Heart Ripper - Coffin Nails MC (gay biker M/M romance) (Sex & Mayhem Book 9) (15 page)

Raja exhaled and tightened his arms around David.
“They later got shut down, you know, because of this sex therapist among other
things, but even the group therapy... it’s cruel. And it just doesn’t work. All
it does is make you disintegrate, lose touch with who you really are. That’s
fucking terrifying, David. You have no idea.”

“I think I’d still be pushing away the idea of
being gay if I hadn’t met you. You made me face it.” David snorted all of a
sudden. “By making me face your dick, but still.” He gave Raja a tight hug.

Raja smirked and kissed David’s forehead, but he
was calming down, and even the tightness in his throat receded gradually. He
felt light-headed enough to fly up and bump into the ceiling like a helium balloon.
“It was very effective.”

“You forced me to make decisions on the spot, and
those came down to me liking what I saw.” David sighed. “I can’t imagine having
to go through what you did. It impressed me how confident you were, how you
just go for what you want. And after hearing your story… you’re so strong,
Raja.”

David’s soft mouth was intoxicating when it
touched Raja’s again, and Raja whimpered, opening up to the kiss. His heart
thudded. There was a sweet emptiness in his head. For the first time someone
heard his story and understood. “It took me ten years to get here. Not that
easy to shake this kind of stuff off.”

“You’re the only one who knows about me,” David
whispered and let his tongue join in for a kiss.

Raja nipped on David’s lip and nuzzled his nose.
“And you’re the only one to know about me.”

David smiled into the kiss, stroking Raja’s hair.
“Are you saying I’m special?”

Raja shrugged, slightly uneasy. He didn’t know
where this was going. “Seems so.”

“How did you know I’m gay? Do I give off
vibes
?”
David pulled away slightly, comfortably seated in Raja’s lap, as if it was his
God-given right to be there. Raja supposed it was.

“I don’t think straight people would notice. I
mean, you dress... European, but that’s cool. It’s more about the way you
looked at me when we met,” said Raja and petted David’s head.

“How did I look at you?”

Raja smirked. “Like I was a Popsicle.”

David sighed and ran his fingers through Raja’s
unruly hair. “That does sound about right.”

Raja leaned into the touch, watching David’s
handsome face with a smile that wouldn’t drop off his face. It was strange just
how light he felt on the inside, since he always thought the memories were best
left buried. “I watched you like you were the tastiest pork chop. I needed to
snatch you for myself.”

“I think there was a guy who tried to flirt with
me at work, but I only realized it in retrospect.” David laughed, and sitting
together in the darkness felt cozier than staying on a bed.

Raja frowned. ”Who?”

“This redhead, in his twenties. He was buying
flowers for a restaurant nearby. I was so useless though. He asked me when I
was off work, and now that I think about it, he probably wanted to meet up, but
I was sure he wanted to know when the shop closed, so I told him that time…” He
put his hand over his face.

“Would you have gone out with him?” asked Raja,
increasingly agitated. Why would David tell him this kind of stuff? Right after
confessing to Raja how impressive he found him?

“No! He wasn’t my type really…” David stroked
Raja’s shoulders.

Raja harumphed, not entirely sure he was satisfied
with this answer, but he didn’t have any right to make demands. “Okay.”

“Listen… I… There’s no good way to put it. I need
to take a quick shower and change. Will you look after Bell for a few minutes?”
He nuzzled Raja’s cheek.

Raja clenched his mouth, and looked toward the
baby’s room and its horrendously tiring walls. “What will I do with it?”

“Just watch him, it’ll be fine. If he starts
crying, knock on the shower door, and I’ll come over.” David slowly got up, as
if he didn’t want to leave the place he’d cuddled up in.

Raja held his hand until it wasn’t possible
anymore. “Sure, go.”

David smiled. “I’ll make it up to you for all
this, I promise.”

Raja nodded and climbed back to his feet. Sure, he
could watch the baby. As long as he didn’t have to watch the walls as well.

On soft knees, he walked back into the dark room.

David changed after the quick shower and tried to
not think about what a disaster this night had been so far. Not only had he
come too soon, but Bell’s crying spoiled the mood, and then he was so rude to
Raja, pushed him over the edge, forced Raja to confess that horrible story just
because David wouldn’t shut up about the camp. He should have known better. If
Raja had told him not to go, he must have had reasons, and there they were.
Spelled out.

He dressed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a
polo T-shirt, because there was no time to iron a fresh shirt, and the one he’d
had on before got sweaty. He gave himself a quick look in the mirror. His eyes
were red, but at least he put his hair in order.

When he went into the baby’s room, he stalled
halfway and raised his eyebrows at Raja, who looked up at him from where he sat
cross-legged on the floor. He waved at David and got back to his feet. “Do we
need to do anything else with him?” he whispered, nodding toward the crib.

David shook his head, and a whole wave of
butterflies rolled through his body. He needed to learn a way to navigate his
emotions.

“No, I’ll just check up on him every now and then.
He’ll be fine.” David grabbed Raja’s hand with a smile and pulled him into the
corridor. “I’m sorry for this whole mess, I wanted this evening to be nice. How
about I cook us something, and we start over?”

Raja looked at the baby’s door and exhaled. “Sure,
why not. Let’s just get away or we’ll wake it up again.”

“Stop calling him ‘it’. His name is Bell.” David
nuzzled Raja’s shoulder.

Raja rolled his eyes. “It’s not like he speaks.
All babies look the same. They’re like bunnies. You don’t know before they
start having dick on their mind.”

“Bunnies don’t have dick on their mind!” David
looked at Raja in shock as they walked down the stairs, and into the large open
plan kitchen.

“How do you know? Are you a bunny psychiatrist, or
something?” asked Raja, but a smirk was tugging on the corners of his mouth
already.

“As a matter of fact, I had a bunny when I was
younger, and it was cute, and lovely. Are you vegetarian?” he asked and opened
the fridge.

Raja snorted. “And gluten-free. No, of course I’m
not vegetarian. You?” he asked, pulling David under his strong, fragrant arm.

David couldn’t help himself and took a deep breath.
“No. I tried to, but I like meat too much.”

“Then what do you have for me, little bunny lover?
Rabbit stew?” whispered Raja, tickling David’s neck gently. It felt so nice
David curled his toes over the cold tiles and took his time to hug Raja.

“No, I’ve got either tomato-ish stew with chicken,
or I could make pasta for it, and… mix it all up.” He took a deep breath,
unsure if his offer sounded appetizing. “It sounds weird, but I promise it’s
good!”

Raja smirked and patted David’s ass. “Sounds good.
Where did you learn all this? Didn’t your mommy cook for you?” he asked and
opened one of the cupboards as they walked up to the counter.

David groaned. “I’m not a kid, you know. I have a
job, and I need to know how to take care of myself. My mom… taught me.” It felt
so exhilarating to just be with another man in the kitchen and casually touch
each other. And not just in passing, by accident. A real man was interested in
him. A man, not a guy as young as him. This was amazing.

“The kid stuff too? You have younger siblings?”
asked Raja as he reached into the cupboard and took some nuts from an open bag.

David nodded and pulled out the plastic box full
of stew from the fridge. “A younger sister. I was really keen to help. Do you
have… any siblings?” he asked carefully, remembering halfway that the topic of
Raja’s family might be a painful one, but he couldn’t take it back anymore.

Raja chewed on a cashew and shrugged. “I don’t
know. My parents adopted me when I was still a baby.”

David blinked. It was shocking to hear that
parents who wanted a baby so much that they adopted one would reject it and
send it to cruel therapy just because Raja was gay.

“Oh, okay. And your adoptive parents had no other
children?” David took enough stew for two portions out of the box and put the
bowl in the microwave.

“No. At least they didn’t have any ten years ago.
I never spoke to them since they sent me away.”

“I’m so sorry.” David ran his fingers over Raja’s
tattooed forearm, and a shiver went down his spine. “You were on your own for
so long? No other family?” David hated to think that his parents would reject
him too, but Mom kept in touch even with Hunter, and he was a Satanist. Surely,
being gay wasn’t that much worse?

Raja browsed through the cupboards casually.
“Maybe I have one back in India. Who knows? No way for me to find out, and
sharing the same blood doesn’t make people family anyway.”

“Did they adopt you there?” After all, Raja could
have been born and adopted in the US.

“Yeah. Somewhere in the north of the country, but
they didn’t really tell me much about it. Who knows if I was actually an orphan
with all the corruption going on in some of the foreign adoption systems.” A
smile appeared on Raja’s face as he opened the cupboard with liquor.

The microwave beeped, and David took out the bowl
of food. “Did you ever want to travel there? See what it’s like?”

Raja opened one of the liquor bottles and smelled
it. “I don’t know what the point would be. It would be as exotic to me as it
would be for you. I don’t even know any Indian people. I mean, there was this
one kid in my school, and I casually met some, but that’s that.”

“Did you never want ugh… get to know your
heritage?” David’s ears burned with the fear that what he was saying would
sound racist. He hoped he made sense.

Raja took more bottles and put them on the
counter. “I never thought about it. It feels weird that the way I look and
where I’m originally from should somehow determine my culture. I’m not ashamed
of how I look like or where I’ve been born. It just pisses me off that other
people see me as an outsider, just because I’m not white. My culture growing up
was going to church every Sunday, country music, and barbecue.”

“Will you promise not to laugh if I tell you
something?” David’s smile widened, and he put both steaming bowls on a tray
before walking to the sofa.

“I can’t promise anything before I hear it,” said
Raja, who followed David with a whole bouquet of bottles. Would they be
drinking? David hadn’t prepared for that.

“I really like Bollywood movies. My mom was fine
with me watching them when I was younger, because she thinks they’re more
wholesome than a lot of other movies available.”

Raja put the bottles down with a loud clang.
“Please, don’t tell me you’re into me because I look like one of the actors?”

David snorted. “No! It’s not like that at all.
You… are attractive for a whole lot of other reasons.” He gave Raja a bowl of
stew with a smile.

Raja relaxed into the sofa, keeping the bowl close
to his chest for several moments. “What reasons?”

“You’re just milking, aren’t you? I could tell you
all day what I like about you.” David filled his mouth with the stew.

Raja laughed and shifted closer to David before
raising the bowl to his face and smelling it with a small smile. “I don’t
know... I guess I’m curious what someone with your background sees in someone
like me.”

David looked at his food, but leaned to Raja as
well, all the way until they touched. “Are you kidding me? I’ve never felt as
myself
as I do with you. I don’t have to pretend things around you, and that’s… new.”

Raja picked up a spoonful of the stew and blew
some air on it before taking some into his mouth. He complimented David, but
then went on with the topic at hand. “Your upbringing... it was pretty strict,
wasn’t it?”

David gave him a quick glance, afraid Raja would
laugh at him. “On the surface, it sort of wasn’t, but deep down, there were
always many restrictions. I went to a Catholic school, I could only hang out
with the ‘good kids’, I had to learn to play the piano, even though I didn’t
like it. I had parental blocks on the Internet until… recently.” He felt
himself flush at the memory of all the dirty movies he’d seen in the last
month.

“Well, that’s pretty shitty,” said Raja with a
slight frown. “So no porn for you?”

“It’s embarrassing. Now that I live with Hunter
and work at the shop, I feel like such an idiot sometimes. Like I’m missing
context for things people say. And porn is… intimidating. It’s like I want it,
but then it’s almost too much.”

Raja sighed and took his time chewing before he
looked back at David. “Porn’s just a fantasy most of the time. It’s not like
real-life sex. Those people do what they do for a living.”

“My mom made a big deal out of any sort of
nakedness, sex-related stuff, or swearing, and I think”—David dared to look
into Raja’s eyes—“it didn’t really work out the way she’d intended. Bad words
only excite me more. When you said all those filthy things to me the first
time, my mind couldn’t compute. It was like I was sexually combusting.”

Raja’s nose flared, and he watched David for the
longest time. “You know I don’t mean those things I say, right? Never let
anyone say them like they mean them,” he said, continuing to eat his food.

David put his head on Raja’s shoulder. “Thanks. I…
wasn’t sure sometimes.”

Raja stroked the rim of his bowl, chewing the food
he had in his mouth much longer than necessary. “I’m not like that. It’s just
dirtier. More fun. That’s what it’s all about,” he said in the end, glancing at
David with his dark, hypnotizing eyes.

David nodded. “It is. It’s very sexy. It makes me
tingle all over.” He rubbed his cheek against Raja’s arm, looking at their
faint reflection in the big black flat-screen TV across from the sofa.

“I noticed. Your cock was so hard when I called
you a slut for the first time.” Raja chuckled as he finished his food and put
the bowl on the coffee table. “You eat this shit up, church boy.”

David sighed at the fond memory. “I think I like
the fantasy of being promiscuous, even though deep down I know I never will
be.”

Raja nuzzled David’s temple, stroking his arm in a
way that set David’s skin on fire. “No. But some people might try to make you
that way,” he said with the sexiest of smirks.

“
Some
people might even succeed.” David put
his empty bowl away. He was with a man, and didn’t feel weird or dirty at all.
It felt right. As if this was exactly where he was meant to be.

Raja grinned at him and picked up one of the
bottles. He poured some of the liquor into one of the glasses David left there
earlier and smelled its amber-colored contents. “You want to drink to that?”

David licked his lips. Yet another illicit thing
he shouldn’t be doing. “Yes.”

“You’ve never had any alcohol, have you?” guessed
Raja, taking a little sip from the glass.

“No. It’ll be my first time.” David couldn’t help
a giggle. Raja treated him like an adult.

“Okay, then I think you should start with
something milder. Wine?” asked Raja, picking up the bottle Asty had offered
David once.

“Classy.” David laughed and leaned in to give Raja
a kiss. “You wanna watch a movie?”

“Sure. What do they have? The Exorcist?” chuckled
Raja as he poured David a small amount of the red liquid. He clearly didn’t
want to get David drunk, and it was so considerate of him that David couldn’t
help but smile as he took the glass.

“How about some… Bollywood?” David grinned and
wiggled his eyebrows. “I could show you my favorite.”

Raja clanked his teeth against the glass. “Sure,
feel free to educate me about my ‘heritage’,” said Raja, and David wasn’t sure
if he was being playful or slightly irritated. Second after second, he was
convinced it was the latter.

“No, no, I’m sorry. Maybe we could watch a gay-themed
movie or anything else you like?” he mumbled.

David sank into the sofa and had some more wine,
embarrassed to the bones. Was he wrong to even offer watching Bollywood? Maybe
he should have avoided the topic altogether? Would Raja hate him now? Would he
leave?

Raja raised his brows. “No, put on your favorite
Bollywood. I’ll tell you if I hate it.”

“Now I don’t want to,” David groaned. “You’ll
laugh at me. And I feel awkward. I didn’t want to… educate. I just like them.
They’re colorful, and the songs are pretty, and everything’s so intense in
them.”

“Just put it on and stop whining.”

David huffed and finished the wine. It was… nice.
A bit sour, and had an aftertaste that was new to him, a kind of alcoholic
smell, but pretty good all in all.

“Okay, okay!” He got the remote and turned on the
TV. One of David’s favorites was still in the DVD player since the last time he
watched it, so he turned it on, now anxious if Raja would appreciate it at all.
What if Raja hated David’s taste in movies? Would that be a deal breaker?

The movie started with a colorful dancing scene in
the streets, which introduced the handsome, bike-riding hero and his life
goals, which included partying and picking up pretty women. Shirtless, the
protagonist stormed through town with his friends. There was drama ahead, but
Raja seemed more preoccupied with the visuals.

“Now I see what you like about those movies. That
guy is seriously ripped!”

David bit his lip and poured himself more wine.
“It’s not just that! He dances so well. But yeah… he’s hot,” He admitted
guiltily. Having this conversation made him feel so shallow.

“They all dance well. Is this like their answer to
musicals?” asked Raja, who poured himself a bit more of the same liquor as
before.

David cuddled up to him and pulled Raja’s arm over
his shoulders. “I suppose, but only if musicals were the most popular Hollywood
movies, not the action, or comedy ones. I think it’s because the Bollywood
blockbusters… they have it
all
. There’s action, drama, romance, comedy.
It’s just so great!”