MITCH DROVE NORTH to San Antonio, then headed east on 10 toward Ciudad Juarez—they didn’t ever dip into Mexico, only skirted it via Fort Bliss, and to get that far took eleven hours. Part of Chenco had been hoping to see some of those great big leafy trees he’d seen in movies and picture books, but of course they were going from brush country to short grass to desert. In addition to the scenery not being much—and only visible if he sat up front with Mitch—there was precious little to do. Chenco had grown tired of cards with Sam well before then, and he was relieved when they indulged in an extended break at a truck stop. It had absolutely nothing he wanted to eat, but Sam had stocked the mini fridge in the cab with fruit and veg and hummus, and Chenco made a small picnic with Steve under the shade of a mesquite tree.
“I can’t believe we’re not out of Texas yet,” he said, leaning against Steve as he twirled a grape between his fingers.
“Nearly there now.” Steve popped a piece of hummus-laden carrot into Chenco’s mouth. “We’ll get to Arizona before nightfall. I don’t know if I can get us all the way to Phoenix—been a few years since I drove a rig in a big city. Mitch might well be rested enough to drive again by then, since he’s used to driving long distance.”
“I can’t believe I have a brother and a boyfriend who can drive big rigs.” He settled into Steve’s arms and stared out at the interstate. “You drove a truck in the Army, right?”
“Slightly different kind of truck, but yes.” He stroked Chenco’s arms idly. “Man, I was younger than you when I did that.”
“What were you doing sixteen years ago when you were my age?”
“It was 1998, so I was just about done at Stanford. Had big dreams of running a tech company.” He laughed, the sound tinged with regret. “Hell, I knew Larry and Sergey pretty well. I can’t say they’d have brought me in on the ground floor, but…well, things went a different way, so none of it matters.”
“Larry and Sergey?”
“Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google founders.”
Whoa. “You left all that for Gordy?”
“I did.”
Now it was Chenco stroking Steve’s furry arm. “How’s he doing? Have you heard?”
Steve’s reply was careful, but Chenco could feel the mild tension in his body. “Crabtree has made it clear I’m out of the loop for a while. He’s told Randy and Ethan to simply report everything is fine. Randy did leave a tracking app on for me, so I can see where they’re at. It’s all I get, though.”
“That’s harsh.”
“It’s smart.” Steve caught Chenco’s hand and twined their fingers together. “Gordy’s relied on me for a long time, and he’s pretty messed up.”
Chenco was starting to think when it came to Gordy, Steve was messed up too. “So what’s he doing, exactly? Crabtree, I mean. Is he…maybe this is a stupid question, but are they having sex?”
“I doubt it, but…well, I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not privy to much information.” He rubbed his thumb along the inside of Chenco’s wrist. “Mostly he’ll be setting boundaries, trying to give Gordy a routine. Making sure he takes his meds. Crabtree probably has to pull pretty hard on him sometimes, and travel isn’t going to be easy. They’ll take an extra day at least to get to Vegas. I think I heard Ethan and Crabtree talking about making time for a scene, though I doubt Ethan or Randy will be part of that.”
“So he’s using BDSM to do this rehabilitation, right?”
“Yes, but probably not the way you’re thinking. It’s not about tying him up. It’s about giving him what he needs. Much like you, really, except your needs are different. More like the first scene we had. Rougher, but that kind of connection.”
It was hard for Chenco to think he had anything in common with a man who holed up in an abandoned building. “You always seem to find things I need I didn’t know about.”
“That’s my job.” He nuzzled Chenco’s ear briefly. “Crabtree’s doing the same thing—reading Gordy, trying to find out what he needs to feel safe and strong. It’s what I should have been doing, what I tried to do, but I was blinded by my own feelings, my guilt.”
“Why should you feel guilty? It’s amazing you gave up a career to help your friend, but nobody would expect it of you.”
“Gordy did. I did.”
That was tough to argue with, especially since right now Chenco was the recipient of some pretty generous and wildly unnecessary aid. He watched the interstate some more. “I suppose we should head to the truck.”
Steve lifted his phone from the blanket beside them and shook his head. “Not yet. Mitch said he’d text me when he’s done.”
“Done? With what?”
“Fucking the ever-loving shit out of his husband.”
Chenco glanced at Steve to check the veracity of this. A sly smile played on Steve’s face.
“No shit?” Chenco’s head was full of images of his brother and Sam that made him a little bit tingly inside.
When they did finally go to the rig, it swelled with the smell of sex and freshly brewed coffee. Mitch—naked from the waist up and wearing low-hanging boxers—handed a travel mug full of black brew to Steve and went over some of the readouts and implements on the dashboard. His arms, Chenco couldn’t help notice, were full of hard, red lines.
Fingernail trails.
Chenco tucked his feet under his body as they drove onto the interstate, watching the ribbon of highway roll out before them, thinking about sex. He watched Steve work the gears, expertly shift lanes, a hot shock of man driving a big, sexy truck.
Once Chenco got up to use the bathroom and get a glass of water, and he couldn’t help steal a gaze at Mitch and Sam, tucked in their bed, a bed that looked barely big enough for Mitch yet somehow held the two of them. Sam was clearly naked, Mitch’s arm wrapped around his waist, hand cupped over Sam’s cock and balls. His heavy leg swallowed Sam’s thigh, and his face, slack with sleep, was half-buried in Sam’s messy hair. The sight arrested Chenco, made him happy and lonely at once. It made him horny too.
Steve noticed.
At first he didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t long after Chenco buckled into his seat, his erection making him squirm, Steve said, “Take it out and play with yourself.”
Chenco hesitated. Steve didn’t look at him, but it was clear he waited for his order to be obeyed. Chenco felt weird. He hadn’t ever masturbated in front of anyone before. He’d done a hell of a lot with Steve, but not this. Not with Steve sitting there driving. Not with his fucking brother ten feet away, asleep or no.
“Chenco,” Steve said, a hint of warning in his tone.
Swallowing his nerves, his awkwardness, Chenco undid his fly.
He may have felt weird, but his cock still could see the fucked-out look on Sam’s face, those scratches on Mitch’s arms. Chenco wanted some scratches. He wanted to feel the burn echoing through his skin, that soft heat. He wanted Steve’s teeth on him biting hard into the meat of his shoulder.
Chenco cried out softly at the thought, jerking himself.
“That’s right.” The acrid smell of a match filled the air with a sharp hiss, followed by the scent of seared tobacco. “Should have put a plug in you at the rest stop. Should have stripped you down in the men’s room, made you spread your legs and stuffed you up.”
Chenco’s cheeks burned scarlet fire at Steve’s words, and he couldn’t help a glance backward at the curtain.
“They’ll hear you, boy. Not yet—they’re still asleep. But when they wake up, I’m going to bend you in half on the floor, and they’ll hear everything I do to you.”
Something ugly and scary turned inside Chenco. His hand stilled on his cock. “Yellow.”
He’d never used a word before with Steve, just the one blind-fear scream of red with Randy on the way to Edinburg, so he was almost more nervous after he spoke.
Steve didn’t seem to share his anxiety. He relaxed a little and reached over to stroke Chenco’s arm. “Tell me what part was yellow.”
Chenco didn’t want to talk about it, but he made himself. “Them hearing. Knowing what you’re doing.”
“Because Mitch is your brother? Or because someone will know?”
Both? Except as he thought about it, the someone will know part was what felt so gurgly and dark. He swallowed and cupped his penis protectively. “Because they’ll know. I’ll let go like you make me do, and they’ll know.”
Somehow this pleased Steve. He didn’t smile, but he had this look about him as if this was a road he knew well. “There’s no sin in letting down your guard. Not when you’re in a safe space. It’s not shameful to let someone see you when you’re vulnerable.”
Chenco knew this, and he agreed in theory, but… “It’s not shame. It’s…” He wet his lip. “It feels dangerous.”
Steve stroked Chenco’s arm again, this time the touch a long, sensual caress with his thumb. “Do you trust me, Chenco, to keep you safe?”
Was it bad Chenco had to think about it? It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Steve, it was…Chenco didn’t know what it was. Fear, maybe. Old, deep, nameless fear attached to something but long since tethered, snarling nastily in the darkness of his soul. Fear of being exposed and injured. Fear of not stepping onto the stage deliberately in Caramela’s armor but dragged out unexpectedly into a harsh glare in the middle of jeering laughter. It made Chenco’s breath catch, his erection wane, his heartbeat quicken.
“Chenco?” Steve’s strong, sure voice cut through the fog like a lighthouse. “Do you want me to pull over so we can talk?”
No, Chenco didn’t. “Keep—” His voice broke, and he swallowed. “Please keep moving. It’s…something about the road. Everything moving. Makes it okay.”
“I understand.”
Steve let the silence expand between them now, and Chenco stared into the sunset, off to the northwest. The soft colors moved Chenco, soothed him. Eventually, he spoke.
“Nothing ever happened to me.” His voice was soft, and it seemed to come from far away. “I don’t have a story like Gordy’s. Nobody ever hurt me. I never thought about playing until you.”
“It’s not a contest. You don’t have to have been hurt in your body to be wounded. Sometimes all they have to do is ignore you.”
The tears pricking Chenco’s eyes shocked him, and he blinked them back with a terror. Once they were beaten down, he said, “They didn’t know they were ignoring me. I wouldn’t let them see. Not my family, not Cooper, not my friends. Not Booker.” This time the tears got him in his solar plexus, and it was tough to sit upright. He made himself do it anyway, his eyes trained on the distant horizon. “You saw me, though. In the alley. You looked at me and you saw me. I was hiding, but I couldn’t hide from you.”
He swallowed several times, letting those words echo inside of his head. They echoed for a long, long time.
When he finally emerged from his strange meditation, the sun was almost gone. Dust colored the sky with rich, blood-red hues.
I want to bleed for him, Chenco thought, but he didn’t say. Not here. Not yet.
He heard stirring from behind the curtain, the soft murmurs of Mitch and Sam waking. In his half-trance, he felt their connection, and it made him ache. I want that. The yearning was a whisper in his head. I want to feel that connected to Steve, not just about sex but about life. I don’t have any right to it, but I want it so badly I could sob right here in this seat, if I let myself feel.
The problem was, he couldn’t seem to stop feeling tonight. He shut his eyes.
“They can hear you take me,” he said, very quietly, “but I can’t bear to let them hear me cry.”
“Don’t push yourself for me. Not out of fear. Don’t you ever, ever yield to me in fear.”
Chenco wanted to deny this, but he made himself examine his reactions anyway, just in case. He shut his eyes, drew a deep breath as he felt inside himself, then shook his head. “Not fear. More…more like I want to beat fear. I want to show you I’m strong. To show me I’m strong. Them too.”
“All right,” Steve said.
Doubt crept in. As Steve pulled the truck over at a rest stop, Chenco hastily did himself up and left the cab, wrapping his arms around his body in the evening chill, dark voices whispering in his ears.
He’s never going to give you what Mitch gave Sam. He thinks you’re going to get tired of him. He thinks seventeen years age difference is too many for anything more than fun and games. He might be right.
Chenco didn’t want him to be right. He wanted his papi to wrap him up and steal him away. To make all his dreams come true and keep him safe. He shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t be dependent on anyone else. It was too dangerous. But he couldn’t stop wanting that and more.
Chenco didn’t just want Steve to see him. He wanted Steve to see him—and keep him.
It was wrong to ask for this. Wrong to fixate on someone, to decide they were the one. Steve was right, they could play together, maybe for years, and then Chenco could find someone his age, or closer to his age, someone who hadn’t been fighting a war when he was a toddler. It was smart. It was logical and safe.
It made Chenco want to rend his hair.
I want to stay with the one who found me when no one knew to look. It’s the only thing I want.
Chenco could never let him know.
When they got back to the truck, Steve laid him out on blankets on the floor, folding him in half as promised, securing his hands and ankles together and fastening them to bolts on either side of the captains chairs in front. The curtain hung down, but Chenco could see underneath it. They’d be so close. They’d hear every sound he made.
Except no sooner did he think this but Steve squeezed his jaw open and forced a thick ball inside and fastened it at the back of Chenco’s neck.
Chenco swallowed around the gag, his tongue playing helplessly behind it, beneath it, around it. He stared up at Steve, who looked down at him in wicked pleasure. Chenco felt himself go slack in mind as well as body, his ass and cock exposed, his belly, his heart.
Steve pressed a hanky into Chenco’s hand. “This is your safe word.”
Just like the time after the big flogging, with the penis gag. Chenco nodded. He gripped the hanky tight in his hand, hoping he didn’t have to let it go.
Steve tortured him slowly. He teased Chenco’s nipples, his abdomen, his cock. He fondled his balls, edging close to but not quite giving Chenco the aggression he wanted. He drifted soft fingers over Chenco’s groin, his hole, maddening Chenco until he grunted behind the gag and thrust up desperately against Steve’s too-gentle hands.
The door to the truck opened, and Mitch climbed inside.
Hot, terrible embarrassment flooded Chenco as he watched his brother settle into his seat—he clutched the hanky tight.
Steve sucked on Chenco’s belly, and he moaned, shocked, delighted, and it was loud enough there was no question Mitch heard. Sam’s voice, soft and questioning, floated over him, and then Sam gasped too. Chenco watched under the curtain as Mitch hauled Sam onto his lap and began to undress his husband.
Steve thrust a slick pair of fingers into Chenco’s hole as Sam tipped his head back to let Mitch attach himself to his chest. Chenco moaned.
When he felt a hot mouth on the inside of his thigh, biting and sucking, Chenco looked down, groaning at the image of Steve feasting on his splayed apex. Something thick moved inside Chenco’s ass, metal and bulbous and unyielding, and he clenched around it, crying against the gag as Steve sucked on his balls. If he’d had a voice, he’d have been begging for a bit of burn, a bite of pain. Pinch me. Rake me. Mark me.
Steve only teased him, thrusting something deeper and deeper inside Chenco. Whimpering, Chenco tried to squirm, as if he could wiggle his way into something more, but Steve wouldn’t relent.
In the front of the cab, Sam cried out, and something squished. Chenco peered under the curtain—he shivered as he saw Sam, naked from the waist down, facing the windshield and splayed grotesquely over the wheel, knees on the door and the dash as Mitch idly shoved two fingers into Sam’s swollen, slutty hole.
Chenco’s eyes rolled shut, and he humped mindlessly against whatever Steve had in his ass.
He gave himself over to the wickedness of it all, to being tied down on the floor of a semi, spread naked and wide while Steve shoved shit in his ass and Mitch finger-fucked his husband over the steering wheel. Chenco felt a connection to Sam, thought about how they were both being used, objects of their masters’ sexual whim, and he shivered.
A sharp slap made him jerk, but he felt no pain—the sound came again, this time with a whimper, and he peered under the curtain to see the red imprint of Mitch’s hand on Sam’s ass—an ass speared now on three insistently fucking fingers.
This time Chenco growled, the sound coming from the very base of his throat.
The next crack came on his own skin—his left butt cheek, sharp and delicious. He purred and tried to lift his ass higher, displaying it for Steve, making it a target. His reward was a sharp, stinging blow on whatever was in his hole. Then another. Then another. Then a stinging bite, a pinch that didn’t end against the inside of his thigh—he cried out at the gag, and then another sting came, and another, and another. He looked down to see small plastic clamps lining the inside of his leg. He met Steve’s gaze, and Steve grinned, so dark it was terrifying. He held up another clamp.
He lowered it to Chenco’s balls.
Chenco cried out, bucked, thrashed—then screamed behind his gag and clutched the hanky so hard he feared he might turn it to dust as Steve put the clip in place, the pain white-hot and so wonderful he tripped, briefly, right out of his head. He rode the wave of a second clamp, and then a third, and then he lost count. He heard the sounds of sloppy, raunchy sex behind the curtain, slaps of flesh and the thick squish of Mitch playing in Sam’s ass, Sam making incoherent, desperate pleas. Chenco heard, but he couldn’t look, too lost in his own bliss.
The plug inside him came out, leaving him empty and clenching, but soon something else went in—something cold and thicker yet, and so long it made Chenco grunt and lift as Steve drove it home. It felt obscene and frightening.
Steve tugged on Chenco’s nipple clips—when had those happened?—and made a soft sound of approval, clearly admiring his own work.
Then he fumbled at the opening of Chenco’s ass, and whatever was inside him began to hum.
Chenco grunted and bore down, but Steve fumbled and the thing vibrated more, rubbing raw along Chenco’s prostate. It made noise—Chenco could hear it buzzing, beating inside him, and he fucked back, lewd and mindless, without shame.
Tears ran down his cheeks.
He was crying—sometimes he had to take sharp breaths in through his nose around a sob. He felt more clips attaching to his body, pain on top of pain, and he fucked himself on the beast inside him, riding it, riding the pain, sobbing. He was so far gone right now he’d let Steve line up greasy, ugly truckers to watch him be played. Chenco was so out of control, but he was safe. Steve would never, ever hurt him, and Chenco knew this in his soul. He loved this, what Steve did to him. While what was happening to Sam was hot, it wasn’t what Chenco wanted. He wanted the pain only Steve could give him.
He’d let Steve fuck him anywhere, any way, so long as he gave him this. So long as he stayed.
When Steve pulled him up by the hair, as the light from the lot sliced over his face, illuminating it, Chenco looked up at him and let it all show. You, you forever, please, please. He let it all shine.
Steve stared down at him, struck dumb.
Chenco’s body hummed, the dildo inside him still mindlessly gnawing at his prostate and his bowels, and somehow the humility of it made it all the more perfect. I will never run out of ways to be vulnerable for you, and I’ll never grow tired. If the gag wasn’t in his mouth, he’d have said the words out loud.
Something moved like a ghost over Steve’s face, something profound that seemed to reverberate to his center. His free hand stroked Chenco’s face, trailing lube and musk.
He caught the edge of the gag and pulled it down.
Tears still flowing, Chenco looked up at him, lost in his high. “Steve,” he whispered, ready to confess. But suddenly words were stupid, worthless. “Please,” he begged. “Please.”
Steve cupped Chenco’s jaw so tightly it hurt.
He bent down to Chenco’s face, his eyes wide and burning.
He sealed their lips together.
Chenco gasped and opened, inviting him in. Steve took him, plunging deep, gagging him with his tongue. He pressed his heavy body over Chenco’s, frotting through his jeans, rubbing the zipper and the button along Chenco’s naked cock. He sheared the clips off of Chenco’s body, swallowing his cries of pain as they released. He undid his pants and thrust his dick against Chenco’s own.
He pulled out the dildo, leaving it humming and rumbling beside Chenco’s ass, borrowed some of its lube and speared Chenco in one deep thrust.
The cry almost escaped, but not quite—Steve caught it and swallowed it whole. When his thrusts made Chenco’s eyes water, he clamped a hand over Chenco’s mouth and licked the salt away.
He made Chenco come, then took his time in finishing, riding Chenco long and slow and deep, pushing the tears out of him from the inside. He filled him, coating Chenco’s passage then pushing the plug back in before untying Chenco and gathering Chenco’s slack body to his own.
“You’re mine.”
“Si, Papi,” Chenco whispered, arching, wedging the plug deeper. “All yours.”
They slept there on the floor—eventually the truck began to roll, but they stayed there on the sheets, in the narrow space where they couldn’t even spread their legs, Chenco pressed naked to Steve’s body. At one point Sam stepped over them to use the bathroom, and when he came out, Steve made Sam stand there as he pushed his cock back into Chenco and filled him again. Chenco watched Sam the whole time, dazed, lost to his pleasure. Sam didn’t look too far behind.
Chenco drifted to sleep as Sam went to the front of the cab, but as dawn broke, it was to the sounds of Mitch’s low voice and Sam’s muffled whimpers—bare knees on the floor told him Sam was blowing Mitch, but the soft, plaintive cries made him peek behind the curtain to see Mitch was fingering Sam at the same time.
He shifted beside Steve, hoping to wake him too.
He did get fucked a third time—this time over a picnic table behind a public restroom. He looked around, wild-eyed, as Steve pumped into him, barely touching him, making it clear this was all about filling Chenco’s ass because he liked it stuffed full of his come, and he said he sure hoped somebody saw since he was fucking pretty good in Chenco’s sloppy ass. This comment made Chenco come, and Steve plugged him up before kissing him deep, pushing on the metal end and making Chenco feel all the mess inside him.
Chenco went to the bathroom to clean up—not his ass, he promised Steve—and he met Sam there.
They were quite a picture together in the mirror. Sam’s mouth was swollen, his neck full of hickeys. His nipples stood out on end, and he had the exhausted look of somebody who’d endured a lot of fucking. Chenco looked worse. He felt the burn of the clamps lingering all over his skin, felt his dick howling from overuse, felt his ass burn with pride around the heavy plug.
Sam smiled shyly at him—but wickedly too.
The rest of the ride was, in relation, rather boring. Chenco slept on the floor, Sam in the bed, and even when Chenco woke he lay there, listening to the soothing low voices of his lover and his brother.
Then Mitch said, “Here we are, Chenco. Las Vegas.”
Chenco climbed to his knees, rising up to a crouch so he could see over the dash, wincing as the plug shifted inside him. It was true—there it was. Las Vegas. Sprawling roads and houses and buildings and casinos and the mountains rising quietly in the distance. It was huge. It was everywhere.
He was here. He was really here.
Steve pulled him closer and kissed his temple. “You’re going to be great, baby.”
Chenco leaned into him and held on. Maybe he would be, maybe he wouldn’t. He almost didn’t care.
That was when he realized the game had changed. It wasn’t about whether or not he made Caramela a star. It was about whether or not he could make Steve his. For good.
Chenco watched the city expand before him, drew on his queen for courage, and got ready for the ride of his life.