Cas eased off his backpack, the open sides of his shirt allowing him instant access to the slash along his ribs. It was deep enough to need stitches but it hadn’t hit any vital organs. He reached into his pack, pulling the first aid kit from the bottom of his bag. He pulled free the small bottle of alcohol, grunting as he poured it over the wound. “Fuck.”
The cabbie glanced in his rearview mirror. “Aw, what the fuck, bro. This is my uncle’s cab.”
“Look, just keep driving and mind your fucking business and there’s an extra hundred in it for you. Okay?”
His cabbie did not seem relieved. “Fuck, man. That looks bad. You need a hospital.”
Cas shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’m not paying a hospital for something I can do myself.”
“You got a sewing kit in your magical backpack, Dora?” the cabbie asked.
“Not exactly,” Cas muttered, pulling the small medical grade staple gun from his bag.
Cas pinched the skin closed crudely, pain far sharper than the knife itself causing him to curse as he pulled the trigger and the staple penetrated his skin.
“Oh, Jesus Christ. I’m gonna be sick, man. This isn’t an ambulance.”
Cas huffed out a breath in annoyance. “Hey. What’s your name?”
“Omar,” the cabbie said.
“Listen, Omar. This really fucking hurts, so I’m going to need you to keep your eyes on the road and off me so we both don’t die, and in exchange, I’ll give you a big fat wad of cash and try not to bleed all over your backseat. Deal?”
Omar nodded like a bobblehead. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay, man. I can do that.”
“Good,” Cas grunted as the fourth staple bit its way through his skin.
It took ten staples to close the wound. Cas tacked a bandage over it before sinking back against the seat with a sigh. He quickly pulled out a phone and texted Briar that she was out of eggs. Briar was a vegan. It was their code that shit had gone down, telling her to not go home. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to use this code, but it was the first time things had ever gone that sideways before.
This was all Jonah’s fault. He’d distracted Cas. He’d made him sloppy. Cas’s eyes fell shut as he tried to convince himself that the warmth flushing over his skin was anger and not lust. Jonah had spanked him on a massage table. His brain couldn’t rationalize it. In the span of twenty-four hours, Jonah had enraged him, broken his heart, humiliated him, and then given him a fantasy he’d never dared allow himself to imagine…and he hated him for it. He had to hate him for it, because anything else would lead to an outcome from which Cas might never recover.
10
Jonah
Not once in the two years that Cas had lived with him had Jonah entertained the vaguest sexual thought of him. Not that Jonah considered himself a father figure either. That was fucking laughable. Big brother? Maybe more like a guardian. Even now, that seemed a flimsy definition, incompatible with the fucking complexity of their relationship when Jonah thought deeply about it. Mentor? That seemed ridiculous, too. Jonah didn’t think he’d taught Cas shit, aside from how to throw some punches. At first, Cas had been a minor nuisance Jonah put up with because it seemed the lesser evil than sending him back out on the streets where eventually desperation or boredom might see the kid talking to men like Thumper again.
One week, Jonah had told himself. Then he’d get Cas set up elsewhere or buy him a fucking bus ticket back to wherever he’d come from. But one week became two, became three, and eventually, Jonah started expecting Cas to be there when he returned from jobs. The few times he hadn’t been, Jonah had damn near panicked. At least, that was what he assumed the cold vise grip around his chest had been. Panic. If the apartment was too quiet when he got home, he’d stalk down the hallway into the living area and to the other side of the couch to make sure Cas’s duffel bag was still there. The relief that came with seeing that dingy navy nylon bag spilling its guts in assorted clothing and shoes was always enormous. So enormous it’d scared him on more than one occasion.
So, he’d never asked Cas to leave. And for two years, Cas’s stuff was still there when he got home.
Until, one day, it wasn’t.
And now, Cas had returned to the city and Jonah had busted into a massage parlor and…spanked him. Fuckingspankedhim. Like an unruly brat. Like bad Daddy porn. But the goddamn kicker was how much Jonah had had to hold himself back. The shit he’d been tempted to do. Things he’d never have imagined in the same breath as Cas’s name.
Things Cas had seemed to want him to do, too.
Just as bad was that he hadn’t even gotten a straight answer out of Cas, much less any kind of contact info. Something was fucking wrong with him. Maybe he’d finally knocked a screw loose.
Jonah stalked out of the parlor, body vibrating with restless energy and no way to ground it. No outlet. He sat in his car, hands forming fists in his lap as he tried to wrap his head around what he’d just done. Still painfully fucking turned on, his dick strained the fly of his jeans, and for two seconds, Jonah considered giving in right there and taking care of it.
He sucked in a long, slow breath and exhaled, the way he did when he lined up a shot from afar. The way he’d done when he was a kid and he needed all the noise in his head to quiet down. And, sometimes, when he just needed to mentally check out for a while.
Then he put the car in gear and drove home.
That night, he lay in bed, phone in hand, some generic porn queued up. As he jerked off, he pretended the images of Cas’s red cheeks and throaty moans weren’t interspersed with the action on his screen. Pretended the sound of Cas’s moans weren’t echoing through his head as he came.
* * *
