Bad Things (11 page)

“
No.”

Well. At least that much was true. But looking through the photos to the end, there was no way around it. Carson loved cock. Well, at least this guy’s cock. Each photograph was a silent prayer. Worshipful. First, at a distance of respectful awe. Then nearer, nearer, approaching the altar. Finally, close enough to press a trembling kiss to the icon. Every vein in delicate relief. The texture of the skin visible in minute detail.

“Did you suck him?” Xavier asked. Hell, he could practically taste it, himself, at that point.

“
No.”

Also true.

“But you wanted to.”

“
No!”

There. There was the lie. Poor baby.
Pobrecito
.

Xavier rose to his feet, holding Carson’s desperate, defiant gaze, and waited, hoping. It happened almost instantly. The shift of his eyes, the fraction of a second it took him to see before he turned aside, pretending he hadn’t noticed Xavier was hard.

“Don’t worry about offending my modesty, Carson. I’m not shy.”

He could have predicted it exactly. The way Carson turned away even more, twisting his whole body to the side, now.

“You weren’t so shy about it yesterday. A bit stealthy, sure. But don’t think I didn’t notice your eyes sliding over me while I was hanging from the bar in my shorts. And there I was, feeling guilty for going commando, because I didn’t think to dress for company. But that wasn’t it at all, was it? So go on. Look all you want. I’ll let you hold the camera while I get undressed, if that would make it easier for you.”

Carson didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

“No?” Xavier teased. “Guess you’ve kinda been there, done that.”

A thought made him grin. Made his heart thump and accelerate. Made something in his gut cool and twist, making him feel slightly sick.

He didn’t over-think it.

“
We should mix it up, then. I’ve been wanting to learn photography forever. And now I’ve got a camera, a mentor, and a model.”

He pushed his sparring gloves aside on the shelf and set the camera down, then went back to Carson. Took in his watchful look of apprehension. Xavier straddled Carson’s legs, ready for an attempt to kick or knee him in the balls, but he did it so quickly Carson didn’t have time to react.

Small, panicked voice. “What are you doing?”

“
First, let’s get your shirt up.”

“
Fucking…come on. This shit’s not funny anymore.”

“
Anymore? I haven’t heard you laugh all afternoon.”

With Carson’s arms cuffed down and legs pinned under Xavier’s ass, there was no struggle. Just some squirming as he took the hem of Carson’s T-shirt in his fingers.

“Xavier. Come on. Please.” Carson looking up at him. Pleading gaze upturned from under his dark lashes.

Xavier laughed. “What’s that look?”

He leaned in so close Carson flinched back, as if he were about to head-butt him. Or kiss him.

“
Come on, Xavier. I know I fucked up. Of course you’re mad. But…come on. We’re…”
Pobrecito
. Face so sad you’d think his daddy had just shot his puppy right in front of him. Adoration, precious trust blown to a bloody pulp.

“
What are we, Carson?”

“
I thought we were…”

“
Did you think we were friends?”

He laughed. Xavier had been laughing that way when he was angry since he was about seven. Impulse control. Taught by his dad, who was terrified of the kind of trouble his Chicano son with a tendency to anger quickly, and who was already bigger than half the middle school kids even though he was only in second grade, would get into if he didn’t learn a safe way to channel his flares of rage.

So, Carson wanted to cash in on his fake friendship after using it to betray him to Max and Brian? Which would have pissed him the fuck off under the best of circumstances. But playing games with the fate of Christ only knew how many girls? Of Elena, if Max had learned his real identity? Xavier couldn’t find even a trace of pity in his gray and shriveled soul, not that he looked very hard.

“
Did you think sleeping on my couch and cooking me a couple meals makes us friends? Carpooling to the club makes us friends? That you can ask a favor of me, now?”

He breathed in the smell of him. Nervous sweat rising over the scent of soap.

“Baby, I might not look it, but I’m more than a pretty face. You didn’t lose your apartment. And I’m guessing your car’s not in the shop, either.”

When Xavier caressed his cheek, Carson went dead still, not even breathing.

“You’re Brian’s errand boy. Right? Instead of sending you to the corner store for a carton of smokes, he sent you here. Told you to bring him back an email. A file. Something he can take to his bosses so they’ll throw him a bone for being a good doggie.”

Dead on. Everything from that barely perceptible, involuntary nod to his stunned gaze at hearing the poorly-hidden truth recited to him was as good as Carson handing him a signed confession.

Carson tried to mold his frightened expression into sternness. “This is…this is…you could go to jail for this. You know that, right?”

“
I like having you cuffed here, but it does make it hard to take your shirt off. Then again, I don’t want to ruin it by tearing it off you. You don’t have many clothes with you, and we don’t know how long you’ll be staying. So let’s just do this for now.”

Xavier slid the shirt up, baring Carson’s torso, pulling the neck hole up over his face and leaving the shirt bunched up behind Carson’s shoulders.

Drawing in a deep breath, Xavier sighed. “Well, well.”

He drew the back of his knuckle lightly down, between those nicely developed, but not cut pecs. Over Carson’s fine trail of dark hair traversing that lean, quivering belly. Just to his navel. A taunt that provoked the faintest of turns of Carson’s head, back and forth.

In another sudden, efficient move, Xavier lifted himself and turned almost in place, so he was facing away from Carson, but still straddling his legs, immobilizing them while he got his shoes and socks off. Then he stood, slipping out of range before Carson could even try to kick him or sweep his legs out from under him. All the while, Carson was pleading, threatening. Expressing his outrage. Hard not to laugh at the irony. Such indignation from a man in bed with the slavers hiding behind the velvet curtains of Gomorrah.

Still, all Carson’s whining and cajoling was getting on his nerves. He went to the shelves behind Carson. Lifted the lid on the chest of dark brown leather and took out the ball gag. Too funny, that perplexed expression on Carson’s face when Xavier dangled the object in front of him, then his horrified incredulity as he figured it out. Xavier got it on him before he could complain much more. With years of practice gagging plenty of willing partners (and one unwilling victim), it wasn’t even a challenge, despite Carson’s desperate wriggling attempts to evade the gag.

Sitting on his thighs, gazing into those shimmering pools of terror, Xavier grinned.

“
I wouldn’t call this a dungeon. Mostly I use the space down here for working out, which you so sweetly turned into a spectator sport. But let’s just say you’re not the first guy I’ve had cuffed to this post. And that gag in your mouth isn’t the only toy in my box of treasures on that shelf behind you.”

Jesus, his face. Xavier had only seen terror like that once before. At least, only once in real life. Up close. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss.

“But it is one of my favorites, because it means I don’t have to listen to a bunch of whining and begging. I mean, I love whining and begging. I get hard for whining and begging, but only for the first few minutes. Then it gets incredibly fucking tedious.

“
But the thing I really love about the gag is, it’s so much easier to get to know someone when they’re being quiet. Just watching their face, looking into their eyes. Without a bunch of blah, blah, lies, blah, blah rationalization to muddy the truth.”

When he started undoing Carson’s belt, there were a few muffled complaints, even a couple tears, but then Carson stopped protesting. Stopped struggling. That happened, sometimes. One of the strange, beautiful effects of the gag: when a man can’t move, and you take his voice away, he stops being an actor, an agent who does things to control his environment and his fate. He becomes passive.

He got Carson’s fly open, slipped his fingertips inside the waistband of his briefs, and slid his pants and shorts down his hips, savoring a moment of anticipation. Carson utterly paralyzed, then suddenly panting, his belly rising and dipping with each panicked breath. That trail of dark hair disappearing under his pants, leading, teasing.

A couple more inches down. Trimmed, dark thatch. First glimpse of pale root.

A final, halfhearted, pointless turning of Carson’s head. A silent plea.

He slid Carson’s pants and shorts down off his hips. Fuck, it was overwhelming. Nestled there in the shallow valley between his thighs, like it was huddling against him, warm and safe. Delicate. Rosy. Cut. Pretty, just like the rest of him. Tempting to take it in his hand, to hold the limp weight of it in his palm.

Carson, red face turned away.

Backing down his legs, then, tugging everything down as he went, Xavier tossed Carson’s things to the side. Stood up. Took a good look.

“Fuck. You have a really fucking nice body, Carson. I mean, obviously I knew you had a good build. But it’s hard to tell, sometimes, if a guy just has a decent frame and is slim. But you’ve put a lot of work in, haven’t you? I bet you’re a yoga guy. Am I right?”

He got the camera, turned it back on and took a few shots. Then came close and squatted down so their faces were just a few inches apart.

“I don’t usually come out say things like this. I like to keep a guy guessing. Keep the mystery, the suspense, you know? But I’m just going to tell you, your body is my wet dream made to order. Tall. Lean. Just the right muscle definition. I like being bigger than the guy I’m with, but I don’t really go for those skinny, barely legal guys. You’re just right.” He leaned in closer, whispered in Carson’s ear, “And your cock is perfect, too. Good length. Nice thickness.”

After being quiet for so long, now Carson whimpered from behind the gag.

Xavier took a close-up shot of his face. Eyelashes wet and clumped together. Lips distended around the gag, bottom lip and chin wet with drool. Then a few dick pics. Then he put the camera back on the shelf, and turned around to have a good look at Carson. He could see what he was thinking as clearly as if the guy were showing him a photograph of it.

He thought he was about to be raped.

That look exacerbated the pulsing heat thrumming through Xavier’s balls and his cock, engorged and ready from the fun of stripping and photographing and taunting him. Squirming just above all that heavy, hardening heat, though, was that sickening cold twisting through his guts.

But it fucking served him right. Fuck his petty deceptions. Who gave a shit about his stupid stories, his faked friendliness, about him fucking with his computer? Carson had earned the worst Xavier could dish out, the second he’d gotten in bed with Brian and those other child-raping pieces of shit.

Knowing how cruel it was, Xavier locked eyes with his naked, bound victim, and grinned. Savored the scent of terror in the air. The way his erection was straining against his jeans.

“
Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

Xavier went upstairs and got the decoy laptop off the dining table. Then went to his room, got the step stool, extracted his own laptop from the crawl space above the closet, and headed back downstairs. Comical, the way Carson was curled up, all modest. Wasn’t it the most obvious thing in the world that trying to keep his junk out of sight was like chumming the water? If he’d just sit there normally, he’d leach away half the thrill.

“I confess, Carson, I’m pretty disappointed in our game of cat and mouse. I thought the hunt would be more of a thrill. First you tell that lame lie about getting kicked out of your place, hoping I’d be dumb enough to feel sorry for you and let you stay with me. As if I couldn’t get your address in five minutes online, and send a friend of mine—this really darling waitress—to check out your story. Your building manager didn’t have any qualms assuring her you’re still living there, and promising he’d tell you she’d come by to say hello. So, understandably I was already feeling a bit suspicious about you taking up residence in my living room.”

Xavier held up the two laptops.

“And the second I put a piece of cheese out, your spine snaps in my trap.”

Xavier sat down at the table and opened the bait laptop.

“So, you installed your spy software on here. And Brian—or whoever—is following all my keystrokes. Tracking my browsing history. Reading every email that comes in or goes out. Right?”

Nothing from Carson but a nervous stare.

“I won’t punish you for a nod. Yes or no. If you feel like being helpful, I might even consider toning down your punishment.”