Artifacts Read online

“Aldric, that last time…”

  Aldric’s imagination took over with the rest of the sentence, aided by the friction of Darrell’s taut muscles against his balls, demanding his arousal, then Darrell’s hand between their bodies, palming his cock.

  Darrell sliding down Aldric’s body to kneel in front of him helped flesh things out more. Aldric found he was leaning against the door, needing its support as Darrell unfastened his pants and tugged them and his briefs down.

  “Was then. This is this time,” Darrell said—his only warning before he stroked Aldric’s cock from root to tip then sucked the head.

  Aldric shoved his hand into his mouth to hold in his whimper. The other hand he speared through Darrell’s hair, for all that it was too short to grab. His hips bucked, pushing his dick deeper down Darrell’s throat, and Darrell wrapped a hand around the base, stopping Aldric from thrusting too hard. When Darrell cupped Aldric’s balls, Aldric had to use both hands to cover his mouth. This was intense. Darrell teasing and sucking, then suddenly taking him deep. More intense still was Darrell’s fingers tip-tapping behind Aldric’s balls to his ass, seeking, searching…

  And finding. Darrell ran a fingertip around Aldric’s tight pucker and pressed inward, just slightly. The mixture of that and how deep he took Aldric’s cock dragged Aldric’s climax from him, kicking and screaming. Well, he would have been if Darrell hadn’t been holding his thighs, and if he wasn’t biting down on the back of his own hand hard enough to leave teeth marks in his flesh. The noise he made as he shot his hot cum down Darrell’s throat sounded as loud as thunder, filling each corner of the small room.

  “S-stop,” Aldric begged when Darrell kept swallowing and didn’t let up the pressure on his hole, and it took a nudge from his trembling knee to make Darrell pull off. “Get up.”

  Again, he didn’t know what he was going to do until he did it, until his hand found Darrell’s erect dick, straining at his zipper. His fingers tangled with Darrell’s, undoing the fastener and releasing Darrell. He was huge, and Aldric raised startled eyes to Darrell’s, finding them fixed on him, which was somehow more personal than Darrell blowing him. Aldric just about managed to close his fingers around Darrel’s shaft when a noise came from just outside the door—someone calling Aldric’s name.

  “This is crazy.” Darrell half-turned and zipped himself up—carefully. “I have to go.”

  “Darrell.” Aldric’s voice stopped him. “I understand. You’re not in the right place mentally for a real relationship.” He swallowed. “Neither am I, but what I am is brave enough to try. I won’t be a dirty little secret.”

  Darrell looked down, then back up at Aldric again. “I know.”

  He slipped from the room and was gone. Aldric waited a minute then followed, seeing Darrell’s back view vanishing through the shop door.

  Aldric had meant it. He wanted Darrell, and he meant to have him. Fully.

  Chapter Nine

  Darrell stifled a curse and threw himself back in his chair when the latest image he opened didn’t match either. “How good is this damn database anyway?” he asked no one in particular.

  Only Officer Lind replied, crossing on his way to the few filing cabinets the station still had. “Can’t go wrong with paper, I always say.”

  The screech of the little-used metal cabinet drawer being forced open jangled Darrell’s nerves. He half-opened his mouth to tell the older officer he really had to get to grips with the wonderful world of IT but closed it. Lind knew that. It didn’t mean he’d do it, though, if he could put it off until retirement.

  It wasn’t Lind making him edgy, anyway. It was the fact that Darrell hadn’t been able to find any information on the graffiti tag that had been sprayed outside Intrinsic Value sometime over the course of last night, and which he’d observed this morning. He’d driven past the store just like he had yesterday, with his vague reasoning behind it being look out for Aldric. Okay, so Darrell didn’t know if that meant protect him or try to catch a glimpse of him.

  He hadn’t seen Aldric, but had noticed the new graffiti, and waited for Elliot to show up to make the report. A pentagram. Who the fuck spray-paints pentagrams? The same person who’d sprayed the security camera lens black and who’d drawn a weird-looking coffin along with the pentagram, he supposed. Not that the sergeant cared, about either a possible new tagger or problems at an antique store. The crime wasn’t deemed a serious case, not with the amount of graffiti sprayed in that area, so there was no chance of handing it off to a detective. When Darrell had asked Fuentes what he was waiting for—another attack on a staff member there, perhaps—the man had replied, “Yeah”.

  So yeah, maybe when a different employee was attacked, Fuentes would connect the dots. Darrell squinted hard at the rectangle shape. Was it a coffin? It could be a box. And if so—

  “Hey.” Sean slid behind his desk opposite Darrell, breaking into his thoughts.

  Darrell sat straighter. “Anything?” He kept his voice quiet.

  Sean shook his head. “Negative. Both those kids seem like your regular accidental Good Samaritans. I think they’re clean. No record at their school either.”

  “And it would be too much to hope for that they remembered any other pertinent information,” Darrell muttered. “I can’t match that symbol to any known gang.” One of the reason Fuentes had turned his back on it.

  “I’d normally say it’s a wanna-be. A toy.” Sean liked to be up on the latest expressions, the opposite of Lind. “But with that, you could be better off looking up local cults.”

  “Like Satanists?” Darrell was scornful but did it anyway. Well, he had the internet right there. “A pentagram’s an occult symbol used to convey a curse?” he read out, not believing.

  Sean shrugged. “Worth seeing if we can hand it over now?”

  Darrell considered the question. They didn’t have much more than they’d had—he didn’t want to get kicked back twice in one morning. But the least he could do was pass that nugget on, and not to Fuentes. He headed for the break room, but the fresh pot of coffee had drawn a few officers there, chatting as they filled their mugs, making him about-face into the kids’ interview room. It wasn’t used that much, so although it wasn’t big, it tended to be private. He sat at one of the small tables and called the store.

  “Intrinsic Value. Elliot speaking. How may I help you?” came smooth, old-fashioned tones not belonging to Aldric.

  Darrell held in a sigh. “It’s Officer Williams. No, there’s no news. I—”

  “Yes, hello, Officer,” came the pointed reproach.

  Now he did sigh, shifting on the child-sized chair. “Sorry to be abrupt. Okay, what I’m about to say’s gonna sound a little out there.” He launched into what Randa believed about her husband’s ghost haunting the place—she’d even used the word curse—and how a pentagram indicated that same thing. “I’m not saying I buy into this, of course,” he cautioned. He’d made a pile of the red plastic blocks on the table in front of him, and now started on the white ones.

  “Well, thank you, Officer,” Elliot replied at last. “Please don’t concern yourself with looking this up any further. I have my own expert here researching into this. Oh, and I received a call from a Ms. Guyler, the assistant of Randa Buckman.”

  “Wanting the items back?” Darrell stirred his finger through the plastic blocks, mixing them up again. “But you won’t.” The guy was quiet but firm and had a stubborn streak. Who did that remind Darrell of?

  “No. I’m not inclined to. Not even when the lady herself took the phone and ordered me to ‘name my price’, then sobbed hysterically when I wouldn’t.”

  Darrell guessed being haunted would do that to a widow. “That’s up to you, sir. Look, I have no idea what, if anything, is going on, but it seems someone wants those puzzle boxes,” he warned.

  “Yes and that’s the reason I’m moving all the Buckman objects to the safety deposit warehouse.”

  “Not your safe, you don’t mean?”

 
No, Elliot didn’t. His short description of the warehouse location, out past the north side of town but before the Hill Country, piqued Darrell’s interest. San Antonio had a couple of companies doing that, competing with banks to store goods such as safe deposit boxes and larger items…without all the compliance checks most banks were mandated to carry out. Interesting. Darrell made a mental note to look into Mr. Elliot Douglas.

  “Oh, one moment.” A faint, muffled exchange took place on the other end of the phone. “May I put Aldric on?”

  Before Darrell could reply, the sound of a door closing reached him through the phone line, followed by a gulped intake of breath. “Darrell?”

  Just the sound of his name in Aldric’s voice had him shifting again, and not because of the comically too-small chair this time. He’d jacked off that morning, but his dick was waking up and taking notice now. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” he interrupted Aldric, who was saying his name again, with hesitation in his tone.

  “Would you like to go out on a date?”

  He’d expected Aldric to ask some question about the graffiti, to be scared shitless about the pentagram, so Aldric’s actual question sent him reeling. Aldric’s voice was quiet, almost timid, but the determination rang through. That combination had Darrell’s balls tightening.

  “If you don’t, that’s—”

  “No! Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Oh. It seems I do. “You got anything in mind? Anywhere, I mean.” His brain worked at double speed to make up for his spacy-ness.

  “Not exactly. And I don’t have a car.”

  “I’ll plan something. And I’ll pick you up.”

  They arranged a time, and Darrell blew out a breath as he disconnected. He didn’t do dates with guys. Never had. But…he wanted to, with Aldric. He started thinking about the where and the what of it, and a smile took over his face.

  * * * *

  “I’d never been in a pickup truck until this one,” Aldric confessed, settling into the passenger seat of Darrell’s Tacoma.

  “Yeah?” Darrell jerked his chin to remind Aldric to put the seat belt on. He’d had to do that when he’d taken Aldric home from the hospital but had put that down to the accident and the meds. Now, though, he understood there was another reason Aldric wasn’t so familiar with vehicles. “What would you get, if you were in the market for a car?”

  “If I drove, I’d get a Tesla.” Aldric peered down at the dashboard. “They’re EV, so better for the planet, and the Model S is so cool!”

  Aldric didn’t drive? Was that what he meant? Darrell was trying to figure out his words and almost missed a question. “Huh? Oh, dinner and a movie. All in one.” He grinned and hoped Aldric would like what he had planned.

  Aldric seemed to. When they reached the drive-in, his eyes were wide as he looked around, taking it all in. “Why are you backing in?” he asked.

  He didn’t ask why Darrell was parking behind all the other vehicles, right up against the rock marking the end of the lot. Not that naïve, then. “So we can relax in the bed. Here, make yourself useful and tune the FM into the station it says on the program, and I’ll go get us dinner.”

  Well, hotdogs and chips. Jeez, his nutrition flew out of the window around Aldric. When he reached the truck again, he beckoned for Aldric to hop out of the cab and join him in the back. “There’s beer in the cooler.” The drive-in didn’t sell it. “And water.” He wasn’t trying to get Aldric drunk.

  “What’s a Buddy-Buddy Season?” Aldric ran his finger along the title in the printed program.

  “Classic cop movies, from the seventies onward, that they’re showing all month. Double bills. See?”

  “The French Connection. Freebie and the Bean. They sound interesting choices, especially for an off-duty police officer.” Aldric smiled.

  Darrell didn’t have time to worry that Aldric wouldn’t enjoy them, just as he didn’t have to worry about his poor food choices. Not when, a half-hour into the first movie, their dinner was abandoned, and they had no attention to spare for the screen. How could any movie, no matter how classic or award-winning, compete with Aldric’s body under his, and Darrell’s lips over Aldric’s? How could any musical score sound as entrancing as Aldric’s gasps when Darrell’s tongue invaded his mouth, dominating his?

  The sounds of surrender Aldric made and the yielding of his body had Darrell hard and more demanding in response, nipping at Aldric’s lips and parting his thighs with a knee. Aldric kissing back, attempting to seize control, had Darrell groaning and sliding a hand down to cup Aldric’s balls and show him just who was in charge. Aldric’s response wasn’t to roll Darrell over, slamming him into the floor of the truck that Darrell had covered with a picnic blanket. No, he sighed and tilted his head back, exposing the soft skin of his throat and neck.

  Oh yeah. Darrell took him up on the invitation—a much better one than his lame movie-night idea. He sucked at a patch of skin there, sensitizing it for his nip seconds later, and the intake of breath Aldric made in response rasped out into the night air.

  “Shh.” Darrell continued soothing with his tongue, easing away any remaining sting, then nibbled again, harder. He got off on kissing a man’s throat, at the amount of trust it took for a person to let a partner play there, and this time sucked deep enough to leave a mark.

  And all the time, Aldric cupped the nape of Darrell’s neck, scratching into his short hair, giving him as much access as he wanted to that smooth, warm skin. Except, it wasn’t as much as he wanted. It couldn’t be, here, like this.

  “Aldric.” Darrell sat up.

  A little dazed, Aldric copied him.

  “This”—Darrell indicated the truck, the drive-in—“isn’t working.”

  That flush took over Aldric’s face again. He looked down. “What did I—?”

  “No.” Darrell wouldn’t let him think for one second anything was wrong. “I mean this here, making out like teenagers. We went further than this last time, and that taste of you I got, when I sucked your cock? That wasn’t enough either.” He waited for Aldric to react, but Aldric remained quiet, his eyes as round as saucers.

  “So…” Aldric whispered at last, his breath barely making it past his lips.

  “So I want to take you home with me, so I can fuck you. Jesus, do I need that ass.” Darrell paused, watching that sexy flush wash an even darker pink over Aldric’s face, like the tide had come in. “Can’t wait any fucking longer to have you.” The way Aldric bit down on his lower lip told Darrell he might like filthy talk. Hmm. Something to put to the test… “You can say no.”

  “No.” Aldric spoke before Darrell could clarify. “No, I mean I’m not saying no. I’m saying yes.”

  His hectic pink blush had faded a little and his eyes were still huge, but the tiny smile on Aldric’s face was no longer quite as timid as it had been. In fact, curiosity and wickedness bracketed its edges, and Darrell’s dick stiffened in response. Fuck, he was gonna enjoy this.

  Chapter Ten

  Darrell lived on the Broadway Corridor, part of the Pearl District, so Aldric could almost feel he was going back to work. He didn’t know the area very well, sticking to the streets close to the store. The huge, sprawling multi-building complex where Darrell entered through a barrier and pulled into a covered parking space came as a surprise. The development was as big as a university campus, with breezy courtyards between buildings and spacious outdoor walkways connecting them. He didn’t quite know how he felt about it.

  “You said there was a gym?” He tried to make conversation while they walked.

  “And a couple of pools.” Darrell paused in his loping stride, as if going to change direction and take Aldric on a tour.

  “No.” Aldric gathered all his courage and put a hand on Darrell’s arm. “I don’t want to see the complex. I’d rather see you.” His face was hot with a blush and his hands were on the verge of trembling, but that wasn’t going to stop him.

  “Good.” Darrell grinned. “Because I’d rather lick you all over. I love
how you taste. We’re here.”

  There was no comparison between Aldric’s studio and Darrel’s apartment—well, the bit of it Aldric saw as Darrell nudged him into the bedroom.

  “Race ya,” Darrell offered, pulling at his clothes. He was naked in seconds, and Aldric gulped, looking at his cock. It was thick as it hung semi-soft, and much thicker and longer as it grew erect.

  “You really shouldn’t look at me like that.”

  Darrell’s words had Aldric raising his gaze to his. “Like…?”

  “Like you want me to undress you.” When Aldric said nothing, Darrell did just that. “And touch you.” Aldric’s body had the bare minimum of muscle definition, but Darrell traced a lot of them, leaving pebbled skin where his finger stroked. When Darrell reached one side of the vee muscle leading to Aldric’s groin, Aldric’s erect cock jumped. Pre-cum shone at the slit.

  “I’ll get you off first, so I can take my time with you after.” Darrell didn’t make it sound like a chore—more like a treat. When he curled a hand around Aldric’s neck and pulled him in to kiss, it was as if Aldric were a candy he wanted to savor—and suck, taking up where he’d left off earlier, then making his way south.

  His knees bent, as though he were about to fall to them, but he straightened, reversed direction and walked Aldric to the bed. When the backs of Aldric’s knees hit the frame, he crumpled onto the mattress behind him, and Darrell was on him in a flash. Between them, they got Aldric situated to Darrell’s satisfaction.

  For the first time, Aldric felt Darrell’s dick against his skin, and he shuddered, both at the heat of arousal and the thought of that big cock inside him. Turned on and daunted, he bucked into Darrell’s hand.

  “Someone’s eager,” Darrell commented. “Apart from me, that is. Gotta have a taste.” He bent low and laved the head of Aldric’s cock before taking it deep for a few heart-jolting seconds. When he pulled off, licking his lips, he glanced up at Aldric. “Your turn. Show me.”

  Aldric wrapped a hand around his dick, a little uncertain. Show me probably meant show off for me, and he wasn’t sure he could. But when Darrell squeezed his fingers around Aldric’s, making the foreplay instantly more erotic, Aldric jacked his shaft and needy moans fell from his lips without further prompting. His thumb and Darrell’s rubbed over the head, spreading the pre-cum that was slick and shiny there.