Barely Covered

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Lance…stepped closer. His huge body nearly blocked out the entire alleyway. “I figured you’d try to sneak out this way. Where’re you going?”

Damien’s heart lurched. He gripped the strap of his backpack and stepped back. “I’m going home. I’m tired.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Damien.” Blond Monster…Lance…moved in, bringing with him the stench of stale beer and testosterone. “We have unfinished business.”

Shit! Why did the door behind him have to be locked? Damien’s mind raced over the self-defense moves he knew, yet somehow in the face of this giant, he sensed that anything he tried wouldn’t work. He’d be overpowered. “No, we don’t.”

Large hands shot out and gripped his shoulders. Even under the influence Lance was strong. Before Damien knew what was happening, his back was pressed hard up against the brick wall and Lance’s huge brawn crushed him from the front.

“Let me go!” Damien brought his knee up, intending to attack the man’s groin, but a thick leg trapped his defense.

“Ooh, you little bitch.” Lance yanked Damien’s arms and hauled him around. He shoved Damien into the brick wall.

Pain shot through Damien’s left cheekbone as it scraped the bricks. The other man’s knees pinned his legs to the wall and one arm twisted behind him kept him prisoner. He was f****d. Literally.

The attacker’s weight kept him pinned while one huge arm wrapped around his front, yanking open the button and zipper of his jeans. Damien screwed his eyes shut while his pants were dragged down. A familiar horror flooded in on him, one he hadn’t felt in years, but was as fresh as when it had happened.

“You didn’t come through last night, Damien,” Lance breathed menacingly into his ear. “But you will now.”

Damien’s heart pounded. His throat was deadly dry, so dry he couldn’t even muster a hoarse yell for help. He couldn’t do anything but wait until it was over.

Suddenly Lance’s weight fell away from him. Damien heard a grunt followed by what sounded like someone getting punched. He dared to peek over his shoulder. And let out a gasp.

A guy nearly as big as Lance had his attacker on the ground. Lance tried to get up, but the other guy kicked him down and pounced, jamming his knee into Lance’s gut.

“Let me up, motherfucker,” Lance growled. He flailed and tried to get up then froze when something clicked near his head.

A gun.

The man with the gun reached into his pocket. In the dim light, Damien saw a wallet, which the man flipped open and shoved into his attacker’s face. “Detective Frank Kazaminsky, Boston Police Department.” He stuffed the wallet back into his pocket.

Lance groaned. “Oh fuck.”

“You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything—”

“I didn’t do anything,” Lance said, remaining still while the gun was pointed at him. “This is police brutality.”

Damien turned and stared, his heart still pounding, as much with relief now as with fear. Quickly he noticed his pants still hanging around his thighs and pulled them up, buttoning and zipping them with trembling hands as the scene unfolded before him.

“Let’s see here,” the cop said, “I found you in the process of assaulting this man with the intent to r**e him. We won’t even go into the possibility of possession and use of narcotics. I’m going to call in a car to bring you in where he can press charges.”

Damien’s blood froze. Press charges. That’s all he needed. Lance would come back to get him in revenge. “No. I-I can’t do that.”

The cop looked up at him. In the light of the dim alleyway bulbs, Damien could make out a rugged face. Dark hair cropped really short, like a typical cop, and dark, piercing eyes. The light also cast shadows on a broad chest straining against his shirt, jacket thrown open just enough for Damien to see the holster strapped underneath. “You mean you want to let this bastard go free?”

“I don’t want any more trouble. I just want to go home. If you try to drag him in anyway, I’ll still refuse.”

The cop sighed. “s**t. All right.” He looked down and pressed his knee hard into Lance’s stomach, making the guy grunt. “If you come within five hundred feet of this man again, I’ll haul your ass in so fast you won’t know what hit you. Got that?” He kept the gun close to Lance’s head for emphasis.

“I got it.”

“Good. Now I’m going to let you up, slowly, and you’re going to get the hell out of here or else find yourself cuffed and in the back of a cruiser, heading to your lodgings for the night.” With that, he holstered his gun and slowly released the man.

The cop circled around and came to stand in front of Damien like a shield as Lance limped out of the alleyway and disappeared around the corner.

In the next second, Kazaminsky turned to him. Up close, his face was a study in rugged masculinity right down to the nose, obviously broken and healed a couple of times, to the shadow of beard over the strong jaw. Those dark eyes searched Damien’s face from under their thick, heavy lashes. “I just want to check you,” he said, his voice gentler now. One large hand came up, fingertip landing under his chin, bidding his face to the side. “He hit you?”

Kazaminsky’s touch sent tingles through Damien’s chin. No one had ever defended him that way. And there’d been another time he’d needed it so badly. “No,” he murmured. “He shoved me against the wall.” The air suddenly felt really cold and he started to shiver. s**t, he’d left his sweat jacket inside. No way in hell he wanted to go back in there to get it. But then Kazaminsky slipped his own jacket off and draped it over Damien’s shoulders. A beefy arm came out and pressed lightly across his upper back. “Can you walk?”

Damien nodded. It was really difficult to think right now. All he wanted was to immerse himself in hot, hot water and forget this night had ever happened. Even though the protective arm around him now felt very comforting. “I want to go home,” he muttered. Then he remembered his backpack and picked it up. “I’m not hurt. Really. Just shaken. Please just put me in a cab.” Vaguely he was aware of how the cop shouldered much of his weight as they moved, step-by-step, out of the alleyway, onto the sidewalk.

“I can get a cruiser to take you.”

“No.” Damien didn’t know why he was being so stubborn, just that he had to do this his way, not anyone else’s. “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. No problem.” Kazaminsky spoke to him in a surprisingly soothing tone, a tenor his rugged exterior belied. “With your permission, though, I’ll see you home. You shouldn’t be alone right now. All right?”

Damien sighed. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or embarrassed. “Okay.” At least if he wasn’t going to be alone as he wished, it was better to be with the man who’d rescued him from getting r***d.

Raped. Damien felt the strength drain from his limbs.

Kazaminsky’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “I’ve got you, Damien,” he said softly. He reached over and retrieved the backpack from Damien’s hand, carrying it for him.

Damien looked at him. “You know my name.”

“Yeah. I was there when you danced. I heard the announcer say it.” Kazaminsky sounded almost embarrassed. Well, he couldn’t be as mortified in that moment as Damien felt. Just then a cab turned the corner and the cop flagged it down. He opened the back door and stood aside.

Damien slid in ahead of him and sagged back against the seat. It felt damn good to have the cop’s help. He’d never felt so drained in his twenty-three years.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked.

“602 Chestnut Street, Cambridge,” Damien said. “Off Inman Square.”

Wordlessly, the driver pulled away and started driving. Just then, Damien became aware of the large man beside him. “Detective Kazaminsky,” he said, though it felt strange to call the other man “detective”. He couldn’t be much older than Damien, if not the same age.

Kazaminsky looked at him. “Just Kaz.”

“Kaz,” Damien repeated. His own voice sounded slightly drunk and he felt strange, lightheaded, as if he had downed a few shots of something strong. “You were working undercover in there?” It would make sense. Some very illegal s**t went down in the Moritz, the one place where gangsterish gay men carried on with their activities. He caught glimpses of it all the time.

Kaz looked down. “No. Not undercover. Off-duty.”

Damien felt his ears prick up. An openly gay cop. He supposed it happened, in spite of the brotherhood he heard the Boston Police Department was. “Oh,” was all he said.

“I was actually meeting someone,” Kaz went on. He seemed compelled to explain. “He stood me up. I was ready to leave when you came onstage.”

Damien released a strange huff. That figured. Maybe Kaz had been looking to get laid too. His valiant rescue dimmed in light of this. “So then you were following me when I left the stage?”

“No,” Kaz said, his tone matter-of-fact. “I was following him. I was suspicious the second I saw him. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you while you danced.”

Damien huffed again. “A lot of people look at me that way when I dance.”

“That may be, but then I observed the interaction between you when he went up to the stage. I saw the look on your face and the way you avoided getting near him. I realized then there was a problem brewing. He disappeared after you went offstage so I went looking for him.” He paused. “I’m glad I found him.”

Damien looked at him. His cheeks flushed hot and he felt ashamed…among all the other things he was feeling. “Me too. Thank you. I…didn’t mean to be ungrateful.”

Kaz smiled at him. The expression softened the ruggedness of his face a bit. “You’re welcome. And you weren’t being ungrateful at all.”

Damien glanced out the window and sighed. There were moments his way to earn money struck him as particularly horrible. This was one of them. “He was there last night too. I’d never seen him before. He wanted a…lap dance. I didn’t have a good feeling about him then, but I ignored it.” He raked a shaky hand through his hair. Why he suddenly felt compelled to tell Kaz the details, he wasn’t sure. Only that it somehow felt…right. “I should have obeyed my instincts. He threatened to force me down on him when I’d finished the dance and started to leave.” His cheeks burned with shame. “But inside the club there are bouncers all around. I was able to get away from him.” He sagged back against the seat. “No bouncers in the back alley, obviously. If you hadn’t been there…” Unable to finish the sentence, he fell silent.

Kaz’s hand covered his. The gentle touch reassured Damien and unsettled him a bit at the same time. He looked up.

Kaz’s face was in shadows, but each street lamp they passed under gave Damien a glimpse of the cop’s sympathetic expression. A kind of compassionate-looking Marlboro Man. “Don’t start with ‘ifs’, Damien,” he said softly. “I was there and that’s that.” He lifted his hand away yet remained sitting with his body turned in Damien’s direction, one arm across the back of the seat, as if to put it across his shoulders should Damien need him to.

Damien pulled in a shivery breath. His cheek still stung from the scrape of the bricks, a stark reminder of that helpless feeling he’d gotten, the violence of having been pinned to the wall, forced to accept whatever happened to him.

The images flashed through his mind, a relentless litany of past abuse and present, menacing and unsettling, like the flickering lights that waved over the stage when he danced, blinding him in spots and illuminating the drooling crowds before him in others.

Before Damien realized what he was doing, he’d leaned into the warmth of Kaz’s broad body next to him. His right cheek, the one that hadn’t been bruised, rested against the larger man’s chest. He could hear Kaz’s heartbeat.

A beefy arm closed around him. “It’ll be all right, Damien,” Kaz said softly. “No one will hurt you now.”

* * * * *

Kaz released Damien when the cab pulled up in front of Damien’s address. Over Damien’s protests, Kaz paid the driver and picked up Damien’s backpack, ushering him out onto the sidewalk. The night was cool with a balmy spring scent and the elm- and maple-lined street of neatly tended homes belied the scene of violence he and Damien had both just experienced.

Disturbed by the feeling of absence he’d gotten just after letting go of him, Kaz glanced at Damien’s house, a craftsman’s cottage with a porch of potted ferns and a hanging swing, the kind two people could sit in comfortably, side by side. A fern-lined brick walk led up to the place. One light burned behind the shutters, giving the appearance that someone was home. He turned to Damien. “Is there someone at home who can look after you?” It was crucial Damien had company for the first twenty-four hours. Kaz had learned all about victims of s****l assault and the procedure for aiding them in his coursework at the academy. Truthfully, Kaz wanted to be the one to keep the man company, but really, there was no way to maneuver that without coming off as weird.

Damien shook his head and pulled Kaz’s jacket tighter around him. “No. This was my parents’ house but they live in Florida now and my sister Carrie was living here but she spends most nights over at her fiancé’s in Chelsea.”

Kaz touched Damien’s elbow. “Let’s get you inside,” he said. “I want to examine your cheek and then we can call someone.”

But Damien stood firm. A strange look passed through his eyes, illuminated by the streetlight nearby. “Really, I’m fine, Detective. I’m stronger than I look. I’ve been through worse, believe me.” He sounded almost guilty, as if he wanted company but didn’t feel he could ask.

“I’m not leaving you alone, Damien. If you don’t want me in your house, that’s one thing. I would never force my way in, but I can’t, in good conscience, leave you by yourself.”

Damien sighed. “I’m not against your being in my house. You saved my life, really.”

The admission made Kaz feel warmth, the way he had when he’d comforted Damien in the cab. The initial impression he’d had of Damien resurged. The man standing before him just seemed more like…the marrying kind than a stripper, whatever that all meant. He smiled, wanting only to put Damien at ease. “Well, come on then.” With his hand on Damien’s elbow, he led him up the walk.

The inside of Damien’s house was as neat and cozy-looking as the outside. All hardwood floors and moldings, bookshelves and more potted plants. In the main living area, a large fireplace took up most of one wall. The sofa, a large brown pit group sofa of velvety material faced the fireplace. A furry kind of rug and a glass coffee table completed the utter coziness of the room and made Kaz want to curl up in front of the fire, just holding Damien until Damien wasn’t upset anymore.

That last thought was unsettling. Kaz put down Damien’s backpack. “We need to make it a bit warmer in here,” he said, noticing that Damien hadn’t taken off Kaz’s jacket even though they were inside. Trauma could often lower a person’s body temperature and make it difficult for them to get warm. Damien nodded absently and slipped his shoes off. Kaz did the same to be polite.

Damien nodded. “I’ll get the fireplace going.” He went to the wall and turned a knob. In seconds the fireplace had flames licking upward, dancing with a gentle glow. One of those propane jobs that made a nice fire without the safety hazards. “Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked. “Coffee or tea?” Though the space was comfortable now from the fire, he still wore Kaz’s jacket, as if wearing it not only kept him warm but made him feel safer.

“No, thanks. I’m good. Just sit down and relax.” Now was not the time to have Damien playing host. “Really, we should be calling someone for you, a friend or family member.”

Damien tensed as he sat down on a section of the brown sofa. “I’m not close with my family,” he said, his voiced tinged with that sound people got when they were resentful of family members. “Carrie’s all right, but she needs to get on with her life. I won’t bother her about this.”

Kaz suppressed a frown. As a detective, he’d learned how to put small clues together into a larger picture. Something was telling him that Damien wasn’t a stranger to s****l assault. “What about friends?” A boyfriend, perhaps?

Damien shrugged, his gaze steady on the gentle dance of flames in the hearth. “No time. I’m either in class, teaching, studying or…working.” He glanced at Kaz now. “I dance to pay my tuition, in case you were wondering.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Kaz answered truthfully. As a cop, he’d learned long ago not to make assumptions about anyone, no matter the appearances. It was the cops who made all kinds of judgments and assumptions who made all the mistakes.

Damien tilted his head, his expression somewhere between disbelief and surprise. “Really? You mean, you don’t just think I’m a skanky w***e?” The way he asked the question showed he believed that about himself. Kaz could hear it in the tone.

“Of course not.” Kaz got a sudden, strange, melting sensation right in the center of his chest. A sensation better off left ignored. He put his attention onto Damien’s cheek. “Now let me look at your injury.” With careful fingertips on Damien’s jaw, he bid the other man to tilt his head so he could look. In the better light, he could see the skin had some small scrapes and was beginning to swell a bit. Damien would have quite a bruise for a few days, but thankfully nothing worse than that. “Does it hurt?”

“Only a little.”

Kaz examined the spot a bit longer. He resisted the urge to slide his fingertip along Damien’s jaw and over his soft bottom lip. Dammit! What kind of creep was he, wanting to feel Damien up? He lifted his hand away. “I’d like to put some ice on it to keep down the swelling.”

Damien started to get up but Kaz stayed him with a hand on Damien’s arm. “Sit. I’ll get it. Where’s your kitchen?”

The other man pointed, a bewildered look on his face, as if Kaz’s attentiveness were confusing him somehow. “Ice in the freezer, of course. And there are plastic bags in a drawer by the sink.”

“Got it.” Kaz got up, glad for the bit of space. His response to Damien wasn’t professional. Not at all. Nor was pulling the gun on Damien’s attacker earlier. No doubt if this incident came to light, he’d be in trouble for excessive force by an off-duty police officer. Chances were, though, no one would ever know what had happened.

Damien’s neat kitchen was another cozy room, walls painted light yellow, white curtains on the window and a heavy, antique pine table with country chairs. Kaz quickly put together a compress and returned to the sofa. Gently, he urged Damien to sit back, holding the compress to his cheek.

“You really don’t have to do all this…Kaz,” Damien said. “I really can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but just stay quiet and relax.” If Damien lived here alone and kept the place this clean while he studied and put himself through school, he obviously had it together. However, everyone needed someone at times. Damien came off as someone trying not to need anyone, ever. The way Damien had cuddled up against him in the cab, like a frightened kid, had told Kaz otherwise.

A quiet moment passed with just the glow of the flames in the fireplace.

“How bad is it?” Damien’s question made Kaz turn. “I mean, my cheek? I haven’t dared to look yet.”

“Not bad at all,” Kaz assured him. “It’s swelling a bit and there are scrapes. You’ll have a bruise too for a bit.”

Damien made a small sound, a kind of snorting laugh, somehow incongruous with his sleek yet innocent looks. “Guess I won’t be working for a while, at least until some makeup can cover it.”

“You shouldn’t go back to work so soon anyway.”

Now Damien sat up and turned fully to him. He put down the compress. “Look, Officer…Kaz, I really appreciate how concerned you are, but this is not a big deal. Really. Okay, it was frightening and all and I’m grateful as hell you were there to stop him. But this was just some toked-up stranger, a nobody with too much testosterone and no brains. That’s nothing. Not when you’ve had the same kind of thing happen to you with someone you trusted. Someone who’s supposed to care about you. That is the worst imaginable. It makes this incident seem like a walk in the park.” Damien fell silent and turned toward the fire, staring into it again. He released a deep sigh.

Kaz stared at Damien. Damien’s admission made all kinds of horrible images assault his mind, things he hadn’t been there for but couldn’t help seeing because something about Damien was so clear to him, clearer than usual, in a weird, disturbing, yet somehow…magical kind of way. And the thing that was clearest? Simple. If whoever had hurt Damien, the nameless, faceless person he was referring to, were in this room right now, he’d get beaten to a bloody pulp. “s**t, I’m sorry, Damien,” he said finally when words would come. Not a textbook answer, the kind he’d been trained to give in such a situation. But life was so not a textbook and how could Damien know that Kaz felt compassion if he gave a trained answer?

Now Damien met his gaze. Many feelings seemed to churn in those incredible green eyes. He raked a hand through his thick hair. Kaz watched the shaggy locks sift back into place. “Damn, I shouldn’t have blurted all that out, should I? It just kind of…burst out. I guess I wasn’t thinking. Just reacting. I mean, you’re supposed to be able to tell a police officer that kind of stuff, right?”

“I—”

“No, that’s not completely fair…to you, I mean,” Damien went on. “There are cops all over the place who are trained to deal with…victims…but I don’t go around talking to them about my…about what happened…just because you’re supposed to be able to.”

Kaz watched him. Damien seemed to be babbling now, perhaps from shock or maybe from something else, but it didn’t matter. Talking was healthier for him than sitting there quietly, believing he shouldn’t be bothering anyone. For lack of something to say, Kaz reached out and urged Damien to return the ice pack to his cheek.

Obediently Damien held the compress to his injury. The expression he turned up at Kaz showed an odd amazement mixed with gratitude. “Thank you,” he added softly. Damien remained quiet a few moments before speaking. “I guess that’s why it all tumbled out,” he said, his tone hushed now, as if he were embarrassed but still very much needed to express himself. “Not because you’re a cop. Although that helps, I guess, because you want to protect people.”

“That’s true,” Kaz agreed, though tonight the word “protect” was taking on dimensions he hadn’t ever thought of or felt before in his twenty-five years. The willingness he’d had to actually squeeze the trigger on that blond ’roid monster left a disturbing residue inside him. Not to mention his overwhelming desire to smash up Damien’s other r****t with his bare hands. Those were not the impulses that made one a cop. Those were instincts that made someone a wild beast, protecting its young at any price.

“It just that you’re the first person who’s ever defended me. In my whole life.” Damien’s eyes were wide, honest. And his words were sweet and…horrifying at the same time. They confirmed Kaz’s observations.

Kaz cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about that.”

“What, sorry you defended me?”

“No, of course not. Sorry no one defended you before.”

“Oh. Right.” He shrugged and a sad look flooded his eyes. Slowly he leaned back against the cushions again, still holding the compress to his cheek. “There I go again. I guess I’m just a bit…I don’t know.” He sighed, seeming to avoid eye contact. “Thanks,” he said softly after another moment. “But I guess it was for the best. I’ve learned to rely on myself.”

Kaz watched him a moment and decided it was safer not to pick up that thread of conversation. The things he wanted to say to Damien about protecting him would just be so inappropriate. “What are you studying, by the way? You mentioned school.”

“English literature. I’m nearly halfway through a Master’s. Or rather, I will be after exams.”

Kaz peered a bit more closely at him. “How old are you?”

Damien chuckled and set the ice pack down again. It was probably getting too cold for his skin. “Twenty-three. Same as you. I’m pretty good at guessing age.”

Kaz grinned. “I’m twenty-five.”

Damien glanced at him sideways. “Okay, not bad. Off by a couple of years. Isn’t that kind of young to be a detective?”

He laughed. Damien had obviously been kidding. “Yeah, actually. I get flak for it at times.”

Damien’s eyebrows rose. “You must be really good”

Now Kaz felt his cheeks burn. Damn, Damien was making him blush. “I guess. I never thought about it.”

“What do you do? I mean, what department?”

“Homicide Unit, actually. I hope one day to work in Drug Control but homicide needs my skill and expertise.” He said this last part facetiously, but Damien’s eyes widened.

“I’m impressed!”

“Don’t be. I just work too hard.” Though he wanted to impress Damien, he’d come off as bragging if he touted all his commendations for service as a patrol officer, not to mention the excessive extra hours he put in without pay simply out of his personal quest for justice. He was on record as the youngest to reach detective and was the object of resentment with some, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

“Yeah, but how many people accomplish that at your age? You must be like…a prodigy.”

Admiration was clear in Damien’s tone and it struck Kaz like a whack to the head. He cleared his throat again. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m just ambitious, I guess.”

“Still. It’s admirable and you catch murderers. It’s an important job. Not just anyone can do it.”

“I…um…never thought of it that way. So thanks.”

A tiny smile shadowed Damien’s lips. “No problem.” He leaned forward and shrugged out of Kaz’s jacket. “I’m warmer now. Thanks for this.” He set it aside on a nearby chair.

“Anytime.”

“I also feel ready to make something hot to drink. Now can I offer you tea?”

“Are you sure?” Damien seemed to underestimate his own shock response.

Damien waved him off. “Look, like I said, this isn’t that big a deal.”

Kaz didn’t believe him but he wasn’t about to argue with Damien either. “All right, but I’m coming with you.” He rose and came forward, showing he was going to follow Damien into the kitchen and that was that.

Damien gave him a look. “Okay.”

Back in the kitchen, Damien gestured to the table. “Have a seat if you’d like. Are you hungry?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

“I’m not hungry either.” Damien opened a cupboard and took out a teapot, which he brought over to the sink then stood, waiting for the water to get hot.

Kaz watched him. Damien’s movements were fluid, graceful, and Kaz enjoyed watching the other man’s hands as he worked, rinsing the teapot under the stream of hot water then setting it on the counter by the stove. It was…cozy…in a way, and Kaz found himself wishing he were here because the two of them were just hanging out together on a Saturday night rather than because he was watching Damien for signs of…

The water in the kettle was now hissing and bubbling, probably ready to boil in a minute or so. But Damien stood unmoving, his back to Kaz, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, knuckles white. Damien’s shoulders heaved and his posture was unnaturally rigid.

Kaz jumped up and approached him, his heartbeat speeding up. “Damien?” he said softly, just over the hiss and bubble of heating water.