tossed the bloody gauze in the trash, along with the razor with the cardboard guard back in place. The ache on his forearm barely registered as he grabbed his stuff and headed for the door. As soon as he closed it behind him, his phone rang, and he cursed. They better not need him at seven in the morning.
After digging his phone out, the name on the display made him frown—they weren’t scheduled for their weekly check-in for another few days. He connected the call.
“Hey, man, what’s up?”
“I need you. I’m calling in my marker.”
The panic was clear in Alex’s voice. He’d known the man for nearly three decades, and even in the heat of battle, he’d never heard that tone before.
“Whatever you need, no marker needed.”
“Cameron went missing forty-eight hours ago. She was on vacation with a friend’s family in Miami. One minute she was there, man, and then they said she was gone.”
Cameron was fourteen, good kid, and never been in trouble. No history of running away. She was a beautiful, petite blonde that looked younger than her age. All the shit that could make her disappear ran through his head at lightspeed, and he liked none of the options.
“Missing person report?”
“Filed as soon as they called. I went down there. No one saw a fucking thing.”
Alex was more low-key than him, nothing fazed the man, so hearing the panic, he had to get Alex under control. He needed Alex’s head on straight if they were going to find Cameron.
“Dude, how soon can you get here?”
“I’m already on my way. Anywhere I can land a private jet?”
“I’ll clear it with Pelter. He has a private strip.”
“You think he’ll let me back into Powers?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just get here, and we’ll find her. Let me know an ETA, and I’ll be out there to pick you up.”
“Gage, if something happened to her…”
“No one remains breathing. Nowhere they can hide.”
“Thank you.”
“Just get your head on straight, and we’ll figure it out.”
“I know, I’ll be there in three hours.”
He disconnected the call, and it didn’t take long to make calls to everyone he needed including Peaches. She could get through any red tape for them. His heart kicked up its pace, and he couldn’t even imagine what Alex was going through. He’d called Cameron his niece since before she was born and he had the honor of being her godfather. His best friend lived for that girl.
The trip across town from his place on the outskirts of Powers took half the time it normally would. He was swiping his card just as the rest of the team came up behind him.
“What’s the situation? You don’t call in a nine-one-one ever,” Linus was asking as they took the elevator to the third floor with the offices and conference room.<
br />
“Forty-eight hours ago, Alex’s daughter went missing on vacation with friends in Miami. He went down to investigate himself, and no one knew shit. Alex called in a favor, and I need y’all on this.”
“Definitely. What do we know?” Peaches took her usual spot on the tabletop and crossed her legs under her hippie skirt.
No one would think the woman was the best defense attorney in the country by looking at her. Heavily tattooed, hippie clothes, and laidback nature, and completely fucking ruthless.
“Nothing, a missing person report was filed.”
“I’m on it.” Hunter was talking and already on the move to his cave of an office.
The hacker was the best, and he wouldn’t even attempt to know what the man did for them.
“You do know what the possibility is, right?”
Of course, Raul would go for the throat, and he wanted to snarl but held it in. “Yeah, I know the possibility, and if that’s the case, we have less than thirty-six hours to find her or we might never. I can’t deal with that option.”
“Man, I’m just saying, I know it’s your best friend’s kid, but we have to be realistic.”
“Raul,” Pure growled.
“What?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
If he wasn’t so pissed, he’d almost laugh at the murderous look on Pure’s handsome face. The way Raul hid flipping off the other man by scratching his nose with his middle finger made him shake his head. Everyone was right, those two just needed to fuck and get it over with. Raul was already whipped.
“I was just about to bend one of my boys over my desk, and I get an emergency text. This better be fucking good,” Pelter growled as he stormed into the room.
“Sorry?” he asked.
“No, you’re not. So, what the fuck is up?” Pelter asked.
“Alex.” Pelter rolled his eyes at Gage’s attempt to fill him in. “Alex’s daughter disappeared while on vacation.”
Pelter’s flippant response to Alex’s name disappeared as the man’s face went emotionless at the thought of a missing child.
