Bad Behavior (Bad in Baltimore) (30 page)

“Funny way of showing it. And you’re telling me this because you want to protect me from him? I think I can take care of myself.”

“I wouldn’t wish a broken…relationship on anyone. But I’m telling you this for Beach’s sake.”

Tai clenched his jaw and nodded, the buzzing starting behind his ears again.

“Beach is fond of grand gestures. As I guess his record shows. I’m afraid that when he feels he needs a fresh start, he’ll do something extreme to justify it. So when he decides to move on, what I’m saying is please, let him go.”

“Let him go? You think I—” But didn’t Tai want him collared, cuffed, want a fucking tattoo on David to let the world know he belonged to Tai? “You’ve known him a long time, right?”

“More than twenty years.”

“And the
Nancy
. How long has he had that boat?”

“Ten years.” Gavin’s eyes widened, a tilt to his head as he acknowledged Tai’s point.

“If
David
wants a fresh start, I won’t be hanging on to him. But maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

C
hapter Twenty-Two

T
ai might have gotten the last word, but that didn’t stop the questions tumbling through his head as he drove them back to pick up Jez before heading to David’s hotel.

Just how well do you know David? Exactly how do your three and a half weeks stack up to twenty years?

They spent as much time together as their schedules—Tai’s schedule—allowed, eating, talking, fucking. He had a change of clothes and a toothbrush at the hotel. Was that an example of how David avoided permanence?

Tai wondered which would bore David first. Having a boyfriend? Not fucking women? The D/s?

Tai could—he did—have vanilla sex. And he could have it with David. But Tai couldn’t turn off the part of him that demanded submission, wouldn’t stop wanting that surrender from David, drinking in the high of watching him control himself and then give it to Tai.

Trying to cut off that part now would take a tourniquet, but one around his chest to cut off the blood flow to who he was. He’d tried to push it back before, with Donte, and made them both miserable. Maybe that was what being tied down would feel like to David. Vitality choked off, withering.

“Okay, I know Jamie’s a total prick and it rubs off on Gavin sometimes. What did he say to you? It’s about the D/s, isn’t it? He’s been a little freaked about it, which is weird because he’s always been kind of adventurous when—”

If Tai hadn’t been so preoccupied, he’d have noticed David wriggling in his seat before the word vomit. “He said I was good for you.”

David went as still as Jez when Tai checked her on the leash.

“Huh.” David settled back in his seat. “Then it must be true.”

There was no reason on earth why Jez’s insistent nudges for Beach to reach back and pet her should trigger any connection with the acquisitions list of Midland-South Health, but that was when David remembered his plan.

“Shit. Sorry.” At least they were still on the east side of the harbor. “I need to stop at the apartment for a suit. I forgot I had a meeting.”

“With your lawyer?”

Usually Beach liked Tai asking questions like that. It had always seemed like the worst part of relationships for his friends, that endless prying and accountability. The truth was no one had ever had the vaguest interest in where Beach was going before—unless it was to a party. But this question made the tiny clock ticking away to his sentencing date next week chime like Big Ben. He tried to muffle it.

“No. I decided I wanted to take a closer look at where the company was heading. Do more than show up at stockholder meetings and terrify administrators keeping you from your daughter.” Being more actively involved in the business—once he figured out exactly what it would entail—was something else he’d meant to present to Tai as a fait accompli.

Arranging the meeting, Beach had pictured Tai’s lips curving, a rumble of praise from his throat. That went a ways to explaining why Jez’s demand for affection had triggered a reminder.

We aren’t so very different, are we, girl?
Beach rubbed under her chin.

“Is this what you’ve been doing on your laptop?”

“Yes.” Beach shouldn’t have been surprised that Tai had noticed, but it rushed heat under his skin. Not quite arousal, but still tingling pleasure.

Tai reached over and squeezed the back of Beach’s neck. The rush got sweeter, better than any high modern chemistry could dream up.
Nope, Jez. We really aren’t.

As they turned onto the wharf, Beach said, “You can drop me off in front. The elevator’s faster than the garage, and I only need the top half of a suit.”

Tai’s brows came to a sharp peak. “Excuse me?”

Beach grinned as he climbed out. “It’s a video conference. They’ll never see my legs.”

“Hmm. Maybe we should test your concentration and preparation.”

The flush of blood went straight to his balls. Leaning in the open door, he said, “If y’all get your walk in now, we can have lots of time for practice.”

In every real-estate purchase, Beach insisted on a clause that guaranteed no one had reported the property haunted. Even before he’d rented here, he’d checked into the history with the diligence he usually reserved for searching out the best bourbon distilleries. No one had died in the old warehouse that had been razed to make room for the apartment building. But as soon as Beach stepped off the elevator, he felt he wasn’t alone in the empty hall. Technically, the house back in Aiken belonged to him, but he had never felt comfortable in it. Always felt watched, even when he was in it alone.

He wished he had keys to jangle as he walked along the hall, but the door was coded rather than keyed. For an instant, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, but when he spun, there was nothing there. An attempt at a jaunty whistle failed him, but it was okay because he reached his door, punched in the code and shut it safely behind him.

His deep breath of relief ended in a gagging cough. Christ. He’d only been away for three days, but the General Tso’s chicken leftovers had turned the garbage into rancidly hazardous waste. Five minutes of exposure to that stench and Tai wouldn’t want to be in the same room with Beach, let alone make being pantsless interesting.

Holding his breath, he tied off the garbage bag and held it as far from his body as possible as he went back out into the hall.

The smell was almost enough to make him forget the crawling sensation on his back, but not quite. Driven by a need to get rid of the stink and return to his apartment, Beach quick-stepped down the hall and around the corner to the utility room with the garbage chute.

As soon as General Tso had taken the long plunge, Beach spun back toward the door and jumped out of his skin, or at least his heart gave a damned good try at it, slamming up against his teeth as he bit the edge of his tongue.

A man stood there. Blocking the door. But it was a man, not a ghost. That is, he was solid. And the last Beach knew, alive.

“Dad?”

Ch
apter Twenty-Three

Tw
enty-five years was a hell of a long time. Despite pictures and a rare Skype appearance, Beach thought his father should have been harder to recognize. But he was instantly familiar in a dozen ways. Voice, posture, even the way he held his hands, arms braced on his knees as he sat on Beach’s sofa.

Dad.

“I need your help, son.”

“Of course, sir.”

With that automatic response, reality came flooding back. This wasn’t some happy reunion, his long-lost father home at last. They were two alleged felons.

And a probation officer was waiting for Beach to come back downstairs.

Tai
was waiting.

Even if Tai weren’t a law officer of some kind, asking someone to help hide your fugitive parent was a big burden. Distilled to its purest essence, involving Tai in anything to do with the presence of Stephen Thaddeus Beauchamp asked Tai to make a choice between his job and Beach. And he wasn’t ready to come out on the losing end of that.

“What do you need?” It came out of Beach sharper than he wanted.

His father set his glass of bourbon on the coffee table with a thunk. “Something more urgent waiting than helping your only father?”

“No, sir. But I, ah, do have someone waiting, and the fewer questions there are…”

“Hell, women and questions. Worst combination in the world. Don’t you have enough trouble already?”

“Apparently not, sir.”

Call Beach an abject coward for it, but discussing his bisexuality with his father—let alone his recently discovered passion for submission—wasn’t going to get Beach out of the door any faster.

He had to laugh at himself. He’d pictured his father at graduations, christening the
Nancy
, simply being at the end of a phone call when Beach had a tale to tell, but now, all he wanted was to put as much distance between them as possible.

“Venezuela is a hell of a country, son. Anything you want comes your way if you have enough money, but once it runs out?” His father spread his hands.

“I still don’t understand what happened with Uncle Sinclair.”

His father pushed away and strode to the bar, pouring out another bourbon and offering a glass to Beach. “Have your first drink with your old man.”

“I can’t.”

“Why in the hell not?”

Beach tugged on the knee of his trousers enough to reveal the ankle monitor. “Detects ethyl alcohol from my skin pores. As well as my whereabouts at all times.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” His father dropped the glass. Beach jumped out of the way, hoping the fumes wouldn’t trigger the monitor.

Stabbing a finger wildly around the room, Dad demanded, “This place? Is it monitored too?”

“No.” At least Beach was reasonably sure it wasn’t. Thinking of all the things he’d done with Tai—well, something about it was bound to be illegal, even if you weren’t on probation.

“Thank God. So it’s safe here?” His father ignored the glass on the floor and grabbed a clean one.

“Do you need a place to stay?”

“Don’t be an idiot, boy. Why the hell else would I have spent six days on a cargo freighter if I didn’t need to hole up here?” A double shot of bourbon disappeared down his father’s throat.

“What happened?”

“The less you know about it the better. All you need to understand is I couldn’t stay in Venezuela anymore. What I need from you is a safe place to sleep and that two point five million I told you to get me.”

Beach had heard his father’s voice on the phone before, disgusted, angry, but never seen that sneer twisting his face from handsome to grotesque.

Backing up toward the couch, Beach said, “You’re welcome to stay here, of course. I won’t even be in your way. I’ve been staying elsewhere.”

“I don’t give a shit where you’ve been getting your dick waxed, boy. What about the money?”

Even if his father had sounded like the desperate man on the phone instead of an angry drunk, Beach could never have explained how three-quarters of a million dollars had disappeared into the idea of a worthy cause, a smile on an adorable child wearing two brightly colored casts and the warmth of one man’s approval. With the length of the sofa between them, Beach swallowed. “Until the dividends deposit at the end of the month, I only have access to half of that.”

“Half?” His father sloshed out more bourbon into the glass. Beach was wondering at what point the glass would become superfluous. At least it was the Woodford Reserve and not the Pappy Van Winkle.

“What about cash?”

“I can withdraw some in the morning. But anything over ten thousand the bank—”

“Reports. Yes, I know. Damn it. Didn’t your uncle teach you anything? Safety deposit boxes?”

“I’ve never needed—”

“Of course not.” His father turned away, staring out into the dark harbor. “David, I’m sorry. I never meant to involve you.” The voice was husky, but whether it was the bourbon or emotion, Beach couldn’t tell. His father put down the glass and came over, resting his hands on Beach’s shoulders. “It’s not easy for a man to be brought low enough to ask for help from his son. It should be the other way around.”

“I don’t mind, sir.”

His father leaned his forehead against Beach’s briefly and then straightened. “Of course not. You’re a good boy.” Dad patted Beach’s cheek with a hand that smelled like marine diesel and brackish water. “Here are the account details for the wire transfer. I know I shouldn’t have to ask, but give me everything you can and as much cash as you can get without making it a federal case.” Another cheek pat and his father stepped back.

The defeated posture wasn’t any better than the drunken bluster. Beach wanted to be anywhere else.

“I will. Make yourself at home.”

“That’s right. Got plans. Don’t give her a reason to bust your balls.”

Beach almost sprinted for the door, but then he remembered his suit. As he ducked back into his bedroom and opened the closet, he felt queasy, like he was out of place, digging through someone else’s closet rather than his own. As beautiful as the balcony was, and all the reclaimed distressed fixtures, he’d be glad to leave it. He tossed the suit over his arm and went back out to find his father leaning against the dark glass door to the balcony.

“I’ll write down the door code for you, but you should probably stay inside. There are security cameras in the halls.”

His father made a noncommittal grunt, and Beach made his escape.

Though it might be more of a leap into the fire from the frying pan, considering that Tai was waiting and Beach hadn’t managed to conceal anything from him so far.

But either he hadn’t been gone as long as it had felt like or Tai had been enjoying his walk because when Beach got into the car, Tai only said, “All set?” as he pulled out of the circular drive.

Beach held the folded dry-cleaning bag on his lap and rolled his ankles. After a few minutes, Tai had almost broken Beach with the silence. He was ready to confess.

Sliding his hand up along the inside of Tai’s denim-covered thigh seemed the better plan. Tai didn’t move to grant easier access. Far more familiar with using sex to distract himself rather than someone else, Beach abandoned the preliminary round and went right for the prize.

The heat under his palm and the answering pressure were reassuring, but then Tai tossed Beach’s hand back to his own lap.

“I’m driving, David.”

Not playfully stern. And not his behave-or-else Dom voice. Just flat.

Tai must have had Jez jogging on their walk. Her head hung down, steps soft and slow as they made their way through the hotel garage to the elevator.

In the suite, Beach hung up his suit and stripped. “I think I have a pound of asbestos on me from Gavin’s building.” Not to mention the potential of spilled bourbon and whatever had been clinging to Dad. “I’m going to shower. Coming in?”

The suite had one of those giant stalls with multiple heads. The first night, they were in it until two a.m.

“In a minute.” Tai glanced up from his phone.

He couldn’t know already. Beach shut the bathroom door and examined his dishonestly cheerful face in the mirror. And it wasn’t lying. If Tai asked if Beach had heard from his father, he would definitely tell him. Yes. That was perfect. He’d leave it up to fate. If Tai asked, Beach would give him the truth.

Tai didn’t make it into the shower. When Beach climbed into the king-sized bed, Tai was under the sheet, dark-colored boxers visible through the thin cotton, despite his bare chest. “Sorry. I’m feeling beat.”

Beach nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, flattened under a pile of uncertainty.

Maybe Gavin had said something to Tai about the D/s. Or the police knew Dad was back in the country. Beach could tell Tai. Surrender the decision into Tai’s control—and what was left of family honor with it. Or Beach could do this one thing. One simple thing to help his dad and be free of that burden forever.

Beach switched off the lamp and looked over his shoulder at Tai. “The trust in D/s, it goes both ways, right? You’d tell me if—”

Tai grabbed Beach from behind and pulled him against a hard, warm chest. “I’m not angry with you, David. Or bored. Or planning to stop being your Dom. I’m just tired.”

Beach let out a long breath. It shook at the end. He hadn’t realized how really awful the possibilities were until Tai said them. Losing this, losing Tai—Sir—wasn’t something he could stand to think about.

Tai untangled the sheet between them and dragged it on top of them both. His palm settled hot and rough on Beach’s hip.

“Do you want me to jerk you off?”

The rumble against back and neck reassured Beach more than the offer. “I’m good.”

Tai gave Beach’s shoulder a quick kiss. “Good. Now go to sleep, boy.”

Beach woke to a sharp smack on his ass and then a shower-damp kiss under his ear.

“Didn’t know when your meeting was. Set the alarm for eight,” Tai murmured before he dropped another kiss.

Beach contemplated turning toward the soft mouth, the fresh tang of aftershave and tickling brush of damp whiskers. Tai didn’t always have to be at work an hour early. They could—

Another stinging swat hit his ass. “Later, boy. Don’t oversleep.”

When the door closed behind Tai and Jez, Beach lunged out of bed, a sickening tilt in his guts as he remembered what had happened last night.

His father was here. Hiding in Beach’s apartment. Waiting for him to clean out his bank accounts so Dad could safely disappear.

And the person Beach most wanted to talk to about that was the last person on earth he could tell.

It only took the first five minutes of the video conference to remind Beach why he put more effort than most people thought he possessed into avoiding them. After Tai’s comment about practicing last night, Beach had entertained a fantasy of running the meeting not only pantsless, but with a steel plug in his ass, body tingling with sensation and secret ownership.

That would have made all this boring crap so much easier to deal with. It wasn’t hard to follow what was going on. Profit and loss statements, return on investment, market share, growth projections, all of it in nicely color-coded charts and spreadsheets. It was the endless ego-stroking, making sure everyone had a spotlight on a pet project. Then the repetition of what had already been decided.

But he still would have rather kept the meeting going instead of haring off to the bank. He might not have had a safety deposit box with cash in it, but he did have accounts at three different banks.

He had stories prepared for the cash withdrawals. A shame-faced admission of gambling debts, buying some art from an eccentric dealer, a vacation. But no one cared. And two hundred and ninety-three Benjamins took up surprisingly little room in his freshly purchased briefcase. Nothing like the movies.

He rocked the case between his ankles as he sat in a cool leather chair and waited for the receptionist to lead him away to complete the last transaction, the wire transfer of one point six million to Blue Elephant Antiquities in Malta. He supposed he could have asked Gavin for cash. Gavin would hand over any amount, no questions asked. But Beach was done dragging Gavin into things like this.

The best way to sell a lie, Beach knew, was to believe it. He pictured what he was pretending to buy, a beautiful marble bust, third century BC. But again, aside from asking for his signature on six different forms and then on the touch pad, no one wanted anything from him. He felt a hell of a lot lighter when he dropped off the briefcase and the transfer receipt to his father, and more relieved when neither of them tried to prolong the exchange.

He supposed he should have been disappointed that his father barely acknowledged the gift, the risk, God—the brush of that damp, soft beard on Beach’s chin that morning—what he was risking.

“I’ll be in touch when I find someplace else to land for awhile.”

Beach nodded, though at that moment, he was perfectly fine with the idea of this being his last father-to-son chat, despite how much of his life he’d felt he’d been missing that very thing.

The hug was a halfhearted effort, more of a handshake with some shoulder contact. Over his father’s shoulder, David noticed what stuck out from under the pizza box on the counter. A nautical chart, and based on the number in the corner, one covering Cape Hatteras to the Bahamas. His eyes went to the hook—the empty hook—where the keys to the
Nancy
should be hanging. He should have been furious, demanded the return of the keys.

Instead the betrayal left him empty. Hollow.

All that fucking time defending honor, family honor, seeking the magic key to his father’s return, wasted. A lifetime of believing in a man who’d steal from his son without a backward glance.

“You’re the only one who didn’t let me down, David. Thank you.” His father’s backslap landed high up, near Beach’s neck, and it made his skin crawl. “And I’ll be out of here as soon as I can. Going to try—”

“You were right before, Dad. It’s better if I don’t know.”

His father could have the fucking boat. Beach didn’t need to hear another lie.