Tough Love (41 page)

“Please,” he whispered, surprised to hear his voice so raw, so shaken.

Steve smiled against his mouth. He sat up, but not far. He looked Chenco in the eye as he uncapped another needle and held it an inch away from the first one. “This one on two. One. Two.”

In
.
Out.
Chenco gasped again, louder this time. He kept his eyes open, but only just, and he stared up at Steve as if he were looking through watery glass. Another burn. Another bite, another weight—it was nothing, really,
nothing
compared to a flogger, but it was a needle, a needle in his skin, and it was altogether different. He’d lain there and let Steve do that, twice. He still had the needles in. He could feel them. If he sat up too fast, he might bend wrong and prick himself.

He wanted to whimper. He wanted to cry.

He wanted
more
.

Grinning, Steve gave Chenco another kiss then reached for another needle.

“I’m not counting this time,” Steve said. He held a needle to the other side, his eyes trained on Chenco’s face.

It took everything in him not to arch into the tip, but when it went in, he shut his eyes and lifted off the towel, groaning, begging for more.

More. More.

He did beg—like a whore,
please, please, Papi, please give me more
—and Steve smiled, wickedly, kissing all over Chenco’s body instead of sticking him, licking him, stroking his dick while Chenco growled and whined and almost sobbed. He felt slightly stupid, as if his reaction were out of proportion to his actual experience, but he couldn’t stop.

“I want to give one to you,” he whispered against Steve’s skin as he nipped at his neck, the burn of the needles driving him crazy. “Please, Papi—show me.
Show me.
”

He did. First he gave Chenco more water and spoke softly to him, easing him down, and then he gave Chenco an antiseptic wipe and had him clean off Steve’s forearm, right above the triskele. “Try a small gauge,” he suggested. “A 22 or 23, and do a shallow stick this first time. Give me a count like I did for you, and then go. Don’t hesitate, don’t doubt yourself.”

“Control,” Chenco said. “Like flogging.” He looked up at Steve and caressed his face. “I wish you had been there. I want you there next time.”

Something dark and beautiful passed over Steve’s face, and instead of answering, he kissed him. “Give me a needle, Chenco.”

It was more nerve-wracking to pierce Steve than it had been to flog Randy, but it was ten times as powerful. The bliss Chenco felt reverberate through his lover as the sharp slid through his skin, the white-hot pleasure he knew his papi felt, the sensation
he
, Chenco, had given him—flogging didn’t come close, didn’t compare.

They went back and forth for hours, one needle, two, three into Steve, then as many or more into Chenco, until their bodies were pincushions. At first they laughed and nuzzled as they shared, but as the euphoria built between them, so did the passion, and soon Chenco felt himself start to go under, sliding into subspace, yearning for the familiar, safe place with his lover.

“Please,” he whispered, and bit at Steve’s shoulder, shuddering as he saw the needles decorating his papi.

Steve turned him around with the deliberation one handled a drunk, and Chenco went on his knees, presenting his flexing hole like a dog waiting to get humped. He didn’t get fucked though, not right away, taking more needles first, down his back, on his thighs, and four across each sides of his ass.

Steve’s hand scraped his balls, and Chenco whined in sweet, sharp terror.
Yes.
“Give it to me, Papi,” he all but growled.

He screamed when that needle went in—it was a cry of pain-pleasure like nothing he’d ever felt, leaving him raw inside and out. He spread his knees wider. He began to babble, not even begging anymore, simply speaking in tongues.

Steve stroked his hip. “Doing so good, baby. You’re so pretty, all full of my needles.”

And you’re wearing mine.
Chenco began to cry.

He shivered as he felt Steve’s tongue along his crack, as it entered him, toying with him. He grunted and thrust into it, whining, whimpering. Steve’s hand brushed his thigh. His balls.

Chenco started to shake.

Fingers moved in his ass, and he began to grunt through his tears, and when Steve’s cock slid almost raw inside him, he burned and buzzed and flew.

He barely remembered coming down. The plug went in, and he squeezed it, drooling, moving his lips, trying to thank his papi, to reassure him he was glad for his gift, but he couldn’t keep himself upright, let alone speak coherently. He wanted to fall, but he couldn’t, not with the needles.

Steve pulled a needle out, and Chenco gasped in displeasure—then sobbed as Steve’s kiss sealed the wound.

He removed all the needles, kissing each inch of flesh as they departed, and there was a lot of flesh needing that kind of attention. A few times Steve stopped to give water, then continued on. Before he turned Chenco over to tend to his front, he slid antiseptic wipes all over the now-naked flesh, stopped to cover a bleeding wound with a bandage. Then he lay Chenco down on the towel and gave the same treatment to the front.

He took the needles from Chenco’s cock last, and when he was done cleaning up, when every needle was gone and safely tucked away, when every wound that needed covering was covered, when there was no blood left to wipe away, Steve drew him tenderly into his arms.

“I need to take care of you,” Chenco slurred, gesturing to the needles between them, all around them in Steve’s skin.

“In a minute. I want to wear you a little longer.” Steve kissed his brow. “I love you. I love you more than anything in the world, anything or anyone I ever thought I could love. Stay with me, please. Marry me, live with me—here, Texas, on the moon, wherever you want.”

Steve kissed him again, on his lips this time, a desperate kiss that made Chenco hum to the bottom of his soul.

“I love you more,” Chenco said when he was able, shutting his eyes as he floated happily on his bliss. “And yes. I’ll marry you whenever and wherever you like.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

When Steve and Chenco returned home late that night, they found everyone still up and sitting in the kitchen, grim and sober. Crabtree was there too, and Steve knew where this was going before anyone told him.

“Gordy ran away from the party,” Randy said when the silence went on too long. “We tried to chase him down, but he got away.”

“I have reprimanded my staff for letting him go—twice now.” Crabtree’s voice was tight, as if each word were painful to get past his lips. “I am deeply sorry for my failure, and I assure you I’ll do everything I can to correct it.”

Steve nodded, not sure how to respond. In fact, he felt strangely numb about it all. He didn’t feel guilty, which seemed strange, but good. At least he thought it was good.

Tired, that’s what he was. Very, very tired.

When Chenco led him to bed, he didn’t fight. His soul was weary, but his body hummed with remembered pleasure, of the needles Chenco had given him, of those Chenco had taken. As they spooned together naked in their bed, his hand stole down to feel the butt of the plug his boy still wore for him, and the heaviness inside him eased. He fell at once into a deep, peaceful sleep, where his dreams were nothing more than floating on a soft, sweet cloud with Chenco snuggled sweetly in his arms.

He stayed there, happily ensconced, until the shouting started.

By the time he stumbled into sweatpants and headed into the hall, everyone else was awake and stumbling out too. When he tried to follow Randy and Mitch down the stairs, though, Chenco stopped him with a tug on his arm.

“Don’t.” Chenco stared over the railing toward the front door. “It’s him, and this isn’t going to be pretty.”

“The police are on their way,” Ethan said from the bottom of the stairs, a cordless phone in his hand. “So is Crabtree.”

“Stevie, come out here right fucking now, or I swear to God, I’ll kill myself.”

Bile rising in his throat, Steve gripped the railing and shut his eyes. “He will,” he bit off when Chenco’s arms went around his waist. “He’s not bluffing. He’ll do it. As soon as the police or Crabtree’s men get here, he will.”

“Then let him.”

Chenco’s words made the hair on Steve’s arms stand up. The grit in his lover’s tone, the complete and utter lack of mercy—it startled him, yes, but it made him shudder, not in fear, but in a bone-deep sense of relief.

Immediately, guilt washed that release away. “Chenco—” he began, but his lover cut him off with the same steel he’d faced Steve down with in the driveway the night before.

“If he’s that far gone, if he truly will go to that kind of length to manipulate you, then
let him go
.” When Steve’s knees began to buckle, Chenco pressed him to the wall and held him up by his shoulders, staring him squarely in the eye. “This isn’t your fault, Papi. This is all on him.”

“I can’t—”

Chenco kept tight hold of Steve. “You can. You must.”

“Ste
vie!
” The anguish in Gordy’s tone tore at Steve, made him want to push Chenco aside and tear down the stairs, to go out the front door and make it stop. He didn’t though. He only clung to his lover, as if he could draw strength into his body through the contact.

“Hush.” Chenco pulled Steve’s head down on his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”

Steve sank into him. “How?”

“Whatever happens, it’s nothing you did. You’re going forward, not backward. The choices he makes are not your responsibility, and at the end of the day, no matter what we promise to be to one another, no matter how much we want to save the ones we love, we can only ever save ourselves.” Chenco kissed Steve’s hair. “Save yourself, Papi. Save yourself.”

Steve swallowed around the truth, willing it to go down, not choke the life out of him. “That’s hard.”

“Tough love, baby. It’s the most painful, wonderful kind there is.” He drew Steve closer. “Just let him go. Stay here with me, keep yourself safe.
Let him go.
”

Steve stared at Chenco, wanting to argue. But the steel he saw in his lover’s face wouldn’t allow him to say a word, didn’t give him space to run away.
I see you,
Chenco said without uttering a breath.
I see you, Steve Vance. Your weakness and your strength.

I see you, beyond all your walls, and I love you.

Steve exhaled a shuddering breath and buried himself into Chenco’s embrace.

As if he could hear and see Steve’s surrender, Gordy’s frustrated scream rent the air. “You
fucker
. You’re choosing him over me? A goddamned
fence fairy
?” There was a pause, and Gordy’s next shout was tearful, desperate. “Come on, Stevie.
Come on.
Don’t leave it like this. Come out, please, and talk to me.
Don’t leave it like this.
”

“Don’t you dare let him get to you.” Chenco held Steve so tight he could barely breathe.

Steve was going to be sick. His guts churned. He buried his face in Chenco’s shoulder, nipping at Chenco’s bare skin because he couldn’t take it, couldn’t bear this. He wasn’t strong enough for this.

“I’ve got you, Papi,” Chenco promised, his teeth grazing Steve’s ear.
I’ll be strong enough for you.

“He’s going to do it,” Steve whispered, choking on the words. “He’s not making it up. He’ll do it.”

“I’ll hold you the whole time. I won’t let you go.” Chenco kissed Steve gently on the temple as another incoherent cry came up from the drive. “You cry all you want, boy. I can hold all your pain.”

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Steve clung to Chenco and waited, Gordy’s cries shaking him to his soul.

When the crack of a gunshot cut through the night, he jolted and the tears came faster, but he didn’t move, only kept holding on. The door opened, and Steve could hear others talking with the police—shaking, he didn’t look up, didn’t open his eyes, just kept holding to his rock, his solace, his only safe space in the world. In the distance someone spoke to him, but he didn’t listen, didn’t acknowledge anything but the beautiful
thud-thud
of Chenco’s heartbeat, the soft
whooshes
of his breath.

My boy. My Chenco. My Crescencio. My Caramela, my queen.

Steve clung to them all, to the man who was so young but so wise and so, so strong, the only one in the world who could have ever carried him past this dragon.

When Chenco brushed his lips to his ear and whispered, “He’s gone,” Steve wept.

Right there on the stairs, where anyone could see, he sobbed like a baby, bleeding out all the pain he had carried for so, so long. Every frame of the movie of his life with Gordy, the good and the bad, the sacred and terrible, the wonders and the mistakes—he lived them all, and he bled for the friend he had loved, who had chosen to go away. Steve let it all flow, every ugly, awful drop, gave every last bit of his sorrows over to his beloved, to Chenco. Because he’d said he could bear it.

Because Steve knew he could.

There at the top of the stairs, Steve Vance let go. To the man who had come to save him. To the love he had for Chenco. To the sorrow of what he hadn’t been strong enough to stop. To the hope they had, together, for the future. He let go and he listened as Chenco repeated, over and over, that this was not Steve’s fault.