Chapter Four
JOE WASa rich man. He’d been a rich kid. There had always been a chance someone would try to snatch him. For as long as he could remember, Edward had run him through drills about what to do if it happened—a checklist updated each time Joe shot up an inch or hit another useful milestone, like knowing his address or how to text with his phone in his pocket.
In practice, thatall turned out to be nearly useless.
Instead of a carjacker with a gun and a clear plan, it was rough hands and the stink of fresh sweat layered over old body odor under a sweat-damp hoodie. He jabbed his elbow to the side and tried to hook his foot around the attacker’s bandy, jean-clad legs.
“Get off me,” he panted as he tried to pry gloved fingers off his arm. “Let go and I won’t call thepolice.”
The attacker snarled a muffled “Shut up!” and jabbed a short, vicious punch into Joe’s back. The pain spiked into Joe’s kidneys and then radiated out across his back. He staggered, and the attacker grunted in satisfaction as he muscled him between the graves.
Joe grabbed an old headstone. The granite was rough under his fingers, and he tore a nail as the attacker yanked him away. Thesmall, sharp pain finally reminded him of something Edward had told him to do, so he let his legs go from under him and his attacker cursed as he tripped over his long, bony legs. The hard grip on Joe’s arm loosened, and Joe managed to wrench himself free.
He fell onto his ass and kicked his heels into the grass as he scrambled backward. The attacker picked himself up and ran at him again. Askull leered out from under the hood—bare bones and tombstone teeth under the glitter of feverish blue eyes and rough skin. He swung a booted foot in a wild arc, and Joe caught it against his arm with a dull impact that his brain decided didn’t hurt yet. The assailant lurched forward and stamped on him with heavy, frantic boots. The thick rubber soles connected with Joe’s thighs and crushed one handinto the grass.
“Get away from him!” Cal’s rough voice cut through Joe’s confusion-fed panic. “Son of a bitch!”
At least, Joe thought with relief as he curled up to protect his head, if he got kidnapped, there would be a witness.
The attacker staggered to a stop and leaned down to grab a handful of Joe’s shirt. A ragged, glass-gargled voice spat out, “Fuck off home, rich boy, and stop askingquestions. Next time—” He grunted as he dragged him over the grass, and Joe groped behind him as he tried to find something to hang onto. He dug his fingers into the dirt and grass and then met cold, empty air. “I’ll finish the job first.”
Joe glanced around and saw a grave gaping open behind him—sharp edges of wet dirt and a long drop down to an old, dirt-scabbed coffin.
The panic washed back,outsized and incapacitating. Joe grabbed at the attacker with frantic hands, hooked his fingers in the musty hoodie, and clawed into the mask. It twisted under his fingers and slid down the man’s face. He got a glimpse of a clumsy nose—broken so often it smeared out from the crooked bridge—and the man pulled his arm back.
Cal hooked his arm around the man’s throat and wrenched him backward. Theman’s fingers clenched on Joe’s shirt and then deliberately let go. Joe clenched his teeth on a scream as he dropped into the grave. He hit the coffin with a thud, and clods of dirt, dislodged from the dark, damp sides of the hole, fell in on top of him.
His chest squeezed painfully as though the throttled-back scream took up all the room.
Trapped. He couldn’t move. His lungs hurt. Pressureon his shoulders and across his chest….
Joe took a ragged breath—he couldtastethe wet soil on the air—and shoved through the acrid wall of panic. It wasn’t a box. He wasn’t trapped. It was only a hole.
Agrave,his brain corrected with icy precision. It was a grave, and the cracked, wet wood under his fingers was a coffin. Joe lurched awkwardly to his feet, dug his fingers into the soft dirtwalls, and tried to scramble out. He managed to boost himself up to grab the edge of the hole, but it crumbled away under his fingers, and Joe dropped back onto the coffin with a thud.
“Cal!” He could hear the sound of a struggle overhead—the hard thump of knuckles on skin and the scuff of feet over grass. Joe clenched his hand into a fist and thumped it against the dirt wall. “Get me out ofhere!”
There was another thud, someone grunted, and a sharp voice screeched disapproval across the graveyard. “Show some respect for fuck’s sake! I’m calling the police!”
Fuck.That was all he needed.
A second later Cal leaned over the grave. “Need a hand?”
Joe bared his teeth. “Get. Me. Out.”
“That does it for me in the sack,” Cal said as he reached down to grab Joe’s wrist and hauled. “Whenyou aren’t fucking me, learn to say ‘please.’”
For a second, Joe’s brain glitched out as he tried to process the dregs of claustrophobia and the stark, flat fear that someone had heard Cal say that. All the old stars of the show jostled into his head—the lurid headlines, the tell-alls from his hookups, and his dad’s closed-off, disapproving face—and screeched that everyone would think he wasgay.
It shouldn’t matter, for fuck’s sake. His dad was his boss, but Joe was a grown man and he had his own money. He’d broken up with the only person who actually had a reason to object to who he slept with. But tell that to the paranoia that chewed on the back of his brain.
Joe scrambled up over the trampled edge of the grave, into the sunshine and the thick, green smell of cut grass, andfell into Cal’s arms. Or at least, hung off Cal’s broad shoulder for a second as he caught his breath. The sharp lemongrass and honey smell of the hotel soap caught on his tongue and spawned a dark, smug wash of possessiveness.
Stupid, he thought sourly as he pushed himself off Cal, took a step back, and then stumbled gracelessly sideways as he nearly tripped himself back into the hole. It wasn’thissoap, and even if it were, last night had hardly been the start of anything.
“C’mon,” Cal said as he grabbed Joe’s elbow. “We should call the cops. Get you to a doctor.”
Joe pulled his arm free and stepped back again. “I’m fine,” he said coldly as he straightened his jacket and brushed fastidiously at the grass stain on the sleeve. “There’s no need to make a fuss, Mr. Tate.”
