Don't Read in the Closet volume one (75 page)

Stupid of him to come here in the first place, wanting what he
couldn't have. This wasn't Pretty Woman. That just didn't happen in real life.

He skidded to a stop at the last, worn plank of the dock, hardly
able to forget the water here was well over his head; too deep for his
rudimentary swimming skills.

"Be careful!"

That couldn't be panic he heard in Bruno's voice. He turned to
see where the other man was. Maybe it wasn't too late to duck into the woods,
instead.

"Get off the dock, Micha!" Bruno jogged down the lawn
after him, only his tattoos covering him, a shirt he hadn't taken the time to
put on dangling from one hand. He hadn't bothered to dress. There was no one to
see but Micha, and it was hardly anything he hadn't seen before. He wanted to
rush out there and grab the smaller man around the middle, haul him to safety,
away from the rotten decking and the peril of the cold water. He was scared to
move too fast, lest his bumbling freak Micha out more. The little fucker was
going to drown himself if he wasn't careful.

"Just stop!" Bruno halted on the beach, not trusting
the old wood to hold his heavy frame. The sound of it creaking under Micha's
slight weight was enough to clog Bruno's throat with panic.

Micha did stop. One step too late. The old, tired wood gave under
his back foot. He hung suspended, arms pinwheeling, body hanging in mid-air for
a split second before gravity took over and freezing water closed over him.
Every thought but the instinct to find which way was up fled.

Bruno cursed. He cursed Micha for running and himself for not
following sooner, for being slow, and Danny for dying and the spring weather
for not warming the lake, and the universe for letting everything get so fucked
up. Then he cursed himself again, because he could have restrained himself. He
could have held his tongue, or buttoned up his cock. Fucking always seemed so
much easier than talking, only this time, he'd cocked them both up.

It took a year to reach the end of the broken dock, a decade to
swim out to where Micha struggled against the undertow that dragged him further
and further from shore. Bruno dug in and swam harder. It was not going to end
like this. Faster and harder, he would get there. He would be in time.

He reached Micha just as his blond head disappeared under the
waves one more time. He reached, caught a handful of hair, and held on.

Micha felt the tug. Somewhere deep in his gut, he knew it hurt.
He wrapped his fingers tight around that wrist attached to those life-saving
fingers gripping his hair and let the panic rule his strength.

Bruno hauled him up. Air struck his face, bright, whistling wind
raking over his cheeks and he gasped in a lungful of it, then another.
Something garbled and desperate bleated out of him, past his raw throat and he
clawed his way up Bruno's arm.

The big man twisted him around, wrapped an arm across his chest.

"Hang on." Securing Micha
under
one arm, where he couldn't drag them both under, Bruno struck out for the
nearest shore. It wasn't their beach. The deadly wicked undertow had pulled
Micha almost out past the point and Bruno pumped his one free arm and both
legs, headed for the rocky outcropping that dribbled its broken bits into the
water. There were sharp edges and slippery surfaces, but it was land.

It took Micha a few minutes to realize he was no longer drowning
and he managed to help, rather than hinder Bruno's efforts, adding his feeble
kicking to the forward momentum. He kicked and struggled against the current
forever before his feet finally struck ground. One ankle cracked against stone,
the painful bite of it the final straw. He stopped kicking, stopped moving, and
let Bruno navigate them through the labyrinth of old, broken-down mountain and
finally, thankfully, out of the lake.

"Micha?"

He was too tired to open his eyes or care that he didn't feel the
give of beach sand under him as Bruno laid him out on his back.

"Micha!"

"You need to stoop shouting," Micha told him. At least,
that's what he said in his head. What passed his lips was more of a grunt,
followed by a violent shower of lake water that mostly landed in Bruno's lap. A
few more attempts to communicate ended much the same until he thought he might
actually bring up a soggy lung.

"Please. Just relax." Big hands stroked through his
hair and down his back. "Settle down."

Micha nodded and didn't complain when he felt himself pulled
tight against Bruno's chest. He was warm against Micha's chill.

"I'm going to take your jeans off," Bruno told him
after most of the vomiting seemed to have stopped.

"Already?" Micha struggled to sit up but gave up after
only a feeble effort. "Still mostly dead. Can't wait till we're in bed at
least?"

"Stupid," Bruno
said,
affection and irritation mingling to thicken his voice. He ran his fingers down
the side of Micha's face. Trust the little jerk to be thinking about sex now.
Always. His hand looked so big beside those small, pale features. "Denim
dries
slow
. Makes it impossible for you to get
warm." He gathered Micha a little closer. "You're shivering."

"Because I'm cold. Practically ice water, still."

"I know." Bruno ran a hand down Micha's chest to sluice
away as much of the remaining water as he could. "I know. Sit up." He
kept his commands gentle. Micha was small and pliant. Not submissive, but Bruno
needed him to pay attention and just do what he was told. Hypothermia was still
an issue, even if drowning wasn't. In a few minutes, the sun would
rise
the rest of the way over the tall pines and bathe their
little rocky outcropping with warmth. Once Micha was dry and feeling stronger,
they could follow the shoreline back. For now, Bruno just wanted to get him
warm and keep him safe. He made short work of the button fly on Micha's jeans
and together, they managed to peel the wet material from his legs. Micha
curled, automatically seeking Bruno's greater bulk and warmth.

Bruno gathered him and kept him close.

Micha let Bruno take care of him. It was comforting, and the fear
of the dark and cold under the water was still too near. He would have been
ashamed of the clinging, except Bruno seemed to understand and even
reciprocate. He couldn't remember the other man's touch ever being quite so
gentle, except when he'd watched him care for Danny, those few times he'd been
permitted to see such intimate moments.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled after a while. "What I
said about you buying me for Danny. About you not giving him—"

"No. You were right. At least about me not being able to
give him that. We only 'bought you' once. The first time. After that it
was..."

"Different."

Bruno nodded, his chin brushing against Micha's wet hair where it
tucked up close against his chest. "Different."

It hadn't ever been money on a bedside table after that first
time. It had been rent paid, a load of groceries arriving at his doorstep at
unexpected times, or his phone bill paid when he thought he'd get cut off. New
clothes, warm boots, leather gloves, and protection in the form of a new
roommate who happened to be Danny's cousin and didn’t happen to want to fuck
him. The guy moved in, wouldn't let angry Johns or
drunk
pimps in the door, and respected Micha's space.

And all he had to do for the help and the protection was answer
the summons when they came, wear what was handed to him at the door, and
perform what was asked. It was never unpleasant. It was never just business. It
wasn't a relationship.

For five years, it had been enough. He'd had a glimpse of what it
was like outside the desperately poor world in which he'd grown up.

Then Danny died. And yes, Micha did count the
days,
always thinking Bruno would come for him. Two years and too many tricks later,
he finally had. Unannounced, pulling his car up to the curb on which Micha had
been standing and motioning for him to get in, their reunion had been
unspectacular. Relief at seeing Bruno alive and well and anger at the long
silence had split Micha in two. But he got in the car and didn't ask where they
were going or why. He didn't refuse the fat envelope of bills or the silent
ride to the docks, or the drunken sex. He'd waited to ask the question, but now
it was time.

"What took you so long?" He'd needed to know since
Bruno had appeared on his corner.

"I can only swim so fast," Bruno replied.

"No." Micha sat up, putting some distance between them.
"After Danny? Why wait until I'd figured you'd forgotten all about
me?"

Bruno stared at him. Forgotten him? Forgotten the man who brought
Danny to life, who saved what was left of their relationship? "I—"
How could he possibly explain what he didn't understand himself?

"I waited." Micha's face clouded and it was like the
sun went out.

"I couldn't...replace him. I didn't know...how." The
admission caught in Bruno's throat, but it was the truth.

Five years of watching a life fade away, watching the future get
shorter and shorter until it disappeared completely. He didn't know how to see
past that. Micha had been their only bright spot. He'd pulled them back
together when Danny's wandering eye and Bruno's insatiable need had almost
destroyed them. They'd even talked about inviting him to stay just before Danny
had been diagnosed. Then everything changed.

"It isn't hard." Micha rolled onto his knees and
crawled closer again, cupping Bruno's face and lifting it. "It's just
words."

Bruno shrugged. Words. Fucking he understood. Touching and lying
together afterwards...or not. Hard sex in an alley or a bathroom, just to get
the ugly out, or burying himself deep inside Micha and holding him there, where
he couldn't disappear; those things, he understood.

"I need you not to let me go." Micha swung himself
around, straddled Bruno and settled himself in the big man's lap. He draped
both arms over broad shoulders and looked down. Fuck it. He was
here,
he had this chance to take what he wanted. The sex
hadn't been enough for Bruno to understand what they had. Plain English would
have to do. "Hold on and don't let go," He demanded.

It sounded so simple. Bruno wrapped both arms around the slim
waist, noting the chill of Micha's skin, his glowing paleness in the sunshine
finally falling on them.

"You see?" Micha asked, settling into the hesitant
embrace.

"Danny—"

"Is dead." Micha kissed Bruno's forehead, pressed his
lips there and closed his eyes, remembering. "I miss him, too. He saved me
from so much shit. Took care of me, sent his cousin to look after me. The
fucking was..." he drew a deep
breath,
let it out
in a long, shaking sigh. "Beside the point. That was for you. To know your
gift was appreciated. Not that we didn't both enjoy it immensely, but it was
for you, and at the end, when he couldn't anymore," Micha looked down,
"I was for you, then too. To give you what he couldn't." He shrugged
and smiled. "Fucking couple bastards couldn't just say you loved each
other. That would be too simple. Had to bring me into it, and you can't
just..."

"Let you go now.""No."

"No. I should get you back to the house, though, and into
bed."

Micha raised on eyebrow.

"To rest. The sun is going to crisp you up and you just fell
into a freezing lake and nearly drowned. You have no body fat. You're
shivering. Danny would dress your ankle, tuck you into bed and coddle
you."

"You aren't Danny."

Bruno grinned. "No. I'm not. That's why you need your
rest."

"I'm sorry we fought. Sorry you had to dive in the lake and
save my ass."

Bruno craned up, caught Micha's lips in a kiss as tender as he
knew how to make it. He reached up and pushed the last strands of golden hair
off Micha's forehead, studied him a long moment. "I'm sorry you were
so...sorry you thought you had to run from me."

Micha just shook his head as he ran his hand over Bruno's bald
pate. "I was running from just—everything."

"Don't do it again."

"Believe
me,
I'm not jumping in any
more lakes any time soon."

"You are, because you're going to learn how to swim."

Micha melted a little bit into the protection of Bruno's arms.
"Don't need to swim in the city. Not in that dinky apartment."

"You're not in the city now, and you aren't going back to
that apartment."

"When did you become a dictator?"

Bruno would have pulled Micha closer if it was possible, melded
them into one. "When I realized I was done mourning what I couldn't have
and about to lose what I need. Just about the same time you took off out the
door. Don't do that again."

Micha shook his head.

Piggybacking along the rocky shore and through the blueberry
brambles and junipers left them
both hot
, scratched
and tired and Micha insisted on hopping the final stretch through the
dandelions to the back door. He went up the stairs on his ass, one step at a
time, his ankle too sore to put weight on. Bruno removed the strip of denim
he'd torn from Micha's jeans to wrap around the cut and cleaned the dried blood
away. Now they sat on the bed, freshly showered and cleaned up, Micha once
again wrapped in Danny's plush green robe.

"Does it need stitches?"

"No." Bruno frowned at the jagged tears in the skin.
"Might scar, though."

Micha leaned back into the pillows with a sigh. He could just
reach to run his fingers down the tail of the dragon on Bruno's back.
"Maybe that will be my first tattoo. A mini lizard to match your brute
here."

Bruno swung round, placing a fist on either side of Micha's hips
and leaning over him. "You're perfect just the way you are." He let
his gaze rove over the expanses of pale, milky skin, marred at the moment by
fading bruises left by uncaring hands. Bruno traced delicate fingers over the
ugly marks. "Why would you want to cover all this up?"