Chapter 5

Mav

"What?" Eli asked, his voice barely a squeak. I felt my stomach drop out as I realized I was right because there was no other explanation for the pain that filled his eyes.

"Eli, it's okay," I said quietly as I began moving towards him. "I can protect you from him."

"Oh my God," Eli gasped and then he shook his head violently. "No," he whispered. "No!" he said more aggressively and then he was coming at me. Tears flooded his eyes as he shoved my chest hard with both his hands. "You have no right!" he screamed and I had to grab his wrists to keep him from lashing out at me again.

"Eli-"

"Dom saved my life, you asshole! He'd never hurt me in a million years! Don't you ever fucking say that about him again, do you hear me?"

Eli's rage was completely unexpected and I knew I'd made a terrible mistake.

"He fucking saved my life!" Eli shouted again and I had to shake him hard to get his attention.

"I hear you, Eli!" I said sharply. "I hear you," I said again when he finally stopped struggling in my grasp. "I'm sorry. I got it wrong. "

Eli was breathing hard, but he settled down. I had yet to release him and he wasn't trying to escape me. Just like in the gym, this sight of another side of Eli was messing with my head and I was drawing him forward before I could even consider what I was doing. I released his wrists and slid my hands up his arms until they were resting on his neck. But instead of removing his hands from my chest, Eli opened his fists so that his hands were pressed flat against me. I wanted a taste of him more than I wanted my next breath, but Eli carefully tugged free of my hold before I could act on my need.

"How did you know about Dom?" he asked as he took several steps back, the anger in his voice fading and quickly turning to suspicion. "Did you Google me or something?"

I could have lied and told him yes, but knowing what I now knew about him, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

"I started with the internet," I began. I sat down in the plush living room chair in the hopes Eli would follow suit and sit on the couch that was directly behind him.

He didn't.

"Started?" Eli said quietly. "What does that mean?"

"I have access to a lot of resources," I hedged. "After I saw the story about what happened to you and that young woman-"

"Riley," Eli whispered.

"Riley," I said with a nod. "After I read about what Cyrus Hamilton did to you and Riley, I wanted to know more about you…the stuff that wasn't in the papers."

When I'd started my search on Eli this morning, I'd expected to find the basics…credit reports, financial records, family information. What I'd found had left me completely stunned. And that was long before I'd even got into the details.

The second I had typed Eli Galvez into the internet search engine, I'd been swamped with the same story over and over and I'd instantly remembered it from the news eight years earlier. Eli had been a teenager at the time, barely fifteen. He and a young woman named Riley Sinclair had been abducted by a man who'd been the prime suspect in the disappearance of several women, mostly prostitutes. Eli's own sister, Elena, had been among the victims. Her body, along with more than a dozen others, had been found on Cyrus Hamilton's property after Dominic Barretti, his brother and Dom's lover, Logan, had tracked the killer to his remote house in Summer Hill, Washington. They'd arrived just in time to watch as Cyrus's own daughter took his life before he could kill Eli and his friend.

"What…what else did you find?" Eli managed to get out. He still looked like he was ready to bolt.

"I know what happened to you after your mom was deported and your sister disappeared."

All the color drained from Eli's face, but instead of turning to leave, he sank down onto the couch, the water bottle he'd been holding crushed to his chest.

"Dom said he got those records sealed so no one would find out…" Eli whispered before his words trailed off.

"They are sealed, Eli. It would take someone with a lot of skill to get to them."

Eli's gaze shifted from the floor to me. "Someone like you," he murmured. I didn't miss the accusation in his tone and for the first time in a really long time, I wasn't proud of the tech skills I was known for.

After reading about Eli's abduction, I'd been in a full-on rage and I'd actually had to take a break and go down to the gym and vent my fury on the weight bag they had down there. But within minutes of sitting back down in front of my computer, all the emotions I'd managed to tamp down had come roaring back when I'd discovered the arrest records. I'd suspected even before I'd opened them what the charges were, but a part of me had hoped and prayed they'd been for some stupid, immature stunt that teenage kids sometimes pulled.

They hadn't been for a stunt.

They'd been for solicitation.

I'd read the charge three times before I'd finally accepted what my eye were seeing.

Fifteen fucking years old.

I'd struggled to keep doing my research after that because I'd felt violently ill. I'd stuck with it long enough to discover that it was Dom Barretti who'd gotten Eli off the streets and had brought Eli's mother back to the States and given her a job at his security firm. I'd been hailing the man as a hero in my mind until I'd found a picture of him. And then my rage had come back in full force because I'd seen the man before…he'd been one of the men in the picture in Eli's bedroom. The picture that had been turned over.

So he wouldn't have to look at it. So he wouldn't have to see the face of the man he'd once trusted, but who'd had turned on him for some reason. That had been my thinking up until a few minutes ago. But the passion with which Eli had defended the man…

"Why did you think it was Dom?" Eli asked sullenly.

I hated that all the fire he'd displayed down in the gym was gone and that the fragile trust I'd finally managed to establish with him – enough that he'd even felt comfortable enough to ask me to dinner – was snuffed out just like that.

"The picture in your bedroom…the one you turned over."

Eli looked up at me. "You saw that?"

I nodded. "The man owns one of the most reputable security firms in the country, but instead of going to him for help after you were attacked, you came to me."

Eli dropped his gaze again, but I didn't miss the flash of shame in them. I had no doubt he was remembering the episode in the garage. An episode I finally understood now.

"Eli, look at me," I said softly.

He didn't.

"Please."

Eli shook his head slightly, but finally raised his eyes. Pain shot through my chest at the gamut of emotions I saw there, but I pushed it back and said, "Nothing I found out today changes anything. What happened in the garage doesn't matter. You survived…you're here. That's all I care about."

Eli studied me for a moment and then shifted his gaze so that he was staring out the window. "When you said you didn't want my money, I went right back there, you know?" Eli loosened his hold on the water bottle and began rubbing his thumb back and forth over the label. The self-soothing move tore at my insides .

"I knew what Elena did to get us money after our mom was deported. But I didn't really get it. Elena was always really good at making it seem like she just had a lot of boyfriends who liked to take care of her. I guess I was pretty stupid."

"No, you weren't. Your sister was trying to protect you."

Eli nodded. "When she didn't come home, the food started running out. Then the landlord started coming by every day to collect the rent. I told him Elena would be back with the money soon. After a week, he told me I either had to pay up or get out."

I saw Eli swallow hard and my gut clenched as I realized what was coming.

"I didn't know it was something guys did with other guys…I mean, I knew some women sold themselves for money, but I didn't know guys did it too. The landlord…he told me how Elena paid the rent and he told me I could do the same thing. Since I knew I was gay, I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad."

I felt the bile rising in my throat and I had to clench my hands together to keep from reaching for the decorative glass bowl on the coffee table in front of me, because all I really wanted to do in that moment was hurl it through the fucking window.

"I hated every second of it and after he was done, part of me wanted to die. But another part of me was just so damned relieved because those few minutes had ensured I'd have a roof over my head for another week. The next guy meant I got to eat for a couple of days. The guy after that made it possible for me to keep the heat on. In a way, it became easy after a while. I mean, I wasn't proud of it or anything…I knew what those men thought of me. Most of them didn't even bother to hide the fact that they thought I was garbage."

Eli looked up at me. "Today in the garage when you said you didn't want money, my head just went to how I could get what I needed. I thought…I thought you wanted me like that."

Fuck, I needed to tread carefully here. "You saw me, Eli. I think it was pretty obvious that I wanted you."

"Then why-"

"Because I want you ," I said firmly. "Not that guy on his knees in the garage who thinks no one will ever see him as anything other than garbage."

Eli seemed to have trouble holding my gaze, so he dropped his eyes again and stared at the bottle in his hands.

"Eli, this guy who hurt you, did you have a run-in with him again? Is that why you asked me to teach you to fight?"

He was quiet for so long that I was sure he wasn't going to answer me. But he finally took in a deep breath and said, "Last night at my place, Baby jumped out of bed and ran towards the front door. I thought maybe he had to go out or something so I got up to check on him. He was staring at the front door so I figured I was right and went to get his leash. That's when I saw it. The knob…it jiggled just a little."

My insides went cold at Eli's words.

"Then there were these sounds like metal against metal, but real quiet. And then the door unlocked. I just froze. And then it was opening."

I could see Eli was shaking, so I got up and went to sit next to him. I put my hand on his knee in the hopes of soothing him, but he barely seemed to notice.

"Baby started growling at that point and when the door opened just a little, he started barking like crazy. I heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs."

Eli looked at me. "It was probably just a random burglar or something, right?"

My lack of a response was answer enough and Eli dropped his gaze again. "I figured I should know some moves in case Baby wasn't around if it happened again."

I was barely containing my anger and actually had to get up and walk away from Eli so I could get control of myself. The thought of how close he'd come to getting hurt again, or worse, was driving me insane.

"Tell me who this guy is," I finally managed to get out.

Unsurprisingly, I was greeted with complete and utter silence. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to grab Eli and demand he give me some answers. I wanted to never take my eyes off of him again .

I went back to the chair I'd been sitting in and murmured, "At least tell Dom."

Eli still refused to look at me. He seemed like he'd gone off to some unreachable place in his mind because he had the same dead look in his gaze that he'd had in the garage. While I understood his need for the coping mechanism, I hated that he felt the need to use it around me. It was a reminder that I wasn't anything more to him than the men who'd used him when he was a kid.

"Can I use your shower before you take me home?"

I quelled my frustration and murmured, "Sure," and watched Eli carefully set the water bottle down on the coffee table before heading towards the bedroom. The shower came on a couple minutes later and between the anger that was still surging through me and the realization that a very beautifully naked Eli was just feet from me, I was struggling to keep myself in check. I was half tempted to call up Dominic Barretti and tell him what was going on just so I could get on my Harley and take off like I'd been planning a couple short hours ago. But the idea of leaving Eli when he was clearly in danger made my insides burn and when I reached for the room phone on the table next to my chair, it wasn't to call the man who'd saved Eli once before.

"Front desk, how may I help you?" said a pleasant young woman's voice.

"I need to arrange for a rental car."

"Of course, I would be happy to assist you."

It took several minutes to secure the rental and I was assured it would be delivered to the hotel within a couple of hours. By the time I was hanging up with the front desk, Eli was coming out of the bedroom. He didn't speak to me at all; he merely went to the door and waited so I grabbed my phone and wallet from the kitchen counter and followed him from the room. Unlike the ride from Eli's apartment to the hotel, Eli made every effort not to lean against me and his grip on my waist was only the minimum necessary to keep himself from sliding off the bike. I missed the feel of his front pressed to my back, his thighs hugging mine. I'd been so turned on during the ride over, that I'd actually thought about jacking off in my hotel room after I'd left Eli waiting in the gym for me while I'd changed. Now all I felt was a stark disappointment that he was pulling away from me in every way that he could. It was a feeling I should have been immune to by now and the fact that I wasn't around this man just angered me more.

By the time we reached Eli's apartment, he was off the bike before I'd even turned it off. I took the helmet he handed me, but I didn't get off the bike because I knew what he was going to say just from the way he was shifting back and forth on his feet and refusing to make eye contact with me.

"Maybe we can do dinner some other time…I'm pretty tired."

"Sure," I said, though I knew there wouldn't be ‘some other time.' I was being kicked to the curb. I ignored the pain in my belly as I watched Eli head around the side of the house. I'd pulled forward enough when I'd parked the bike so that I could see the stairs leading to his apartment and I made sure he was safely inside before I started my bike up again and headed back to the hotel to get the rental car.

Because even though Eli didn't want anything to do with me, I wasn't walking away. I'd do what I did best…I'd make sure he was safe and when the threat was extinguished, I'd be the one to leave…something else I was really good at.