“Mmm,” Brennan hummed happily.
Chapter 25
Seen and Heard
Evan rose from dreams. Lying on his side, with the warm solidity of Alek at his back, he felt Alek’s arm wrapping his torso, his hand palming Evan’s chest. It was good to be naked and have nothing to hide. He took a deep breath, stretched a little, then rolled over to face his love. Resting his head on Alek’s upper arm, his nose brushing Alek’s chest, Evan looped his left arm around him and felt like he was right where he wanted to be.
Alek’s lips brushed Evan’s forehead, his fingertips moving as light as a breeze down Evan’s back.
“How are you?” Alek asked.
“Mmm.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, in one piece, and he didn’t hurt you more,” Alek confessed.
“Did he ever hurt you or Luka?”
Alek thought about it, then answered, “No. He was odd, and determined to get his way, but not sadistic.”
“How long did you see him?”
Looking regretful, Alek admitted, “A few months, I guess. It wasn’t dating; it was just hook-ups. It was easy to call him up and have him be interested. He always was. I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things.”
“I know the feeling,” Evan commiserated, then took a deep breath before saying, “I’m telling Mike I won’t be coming back, not for a few months at least.” He tossed the decision out there, not knowing what the effect would be.
“Oh, thank god,” Alek sighed.
“I’ll stick with Bren, go with him to campus and hang out while he’s in class.”
“I’m really glad.”
“I know,” Evan said with a groan. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I can’t go back. Not now. I do think he meant it, that he wasn’t going to come back for me, but now that the cops know everything, who knows what Drew will do?”
“All he’ll do is go to jail. There’s so much evidence on that guy. You have nothing to worry about.”
“What about Tommy? He’s still out there and the cops don’t know what he did to Bren.”
Alek groaned. “I don’t know what to do, honestly. I don’t want to force Brennan to go back there, but I don’t think we have a choice. It needs to be reported.” Alek caressed with the backs of his knuckles down Evan’s back and over his ass. “Are you sore?”
“No, I’m okay,” Evan admitted. “I hate that I enjoyed any of it. And that you had to hear me tell the cops what he did to me. I don’t like how it makes it feel more real, now that other people know. I could always pretend before that it was just a dream or something.”
“Don’t, please. Don’t do that to yourself. He’d conditioned you to respond a certain way. It’s not your fault how he made you feel. Just because it didn’t hurt doesn’t mean he was allowed to do that to you, or scare you into getting in his car. All that matters is that you’re here, and you’re alive and healthy, and I will
never
let any harm come to you again.”
They fell quiet for a while. Evan enjoyed getting to lie there, with Alek, his gentle caresses drawing goosebumps over Evan’s body. It felt like nothing bad could happen as long as he was inside Alek’s embrace. It was warm, private, and sacred.
The longer Alek caressed him, down to Evan’s thighs, back up to his neck, down his sides, along his spine, the more Evan’s cock took interest. The way Alek understood Evan’s feelings, without judgment, and loved him through the rough spots, was the most powerful allure Evan could imagine. At first, Evan ignored his body’s reaction, or tried to, but when his cock continued to rise and thicken, it nudged against Alek’s hip.
“Sorry,” Evan said with embarrassment, almost too quietly to be heard.
“New rule,” Alek replied, just as softly. “You’re not allowed to apologize for getting hard. Ever. I
want
you to feel good. You don’t need to explain anything to me, Ev.”
Evan’s chest rose and fell as his breath quickened. He didn’t move to touch himself, but just knowing he was hard, and that Alek knew he was hard, made it almost indulgent to lie there, being caressed so innocently.
Eventually, he couldn’t hold back anymore. There was some guilt as he took hold of his dick and began to stroke it. He didn’t leave the safety of Alek’s arms, or move at all. He just lay there, touching himself, breathing heavily against the bare expanse of Alek’s chest. His arm pumped, gradually increasing speed, and Evan pressed his parted lips to Alek’s skin, shuddering slightly with pleasure, his breath catching. All the while, Alek caressed him. Evan knew Alek was watching his hand move, but that only made it better, to be seen, and accepted, by someone so trusted.
When Evan got close to the edge, ready to come, Alek’s ceaselessly caressing hand came around to touch the hand wrapping Evan’s shaft. “Let go of yourself,” Alek said.
With a shiver and a sigh, Evan obeyed.
“Roll onto your back,” Alek told him. “Arms above your head.”
Evan felt his nipples stiffen, his cock twitch, as he got in position. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms up, folded loosely above his head. His cock stuck up between his legs. Alek lay on his side, facing Evan, studying his nakedness.
“Alek,” Evan murmured. He sucked in his stomach reflexively as Alek’s bent fingers skated along the right side of his body, from underarm to hip to thigh, then back up, between Evan’s legs. Spreading readily, Evan parted his thighs and threw his head back with an aching moan.
As if he was reading Evan’s body language, Alek rubbed, feather-light, over Evan’s sac. Pre-come wept from Evan’s tip, his cock jumping at the intimate touch.
“Like it?” Alek whispered, his lips brushing over Evan’s arm.
“Yeah,” Evan moaned.
Alek began massaging Evan’s balls a little more forcefully and Evan started panting, rocking up against Alek’s hand, fucking air.
“Lie still,” Alek told him, as Evan writhed.
Forcing himself to stop moving, Evan choked off a moan. He knew how wet he must be, because Alek’s touch was taking him apart.
“Spread your legs.”
Evan whimpered, shuddering hard but obeying again. He spread his legs wider, pulling them up. Alek never stopped kneading Evan’s balls. He gave them a gentle tug, then rolled his whole hand over them before gathering them up in his palm. Evan thrust, helplessly. Suddenly, a thick finger slid into him, all the way to the hilt. A hard moan erupted from him and he convulsed slightly. His mouth worked, his eyes rolled back.
“Skate the edge, Jailbait,” Alek whispered.
“
Alek
,” Evan cried. The finger up his ass slowly drew out, then rubbed over his knot. He went back to cupping and fondling Evan’s sac.
“I know what you want,” Alek said, soft as sin. “Say it.”
“Luka....”
Alek smiled, then called, “Luka!”
It only took a moment. Then, the door opened. Luka walked in. His eyes went right for Evan’s body.
“Fuck,” Luka breathed.
“Shut the door.”
“Bren’s meditating,” Luka told Alek, closing the door.
“Just watch. See how hard he is?” Alek said, eye-fucking Evan and pulling on his sac, stretching the skin. His thumb rubbed over the organ in gentle arcs. “It’s our job to make him feel safe. He deserves that. He’s been hiding too much, for too long, out of fear. It’s time to let it go.”
Evan was panting. With two fingers, Alek rubbed, firmly, down over Evan’s knot. Luka was standing at the foot of the bed, staring. Evan felt so exposed, so naked; it was exquisite, because it was
them
. He knew, deep down in the core of his being, that he was secure there, in ways he had never been with Drew.
Luka was staring at the way Alek was rubbing Evan, and his eyes were locked to the spot as Alek pushed, hard, to breach him with both fingers. Evan parted around them as they hooked inside and he undulated on the bed, pushing down onto the fingers, arching his back, stretching his neck and he threw his head back again and moaned.
“We see you, Evan,” Alek promised, pumping gently inside him.
The fingers withdrew and Evan looked down the length of his body as the bed shifted when Luka knelt there, beneath him. Alek rubbed over Evan’s balls and Luka fed Evan’s ass two lubed fingers. Evan swallowed a gruff, desperate sound, humping Luka’s hand helplessly.
“G-gonna....
Fuck
... Gonna
come
.”
Their attention was focused solely on what was happening between Evan’s legs and Evan convulsed subtly again, still skating the edge. There was a puddle of pre-ejaculate on his belly. As soon as Alek caught him looking, he moved to press Evan’s cock downward, away from his body, and leaned down over him.
“Oh god,” Evan cried, still fucking Luka’s hand as Alek’s tongue collected the puddle with a wide swipe over Evan’s belly. Luka was taking him harder, really pounding his fingers into Evan’s hole and Evan began to gasp, rocking up restless and writhing, fucking and twisting. Alek took hold of Evan’s thighs, keeping them spread, really pulling them back to hold him open for Luka.
Rough, wild sounds emitted from Evan as the hand pumped into him faster. Luka leaned in to suck kisses along Evan’s inner thighs. Then Alek leaned in, too, and mouthed his sac. Evan was right there, ready to tip over and come harder than he’d ever done before. Shameless pleading sounds in a constant stream were coming from him. Alek guided Evan into his mouth just as Luka bit down on Evan’s upper, inner thigh and Evan came suddenly, violently. His body locked up tight around Luka’s fingers and he unloaded down Alek’s throat, where he was buried to the root. Everything in him was trying to push down Alek’s throat more, but they had him pinned and fingered and swallowed down. He twitched up, up, up against Alek while Luka fingered him through it and he wasn’t even breathing.
Then Luka was lying with him, his fingers still nestled inside while Alek sucked the sense out through his cock and Evan grabbed hold of Luka, gasping against his dark hair, his eyes leaking silent, grateful tears.
“We see you. You’re beautiful, Ev. We love you so much,” Luka whispered and Evan had never felt freer. Held, taken, and possessed, it felt like flying, like finally, he was alive and fully present in his life; no hiding. No hiding at all.
Chapter 26
Opening Up
It was the weekend, and Luka had a mid-day shift, so they were all able to eat breakfast together. Brennan had finished meditating and doing yoga. Dressed in jeans and one of Evan’s shirts, he sat at the table with Luka and Alek, eating banana pancakes, fruit, and coffee. Evan was about to join them when his phone rang. Taking the call in the living room, a few steps away from the others, he lingered by the window and answered.
“Hey, Mike,” he said in answer, the weight of dread suddenly heavy upon him. “Figured you’d be calling.”
“Guess you know the cops came to talk to me last night,” Mike replied. He sounded worked up, agitated. Evan took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. Below, on street level, people were out walking their dogs, shopping or going here and there. He scanned their faces and watched them walk here and there.
“Yeah,” he answered simply. “Look, I’m sorry about the hassle—”
“They were asking me about that Lahner guy, and I told them how you’d never left in the middle of a shift before, especially not without talking to me first. You were gone for
hours
and when you came back... I’ve known you for a while, Evan, and I’ve never seen you that upset.”
Evan kept scanning faces of the pedestrians, trying to peer into cars driving by, too. Sometimes it was nice to be up high, looking down. It was a better vantage point, a way to more easily spot trouble.
“They said he abducted you,” Mike said, getting more upset. “From
my
damn garage, under
my
watch. What did Lahner do to you, Evan?”
Maybe he should have tried to say something, to play it off or make an excuse or ask for privacy, but there weren’t any words in him to say. He let Mike come to his own conclusions and just tried to bottle up his emotions as well as he could.
“The way those cops were acting,” Mike continued when Evan didn’t. “The questions they were asking.... Was it.... Did he.... Did he rape you?”
Feeling slightly like he was having an out-of-body experience, floating above himself, not engaged at all, Evan slowly drew in air through his nose and blew it out his mouth. He heard footsteps approaching behind him and closed his eyes, settling a little more when he felt a familiar arm circle his waist and draw him backward to lean against a broad chest.
“You’re okay,” Alek whispered, anchoring him. It allowed Evan to speak, to say
something
.
“I can’t talk about it,” Evan said to Mike quietly, upset and embarrassed.
“
Jesus
, Evan. I’m so damn sorry, kid. What can I do? How—”
“I was gonna call you anyway,” Evan cut in. “I can’t work right now. My head’s not in it. I need to take a few months off to figure things out and be with my family. It has nothing to do with you or the garage, but I don’t feel safe. I do hope that maybe, someday, when things get better for me, you’d consider giving me a job again.”
His voice warbled, but it helped to lean against Alek, who was supportive in many kinds of ways.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, okay? Take care of you. The job will be here. You’re a damn good mechanic. Just give me a call when you’re ready. I’m so damn sorry, kid.”
“Thanks, Mike. Thanks for being so cool about this.”
Mike sounded like he was ready to hit something. It just made Evan feel bad, how he was upsetting so many people and making it seem like he couldn’t take care of himself, which apparently he couldn’t. That was clear enough from his track record.
After Evan hung up with Mike, he lingered by the window a little longer. There was more he needed to say, to explain. It was time. He couldn’t keep hiding things from everyone like he’d been doing. It wasn’t fair to them. It was just so hard to say the words sometimes.
Wandering back to the table, Evan sat down in his seat, his hands folded and his thoughts scattered.
“What is it? What’s on your mind?” Alek asked.