Whatever the Cost (6 page)

“It was weird. It started out like I thought it would. He acted as if I was just a girl. But, I
knew
him. He’s watched me, as Will, with Adam a bunch of times. So that threw me. Didn’t waste any time, though. While he was... um... going at it, he kept hold of my tits, like he needed to feel like I was a woman to go through with it. So I was a little surprised when he finished off by blowing me.”

“What?!” Jacen exclaims before he can self-censor. “He
blew
you? Then what was the point of pretending you were a chick?”

“He was really nervous during that part. But he enjoyed it. Never seen a guy enjoy giving a hummer that much. I think he had to psych himself up for it.”

“So you were completely made-up as Leah and he’s sucking your dick.” Jacen says with awe. “That’s....”
Hot.

“And I had to shower, but it was part of the agreement that I come and go as Leah, so I had to get re-made-up after the shower, and I told him not to bother waiting ’cause it takes me so long. When I came out, not only was he still there, but he had this big spread set up. He had me stay for dinner, demanded it actually. Like, caviar and champagne and lobster. Waiters to serve us and everything. And he kissed my hand when we said goodbye.”

Jacen can only stand there, mouth open, gaping, sputtering.

“I’m seeing him again on the twelfth. He was really sweet. He seemed grateful.”

Bitter, seething jealousy comes out of nowhere and strangles Jacen.
No. You have to say no, Lee. I won’t let him have you. I won’t let him have Leah.
It’s the happy smile on Liam’s face at the memory of it all that hurts the most.
This is what Liam wants
, Jacen realizes.
He wants a client that appreciates him, pampers him, and enjoys him as his creation, and as Leah. He doesn’t want me; he wants the fantasy just as much as his Johns do.

“That’s awesome,” Jacen lies. “I’ll, uh, let you get cleaned up. You need anything from the kitchen? I’m gonna grab a snack and go to bed since I’ve got an early call.”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, Jace,” Liam smiles with painted-peach lips and dark, smudged make-up ringed around his bright green eyes.

“I am really glad he was nice to you. You deserve that. If it was me, I’d bring you champagne and caviar every day, for breakfast and everything.”

With that, he’s gone, slipping back into the hall and out of sight. Liam is left blinking, reeling slightly at the comment. He stares at the doorway for a good five minutes, part of him wanting to call Jacen back to explain, part of him hating Jacen a little for saying something so sweet but inappropriate.
How dare you, Jacen? How dare you just fucking say that to me?
Liam resents the hell out of his friend telling him what he deserves and throwing out a comment so laden with sincere romantic innuendo that it makes Liam queasy. It paralyzes him and rips away his happiness over how the evening turned out. The fantasy is shattered. All that’s left are Jacen’s heartbroken words like knives slicing into Liam’s heart.

Liam doesn’t sleep well that night. His life has always been neatly compartmentalized. A big facet of it is his work, which includes everything sexual about himself. It’s his emotional outlet, his chance to express himself and be whatever he wants or needs to be. The rest of his life is about simpler pleasures, like being able to buy nice things, to have a nice home and all of the comforts that come with it. The two compartments never mix. Liam doesn’t date or have relationships or sex. He doesn’t have feelings for anyone. He doesn’t allow it to happen. He decided, long ago, that finding love is not something he requires to be happy. In fact, it makes him incredibly uncomfortable to even consider the idea. So, the mere implication that Jacen is even capable of seeing him in a romantic light, to have Jacen flirt with him with no purpose behind it, no character or charade, just himself, disturbs Liam. Sure, they joke around all the time about being a couple and their line of work. There is never anything behind it, Liam tells himself. It is just the nature of their senses of humor. And when Jacen got turned on by Liam when he was in drag and being Leah, that was just Jacen doing his job, getting aroused by his appointed mate in that situation. That’s why he gets the big bucks; he can get into it with anyone he needs to, and enjoy it in the process.

The comment made in the doorway to Liam’s room, about what Liam deserves, about what Jacen would do for him if he could, is something Liam can’t get past. It bothers him. A lot.

The best recourse seems to be to get over it and pretend it never happened. It’s what he decides to do. But it’s easier decided than done.

The next morning, Jacen is gone before Liam is able to get up and makes his way downstairs. Without any appointments that day, Liam goes out for a round of golf, then comes home around lunchtime. He’s in the kitchen making food when Jacen gets back from his meeting with Patrick.

Liam waits for it, for Jacen to call back to him from the hallway and say hi. Liam’s truck is in the driveway, so it’s obvious that he’s home. It’s what they do, they check in with each other after each gig. That’s how they know they’re all right. Jacen and Liam check in with each other just like they check in with Della. It’s reflexive, they don’t even think about it anymore.

Jacen doesn’t say a word. The front door closes gently, barely audible, and then equally soft footsteps pad upstairs.

A sort of panic begins to suffocate Liam. It’s shapeless, stifling, overpowering, and at first he doesn’t even understand it. Then small voices begin to whisper in the back of his psyche.

Even when Spencer practically took Jacen apart, he still called. He still checked in. Hell, he called me as soon as he was sequestered in the bathroom of Spencer’s rental house, before the job was even finished. Never has Jacen avoided me completely. It’s never been that bad.

Maybe it went really well. Maybe it went so well that he’s still in the afterglow, too high to remember where he is or what to do.

Liam is almost able to convince himself of this until he hears the water turn on in the upstairs bathroom.

He’s running upstairs before he can even form a conscious thought about it, about how both of them make sure to wash up at the job site, and do a self-evaluation, health-wise, before even checking in with Della. The only times they shower at home, too, are when—

“Jacen?!” Liam screams, disturbed even more by how shrill and shaky his voice sounds in his own ears. “Jacen? Are you okay?! Jacen!”

Patrick’s a good guy. Patrick’s nice to Jacen. Jacen told me so. He told me how tender Patrick is, how caring...

And how possessive. He said that too. He said Patrick likes to think he owns Jacen, that he belongs only to him.

Liam ascends to the second floor. He bursts into Jacen’s bedroom, going through it, following the trail of hastily discarded clothes—a pair of designer jeans, a thin white t-shirt, Jacen’s black leather boots. They lead into the bathroom, the door of which is closed over, but not completely shut. Liam can hear the water pounding against the glass in the shower stall. Another step forward, a slight push against the bathroom door, and he can see Jacen.

Look at him. Jesus, look at him.

Gripping the doorframe hard enough to hurt, Liam berates himself.
What are you doing? Don’t
fucking look at him. You have no right to look at him.

But he can’t not look.

He’s beautiful. My god, he’s breathtaking.

The only time Liam saw Jacen without clothes, Jacen was bloody and beaten. It wasn’t sexy. It was horrifying. Now, Jacen is standing nude behindglass. Every golden inch of his flesh, every stark, chiseled muscle, every curve, every line, every ridge is on display, highlighted by the soft light of the bathroom sconces. Jacen is facing the other way, so Liam is left staring, helplessly
staring,
at Jacen’s bare ass.

Stop looking.

You have no right. Only his clients get to have this. You didn’t pay for the privilege. What did you expect, anyway? For him to be disgusting? Of course he’s gorgeous. Get over it. Get out. Back up and get the fuck out.

That’s exactly how long it takes Liam to notice the subtler details. Like the fading welts on Jacen’s backside, right across the thickest part of the muscle in thin, pink horizontal lines.

“He whipped you? That son of a bitch fucking
whipped
you?!” It comes out as a shout, uncensored, unfiltered.

Jacen jumps, startled, not having realized that Liam was there. “Jesus
Christ
,” he hisses, glancing quickly over his shoulder and then receding back farther into the stall instinctively, like he could possibly hide himself that way. “Lee, come on. I’m taking a fucking shower here. You mind?”

“Look at me,” Liam growls. He’d gotten a glimpse of Jacen’s face. It was enough to convince him to stay, even if Jacen hates him for it.

“Why, you want the full show?” Jacen asks without turning, bowing his head and spitting out water as it fills his mouth. “You got a couple hundred on you? If you like what you see, maybe we can work something out.”

“You’re scaring me,” Liam says in a more hushed tone, a cold tickle forming in his gut. “What happened? What’s wrong? What the fuck did he do to you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jacen says hollowly. “I was properly compensated.”

It takes only four steps for Liam to cross to the stall. The splayed fingers of Jacen’s hand slip down the slick wall and he tenses visibly, turning his face further away from Liam, keeping his back to the door. Liam yanks the glass door open and frigid water begins to spray out, dampening his clothes, pooling on the floor, soaking into the rug. Jacen is trembling. It stokes the fire of Liam’s fury.

“Don’t,” Jacen whimpers, broken. Liam reaches for him and Jacen flinches away like he’s expecting Liam to manhandle him, or strike him, too. It’s the last straw. All self-control drains from Liam, all of his pride, all of his guardedness. All that matters is getting to Jacen, and pulling him back out of whatever hell he’s sunk into.

Liam’s fingers graze Jacen’s jaw and Jacen surrenders, throwing away whatever was left of his dignity. He looks at Liam from over a shoulder.

His eyes are bloodshot from crying. Water courses in rivers down the planes of his face, off the tip of his nose, from his chin, over his split lip.

“Patrick hit me,” Jacen says. “Punched me square in the mouth when he saw the welts.”

Liam shuts off the water. Grabbing a towel, he wraps it around Jacen. “Come on.”

Making no move to get out of the stall, Jacen, shivering, mutters, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Tough shit,” Liam says, frowning. “I’ll give you a second to get dried off, but I’m gonna be right there.”

He points to the bedroom.

When Liam leaves, Jacen sighs heavily, his head falling back on his shoulders. Moments from his morning come back to him in flashes. It had been going so well.

Being with Patrick is usually a walk in the park for Jacen. It’s easy, not much effort or thought required. He just turns on the charm and pushes all of Patrick’s buttons. They were no sweat to figure out. Patrick’s a top. Cut and dry. He likes a flirt, but an understated flirt. That means lots of lip biting and sly looks from half-lidded eyes. He likes when Jacen touches his own hair, pushing it back over an ear or just combing his fingers through it.

The body language is essential, too. Jacen gets nice and close to Patrick, keeping his knees loose and head bowed so that he’s in kissing range, should Patrick be in the mood for it, since Jacen is much taller than him. Shoulders back, movements fluid. He always wears some perfectly tailored jeans to show off his ass and short-sleeved, V-neck shirts to show off his arms and chest. Almost every time they meet for an appointment, it’s at Patrick’s rental house in town, usually in the morning. They have breakfast or maybe take a dip in the pool before he fucks Jacen up the ass. Jacen doesn’t have many clients that ask that particular service of him. Because of his size and personality, he’s mostly booked for either kinky women or guys looking to bottom, since Jacen is good at putting guys at ease, coaxing them into things without being scary about it. It’s only Spencer and Patrick that, time and time again, expect him to give it up.

At first it did freak Jacen out a little. When he was a teenager he was completely straight. When he was in his early twenties, in college, he was gay for pay, blowjobs mostly. There was the occasional fuck, but it was always him doing the fucking. And hey, if he didn’t focus on appearances too much, or the deep tones of his partners’ voices, he could usually pretend they were chicks. Except for the dick sucking. That was more of a challenge to excuse away.

It was only when the price for his services got bumped up to professional levels, when he started working as an escort, that he started making everything available to his clientèle. He had to. There was no getting around it. If he wanted to make the big bucks, he had to put out once in a while. So he got used to it. It took some time, but he managed to. Then Spencer came along, looking for a submissive that wouldn’t chicken out at the last minute and say his safeword. Bondage, sexual torture, whipping, spanking, all of it was on the table. It wasn’t just anal, it was freaky shit. Logic told Jacen to say no, and at first he did. Until he saw what Spencer was willing to pay.