Model Bodyguard (Haven Investigations Book 2) Read online

  The handmade crocheted gray-and-white blanket I’d found at a local craft fair often found both Ollie and me snuggled beneath it for a midday cuddle. Being a PI wasn’t a nine to five job. The office was open nine to five, but most of my work was done late at night or early morning. Even the bodyguard work was mostly evenings and weekends. How Ollie ever did it alone was unfathomable. If we didn’t have Tomas to answer the phones and greet people during the day, we’d never get cases to chase down at night. But I’d take whatever time I could to cuddle with Ollie. He always protested, like he didn’t need me to hold him, only the second I did he sank into my embrace.

  Ollie sat at the kitchen table sketching out a new outfit and tapping his foot to the radio I had on in the background. He was back in just shorts and a T-shirt. Nothing on his legs or feet. I still didn’t know what color his underwear were but hoped he hadn’t changed them. We had things to discuss before we could spend more intimate time together. While he was waiting patiently for dinner, I was coming up with a plan. It was a little later than we usually ate simply because I had to wait until the installers left. It felt weird to cook or eat with them fluttering around us.

  Newt sat on top of the cupboards less than four feet from Ollie, chin resting on the edge, and tail flapping contently. So much for the new shelves and towers keeping him off the furniture.

  “Did you see your cat?” I asked Ollie as I plated up our dinner salad and took the mushroom quinoa off the stove. I spooned the warm mix into a bowl and brought it to the table. I would mix it in my salad. Ollie sometimes mixed it, other times he ate it separately. I set his plate in front of him, handed him silverware, and put the bowl in the middle of the table.

  Ollie glanced up at Newt. “He looks comfy. I read up on cats today. He really is a tree cat. Likes being up high. The people at the cat store said it’s so he can see everything going on around him.” Leave it to my boyfriend to find a store devoted just to cats, and spend hours researching. Ollie soaked up knowledge like a sponge. He remembered almost everything. It wasn’t an eidetic memory, as those didn’t really exist no matter what the TV shows said, but it was pretty close.

  “I guess he can dust for us while he’s up there,” I told him as I grabbed us both a glass of wine to go with dinner. “You want water too?”

  Ollie nodded. He picked up his fork and speared a piece of mushroom.

  I returned to the table with our drinks and sat down beside him to eat. He shoved the sketch pad aside. Instead of there being a scribbled design of some outfit like he usually had, the open page showed a cat. Was he designing clothes for the cat now? I hid a grin behind my glass of wine and dug into my food, studying Ollie as we ate.

  He ate with focus. It was something his nutritionist asked him to do. No distractions, no conversation or TV interruptions, just focus on the meal. I could see him take a bite, analyze the texture and taste, chew thoroughly, and finally swallow before moving on to the next bite. Those closest to us knew enough about Ollie not to ask or push. Tomas often closed down the office for an hour just to sit with Ollie while they ate. It was a matter of keeping Ollie healthy both physically and mentally. No one judged what he ate or how he ate it. And so far it was working.

  I waited until he was mostly done before saying, “You’re so beautiful.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. He was going to accept the compliment instead of brushing it off. “Thank you.”

  We finished dinner in a comfortable silence. Ollie’s foot tapped a rhythm and he kept stealing glances at me. I knew what he wanted. Unfortunately, I was more likely to dump a bucket of cold water on his lust right now than fuck him over the table. We had to talk, and I needed to pry. I had to know what Jacob had done to him. There was no way I could take a case involving him without knowing all the details. Had he beaten Ollie? I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop myself from fucking the guy up if that was their history.

  I leaned over and gave Ollie a kiss on the lips. “Will you clean up the dishes? The dishwasher is empty. I need to go grab something.”

  He frowned for a moment, but nodded, rising from the table to clear the plates.

  I left him moving around the kitchen and went upstairs to his bedroom to fill a designer milk crate full of things we needed to talk about. Being a simple guy, I didn’t know what a lot of it was, but I’d look it up if I needed to. First, I needed to talk to Ollie. I sighed and steeled myself for the confrontation that I prayed wasn’t going to end our relationship. He had to stop hiding from me. Stop locking his emotions up, fearing I would hate him or think ill of him.

  Ollie was just closing the dishwasher when I entered the kitchen with the crate tucked against my hip. He glanced up at me and frowned, looking at the crate, but probably not able to see the contents. I moved two chairs close together at the table and set the crate on the tabletop. “Come here, Ollie.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and made his way over, frown growing when he saw the contents of the crate, which I began to spread out. We’d go over each one. Anything he really loved would go back in the crate to return to his stash upstairs, anything he kept for other reasons would be in the trash.

  He blinked at me, eyes going watery. “Kade….”

  “Sit, baby. We’re just gonna talk.”

  He gulped and sat on the very edge of his seat like he was preparing to run.

  I took the other chair and reached for his hand, which he let me hold, though his palm was sweaty. “Before we take Jacob’s case, we need to do this. I need to know. I can’t walk in and pretend to help Jacob Elias if I’m imagining all the ways he might have hurt you. Do you understand? This is in no way a reflection on what I think of you. This is my need to protect you because I love you.”

  “I’m okay,” he promised.

  “Baby, please.” I paused, so overwhelmed by ideas of just what might have been done to Ollie that I couldn’t see straight for a minute. “I keep imagining him hurting you and it breaks my heart.”

  “I’m okay. I’m with you now.”

  “So talk to me. Like Jolanda always says, we need to talk to each other if something is bothering us. This is bothering me. I worry that I’m not giving you what you need.”

  “You are!” Ollie protested.

  “Am I?” I looked at the table and the dozen or so items that I really had very little knowledge of. “So let’s do this. Then we’ll discuss the case.”

  He looked at the table and all the things laid out like some treasure trove of sexual deviousness. I’d never been the sort of guy who thought toys were necessary. As a man I had my own built-in toy, but having played with a few of Ollie’s things I knew there was some benefit to variety. I just didn’t want him to believe that I needed any of this to stay with him. I picked up the vibrating cock ring, which I’d actually had experience with. It was one of my favorites.

  “We’ve used that one together before,” Ollie said quickly.

  “And you enjoy it?” I prompted.

  He nodded, pink touching his cheeks. I loved how he could blush at the tiniest sexual innuendo in public, but get him in the bedroom and he was the one who couldn’t keep his hands off. It made me wonder if he was sexually aggressive in the bedroom naturally or because he thought that was what I wanted. I sighed.

  “So here’s how this is going to work,” I told him. “Anything I know you really like will go in the crate to go back upstairs. Anything that you have for other reasons, we’ll talk about. This is going to be a very grown-up conversation. Since I haven’t seen most of this stuff I’d assume you either feel uncomfortable using it with me, or that you really don’t like it. If it’s the former, I want to know why. You know I’ll give you whatever you need. If it’s the latter, then I need to help you move on. Keeping things you don’t like doesn’t benefit either of us.”

  Ollie didn’t play solo. I’d asked him once and he said he didn’t need it. Though I imagined as a stress reliever, everyone needed sex as some sort of release. But maybe I was wrong. I fe
ared that Ollie’s hesitation was more to do with his past than with any actual needs he had. And that’s why we were going to hash this out now. I couldn’t sit with this worry hanging over my head.

  “Okay,” he answered quietly.

  I put the cock ring in the box and picked up a set of bonds. It was odd, two different-sized Velcro rings only a few inches apart. It was a set of two, and I wasn’t sure what it was. We hadn’t used it together, and Ollie had never pulled it out of the drawer before. “You don’t like to be bound. So tell me about this.”

  “It’s a thigh cuff.” He picked one up and placed it against his thigh, showing how it would bind his thigh to his wrist. “Sort of a low-bondage spreader.”

  Spreader? Was that what I thought it was? “We’ve never used it together.” He didn’t even really like me holding his wrists above his head, though he didn’t mind if I used my weight to hold him down. “You still have it because?”

  He flushed and glanced away. “I don’t know.”

  “What if I used it?” I prompted.

  He looked back at me, confusion on his face.

  “What if you bound me up in this?” I answered his unasked question.

  “It would hurt your hip. Any movement pulls on either your arm or your thigh.”

  “So it’s uncomfortable.”

  He seemed to think about it, but finally said, “Yes.”

  I had a pretty vivid idea at this point of what this little bondage thing did. “But you like the vulnerability?”

  His cheeks pinked again. “A little.”

  I put the bonds aside. We could find something else to give him the same feeling without the insecurity being bound brought him. I had no problem spreading his thighs to taste him. No bonds necessary. He could even cling to my hair and pull it all out if he wanted. I was okay relinquishing that little bit of discomfort for his pleasure. Somehow I didn’t think Jacob had ever used these bonds to give Ollie what he really loved.

  Next up was a black jagged sort of rod. There was a remote with it. We’d actually used it a few times. If he’d never pulled it out of the drawer before, I’d have no idea what it was. But it was a prostate stimulator with an external nub to deliver internal and external vibrations. It was kinky as hell, but having used it myself, I knew it was fucking fantastic. I came hard and fast the one time Ollie had shown me how it worked by using it on me. “You like this.”

  This time he nodded enthusiastically.

  I added that one to the crate. “I really like that one too. Had no idea something like that would even be good.” Next up was a set of nipple clamps like I’d never seen before. They were almost like suction cups on the ends rather than clamps.

  Ollie took it from me and put it in the discard pile. “Jacob hated to put his mouth on me.”

  “I don’t.” I smiled at him, thinking of all the times I’d teased his overly sensitive nipples and tasted every inch of his body. “Do you have any idea how incredible you taste? How your skin feels against my tongue?”

  He glanced away, his cheeks turning bright crimson, and he moved his hips in his seat. Shorts getting a little snug? Maybe this exploration wasn’t going to completely ruin his mood. He turned back to the table and began putting things in the discard pile: an overly large dildo, some anal beads, a Fleshlight, and some sort of ball gag. There was nothing on the table that seemed to be an implement of any kind. No whips or crops or any of the hard-core stuff I feared.

  “I threw out a lot of stuff long before you and I became lovers,” Ollie said quietly.

  “Like things he hit you with?”

  He nodded. “It’s not like you think. He never just beat me. I was okay with some spanking, but he wanted more. So I tried a few things.” He sighed. “He was so mad when I cried after the first hit with a whip. It was just a velvetlike thing, but I never expected it to sting so bad.”

  I nearly came out of my seat. “What? Did he keep going?”

  Ollie shook his head. “I gave him permission to find others to satisfy his need to inflict pain. I guess I didn’t realize at the time that I was giving him permission to fuck other people too. Jacob gets off on being the one in control. On inflicting pain. And that’s okay if that’s your thing. It wasn’t mine.”

  No kidding. I clenched my free hand against my thigh to keep from balling it up.

  “I let him tie me up sometimes.” He looked away again. “Until he brought someone else in while I was bound.”

  Shattering the trust. Maybe Ollie had even liked being bound once. Until Jacob had exploited it. I had to grit my teeth from replying. Ollie would perceive my anger as his failing, though it wasn’t directed at him at all. “Did they…?” I couldn’t bring myself to ask if he’d been raped.

  He shook his head. “I refused. Jacob untied me and left. That was the beginning of the end. He spent more time at parties and traveling. He still told me I was special. The one he came home to. He said he went to others for his kink, but every time he came home, it was with a new toy.” He sucked in a long breath. “Most of it I did just for him. And sometimes I think he’d forget who he was with because he’d strike me or bite me during sex. Leave a mark that I’d have to cover up for a shoot.”

  Again, I had to stop myself from coming out of my seat. “You left him because he was cheating?” Only that now made no sense. Ollie knew Jacob wasn’t faithful. He’d given Jacob permission to do his kink with others.

  “Yes and no. I walked in on him with another guy. No kink. Just him with this guy he claimed was a buddy. They’d been hanging together a lot. Lots of tabloid pictures of them together. Jacob even hired him as his new personal assistant. I didn’t realize how personal until then. He had taken over my place in Jacob’s life. I was just a doll on his arm. The more I refused to play, the less we saw each other.” He was quiet for a minute. “I gave Jacob a lot. Did things I couldn’t imagine doing with anyone else. Things that were both terrifying and thrilling, but I was nothing more than a toy to him. Just some other way to get himself off.” He reached out and put a few more things I didn’t recognize in the discard pile. “But I wasn’t the only one he was coming home to anymore. I bored him, but somehow this other guy didn’t?”

  I focused on my breathing, letting myself meditate for a moment to ease the anger I felt at Jacob. I needed a clear head to help Ollie. He wasn’t fragile, but I didn’t want to break him either. Knowing what he liked was a good thing. I picked up the prostate stimulator again. “You know there’s nothing wrong with liking any of this, right? So long as it’s consensual and both you and your partner get pleasure from it.”

  “You’re my partner,” Ollie pointed out.

  I nodded. “And I like some of these. Would never have tried them without you.”

  “That’s my point. Jacob showed me some things that I really liked. It’s just hard to separate the how with the now.”

  Oh, that made sense. “Okay. So when you look at these”—I pointed to the cock ring and the stimulator—“do you think of me or Jacob?”

  “You.” Ollie’s cheeks turned pink again. “Jacob never used those things on himself. He never bottomed. Hell, half the time he didn’t even undress.” He shook his head as though trying to clear away the memory. “And I can’t stop remembering the way your eyes fluttered and rolled back in your head when you used the stimulator. All I could think was wow, he’s so amazing, so beautiful when he comes. And I did that to him. I can make him lose all control and just be beautiful.”

  Okay, that I could work with. “So you like using these things on me.” I motioned to his discard pile and the remaining items on the table that hadn’t gone in either. “Is there anything else here you’d like to try on me?”

  He looked at me sideways.

  “Really,” I told him. “I’m game to try anything once. So long as you don’t have me suspended by my toes.” I moved to pick up a box that sat untouched and unopened, but Ollie snatched it from my hands, hugging it to his chest. The sticker-seal was stil
l on the outside of the box so it had never been opened. He blinked wide eyes at me. I stared back, waiting. We’d obviously never used it together.

  “I had one like this when I was with Jacob. Loved it. But threw it out when I left him. I was so mad. Bought a new one, but it’s sort of hard-core. I didn’t want to push you.” He looked away.

  “Can I see it?” I held out a hand for it.

  He gently handed it over and I let him go for a minute to turn it over and look at the item. It was some sort of dildo/sleeve. I’d never seen anything like it before. It was clear, with a knot on the bottom, which the package touted was to hold it in place with no “slippage.” There was a warning that this item, while completely enclosed, was not to replace a condom and did not protect from STDs. From the pictures it appeared that the item went inside the bottom, and the top would fuck the bottom through the stretchable center. Okay. It didn’t look so bad. A little kinky, but not toe-suspension scary.

  “Tell me about this?” I inquired.

  “I always refused to go bare,” Ollie said. Even now we never did anal without a condom. Though in truth we got off in other ways more often than intercourse. “Jacob said this was better for him.” He shrugged. “For me it was really good. The ridges are all in the right place and it’s a super full feeling. It warms to the body and allows a lot more sensations than a regular condom. I think Jacob really liked it ’cause it made me super tight.”

  I could get the appeal of that from both sides. “Is this something you’d be willing to try with me?”

  He seemed confused by the question. “Yes?” There was a lot of hesitance in his answer.

  “If I was the bottom and you were the top?” Meaning this thing would be in me and he’d fuck me. Just the idea of it made me hard. “You are keeping things we’ve reinvented to work for us, but you obviously liked this. So what if we change how it’s used? At least at first.”