When the Dead Speak, Bailey Bradford [new ebook reader .TXT] 📗

aching, Sev turned his head and bit Laine’s jaw at the same time he dug his fingers into his lover’s back.

Laine got the message. His hands clutched at the backs of Sev’s shoulders, his teeth tugged at the skin where shoulder and neck met, and his cock… Sev didn’t bother trying to muffle his yell as Laine pounded into him, his heavy balls slapping against Sev’s ass almost continually as he worked Sev’s hole. Sev couldn’t do anything but try to breathe and hold on for the ride, his body heating and tingling, a feeling that surpassed any ecstasy Sev had ever thought he’d known filling him. Laine’s furry, hard abs rubbed over Sev’s dick just right, and Sev thought he might have yelled again, might have babbled a string of words and promises as his release ripped through him. Then Laine pushed himself up, his head thrown back as he buried his cock to the hilt. Sev opened his eyes, vision clearing just in time to take in the strained, corded muscles of Laine’s neck and shoulders, the convulsive bobbing of the man’s Adam’s apple as he pressed even farther into Sev.

In that moment, as Sev stared at his lover caught in his release, a shudder racked Sev. It felt like he was being shattered into a million pieces, his fears and doubts dispersed as he was put back together and cocooned in the warmth of emotion blooming for this one man. It felt safe, sacred, and Sev didn’t want to fight it any more. As Laine trembled above him, in him, Sev’s eyes burned with the intensity of this newly acknowledged feeling, and he swore to himself that he wouldn’t run, wouldn’t let this man go.

* * * *

Laine sat across the table from Sev, their uneaten breakfast pushed aside as they discussed the prior day’s events. There was a soft look in Sev’s eyes that had been there since their early morning love-making that Laine wanted to ask about, but fear of his lover’s reaction kept Laine on the subject of who had broken into his home yesterday. Between the fear of chasing away that look and fear for Sev’s safety, Laine found himself feeling oddly vulnerable, and he didn’t like it.

Worries about his job, the reaction of people in the small town of McKinton just didn’t seem that important, not when compared to the fact he could have lost Sev yesterday—could still lose him if Laine couldn’t find and stop the man who seemed fixated on him. After what he’d found on his sheets yesterday once he and Zeke had made their way into the bedroom, Laine had no doubt he was the object of some sick fuck’s obsession.

Sev sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, rubbing agitatedly at his biceps. “So, you’re saying this guy left… He, uh, jerked off on your side of the bed and…”

“Yeah.” Laine couldn’t do much more than grunt the word as his throat tightened in anger. The ‘and’ that Sev had trailed off after saying was the worst part. When Zeke and Laine had found the sticky mess on his sheets, that had been a vulgar violation. But seeing the side of the bed where Sev had laid only moments before, slashed into bits of springs and material… The threat seemed pretty clear. It made Laine wonder if what had happened to Conner three years prior hadn’t been a random act, if, just maybe, Conner had been targeted because he’d been Laine’s lover. Was that what Conner was trying to tell him, why he knew someone was coming after Laine?

Maybe the police—himself included—had been wrong all along, and the sick fuck who’d killed Conner had had three long years to brood about Laine escaping, years in which he’d planned and honed the need for revenge. The thought was almost too painful to consider, because if it was true, then inadvertently or not, Laine had been responsible for Conner’s death. But it felt right, as if Laine had found the piece missing from a hellish jigsaw puzzle. The pain of that realization hit him as a physical sensation, his stomach cramping so hard Laine gasped and doubled over, vision dimming as he wrapped his arms around his middle as if to squeeze the feeling out.

He didn’t hear Sev’s chair slide back or the padding of feet as his lover ran to him. There was simply, suddenly, strong arms around his neck, and Sev was kneeling on the floor in front of Laine, trying to wedge himself in between Laine’s knees.

“Laine, no, no. No, baby, don’t do this.” The words were breathed against Laine’s ear, soft lips pressing to comfort and console from his ear to his forehead, then kisses were placed on his eyelids and finally his lips. “It wasn’t your fault, he doesn’t blame you.”

Laine’s eyes burned and he kept them sealed tight, refusing to break down. The sound of the kitchen door slamming open, of booted feet hurrying across to the table registered faintly, then Laine felt two more pairs of arms embrace him—and that soft, sweet scent that meant Zeke’s mama had decided to pop in. Laine had a second’s clarity to wonder why all the drama had suddenly kicked in, then Sev repeated the last part of his sentence and the wounded animal sound that filled the room came from Laine, was torn from him in an almost violent fit as he finally broke.

Three years of pain and anguish poured from him, of mourning he’d held in because he couldn’t let it show, rushing to the surface and demanding acknowledgment. It tore at his guts, leaving trails of scalding anger and guilt, and later, Laine would think the only thing that had held him together, kept him from exploding and his mind from splintering, was the three men who held him as he fell apart and, maybe, the soft breeze that kept swirling over him as he struggled through