Give Yourself Away (24 page)

“He probably did, but maybe the last thing he’d want was the pair of us together, you persuading me to go to the police, Jasim being exposed.”

March exhaled. “Does he still want you?”

“After he’d shown me Liam’s body and talked to me, he opened the door to the outside world, pointed me in the direction of a station then kissed me goodbye. Just a press of his lips to my cheek. He said I’d never see him again as long as I kept under the radar.”

March swallowed. “Did I ask the wrong question? Do you still want him? Do you miss him?” He hated that he had to ask.

“No, not now. I did for a while. I was scared of the new world I was about to walk into. The idea of being cared for by someone who’d go so far for me was appealing to the point that I almost begged to stay with him, but I knew deep down that I needed to stand alone. That was the price for him doing something terrible and wonderful. Maybe he was punishing himself by making me leave him. I don’t know. The other price is that I worry about everything.”

“What did you do after you left?”

“I walked until my feet hurt and then I sat on a hilltop and watched the sun come up for the first time in twelve years. I realized then why Jasim had given me sunglasses. I was very sick for a few weeks while the drugs worked their way out of my system. I stayed in a hotel, lived off room service until I felt well enough to leave.

“I checked the papers every day after I escaped, to see what was said about Liam. It took a few days before he was discovered. ‘School Caretaker Found Hanged.’ I was surprised he’d given us his real name. There was no mention of the room. No mention that he was a pedophile. A fucking popular caretaker.

“Seeing a psychologist helped, but learning to live was something I had to do on my own. I’d survived twelve years in that room. I was determined to make a new life for myself.

“You know some of the rest. After I looked for you, I went to London, and it was there I learned to live in the world I’d lost. I’m still learning.” He smiled briefly. “Spent my days exploring shops. Ate and drank things I’d never had before, and made myself sick. Went to the optician and found I needed glasses. That was when I decided to change the color of my eyes with contact lenses. Went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned.” He laughed. “I really enjoyed that. Even having to have a couple of fillings. I found a job. I liked that too. That was the good stuff.

“There was a lot of bad—irrational fear, hiding in my room, silence. To start with, it felt like the littlest thing sent me spiraling into a panic attack. I found ways to cope; when they failed, looked for others. I even spent a couple of hours in a reptile house staring at snakes.”

“You hated snakes.”

“I was trying to remind myself there were worse things than me worrying about a dead guy.”

“Do you think Jasim sent the roses?”

Caleb hesitated. “Yes, no, but I don’t know who else it could be. He said that would be the last time I’d see him and I believed him. I haven’t done what he told me not to. After I looked for you that once, I stopped.”

March straightened. “But you haven’t actually seen him, have you? And it fits. He took care of you then and he’s taking care of you now. Tell me about each occasion when a rose was left.”

“The first was when I left flowers at the crematorium for Simon. There was a single rose and the message ‘I’m the only one allowed to hurt you’. That was what Liam used to say.”

“You also told me that Jasim was rough.”

Caleb nodded. “Another rose was left on Mike’s doorstep and the card said ‘I’m the only one allowed to love you’. Again, Liam’s words. Jasim never used the word ‘love’. Then you got a rose and no card, and so did I.”

“I think Jasim’s been looking out for you. He killed Liam, attacked Simon and stabbed Mike. Maybe he’s worried now that we’re together.” March was sure he was right. Pretty sure. “He sounds the sort of guy who could easily find out who I am. Maybe he’s warning you not to go to the police.”

Caleb’s brow furrowed. “It’s just that those were things Liam said to me all the time. That he was the only one allowed to love me or hurt me. Jasim never said them. He might have liked to hurt me, but he didn’t love me, and he wasn’t possessive in the way Liam was. I think he was horrified when he discovered what Liam had done. He loved my back and Liam spoiled it. I also think when he discovered how old I was when Liam took me, he registered he could be in trouble too.”

“He’d be in a hell of a lot more trouble for murder.”

“True, so why do the roses thing? He’d want no association with me at all because I knew what he did. Plus, there have been occasions when I’ve thought I was being followed. Sometimes it might have been my paranoia but… There’s no way Jasim would bother to do that. And think of the timing. The first rose came three and half years ago. The next not until last week. Why the gap?”

“Well, maybe you didn’t have issues in between that warranted your stalker’s intervention. He’s only getting involved when you have a boyfriend who upsets you. So I just get the rose and no threatening message.”

“Because you haven’t hurt me or said…”

“Or said that I love you.” March blew out a breath.
But I want to, because I think I do.

Caleb grinned but it looked forced. “So we’re safe then.”

March wasn’t sure that was true, but telling Caleb he thought he might love him was the wrong thing to do—apart from the not-minor detail that saying you
thought
you loved someone was a step that ought to be left out. You did or you didn’t.

“Assuming it’s not Jasim behind this, who else could it be?” March asked.

“Someone I met around the same time as Simon? Maybe Simon’s ex or one of his friends who fancied me?”

“You don’t need to have met them. What if it was someone who watched you online? Did Liam ever say those words on camera?”

Caleb sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

“Then it’s possible someone became obsessed with the online you. Maybe he found the actual you by accident. Saw you on the street. In a pub. Somewhere you worked. The reason there are time gaps could simply be down to whoever this is not knowing where you were. Where did you live when you knew Simon?”

“London. I left when he died. I traveled around, stayed in B and Bs for a while, trying to decide where to settle. I bought a car and decided on Dorset. But with Caution being my silent first name, I knew coming back here was dangerous, though only if I started to dig for anything. If I kept my head down, I thought I’d be all right. But here was the last place I remembered being happy.”

March exhaled. “I was happy then too.”

Caleb smiled. “I’d reconciled myself to a difficult time at high school until you arrived. I couldn’t believe my luck when you wanted to be my friend.”

“Neither could I. God, I wanted to keep you safe.”

They reached out and held hands, gripped hard.

“Whoever is sending the roses knows about us,” March said. “Maybe he did lose track of you for a while and eventually found you again. Almost killed Mike. Followed you here. Followed you to work. Now he’s either going to be happy we’re happy or he’s going to cause trouble.”

Caleb tensed and March pulled him to lie against his chest.

“I don’t want to just do nothing, to wait and see if this guy is going to continue playing his games,” March said. “You don’t appear to be the target, but that could change.”

Caleb circled his thumb on March’s chest and March’s nipple hardened.

March groaned. “Don’t distract me.”

“There’s no point telling the police,” Caleb said. “Victor did and if they’d been interested, they’d have gotten in touch. I’m sort of surprised the police didn’t go digging into my past. They’d have found out about Simon, dragged me back in for more questions. Maybe they’re still working on the case.”

Caleb slipped his fingers inside March’s shirt and March sucked in a breath. “They might be interested if you tell them about the other three roses.”

“And what are they going to do? Put a car outside to watch us? This guy is patient. All he’d do is wait for the opportunity. Plus, there’s a risk of them discovering my real name and then there’s Jasim. He warned me not to rock the boat. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Unless he’s causing the trouble. So what do you suggest?”

“Forget about it. There’s nothing we can do. It’s probably some random dude who got off watching Liam fuck me. How the hell can I or the police track him down? But…”

“But what?”

“We should be careful. If I lost you now…” Caleb landed a kiss on the side of his face and began to unbutton March’s shirt. “If we get another rose or something happens, I’ll go to the police and tell them everything. By that I mean who I am, everything. Because you’re more important to me than Jasim. I’d still keep quiet about who he was, pretend I didn’t even see his face, but I’d tell the truth otherwise because I won’t risk you getting hurt. Okay?”

“Okay.” But March was going to do some checking of his own.

Though not now.

Later.

Caleb licked his way up his chest. A lot later.

Chapter Twenty-Three

When Caleb brushed his lips softly over March’s and March moaned, he felt Caleb smile against his mouth. As March parted his lips, Caleb slipped his tongue into his mouth and March’s tongue welcomed it with little flicks and twists of its own. He slid his hands down the sides of Caleb’s body, tracing his ribs, loving the smooth texture of his skin, the ripple of his bones, until his fingers touched one of the burn marks. When he faltered, Caleb drew back.
Shit.

March cupped Caleb’s jaw and kissed him, heaving a silent sigh of relief when Caleb angled his face to deepen the kiss.
Note to self: Don’t freak out when you touch his scars.
He had to show he didn’t care. He did care, and yet he didn’t.

Hanging had been too good for that fucker. March wondered if he’d have been able to kill him.
Think I could have.

March’s anger faded at the feel of Caleb’s whipcord body pressing against his chest, the hard ridge of Caleb’s cock resting alongside its mate.

Somehow Caleb pulled him out of his shirt, his shoes and socks, until they only wore jeans and lay plastered together on the couch. It seemed as if their lips never lost contact, though March wondered how that was possible. He physically ached for Caleb.

Caleb wriggled off the couch and knelt on the floor as he fumbled with March’s zipper. As Caleb tugged at his jeans and shorts, March lifted his butt to help. The last items of his clothing ended up tossed across the room. March threaded his fingers through Caleb’s dark hair, twisting the strands as Caleb gripped the bottom of March’s dick and looked up at him.

“Oh God, don’t look at me,” March said.

Caleb laughed. “When we were kids, I never left the house without double-checking my appearance because I was so desperate for you to look at me, see what I was thinking. I used to plan what I was going to say to you so that I sounded clever or funny. I wanted you from the first day I saw you, yet I’m not sure at that point that I really understood what wanting another boy meant.”

Caleb leaned forward, slanted his mouth over the rounded head of March’s cock and sucked on it. Fuck. March’s hips arched, low staccato gasps and cries peppering the air as March pushed back and forth through those hot lips.

“That feels so good,” March whispered. “Oh fuck, fuck.”

He released a long groan when Caleb set him free then stood up.

“Wearing jeans was a mistake,” Caleb said. “They’re too tight.”

March followed the movement of Caleb’s hand as he unfastened the rest of the buttons, pulled down—
oh fuck, no shorts?
—and tugged the jeans off his bare feet, the slender lines of his back flexing with each movement. The way he stood prevented March from seeing the tattoos but gave him a spectacular side view of his taut butt. He wanted Caleb to get back his unmarked body.
Not for my sake, but for his. Whatever it takes, I’ll pay it.

“Your arse.” March’s mouth watered. “I have always had a thing for tight, smooth backsides. I remember the first time I saw yours. You were taking a piss against a tree.”

Caleb grinned as he kicked out of the final pant leg. “Oh yeah, and you hightailed it out of there while I was still watering the oak.”

“I had a little accident.”

Caleb gaped at him. “How the fuck could you grow up thinking you weren’t gay?”

“Because you weren’t there to show me I was?”

Caleb’s breathing quickened and March wondered if he’d ever looked more beautiful.

“You’re gorgeous.” March’s voice sounded croaky.

Caleb leaned back, slowly bending his body until his hands touched the floor behind him. He kicked up and completed the flip. “Ta-da.”

March gaped at him. “Can you suck your own dick?”

Caleb laughed. “
That’s
what you’re thinking?”

“I wasn’t. I am now. You’re a pretzel.”

“Yes, I can suck my own dick.”

“I’m speechless.”

Caleb’s cock rose straight up over his flat stomach, his balls hanging heavy beneath. The rounded head glistened and March swallowed as his own cock twitched in appreciation.

“Want to suck each other off at the same time?” Caleb climbed back onto the couch, planted his knees either side of March’s legs and kissed him.

“Not that I have any experience in this, but doesn’t one of us have to be lying the other way around?” March whispered in between kisses.

“I just love kissing you.” Caleb sucked at March’s lower lip and March pulled him down to lie on his chest.

“Not as much as I love kissing you.”

Caleb smiled. He pushed himself up and swiveled so that his mouth was over March’s dick and his arse over March’s mouth. March grabbed Caleb’s butt in both hands, squeezed the cheeks apart, then kissed the strip of flesh at the back of Caleb’s balls.

“Christ, I’ll come in an instant if you play there,” Caleb said with a moan.

March pulled Caleb’s cock down and wrapped his lips around the tip at the exact moment Caleb did the same to him. Talking of coming in an instant. Bloody hell. He felt as if he were being pulled in two directions by wild horses, but in the nicest possible way. He loved the sensuous glide of Caleb’s silky, hard flesh over his tongue but the feeling of his cock being engulfed in warm, wet heaven made him falter in licking Caleb.

He lifted his head and asked, “How the hell are you supposed to do this at the same time?”

“It’s not easy.”

March was already panting. “I can’t. Maybe in fifty years when I don’t get hard as stone and desperate when I even catch a glimpse of you.”

He lifted Caleb off him and stood, pulling him to his feet. Caleb’s mouth was glossy with precome and March’s heart faltered. Caleb clung to him, an arm wrapped around his neck as they kissed.

Bed.
The word lurched into March’s head and he lifted Caleb’s legs around his waist. The friction of Caleb’s body against his cock as he carried him to the stairs made March groan.

“You can’t carry me upstairs,” Caleb said.

“Want to bet?”

“A tenner.”

“You’re on.”

But halfway up, Caleb stuck the side of his foot in the seam of March’s butt and March stumbled forward, trying not to land on him. The two of them sprawled on the stairs and Caleb chuckled.

“You fucking cheated.” March nipped his ear.

“You didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“I might have hurt you.”

Caleb kissed his chin. “You’d never hurt me.”

March picked him up again on the landing and carried him into his bedroom, their lips locked tightly together. But when March’s knees collided with the mattress, he dropped him. Caleb bounced and laughed.

As Caleb looked up at him, his legs bent and spread, his face flushed, the thought of letting Caleb fuck him flittered through March’s head.

“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked.

“Nothing.” March climbed on the bed next to him and lay on his back.

“Just tell me.” Caleb leaned up on his elbow to look at him.

Why not now?
Caleb had opened his heart and trusted him with a terrible secret. Why not now?

“I was thinking…” March’s throat closed up.

“What about? Why hair turns gray? Is it possible to explode from eating too much? Whose orgasm lasts the longest in the animal world?”

“Well, I wasn’t, but now I am. God, your mind.”

“Reduction of melanin as you age. Yes, your stomach can explode from eating too much. Apparently excessive alcohol consumption prevents some people registering they’ve overindulged. There was even a fire once when a surgeon in China cut into a patient’s exploding stomach with an electric knife.” He winked. “And for the orgasm—pigs. Up to thirty minutes.”

“Fuck me.”

“Yeah, I know. Thirty minutes? How can pigs have better sex than humans?”

“No, fuck
me
.” March wasn’t sure he could say it again.

Caleb froze.

I’m going to have to say it again.
“Fuck me.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Well no, not the first time. Oh fuck, yes I did, I just pretended I didn’t know that’s what you meant because I was slightly freaking out. Slightly? Shut up, Caleb. Now.”

March smiled.

“I can’t just…do it,” Caleb said. “If you’ve never had it done to you before—and I assume your girlfriend never fucked you up the arse with either her fingers or a dildo—then you need to… Oh hell. I’ve hardly fucked anyone and I’ve never fucked a virgin.” He groaned and threw his arm over his eyes.

March wobbled. “Forget it then.”

Caleb dropped his arm and glared at him. “You have to be kidding. You are kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I want to do both.”

“Both what? My mind’s gone blank.”

“I want to fuck and be fucked. But now you’ve gone on about it, I’m having second thoughts.”

“Don’t.” Caleb put his finger over March’s mouth. “Don’t.” His lips replaced his finger and he kissed March down from his panic. “You bought just about enough lube to be able to cope with my huge dick.”

March groaned. “Stop teasing me.”

“This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to lie there while I get you ready, but this first time you should be in charge. Squat on top of me and lower yourself down onto my cock. You can control how fast or slow things go. And you need to go slow. You might even need to stop, come off me and then try again. Do whatever feels right. Then ten seconds later, you’ll come.”

March rolled onto Caleb, grabbed his wrists and pinned him down. “I’m not totally ignorant. I’ve read a few books.”

Caleb sniggered. “I knew you’d devoured
Gay Sex for Dummies
.”

“I’ve been desperate since I watched you dancing. I almost dragged you upstairs to my office and pushed you down on my desk.”

“What stopped you?”

“No condoms. No lube. A situation that will never happen again. I’m going to always carry a supply in a backpack. And if I come in ten seconds, you have permission to shoot me.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“Good.” March chuckled.

“Give me two seconds in the bathroom,” Caleb said.

“Hurry or I’ll start without you.”

“How are you going to do that?”

March leaned over to pull out the bottom drawer on his bedside cabinet. He held up a big black dildo and Caleb’s jaw dropped.

Caleb scrambled off the bed. “I’ll be quick.”

March wasn’t going to tell him the thing had never been used.

When Caleb stepped back into the bedroom, desire twisted March’s stomach, along with a flutter of nervous anxiety. He did know what to do. He’d seen guys do it, but watching on a laptop was different to actually doing it.

March took Caleb’s place in the bathroom and cleaned himself up, praying he was doing the right thing. When he tried sticking a finger in his arse, his anus clenched up so tight he couldn’t get it in. A snort escaped before he erupted into laughter.

He came back into the bedroom to find Caleb lying on the bed, with one hand around his cock and the other feeding the dildo into his mouth as he play-moaned.

“Oh Christ,” March moaned. “I give up on the ten seconds.”

Caleb tossed the plastic aside. “It’s okay to change your mind.”

“I haven’t. I’m just…uptight in more ways than one.”

“Lie down. Let me look after you. You can stop this anytime you want. If you like, I’ll give you a massage and we’ll go to sleep. Okay? No pressure.”

Caleb rolled off the duvet, kicked it to the floor and held out his hand.

When Caleb’s fingers wrapped around his, March exhaled. It felt as though the tension trickled out of him at that firm touch.

Caleb pulled him facedown onto the bed and March buried his face in the pillow. He lay there as stiff as a dead guy, but couldn’t help it. Caleb pushed his thumbs into his shoulder, began to knead, and March let out a shaky sigh.

“Any idea which animal has the worst sex life?” Caleb asked.

“Apart from me until I met you? No.”

Caleb trailed his thumbs down the ridges of March’s spine, followed his thumbs with his tongue, and March began to snack on the pillow.

“There’s a tiny parasitic mite called a
histiostoma murchiei
. The first egg the female lays is male but as soon he’s hatched, his mother has sex with him because his sole purpose in his short life is to reimpregnate her so she can have the five hundred female offspring she really wants. Once the male has exhausted himself in that incestuous fuck, he dies.”

Caleb’s hands were on March’s butt now, teasing and stroking.

“Or maybe the macaque monkey,” Caleb said. “He gets beaten up by his rivals the exact moment he’s about to orgasm because it’s when he’s at his most vulnerable. I imagine him thinking—‘Yes, yes, yes… Oh fuck no’.”

Caleb was working on his legs and March was melting into the bed, the tension gone from his shoulders, the muscles of his thighs softening like butter.

“Or maybe the echidna whose balls swell to at least three times their size in mating season.”

“Nope, I’m pretty sure my sex life prior to meeting you was worse.”

Caleb laughed.

March felt silky hair brush his butt, along with a whispered breath. His heart hammered and he clenched his fists. Gentle fingers traced the rounded curves of his backside and a tongue followed. March’s cock pulsed.

“Think you could push up on your knees?” Caleb asked.

“I have to move?” He put as much indignation into his voice as he could manage. “I can’t guarantee I’ll stay there.”

March shoved his butt in the air and kept his face buried in the pillow, trying to disguise his harsh breathing.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He was hyperaware of every sensation, every touch from every part of Caleb’s body. The more Caleb played with him, the more his cock ached. When a warm, wet tongue licked down the seam of his butt and over his hole, March bit the pillow.
Fuck, that is so good.
The more Caleb did, the more erratic and greedy March’s breathing became.
More, more, more.

Caleb licked and fluttered his tongue over the entrance to his body until March was floating. He found himself pushing back against Caleb, demanding more.
Christ, he’s fucking me with his tongue.
He’d done it to Caleb, but he had no idea how good it felt.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.