Men of London 04 - Feat of Clay (14 page)

“You don’t know what I did, Clay.” Tate heard
his voice but it didn’t sound like him. It sounded like a man with
everything to lose. “What I did for that damn case. How hard I fell
to get what I wanted—to put him away.”

What he did to
me.

Clay’s voice was steady. “Then tell me. Right
here, right now. Tell me what you did. What causes you to wake up
at night.”

He loosened his grip on Tate’s wrists and his
weight lifted as he rolled to the side. Clay didn’t let go of him
though; he kept his arm across Tate’s chest as he cradled his
back.

“I can’t,” Tate whispered in agony. “You’d
see me differently and I never want that to happen.”

“Listen to me.” Clay’s voice was steely.
“Nothing you can ever say to me will make me love or respect you
less. You are it for me, baby. Everything I want is here.” He
stroked his fingers down Tate’s flanks and his touch grounded Tate.
“You need to tell me what went down or you will never fucking
heal.”

The only sound was both of them breathing and
the clamour of Tate’s rapidly thudding heart in his aching chest.
He was surprised Clay couldn’t hear it.

Maybe it’s time to admit
what I did. What I really was
.
A
whore.

Tate’s cheeks were wet. He took a deep
breath, then started speaking, his emotions suppressed. “I was told
to meet Sonny, get friendly with him.”

He heard Clay’s indrawn breath at the mention
of the man’s first name. They’d always called him Armerian in the
past, as if there was no personal connection. “We met at the gym he
dumped me at when he threw me out the car that night. I took one
look and figured it wasn’t a hardship trying to get to know him. He
was sexy as fuck. Tall, dark-skinned, swarthy, built like a damn
powerhouse.”

There was another hiss of breath from Clay
and his fingers tightened on Tate’s hips momentarily before once
again stroking his skin. Tate had a sinking feeling Clay knew where
this was going. “Yeah, he was a major drug dealer, but hey, that’s
what it made fun. Knowing what I was there to do, that I was going
to bring him down.” Tate took a deep breath. This was the hard
part. “So I got to know him very well indeed.” He stopped and so
did Clay’s hand.

“You two were fucking
before
all the shit went down?” The incredulity in
Clay’s tone made Tate feel dirty and unclean and he wanted to lie.
But he’d come this far. He couldn’t back out now.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Of course, no one
knew. It was bad street cred to have a bisexual head honcho as the
kingpin of a drug cartel like Reino. And I never told anyone on the
force or in the team we’d become lovers. They just believed I was
acting as one of the gang.”

Clay released him and sat up, his eyes wide
and blew air out of puffed up cheeks. His face was pale. “I knew he
was bisexual. It came out in my investigation. He was married to a
woman after all. But the two of you together? That’s news to
me.”

Clay stared at Tate with eyes that looked as
if he didn’t know him at all. It cut Tate to the core. Tate took a
deep breath and laid a hand on Clay’s arm. Clay stiffened and
Tate’s throat closed up.

God, he hates
me.

“Just, leave me a minute, will you?” Clay’s
voice was choked. “I need a moment to deal with this.”

Despair wrenched at Tate’s heart and dealt it
a heavy blow. He knew Clay well enough to know that his admission
was hurting him. The fact Tate had been fucking a man while he and
Clay had been friends and trying to deny whatever was between them
for the sake of that friendship
had
to
wound Clay deeply. He needed to explain more, see if he could fix
this.

Tate sat up, taking a sip from his water
glass. “It was for the job,” he said softly. “It was the best way
to keep him close, get him to trust me.” He fiddled with the sheet
over his groin, pulling it into folds nervously. He cleared his
throat. “I had to do coke now and then just to make sure he trusted
me. Other stuff as well, but never anything heavy. I’d seen guys
get into the like of H and that shit and there was no way I’d do
that, not even for the job.” He gave a short bark. “Prostituting
myself—I guessed that was okay.”

Clay’s brows furrowed and he glanced away to
look at the wall, eyes distant.

Tate felt the old shame leaking back into his
mind. “There was no emotional connection though, at least on my
side. It was just sex. Or so I thought.” There’d been other things
they’d done together—bondage games and other kinky shit—but Tate
would never tell Clay about that part of his relationship with
Sonny Armerian. That he definitely
would
take to his grave.

Tate stared at Clay, trying to will him to
look at him. Perhaps if he could see Clay’s face, he’d know what
was coming next. Tate didn’t like surprises.

“He obviously kept it discreet and made it
known if I ever outed him I’d be a dead man. I don’t think I was
the first, and while I was undercover, I learnt a bit about other
guys he’d had before me who had ‘disappeared.’ Some of them must
have tried blackmail, or maybe he simply he got bored of them and
couldn’t take any chances.” Tate shrugged. “Not many people in his
crew knew about his other sexual preferences and those who did were
fiercely loyal. I managed to keep his interest until the day he got
the phone call in his office telling him about me. We still don’t
know who leaked it or how it happened.” He shrugged. “I doubt we
ever will.” He cleared his throat. The memories of Sonny’s flat
eyes looking at him over the top of his John Lennon glasses, the
ones he’d worn when he needed to read, still chilled Tate to his
core.

“I could see what was going down. I knew I
needed to get out of there fast or I’d end up dead. The problem was
the door was locked because just minutes before, he’d fucked me on
the desk.”

Clay finally looked at Tate. His jaw was
tight, the tic in his cheek throbbing. Tate knew he had to finish
this story. It was as if the dam had burst and the floodtide of
self-recrimination and guilt had come rushing out like oily,
tainted sludge and was soaking them both with its stench.

“He took his gun out of his desk drawer
halfway through the conversation and laid it on the desk. I knew
something was wrong then. My gun was still in my holster, on the
floor with my pants. I couldn’t get to it. He pistol-whipped me
across the head before I could even do anything, and then kicked me
senseless. When I woke up, I was in a garage, just me and a whole
bunch of fancy cars. I knew then it would be a miracle if I got out
alive.”

Tate’s voice was hoarse from talking. He took
another gulp of water. His hands were shaking.

What the hell does he
think of me? Should I have kept quiet? No, he’d never let it go.
This is Clay. He’d have dragged it out of me sometime, might as
well be now.

Clay finally spoke, his voice tight. He still
didn’t look at Tate but kept his gaze centred on the sheets at his
waist. “Did you not have any backup to support you? Someone who’d
know where you were, and that you hadn’t called in? Isn’t that
standard operating procedure for an undercover op like yours?”

Tate nodded. “There was backup, of course. I
couldn’t wear a wire of any sort. Too dangerous and in any case,
he’d have found it.”

Especially with the
regularity I had my clothes off.

From the look on Clay’s face, he’d had the
same thought. Tate wanted to crawl into a dark tunnel and hide.

“So I had a throwaway phone stash, a number
to call and told to check in twice a day, using code words—all that
shit.” He shifted uncomfortably. “But the house we were in was one
of his safe houses, and it was a new one. When I finally realised
where we were, and that my team didn’t know about it, I needed to
get away and tell them.” His face burned. “Sonny was feeling rather
amorous and he jumped me before I could do that. So I thought I’d
have time to do it afterwards. Then the call came in and everything
went tits up.”

“Christ, it sounds like a damn cluster fuck.”
Clay sounded as if he was trying to hold some emotion back and Tate
just hoped it wasn’t disgust. He couldn’t bear if Clay lost respect
for him after this. Their relationship was worth shit without it.
He kept quiet, heart aching, the fluttering in his stomach making
him nauseous.

“And that’s when he decided to torture you?”
Clay’s tone was soft but dangerous. Tate had no doubt it would
strike fear into someone else; shit, he was already scared at the
possibility he was going to lose him.

“Yes. He made it a ‘project’ to do whatever
he could to get me to spill the beans about the operation, whether
there was anyone else undercover. I kept telling him I was the only
one, that there was no one else. I told him I’d never tell him
anything about the operation so he might as well kill me now.”
Tate’s eyes burned, and they were gritty with fatigue. “He said he
believed me. And that he knew I’d never tell him anything of value
no matter what he did. He knew I’d die before that happened.”

Clay’s nostrils flared. “He believed you, but
he carried on. To pay you back for what you’d done to him as
opposed to needing information?” He looked up at Tate now, his eyes
burning with a violent darkness that Tate had never seen
before.

Tate exhaled. “Yes. And yes. The rough sex,
rape, whatever you’d call it happened and the rest—” He broke off.
There was no way he was telling Clay about what had been done to
him with bottles and other household implements during his
incarceration. “—that was to punish me too. For leading him on,
making him feel something for me. He told me he’d been starting to
fall in love with me.”

Clay’s face was white. “The word rape is the
right one.” His face was pained as he reached up to touch Tate’s
jaw softly. Tate wanted to rejoice at the fact his lover was
touching him. “And an animal like him didn’t know the meaning of
the word love. He was a man who thought he could own people. Use
them.” He frowned. “What did you mean ‘the rest’?”

Tate ignored that question. “I was pretty
drugged up and in pain. I couldn’t do much to fight him off. That
first day, after he’d smacked me unconscious, I woke up to him
beating me with a golf club. One of his fancy ones he was fond of.
He broke my ribs, my arm, and cracked my tibia. He kicked the fuck
out of me and then pushed coke up my nose until I was so high I
couldn’t think.” He shuddered and Clay reached out again, laying a
hand on Tate’s arm, stroking his skin gently.

Tate’s eyes prickled with tears at that
gesture. “He’d release me, untie me, but I was pretty broken. I
wasn’t given food or water regularly so I didn’t have the strength
to fight him off. I tried; believe me. But he broke my nose and
collarbone and beat the shit out of me and still took what he
wanted anyway. He said it was his right. That I was his.”

His voice cracked. He was exhausted and
wanted to shut down, curl up in a ball and hibernate. His soul was
bruised black and at that moment, he wanted to howl with pain and
grief. Memories of the worst time of his life welled up like acid
waste. All he wanted to do was hold onto the man who stared at him
with eyes that saw into his soul and never let him go.

“God, Clay,” Tate whispered brokenly. “Please
tell me you still love me. That I haven’t fucked this up for good
by what I did. By what happened.” It was then that his tears fell,
hot, burning rivers of shame and guilt. He crumpled the bed sheets
in trembling hands, unable to look up at his lover.

Clay gave a shuddering sigh. He sat up,
pulling Tate into his arms to lie against his chest, stroking his
hair with one hand while the other wiped tears off Tate’s
cheek.

“Jesus, Tate. You went through hell. Of
course I still love you, you stupid bastard. I’ll
never
stop loving you.”

Clay’s arms tightened possessively around
Tate as his hands stroked Tate’s back. His chest ached with relief
at simply being there, at still being loved, and he couldn’t stop
more sobs escaping from him.

“God.” Clay sounded choked up. “I can’t
believe you’ve kept all this inside you. Why the
fuck
have you never spoken about this to me or
anyone?”

Tate wiped tears from his eyes and tried to
take control of his crying jag. “Because I pimped myself out. I was
sleeping with a man to get information from him. I’d never done
that before, but with Sonny…I
wanted
to. I
was crazy about you, but didn’t think you felt the same way. I
didn’t want to spoil our friendship. So I thought, fuck it, I’ll
find someone who does want me. And he was around. And I was ashamed
at what he did to me, the fact I couldn’t stop him. I felt dirty,
used.”

Tate cleared his throat, taking deep,
shuddering breaths. His nose was stuffy and he needed to blow it.
“Then afterwards—we happened—
we
became
us
and I didn’t want to sully our
relationship with the fact I’d whored myself out for the job and
got fucked up for it. It just didn’t feel right telling anyone
about that part of the deal. And you can be possessive and I
thought perhaps you might feel…cheated.” He stared wildly around
the room, looking for a tissue.

Clay gave a soft growl, his arm tightening
around Tate. “I’m a fucking possessive bastard, yes, but no one
should hurt you like that. God, you should have told me this
sooner. What’s done is done, Tate. And you shouldn’t be ashamed of
anything that happened to you.” He stroked Tate’s cheek tenderly
then leaned over and reached inside his bedside drawer. He passed a
packet of tissues spotted with Minions over to Tate, who gave a
watery chuckle at the sight of the bright yellow characters.