Barely Covered

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Damien didn’t move, didn’t respond. His head was bowed. His shaggy chestnut hair hung in his eyes and his breathing came in short, tight rasps.

Kaz moved in closer. What would the textbook say to do in this instance? His mind fogged. Damned if he could remember, his mind felt so confused by the strange melt his feelings were going through tonight.

Damn the textbook.

Kaz lifted a hand and placed it flat on Damien’s back. The lean muscles were hard against his hand through Damien’s t-shirt. “It’s all right, Damien,” he said softly. He dared to rub Damien’s back in a circular motion. “You’re safe now.”

Damien didn’t look up. He seemed lost in whatever was happening to him, but with each caress on his back, the tension in his body drained a bit. Finally he turned his head. His eyes were misted and churned with that mix of emotions Kaz had seen in them earlier. In the background, the kettle began to whistle.

Kaz reached over and turned the stove off then removed the kettle to a different burner, his other hand still on Damien’s back.

Finally Damien turned his head, gaze canted upward. “I guess you were right,” he said in a shaky voice. “I’m trying not to need help, but it’s not working.”

Kaz pulled Damien into an embrace and held him close. The hand that had been stroking Damien’s back now passed over his hair. Damien stiffened at first then relented, sinking against him. Kaz’s insides went mushy as he cradled the back of Damien’s head, his cheek resting against the man’s silky hair. Damien smelled lightly of sweat and his body trembled, as if he were cold again.

Kaz also smelled Damien’s fear.

It was a strange sensation to smell fear in another human being, but he’d picked up on it before in his work and it alerted Kaz to the churning within Damien, the roil of emotions, conflicts and basic human existential horror that violence elicited. Kaz had always been highly sensitized to these things since he was a kid and had often figured that this bizarre awareness had spurred him on to becoming a cop, putting him in a position where his life’s work was to make the world safer so people like Damien wouldn’t have to go through what he was right now.

Damien’s hands fisted Kaz’s t-shirt in the back, as if he were hanging on for his life. Don’t let go of me, please, the clutch seemed to say.

No problem. He’d hold on to Damien as long as Damien wanted him to. s**t, in this moment, if Damien had wanted him to leave the force and become his full-time bodyguard, Kaz would have seriously considered it.

Not that Damien would ask such a thing. He was feeling vulnerable and frightened now, but Damien was someone who worked hard to appear strong, the way he’d tried to shrug off tonight’s attack. No doubt he’d recover and continue on. He’d survived some of the worst already. He’d survive again.

A long time seemed to pass until Damien’s trembling ebbed to a mere vibration instead of a constant shivering that rocked his torso.

“How’re you doing?” Kaz asked.

Damien pulled back, somewhat reluctantly. “Better, thank you.” He blinked, his hands still resting on Kaz’s upper arms. “I thought I was stronger than this.”

Kaz held his arms loosely clasped around Damien, glad when the slimmer man didn’t pull away. “Violence is horrible. You’re right to feel this way.” He reached up and smoothed back Damien’s hair. “It has nothing to do with strength, Damien.”

Damien’s eyes closed at the contact on his head then opened again when Kaz’s hand lifted away. The sheepish yet sweet look in them sent ripples of warmth through Kaz’s chest. “I’m sorry,” Damien said. His hands faltered on Kaz’s arms and his eyes darted back and forth a couple of times. “I’m being such a pain in the ass.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Damien pulled gently out of Kaz’s embrace and took hold of the teapot. “You don’t even know me and yet here you are, babysitting me because I’m afraid to be alone right now. If this hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t even be here.”

Kaz immediately missed holding Damien. “I would have wanted to be,” he said, the words popping out the same spontaneous way he’d embraced the man.

Damien’s shocked expression made Kaz want to kick himself. But then Damien’s green eyes lit up. “Really?” His look made Kaz think for a second that the hum of energy that followed their embrace wasn’t just a product of Kaz’s lust but something mutual.

An image flashed in Kaz’s mind of Damien on the stage in those ass-hugging black pants. “Well,” he said, “let me put it this way, there were about twenty guys outside the dressing room door, waiting to meet you. And here I am. The lucky one.”

Damien’s face clouded. “Yeah, real lucky.”

Kaz frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Damien busied himself with the teapot again. Kaz watched him pour in the water and then add loose tea from a canister before covering the pot with a towel. Then he faced Kaz again. “It means that I don’t consider it lucky for you. About those guys? It’s not a big deal they were there. They’re just all worked up. I probably got you worked up too. That’s what stripping is about. c**k-teasing. It’s nothing personal.”

Kaz suppressed the face he was about to make. If Damien hadn’t sounded so serious, Kaz would have thought he was completely kidding around. “Do they crowd the door like that for everyone who dances?”

“Pretty much.” Before Kaz could answer, Damien said, “Let’s go back to the sofa.” He arranged everything on a tray and started to pick it up.

But Kaz reached for it. Damien was still a bit shaky.

A shy look slipped over Damien’s face. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Kaz followed Damien back into the living room, still unable to respond to Damien’s statements. Damien’s answer had mystified—and disturbed—him for some reason. Damien seemed to think of himself as just a body with no other qualities to attract those guys. Surely some of the others there saw what Kaz saw in Damien’s eyes. He watched Damien strain the tea into a cup before a response formed.

“Damien, don’t you think that maybe some of those guys see…something else in you? Beyond what you look like?”

Damien stared at him as if he’d just told a stupid joke. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

Damien looked away and busied himself with putting the cups and teapot onto the table. “No offense, but it sounds like you live in some kind of dream world.” He paused and heaved a deep sigh. He looked up again, his eyes pained. “Maybe once I’m teaching college I’ll meet people who won’t just want to screw me because of what I look like. But as long as I’m shaking my ass on a stage, more than half naked, I’ll never know.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Damien’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Everything you just said is bullshit. I’ll prove it to you.”

Damien chuckled, a sound full of disbelief. “Sure.”

“Just listen. I wanted to join that crowd and try my luck with you too, Damien. I’ll be honest. But I didn’t feel that way about any of the other dancers before you. If I hadn’t gone looking for that suspicious guy, I would have just gone home, only because I didn’t want to be some drooling jerk after your body and there was no way you would ever have believed me.” His stomach suddenly tightened. These were probably the furthest things from what he should be saying. “And now that I’ve been completely inappropriate with you, I’ll shut up. Before you decide to throw me out of here and rightly so.”

To his surprise, Damien smiled and held out a mug of tea for him. He had an incredible smile, sweet and bright, less flashy than the one he’d worn on the stage but just as enchanting. “I don’t know if you like milk and sugar.”

Kaz took it from him, staring. “This is fine, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And you haven’t been inappropriate.” He picked up his own cup and leaned back, tilting his gaze to Kaz. “Had anyone else said those things, I’d never believe him, but I believe you.” The firelight glowed off his perfect skin and silky hair, making him look as if he were in a magazine photo. “Since we’re being honest, I’d like to be honest with you.”

Kaz’s stomach tightened again. Damien had been nothing but honest, it seemed, since they’d met. His glance fell on the steam curling from Damien’s cup and then onto the beautifully shaped fingers looped through the handle. “Okay. Sure.”

“I’d really like it if you weren’t so concerned with being professional with me,” Damien said. “I’ve been getting professional counseling since I was sixteen. There’s a counseling center for men in Newton and I go there for help. I don’t need you to be a cop helping a victim. I’m not a victim. The way I see it, you’re this brave, gallant guy who saw another guy in trouble and helped him. And now we’re sitting here together, having tea and talking. Am I making sense?”

Kaz stared at him. He certainly hadn’t expected that. “I never thought of myself as gallant, Damien. I’m just a cop. I can’t separate what I do from who I am.”

Damien’s brow furrowed. “Well, maybe you can try. Why can’t it be that you’re a man who works as a cop? There was a time you weren’t a cop. What were you then? If I didn’t separate what I do from who I am, I’d be doomed. I just refuse to think that I am a stripper. When the time comes, I get my Master’s and teach English literature as a professor, then am I a professor? What of the stripper who used to shake his G-stringed ass in front of a crowd of drooling guys throwing dollar bills at him? Who am I really then if all that can change?” Damien had him pinned with an intense look. The steam from his tea curled up in front of his face, ignored.

“Whoa, slow down.” Kaz held out his hand. What Damien was saying was strange, but made a kind of sense. Most importantly, though, was that for Damien, it seemed crucial that they drop the roles. “Give me minute.”

Damien’s smile returned. “Sorry. I know I can be intense. And outspoken. I’m an Aries. Fire sign. We’re like that. Honest to a fault.” He finally lifted his tea and took a sip.

Kaz watched Damien’s lips as they touched the edge of the porcelain then stole a look at the man’s throat, the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. Watching Damien was like standing in a museum, appreciating a work of art. Unlike a painting, however, Damien was warm flesh and blood with an incredible smile, amazing eyes and an intelligent, quick mind.

Kaz’s heartbeat sped up. His blood pumped a bit harder through his body, sending heated warmth everywhere, down his limbs to the tips of his fingers, toes and of course into his groin. A light throbbing sprang through the length of his c**k, making the damn thing tighten against his briefs.

Damien’s question made sense now. What was he in this moment? A man wildly attracted to Damien? Or a cop simply protecting him? There was no clear delineation. However, his body was agreeing with Damien—it too preferred to think of himself and Damien as men, available to each other in a way that “victim” and “cop” prevented. “Victim” made Damien unreachable, someone to treat a certain way, to think of almost clinically, his humanity a kind of abstract thing that shouldn’t concern Kaz as much as making sure Damien’s attacker was taken off the streets.

In other words, Damien seemed to be offering him something else, the very thing Kaz had wanted when he’d watched Damien on the stage, dancing. Not just to screw the guy and get his rocks off. Something else, something that sure as hell didn’t exclude s*x but included what he’d felt when he’d looked into Damien’s eyes.

“You’re awfully quiet, Detective,” Damien said. “I didn’t mean to silence you.”

“You didn’t. I was just about to say I agree with you. I’ll do my best not to be a cop.”

Damien’s face softened. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A companionable quiet settled over them and Kaz sat back, half turned toward Damien and sipped his tea. The firelight was pleasant and gave off gentle warmth. Minutes passed without either of them talking. That cozy feeling came over Kaz again even though he still found himself observing Damien, just to make sure he was all right. No matter what Damien said and no matter how much Kaz liked the possibility Damien seemed to want to be with him, Damien had still been the object of violence.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Damien’s voice broke the silence.

Again that telltale squeeze in Kaz’s gut. Damien was turning out to be as unpredictable as he was hot and intelligent. “Sure. Ask anything you’d like.”

Damien turned and set his mug down onto the glass-top table in front of them. “I know it’s none of my business, but I’m just so curious. Who…stood you up?”

Kaz cleared his throat. Was Damien fishing? “A guy I’d been seeing,” he said. “He asked me to meet him there. I called him when he didn’t show, just to make sure he was all right. He broke up with me.”

Damien’s brow furrowed. “Oh sorry.” He fell silent and faced forward, taking a thoughtful sip of tea. At first he appeared quiet but then his green eyes flashed. “What a jerk to handle it that way! Couldn’t he just come out with it?”

Kaz stared at him again. So far in their few hours of knowing each other, Damien hadn’t said one thing Kaz would have expected him to say. Then again, Damien didn’t seem to be the average man. His surprise faded and he shrugged. “It’s not completely his fault. He wanted to be more serious. I like him but my work’s been more important. He deserves better than that.”

Damien made that strange laugh of his. “That’s one way to look at it. But if you ask me, he’s not only a passive-aggressive jerk to have broken up with you that way, he’s a complete moron not to see what he had. Pretty damn stupid to get rid of a man like you.”

Kaz’s cheeks burned. Damn if he wasn’t blushing. And damn if his palms didn’t suddenly break out into a sweat. “That’s…um…kind of you, Damien, but really, you’ve had a different first impression. Steve and I met at a party.” Under normal circumstances.

Damien tilted his head. “So what? Are you telling me you’re some completely different guy with Steve than with me just because of this circumstance?”

“Well,” Kaz started slowly. Then stopped, struck. Damien’s question dug unexpectedly deep and he didn’t want to give the man some kind of thoughtless answer. Was it true?

He thought about it, moved by Damien’s need. He almost said “I don’t know” just when understanding flooded in. This kind of thing happened at various times in his life, a split second when he’d understand something about who he was, like a curtain opening to shed light on a previously dark corner of his mind. Like the time when he was seven and realized he preferred vanilla ice cream to chocolate. Another when he just knew he wanted to be a cop.

The most profound one was when he’d first seen his parents as human beings. Sitting at the kitchen table, watching his mother chop vegetables for a soup while his father talked to her about his day in the window factory where he worked as a foreman. Kaz had suddenly really understood their lives and struggles in his heart and he shed his adolescent tendency to criticize them or feel smothered by them. His mother, born to a Jewish family in Poland had been given to a Catholic family for adoption. Her birth parents had perished in Hitler’s camps. Kaz’s father, her childhood friend, had fallen in love with her when they both grew into adulthood. They’d clung to each other and their little family had been their whole world. It had often made Kaz feel suffocated growing up but when he’d understood his parents, the terror of war they’d grown up with, and his mother’s subconscious anxiety over having been given up by her real parents who’d then been murdered, he could no longer feel suffocated.

Strange that in this moment, facing Damien on the sofa, his core of beliefs and image of himself challenged by a man who, less than two hours ago had been nearly r***d, had now become one in which he learned another of his heart’s secrets. Faced with this understanding, he could no longer deny that though he’d liked Steve, he hadn’t loved him nor been in love with him. There’d been seconds here and there when a tendril of sweetness would rise up in him when he looked at Steve, but for some unknown reason would fade away. Steve must have sensed it and had been right to leave him.

Damien’s gaze hadn’t left his in the silence that followed his question, as if he understood somehow this process was going on inside Kaz and was respectfully waiting for it to reach its conclusion.

Only then, when Kaz had acknowledged his most recent inner truth, did he realize his body had tilted closer in to Damien’s. “Yes,” he said finally. “I do treat you differently.”

Damien’s face fell. “That’s what I thought.” He looked so crushed. “Well, so be it. It’s what I get for trying to force you to be someone you’re not. If you’re a cop, then I have no right to—”

“Damien, stop.” Kaz put a hand on Damien’s arm. He cleared his throat. This night had gone so vastly differently than he’d imagined when he’d gotten out of the cab at Moritz on his way to meet Steve. Nothing could have prepared him for this, for the newness of it, for the squeeze in his heart at Damien’s fallen expression, or for the sudden and bizarre combination of protector and love slave to this beautiful man he was finding inside his heart. Had he felt that way about Steve, he’d have been there with him right now, naked bodies entwined in bed. But he didn’t.

A few hours ago, had someone told him that this night he’d look into a stripper’s eyes and…find Damien, he’d have told that person to go s**t in his hat. And yet that someone would have been one hundred percent right.

Damien was silent. His green eyes were wide. The look in them reflected confusion, upset—the very things Kaz wanted Damien not to feel. All he could do was tell Damien the truth. Damien was too smart for anything else and would see right through him. “You don’t understand,” he said finally. The words came with difficulty because he’d never said them before to anyone and hadn’t yet formulated because he was feeling them for the first time in his life.

“Understand what?”

Kaz glanced down to where his hand rested on Damien’s arm. Mutual awareness of the contact seemed to sizzle between them. He cleared his throat. s**t, he needed so badly to say this right. “I didn’t mean what you think I mean. I-I’m not treating you differently because of how we met. It’s…well…because you’re you.”

Damien’s expression remained clouded. “I don’t understand.”

Kaz exhaled. “I mean that I like you more in the few hours I’ve known you than I ever liked him in six months.” He took a deep breath. “You make me want…to…give you diamonds and roses and all those kinds of things. That’s what I felt even when I saw you dancing. Well, not only what I felt, but also what I felt.” He’d also gotten a major hard-on, watching Damien’s incredible body writhe and glisten under the lights.

Silence followed with Damien staring at him, eyes still wide. The spectrum of feelings that moved through them so often was there, processing…understanding. One of Damien’s hands closed over his, lacing their fingers together. “‘How many loved your moments of glad grace,’” he said, “‘And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.’” He smiled, looking suddenly shy. “William Butler Yeats. He’s one of my favorite poets in the whole world. I’ve always wanted what he expressed in those lines, you know, someone who would see beyond the outside. I’ve never felt that from anyone else before.”

Kaz’s insides rioted. Another momentary flash lit his mind with understanding. He kind of liked this romantic thing. The firelight, the quoting of poetry, of knowing he’d made Damien feel appreciated in a way the man had obviously craved for so long.

It made him want more.

Damien’s hand felt so warm. The simple touch sent tingling heat through his whole body, a sensual caress that had him getting hard again. His gaze dropped to Damien’s sultry lips. He had to taste them so badly. Before, even a kiss would have seemed forbidden territory. Now…

Damien’s thumb brushed over the flesh of Kaz’s palm. The tiny movement nearly sent Kaz spinning into some kind of ecstatic state. “Kaz?”

“Yeah?” Kaz’s sight was blurred. His mind spun and his body pumped blood through every inch of him.

“When are you going to kiss me?”