“Can I help you guys find anything?” she asked with a smile, but I couldn’t look at her because I had a candy bar in my pocket. I was a thief, and that made me hate myself because I didn’t want to be a thief.
He should turn me in. Dr. Kingsley should tell her what I did because I deserved to get into trouble for it. I wanted him to say it, but he didn’t. He told her we were fine, and when she walked away, he said, “Give me the candy bar.”
My hands were still shaking when I handed it over.
“Come with me,” he said, and I followed him to the deli. He didn’t say anything as he ordered three sandwiches with three bags of chips, three apples, and bottles of water. He set the candy bar down and paid for it along with the rest of the food. They put it in a bag, and I followed him out of the store on shaky legs.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“My mom’s dead,” I snapped.
His eyes softened, and something…I didn’t know what it was…passed over them. He handed me the bag of food.
“Eat one of those sandwiches while I call someone, okay? You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
The second he pulled out his phone, I ran, ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Ran until I couldn’t breathe. Ran until I was crying so hard, I couldn’t see.
He had saved me…again.
And I wanted to go back to him. Wanted to tell him I was scared and didn’t know what to do. It was lame and made no sense, but that was how I felt.
I also knew I didn’t ever want him to look at me with the disappointment he had when he saw me stealing.
“Stupid,” I told myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It wasn’t as if I’d ever see Dr. Kingsley again.
But still, when they found me, when they brought me to a new foster family, and for every home I was in after that, I never forgot him.
CHAPTER ONE
Finley
Five Years Later
March
My laptop was old and took forever to load sites, but I was out of data on my phone, so I didn’t have much choice. And I couldn’t just close the website and walk away. I mean, I could, but I didn’t want to. I never wanted to because it was the only access I had to what I wanted so badly. What I needed. What I’d longed for even before I’d understood it—hell, even now I didn’t understand it. Not fully.
Why did I crave the things I did?
Why did I long to be on my knees?
What made me want to serve?
To have someone take care of me and protect me and to give those things in return?
The why of it didn’t matter to me, though. I just knew it was…me. Knew it like I knew my name or that the sky was blue or that my mother had been the best person I’d ever known.
What I didn’t know was how to get it. Not really.
I rolled over on the futon in my less than stellar studio apartment. It was also my bed and the couch. Against the other wall was a second one, belonging to Ian. We’d met in a foster home. He was my first kiss, my first jack-off session. My roommate and my very best friend.
We’d hit it off right away, like somehow we’d known we needed each other, and we’d taken care of each other. Our foster parents had been…I don’t know that abusive was the right word, but they hadn’t really wanted anything to do with us. We were free money, and they were better than most I’d been with. But when they caught Ian and me kissing, things had gone downhill fast, and we’d gotten out of there.
The web page was almost done loading, and I lay there, my pulse ticking faster with each second that went by—adrenaline and desire, excitement and curiosity, and the deep-seated hunger sewn into my DNA, amping up more and more until I was dizzy from it.
My head spun, which was ridiculous because I was lying down and I hadn’t even done anything. All I was doing was waiting for porn to load like I’d done a thousand times before—only to get the slightest taste of what I thirsted for. But in a way that wasn’t real, never real because I’d never had it. I didn’t know if I ever would.
Finally, the screen came alive. A dark-haired boy, naked except for an apron, was carrying a plate toward a table where a man in a suit sat.
I’d seen this scene too many times to count, so when he set the plate on the table and said, “I made your favorite,” I repeated the line along with him. And when the boy’s Master told him, “Get yours and join me,” I said, “Yes, sir,” just as he did.
It went quickly from there. They ate together, and I grabbed my lube. Turning onto my side, I wet my fingers and waited, anticipation clawing at my insides. My cock ached, my balls tight. My hole felt empty, always empty, even though there had never been anything there other than my fingers. I could have used a dildo, but I didn’t want that. I wanted the real thing, and that was always my problem because to have the very air that filled my lungs, to have these things I yearned for, I needed to trust. I couldn’t give myself to anyone without trust. It was how I was built, another part of my genetic makeup I had no control over.
But I didn’t trust. Not anyone. Not anyone who could give me that, at least. There was Ian, but even though he never gave a shit about these things I wanted, he didn’t get it. He wasn’t the same as me.
My eyes were riveted on the screen as they finished eating together, as the man pushed his plate away, then beckoned the boy over, who I so wished were me.
He removed his apron and went to his knees. He sucked his Master off as I worked a finger inside myself and jerked my cock with the other.
I cried out and came all over my hand when he was fed a load, my mouth watering for the same sustenance. I watched longingly as he stayed there afterward, nursing his Master’s soft cock, his head on his thigh and the Master’s hand gently rubbing his head. I rested my head similarly on the pillow, my cheek against the soft fabric I wished were warm skin.
And then…then I cried.
A couple of hours later, Ian came home from his job at the grocery store. I was sitting on my futon, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “I’m doing it,” I told him. “People do this shit all the time without really knowing someone.”
He sighed because we’d been through this before, but this time I was different. God, I ached with need, felt detached from the world and my life. Like I wasn’t solid. Like I wasn’t real without it.
“Fin…” he said softly.
“I’m seriously gonna do it this time. I found a guy online.” He wasn’t the first guy I’d found, but he would be the first one I really went through with. How could I not? How could I keep running away from something I longed for so much?
“Where are you meeting him? The last guy wanted you to go to a club, but you’re not old enough.”
Being nineteen sucked. Lots of places were twenty-one and over. “His house.”
Another sigh from Ian, then a sad, pitying smile. “Let me get changed, and I’ll go with you. Same plan as always. I wait outside. You tell him you have to text me every few minutes to make sure you’re okay. If you don’t, I knock. If you don’t answer, I call the police.”
“What if he doesn’t let me text?” We’d made this plan a thousand times, but I never asked that question because I thought a part of me knew I would never go through with it. This time, I was.