Page 10 of Surface Scratch
Caleb looked back down at his hands, his palms itching with the need to turn them over and lace his fingers with his boss’s. “I don’t want to go to the cops,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just that I’m worried about Adam.”
“Ah yes, Adam. Ophelia mentioned that the three of you were once classmates. You don’t need to worry about him, things are not what they seem there.”
Caleb kept staring down, feeling confusion wash over him. “What do you mean? He looked really hurt.”
Marcus let out a soft chuckle. “What you walked in on wasn’t someone getting their ass kicked or a kidnapping,” he said. “They live what some affectionately refer to as an ‘alternative lifestyle.’”
The suddenness with which the distorted frown spread across his face made him keenly aware that he wore his discomfort on his face. He clenched his jaw, forcing his sore facial muscles to relax and get rid of the judgmental look. Had he been right in his initial assumption outside of the curtain—that he had simply stumbled upon two people being intimate? Well, it wasn’t two. Counting Luka, Matteo, and Petrov, that would have been five.
Five people being intimate. With three of them being brothers.
He knew he was blushing, bad, and felt the heat coming off his ears. They were probably glowing a brilliant red underneath his hair, and he was grateful for once for being too poor to have afforded the haircut he had wanted to get a few weeks prior. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find the words to go with his horrified train of thought. “Are you telling me that I just got the shit scared out of me and beaten to a pulp because Vincent and Adam are…?” He let the thought trail off, the whole thing sounding as ridiculous out loud as it did in his head.
Marcus’s hand moved from his injured one, his finger crooked as it gently pressed up beneath Caleb’s chin and lifted his face so their eyes could meet. “Lovers? Yes,” Marcus said, finishing his thought for him.
His eyes are so intense.Caleb looked down, trying to make sense of it. “Why did he pull me in there? Why involve me?” He could hear how harsh the question sounded as he spoke, but he was still confused.
“Vincent is a what we call anarienai hito. I think in English you would just call him an asshole. He probably never had any intention of taking you anywhere. He just wanted to see what Adam would do,” Marcus said.
Caleb raked his teeth over his lower lip, wincing as he did. “That’s terrible.” It was the only thing he could think to say in response. It still didn’t make sense to him. That level of violence. Or how invasive the whole thing had felt. It was just wrong.
But then again, it wasn’t like he knew anything about relationships.
“Mm, I tend not to treat those I like being around like test subjects because I’m bored,” Marcus said, stroking his thumb along Caleb’s lower lip.
Caleb forced himself to look back at Marcus, his amber eyes warm and hungry at the same time. “Especially not someone I’m involved with like that,” Marcus said softly as his eyes flicked down to Caleb’s lips. They were nose to nose, Marcus’s cool breath against his own mouth.
Caleb could feel his teeth begin to chatter with nervous energy, the twisting warmth in his lower belly spreading and washing away every ache and hurt that had plagued him just a moment prior. He had more questions, but suddenly his mind was a void. All he could feel was Marcus’s touch, as though that was the only answer he needed.
His gaze darted back and forth between Marcus’s beautiful amber eyes that stared into his soul, and the plush, pale lips that remained slightly parted and inviting. This was the man who had cleaned all the blood off him and taken care of him for God knows how long until he woke up. Despite barely even knowing him. Despite being his boss.
That knowledge alone should have deterred Caleb. It should have put a stop to an imagination that occasionally cropped up with the urge to do things far outside of his norm. He could practically hear a voice inside his head telling him to kiss Marcus, drowning out his internal insecurity that went through an endless list of reasons to not follow his gut instinct. It didn’t matter that his first and only kiss had been a halfhearted encounter two years ago, with another teen of a chronically ill parent at the local wound clinic who desperately did not want to attend her first high school party without having kissed a boy. The butterflies fluttering in his stomach spread to his chest. He really wanted to kiss him.
Marcus squeezed his hand and inched closer.
Fuck it. Caleb leaned forward and crushed his lips against Marcus’s, the remnants of a sob slipping out between them as he parted his lips despite the tender sting in his mouth and face. He had been right: Marcus’s lips were soft. The vague scent of cologne, cigarettes, and cookies enveloped his senses, along with something metallic. A flash of panic gripped him, making him aware of the fact that the hand that had been holding Marcus’s was now empty. Marcus had pulled his hand away.
What are you doing? You’re fucking everything up!a voice in the back of his mind screamed.
Marcus’s hands slid along either side of his face, pulling Caleb even closer as he kissed him back. His mouth seemed to move of its own volition as the pieces clicked into place that Marcus hadn’t recoiled from him. Marcus’s soft scruff rubbed against his chin, rough and needy, but not painful. A deep heat shot from his mouth down to his groin, leaving a raw, twisted warmth all throughout his torso. The critical voice in his head was gone, replaced by the ever-present ringing in his ears that grew louder as he allowed Marcus’s mouth to envelop his own.
One of Marcus’s hands was firmly tangled in the hair on the back of his head, stiff but gentle, pulling Caleb deeper into the kiss. Caleb gasped into Marcus’s mouth, Marcus’s hand having dropped from his face and trailed down his body, making his chest and arms break out in goosebumps. He wasn’t sure what to do with his own hands, but he didn’t care. He felt Marcus’s tongue brush against his own, probing as if asking for permission to enter. He nodded against Marcus’s mouth, parting his lips wider. The kiss became harder, more fervent, like Marcus was trying to drink in every bit of him with electrified lips.
It didn’t seem real. Maybe more like a dizzying, euphoric drug trip that made him feel truly energized for the first time in years. Maybe this was all a dream, or a bad hallucination? Maybe he was still unconscious on the floor of the room with the ugly silver curtain and his brain was acting out a deeply stuffed-away lustful scenario he hadn’t allowed himself to entertain. It didn’t matter, though. He never wanted it to end.
A flash of pain ripped into his side and he jerked back reflexively, sucking in a pained gasp through clenched teeth. Marcus’s hand moved from his already bruised ribs and he jumped up from the coffee table with lighting speed, putting several feet of distance between them. Caleb gripped his tender ribs, doubling over and panting from both the pain and catching his breath. It felt like the room was floating and spinning at the same time, and for once his mind was completely blank, no internal monologue to second-guess him or tell him what to do. He didn’t know what to do.
Both of Marcus’s hands covered the lower portion of his face, his eyes impossibly wide. He stood there, silently staring at Caleb, so still in the dimly lit living room he could have been mistaken for a statue.Is this the part where I get fired after one night of work for sexually harassing my new boss?Caleb wondered. What a fucking night. Get a job, get beat up by some S&M weirdos, finally have a real first kiss, and get fired. It was like a bad joke.
“I’m sorry, Caleb, I shouldn’t have—” Marcus began, taking another step back to increase the distance between them. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, I’ll have Ophelia take you back to your place. Take as much time as you need to recover, I’ll pay you for your days off.”
Before Caleb could respond, Marcus had disappeared down the darkened hallway. Caleb touched his lips, trying to hold on to the feeling of Marcus’s lips against his and his scent lingering in his nostrils. He buried his face in his hands, the buzzing excitement that had taken hold of him in that moment fading quickly, leaving him cold and pained as reality returned.
At least he still had a job.
Chapter Five
Caleb’s eyes scanned the fully packed club, a sea of sweaty people in various stages of movement and mirth, as he nervously chewed on the nail of his middle finger. He leaned against the DJ booth, checking the features of each blond-haired man in the room like he had every night he’d worked in the last two weeks. He had only allowed himself one day off to wallow in his empty apartment before he mustered the courage to come back to Club Euphoria. He hadn’t been sure what to expect when he walked in, but he’d been surprised by how welcomed he was. Tariq had hugged him so suddenly and fiercely that he hadn’t had time to warn him about his bruised rib cage, and Andrew had offered to teach him how to throw a punch after asking him an endless string questions about how he felt.
