16. SAMUEL

I couldn't fucking believe it. There wasn't a single dog on the street that morning. I'd checked and I'd rechecked the footage. I thought it would've been an easy catch. People walked their dogs every day, except that morning.

Clearly, frustrated, I recruited Elias and Preston to investigate it further. If they wanted to be useful, they would help with finding out more information on my dad's murder. Both agreed, and I knew they would, they had a lot to lose if the family turned against itself, especially considering it was mostly in mine and my father's name.

For dinner, we ate the pies. I made sure that Leo dressed in something comfortable so he could make that a mess rather than some of the nice clothes I bought for him. He went to his room and bed early, leaving me to exercise alone before bed.

Leo's magnetism was unavoidable. I felt drawn to him in most thoughts, and if it wasn't in thought, it was standing outside his door, wondering what he was doing. I checked the app, and he'd been active recently.

I needed more from him, I needed to stop being teased, and I suppose I had to stop teasing him as well. But I needed to know the boundaries between what he wanted to do and what he felt like he was being forced to do.

After a shower, dressed in nothing but a bathrobe, I stood outside his door again. This time, intending on knocking.

He opened it before I could.

Leo dressed in a blue dinosaur onesie with his hood up. He was adorable. I wanted to grab him by his throat, pin him to the wall and take every single stitch of fabric from his body just so I could be the one to cover him.

"I saw your feet," he said.

"I was just coming to tell you, you should probably go to sleep soon," I said. "My mum found hair she thinks might belong to a dog, so we're going to take them to Elias's gallery and have them checked out by an expert."

He appeared puzzled. "At the gallery?"

"Yeah. It's a perfect location," I said, watching as his eyes looked to my chest and then down my body and back up again. "That's everything."

Leo smiled. "Ok."

"I like the onesie," I said. "You're a dinosaur."

His face blushed across the bridge of his nose and cheeks, it had to have been hot in there. Although not as hot as my bathrobe was making me.

I went to my bedroom and laid in bed. I stared at the ceiling mirror and admired myself in it. I was a catch, an incredible physique, which I teased myself with in my reflection, showing off a defined thigh, tensing it like I was some amateur bodybuilder.

Pulling more of the bathrobe away, I kept my cock concealed. It was nice to get this type of view, but I wasn't my type. My type was Leo. Slim, although desperately in need of a filling meal. I allowed myself to pretend my body was a three-course meal he could get everything he needed.

Under the door, I saw the light turn on and a dark shadow at my door. I wondered if he'd always seen me when I'd stood outside his door, perhaps only when the hallway light was on.

"Yes?" I called out.

The patter of feet. The light turned off.

He wanted to play.

I crept out of bed and quietly opened the bedroom door. With the hallway light off, I approached his bedroom door opposite mine. I waited a moment until I heard his handle turn.

He walked right into me, headfirst against my hard pectorals. "Aw," I chuckled, wrapping an arm around his head to keep him in place, pressed against my chest. "What did you want?"

"I'm lonely."

Letting go of him, he almost stumbled back. "How can you be lonely?" I asked. "You can have anything you ask for. You want more stuffed teddies to comfort you in bed? I can have some sent over. We have a store that sells teddies, mostly as a front, you know, you can stuff—" I watched Leo's face turn. He wasn't interested in that, not one bit. "Is this a ploy for me to ask you to come into my bed?"

"No," he grumbled, avoiding eye contact.

"I hoped it was," I said. "Well, good night then."

Turning to leave, he grabbed my hand. "Ok," he said. "Can I bring my Tuffy with me?"

I smiled at him and his cute little confidence. "Sure. But there are rules," I said. "Don't touch me. Just a formality. I don't want to wake up and think I'm being attacked." I'd never think that, but he didn't know.

"Oh."

"Come on then."

I wondered if that had scared him at all, but it didn't.

He grabbed his teddy and followed me into my room. I assigned him half the bed. And I had to admit, I enjoyed sharing a bed, I enjoyed waking to seeing someone in bed beside me, to see them in the embrace of happy sleep. Perhaps I was lonely too.

We both stared at each other in the ceiling mirror.

"You've always had that?" he asked.

"You don't like it?" I asked him, watching as he pulled his teddy closer. "It's ok if you don't. I never got it for you. This is all for me."

"So, you fuck a lot of guys then?"

"Go to sleep."

"I'm just asking, I mean, I'm curious." He turned his head to me. "Your pillows are comfier than mine too."

I turned to him. "Go to sleep. You're in my bed, what more do you want?"

There were many answers I'd accept to that question. I doubt he wouldn't answered with any of them, maybe with his found confidence, he would, but I didn't count on it.

"Can you put something on your TV?" he asked. "Just something like a nightlight. So, maybe like a cartoon."

I rarely used the wall-mounted TV in my bedroom. He'd have been lucky if I even knew where the remote for it was. "No," I said. "Sleep."

He went to sleep before me, as I stared up at us both laid in the bed. I didn't know why I'd agreed to let him into my bed at all, it seemed almost against everything I'd been saying. I wanted to draw the line, but it was his choice, and I certainly didn't force him to.

I woke to the alarm clock in my body that forced me awake around 6 A.M. but as I blinked my eyes open and attempted to move, I noticed a weight on my chest. It was Leo's precious onesie wearing head. Wrapping an arm around me with his head planted firmly.

Staring at him from the ceiling mirror, I saw him cling to his teddy. He was curled up, right beside me, and on top of me. For a moment, everything felt right. This was just the right amount of touch I needed to survive. All the good in the world came from moments like this, from people like this, in their little play thinking happy thoughts.

But I had to move. Peeling away his head and shimmying out of the bed as his head dropped to the mattress. He moved a little, tucking his teddy tighter to his chest. My tongue toyed with my teeth, nipping at the end, I needed him to do that with me.

I took my morning shower, leaving the door ajar in case he wanted to watch or try make a move. The idea he could come in at any moment kept me hard, but I didn't want to play with myself just yet.

Last night seemed to have calmed all the thoughts of going around and killing every single suspect. My thoughts were now on him, wondering if he was going to make a move and prompt a discussion. He was the first one to have ever seen me kill and not leave immediately. But they didn't understand, we were sharing. I didn't kill as often anymore, or as freely, but it was still part of me.

In the bedroom with a towel around my waist, I saw the empty bed. Perhaps I'd missed him looking in on me.

"Leo," I called out.

He walked into the bedroom, yawning as he held his teddy's hand. "Yeah?" he asked, rubbing at an eye.

"Get some breakfast, take a shower, then get dressed. I have another shirt for you, it's—it's a playful colour blotch shirt."

Leo's little smile was contagious, I wondered what else was contagious about him, since I couldn't get him off my mind, and he wasn't doing anything to stop it. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," I grumbled. The shirt was the only thing I had left in his size. Plus, we were visiting a gallery, I'm sure it made him fit in. His eyes lingered over my wet torso. "Anything you want to ask?"

He shrugged before letting out a yawn. "Nope."

I hoped he'd seen me in the shower, even just a glance inside. I couldn't stop thinking about his behaviour last night, telling me he as lonely, asking to come into my bed. It tingled my insides with a strange pleasure. I could never have said no to that, but anything else was off the table.

After breakfast, Leo dressed in the colourful shirt, seemingly happy about the change from the formal dress shirt I'd forced him to wear.

I looked through his notebook and at the notes and drawing he'd made from yesterday. It was nice to see the doodles there, like part of his mind. He drew a lot of circles and teddy bears. He'd made notes at my mother's, mentioning what she'd said.

Inside a small plastic sandwich bag, I had the hairs my mother collected. She didn't know if they were hairs from people, or from the dog that had been in the house. But I had a guy who worked as a lab tech who would tell me, and that's who we were meeting.

We were meeting at Elias's gallery; the man was Elias's contact. Around Park Lane, we had one of our galleries. Inside, it had many different types of art, most of it made by Elias under different names to bulk the place out. Some were installation pieces, mostly the glass blown stuff.

Elias led us inside. He wore a kimono with his hair all out of shape. "I don't know why you had to do this so early."

"Because you said your friend could meet with us in the morning, or after work. I prefer to get things done sooner, then we can find the killer," I said. "Unless you don't want to find them?"

"Fuck, Sam," he grumbled. "It's just early, of course, I want to find them. And my dad doesn't know shit. He said you dad was already out of it, but now come to think about that, he probably means dead when he got there."

I turned to see Leo dawdling behind, staring at all the spotlights shining on the art in the dark gallery.

"Don't touch anything," I warned him. Leo wrapped his arms around himself.

"So, what do you do here?" he asked.

Elias chuckled. "I sell art." He stared at me. "I thought your assistants were quiet."

"This one is new."

Leo butted his lips together.

"Did you give him that on his face as well?" he asked, nodding to Leo's faint bruising. "Anyway, we'll wait in the office until my friend arrives. Chris is the best at this type of stuff."

Inside the office, there was a candle melting wax all over the counter. It was messier than I'd have liked to see. But since Elias lived above the gallery, this acted as an extension of that home for him.

"How did you meet this guy?"

"Chris is a girl," he said. "Short for Christine. And she helped me out when I thought my ex was cheating. She took the hair I found on him and from that, she helped me figure out who it was."

"Great," I chuckled, clapping my hands. "So, do you know anyone with a dog?"

Elias rolled his eyes. "I have a snake, why would anyone have a dog when you can have a snake?" He grinned. "You know, I gave Nera these live mice and I watched her hunt around her tank for them. She unhinged her jaw and just swallowed that fucker whole."

I glanced back to Leo, almost telling him I wasn't that fucked up. "And to answer your question, it's a front. The art is a front, like most of the businesses." Elias glared at me. "He's my assistant, he has to know these things. And he knows, it's not worth his life to spill our secrets."

Leo nodded vehemently, butting his lips tighter over his teeth.

"I trust you," Elias grumbled. "Want a coffee while you wait?"

"I'll have a—" Leo began, as we both stared at him. "Um. A—a—coffee, if I can."

He was adorable, I don't know how anyone could say no to him. "Sure," I said.

"Well, through this door, there's a set of stairs, and at the top is my flat," he said. "I have a machine up there that makes them. I'll have one. Sam?"

"Sure, I'll take a coffee."

"Oh."

We were an assistant, after all.

He walked over to the door with Elias's final words. "Don't fear the snake."