Love Starved (22 page)

Micah arched his eyebrow, not even trying to pretend he believed that. “You seem awfully shaken for a normal work night.”

“I don’t do breath play.” Aiden’s fingers ghosted over his throat. “It scares me.”

“So why did you tonight?” When Aiden didn’t answer, Micah pressed on, the need to have a person to focus his rage on—the unknown abuser—singing in his blood. “You said safety is your rule number one, how is this safe? Why do you let them? How can you trust them with your… your life, basically?”

Aiden’s reply was quiet when it finally came. “I have no choice.”

“Why? Why do you have to take jobs from people that hurt you? Are you in such need of money? Because if you are, let
me
hire you! I’ll gladly pay you for watching movies with me all night, if only to keep you safe.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then enlighten me!” Micah cried out, exasperated, then softened his tone. “For God’s sake, Aiden, talk to me. I promised myself I wouldn’t push, but I can’t stand by and watch you risk your life like that. Do you know how scared I am?”

Aiden closed his eyes and took a slow breath. “Do you know how scared
I
am, every time?” he asked quietly.

“Then drop them,” Micah pleaded. “Just those clients who are a risk. Please, Aiden.”

“I
can’t
.” Aiden’s voice broke on the last word and then there were tears in his eyes, not held back this time, not suppressed, but flowing freely, violent sobs racking his curled body.

Micah scooted closer and pulled him into his arms, careful of his hurt back. They ended up half-reclined on the couch with Aiden tucked between the cushions and Micah’s side, face hidden on Micah’s shoulder, hands desperately clawing at his chest as if he were drowning, grasping for purchase. For a long time, Micah just held him, one hand on the small of his back, the one place spared by the whip, the other in Aiden’s hair, rocking slightly, letting him cry.

“Tell me,” he whispered once Aiden’s sobs had quieted somehow. “Please let me help. You’re so important to me. Please don’t make me watch you kill yourself like this.”

Aiden’s reaction was another violent bout of sobs, and Micah held him through it, whispering reassurances and words of comfort, telling him that he was here and he wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what—that whatever was wrong, they could face it together.

Finally, Aiden’s shaking subsided, his breathing evened out and he sat straighter, reaching for a tissue. His eyes were red, but his face showed determination as he moved away from Micah and to the opposite corner of the couch, hissing when he landed too heavily.

“I need space if I’m going to talk about this,” he answered Micah’s unasked question and grabbed a cushion, holding it to his chest like a fluffy shield. He drank some more water, put down the glass, fiddled with the cuff of his hoodie. Finally, he took a steadying breath and said, “He’s been blackmailing me.”

“A client found out my
real name, back in June,” Aiden began again after Micah’s outraged questions sputtered out. He spoke quietly so as not to aggravate the condition of his throat, and Micah had to lean closer to hear him. “It was right after I met you. We were in a hotel and I think he went through my wallet when I went to the bathroom. A few days later he called me and said he’d tell my family and my school what I did unless I serviced him for free.”

“So your family doesn’t know?” Micah asked, and Aiden quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh. Of course your family doesn’t know.”

“My family knows that I’m a researcher in a prestigious law firm, making big money because I’m that good. They’re very proud of me,” Aiden said bitterly.

“Oh.”

“The guy wanted weekly meetings, and I had to agree. I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. We would meet once a week, he would fuck me, I’d go home and forget about him until next week. And for the first two weeks it worked like that. But then he wanted more.” Aiden focused his full attention on the cushion he was holding, tugging at a piece of thread sticking out in the corner. “He got rougher. Demanded I keep in contact with him between meetings. When I went away with you for the weekend in July, he got furious because I was unavailable. He changed the arrangement to ‘whenever I call you.’ It didn’t matter that I had other clients.”

Micah frowned. “Was that why you rescheduled, the first two times?” he asked, guiltily remembering his annoyance back then.

“Yes.”

“And you just agreed to his demands?”

“I didn’t really have a choice,” Aiden said, eyes still focused on the thread that was getting longer by the minute. “He’d taken pictures of me. Showed me an email to my father sitting in his drafts, CC’d to the dean of my school—full reveal, illustrated.”

“How did he know where to send it?” Micah asked.

Aiden shrugged. “Probably all the stuff I had in my wallet. My student ID was there, and my father’s old business card.” He paused and glanced at Micah, as if pleading for him to understand. “I couldn’t say no. Not even when he started getting violent.”

“The whipping?” Micah guessed.

“Spanking, whipping. Anything that made me scream.”

Micah shuddered. “Have you ever thought of going to the police?”

Aiden laughed mirthlessly, and then winced. “Yeah, right. ‘Hello, I’m a sex worker and one of my clients has been mistreating me. Please tell him to stop, but make sure no one knows what I do.’ Yeah, that would work.” He stopped to take a few sips of water. “It was actually a relief when I landed in the hospital. I managed to avoid him for almost a month. But then he wouldn’t take any excuses anymore, and it’s been getting worse since. More cruel. More frequent. He doesn’t care about anything anymore; it’s like I’m his personal toy.” Aiden sounded weary, fragile, and held the pillow tighter to himself.

“And tonight?” Micah feared the answer, but he had to know.

“I told him tonight was off limits, so of course he called me. He got mad when I didn’t answer, said if I didn’t get there within fifteen minutes, there would be consequences. It’s a twenty-minute ride in the best circumstances. So of course he had to
punish
me.” Aiden’s fingers skimmed the bruised skin again.

“I can’t escape it,” he whispered after a moment. “I can’t say no to him. And for the first time since it started, I’m really scared, Micah. He has no idea what he’s doing. There are ways to make sure breath play is safe, exact techniques to employ, but he doesn’t know them and he doesn’t care. There were times tonight when I was sure I wouldn’t get out of there alive. And he loved that.”

Micah became dimly aware of stinging pain in his palms. When he looked down, he saw two rows of red crescents where his own fingernails had dug in, blood coming up in tiny dots in a few of them. Opening his fists took conscious effort. His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth.

“It can’t go on like this, Aiden,” he said, his voice strained. “It’s no way to live. We have to do something.”

“Like what?” Aiden whispered. He looked exhausted, as if he didn’t even have the strength to sit straight anymore. Micah tugged gently at his elbow and he shifted until he was lying with his head nestled in Micah’s lap. “I’d have found a way by now if there was any,” he whispered, his voice too hoarse to speak normally. “He can’t be reasoned with, I tried—he just laughed at me. He’s having too much fun, he’s not gonna stop. And I can’t let him out me.”

“Okay, but think about it like this,” Micah said, threading his fingers through Aiden’s hair in a soothing motion. “Maybe he’s bluffing? And even if he’s not, would your family knowing be worse than what you’re going through?”

“You don’t understand,” Aiden mumbled as his eyes closed. “It could kill them. Literally.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Mhm. Really.” His voice was becoming slurred.

Aiden needed sleep. And Micah himself needed time to think, to untangle the mass of emotions raging through him. The revelations had chilled him to the bone, and his mind was already frantically at work, looking for solutions.

He stroked Aiden’s shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Aiden opened his sleepy eyes, washed pale yellow by the tears. “Will you stay with me?”

“Until you fall asleep? Of course.”

“No. Stay. Stay the night.”

Breath hitched in Micah’s throat. “Okay.”

Aiden fell asleep as soon
as his head hit the pillow; he curled into Micah’s chest as if it was the only safe place in the whole world. Micah lay wide awake, taking as much comfort from Aiden’s steady breathing washing warm against his neck as Aiden seemed to take from his presence.

Now, in the still darkness, it really struck him that he could have lost Aiden tonight—that he could still lose him to a greedy, cruel creature who cared nothing about his kind soul, his inquisitive mind, or his beautiful laughter, who had hurt him over and over for months, and who would do it again without a second of hesitation if given half a chance. Shivering, Micah held Aiden tighter, as though his arms were a protective shield that could hold evil at bay. Tonight, they’d been lucky. Micah didn’t dare think what tomorrow might bring.

The tears in his eyes were tears of fury, not desperation. He’d be damned if he let this happen again. No. Just… no. Over his dead body.

He fell asleep eventually, only to wake up when the pale November sun filled the room. Aiden was still out cold. The bruise on his neck was deep purple now, and its sight filled Micah with renewed rage. But there was also certainty in him now, steel-cold determination. Careful not to move and disturb Aiden’s much needed sleep, he dozed for a few more hours, constantly in tune with every stirring from the man snuggled into his side. When Aiden opened his eyes after nine, Micah had been wide awake and watching him for a long while.

“Hi,” he answered Aiden’s
good morning
smile. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” Aiden rasped. “But better. I never told anyone before. It’s like a weight has lifted.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Aiden put his hand on Micah’s chest, just over his heart. “Thank you for being here for me.”

“Always,” Micah breathed.

They were both silent for a while, and Micah savored it, the calm before the storm. It wouldn’t last. He knew; he would start the storm himself.

Finally, he couldn’t justify waiting any longer—the gears in his brain were turning, war-drums were pounding in his heart.

“Would you tell me his name?” he asked. He didn’t have to specify whom he meant. Aiden drew a sharp breath and rolled away, onto his back.

“I only know him by his first name, Richard,” he said, looking at the ceiling.

“But you have his phone number, right? Or email address?”

Aiden frowned and glanced at him. “Yes, but… why would you need it?”

“Because I want to help.”

“By contacting him? No, Micah,” Aiden said firmly. “That would only make it worse.”

Micah doubted things could get much worse than where they were heading, but he understood Aiden’s concern.

“What if I promise I won’t contact him?”

“Then why would you need his number?” Aiden’s breathing was picking up speed, his muscles were tensing, and it hurt Micah to know that he’d been the one to ruin the precious moment of peace. But it had to be done. He wondered how far he should push.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do. But I can’t just give you a client’s information. Even his.
Especially
his. If he knew…” Aiden was clearly working himself into an anxiety attack, and Micah gave up.

“Okay. Okay, shhh, if you don’t want to, I understand.”

Micah knew exactly what he was going to do—he had the means to help, or at least he thought so, and he was going to use them. He’d hoped he would have Aiden’s blessing, but he was prepared to do without it—Aiden’s phone wasn’t password-protected and getting the number from his call history in the middle of the night had been easy as pie. Yes, he should tell Aiden what he was planning—the guilt of going behind his back nagged at Micah’s conscience—but in the end, he wouldn’t risk it. His methods were questionable at best, and if Aiden told him not to do it, his hands would be tied—he would not go against Aiden’s explicit
no
, even though it might be the only half-sane way out.

Aiden touched his hand. “But you know how much I appreciate you wanting to help, right? I really do. I just can’t see how you could. You don’t know him. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

Oh, but I will,
Micah thought.
I will know him so much better than you ever can, soon.

Out loud he asked, “But if I do think of something, can I let you know?”

“Sure. Just… Don’t do anything that might tip him off, not without telling me. That would only make him more vicious.”

“I promise.” What Richard didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.
Yet.
“Is he likely to call you today?”

Aiden shook his head. “No. Sundays are family days, I think. He never contacts me then, it’s the only safe time lately.”

Thank God for the little graces. “Good, so you’re safe here today. Are you working tonight?” Micah asked.

“I was supposed to, but it looks like I’ll be cancelling the whole week.”

“I have to go and take care of something, but I’ll be back tonight if you want me here. We could get take out and watch something light.”
Pretend the world is still all right,
he added to himself.

Aiden nodded with a pale smile. “Sure. I could definitely use a normal night for a change.”

Micah got up and pulled on his jeans, the only clothing he’d taken off last night. “Okay. Will you be all right alone?”

“I’ve been all right alone for years, you know.” Aiden rolled his eyes, but the pretense of exasperation wasn’t convincing.

“I know. But you don’t have to be anymore,” Micah said before leaving with a last fleeting smile.

Micah took only enough time
to set up the coffee maker, and then got right to work. In his little home office, fingers flying over the keyboard, he went deeper than he had in almost a decade, no longer skirting the edge of illegal, or keeping to loopholes and gray areas as he sometimes did for work. Today, he was going for the kill.

He hadn’t done black-hat hacking since, at the tender age of eighteen, he’d been painfully slapped with the realization that it wasn’t just harmless fun and games. Before that, he’d never really seen it that way—he meant no harm, after all, didn’t aim to cause trouble like some hackers he knew did. Breaking through defenses and getting to well-protected information had been a challenge, a way to prove himself. Knowing he was naturally good at it gave him a rush like nothing else. He’d never thought to use what he’d found—simply finding it was the only goal.

But then two guys he’d known—just on the Internet, but they’d been better friends to him than anyone in his “real” life—got arrested for some stupid virtual break-in. They’d hacked a local bank’s system, apparently—Micah hadn’t known they were going to do that, and he’d never been so grateful for anything in his life. If he hadn’t been visiting his grandma that weekend, he would have probably done it with them, like so many other challenges they’d done together—and he would be sitting in a cell somewhere, too, his future ruined by a reckless prank.

For weeks after that, Micah broke out in cold sweat every time the doorbell rang—what if the police were investigating their earlier transgressions, too? What if they’d dug up his screen name—
Shadowcrawler
—from his friends’ computers, traced it back to the hacking forum he frequented and then right to his front door?

No one ever came asking for him, though. He never heard from Flynn or Pinq again, but he took the near miss as a warning. He hadn’t broken the law since, not once. He’d just learned to be really, really good with what was legal.

But today he didn’t give a flying fuck. No one would catch him. And if they did—well, it would mean he deserved it for not being good enough. If he found what he needed, it would be worth it, anyway.

Getting the phone owner’s data was a piece of cake. Half an hour after coming home, Micah had the scan of Richard Preston’s driver’s license on the screen before him.

He was a forty-eight-year-old man with a head of dark brown hair and a full, slightly sagging face. The document said he was five feet, eight inches tall with blue eyes, and he looked so average Micah would probably never notice him in a crowd. Of course, knowing who he was and what he’d been doing made bile rise in Micah’s throat at the mere sight of him. He doubted he’d ever hated anyone this much.

Conveniently linked to Richard’s mobile plan were his wife, Mrs. Laura Hamilton-Preston, and two teenagers, Ted and Anna. Micah did a quick search: a statistically average, upper-middle class family, completely normal by the looks of it, and smiling happily in their numerous Facebook photos. He wondered if they knew the dark side of their husband and father, or if it only came out away from home. Every mention Micah found of them within the next hour painted a picture of a respected, happy Christian family, managing a chain of local grocery stores and known for giving generously to charity and to their community. But that was just scratching surface, taking a basic recon through what was easily—and mostly legally—available.