Page 1 of Dark Passion
Chapter 1
Daniel
“I’m leaving, Cole,”I said, leaning over getting a better look at my beautiful young man, while placing a warm kiss on his cheek with my eyes closed, and my thoughts wandering. He grabbed my free hand resting on the mattress and squeezed it. My heart accelerated, not because of how I felt about him, because that had been apparent to me if not to him, but I went over Julian’s message which I hadn’t shared with Cole.Make your choice, Daniel, who will it be? Cole or Charlie?Clearly in my mind it wouldn’t be Cole. I’d do whatever was necessary to protect Cole. I’d throw Charlie under the bus if I had to, and drive the bus over him if it meant saving Cole from what I’d gone through as a young man.
Julian had been a man I didn’t want to cross, nor one I could attempt to defeat, and that was why I ran and tried to cover my tracks along the way. They said you could get lost in a city like this, and I did, or so I thought. Julian obviously never looked for me, and that was a relief, and blessings I was counting until now.
I thought about Julian’s threat, and I’d known enough about him to take him seriously, I knew enough to realize that Julian wanted Cole more than he wanted Charlie, and where did that leave me? Perhaps staring down at Cole for the last time. Longing to be with him.
This can’t happen,I thought. I’d have to stop Julian. Whatever it took, because I knew deep down what Julian had wanted all these years.
The text I received when I had been relaxing with Cole was key to Julian’s thinking. He wasn’t like most men. His words were a puzzle. When I thought he wanted me for himself and the way he spoke to me as being his and belonging to no one else, it was the opposite I came to realize. His thing was to share me with every man he’d loved before.
What was that about?
When I thought all this shit was behind me, where I’d finally found my way out from under Julian’s thumb putting pressure on me, he returned worse than before with a power I couldn’t get from under. And that power I’d given him by seeing him again and attacking him in a vulnerable spot—his protégé and the money he’d likely get from Charlie.
Will it be Cole or Charles St. John?he wrote. Of course that was just like him, he left me no alternative. I had to choose, and it wasn’t a good choice. It wouldn’t be a choice I could live with myself. I didn’t want to think about this young man for the rest of my life, wondering if I’d done something to save him, and I didn’t.
However, I didn’t know Charlie, and for all I did know about him, this was the life he wanted.
Hell, at that age what does a young man know about choices?I thought, staring down at Cole, the love I’d yearned for my entire life, a man I couldn’t imagine losing to anyone and especially to Julian. When I thought I’d won when I ran from Julian, I hadn’t really done anything, because he was trying to get what I stole from him— a youthful naïve boy, one he could control until he had no use for him.
On the other hand, Charlie was rich, I rationalized, he could have gone another way, but he didn’t. There was no way in hell I’d let Julian get his jealous, greedy, creepy hands on Cole. I’d die before that would happen.Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,I thought.
When I considered myself at Charlie’s age, and all the things I’d gone through to get where I was today, my heart broke for what Charlie would be involved in, and all the money in the world couldn’t help him survive what Julian would put him through, and then take his money, leave him broke and a shell of himself at the end of it all. Although Julian had to go through Max before he’d completely take over Charlie’s finances, I knew Julian, and he was capable of anything. His thing was to win at any cost.
When he lost me that was my win, and now he was back to capture the ground he’d lost when I disappeared, and he’d gotten tired of looking for me, and his attention drifted to another boy.
I wondered if I should contact Max and give him a heads up on the decision I would be forced to make. Did Max understand what Charlie had gotten himself into, or did Max even care, and left everything to me and Cole to smooth out?
Charlie appeared to be just like me at that age, and he wouldn’t see Julian coming until it was too late. Charlie had Daddy issues, and was a better actor than Julian, but my money was on Julian because he was mature and ruthless. Julian would handle him the way he handled me, because I thought this was what I desired and wanted, until I grew up and realized I had made the wrong choices in my life, and Julian had convinced me to make those horrendous terrible mistakes that took years to correct.
The fallout of those years being with Julian haunted me to this day.
I had no one to tell me differently, or show me that this wasn’t what I should be doing with my life. My father had gone and married Sidney’s mother, which left me with no direction. Not that he would have proven to be of help, simply because of his views on the subject of me being gay.
He wasn’t homophobic, he had been distracted with his new family and son whom he didn’t know was gay either. Sidney had held that secret close to the vest, and I wondered how he managed that. “Well, being bisexual helped,” he’d said.
Drawing in a deep breath, knowing what was in store for me today, I noticed that Cole never turned around. He held on to my hand as if he didn’t want me to leave. His grip overpowered mine, so when I tried to pull my hand away, he said, “Don’t go. I miss you.” His voice was low and seductive calling me, and perhaps luring me back to bed once more to finished what we hadn’t last night.
There was two years of lovemaking that had to be made up, but today wasn’t the day. After receiving that text from Julian Page, my dick wouldn’t get hard if someone was sucking on one end, and Cole was fucking me on the other.
When I replied, I was a total mess trying to figure out how to keep everything from him about Julian’s threat, and I had to break the news that Sam and the puppy had gone missing, along with all the other shit Ryan and Jay had created.
“I have to, baby. You don’t understand.”
“But I do.”
“No you don’t,”I wanted to tell him, but that would have opened up a can of worms as they said,And where does that expression come from anyway?I wondered.
My father had used those words on several occasions, because his father had been a fisherman in Maine, and for some reason, he’d used that whenever he didn’t want to speak about something, because it would make things worse. Well, the saying was appropriate now, because to go through all the shit with Cole that had happened in a short span of time, would indeed make things worse for me with Cole. He’d left me twice when I had no indication that this would be in my future, I wasn’t going to risk it again. I’d have to get this cleared up before I had to break the news to him. But then who could predict another individual’s actions, especially someone the likes of Julian.
Nevertheless, if I spent time telling him what I’d inadvertently placed us into, he would probably quit his job, and leave me at the same time. That was my worry and my cross to bear, and fuck it if I hadn’t fucked up this time. I shook my head, and repeated, “I have to leave now, sweetheart,” I whispered into his cheek as I gave him a warm kiss.
He turned to face me and sighed when I glanced at my watch.
Pulling my hand from under his, Cole looked up to see my expression. Unfortunately, he could read me and my body language. He knew when I was unhappy or sad. I hoped he didn’t ask too many questions when I tried to make my way out of the room.
