ONE OF the reasons Beach was used to getting his way was that he could predict the argument against him and be a few steps ahead.
At that moment, he ran the projected conversation like this.
Me: I’m all right.
Him: Like you were last time. (A snort for emphasis.)
Me: I’ve had practice now. I promise to drink some juice and make no sudden movements.
Him: I don’t have time to argue with you. (Accompanying growl.)
Me: So don’t. Your daughter needs you.
Yes, that should work. But before the words left his mouth, Tai stood in front of him. Next time Beach would have to take into account the way sub drop also slowed down his brain.
“David. Let’s go.”
A hand on the back of his neck, warm thumb rubbing behind his ear, made Beach as docile as Jez when Tai told her to stay.
His well-used muscles protested the uncomfortable passenger seat in Tai’s cramped Focus. Beach’s Spider waited across the street, gleaming like the ocean where it touched the sky. He couldn’t believe he was leaving it there among the jetsam of indifferent crossover wagons, battered trucks, and faded minivans. He should be cradled in the Spider’s Daytona-style seat, driving away from all the thoughts that asked him what the hell he was doing, what kind of man was he to let another man use him like that. The gruff, explicit demands from Tai that made Beach’s knees give way like rusted hinges would have made Beach offer to punch the shit out of a man who spoke like that to a woman.
There was one piece of bondage that his safeword couldn’t get rid of. The damned monitor kept him trapped here, where one text would send him crawling back, hungry to learn how much further, how much higher Tai could take him.
The seat belt jabbed into his neck, too tight across his chest, and he clawed it away from his skin.
Tai covered Beach’s hand and lowered it. “You passed out last time.” It was that soft, sexy rumble that had hooked Beach from the first.
“I hadn’t eaten.” Beach slid his hand away, but Tai’s palm rested warm and heavy on Beach’s thigh, heat sinking through the khaki, solid as an anchor.
“I need to go see Sammie.”
Beach filed away Tai’s daughter’s name.
“And I need to take care of you,” Tai continued. “That means you come with me.”
It was high-handed. Insufferably arrogant. And possibly the only time anyone had ever said that to him.
He’d had to chase his mother to London after his father split for Venezuela. Even Gavin, as good and loyal a friend as he was, seemed more inclined to put up with Beach than to encourage his presence.
Tai’s words might be part of the formula of kneeling and leather and checklists. But a lifetime of sifting through platitudes and polishing them to sparkle with sincerity made Beach keenly aware of when someone was only mouthing the expected.
Tai meant it.
All Beach had to do was accept it. “Yes, Sir.”
Tai brushed a thumb along Beach’s jaw, fingers light on the top of his spine.
That horrible, clenching emptiness left Beach’s gut on the next breath. Maybe the key to not having sub drop was to keep subbing. Hair of the dog? He barely smothered a laugh at the thought.
Tai’s hand landed back on Beach’s knee. “Better?”
Beach considered what advantage there was in denying it. But he didn’t want what Tai was offering to come out of manipulation. It wouldn’t feel this good. Besides, it wasn’t as if Tai would stop the car and leave Beach there in Little Italy to walk home.
“Yes.”
“Good.” Tai squeezed Beach’s leg.
WHY DID hospitals all have the same smell? Beach must have inhaled so much of it during his coma that he went cold from the first breath. As soon as the emergency room doors slid shut behind them, Beach worked to tune out the rest of the waiting room. Pacers, bleeders, people doubled over in pain, and one woman sobbing uncontrollably. A woman in wine-colored nurse’s scrubs came up to them. Beach winced. If a nurse was coming to meet them, it must be very bad. And Tai had wasted time on Beach?
“Toluaotai.”
“Tina.” Tai bent and kissed the nurse’s cheek as she reached up to pat his.
“She’ll be fine, la’u tama.” The nurse hugged Tai.
“She’s just a baby.”
“All the better. She’ll heal fast.” The nurse kept a hand on Tai’s arm and gave Beach a solid appraisal that made him all too conscious of the fact he’d barely had a chance to towel the come off him. And he was sure his hair was styled à la just-fucked.
“Tina, this is David Beauchamp. David, this is my mother, Kara Mosely.”
“Your mother?” Beach tried to keep the shock out of his voice. The middle-aged black woman in nurse’s scrubs was Tai’s mother. Beach snuck a comparative glance at the man he was… dating? Fucking? Submitting to? Beach recovered and offered his hand. “—Is a very beautiful woman. And I am honored to meet you, ma’am.”
“Nice save,” Tai murmured with a hint of amusement in his voice. “I’m going to go see Sammie.” He tromped off toward the triage desk, leaving Beach to draw on every skill he’d perfected over years of social fencing.
“How do you know my son, David?” Her glance lingered first on Beach’s cane, then on the ankle monitor.
“Everyone calls me Beach, ma’am. Ah, socially.”
“Boyfriend?”
That might have freed him from the fear of accidentally outing Tai, but he still didn’t know how to answer. He supposed his being brought along on an urgent errand made them seem longer acquainted.
“We haven’t—”
A roar from Tai spared Beach from answering.
“She’s asking for me! Her mother called. For God’s sake, would it kill you to go ask? There’s two of you in there.”
Behind the glass partition, the nurse facing Tai said, “I can’t release any information. If a parent wants you, they’ll come get you, but only two people are allowed with a minor patient.”
“I heard you the first time. Jesus Christ. Go ask them.”
“Sir—”
“Toluaotai.” Kara Mosely’s voice wasn’t that loud, but the authority in it cut through the protests of the nurse and Tai. “Boy, you need to take all of the seats. Right. Now.”
Tai pushed away from the partition and strode toward the entrance doors and then through them.
“He’ll cool down. Boy has always had a temper. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
But Beach hadn’t. Tai’s rumbling voice demanded obedience, but never with anger.
Always steady, in control. Solid. Even when he spoke of punishing, there was never a hint of the rage Beach had just seen.
“He’s told you about Sammie?” Despite her reassurance, Kara watched the doors for her son’s return.
“Yes.”
“We were so sure she was his. Even after Josh came back. Don’t think he’s quite adjusted to that. But how could he? She’s his baby.”
Beach filled in the few gaps. No matter what had happened with Sammie’s mother and Josh, Tai obviously still considered Sammie his daughter. And he damned well deserved to be with her.
Mercy Hospital took no chances with security. The nurses behind the glass controlled access to the doors leading from the waiting room. One came out to take the patient with a blood-soaked towel around his hand through to the back.
It was good from an insurance and business model perspective, but hell on waiting.
Beach hated waiting.
“Please excuse me for a moment, ma’am,” he told Kara and stepped away, pulling out his phone.
It only took two calls. Midland-South Health was a name that got people moving if they knew where their bread was buttered.
Tai came back in as Beach tucked his phone away. With an explosive breath, Tai said, “I can’t get Gina on the phone.” He paced around. “How did she get hit by a car? She knows better than to play in the street.” Tai paced and muttered before looking up. “David, sit down.” It wasn’t the frustrated snarl he’d been using, but softer, a mildly exasperated concern. As Beach sat, he wondered how long there had been between Tai learning of Sammie’s paternity and Jez coming to live in the apartment on South Streeper Street. Now there was Beach to order around in that fond but stern voice.
Doctor Stevenson cleared the doors to the emergency room in just under five minutes from the time Beach had hung up. The white coat and ID might have labeled him a doctor, but the tie and crisp blue dress shirt said he hadn’t seen an ER patient all day. He combed a hand through the thin wisps of hair at the apex of a frowning brow.
“Mr. Fonoti?”
Tai started toward him, and Doctor Stevenson’s eyes widened behind his glasses.
“I’m Doctor Stevenson, the director of the emergency department.” He offered a handshake, then continued with a trace of a grimace. Whether the expression was from the force of Tai’s grip or the doctor’s attempt at looking contrite was hard to determine at a distance. “I’m so sorry you were kept waiting, sir. Things can get a little cramped back there. I hope you’ll understand. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to—back.”
Tai glanced over his shoulder, and Beach found himself nodding encouragement along with Tai’s mom.
The doors buzzed, and Doctor Stevenson led Tai through. Beach leaned back and rolled his cane across his thighs until Tai’s mother pinned him with a sharp look.
“Don’t you just look like the cat that ate the cream and both of the canaries.”
Beach sat up straight. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
“Don’t ‘excuse me, ma’am’ when you’ve got feathers all over your lips. How did you do that?”
Beach put his cane against the floor and studied the tip. “I simply knew the right person to call.”
Kara didn’t have her son’s thick brows or his intimidating muscles. But she did have a look that had Beach ready to confess sins he hadn’t even thought of committing.
“Are you a drug dealer?”
Beach dropped his cane. “Ma’am?”
“Mafia of some kind?”
“I—No. Not at all.”
Kara’s eyes lasered in on his anklet and then back up to his face. “You going to try to tell me that you got your anklet at a craft fair at the county jail?”
“No, ma’am. I got myself into some trouble. But Tai didn’t know about this”—he pointed at the monitor with his cane—“until after we’d—ah—met.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind I’m ashamed to admit. Though it seemed like it was the right thing at the time. If I had to do it again—”
“You’d do the same damned thing.” Their voices were nothing alike, but Kara sounded exactly like her son.
“Probably,” Beach conceded with a rueful smile. “But I wouldn’t have made the mistake of involving a friend the way I did.”
Beach didn’t know what he’d expected of Tai’s family. He hadn’t actually given it any thought, though he’d known the man hadn’t randomly appeared on the planet. Now seeing Kara’s perception, her obvious force of will, it was clear where Tai had come by some of his personality. Certainly Kara would have needed that kind of strength to deal with Tai as a child—and adult.
“And what happened to your friend?” There was a warning in her voice. A maternal protectiveness Beach had only encountered from a distance before.
“He’s all right. Unscathed in body and in terms of his relations with the police.”
“But you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t as lucky, no, ma’am.”
Kara glanced toward the nurse-guarded inner sanctum of the ER and then back for another slow once-over of Beach. “You’re not the sort of man I would have expected Tai to bring around.”
Again Beach tried to picture what sort of man—submissive—Tai had been with before.
He didn’t tell his mother about that part, did he?
“Though you must be important, or you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Beach hurried to clear that up. “My being here is only a matter of timing. I—There wasn’t a way for Tai to get here without me tagging along.”
“I’m sure you know well enough Tai would have found another way if he wanted to.”
Beach smiled to concede her point. “He is direct.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Kara’s demeanor softened from her inquisitor role, leaving Beach feeling like he’d cleared the most difficult stretch of the course.
Noting the gold band on her left ring finger, Beach asked, “Is his father the same?”
“Tai’s father passed away when he was only a baby.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was. His own parents might not be ideals, but at least they’d been present awhile.
“So am I. I think he’d have been pleased.”
“Tai is a son to be proud of,” Beach said quickly. As the words left his mouth, he realized it wasn’t only polite conversation. A man who was still devoted to the child he’d learned wasn’t his, a man who saved a poor dog destined for euthanasia, anyone could recognize how Tai protected and took care of others.
And I need to take care of you.
Beach twirled his cane between his palms. He wasn’t a child or a dog to need rescuing. And that was Gavin’s schtick, ending up screwing the cop who’d found them when Beach and Gavin went off the Key Bridge.
“What about your family, Beach?”
“Ma’am?”
Kara wasn’t one to be put off by a delaying tactic. “What does your family think about your trouble?” Her emphasis covered everything from his scarred shin to the cane to his ankle monitor.
“We aren’t that close. My parents prefer to live outside the country.” Beach shuddered to think of what Uncle Sinclair would say about his adventure on Fort Carroll. At least Beach was out of range of his uncle’s peach tree full of switches.
Kara shook her head. “I’ve never heard of a South Carolina mafia, but you do make me wonder.”
“Honest, ma’am. The business interests of the Beauchamps are firmly on the right side of the law.”
“Just not the personal interests?” Kara had him there.
Beach wondered if she’d had time to do an internet search on her phone while he was slicing through bureaucracy. To find out about why his parents preferred to live outside the country.
He was saved from having to answer when Tai returned, carrying a dimpled girl with a neon-green cast on one slender arm and a purple one on the other.
Kara rose to greet them, and Beach’s manners had him scrambling up after her. As she approached her son and granddaughter, Beach studied the couple in their wake. A petite woman in a purple sleeveless dress—whose similarity to Kara made some of the confusion over Sammie’s paternity clear—was accompanied by a solidly built but shorter-than-Tai-by-several-inches man with light brown skin wearing a golfing shirt and tan slacks. He kept a possessive arm around Sammie’s mother’s waist.
“Gooma, you have to sign my cast next,” Sammie called out to Kara. As the child started wriggling, Tai lowered her as if she were made of glass. “Then we’re going for ice cream and everyone gets to feed it to me.” She held up both plaster-encased forearms.
Poor kid. Beach’s tendency to seek out higher and more interesting places meant that by Sammie’s age, he already knew the fun attention from sporting a cast turned to stale inconvenience after three days. Even he’d never needed two at once. Though he was discovering that broken bones healed much more easily under the age of fourteen than they did at thirty-four, medical advances notwithstanding.
After a careful hug, Kara examined Sammie’s casts, Tai hovering over her as if he would lift the kid to safety if she so much as frowned. Beach eased himself away from the group, pulling out his phone again.
“What now?” Gavin sighed without a greeting.
“I need another ride.”
“What the hell, Beach? I just drove you to get your goddamned car.”
Beach wondered if Gavin’s speech patterns would continue to devolve into those of his policeman. “Yes, and I thank you for it. But it’s some distance away at the moment. I’m at the emergency room at Mercy Hospital.”
“Please tell me this is some unfortunate attempt at humor.” There was the Gavin Beach knew. “If the next words involve something stuck up your ass, I’m hanging up.”
There’d been something sharper than teasing to Gavin’s voice. Something that made an unfamiliar shame oil through Beach’s stomach before settling with the greasy weight of deep-fried butter. Which may have had something to do with the indignation giving him a sensation akin to heartburn as he snapped back, “I came along as moral support for a friend.”
“I’m finding it hard to place you and ‘moral’ in the same sentence. You’re lucky they aren’t monitoring bullshit levels along with alcohol.”
“Does Sergeant Boyfriend have his hand so far up your ass you’re his puppet now? Forget it. I’ll call a cab.”
“Beach, wait. I was teasing.”
“Did I interrupt your boyfriend time?”
“No. I’m working.”
“Well, bless your heart.” Beach wasn’t sure he bought the just-teasing excuse. “On what?”
“The shelter.”
Right. Gavin’s dusty building with the guard tower/solarium on top. “Did you buy that”—he opted for tact—“property?”
“That’s what I’m working on. To see if we can get the right kind of permits there. And fuck you too, by the way.”
Beach relaxed. That kind of frustration was probably why Gavin was acting like such a prick. “Sounds like a pain where you wish your boyfriend was. I’ll call a cab and leave you to soldier on.”
“What about the person your alleged morals were supposedly supporting?”
Beach glanced over at the cast-signing party. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course it is. It’s you.”
Which was possibly the most insulting thing Gavin had said to him in twenty years. Beach was utterly laid-back and a complete joy to get along with. It was other people who got all tight-assed about rules and relationships.
Before Beach could lay out some of what Gavin had coming about complications, Mr. Dating a Freaking Cop went on, “Mercy, right? I’ll be there in about fifteen.”
Using a cane made it hard to be unobtrusive. And Beach was leaning on it more than he normally did as his shinbone protested the unusual activity earlier in the evening, but he thought he’d managed to slip away and into the men’s room without Kara’s or Tai’s notice. Take that, Gavin Montgomery. Beach was anything but a complication to be solved.
He’d give them a few minutes to roll on to their ice cream destination and then go out to wait for Gavin.
He ducked into the stall when he heard the door open, but the heavy tread and the athletic footwear alerted him before the intruder came to a stop in front of the stall door.
Beach opened it. “Do you ever get tired of following me into men’s rooms?”
Tai stepped away to let Beach out. “Not so far.”
For an unaccountable reason, Beach couldn’t look Tai in the face and seized on the distraction of some compulsive hand-washing. But he made the water too hot and flinched, jerking his hand back and sending giant gobs of foamy soap flying. He’d been so good at distracting himself he hadn’t noticed the water temp until it was blistering. Now he blinked at his reddened, throbbing hand.
Tai lunged forward and turned on a neighboring faucet. “David. Come here.”
The order soothed more than the cool water Tai shoved Beach’s hand toward. Until he heard Gavin’s voice. What the hell, Beach? Cut the Southern-belle routine.
“Do we count this as part of a scene? A little pain and punishment?”
Tai released Beach so fast he had to grab on to the sink or risk falling. “What? Where did that come from?”
Beach stared down into the sink at his hands gripping the porcelain rim.
“David. Do you think you deserve to be punished?”
His smartass remark had come after he burned himself. And it had been an accident. He didn’t answer.
“I’ll decide if you need to be punished.”
Yes. That was what Beach wanted. Everything out of his hands. No need to decide what was worth a risk or reward.
Funny. He’d never considered consequences—the good or the bad—before. So maybe it was no surprise he wanted to turn that burden over to someone else. A simple Yes, Sir and he’d be caught up in Tai’s control. In the tingling buzz, the aching rightness of it.
But when Beach’s mouth opened, what came out was “Or if I deserve a dog biscuit or ice cream?” He watched Tai’s reaction in the mirror.
He’d been leaning against the door. Now he straightened but folded his arms across his chest. “If you think you’ve been treated like a pet or a child, you’re the one with a problem. You’re not comfortable being my submissive, then tell me. I made it clear I wasn’t interested in dragging you into something you pretend you don’t like.”
“And how long has that all been clear to you?” Beach couldn’t stop digging, needed to see that he was worth some of the temper Tai’s mother claimed he had such a problem with. “That bossing around your bedmates was a way to make up for losing your daughter?”
Beach had spent twenty-five years smoothing and cajoling. Nothing harshed a buzz faster than a blast of temper. It was better to be comfortable than right. Now he was throwing dynamite into the bear’s cave and blocking the exit.
He’d wanted a hot explosion. He got a slow, hard freeze.
“Certainly a lot longer than your experiment in curing your poor-little-rich-boy boredom.” Tai opened the door. “I’m sure your money will get you off, and you can go back to chasing a high the good old-fashioned way. Go on.” He nodded at the door. “I’ll take you back to your oversized toy car.”
As sweet as every piece of praise Tai had fed him was, the disgust was bile sour, burning in the back of Beach’s throat.
“That won’t be necessary,” he drawled. “I’ve arranged to find my own way back. Thank you.”
A quick inhalation gave a lie to the slow arch of Tai’s brow. “Whatever you want.”
Damned if he’d get the last word, if something that had shaken Beach to the soul could be dissolved so easily.
He’d burn it to the ground first. Pouring every bit of disdain he’d learned in a lifetime surrounded by people who knew they were better than everyone else, he gestured with his cane. “After you.” The pause was deliciously bitter. “Sir.”