Riveted (3 page)

“What is it?” he asked, eyeing the letter suspiciously.

“It’s not going to bite you. Just read it,” he encouraged, pushing the envelope into Ty’s hand.

Ty glanced at Blake and narrowed his eyes. The thick envelope contained numerous pages of paper clipped together. As soon as he unfolded them, he recognized them as legal documents pertaining to the purchase of the club. Ty glanced back up at him and shrugged. “I know you bought Folsom. Isn’t that what the champagne was for?”

Blake took the papers and flipped the papers to the last page, a huge smile on his face when he handed the pile back to Ty.

Ty scanned the page, his heart stopping in his chest when he read, “Owner Blake Henderson, Co-owner Tyler Callahan.” He shoved the papers back at Blake. “No!” He tried to get up but Blake held him around the waist.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Blake’s brow creased.

“I’m not taking handouts from you.” Ty scrubbed a hand across his face, trying to get his irritation under control before he spoke again. “Blake, we’ve talked about this,” he said and met Blake’s eyes.

“It’s not a handout. It’s a sound business decision,” Blake responded calmly. “You’re smart, good with the customers, and will bring a lot to the club to help make it successful.”

Ty still wasn’t comfortable with the idea and Blake must have picked up on his discomfort because he added, “I’ll tell you what. If it will set your mind at ease, we’ll set up a payment plan to take a percentage of your profits until half of the down payment has been paid. Fifty-fifty partnership.”

Searching Blake’s face, Ty tried to find any deceit in Blake’s eyes or expression. He wasn’t as good at reading the man as Blake seemed to be at reading him, but he knew Blake well enough to know when he was being sincere or just pacifying Ty.

Ty sighed and relaxed again. “You’ll have the payment plan drawn up?”

Blake shook his head, posture falling in dejection. “There you go, not trusting me again,” he said sadly.

The sorrow in Blake’s dark brown eyes tore at Ty’s heart. His need to comfort was automatic and he shifted, straddling Blake’s lap and wrapping his arms around him. “I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t trust you with this, I swear. I just don’t want you feeling as if you have to take care of me or that I can’t do it for myself.”

“Goddammit, Ty,” Blake growled, grabbing Ty’s biceps in a tight grip and shoving him back. “Don’t you fucking get it? I don’t have to take care of you—I
want
to take care of you, and I want you to take care of me.” He crumpled the contract in his fist, a fiery light burning in his eyes. “Fine, don’t take my word for it that I want you around.” He shoved the papers into Ty’s chest. “This is your written guarantee that I want you around, and not just today but long-term, that you’re my partner in every sense of the word.”

The fight seemed to drain out of Blake, and he dropped the papers in Ty’s lap, then slumped back against his chair. “Tell me what I need to do to prove it to you, Ty, and I’ll do it.”

Ty once again wrapped himself around Blake, pressing his face into Blake’s neck. “Don’t leave me” slipped out before he could bite down on his tongue to keep the words from passing his lips. Fuck, he was a goddamn grown man and he sounded like a pathetic child. He wished he could pull the words back into his fucked-up head where they belonged.

But it was too late—Blake had heard them. To Ty’s surprise, Blake didn’t mock him or shove him away in disgust for the weakness he’d just shown. Blake just wrapped his arms tightly around Ty and kissed the top of his head. “All I can do is promise you I won’t, but only time will prove it to you.” He stroked Ty’s hair soothingly. “I know our pasts have left their scars on us. I’m much more protective and possessive of you than I was with Eli and I know I can be a little smothering; it’s my scar.” Blake’s soft touch in Ty’s hair tightened and he eased Ty’s head back until their eyes met. “I buried Eli and opened myself up to you. I need you to bury your past and do the same for me. Trust me to handle your scars.”

“I’m trying,” Ty said sincerely. He blinked back the tears that threatened, refusing to let them fall or to show any more weakness. “I don’t know why I get so freaked out. It’s like it pops up when I’m happiest and fucking chokes me. Most of the time I can push it away, but sometimes….” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s not you, Blake. You and your mom have done nothing but try to make me feel at home since day one. But sometimes I’m too fucking weak to deal with my childish abandonment issues and I end up doing shit that’s going to make them become real.”

Blake took his hand out of Ty’s hair and soothed it down his back as he chewed on his bottom lip, deep in thought. After a long moment of silence, Blake’s despairing expression melted away as a new gleam started to light up his eyes. He grabbed Ty’s hair again to force Ty to look into his eyes. “Okay, here’s the deal. You trust me with your finances, right?”

“What little I have is yours. You know that.”

Blake’s lip twitched, but he held back the smile, keeping his expression neutral and his tone of voice professional. “So, as long as I provide you with the proper legal documents and repayment plan, you’ll be my business partner?” The thought of owning Folsom caused Ty’s gut to flutter, but in a good way. Him, no-fucking-body Tyler Callahan, owner of a club. Christ, he hadn’t seen that one coming. “Yes,” he said seriously, although he could not help feeling a little giddy.

Blake slid his eyes up and down Ty’s torso, then licked his lips. “You trust me with your body, right?”

“It’s yours,” Ty said without hesitation. Hell, there wasn’t much Blake hadn’t done to his body. Bound it, beaten it, fucked it, and loved it. The answer to that question was a no-brainer. In all their time together, Ty had never once had to use his safeword. That didn’t mean that Blake didn’t push Ty’s limits. Christ, the man could push them right to the edge where Ty was hanging on by the tips of his fingers and barely keeping a grip on his sanity. However, Blake could also read Ty like a book and always knew when to back off.

His bound cock was grabbed and massaged. Between the thoughts of Blake pushing his limits, the hand on his dick, and the tongue that demanded entrance into his mouth, Ty’s eyes rolled back in his head. He gave himself over to Blake and let the stress and unease that had gripped him earlier flow from his body.

When Blake pulled back from the kiss, he leaned his forehead against Ty’s as they breathed each other in for a moment. “Don’t you see? You already
are
my boy and my business partner. Trust me that we can work on your scars together.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, chasing those smiling lips, wanting more.

Blake laughed into another kiss, the vibration tickling along Ty’s tongue, and Ty pulled Blake’s happiness into himself, giving his own tongue back.

“Now that
that
is settled,” Blake announced and gently gave Ty a shove, encouraging him to get up. As soon as Ty got to his feet, Blake was on his and grabbing his hand. “Time for that ass kissing I promised.”

Hell yeah!
He hadn’t completely ruined the celebration. He was getting another chance and this time Ty was going to make damn sure it ended in one hell of a bang. Laughing, he followed Blake to their bedroom.

A
S
B
LAKE
pulled Ty into their bedroom he couldn’t help but think that his boy was going to drive him out of his ever-lovin’ mind one of these days, he just knew it. One day he’d be laced into a straightjacket and his mom would be visiting him in his no-sharp-objects-allowed padded room and wiping the drool from his chin.

He loved the man; the good Lord knew he did. Every inch of the infuriating bastard, the good, the sexy, even the flawed parts, and he had no doubt Ty loved him back. Ty may not have ever said the words out loud, always hemming and hawing or distracting Blake when he’d tell Ty he loved him, but Blake still knew it.

Didn’t matter, really—love wasn’t words, love was actions and that’s all he needed from Ty.

Still, the man drove him loco.

He understood why Ty couldn’t completely trust him yet. Hell, it hadn’t been so long ago he hadn’t trusted Ty. And really, their issues were pretty much the same. Ty was afraid he’d leave him, and he in turn was scared shitless someone would take Ty away. He’d spent many a night having private conversations with Eli as Ty slept next to him, trying to walk an impossible line of living in the past and looking toward the future.

It wasn’t until Eli’s ghost nudged him—or maybe it was the way he felt when he looked at Ty while he slept—that he reached the turning point. Either way he knew, had their fates been reversed, he’d want nothing more than for Eli to find someone he could snuggle up to at night who made him feel secure while he slept. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt Eli would want him to be happy being security for someone.

Closing the door behind them, Blake flipped the switch to illuminate the bedside table lamp. There was a soft smile on Ty’s face as he looked up at him, but the events of the night—the elation, arousal, falling into anger and guilt—left their telltale signs as weariness in Ty’s eyes and the small crease in his brow. The emotional highs and lows also left him pliable in Blake’s hands, and he easily allowed Blake to lay him across their king-sized bed without any resistance or words.

Everything about Ty fascinated him. Blake let his eyes roam leisurely along the short, stocky man with his muscular, powerhouse body. Sometimes the man was so cocksure he demanded respect and control of his world, yet other times, he was that eight-year-old little boy being abandoned in a small office of a courthouse and shedding tears for a little chicken he’d named Charlie.

He loved everything about Ty, even if some aspects of his personality were more difficult to deal with than others, but this side of Ty—this submissive side, laid out before him to do whatever Blake wanted, trusting him completely—was the side that called most to Blake. It appealed to both his dominant side and his need-to-nurture protective side.

Popping the button on Ty’s jeans and easing down the zipper, Blake held Ty’s gaze as those pale-blue eyes focused on each move Blake made. He was thrilled at the notion that a simple touch could command the sole focus of that fascinating mind.

Silently, Blake pulled the denim and silk away from Ty’s bound cock, eased both garments down his muscular legs, and tossed them away. Ty’s cock was flushed deep in color, straining obscenely upward from the black leather band secured around the base. His bound balls shone with a purplish-red glow.

“Christ, you’re sexy,” Blake murmured, swirling a finger around the wet tip of the flared cockhead.

Ty took in a sharp breath but remained silent, waiting. He wouldn’t speak until either Blake asked him a question or he was ready to beg. Here, behind closed doors, everything was easy. Ty didn’t have to think. There was no past, present, or future, only his Master’s pleasure. The anticipation of what Blake had planned for him was evident in the slight trembling of Ty’s muscles and the excitement gleaming in his blue eyes.

Pushing up Ty’s T-shirt, Blake’s gaze feasted on the ridges of muscle running across Ty’s belly; continuing to push the cotton material up farther revealed the thick muscles of his chest, the little gold rings in Ty’s nipples catching Blake’s attention. A temptation too great to ignore, Blake leaned in and sucked one of the pierced nubs into his mouth, tongue flicking the ring back and forth until Ty moaned. Blake kissed his way across Ty’s breastbone to give the other nipple the same attention, only this time adding a scrape of teeth.

“Ah God,” Ty moaned, back arching.

Ty’s nipples were extremely sensitive: with a twist to the gold, a bite of pain to the pleasure, Blake could make his boy come from just the ministrations of his lips, tongue, and teeth to the little nubs.

But not tonight.

Blake leaned farther over Ty and pulled the T-shirt up and over his head as he pressed his denim-covered groin against Ty’s cock, the abrasive material causing Ty to hiss. Blake covered his mouth, taking the sound in. He dominated the kiss, tongue thrusting deep, teeth threatening, but Ty gave as good as he got. They devoured each other, feasting until they were both breathless and grinning when it ended.

“I do believe I made you a promise, didn’t I?” Blake asked, grinding his hips into Ty, rubbing their erections together.

“Yes, Sir,” Ty moaned, ass coming up off the bed seeking out even more friction.

Straightening, Blake slapped Ty’s thigh. “Hands and knees, boy.”

Ty nodded, his voice a little strained. “Yes, Sir.” He flipped over, knees on the edge of the bed with his feet dangling over the side, and planted his hands on the mattress.

Blake took a minute to enjoy the sight of his boy on display for him. Ty’s summer tan had faded, his skin now a light cream color over all those strong, luscious muscles.
All mine.
The thought made his cock throb.

Blake ran his hands lightly over each cheek of that perfect ass, squeezing the meaty globes and pulling a grunt from Ty, the sound morphing into a moan when Blake leaned down and pressed his mouth to Ty’s lower back. He moved downward, teasing from the top to Ty’s crease with lips and tongue, kissing each ass cheek before spreading them wide.

“I always keep my promises,” Blake whispered before teasing the tip of his tongue slowly around Ty’s hole. “Don’t come, boy.”

“Ahh, I-I won’t, Sir,” Ty panted.

Blake explored his boy’s ass painstakingly slowly, alternating between kissing and biting at the muscular mounds and licking from the top of his crease down to the delicate sac and back up to tease at Ty’s tight little hole.

“Oh fuck.” Ty groaned and pulled away a bit when Blake pushed his tongue into him.

Blake curled his fingers around Ty’s hips, holding him and not allowing him to move away as he dove in with his tongue, fucking Ty’s ass. Ty gasped, body tensing as he moaned and began babbling incoherent nonsense while Blake went at his ass with single-minded determination.