Stripped Bare (28 page)

“I have no bloody idea what I did with it, Rachel.” It was his sister. “I’ve looked through all the papers I have but I can’t seem to find it.” He picked up paper after paper and Shane perched on the corner of the desk as Matthew ran a hand though his hair in exasperation. “What else did he say? I thought we’d manage to sort that all out already.” He turned away and foraged amongst more papers on the sideboard, exclaiming in exasperation as he looked for whatever it was he was seeking.

Shane glanced idly at the desk and its pile of assorted documents, seeing a rather interesting picture of a baby on it clipped to a sheet of paper. He picked it up, glancing at it. His body went cold when he saw what it was. The paper was addressed to Mr. Matthew Langer and Mr. Sam Cartwright and was from a very prestigious child adoption agency called Madison Carlinson Associates. His quick eyes scanned over the document. His chest tightened as he realised what he was looking at. His hands trembled as he laid the paper back down on the desk and shovelled a few more pieces on top of it. He was just in time. Matthew gave a shout of satisfaction and waved a piece of paper in the air.

“Hah. Found it, Rach.”

He mouthed silently at Shane. “I won’t be a minute, Shay. I just need to sort my sister out. Her agent’s giving her grief.” He grinned wryly. “It’s nine a.m. in Tokyo. She tends to forget the time difference.”

Shane nodded numbly and lifted his backside from the desk. He felt ill. He walked out the room and back into the lounge. He sat down, staring into the darkness outside, feeling as if his whole world had suddenly changed for the worse.

The papers were a confirmation of an adoption for a little girl called Emily. Two months old. It had been dated 15 May 2010, just a few days before Matthew’s husband had died. Matthew and Sam had been going to be parents. His mind swirled with thoughts.

Why wasn’t this little girl in Matthew’s life? What had happened to change things—Sam’s death? Perhaps the agency wouldn’t allow Matthew to be a single parent. Why the hell would Matthew not share something like this with him? How could he keep something like this from him, even Matthew with his repressive tendencies? Shane had thought they were getting closer than that. Christ, he’d spilled his guts about everything that was important to him, including his past stormy relationship with his father.

He knew more about Sam now than he had, as Matthew felt more comfortable speaking about him. But this was a shock he hadn’t been expecting.

“Shane? Are you okay? You have a strange look on your face.” Matthew sounded a little worried as he came back into the room.

Shane looked up into the anxious eyes of his lover. He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just have a really bad headache all of a sudden. Not feeling too well. I’ve been on Bushwhacker all day, probably caused some eye strain or something.”

Matthew sat down beside him. “All that wine you drank tonight probably didn’t help. Here, let me rub your temples. That normally works for me.”

His warm hands reached over and took Shane’s head as he gently massaged the two pressure points either side of his lover’s forehead. Shane closed his eyes. Normally he loved this man’s touch on him but all of a sudden he wanted to be left alone. He needed to sort out his thoughts. He reached up and pulled Matthew’s hands away.

“Matty, I’m fine, babe, honestly. I’ve just overdone it. If you don’t mind I’ll turn in. Perhaps a dark room will help.” He stood up and kissed Matthew softly on the forehead. Matthew looked fairly gobsmacked at being abandoned, but Shane couldn’t think of any other way to quell the rising turmoil inside him. He reached the bedroom, undressed, turned out both bedside lights and climbed thankfully under the covers of Matthew’s bed. He lay there, unable to sleep.

It was about an hour later when he heard his boyfriend come to the bedroom. He felt Matthew standing silently in the door, the light from the hallway softly illuminating the bedroom walls. Shane pretended to sleep, even to the extent of taking a few deep, relaxed breaths to make it more realistic. He couldn’t face any conversation now.

Matthew sighed, a soft exhalation of breath, then came in and closed the door, plunging the bedroom into darkness once again. He undressed silently and slid into bed beside Shane. Shane felt a slight stir to his hair as Matty kissed him tenderly on his head then turned away. He swallowed. Perhaps a good night’s sleep might take away this feeling of betrayal he felt at his lover’s keeping secrets. But sleep took a long time to come, and he lay awake listening to the sound of Matthew’s steady breathing beside him.

The following morning he rose early, got up, showered and left Matthew’s house before he woke up. He left a note saying he had forgotten he’d promised his new customer a status report last night and wanted to get it done this morning and he’d call Matthew later.

Shane got back to his apartment and immediately powered up Bushwhacker. He was going to find out more about this adoption and see what had happened. His agile memory remembered the case number, the agency name and most of the details on the document he’d seen. It shouldn’t be too hard to hack in and find what he was looking for, even if it was an adoption agency with a code of secrecy.

As he worked his mobile rang. It was Matthew. Shane felt a pang of guilt as he ignored it. Shane wasn’t disappointed as he trawled through the system set up for the adoption agency. Their system was tough but he was better. It took him a few hours, but soon he had everything he needed to know on the proposed adoption of Emily Short by Matthew Langer and Sam Cartwright. Once again, he found a sad story of both love and loss.

The thing he couldn’t see in the “Langer-Cartwright” file were any actual details of the adoption.

“Baby Emily” and her date of birth was the only reference made to the little girl in the adoption records, something Shane thought was strange. Normally records were more detailed than this but these almost seemed to be redacted, so sparse as to only give the barest facts. He probably could have found out more about it, but he’d found everything he wanted to know, and the baby’s parents and background really weren’t of interest to him.

Matthew had not been kidding when he’d said he’d gone off the rails after Sam’s death. The adoption agency had put a private investigator firm on him after suspecting he was out of control. The stories and pictures they had collated were shocking. Shane knew Matthew had been in a lot of pain after losing his husband, but Matthew’s self-destructive spiral surpassed even what he had been told or imagined. He winced as he sorted through the file they held. There were pictures of Matthew sucking some guy off in an alleyway. Video clips of him roaring drunk and yelling at whoever was filming him. Pictures of him passed out in bars, kissing men in corner booths and one final nail in his coffin—a grainy video of him fucking some guy over the bonnet of a car. Shane felt sick by the thought that his Matty had subjected himself to this kind of thing. Not even in his deepest darkest moments had Shane acted like this, but then he’d never lost a man he loved before to a violent and senseless tragedy.

There was a letter on file which Shane read with a heavy heart.

Dear Mr. Langer,

It is with great regret that we advise you that we are not able to proceed with your intended adoption of female child, Emily Short, DOB 12 March 2012. As we have discussed, we do not believe you are a suitable candidate for parency after what we have recently been advised regarding your behaviour. We do understand that you are in a dark place and that the death of your late husband has been a great shock. However our first and only interest is for the child and we cannot, in all honesty, place a child with you in your current emotional state. Rest assured that any evidence we have collected in our efforts to determine your suitability will be kept private and secure. We can categorically confirm that it will be destroyed after the relevant period of time in which we are required to keep such material.

I sincerely hope you are able to see your way forward out of your current situation and this agency wishes you all the best for your future plans.

Yours sincerely,

June Carlinson

CEO – Madison Carlinson Associates.

Shane read between the lines. Madison Carlinson had got wind of Matthew’s meltdown somehow, employed someone to spy on him, got the proof they needed, told him he was no longer fit to be a parent
(was parency actually a word?)
and promised that the incriminating evidence would be destroyed when there was no longer a need to keep it, such as if Matthew had challenged their decision. Shane dreaded to think of these pictures coming out in public. For a moment he was tempted to delete them from their archive folder. His finger actually hovered over the delete button, itching to remove the evidence of his lover’s breakdown. Finally he sighed. He was already taking a chance accessing this database. If he deleted these photos someone might think it had been Matthew trying to destroy any evidence of his past. He’d be the first one they looked to as a culprit. Shane had had enough of getting others into trouble by his well-meaning actions. He didn’t want to cause any more. Regretfully he removed his finger and ran it across the screen of laptop, gently tracing the image of his Matthew lunging toward the photographer with crazy eyes, hair all mussed and a snarl on his face.

“My poor baby,” he whispered softly. He could understand now why Matthew had kept this hidden. Not only had he lost his husband, he’d lost his child too, and in the process, these pictures of him were probably the lowest point of his life, etched forever in Matthew’s memory. Knowing Matthew as he did now, Shane knew Matty would have been ashamed and mortified if he’d had ever known about this. It certainly explained his boyfriend’s control issues. He’d lost control and lost everything that meant anything to him. Shane logged out, checking that he’d kept his tracks hidden and closed his laptop. He sat back thoughtfully. This would have to be his secret. He could certainly never let Matthew know he’d pried into the blackest part of his life. Matthew would never forgive him. It would be seen as a cardinal sin. The fact Shane knew about this whole sorry affair was already starting to eat away at his soul. Not for the first time, he wished he could have left well enough alone. His tendency to probe into other’s people personal affairs was certainly his Achilles’ heel and may even be his downfall one day. Shane picked up his phone and dialled Matthew’s number. His boyfriend answered, sounding wary.

“Shane? Where the hell did you get to so early this morning?”

“I told you, babe. I forget to send my report over to my client. They needed it for an emergency board meeting today. On a bloody Saturday, can you believe it? I had to come home and get it done before they sat down at midday. I’m sorry I had to leave you all alone.” The lies tripped off his tongue.

“How is your headache? Is it any better?” Matthew’s tone sounded guarded.

“Yeah, sorry about last night. I
was
really going to sweep everything off the table and screw you senseless, so I owe you one. Maybe tonight?” He held his breath as he waited for his lover to answer.

“Hmm. Not sure. I have that work do tonight remember, dinner with the boss and Julia. So I doubt I’ll be home too early.”

Shane’s face fell. “I’d forgotten you were going out with them. Do you want to come over to my place now anyway and we can have brunch? I can go down to the deli on the corner and pick up some of that cold meat and coleslaw and we can watch a movie or something.”

There was silence. “Or something sounds like a better bet to me.” Matthew’s voice held the trace of a smile. “I still have a hard-on from last night, so I expect you to do something about it before I go out tonight. It wouldn’t do to go out with my cock looking as if it’s going to take flight and stab someone.”

Shane closed his eyes in relief at the fact Matthew didn’t seem too annoyed over his rapid departure. “I think I can manage that. Come on over when you’re ready. I’ll nip down to Donnie’s now and get us something to eat.”

Two hours later all thoughts of food and drink were forgotten as Shane took care of Matthew’s hard-on issue. He knelt on his bed, his arse raised whilst Matthew gripped his hips and thrust in and out of him like a man possessed. His lover seemed particularly voracious this afternoon. He’d given Shane one of his best blow jobs to date, and that was saying something as Matty was very good at it, and then with hardly any foreplay, he’d turned Shane over, gripped his backside and started pounding away. Shane wasn’t complaining. He loved it when Matthew got rough and tough. The man could be a veritable animal.

Matthew reached around and gripped Shane’s already hardening dick as he moved his hand up and down his shaft, while keeping up his rhythm. The younger man gasped as he felt the familiar prickling in his groin, the pressure and the heat drifting up his body from his toes, over his legs and into his hips like a steady rising tide of sheer pleasure. Matthew gripped him harder, pushing deeper. After a while, Shane gave a loud cry as he climaxed, spurting his own contributions onto Matthew’s hands and the bedcovers below. Matthew continued his thrusts and finally cried out as he came, his hands gripping Shane’s hips, making him wince. It had been a short, intense lovemaking session and one that Matthew had obviously needed from the feel of him. Matthew slowly withdrew from his lover and lay back, gasping.

“God, I needed that. You left me really horny last night, you bastard, after all that dirty talk about fucking me over the table. I was waiting for you to start something.”

Shane pulled Matthew over into his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. “I had every intention but then that headache started and—”

Matthew lifted his head and looked at his boyfriend, his eyes bright.

“Don’t lie. You didn’t have a headache. I’ve never known you to be sick in all the time I’ve known you. Something happened to you last night. I could see it. You flicked off like a light switch. God knows I’ve done that to you before so I wasn’t going to push you. But I would like to know what made you so withdrawn last night.”