Chapter 14

~Justin

I should look for somewhere else to live. I say that to myself all the time, but it"s just empty words. I don"t follow them up with anything and the words don"t even have any feeling behind them.

But it"s not that I like living at Gabe"s, of course. Sure it"s clean and luxurious and when I"m out on the terrace looking at the view, I don"t feel like throwing myself off the building. Haven"t felt like that since I started working for him.

Today, as I"m about to ask Gabe about lunch, he cuts me off and tells me, "We"re going on a drive. Come on."

My mind flashes to the last time we did that and how that drive ended up. "Is this going to be another drive with you almost killing us?" I ask instead of mentioning the fuck.

"That didn"t happen. I would never want to hurt you," Gabe claims but he doesn"t say he wouldn"t drive himself off a cliff.

"The last time we did this, it was after I went out to meet Royce," I point out as we get in to the elevator.

"This has nothing to do with him," Gabe says gruffly.

This is a different drive. We take winding roads through marshy fields and then go over some low hills. After we get on a dirt road that takes us through some woods, Gabe finally stops the car next to a small lake. There"s only one cabin on it.

"Where are we?" I ask. The cabin is way too small to belong to Gabe or his family.

"Just a spot where Derrick and I came with our grandfather once. A friend of his owned that cabin," Gabe says and then gets out of the car and walks toward the trees that grow close to the lake.

"Did you do some fishing here?" I ask.

"Derrick and our grandfather did. I was bored," he says and keeps looking at the trees. "I was a teenager. Derrick was little. As I was wandering around, I found this." He points to a tree trunk with the letters T and H carved into it.

He touches it, but I still don"t understand what this means to him. I can see it"s hitting him hard though. After a minute of just standing there and fighting back grief, he tells me, "I showed it to Derrick and told him that T and H stood for "treasure here". That it meant treasure was buried under this tree. He believed me and started digging. After a while, I was going to tell him that I was messing with him, but our grandfather wouldn"t let me. He took me aside and told me that Derrick was my little brother and I always had to take care of him. He put a shiny fishing lure in my hand. I dropped it in the hole Derrick was digging. He was kind of happy when he found it, and then he buried it again so the next kid wouldn"t be disappointed. Back then, I thought it was dumb."

"So it"s still here," I say and look down at the ground. "Are you going to dig it up?"

Gabe shakes his head. "I"ll leave it. I like knowing it"s here."

He presses his head to the tree and stays like that for a minute while I try to be unobtrusive and keep quiet so I don"t intrude on his grief. Taking a deep breath, Gabe walks over to the edge of the water. With a frown on his face, he stares over the lake, his eyes both empty and full of grief.

"I realized I was leaving a lot out when I told you about Derrick, and it didn"t seem right," he says quietly.

"You don"t strike me as someone who"s all about sharing," I tell him.

"No. But I failed Derrick. I left him to his own devices. The hijacking of my brother"s fishing boat didn"t need to happen. And if he had come to me, it wouldn"t have happened," Gabe says.

"What do you mean?"

"Derrick and I weren"t close. He didn"t confide in me. Only told me what he had to. On his fishing trip, Derrick got into trouble with some local with criminal connections. He brushed them off, laughed off their threats. That was a mistake. Derrick didn"t say anything to me about it, but he texted some friends telling them he could handle it." Gabe stops to take a few deep breaths. "He couldn"t."

"These were the same people who hijacked the boat he was on?" I guess.

"They were but they had help. Someone I knew. Derrick was killed, his body thrown in the water. There was hardly anything left of it by the time it was recovered."

Raw emotion written on his face, Gabe doesn"t bring his gaze back just keeps staring into the distance. On a clear, sunny day, all he can see is darkness.

I shudder with pain, mine, his, I don"t even know. I hug myself and try to calm down. I can"t mix up my own grief with his. As I step away from him, I step into the water.

"Trying to go for a swim?" Gabe asks me.

"I might," I say. The water looks inviting but feels cold as it seeps into my sneakers. I take my jacket off, toe off the sneakers.

"What are you doing?" Gabe asks as I quickly take off my shirt and jeans then my boxers.

"It"s too cold," Gabe tells me, but I don"t listen, just plunge in.

He was right though. Damn it"s cold. I swim through the cold waves while Gabe yells at me to get out. Then he threatens, "I"m coming in after you!"

No point in both of us freezing. I get out and tremble on the shore while Gabe growls at me, "What the hell were you thinking?!" When I reach for my clothes, Gabe stops me. "Wait. I have a towel in the car."

He brings it then starts rubbing me all over with it too roughly. "Is this a punishment?" I ask him.

"Punishment? This is nothing," he tells me and keeps drying me off vigorously. When he stops, he points to my clothes scattered on the ground. "Get your clothes on and I"ll turn the heat on in the car."

"I"m fine now," I tell him and grab his wrist to stop him.

He turns and his eyes move from my eyes down my body. Now I"m trembling in a whole other way and my dick is starting to stand up.

"Is it time for that punishment?" I ask, my voice husky as my hand moves up Gabe"s arm.

"You do deserve it," he says. Stepping up against me, he gives me a hard look. His hands reach behind me and grab hold of my naked ass.

My own hands trail toward his fly. Before I get there, he grabs my wrists in a tight grip. He turns me around, pushes me face down on the ground.

"I guess you wanted to provoke me," he says as he spreads my legs apart. He pulls me up on all fours, and I hear his zipper. I feel something cold and slick, lube, but only a little bit then he"s shoving his way in. "You"re going to let me in. Open up to me, Justin," he orders me and my body obeys. But I feel like he"s saying something else too, like he wants to know my secrets.

He fucks me without mercy, like he really does want to punish me. It doesn"t work. There"s too much ecstasy mixed in with the pain. His cock feels good to me no matter what it"s doing to me, like Gabe belongs inside me.

I shouldn"t want this or him, but he"s making me like it, love it, then he"s making me come. Then comes the intense pleasure of him coming inside me and all I can do is moan his name over and over again.