Chapter One
Foster
"Why is your boyfriend acting like he’s a coffee table?”
I stumbled over my own feet, halfway into my friend Ronan’s living room. His boyfriend, Kevin, was on his hands and knees in front of the couch, fully divested of his clothes and dignity. The only thing he wore was a shiny steel claw gag that pried open his mouth wide enough to allow a steady stream of saliva to dribble onto the thick, white rug beneath his hands and knees.
“Good to see you, Foster,” Ronan said conversationally from where he was perched against the entertainment center. “Kevin isn’t here today.”
“Just this nice table.” Our other friend, Rich, sat on the couch. As he spoke, he leaned back and made a show of dropping the heels of his shiny black oxfords onto Kevin’s spine. He dug in and crossed his legs at the ankle, revealing a bright splash of pink from his socks.
On the floor, Kevin made an unamused sound, and Rich adjusted himself again, crossing and recrossing his legs until Kevin settled.
Ronan smirked and folded his arms over his chest.
“Alright.” I sat on the couch next to Rich and watched drool flow out of Kevin’s mouth. It wasn’t such a surprise something like this was happening at Ronan’s house, just more interesting that it was happening to Kevin. He and Ronan had an intense relationship that pushed a lot of boundaries, but this wasn’t something I’d pictured either of them being interested in. But then again, there was a lot that interested me that would have probably caught other people off-guard, too.
“Haven’t seen you lately,” Ronan said, scratching at his forearm while watching me like a hawk.
“I’ve been around.”
“Working?”
I sighed and eased against the corner of the couch. “You know I can’t say.”
My job was complicated, in that it wasn’t legal, but I knew what I’d gotten into when I’d accepted my first contract years before. Life had been murky morally ever since, but the on-call nature of being a glorified hitman made it exceedingly difficult for me to find time to do the things Ronan and Rich got to do.
Date.
Play.
Relax.
“Where’s your husband?” I asked, tearing my attention away from Kevin’s chapped lips and looking to Rich.
“He’s at home arranging his lipstick.” A soft smile flickered across Rich’s face, and if I hadn’t known his husband, Sam, I would have thought he was lying. But the only thing Sam loved more than Rich was his lipstick. And maybe a riding crop.
“I’ve seen you once since the new year.” Ronan’s sharp statement drew my attention back across the room. Rich turned to face me too, and on the floor, Kevin grunted under Rich’s weight.
“I had a lot of personal shit to catch up on before my vacation ends,” I said. It wasn’t the whole truth. I had been dodging my friends because I felt out of sorts and I didn’t want to talk about it. But their messages had turned pushy and insistent and I knew I was at the end of my ability to avoid them.
“Right.” Ronan clapped his hands together, and Kevin startled, shaking his head and sighing. “Let’s talk about your vacation.”
“You know I signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“Not for the weekend,” he interrupted.
Like Rich, Ronan was a smart man and he was quick on his feet. There was no way I was going to come out on top of this conversation, so there was no need to even try. He could see right through me. The two of them knew me probably better than I knew myself sometimes.
My tastes were specific and uncommon. Finding partners had always been difficult for me, and since Ronan and Kevin had been joined at the groin for over a year, my prospects had become even more limited. Last November, I’d come up with a ridiculous idea to host a charity auction at Rapture, a club that catered to people with tastes like mine, and by doing so, I’d gotten myself wrapped up with a man named Sage.
The auction had been in December, and I’d seen Ronan and Rich both after Christmas—after the auction. Then on New Year’s, I ran off to a cabin in the woods with a man whose name I wasn’t even sure was really his. I didn’t know anything about Sage besides the name and that he had enough resources at his disposal to figure out my legal name and that I carried at all times.
Except that one time.
Except for that one weekend.
Back home in the real world, I remembered how Sage touched me, the feelings he’d dragged out of me kicking and screaming. I remembered the way he left when we both realized things had gone too far. The way I’dtoldhim to go. I’d tried to find him afterward, but wasn’t surprised when Landon, one of the owners at Rapture, wouldn’t give up any of his information from the club directory. I’d thought about driving back out to the cabin we’d shared for three days, but I worried that was a step too far.
