Nathan checked the gym daily but never saw Fury. He also drove by the church once or twice but never saw Fury’s truck. Nathan steered clear of the warehouse, figuring that if he’d asked Fury not to go there, then hanging around the forbidden zone himself would be cheating on the deal.
As much as Nathan wanted to spend all his energy thinking about Fury, work had other ideas. There were two conventions in town that needed rush orders, and both wanted a handful of Cal’s interactive systems. Nathan pulled twelve-hour days and spent all the time he could in his office with the door closed. Despite Nathan’s anxiety over the situation, Paul never came knocking, never said a thing about what happened at the party, and he ignored Nathan during the staff meetings and in the hallways when they passed one another. The rumor mill was grinding, but for once, it was doing Nathan a favor. Everyone knew Nathan and Paul had some sort of huge fight at the engagement party, and there were a wide range of theories as to what it’d been about. None of them had anything to do with Nathan being gay. Nathan’s favorite was that Paul was secretly in love with Laura, and Nathan had found out the hard way when he’d caught them kissing on the veranda. Another one that came closer to the mark but was nevertheless off by miles was the one where Laura’d been caught screwing a waiter on the same veranda. Some people thought it’d been Paul she’d screwed, some thought she’d screwed both, but nobody thought Nathan had fucked anybody. That had to be pissing Paul right the hell off. During the worst moments of worrying about and missing Fury, Nathan tried to focus on e-mails, messages, and the image of Paul seething in his homemade cheater’s stew.
Nathan’s innocence was only encouraged by Greg’s behavior. Never one to be slowed down by closed doors or insane work schedules, Greg took the time almost daily to drop in to Nathan’s office and check on him.
“Anything I need to worry about?” Greg had asked Nathan during the first visit, after sitting down and forgoing the pleasantries.
“No,” Nathan had replied. “Nothing.”
“Lover’s quarrel?”
“No,” Nathan had said, and he’d debated on what to tell Greg, but shouldn’t have worried.
“Another kind of fight, then, with your friend?” Greg had asked, filling in the blanks for Nathan.
“Yes. Another kind of fight, Greg. That’s…that’s all.”
Greg had nodded. “He’ll get over it or he won’t, son, but either way, you’ve got better things to think about and do.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
That had been the end of it, though Greg kept calling Nathan into meetings that Nathan didn’t really need to attend. When Nathan had complained in the mildest manner possible, Greg had laughed. “Work is good for the soul and eases the heart, Nathan. And you need to remember where and how you matter in my organization.”
The attention had done nothing for Nathan’s despair over what to do about Laura and Greg, but it had strengthened his resolve that once he’d figured out Fury and what was going on there, he’d try to do right by Greg. The decision made it far easier to ignore Laura’s call when it finally came a week and a half after the party. Nathan had turned off his phone’s ringer, tossed the phone in a drawer, and finished writing his product proposal.
By day eleven, Nathan was losing his mind. He couldn’t stop the maddening voices in his head telling him he should have pushed to find out more information. He should have gotten Hellabeth’s phone number, asked her directly what was going on, done something so that Nathan didn’t feel like the odd man out. The oh-so-helpless odd man at that, and ignorant. He didn’t even know what kind of bad was going down. He had nightmares about men with guns and cocaine nosebleeds.
And after one such dream, Nathan had given up and e-mailed the office, saying he wouldn’t be in the following day. Then he’d gone into his closet and torn all hell loose searching for a spare stash. He found a Duke cocktail special in the toe of a shoe, and he snorted all of it. He’d followed that up with a shot or four of tequila, and he’d passed out in bed and slept through the next day and night. He’d rolled into work on Friday still seasick and shaky. For forty-two hours or so, all he could do was be unconscious or sit around trying to act normal and not throw up on his desk. It was a brief, heavenly reprieve that made him feel guilty as fuck for betraying Fury. Guilty enough that Nathan had tried to call Fury to confess, but of course, Fury wasn’t answering.
On day fourteen, Saturday, Nathan went to the grocery store and ran other meaningless errands. When Nathan got back to the apartment, he looked up Matt’s number at the church. He stored it in his phone, and Nathan sat in the parking lot at his building with the engine running, his ice cream melting, and with his thumb poised over the Call button.
“Stupid.” Nathan shut off the phone. If Hellabeth was in something nasty and Fury was trying to protect himself, his sister, and Nathan, then he was surely protecting Matt too. The minister probably didn’t know any more than Nathan, and if he did, the chances he’d share were slim. And even if he did, what would Nathan do with the information? Go storming in and save… Who? Hellabeth? Fury? Dennis, for fuck’s sake? And from what? Drug dealers? Nathan knew his share of them. One did not get saved from peddlers of evil. One got out alive and thanked the stars and God and Lady Luck.
“Fuck it.” Nathan was sick of thinking. He needed to be doing. He got his bags and hauled them to his door. He got the locks undone, stepped inside, and dropped the groceries.
There was a light on in the bedroom.
“Hale?” Nathan said, practically sprinting and throwing the bedroom door wide. Fury sat on the edge of the bed facing the windows. His forearms were on his knees, his shoulders and spine were hunched, and his head was down. He was fully clothed, and he didn’t look up when Nathan came around the footboard.
“Hale?” Nathan repeated, and his mouth went dry. After his binge, Nathan hadn’t bothered throwing away the empty plastic baggie still streaked with white-and-gray powder. Nathan had left it on the nightstand, along with the empty shot glass and the bottle of tequila.
Fury had the baggie in one hand, between his thumb and forefinger. He pressed the sides together, rubbing tiny circles in the plastic. And in his other hand, Fury had one of a pair of nylon cuffs that Fury had obviously found in the bottom drawer of Nathan’s nightstand, which was still open, revealing Nathan’s collection of sex toys.
“Hey,” Nathan tried again, swallowing.
“Hey,” Fury replied.
“What are you doing?” Nathan asked.
“Thinkin’.”
“About?”
Fury sighed through his nose. “Reasons.”
Nathan wanted to tackle Fury. Strangle him. Use those cuffs to tie Fury to something sturdy and make Fury talk. He wanted Fury to forget the straps, kiss him, and fuck him until he couldn’t remember how to walk, much less what had happened in the last two weeks. “Reasons for what?”
Slowly and silently, Fury extended the empty baggie toward Nathan. “I was going out of my mind,” Nathan blurted, hating himself for making excuses and hating himself for not having a better excuse to make. “It’s the last time. I don’t need it if you’re…” Nathan wiped his mouth with his forearm, and only then did he realize he was trembling.
“I ain’t your reason to get sober,” Fury said. “Not the only one. I can’t be.”
Anger flared and died in Nathan, and its ghost was a numb, suffocating thing. He wanted to tear off his clothing just so he could breathe. His shirt and pants were strangling him. “You’re not,” he said. “The only reason. I know that.”
Fury’s gaze would have stopped hurricane winds in their tracks at a thousand miles, and Nathan had to bite his lip to keep from whimpering and shouting all the reasons Fury was wrong, wrong, wrong but at the same time, too goddamned right.
“Okay,” Fury said at last, and he dropped the baggie on the floor. He rolled his shoulders with a wince. “You use these with Laura?” Fury fastened the heavy-duty Velcro on the cuff and ripped it apart. The sound sent shivers down Nathan’s spine to his tailbone, making his balls tingle.
“How long have you been sitting there thinking about reasons and what I might have done with my fake fiancée?”
“Dunno.” Fasten, rip. Fasten, rip.
“Stop that,” Nathan said, coming over and falling to a knee so his head was level with Fury’s.
“Sorry,” Fury whispered.
Nathan tried to figure out what to ask next. “You hurt?”
Fury shook his head and ran a hand over the lower part of his face. He had a few days’ worth of scruff on his cheeks and on the sides of his head.
“Is anybody else hurt?”
“Not really.”
Nathan didn’t shake the man until his brain rattled, but oh God, was it tempting. “What does that mean?”
Fury spoke with the closest thing to outright anger that Nathan had ever heard. “It’s not cuts and broken bones, Nate.”
“What is it, then?” Nathan asked, and he couldn’t help the note of abject frustration when Fury didn’t fucking answer. “What the hell is going on, Hale? I’m in the dark over here, and I can’t tell if I should be worried or calling the cops or moving to fucking Russia and changing my name. I can take secrecy, I know you do things on your own time, and I’m trying to be patient, I swear, but I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“I had to,” Fury said between clenched teeth.
“Had to what?”
Fury remained mute, and Nathan took a breath. It didn’t help. “Where’s your sister? Is she in danger? Are you? Why don’t people know about you two? Why did you think staying away was a good idea? How—”
Fury dropped the cuff, bent, and grabbed Nathan by the lapels. A button popped undone with the force of the wrench. Nathan’s knee slid on the carpet. He slapped handholds on Fury’s wrist and thigh, and his breath caught in his throat, choking him, but Fury didn’t hurt Nathan. Didn’t do anything, actually, other than bring their faces together. Fury’s beard tickled Nathan’s upper lip.
“Had to work out some of my shit so I could be here. With you.” Fury’s breath was stale, but Nathan didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan murmured, and never had those words been so inadequate nor so all-encompassing. “I didn’t… I won’t do it… ever…” Nathan leaned and pressed the first soft kiss to Fury’s mouth, and the sound Fury made was damned close to a growl. Fury’s kiss was fierce, closed-lipped, and desperate, and Nathan lost track of what his hands were doing. When Fury drew away, though, his shirt was off, Nathan’s was unbuttoned, and Nathan was undoing Fury’s fly.
“I know why you gave in. And I’ll tell you where I been,” Fury whispered, kissing, sighing, and grappling in a way that wasn’t meant to pin or fight but to get them as close as possible. “Tell you everything. After this. Need this.”
“Yeah. We do.” Nathan yanked Fury’s belt through the loops and tossed it aside.
Fury spoke between kisses. “Sorry too. Didn’t know what to do. Never been here before.”
“It’s okay.” Nathan nudged Fury’s shoulder, and Fury lay down on the bed. Nathan climbed on top of him, and they wrapped around each other, clothing temporarily forgotten. The grinding and tonguing and touching quickly drove Nathan insane, and he shoved at Fury’s jeans, trying to get them off, away, anywhere but there. He needed Fury’s skin against his.
“You like those cuffs?” Fury whispered, rolling with Nathan to help do away with pants.
“Yeah,” Nathan said absently, struggling with Fury’s shoe one-handed because Fury was unfastening Nathan’s shirtsleeves.
“You use ’em on her, or she use ’em on you?”
“On me,” Nathan said, wondering where Fury was going with this. He got one boot off, and the other was looser. It hit the wall with a
thud.
“That how you like it?” Fury asked. Fury got Nathan’s outer shirt off, and Nathan ripped his undershirt up and over his head, rising onto his knees so Fury could get at Nathan’s belt.
“Yeah,” Nathan murmured. He didn’t want to think about Laura or the stern line of her jaw when she told Nathan that no man would ever top her. “She didn’t like it the other way.”
Fury paused with the buckle of Nathan’s belt in one hand. He looked up at Nathan. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Like it the other way?” Fury kissed Nathan’s stomach, next to the navel.
“I…” Nathan tried to get the head with a brain back into the game, kicking himself for getting lost in left field so fast. He straddled one of Fury’s legs, took the tie off of Fury’s braid, and Fury’s hair was crooked silk between Nathan’s fingers. “Yeah. I do. She didn’t like men doing that to her, so I didn’t with Laura, but…” Now Cal appeared in Nathan’s mind, hog-tied and begging to get off. “But I did a little with this kid in college.”
Fury pulled Nathan’s pants and underwear down far enough that the base of his cock was exposed but nothing else. Fury licked the top of it, Nathan grunted, and Fury sighed into the short curls. “Would you do it to me?”
Fury’s tongue darted across Nathan’s trapped dick, and he grasped the back of Fury’s neck, urging Fury to keep it up and trying to sort out what was going on at the same time. “What…what’re you asking?”
“Would you tie me up?” Fury asked this time with his eyes locked on Nathan’s. He rubbed the small of Nathan’s back, exposed more of Nathan’s shaft, kissed it. Sucked at it with wet, sloppy noises that raised gooseflesh on Nathan’s arms. “Tie me and fuck me?”
Nathan swayed where he knelt, dizzy. He went from warm to feverish, and every nerve he had roared into high alert. Every inch of him that touched Fury sizzled, and a hundred pictures flashed before him: Fury cuffed and bent and taken, Fury blindfolded, Fury moaning, Fury with nipple clamps, gag, dazed eyes… Everything and anything was Fury. “I… Yeah.” Nathan swallowed, and he realized he was practically gasping. “I can do that.”
Fury rumbled a groan, and his shoulders rocked in a shiver. He freed Nathan’s dick, let it spring from beneath the elastic waistband, and he circled it with one hand.
“Oooh…” Nathan got a handful of Fury’s hair and rocked his hips, the thrusts stuttering when Fury sucked Nathan into warm, snug heat. Nathan surprised himself by calling out at volume, and pleasure darted down his thighs and tightened his lower body. Fury tugged Nathan’s balls, teased Nathan with his tongue, and bobbed along Nathan’s shaft until every breath Nathan took was a toned sigh bordering on a moan.