Wild Horses (48 page)

Kai pulled Attila all the way in, their chests pressed together in mutual support. He ran his hand up and down Attila’s strong back, but Attila just could not seem to relax.

“So Lindsey’s picked lock got them out, and since their clothing wasn’t there anymore—it was locked in the office, but they had no way to know that—they dressed in garbage bags and walked all the way downtown, barefoot, to Tibor’s law offices. It was dark by then, and the front desk guard called the police. By the time we found out, my phone was far away and you were on the dock, waiting. With flowers.”

“Yeah. Should have stayed with Theodork.”

“I should have called the police as soon as we got out of Frankie’s, Kai. Lots of trouble could have been avoided that way. I should have made sure you got to go to an emergency room, too.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Attila felt the warm breath of Kai’s exhale on his neck. “It’s—weird. Just, I can’t wrap my mind about the fact that you could make a mistake, y’know? And I bet that’s unfair of me, ’cause I sure as hell make plenty of my own.”

“No… just…. Kai, between the fact that your mind was clouded and me dropping my phone, it was all a terrible miscommunication. By the time I got those texts, it was almost morning. They found my phone and brought it to me, and I took Tibor’s car to go pick you up. I found you, face up on the ground. The trucker who saw you take the dive off the loading dock turned you over—otherwise you might have drowned in that puddle you aimed for.”

The sobering reality of what could have happened shut Kai up for a little while. When he spoke up again, he did so with contrite reserve.

“So… why didn’t you call me from the police car?” Kai asked. “I could have stayed at Theo’s place and sacked out on the couch. He even offered.”

Attila felt a fierce blush rise up his neck, reaching up to his dark hairline. “I was indisposed.”

Kai grabbed his shoulders and pushed Attila far enough away to see his face.

“Indisposed how, Attila? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Kai, please….” Attila pulled away from his hands, mortified. “I truly do not wish to discuss this.”

“What, you had to do your Big Bad Dom thing again?” Kai tried but didn’t quite manage to keep his voice neutral. It was tinged with pain of a different kind altogether.

“I didn’t have my whip. I left it in the truck. It’s like a security blanket. I hate crowds. They… suffocate me. Whenever I fly on an airplane, I have to get front-row seats, or go first class so I don’t see all those people sitting behind me, packed in like so many cattle. I just pretend they aren’t there. And the way this all happened… it happened so fast, and I didn’t expect all the police cruisers with their flashing lights, and the SWAT units, and the firemen, and the crime scene people, and….” Attila took a deep breath, fighting his rising agitation as he relived the unwelcome memories. “I was already in the cruiser, and I was locked in. I couldn’t get out, and nobody paid any attention to me. The other people, they were moving around so fast, it felt like there were hundreds of them. Nobody would tell me if Lindsey was there, and then the medical examiner’s truck showed up and I thought she must have been found dead, but it turned out to be one of those administrative errors….”

Attila leaned his back against the solid structure of the barn walls, the palms of his hands running over the coarse time-worn timbers behind him as though he were trying to read its aged contours. At that moment, Attila was in a different world, in a hell of his very own. Kai spanned the space between them in slow, silent steps. He approached Attila the way he used to approach Cayenne: with caution.

“What happened?” Kai whispered, not making eye contact.

“I don’t remember,” Attila sighed. “I woke up strapped to a gurney and Tibor was there. It was… well.” He paused, taking a moment to fight back his abject embarrassment. “We went to his office then—the rest you already know.”

“You must have fainted,” Kai said. “Did that ever happen to you before?”

Attila gulped, eyes flitting from side to side, looking for a way out.

“Attila… I love you, you know that.” Kai’s soothing baritone was as silky as dark, molten chocolate. “I’d like to hug you. Will you let me do that?”

Attila nodded, and Kai wrapped his arms around him.

“I
NEVER
knew,” Kai whispered. “You always seem so in control.”

It felt like forever before Attila relaxed, and by the time he did, he was almost fused with Kai, pressed into the wooden wall by Kai’s heavier, warmer body.

“I am okay only as long as I am in control,” Attila whispered into Kai’s hair. “I can’t stand crowds otherwise. That’s why….”

“Shhh….” Kai rocked him from side to side. “That was the only way to go out, wasn’t it? And the only place you could get away with keeping people at an arm’s length with a bullwhip was a place like Frankie’s.”

Attila flinched. “I should have told you,” he said. “There just didn’t seem to be any reason for you to know.”

Kai nodded, not saying anything for a while. Then he kissed his forehead. “Are you okay now?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, at the warehouse. That’s my fault. Had I not lost my temper earlier—”

“No, Kai. You were not being yourself, and they would have kept us separate anyway. Then you’d have seen me have an epic meltdown and it would have been even more embarrassing than it already was.”

Kai was tempted to blurt out that it wouldn’t have mattered, because he already saw him in his Master Attila the Hun getup. Then he remembered that Attila had never seen Kai bent over a pool table, being some anonymous guy’s bitch, and he shut up. He’d been keeping Attila in the dark about a great many things he used to do. Maybe someday he’d explain how his reticence in being touched back there had a lot to do with a deep sense of shame for having been such a slut about it.

Kai had something good here, a real relationship with Attila Keleman, and he didn’t intend to fuck it up. He decided to redirect both of them to the trivia of life.

“I’m hungry,” he said instead. “Did you mention a pizza before?”

Attila turned in his arms, but Kai wouldn’t let go. Attila extricated himself from Kai’s embrace and stroked his shoulder, meeting his eyes. Kai saw apprehension in there, and hope, all warmed up by no small amount of love.

“Wait, Kai. Before we change the subject, I really need to know. Were you thinking of leaving again?”

Kai beamed a wide smile. “Nope. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Never?” Attila’s eyes were wide and shining in the dim light of the barn.

“Not ever again. I love you too much to even think about it.”

Attila’s mouth curved into a smile. “So does that mean you’re… staying? For real?” Attila’s voice was but a soft whisper.

“For as long as you’ll put up with me.”

“Forever, then,” Attila clarified and reached out toward Kai, who could not have resisted the request even if he wanted to.

Attila was magnetic, magical, and mesmerizing. Kai felt completed by him in a way he had never experienced before. He felt whole, and because the gaping void in his chest was now filled, he could breathe deeper than before, he could love, and he could trust. Kai realized for the first time in his life, his vision of the future stretched further than his next paycheck. He could see years, decades ahead now. With Attila in his arms, he could dream.

Kai ensconced Attila in his strong, gentle arms and kissed his hair. “Yeah… forever.”

Forever.

Just about everything
K
ATE
P
AVELLE
writes is colored by her life experiences, whether the book in your hand is romance, mystery, or adventure. Kate grew up under a totalitarian regime behind the Iron Curtain. In her life, she has been a hungry refugee and a hopeful immigrant, a crime victim and a force of lawful vengeance, a humble employee and a business owner, an unemployed freelancer and a corporate executive, a scientist and an artist, a storyteller volunteering for her local storytelling guild, a martial artist, and a triathlete. Kate’s frequent travels imbue her stories with local color from places both exotic and mundane.

Kate Pavelle is encouraged in her writing by her husband, children, and pets, and tries not to kill her extensive garden in her free time. Out of the five-and-a-half languages she speaks, English is her favorite comfort zone.

Contact Kate at http://www.katepavelle.com for more reading pleasure or follow her on Twitter at KatePavelle.

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