“I, as usual, acted appropriately,” I growled at him. “I started something with Max I shouldn’t have and ended itlike a professional. We can’t all get away with doing whatever the hell we please. We don’t all have a pile of backup money waiting for whenever we get bored with our jobs. Some of us have to do what’s necessary, no matter how we feel about it,sir. Some of us don’t get to have whatever and whoever we want.”
I turned and stalked off, slamming his office door behind me, something I’d never indulged in. I’d also never yelled at Vane, either, so it was a day for firsts. I grabbed my coat and phone and then headed out. When I hit the parking lot I growled again because Max was already gone. I had his new address because he’d filled out a change of residence form for HR and I’d put it in my phone, even though I shouldn’t have. I was happy I’d been so snoopy now. I got in my car and headed toward Vic’s house on the outskirts of the east side, but I could already imagine what was going on there.
Max would come in either crying or raging. Maybe Vic would take him to bed and fuck him better, or take Max to his playroom and spank him till he had all the anger out—and then fuck him better. The idea of Max squirming on Vic’s lap, and worse, his cock, stoked my fury. I wasn’t paying attention to the road as much as I should have been, and I hit a large clump of snow that had my heart racing faster than it was to begin with. I simmered down after that and focused on driving while my phone gave me bland mechanical directions.
When I pulled into the driveway of Vic’s sizeable house—nice, but not the Victorian—I again braced myself. It hurt to know I couldn’t be the one to really do anything to make Max feel better. Everything I’d yelled at Vane was true. I’d promised him a while ago I’d stick around as long as he was the deputy mayor, though, and I wouldn’t go back on that. I wanted Max but couldn’t see a way forward for us.
And now Max had Vic anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Sighing, I climbed out and slowly made my way toward the front door. Max’s car was in the driveway, so at least I was in the right place. I considered waiting a while to give them time to finish up whatever they might be doing inside, but a spiteful part of myself I wasn’t proud of won and I hammered on the front door. No one answered and I knocked louder. And kept knocking. For several minutes.
Eventually the door was yanked open by a bleary-eyed Vic. His blond hair was everywhere. “What the fuck? Jean-Paul?” He glanced around like he was lost. “What?”
“Where is Max?”
“Huh? What do you mean? I work nights. Isn’t he at work?” He rubbed at one eye with his fist.
I stepped forward, and he shuffled aside to let me in, but then frowned like maybe he wished he hadn’t when I shoved him against the hall wall. “Max left the office because there was a misunderstanding, and I need to find him.”
Vic lazily patted my arm and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Can we, you know, shut the door first?” He shivered and slumped his head back, his eyes sliding shut. “It’s cold.”
Not letting him out of my sight, I pushed the door closed. He gave a small nod and wandered along a hallway toward some stairs and then up them. At the landing he pointed me to a door on the left. “If he tells you to leave and you don’t, I have a gun.” He gave me a sharp-toothed smile that seemed more awake than when he’d answered the door.
“Why aren’t you in there helping him?” I asked, anger bubbling in me.
He scratched his chest and shrugged. “Ask him.”
Scowling, I went to the door and knocked. A small “yes?” was my only answer, so I took my chances and opened the door.
Max was hunkered down in the corner of the comfortable little room with his back pressed to the wall and his legs drawn up. There was a bed and desk and a chair with a lamp next to it, and he’d obviously made himself at home. The cord and plug for the lamp had been coiled around its base. I closed the door and carefully stepped closer to him.
“Why are you all alone in here? You’re upset. Vic is home.”
Max said nothing, but he glanced up, and the hurt and fear I saw in his eyes brought me down to my knees in front of him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when they came into the office. It happens sometimes.” I rested my hands lightly on his knees, and he didn’t shake me off. “Why isn’t Vic in here with you?”
He shocked me when he shoved me back over onto my ass, mouth contorted in anger. “Because I didn’t want to be with him, you asshole. You’re just as bad as everyone else. You were embarrassed of me. You tried to shove me off onto Vic. You’re even fucking worse than my parents. They might hate me, but they never actively looked for a way to off-load me. And now I don’t even have a job. I’ll have to go back there. I pay rent to Vic and can’t now.” His voice hitched on a sob. “I’ll have to go back.”
My tailbone hurt, though not bad, but the pain on top of everything else had me reaching for him. “You want to lash out like a hellion? You can be punished like one,” I snapped as I stood and dragged him to his feet, none too gently. “I came here to help you.”
“You have a weird fucking way of showing it!” He flexed forward to push at me again, though not hard, but I was at my limit. I manhandled him over to the bed and roughly tossed him into the middle of it. He tried to sit up, but I had a knee in the small of his back anchoring him in place before he could. I laid a hard swat across his ass, and he gasped.
“Am I going to see manners?”
“You dick!” he screeched. “You told me we couldn’t—”
I spanked him harder and put some muscle behind it. He yowled in outrage and bucked, but I didn’t move. My blood ran hot, and the way his breath hitched was so good I spanked him again—too hard. My hand stung from hitting him. He stilled and shuddered and gasped. I took my chances and moved my knee off his back so I could sit down beside him. I didn’t wait for him to get his senses back, simply wrapped my arms around his middle and twisted with all my might, positioning him so he lay across my lap. He pillowed his face in his arms and flailed a bit with his legs.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” he sobbed, but his dick pressed, firm and needy, against my thigh.
“Tell me what you think of me, Max, go on.” I gave his ass another hard wallop, loving the spring of his muscles under my hand and the way he sobbed and bucked against me. “This is your chance. Let it all out.”
“You lied to me. You told me you would be there for me.”
I kneaded his ass and didn’t hit him that time because he wasn’t screaming obscenities; he was telling the truth. He wriggled and sighed and snuffled against his arm. My cock plumped as he ground himself against my leg. We hadn’t discussed anything about playing together—same as last time. I’d just tossed him on the bed, and I had no right to be doing this.
I didn’t care.
