Page 14

Chapter 14

Benji Morrison

The kisses woke me up. Wet and plentiful, covering the side of my face.

“Eli, damn, some—Lucky.”

My morning wood instantly deflated as I opened my eyes and realized I was alone in my bed with my new furry roommate. Yesterday was a drunken blur. A dream. It felt real, but there was no way I had spent the entire night with Elijah. It was probably some vodka-fueled fantasy that my horny brain had cooked up to try and satiate the constant throb between my legs.

My cock wasn’t the only thing throbbing this morning. My head gave a couple of angry pulses as I rolled over and reached for the water bottle on my nightstand. I nearly tipped it over but caught it last minute, my hand closing around something else with the bottle.

A mask. A leather mask.

From last night.

Holy fuck.

It wasn’t a dream. It had actually happened. And if I had any actual doubts then, my sore hole refuted them.

Not only had he fucked me, but he also realized who I was.

Fuck.

I uncapped the bottle and took a heavy chug of the cool water. Last night, as great as it was, could have easily turned out real fucking bad. I had to lie to him, and I really didn’t enjoy that. But what else was I supposed to do? Tell him that I let my darker urges take control and ended up watching him through his security cameras before meeting up with him at the party? He’d rightfully think I was a massive creep and likely cut all ties with me. Probably go straight to the cops.

There’d be no explaining myself. He wouldn’t understand the kind of shit I went through that twisted me up inside. I worked hard to fix myself, but that work was endless. Unforgiving. Every time I’d take a step forward—whether it was through therapy or medication or daily mediation or whatever else was on the menu of wellness that month—I’d find myself taking a full leap backward. Sometimes, it’d be through letting my bad habits take control; other times, it’d be sinking back into the bottle. Most of the time, it was a mix of all of it.

I felt broken. Drifting through life without an anchor. Unable to really plant my feet and grow. It was like I was stunted. Like my life had been put on freeze, starting from the day Michael was shot.

Finding Elijah, meeting him, being with him. It was like a kick start to my paused life. I enjoyed getting to know him, learning about him, strolling through Central Park with him, and yes, watching him. He made me excited, not just sexually but in every way fathomable. I enjoyed him so much because he allowed me to shed some of the shit I’d been through, feel like I could start new again.

And I almost fucked it all up last night.

I rubbed my face and fell back onto my pillow with a groan. The bedroom continued to spin. Lucky must have sensed I needed some support because he stopped the licking and cuddled up against my side in a tight ball of fluff. “Good boy,” I said, scratching his head.

After about thirty minutes and drinking the entire bottle of water, my hangover finally began to subside. I dragged myself out of bed and threw on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. I clipped Lucky’s leash to his black leather collar and headed out to walk him.

Stepping into the sunshine made me wince, but five minutes of walking down my busy NYC street was enough to start bringing life back into my body. Lucky stopped at nearly every corner and marked it. He found one section of the sidewalk that must have had the entire neighborhood’s message board written in dog piss because he honed in and started to sniff like his life depended on it.

I leaned on a scaffolding post and let him explore. My thoughts drifted back to Eli, to last night.

Having him inside me, underneath me, kissing me, touching me.

Jesus fuck , I needed to have him again.

But I had to do it the right way next time. I needed to send him a text, invite him out to drinks or something. Some silly little veil of manners before we lifted that veil and got down to the carnal, raw truth of why we were meeting.

I wonder if he’s online.

I doubted it. He was probably still sleeping, or maybe he was off on a lunch date. That idea made my skin prickle. I took out my phone, Lucky still focused on his doggy status updates. I lowered the brightness so my screen wouldn’t be immediately readable by anyone walking by, and then I went to CamStar.

He wasn’t on the front page, which meant he likely wasn’t online. He usually ranked up in the top three streamers minutes after he started his stream. I searched his username, just in case.

Nothing.

Lucky started to tug at the leash. He must have been done. I locked my phone and walked us back to the apartment. It was a Saturday, so calling it a day already sounded tempting. I could nurse the remnants of my hangover with a beer and just chill on the couch, maybe catch up on a show or something. I needed to relax after the sexual marathon my body had run hours earlier.

But I was still buzzing. I didn’t want to sit back and relax. Especially since I had work to do anyway. My profession wasn’t a nine-to-five desk job that let me clock out and forget about it. Some cases were easier to set to the side on my days off—the worker’s comps, the cheating spouses—but some of them took up much more of my attention.

Eli’s case being one of those.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. I jumped in the shower, freshened up, changed into a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and I left Lucky with some extra treats inside of a treat ball I ordered for him. He happily gnawed on it as I left the apartment.

I could work from home, but I decided going into Stonewall would help me really lock in. I enjoyed hanging out at the offices. I got along with the other detectives, and I found my personal space to be relaxing and peaceful. I didn’t even have to take any trains or cabs to get there.

I walked down the street, scrolling through my phone but avoiding the urge to check the cam site again. Not like I was going to dive into an alley and jerk off if he were online. Instead, I checked to see what was trending—maybe there was an incoming meteor I didn’t know about or a political shitstorm I could get angry over.

The first story made me pause.

The Raven is sentenced to the death penalty.

Damn, there it was. That serial killer had kept nearly the entirety of NYC on their toes. He had a twisted way of leaving his mark on his victims and was discovered by one of Stonewall’s own. I still remembered the day Jace called me to tell me it was over, that the Raven had been caught. I knew how hard he had worked on the case, and it made me happy to know that there was finally a resolution. It would give some peace to the victims’ families as well.

All in all, it was a win.

I was still reading the article by the time I got to the Stonewall offices. I was digging for the keys in my pocket when a hand on my shoulder made me jump.

“Oh, sorry, man.”

It was Jace Holloway, the very detective who I’d been thinking about on the way here.

“I called your name, but guess you didn’t hear me.”

“Hah, funny. I was just reading about how the Raven was sentenced today. Sneaking up behind me wasn’t the best timing.”

Jace laughed at that and rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit, yeah, sorry.”

“Congratulations, by the way. If it wasn’t for you, this guy would still be loose.”

Jace’s gaze flicked downward. He cracked his knuckles. I thought the weight of the case would have been lifted with the news, but maybe I was wrong? “Everything okay?” I asked as we stepped into the office.

“Yeah, yeah. It was just a crazy case. I think I’m still dealing with some of the fallout. I’ve had nightmares about it.”

“You were abducted by him—of course you’d have nightmares. That scars people. Our job isn’t easy at all.”

“It does feel good to know that no one else is going to get hurt.”

“Exactly. Just have to focus on that. You saved lives, man.”

Jace offered a tight-lipped smile. It hurt me to see. I considered Jace one of my closer friends, and I hadn’t even realized how much he was still affected by the case. I’d been so focused on everything else (Eli, Eli, Eli) that I missed signs that my friend was hurting. “Come over later this week. We can hang out, play some video games, and drink some beers. Just unplug.”

“That sounds good,” Jace said, his grin widening a bit.

“Theo’s obviously invited, too.”

Jace headed to his office. “Text me when.”

“Sounds good,” I said, giving an affirmative knock on the wall before I opened my office and stepped inside.

I cracked my knuckles and sunk into work mode.

Today, I started with digging into Eli’s neighbor and landlord, Brian, who had verbally confronted Eli about his job after someone complained about loud music coming from his apartment. It had turned out to be his roommate, Fran, who was apparently hard of hearing, but Eli fell on the sword and said it was his music, but it had nothing to do with the stream. Brian took it upon himself to try and convert Eli right there on the spot, talking about scriptures and getting saved.

Eli had asked how Brian found out he was a cam model, but Brian wouldn’t answer, which I found suspicious. Was he hiding the fact that he knew about Eli because he was secretly a big fan of his? Big enough to stalk and obsess over him? I had a background check run on him, and the results were in my inbox.

I opened them up to find… not much. The guy was pretty clean. There was a petty theft charge dating back fifteen years ago after he got caught shoplifting something, but other than that, he didn’t have much of a record. No restraining orders, no crimes, no unpaid parking tickets.

Still didn’t make him innocent, though.

I closed out of the background check and resorted to the next best source of information on a person: social media.

Thankfully for me, Brian had a pretty extensive and public online footprint. None of his accounts were private, and they all had plenty of posts to sift through. There were photographs of him and his wife—oop, no, make that ex-wife. Pictures with his new girlfriend, who I had mistakenly assumed was his daughter, were pinned to the top of the page. There were a couple of terribly designed graphics that depicted different bible verses sprinkled throughout his grid. His bio said, “God comes first.”

He also had a lot of travel photos, showing different plates of mouthwatering food—Spanish tapas, colorful sushi, sweet desserts—with impressive vistas behind them. He cheered next to the Eiffel Tower, he smiled with his girlfriend on a safari with a herd of gazelle behind them, he gave a thumbs-up to the camera as he snorkeled above a vibrant bed of pink and yellow coral reefs.

He was a traveler. Someone who could very well consider themselves to be a nomad.

I spent the next few hours digging through Brian’s digital history. He certainly liked to travel, but that wasn’t a strong enough link for me to follow. Yes, he lived close enough to Eli to know his whereabouts and keep an eye on him. He was also the landlord, which meant he had the keys to slip inside Eli’s apartment and snoop around while he wasn’t there. He had the means to do it, but why would he be escalating things? Was he maybe trying to push Eli out of the apartment? Was he trying to scare him away so that the sinful cam model wouldn’t be right next door to him?

Or was he so far up the church’s ass that he wanted Eli up his? His repressed sexuality could have easily turned malignant. Could have metastasized into something toxic, dark, monstrous.

I sighed, leaned back in my chair. My stomach grumbled. I considered shutting off my computer and finding somewhere to get lunch, maybe a beer or two just to loosen me up.

My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number and was very much ready to tell off the random telemarketer on the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, hi, is this Detective Benji? You’re working a case for Elijah Grant, correct?”

“I am, who’s this?”

“This is Zack. His best friend. And I think I have some information for you.”

Huh. Well, guess lunch would have to wait.