Epilogue

Six months later

Tyler

Tyler threw open the French doors and stepped onto the balcony. The lawn stretched down to a river at the back of the house, the yard full with mature trees and shrubs, most of them now winter bare and covered with a thick layer of snow. One of them stood out though, a huge Nordic fir tree, just perfect to hang Christmas lights on. Tyler would make that his next job, if Holden let him.

Holden had already shooed him away when Tyler had tried to help with lugging his huge new antique writing desk up to the second floor. It was what they had paid movers for, Holden said, and Tyler should go take a break. Even with the new leg, Holden liked him to take it easy. Tyler would take it easy when he was dead.

He fastened the windows shut and looked around the master suite with admiration. Decorated in shades of silver, gold and cream, it was a touch flashy for his taste, but Holden liked it enough to want to keep the décor. Their king size was already set up in the middle, with the nightstands dumped haphazardly next to it and a few suitcases scattered around. The suite was so large that Holden had ordered a chaise longue to go on the far side, with a chair and an occasional table. Tyler snorted, eyeing the luxurious silver velvet and ornate legs on the thing. A fucking chaise longue. Where did Holden think he was, eighteenth century France?

He busied himself carrying the suitcases into the adjoining walk-in closet, where they would be out of sight out of mind, because he had no intention of starting on them now. If it was up to him, he’d probably live out of them for a couple of weeks before he got around to emptying them, but he suspected Holden would have something to say about that.

Something made him glance at the chaise longue again when he reentered the main room. Okay, he’d try it out. Maybe it might be nice for a slouch during the day with a book, or a snooze in front of the fire that definitely needed lighting because it was a chilly day, but where were the logs?

He stretched out on the chaise longue, too tall of course with his feet hanging off the end. Padding his head on a plump matching cushion, he closed his eyes. Yeah, it was comfier than it looked. Holden knew what he was doing after all. Tyler wondered what Finn would make of it when he came over. Their new house was around half a mile from Finn and Brandon’s little love nest. Finn had seen photos and been astonished when they put an offer in for the property after selling the stamp. The old house by the lake remained for sale, empty once again and waiting for someone who didn’t mind that Dominic Bateman had met his last days there. The Inverted Jenny had sold for so much at auction that Holden decided against selling the two pence Newfoundland too and gifted it to Tyler. Holden had got the best blowjob of his life that night.

Tyler looked out once more at the immense garden. The house was too good to be true. With four bedrooms, plus a library, study, orangery and massive basement housing another three rooms, it was the stuff dreams were made of. Holden had already organized some work on the place before they’d moved in, work that he had been especially secretive about, saying it was a surprise. Tyler didn’t mind. Holden had a better eye for things and Tyler trusted his partner’s decisions.

The collaboration between Holden and Finn had been released the day before. It sold thousands on its first day as well as the thousands of pre-orders it had taken. Finn had reluctantly taken all the advance money once he found out Holden was now rich, and he would also take a hefty cut of the profits—more than Holden. The press were clamoring for interviews and while Holden refused, Finn had agreed to do just one, a meeting with a respected British journalist for the BBC, involving a substantial fee. He and Brandon were now set for life and Finn was three months into his art degree. While Brandon was still sheriff. Tyler wasn’t sure why the guy didn’t retire but he guessed unlike most people, Brandon enjoyed his job.

Tyler sighed and glanced down at the immense and expensive titanium beast strapped to his knee. What a beautiful machine it was. So it should have been for the price. His new doctor had arranged physical therapy sessions, pain management appointments and mirror therapy. He went to the city once a month for mindfulness sessions where he was taught to be present in the moment and let go all his thoughts about the past. Holden accompanied him to the group for his own demons and afterwards they always went out for a slap-up meal and booked into their arranged suite at The Four Seasons, rolling around on the bed till the small hours under the influence of an expensive bottle of wine. The staff knew them there now. They’d started giving Holden and Tyler the honeymoon suite when it was available and hinting very hard that they wanted them to actually book the place for their wedding. Not that it was in the cards and he wasn’t sure why the staff thought it was. They left rose petals on the bed and champagne on ice which had backfired the first time when Tyler had ended up with his head in the toilet bowl. Red wine and champagne did not mix. As well as the mindfulness, Holden attended a once-weekly addiction meeting in the next town over. There was a range of alcoholics, drug addicts and sex addicts in the group. Tyler imagined all the sex addicts getting together for a gangbang after the session and had let that idea torture him for way too long. The way he looked at it now was if infidelity was going to happen, then it would. He would deal with it when and if it came along. Holden had tried to reassure him until he was blue in the face. He told Tyler over and over again that he was on the road to recovery and that road would be travelled with Tyler, and Tyler alone.

Holden was working on his next book, back to crime fiction, with another law enforcement main character, who he’d made gay at Tyler’s suggestion. He smiled to himself as he remembered the story Holden had written for him. The conversation had come about in bed. Tyler had asked him to write a dirty sex scene between two men. Holden had taken the brief and come up with an older business man in a suit picking up a hot younger rent boy in a bar. The steam rising from the pages had nearly melted Tyler’s tablet. Holden had been out at the store when Tyler had read it—one-handed of course—coming way before the story had ended. He’d waited in the house by the lake for Holden to get back. As soon as he’d stepped foot into the kitchen, Tyler had pinned Holden flat to the table, wrenched his clothes down and dropped a blob of lube into his ass crack before thrusting inside.

The rickety table had almost given way beneath them as he’d rode Holden, his partner nearly screaming the place down as he came. They’d laughed and kissed and Tyler had suggested that Holden write a dirty story as often as he could and publish under a pseudonym. Holden had been amused, but with the writer’s block seemingly banished he came up with a series of erotic shorts that made Tyler’s toes curl. Tyler took over formatting and uploading them and paying a PA to promote them, and they were making a tidy sum that Holden insisted went into Tyler’s bank account. He guessed he was earning his keep by being in charge of publishing the stories, but Tyler still felt guilty that he was riding the coat tails of Holden’s fortune. Holden didn’t see it that way of course.

Tyler closed his eyes again. He tuned out the crashing and banging from other parts of the house as the movers manhandled the furniture, and let the stress of the day slide away, focusing on the movement of his ribs as he breathed in, held it, and let it out slowly. He felt the tension in his body slide away along with the muted pin-pricks to the sole of that fucking non-existent foot. He jumped when he felt two hands on his knees, sliding up his thighs.

“Hey,” a soft voice said. “Here you are.”

Tyler opened his eyes and smiled at the heavenly vision of Holden kneeling before him. He was dressed all in black, heavy wool sweater and black jeans, the silver glinting in his dark hair and his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks as the gloomy day started to slide towards an early sunset.

“You okay?” Holden reached up to stroke his cheek.

“Yeah, just taking five.”

“Good.”

“I’ll be back out in a moment.”

“No, you won’t. Stay here,” Holden said. “How do you like my chaise longue?”

“Ridiculous.”

“Oh, really? So you won’t want the benefits it comes with then?”

“What?” Tyler focused on Holden’s hand on his belt buckle, sliding it open before popping his button.

“It comes with a free blowjob every time you sit on it.”

Tyler’s dick went so hard so quickly he was sure there was no blood left to perfuse his brain. “Uh huh?” he mumbled.

“Yeah.” Holden made short work of his zipper and reached into Tyler’s underwear.

“Fuck,” Tyler said, glancing at the door in panic.

But Holden had closed it and the clatter of removals sounded like they were downstairs rather than close by. He grabbed Holden’s hair in an attempt to stop him as Holden opened wide and sank down his erection. That attempt lasted all of a second before he tightened his fingers and urged Holden down deeper, groaning as his partner sank all the way to his balls.

“Oh fuck, Holden.” Tyler arched off the chair, his toes curling. Holden had the wettest, hottest mouth Tyler had ever known. When he drew back to lap across his cockhead and torment his slit with the point of his tongue, Tyler whimpered, his legs shaking. “Take your dick out,” he said, as he had that day in his kitchen when Holden had been sucking him off.

Smiling, Holden released his cock from his jeans. Then he went back to long, slow sucks of Tyler’s dick while jerking off, emitting groans around Tyler’s flesh that nearly undid him. He watched Holden’s hand as he got closer to the end, fantasizing about christening the room later—his cock in Holden’s ass on that bed overlooking the magnificent garden. With the curtains open because there were no neighbors to see.

“Don’t you dare come,” he told Holden. “I have plans for you.”

Obediently, Holden took his hand away with his eyes wide with anticipation. Then his last suck took Tyler over the edge into oblivion and he filled Holden’s mouth.

He lay still for a moment, getting his breath back. Then he looked down at Holden still kneeling there with his cheeks flushed and his cock hard. Tyler swung his legs to the floor, planting his one good foot and one expensive fake foot on either side of Holden, before tugging him to his feet. With a groan, Holden stood and guided his dick into Tyler’s waiting mouth.

Tyler loved sucking him off. He grabbed Holden’s ass and let his partner thrust into his mouth, using him and grabbing hold of his hair. Holden looked down at him, mouth slack and panting, eyes dark with lust, so incredibly beautiful when he was turned on. “Fuck, Tyler,” Holden said. “Oh my God, I love you so much.” And with those words, he came down Tyler’s throat in a gush.

Tyler took it all with his heart soaring at hearing this from Holden for the first time. He lapped around Holden’s cockhead collecting every drop until Holden’s erection started to subside. Then he swung his legs back onto the chaise longue and lay back for another rest. Holden joined him there, clambering onto him and squeezing his body onto the seat, and Tyler discovered something else about the expensive piece of furniture. There was room for them both to squash on without fear of one of them falling off. He was impressed. Perhaps it would become his new favorite place to fuck. Although there were plenty of places in the house he planned to take Holden. Starting with that massive antique desk.

Holden buried his face against Tyler’s neck, kissing him while he fastened his pants back up. “Epic,” he muttered.

“Thank you, Mr. Maddison,” Tyler said. “Right back at you.” He was still thinking about those three words Holden had let loose in the heat of passion.

“Now I’ve given you one present, I want to give you another,” Holden said. “I’ve got something for you. Upstairs.”

Upstairs was a large empty attic room that Tyler had presumed would store all the usual detritus of a normal household. He hadn’t thought too closely about it. But Holden was looking at him with a grin. “I had the room done up,” he said. “For you.”

Tyler mock-groaned. “You’re putting me up there because of my farting in bed, aren’t you?”

Holden slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t tempt me. Fasten up and come with me.” He climbed off the couch and waited for Tyler to make himself presentable before he held out his hand to hoist him up. Hand in hand they left the bedroom.

Looking over the banister into the hall below, Tyler had been right that the movers were downstairs, at the far end of the house, wheeling in the new fridge and carrying boxes containing Holden’s new china dinner service. He followed Holden down to the end of the landing and up the flight of stairs that led to the next floor.

The steps opened into the massive room that Tyler had viewed empty a couple of months ago but which now looked very different. He climbed all the way to the top and stood staring around him with his jaw open.

Along one side of the room stood the longest desk Tyler had ever seen with shelves and drawers and two chairs. A brand new magnifying lamp was angled over the surface at one end while an organizer held that essential equipment to stamp collecting that Tyler had once had the cheapest of, or not at all—tweezers, perforation gauge, watermark detector, glassine envelopes and more stuff that he wasn’t even sure about.

The other wall was lined with built in bookcases. On one shelf he recognized his own stamp album, together with a basket containing those loose stamps he had yet to file away—things he had been buying with gusto on eBay since coming back to the hobby. On the other shelves, he recognized Holden’s stamp albums and stock books and boxes containing envelopes and packets of stamps, enough to keep Tyler busy for months. There was also row upon row of what looked like brand new stock books, alphabetized for every country in the world, including the dead ones.

The walls had been painted white and hung with some of the stamp art Holden had recently shown him for sale on Etsy. Two little birds wearing crowns, their beaks almost touching and a shower of hearts radiating between them, all completely made from pink, red and purple stamps. Another one of two cats nose to nose made from black and grey stamps, then the well-known sculpture of Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ as she had been on the famous Machin stamps for over fifty years. Again, the picture had been rendered completely in stamps—all Machins of the Queen in a variety of stunning colors. Tyler had once told Holden he admired the late Queen greatly. To be confronted by this stunning artwork in this spectacular room that was now apparently his new stamp den took his breath away.

He turned to Holden with tears in his eyes. And because he couldn’t speak, Holden took Tyler into his arms and held him tight.

The fire was lit and crackling in the hearth, casting a rosy glow over the room, the shadows darkest on the bed where Holden and Tyler lay together under the quilt. They had walked to the diner to eat and been served by Finn who had secured an invite around the next day and planned to help Tyler hang lights on that magnificent fir tree out back. Tyler also intended to let Finn sit in the orangery—or out in the garden when it got warmer—to paint whenever he wanted, because the view was so spectacular. Brandon had joined them for a cup of coffee when they’d finished eating. His frosty manner towards Holden had started to thaw once Holden had helped with the legal action against all the websites hosting the video of Finn, to the point that he’d given the interview Holden wanted—talking about the shooting of Dominic and his feelings for Finn. Holden had told Tyler he’d seen that strong man he knew the sheriff was, but also, Brandon had let his guard down enough to show the vulnerability Holden knew lurked beneath the surface. That anxiety for Finn and his wellbeing and that all-encompassing love. As well as those memories of what he had done. Taken a man’s life. Holden respected Brandon more than he could ever say and if Brandon ever returned even a tenth of the sentiment, he would be a happy man.

Sheriff Schofield was now a local celebrity along with Finn thanks to the book, and when Finn had hurried to their table in a state of high excitement and shown him a royalty statement for the book, Brandon’s jaw had dropped open. He had stared at Holden, then at Finn, before he pulled Finn onto his lap in front of the entire diner and kissed him. Tyler had wondered if they would roll around on the bed when they got home the way he and Holden had when they found the Inverted Jenny and smiled to himself.

Holden caught his eye and winked at him. When Finn extricated himself and hurried back to the counter where the cook was shouting that orders were getting cold, Brandon had leaned across the table and offered his hand. Holden shook it. Brandon had read the book before it went to print because no way would Holden have risked the sheriff’s wrath by not giving him final say-so on the manuscript. And he had done such a good job that Brandon had not asked for a single word to be changed. Holden knew very well that both Finn and Brandon had wept when they read it, as had Tyler. He sensed that Finn had achieved some of the catharsis he’d hoped for, and maybe too, so had Brandon.

So much more had come to light during Holden’s interviews with Finn and Brandon though. Finn’s nightmare hadn’t ended with Dominic Bateman’s death because six months later, Brandon had discovered Finn’s ex was collaborating with Reinhard Hellberg, a wealthy porn connoisseur with a taste for snuff, which he financed. Hellberg had had some sort of obsession with Finn after being invited to one of Dominic’s parties. He’d kidnapped Finn, planning to star him in his best movie yet. Brandon had found Finn locked in a basement, having fought off his captors. Hellberg and his cronies were now serving life in prison. Tyler couldn’t believe his eyes when he’d read the book. He hadn’t been able to bring up those details with Finn, but maybe his friend would want to talk about it in time. One little tidbit and criminal act that hadn’t found its way into the book was Brandon paying a visit to the house Dominic had shared with Finn and burning it to the ground. That would stay just between the four of them.

They had made love when they got back from dinner, Holden on his back staring up at Tyler as he moved inside him with slow, deep strokes until they both came.

“You’re an amazing man,” Tyler said, squeezing Holden.

“So are you.”

“I don’t deserve all this. That stamp room, this house, you sharing your money this way…”

“Shut up.” Holden silenced him with a kiss.

“I can’t. I need you to know…”

“I know. Now shush. I’m not an amazing man, I’m a man who’s behaved badly for a large portion of his life and now wants to pay his good luck forward. To you, and to my friends. Those two guys are great, and we’re lucky to have them in our life. I’m even luckier to have you. When I wake up every morning, I thank God that I met you. I’ll do anything you want to keep you happy and make your life as easy as possible. Because I love you.”

Tyler grabbed his neck and kissed him. His heart was so full it felt like it would burst. Their troubles weren’t over of course. Holden still confessed thoughts to him of wanting to watch porn when he should be working, of thinking of faceless men using him for their own ends. They’d experimented with ways around this. Ways to gratify Holden’s addiction without giving into it. They’d watched porn together. Tyler had blindfolded Holden and held him down while fucking him and whispering the filthiest of obscenities. Holden had responded with great enthusiasm. Down the line he’d told Tyler that he now starred in Holden’s fantasies, not anonymous men. He only had to ask for what he wanted and Tyler would deliver it. Holden had asked Tyler to meet with his addiction counsellor privately because he wanted no secrets between them and the guy had told Tyler that Holden was doing great. Certainly there was no infidelity to be worried about.

It all helped to calm Tyler and reduce the energy he spent worrying over the future. He and Holden were solid and moving in the right direction. Their lives were brighter and easier and there was so much to look forward to. When he’d laid helpless in that hospital bed all alone in Ramstein with half of him gone, Tyler had wondered how he would ever come back from such a tragedy as losing part of himself.

Now he had found the missing part of himself in Holden and felt more complete than he ever had before.

THE END