Page 71 of Damaged

It was a long time before Silver loosened his hold on me and stood. He stepped back so I could do the same but only so he could lean into my side. He continued to finger the locket. “I need to tell you something, Dalton. I don’t think it really means anything, but it seemed to matter to Ivan so maybe it was something. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” I said. I led Silver to our lounger. We sat facing each other, each straddling it.

“When Ivan started getting more confused and forgetting things, he got paranoid. I told you that part, right?”

“Yes.”

“What I didn’t tell you was that he made me memorize these numbers for him. I guess it was really just one long number. I’m not sure. It never made sense to me. I had a good memory, so it wasn’t that hard even though there were hundreds of individual numbers that made up the big one. I had to repeat them back to Ivan every day, sometimes more than once. I just thought it was some kind of memory exercise he was using to help him remember, but he kept saying over and over how no one could know about the numbers, especially not his brother, Dmitri. They hadn’t been in touch for any of the time that I lived with Ivan, so it didn’t make sense, but I didn’t question him. I memorized the number and whenever he told me to write it down, I would, and he’d just stare at it for the longest time before burning the piece of paper in the fireplace. Honestly, by the end I think I could have written any string of numbers down and he wouldn’t have known if they were right or wrong.” Silver shook his head. “Like I said, it’s probably nothing, but I guess I got a little paranoid about it too.”

“Do you still remember the numbers?” I asked. I had no clue if any of it made sense or not, but the soldier in me knew not to make assumptions about anything. I couldn’t help but remember the car that I’d been sure had been following us when I’d been driving Silver to the bus station in Baltimore along with the attempted break-in that occurred soon after that.

Silver nodded. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

Chapter 24

SILVER

It was the smell of bacon that pulled me from my slumber. It had been more than a week since I’d given Dalton the string of numbers but after mulling over it for days, he hadn’t had a clue as to what it meant. We’d even tried looking the numbers up on the internet but hadn’t found anything. Dalton said it could have been some kind of code but if it was, we’d need a cipher to read it. I hadn’t known what that was and truthfully, I hadn’t cared. I’d been glad to get the information out of my head so I wouldn’t have to keep wondering if it was important or not. Dalton and I had both chalked it up to Ivan’s paranoia as whatever disease he’d been suffering from had continued to eat away at his brain.

So far, we’d been on the water for over a week. We hadn’t returned to Dalton’s house even once, which was fine by me. I loved his boat. I loved how snug but comfortable it was. I loved the expression on Dalton’s face whenever we were cruising over the water. Chesapeake Bay was a much larger body of water than I ever could have imagined. Our days were spent fishing, which Dalton had called me a natural at, as well as finding private little islands where we could explore or just lie on the beach, preferably in our birthday suits.

I smiled to myself as I thought back to when Dalton had first told me those words. I’d asked him whose birthday it was, and did we really need to dress up in suits while we were lying on the beach. He’d laughed and proceeded to give me another one of his “lessons” and when it had all been over, I’d been sitting astride Dalton, rocking my ass against his dick until he’d come all over my hole. Only then had I stroked my own dick until I’d been arching my body and shooting my release all over Dalton. I’d been horrified at my behavior at first because Ivan had often done the same thing—intentionally covering my face in his cum—but like everything else, Dalton had proven the difference between a willing participant and an unwilling one. After that, I’d braced my hands in the sand next to his head and had proceeded to lick him clean, kissing him when my mouth was full of his juices. I’d felt his dick harden beneath my body as we’d made out, but he hadn’t tried to push me into another sexual encounter.

I’d done that all on my own. By the time he’d rolled me onto my back and ground our dicks together until we’d both come at nearly the exact same time, I’d been on the verge of telling him I needed him inside of me.

Something had stayed my words, though.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dalton because I did. So very much.

I was just afraid that if he took me like that, I wouldn’t be able to please him. At one point, he’d suggested I take him, but that had scared me even more, especially when I’d learned it would be his first time bottoming, as he called it. The idea of hurting him had brought on a panic attack that left both Dalton and Sadie working together to bring me out of it.

We hadn’t talked about full-on sex since then.

“Morning, beautiful,” Dalton said when he saw that I was awake. He was wearing nothing but an apron. It said “kiss the cook” but when I’d cleared the sleep out of my eyes, I reread the phrase and realized an “o” had been swapped out for a “c.”

I began laughing when Dalton innocently looked at me and asked if I wanted bacon or sausage.

“What?” he asked as he looked down at the apron. “Do you have any idea how much hot grease hurts when it hits your skin? Not to mention when it scalds your…?”

“Your what?” I managed to get out as I continued to laugh. “Your little gun and ammo? Your fishing pole and… little minnows?”

Dalton shut the burner off and moved the hot pans to the burners he hadn’t been using. I knew I was in trouble, but I still couldn’t stop laughing. The man before me, despite the ridiculous apron, was the real Dalton. It had been a couple weeks since he’d had the nerve block, but we hadn’t talked about the decision he would need to make at some point. All we’d done was get to know each other.

Granted, that had been tough because our pasts hadn’t provided that many good things to talk about and our future was uncertain, so we’d learned the small things about each other that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Like how detail-oriented Dalton was. Whether it came to cooking the fish we caught during the day or some mechanical issue on the boat that needed fixing, he was always meticulous about it. As for me, it turned out that despite having to always be perfect for Ivan, my true nature was anything but. The more I’d relaxed, the messier I’d become. I might have done a good job cleaning Dalton’s house when I’d first gotten there, but that was because I’d been both bored and worried about not pleasing him.

Now when I left my clothes in a pile by the bed after undressing for the night, there were no disapproving looks, no threats of punishment. In fact, Dalton usually just tossed his clothes on top of mine and then at some point the next day he’d pick them up and neatly fold them. Dalton turned out to be a great cook and while I’d offered to do the dishes after each meal, he’d outright refused when he’d learned that I didn’t like doing them. I’d ended up drying them, but we’d usually end up making out long before we’d finished the task.

Dalton loved talking about boats. Not only his but the ones we would pass as we explored the bay. I loved listening to him and wondered if there was still a chance for him to follow his dream of restoring old boats so they looked new again but still vintage, a term I hadn’t understood until he had explained it to me.

When it came to me, Dalton had discovered I was very ticklish, something I hadn’t known myself, and he would always manage to take advantage of that when I was least expecting it. Those moments often ended up with us making out too. There were few parts of the boat that hadn’t been christened with our lovemaking. At one point, I’d been sitting on top of Dalton on the bench seat near the steering wheel. We’d both been stark naked and rutting against one another when a fishing boat had come dangerously close to ours. Neither of us had stopped until the boat had passed. We hadn’t been able to stop.

I was starting to understand a tiny part of what it was like to be an addict. Dalton was my drug of choice.

As Dalton approached me, I climbed out of the bed. Sadie had already done her disappearing act so by the time we reached each other, we were both trying to desperately untie the knot he’d made too tight with the apron strings. Our mouths were latched on to one another and neither of us wanted to break the contact, so Dalton literally ripped the strings and then he was tugging the apron over his head. Since the move had forced us to stop kissing, I used the opportunity to push my briefs down and then, without needing to think about it, I was following them to the floor. I opened my mouth wide and sucked Dalton’s hard cock to the back of my throat before the apron even hit the ground.

“Jesus, fuck!” Dalton exclaimed.

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