Middleman Read online

  I want to go out with the bang of a lifetime.

  Seconds later, my hard-on is poised at the entrance to his body, nudging his ass and pressing against his clenched muscles. I consider using my fingers to ease him open. No. I want him to feel every inch of me acutely. Besides, I don’t think he’s up for waiting a moment longer judging by his escalating pleas.

  I bend over him so that my chest rests on his back. Then I wrap my fingers carefully around the front of his neck and sink my teeth into his shoulder, pinning him in place as I breach his opening and tunnel inside.

  I may not be able to keep him, but for right now—this moment and a few more—he’s mine.

  Only mine.

  All mine.

  And I give him every bit of me in return. For keeps.

  “Ugh!” He doesn’t waste breath on real words as he struggles to accommodate my thickness. It’s his own damn fault he’s hot enough to make me this hard.

  I drive forward bit by bit until I’m seated fully within him. He holds me tight, clamping around me as if he doesn’t plan to ever let me go. Maybe he doesn’t.

  I’m sorry, Kaden.

  I run my hand down his back, along his spine, helping him relax so I can begin to move. I retreat until only the tip of my cock stays embedded before working my entire length into him once more. By the time I’ve gotten a dozen or so strokes in, he’s rocking against me, making his cock swing in heavy arcs below us.

  When I reach beneath him and grasp it in my fist, it coats my palm with slickness. He shudders.

  “Close already?” I rasp in his ear, glad I’m not the only one about to burst.

  “Yeah. Better take your hand off me or I’ll come.” He tries to shift out of my grip.

  No way. In fact…

  “Turn over.” I take my cock out of his ass, then nudge him onto his back so that he’s looking up at me. There’s nowhere to hide the raw emotion that consumes me when I’m with him like this. Good. Let him see it. Let him know how I feel since I won’t be able to reassure him that his memories are true after tonight.

  Before I realize it I’m leaning down, balancing on one forearm that I place beside his head. I capture his mouth with mine. When he opens to me, as he always does so sweetly, I plunder.

  We kiss franticly for a while. When we’re both mindless, drunk on ecstasy, I slip back inside him. I enjoy the searing pleasure of introducing myself to his ass one last time.

  Kaden’s cock is trapped between our abs. I stroke it with my rippling muscles every time I plow into him. He throws his head back, breaking our lip lock while exposing his neck to me. I take full advantage, peppering it with open-mouthed kisses, licks, bites, and sucks.

  It’s one of his most erogenous zones.

  He wraps an arm around me, crushing me. Probably would have hugged me to him with both arms if I hadn’t pinned the other to the mattress above his head at some point during our tussle. His legs cross in the small of my back, helping me penetrate him deeper even as my lunges become shorter and sharper.

  “Yeah. Fuck. Right there.” He meets me thrust for thrust. If I hadn’t topped him every night for months I might doubt his submissive tendencies at times like these, when lust overrides logic.

  Too far gone myself to chastise him for the demand, I give him what we both crave.

  I drill him over and over, exactly where we both like it so much.

  The pitch of his moans changes as he clings to the sizzling live wire of pleasure we generate together. Hell, I’m pretty sure my grunts are at least as loud as his. It’s hard to tell over the racket the metal frame of his bed makes as it slams into the exposed brick wall. Good thing there are no neighbors in this charming old building.

  “You gonna come for me, Kaden?” I stare into his eyes as he nods. “Shoot all over me. Show me how much you’ve loved having my cock to yourself.”

  Shut. Up.

  Fuck more, talk less.

  I try to block out the encroaching pain and concentrate only on our rapture.

  Again, Kaden helps me by calling my name before he freezes. I know this moment well, though I’ve never seen it affect him so profoundly before. I’m right there with him. We teeter on the pinnacle of blazing desire for a moment, which seems to last forever, before it’s too much for either of us to handle.

  Kaden thumps the mattress with his fists as he shoots. His come sprays across my torso, blasting me with sticky heat. Proof that he feels this too.

  With a roar, I unload in him. My orgasm seems endless as my balls pump and pump some more, filling the condom I wish I hadn’t worn. Just this once.

  Empty, I sag forward, smothering him beneath me. My panting buffets the beads of sweat dotting his temple. And when I can move again, I reluctantly withdraw, sliding from his body as surely as I’m about to slink out of his life.

  Fuck.

  Flopping to my back, I fling my arm over my eyes so I don’t have to meet the accusation in his or see the light of his love for me extinguish when I break the news to him.

  My heart stops galloping in my chest when he beats me to it.

  “You have to go.” He kisses my jaw with a tenderness he’s never shown before, startling me enough with his quiet confidence to make me jerk. “Your handler called the gallery today. Told me you have to report no later than tomorrow morning or get fired. And that’s before he started dropping phrases like court-martial and treason.”

  “Shit!” I yell, struggling to find some way to explain. There isn’t one.

  “Hey, don’t freak out. It’s fine. I’ll be here when you come home.”

  Is he actually trying to comfort me? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

  And…hang on. “What?”

  “The guy said it’s a three-year assignment.” Kaden blinks up at me with those wide eyes of his, innocent despite everything we’ve done. He’s never seen war. He doesn’t understand the true depravity human beings are capable of or what I’ll be facing. “It’ll be a bitch not having you again for so long, but what we have is worth the wait.”

  “That’s if I come home. Big if. A regular tour of duty in the military is bad enough. This is something I can’t even tell you about. Could never call you, send an email, nothing. Besides, you’re not going on ice. No way could you last that long without a cock up your ass.” A man as sexual as Kaden would never make it through thirty-six months of abstinence in his prime without either coming to despise me for the extended dry spell or finding some action on the side. Hell, neither would I. “Going without isn’t possible for either of us, is it? So I’m saving us the trouble of cheating, feeling guilty, falling apart, and ending up bitter and hateful after wasting years of our lives.”

  Besides, that’s the best-case scenario. Some guys I know came back damaged goods. It was hard not to after living a double life, always watching your back, never knowing who was friend and who was actually foe-pretending-to-be-friend so they could stab you in the back. PTSD, ingrained paranoia, the inability to resume a normal life—these are real risks I face. I knew that when I accepted a counterterrorism post with an agency too secret for a public name.

  I’ve trained for this since I was seventeen. I’ve prepared to make sacrifices.

  I just never understood how much I’d be giving up until now. When I’ve been activated. Called to duty at the worst possible moment. When I have to abandon the love of my life. The man of my dreams. Someone I never thought I’d find because I couldn’t imagine a man as flawless as him could be real.

  It’s the highest price they could have demanded. The problem is that when I counted the cost of my decisions, I didn’t figure in a partner. Never imagined I’d find one like Kaden. I hadn’t meant for him to pay so dearly for loving me. I refuse to make that burden any heavier.

  “That’s awfully big of you.” Kaden rolls from the bed. I try to focus on things more important than the flex of his abs or the glistening trails of his seed decorating them. “Don’t do me any favors, fuck face. If you can’
t man up and tell me it’s already over, and would have been anyway without such a convenient excuse, then I’ll do it for you. Get the hell out of my bed. And my life. I already packed your bag. Take it and go.”

  The authoritative tone of Kaden’s marching order rings through the tiny loft apartment. It has my cock twitching despite our recent fuck. To know that a man as strong-willed and defiant as him willfully surrendered to me boosts the buzz of my post-climax high.

  Because I also know I don’t deserve his devotion, I obey his command.

  A solider at heart, it’s easier for me this way.

  Maybe Kaden realizes that and gave me one final parting present.

  “Take care of yourself, okay?” I reach out but let my hand drop when Kaden rears back, out of my reach forever.

  In silence, I put on my pants and the T-shirt that got “ruined” when Kaden and I fucked on the floor of his studio last week. It will always be my favorite. A reminder that maybe some of his true colors have rubbed off on me.

  After lacing up my boots, I collect my duffle. It easily holds the sparse belongings I’d temporarily housed in the dresser we picked up at an estate auction one lazy Saturday. With him, even shopping could be fun. I put my arm through the canvas straps and toss the bag over my shoulder. Then I grab my phone, erasing my presence from his life all too easily.

  Completely.

  “I love you, Kaden.” Probably should have told him so before now.

  He flashes me the finger in response.

  Somehow that makes me grin instead of pissing me off. He’s a fighter. He’ll survive just fine without me.

  Satisfied with that at least, I put one boot on the top stair and then the next, the heavy clanking of my soles ringing ominously in my ears as I descend from the highest point of my life. My footsteps are the opposite of his lighthearted ones on the way up a half hour ago. When I open the front door and pause to memorize the tone of the chiming bells that hang there, I think I hear him say softly, “Try not to get yourself killed, asshole.”

  Why not? It couldn’t hurt worse than this.

  Without Kaden, there’s not much to live for.

  2

  Kaden

  Two Years Later

  The bells above my gallery’s front door emit a cheery jingle, letting me know someone’s come in. Hopefully they intend to browse my work instead of merely soaking up some free, admittedly shitty, air conditioning. Since I like to eat, and pay my bills, and share my creative genius with the world and stuff like that, the sound of an incoming customer usually inspires me to grin and hold back giggles like a dude getting his first BJ. Today it irks me. The tinkling breaks the spell I’d been casting while wielding my brushes as if they’re wands and I’m the fucking Harry Potter of the erotic art scene.

  The noise reminds me that I’m not actually witnessing my creation come to life like some indecent Geppetto. It’s not me, the painter, the image of the model is staring at adoringly. No, his loyal affection is aimed at his lover, who hired me to capture his syrupy sweet gaze in a portrait that will last forever. Far longer than the emotion itself, as we both know.

  I’m not an idiot. Fear of loss drives the majority of my commissions. Having experienced a nasty breakup myself, I understand the desire to preserve memories while the fickle flame of affection is burning its brightest. Nothing wrong with banking on peoples’ need to freeze time to make my living, is there?

  Would it be torture or a treasure if I had a reminder of Cortez to stare at day in and day out? I pointedly ignore the haphazard pile of unfinished and abandoned canvases in the corner of my studio. So what if most of them feature a muse who bears an uncanny resemblance to the sexy bastard, huh? At least I haven’t added anymore to the stack in over a year. A couple more months and I might even work up the nerve to start painting over them. Then I can pretend our connection was duller than I remember. Let it fade into a black and white version of those vivid, saturated recollections of bliss…

  After a few more blinks and a shake of my head, my errant thoughts and the grand vision I had been teasing into being are reduced to a bunch of meaningless oil streaks. I drop my brush halfway through the swirl I was applying to the canvas to investigate what’s going on in the front room.

  Now that I think about it, it’s probably just the delivery guy trying to tempt me with his admittedly stellar package. Too bad for him. I don’t fuck the same guy more than once.

  Not anymore. Not A.C.—After Cortez.

  Though the courier is sizzlier than the fajita plates from the restaurant across the street on Taco Tuesday, he’s already had his turn. Claimed his tiny sliver of me. Or was it me that had a piece of him? It had felt that way when I fucked him long and hard enough against the counter that my ancient cash register had crashed to the floor.

  Neither of us had bothered to stop to right it either.

  The guy certainly hadn’t complained about the rough ride I’d taken him for. In fact, he’s hounded me nearly every day since for a do-over. As tempting as that sounds, it makes me twice as sure I can’t indulge in a second serving without risking a bout of unwanted heartburn. We have a hint of chemistry. Not atomic-bomb level explosions of attraction like I’d had with Cortez. But there’s something there. A spark.

  So no, we definitely will never hook up again.

  It took me forever to remember how to get off on casual sex A.C. It was only in the past six months or so I mustered some interest in hooking up with more than my palm in the shower. It’s like smoking a cigarette after mainlining heroin. Hardly gives me a buzz at all.

  Still, I’m not about to risk another year and a half stretch of total celibacy. Bad enough I’d gotten fucking depressed, like actually clinically depressed, for the first time in my life.

  Cortez lifted me to the highest of highs before dropping me. After what had seemed like an endless free fall, it took a few face-first bounces and skids across the pavement before I could dust off my broken wings. I came dangerously close to splattering into total road kill, even picking up a few bad habits. You know, like drinking alone until I blacked out and smoking pot more than recreationally to help forget.

  I became one of those real hardcore, moody, mentally unstable artists.

  Eventually, I evolved. I don’t have to get high on chemicals or the rush of endorphins that come from submitting in order to soar. Never again will I be the naïve dreamer bending my knees and flashing my ass for any dominant man who catches my fancy.

  These days, it’s me who decides when, where, with whom, and how often.

  I have a couple strict rules—no sleepovers, no repeats, and absolutely no tops allowed.

  Nope, those luxuries aren’t for me.

  So the delivery guy is out of luck. Hoping to avoid any awkwardness, I pause and call, “Leave it on the counter.”

  “Excuse me? Leave what exactly?” The clear, formal tone of the newcomer’s voice is nothing like the husky smoker’s rasp of my delivery dude. This guy sounds like aged whiskey tastes. Smooth. Tempting. Unwise to overindulge in. Great.

  “Sorry, thought you were someone else. Hang on a second.” I wipe my hands on my jeans as I retreat from my creative nook. I don’t bother to grab a shirt since I’ll only wreck it like most of my limited wardrobe. Splatters of paint dot my skin, blending with the tattoos inked across my chest and arms. New guy will have to deal with me as is. If he’s in the right place, he won’t mind since I specialize in nude portraits of the male variety.

  Hey, I can’t help it if my job is awesome. I’m into my work. You’d be obsessed too if you spent all day bringing gorgeous hunks to life so people can admire and ogle them for eternity, pretending they’re flawless sex-bomb gods instead of mere humans.

  It’s a voyeur’s dream gig and I’ve never minded watching. Especially since I can transform my models into anything that pleases me.

  And double especially since paintings don’t talk back.

  Or break your fucking heart.

  I eme
rge from behind the shoji screens that separate my studio from the retail side of my shop. My customer’s sculpted ass—he’s bent over, scrutinizing the fine details of my work on display—is the first thing that catches my artistic eye. Next is the expensive material and impeccable tailoring of his navy suit. Then his traditional haircut, which does a decent job of taming his onyx locks. A few errant strands inspire my imagination. They break free from the confines of his light and stylish gel job to curl over his brow, softening his rigid features the slightest bit. I’d love to see his hair mussed on his pillow following a mind-blowing fuck.

  Except I don’t do these kinds of powerful men anymore, remember?

  Or I should say, they don’t do me. And I’m guessing he’s a hell of a lot less flexible in his role. A dude like this isn’t built for kneeling.

  With a huff of regret, I notice the fancy watch he checks as I keep him waiting for the briefest moment. I know his type, though I can’t say I’ve had the chance to play with many of them up close and personal. Patrons of the arts. Serious collectors. Men who have risen high enough that only a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind collectable can give them an advantage in the spending races they compete in against their peers.

  Maybe he can afford to give one of my spare hotties a home on his wall. Hell, he can own a whole harem of them for the right price.

  Though I’ve become notorious in my specialty, it’s not every day someone like him strolls through my door. Most of my wealthy clients commission a single special painting of their boy toy via a discreet online inquiry form that keeps their salacious intentions under wraps.

  I don’t mind helping people indulge their dirty little secrets. In fact, it adds something to the final piece. A knowing smile or a glint in the eye of a sensual nude model, preserved forever in a picture that captures him at his peak seductiveness. I consider it a public service for future generations to document so much studliness.