Page 30 of Dark Promises

Chapter 19

Daniel

My phone had been ringing, people were sending me pictures posted on their home cameras of every type of dog imaginable. Couldn’t they see that my terrier didn’t resemble any of those dogs? Sam looked nothing like a poodle. For god’s sake, did they think in my pain, I would accept any dog? I did with the little one Ryan had forced on me. I’d been inundated with people from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the Bronx, telling me that they’ve found Sam. Even Long Island and New Jersey got in on the act. How the fuck could he have traveled that far? In this traffic, you could get run over for hailing a cab, much less crossing the Verrazzano Bridge.

Some of the people showing up at my door with a dog wanted a fee for just bringing their animal to me, or someone’s dog they’d found wandering the street.

I regretted ever having offered a reward, yet I had to find Sam. I knew by now something had happened to him, and I’d become aware that I’d never be able to forgive myself, and that was why I continued to rush to the door when the bell rang, hoping beyond hope that I’d see him. I didn’t know how long I would be able to continue this.

Previously I’d told the doormen to send anyone up claiming to have knowledge and physical contact of a Jack Russell terrier. I should have explained or left a picture at the desk, but I didn’t, and because of that I had every kind of dog from a boxer to a poodle handed to me. I’d give it one more week, and then I’d correct my mishandling of the situation with Sam.

On my way to the door to be disappointed once again, I grabbed my robe and opened the door without looking. The door swung back, and I took a few steps into my foyer, because it was the man’s scent that filled my lungs and got my cock’s attention. I didn’t see what was in his arms, I saw his face, and his smell was intoxicating. It took me back to when I first met Cole, and his youthful musk where I’d enjoyed running my nose up and down his smooth skin, and licking under his arms as the seduction of his scent captured me, and my possessive nature wanted to own every part of him.

No, this can’t be,I thought. In that moment of questioning, my eyes were able to focus and get a better look at his face, his blue eyes. It was indeed Cole, and in that moment of joy my heart skipped a beat, and a rush of greedy desire clouded my senses, and I wanted this man to the point I couldn’t feel my legs or my feet.

“Come in and bring the dog with you,” I said breathlessly, because I needed to sit. All I could see was a handsome young man, who smelled and looked like the Cole I had obsessed over to the point I couldn’t eat and sleep for months, and months had merged into years.

Lightheadedness overcame me, and I began strolling backwards because I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him for fear he’d disappear. I moved in the direction of the living area, not stopping to sit at the kitchen bar. I turned once I knew he wasn’t going to leave, and managed to find a sofa, and plopped down on it.

I heard myself say, “Sit please.” My voice was low and unsure. The silent beautiful young man offered me a small smirk. When my head cleared, and I had control of my body, I glared at the man sitting across from me, holding a peaceful dog in his arms.

I would have given my life just to get Sam the way he was now, quiet and obedient. Maybe my life would have been different had I gone on to meet and marry someone who I could love. But I would never love them the way I loved Cole, and therefore, I’d never be happy as I was now just being near him.

Silence filled the room, filled the empty space between us, and hid the sound of anything besides my heart beating loudly.

Cole had been giving and accepting of my dark desires from the first time I brought him into my office, when I asked him to tell me what he wanted, and what he thought would go on between us.

I could inflict pain on him and ask for the same, and we would be in harmony in every part of our lovemaking. No there was no one like Cole for me, and that was why I couldn’t move on with anyone else, and Sam couldn’t move on either. We were both locked in this life that included Cole and when he moved on, we were left floundering in the dark and searching, but never finding that feeling of togetherness Sam and I had with Cole.

The silence in the room had become too much, and it boiled over, and I blurted out, “Where have you been all these years, Cole? Tell me, was it another man you left me for? I’m a mature man, I can take it.” In reality, I couldn’t handle him leaving without a word and even the sound of my words caused me to bite back tears pooling in my eyes.

I needed the truth, but I couldn’t take it if he’d left me for someone else. I wanted the truth, and I also wanted a lie. I hoped he said he was in an accident and had just woken from a coma in another state, and another city. That was the lie I wanted, because it would have made things simple.

But life isn’t simple, is it?

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. Then he placed the scraggly unkempt dog on the floor and when he trotted over and laid at my feet and looked up at me, I knew this was Sam, my Sam with the big brown defiant eyes, but now they weren’t defiant, but somewhat sad and warm. I knew Sam was as confused as I was, and perhaps tired.

Tired of looking for Cole to come home, and wondering if he ever would.

Placing my hand on Sam’s head and rubbing his matted fur from days of being lost, or running from people and eating from garbage bins, Sam closed his eyes at my feet and fell asleep. He was home now, and he knew it. I glanced over at the well-dressed man who looked remarkably like my Cole, but somehow along the way he’d changed.

He’d become confident and not at all submissive as I’d pictured him those long two years of not being in my care, or my life.

“Sam’s home, and so am I.” Did Cole mean he’d come home to me? Or was he talking about being in New York? I placed my closed palms into a fist, and I planted my elbows on my knee and my fist under my chin, then bit my finger, narrowed my eyes, and furrowed my brow to study him, hoping he meant that he’d come home to me and Sam.

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