Don't Read in the Closet volume one (74 page)

"Good." Fingers rammed home and Micha grunted, hissing
at the raw stretch, and then Bruno's lips were closing around his straining
cock. Micha's autonomy vanished between the big man's mouth and hands, pinned
as helplessly as if Bruno had tied him down.

All of Bruno's focused intensity was bent on getting Micha off,
and there was no fighting that tide. No point, really. Micha rode the wave,
rising
higher and higher, his body jerking spasmodically
between thrusting fingers and sucking mouth.

He clawed at the bed spread, then at Bruno's inked shoulders. The
big man groaned around his cock and he tried to ease his grip, but every thrust
of those thick fingers drove him wild. Bruno was not a small man. It felt like
he had his whole hand in there, reaching deep and finding every hidden corner
of Micha's being.

"Say my name again," Bruno demanded.

Micha babbled; "Bruno, Bruno, Bruno, Bruno," over and
over again into lost whispers as his hips jerked and the realization dawned he
was about to come undone from just the other man's fingers up his ass. But
then, this man had always done terrible, wonderful, delicious things to him.

"Come for me, Micha. Now."

"Oh God. Fuck!" No one could make him come on demand.
"Shit!" The world disappeared behind a blinding sheet of white need.
His hips rose off the bed, Bruno drove deep and the sound of his own voice was
drown out by the sound of blood rushing in Micha' ears. Every muscle tensed in
an agony of anticipation, tight, hard and absolute. The explosion ripped him apart.
Cum spurted to mingle with the rolling sweat across his stomach.
"Fuuuck..." he moaned, dropping back in an exhausted heap. Almost no
one could make him come on demand.

"Haven't fucked you yet," Bruno pointed out. He leaned
over Micha, licked up the mixture of sweat and cum and peered into the other
man's face. "Micha."

"Mmmm."

The young man didn't open his eyes. His entire body convulsed in
deep, repetitive shudders. Bruno frowned, unsure what to do. This was always
Danny's part, soothing the trembling and wiping away the residue of an
explosive orgasm.

Laying his palm on Micha's chest, Bruno gave him a little shake.
"Micha."

"What?" Micha struggled to open his eyes. He wasn't
ready yet. His entire body ached and shivered with the chill spring breath
gusting over him. He couldn't quite think straight.

"Did I hurt you?" Dread turned Bruno's stomach in on
itself.

"Mm-mm" Micha's head rolled side to side slightly, but
he still didn't open his eyes. "'M fine."

He didn't look fine. He was still shivering and Bruno pulled the
comforter over his prone form. They'd fucked harder than that last night. How
far had he pushed the younger man, in his drunken stupor, and not even realized
it? Feeling his own hands begin to shake, Bruno pulled back, resting on the
edge of the bed as he watched Micha drift back into sleep.

Now would be the time to go. Before he did any more harm. He
could boot across the lake and send the marina attendants back for Micha, leave
him enough cash for the long cab ride back to the city. He reached for his
smokes on the side table, but only yanked a sheet off the floor, wrapped it
round himself and went out onto the balcony. He lit and
puffed,
the ritual more soothing than the actual bitter taste of the thing. They
weren't his regular brand. He hadn't had any when they'd arrived at the docks
last night, since he was trying to quit. But everything about his place made
him crave the comfort of old routine. The booze and the sex would just fuel
that fire, and he'd picked up what he could find at the marina before they'd
crossed the lake.

Below him the lawn, peppered with obnoxious yellow flowers,
spread its fresh, spring green right to the lake's edge. Sunshine glittered off
the blue and silver surface and far out, a white sail caught the wind, a tiny
puff of glowing human existence in this isolated spot.

Micha watched him from the bed. He hadn't actually fallen asleep,
though he was about as limp and finished as he'd ever been.

Just outside the French doors, Bruno leaned on the railing,
puffing and grimacing at his cigarette, staring out over the water. Micha
wondered what he was thinking. There were a dozen things he could have said;
that the cancer sticks were going to kill him, that he really should learn how
to take care of a lover afterwards, if he was going to be so thoroughly devastating
in his amorous assault, or that he'd mourned long enough. Instead, he watched.

He wasn't even sure what it was about this guy. He paid well,
sure, but it was more than that. Micha didn't particularly like taking on
repeat customers. They got presumptuous. Possessive.

Or worse, they got under his skin.

He glanced at the side table, The envelope was still there. He
could take it. Cut and run. Bruno would never come after him. He'd let him take
the money and go.

And Micha would never see him again.

Something about the guy—the awkwardness, his tattoos, his bald
head or his age and the power imbalance that entailed that revved up Micha's
libido–maybe all those things rolled into one, commandeering package—made him
lie there and watch and not leave. It wasn't even that Bruno was a Dom or Micha
exactly submissive. Just that they fit. They liked the same things. Rough, hard
sex, sure, but also the quiet spaces between. And that was the problem. The
missing element; the one who had always known when to break the silences or
ease the rough; Danny wasn't here. Micha missed him and the feeling was an itch
under his skin he couldn't reach to scratch.

Maybe that's why he'd agreed to come, hoping Bruno could ease the
discomfort. Maybe, Bruno had hoped the same thing.

Missing a good trick and learning to live with half of you
missing after ten years was not the same thing. Micha had to admit that.

Danny was gone and Bruno was dying inside without him.

"How long has it been?" was what he finally asked when
he wandered out onto the balcony, pulling the soft fleece of Danny's lime green
robe around his
shoulders.
He had to hike it up with
the belt to keep it from dragging.

Bruno didn't flinch. Somehow, it wasn't much of a surprise that
Micha wasn't really asleep. He glanced over. More green. Danny's green. The
shade that brought out his eyes and contrasted with his black hair, before the
hair had all fallen out. It made Micha's pale skin turn a delicate, creamy
shade. His gold hair dusted the collar, like tones blending to become a new
source of light. "How long has what been?" he asked, deliberately
forcing himself to look away. If the asshole was going to appropriate Danny's
things, he could be decent enough to say it out loud.

"Since Danny died." Fine. If Bruno wanted rough, he
could have rough, all the way.

Bruno winced and Micha felt a tiny pang of remorse, but then,
Bruno could back down if he wanted. He couldn't push Micha around and not get
called on it.

Bruno dropped his head, crushed out his cigarette on the side of
the railing and watched it drop away down into the garden at the foot of the
balcony supports. "Two years back in March."

Micha nodded. "Two years, three months and four days."

The glare Bruno shot him, from that lowered position, was like a
bull, full of challenge and anger.

Micha stood his ground. "You act like you're the only one
who cared."

"We were together ten years."

"I know. Five years of cheating on each other, pissing each
other off—"

"And five years of him dying of cancer. I was there, you
weren't. Shut the fuck up."

"I was there for every anniversary," Micha pointed out,
turning to stare into the brush tumbling down toward the shore to hide the
sting of Bruno's sharp words from him. "Every birthday. How many
Christmases did you freaks wrap me up in bows under the fucking Christmas tree?
Hell, I was there for most of the makeup sex. And the funeral."

"Just because he fucked you
doesn't
mean you knew him."

"Oh, that's right." Micha gripped the collar of his
commandeered bath robe, trying to appear tougher than he felt in the naked,
suddenly very exposed position he'd just put himself. "I'm just the whore
you hired for Danny to fuck because you couldn't give him that."

"Don't try and tell me you didn't like it."

"
Who's
saying I didn't?" Micha
let the robe go, tore at the belt and let it fall to the planked floor of the
balcony. "It's why I'm here, isn't it? Why you called. Why I came."
He turned his back.

"Is that all you think you are?" Bruno asked.

Micha shrugged. It's what the envelope on the bedside table
proclaimed him to be. He was a fool to think there was anything else here.

Bruno's big hand clamped down on his shoulder, pushed, and though
Micha bent, physically pliable, something inside resisted, pushed back until it
snapped with a sharp twang and recoiled through his guts. It was too late to
say no. Too late to take it back, and anyway, this was what he was.

Bruno was going to be whatever he was going to be, and so what?
It was easier than wishing for him to be what he wasn't. He heard the smack of
spit landing in Bruno's palm, felt the blunt pressure at his still-stretched hole
and closed his eyes. Whatever the broken thing inside him was, a good pounding
would smash it to bits and it would be gone.

The lack of resistance was satisfying. At first. Bruno needed the
control, needed the feeling that everything he knew and loved wasn't slipping
away. Then he looked down at the fading bruises, the evidence that someone else
had been here, someone else had inflicted pain where they shouldn't have,
someone else had marked what he'd come to think of as his. Only Micha lived a
life outside Bruno's care, and whatever happened to him out there, there was no
one to make it right.

His hard rhythm slowed, faltered.

"Don't stop," Micha grunted, shoving back, impaling
himself
, using the railing as leverage to push his will and
his body onto Bruno. "Don't stop fucking now. This was your idea."

"Micha—"

"Don't you
dare!
"

Bruno pulled out, bent to pick up the robe, but Micha swung
round, fists flying.

"Force me!"

"No!" Bruno caught his wrists and held tight.

"You brought me here. This is what you want, so do it!"
Pitting all his weight against Bruno's greater height and strength, Micha
managed to free himself. "This," he ran past Bruno into the bedroom
and snatched up the envelope of money, "this is what you pay me for!"
he threw the envelope and it hit Bruno in the chest, bills exploding out of it
to get caught in a gust of spring. They fluttered up and over the bed, falling
in a rain of soft rustling across the pillows. "Don't change the rules
now," he pleaded.

All the blood drained from Bruno's limbs, leaving him feeling
like he might blow away next. He didn't know what the rules were any more. He
just shook his head, helpless. This was his last connection to Danny. To the
life they should have had, and this was not how it was supposed to go.

"Bastard." Micha rampaged through the room, tossing
things about until he found his jeans. He hauled them on and ran.

"Hey!" Bruno suddenly saw Micha, not for his last
connection to a future he couldn't have, but as the future he wanted. His future,
which was pulling on his jeans and heading for the door. "Micha!"

Even the sharp command in his voice didn't stop the younger man.
He faltered, but he didn't stop.

Just outside the house, Micha slowed. The warmth of the spring
morning, cut through by the cool breeze, blended with the heat of humiliation
and anger and the chill of goose flesh and fear. The last bits of the
post-orgasmic lethargy curdled into a thick mucus of disappointment.

He shouldn't be disappointed. Bruno had hired him for a weekend's
entertainment. He'd known that going in. It wasn't different than any other
time. Not from the birthdays and Christmases when he'd been the present wrapped
in pretty bows, or the last few times when Danny had only had the strength to
watch and smile.

"You watching now, Danny?" he shouted at the sky. Thin
wisps of clouds scudded past his waving fists, ignoring him. "You see
this? You fucker! You shouldn't have died!"

What did he even care? The guy was a trick. A dead trick. A trick
who'd lavished him with kind words and soft touches,
who'd
rubbed ointment into sore muscles and bruises he'd had no part in inflicting. A
trick
who
had never once treated Micha like a whore.

"Fuck!" he spat the foul taste of loss into the grass.
"You shouldn't have died."

The back door banged open, making Micha jump, and his feet
carried him off through the damp grass.

"Micha!"

He just ran. Screw Bruno to the wall. He wasn't going to let that
asshole tell him what he didn't know, or that he had no right to mourn, too.
Maybe it wasn't love like the kind that could forgive cheating and betrayal, or
the kind that could share what he had with a ratty little whore, but it was
something. It was his, and Bruno wasn't going to taint it.

There wasn't really any place for him to run. The isolated
cottage was accessible only by boat, and Micha wasn't so far gone in anger he
was about to leave Bruno stranded. But he couldn't face him. Not yet. Ignoring
the sharp dig of sticks and pine needles in his bare soles he pounded out onto
the dock, feet making hollow thumping sounds, right to the end.

Putting distance between himself and Bruno seemed appropriate. If
he didn't, he'd end up apologizing. He'd give in just to have the heat of fast,
hard sex. He didn't even want the money any more. That was hardly the point
now. But he'd let Bruno have him, on whatever grounds the big man wanted him,
and deep down he knew, whore or not, he deserved more.