Bad Things (15 page)

“
And why’d you agree?”

“
Because. They paid me a lot of money. And because they scare the shit out of me.”

“
Did they threaten you?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
What did they say?”

“
Nothing, I guess.” He looked confused. Ashamed. “I just…I’ve never met anyone like that before. I just felt like I couldn’t tell him no. Like something really bad would happen if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

Pretty ironic, given the current circumstances. Xavier couldn’t help smiling.

“Did you give them anything on me? Besides putting the spyware on the laptop?”

“
I took pictures of a couple of your files, but I never had a chance to send them.”

“
Did you plant any bugs? Mics? Cameras?”

“
No.”

“
Anything else I need to know?”

“
Just…”

“
What?”

“
I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it. I hated doing it. I just didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Xavier picked up the gag. “Yeah. I know how you feel.”

The suddenly furrowed brow, the hopeless plea in those upturned eyes drove a fresh throb of need through his already tormented cock as Xavier fixed the gag in place.

While he wove a garter belt of skulls around his client’s thigh—it was the girl’s eighteenth birthday, and as she’d shown him the design she wanted, she’d giddily declared how upset her parents were going to be—Xavier wondered if he should let his hostage go. Carson didn’t know anything else, he was almost positive. But it was hard to take an accurate measure of what would be gained or lost, by keeping him or setting him free.

Given how upset his hostage had been by the video, Xavier’s gut told him Carson would never go back to Max and Brian, at least not for the money. Maybe not even out of fear. Even so, the risk was too big. Max was going to expect Carson to check in and report, and unless Carson pulled an expert disappearing act or was a brilliant liar—which he wasn’t—Max would have his answers, one way or another.

If it was only his own safety in jeopardy, he would have chanced it. But now that Carson knew where he lived, it would be easy for Max to trace his address back to his real identity, which would lead him to Elena. Trusting Carson’s hatred of Max wasn’t good enough. He needed to be able to trust a bond—however twisted—between Carson and himself. And that would take more time.

Every few minutes, Xavier pulled open the shallow top drawer of the cart by the tattoo bed, and sneaked a look at the camera feed on his phone. Fuck, if it had been him tethered to the post instead of Carson, he’d be going out of his fucking mind. No way could he be that still for that long.

But apart from shifting into a different position every half hour or so, Carson barely moved, which Xavier figured meant he was thinking. Definitely. He had the absorbed, absent look of someone deeply immersed in an intricate mental puzzle. Probably trying to figure out Xavier and the best way to convince his abductor to let him go.

Or maybe something else had pulled Carson’s mind into the depths and left his body motionless, abandoned. Because the next time Xavier turned back to the cart to get more ink, and took a look at his screen, Carson changed positions again. And as he did, Xavier caught a glimpse of a full-blown hard-on before Carson shifted his leg to screen his cock from the camera’s eye.

Well, that was surprising. It was one thing, Carson getting hard when forced to stroke himself, or when Xavier rubbed his cock with the washcloth. But popping a boner while he sat there, abandoned and cuffed to a post in his abductor’s basement? Xavier would have given almost anything to know what train of thought had bypassed his fear and guilt and the heartbreak of the girl in the video, and landed Carson in that tempting state.

The dilemma about keeping Carson or letting him go dissolved. Heart thumping quicker, body warm, cock stirring, Xavier started shading the first skull on the girl’s thigh and calculated he’d be home in three hours.

Driving from Second Skin to the house, Xavier was wired, senses turned up full blast. The rush of warm air buffeting his face and tugging at his hair, the taunting lilt of Nick Cave’s deep voice and dark lyrics, the nutty scent of the soap he’d washed his hands with when he’d finished tattooing the girl were vivid, seductive. Even the leather-wrapped steering wheel was sensuous in his grip.

When he walked through the door, closing it loudly enough to announce his homecoming to his prisoner, he just set his bag down, and headed straight for the basement. With every step he descended, the warmth of anticipation thrummed in Xavier’s veins. By the time he was on the landing and reaching for the doorknob, he was almost completely hard. Pavlovian response—by now his dick knew it was about to get a treat.

But his phone vibrating in his pocket made him pause; Joey texting, wanting to know where the keys to the security locker were. “On the hook next to the door in Brian’s office.” Like always,
puta idiota
. If he wasn’t trying to delude those evolutionary throwbacks that he was an affable and pliable team player, his reply would have been more colorful.

Fucking damn. It hit him hard every time, the brutal need startling awake at the first sight of Carson, bound and gagged, naked, helplessly awaiting whatever fate Xavier decided to dole out. And just now, Xavier noted with a twist of bitter glee, it was going to be something a bit cruel, because Carson wasn’t doing as he’d been told. Instead of opening his legs and offering himself up to Xavier’s gaze, he was hunched in on himself. Shy all over again, like a colt who hadn’t been broken.

Vague, dark, a shadow slid over the surface of Xavier’s mind: the half-conjured memory of the surveillance feed, Carson’s body shifting and hiding his erection. Murkier, almost without form, like a swarm of birds or insects shifting shape, erratically changing course, dozens of images, unresolved, that might have provoked Carson’s arousal.

“
Look at me.”

Well, fuck. Things had gone a bit in reverse. Eyes shimmering bright with fear and the promise of tears. No. More than fear. Something else, Xavier decided.

“Do you think I was fucking around with my boot on your nuts?”

Carson shook his head.

“Do you want to show me you remember your lesson? Or do you want me to teach it to you again, with a little more emphasis this time?”

Upturned eyes pleading hopelessly for clemency, but his feet slid in, knees rising, then opening as Carson turned his face away. Fucking delicious hell. A perfect, complete, damning erection.

Christ
. Carson getting hard during his hours of solitude was one thing. But this?

Xavier moved in nice and close and squatted down. Close enough he could have touched his face. Could have touched his cock. But he rode the fresh thrill of torment, only looking.

“Look at me, Carson.”

God. Such shame.

“Did just thinking I was about to visit do this to you? Just hearing me on the stairs? Knowing I was going to come through that door?”

Carson didn’t nod, but he didn’t have to. Xavier could see the humiliated “yes” in his eyes. So, Carson’s dick was an apt pupil, too, in Pavlov’s school of bondage and submission.
And somewhere down in the deep dark of Xavier’s brain, buried under rational thought, Xavier knew how to make Carson his. He just needed to feed him, to give him sustenance more nourishing than however many hundreds or thousands of dollars Max had stuffed in his pockets.

Of course, when you’ve got an anorexic at the party, you can’t just offer them a slab of cake.

Xavier brushed a lock of hair back from Carson’s forehead. “That’s so sweet. But it doesn’t make up for being disobedient.”

He removed the gag, and when Carson had drunk his fill of water, Xavier wedged the ball between his teeth again. Those few moments were all he´d needed to come up with his punishment. Not a flogging, or even a spanking. A more psychological coercion, to bend Carson past the humiliation and frightening thrill of displaying himself whenever he was in Xavier’s presence.

He went over to the shelves behind Carson, and grabbed the lube and two of the Fleet boxes from the supply he kept on hand. Almost as essential as having a stockpile of condoms. Going back to Carson, he squatted down again and showed them to him.

“
Know what this is, Carson?”

Carson shook his head, but it was obvious by the flare of panic in his eyes that he was lying. But that was okay, because Xavier wanted to say it, anyway.

“It’s an enema. Have you used one before?”

Carson resisted until Xavier cocked an eyebrow, then shook his head.

“Well, I’m sure you know it’s to get the inside of your ass nice and clean. I can tell by how you’re looking at the enema, and how you’re looking at me, you think you don’t want to use it. But you do.”

Carson shook his head again. Chin dimpling under the gag.

“Of course you do,” Xavier corrected his mute contestation. “Do you want me to tell you why?”

Another contradiction: a nod, and a closing down behind his eyes.

“You want to get that hole good and clean for me, Carson, because I’m going to stick something inside you. I haven’t decided, yet, what it’s going to be—a couple of fingers, maybe. Or a toy. Or my dick. But whatever it ends up being, when I pull it out, clean or dirty, it’s going in your mouth.”

Christ, some people were prissy about ass stuff. Carson looked like he was going to be sick. Although, the blush in his cheeks and the twitch of his cock suggested there were some conflicting feelings going on.

“Don’t look at me like that. Like I just spent the last six hours thinking of ways to be mean to you. That’s what children think when their mommy takes them to the doctor for a shot, because they don’t understand why it’s good for them. You have to learn to trust me, Carson. If this thing between us is going to go well, you have cooperate and help me take care of my things. And that includes keeping my hole clean.”

Oh, the burn of indignation, of frustration, of anger brightening those blue eyes. Xavier could feed on that tortured stare for hours. But first, other fun.

“So. Would you like a few minutes to clean yourself up? Or should I just get you on your knees and bend you over?”

He’d hardly had time to pop the cap on the lube and turn the bottle upside down before Carson started grunting his protest from behind the gag.

They locked eyes. “Are you asking for permission to use the enema?”

Only a second’s hesitation before he nodded, looking utterly defeated.

“Do you want me to come in and help you? Since you’ve never done it before?”

Blushing all over again, Carson shook his head.

“All right. I’ll trust you to clean your own ass, like a big boy.”

Fuck, the well of this guy’s wounded indignation was deep. It just kept giving and giving.

“If you can, take a shit first. Then use the first enema. Just follow the directions on the box. Follow them exactly, if you don’t want to be tasting your own shit once you and I start playing. When you’re done with the first one, do the second enema. Then take a shower, and give your crack a good old fashioned soap and water washing. Your cock and balls, too.”

He put his lips by Carson’s ear. He was so, so fucking tempted to bite that tender pink lobe, but made himself resist.

“I know you’ll behave yourself.”

He uncuffed him. Even before standing up Carson reached for the gag.

“No.”

He looked so crestfallen, it was obvious Carson had no intention of removing the gag surreptitiously. He struggled to his feet, stiff after hours bound to the post. One more pointless, pleading look, and he took the two boxes from Xavier’s hands.

“Here, take this, too. But bring it back when you’re done, because we’re going to need it.” He handed him the lube. “Put some on the tip of the bottle before you slide it in.” Xavier laughed. “Don’t make that face. The penetration is nothing. It’s smaller than my pinky. The liquid suddenly filling you will feel strange, though.”