Page 27 of Jack of All Trades

“I’m human, and I’ve even started feeling it, Jack. You need some suppressants if you’re gonna be walking around in public.”

“Listen,” Garvey said very low, glancing at the bunk bed where the others lay. “Harold has some. You take them daily when you’re out in public. I’d grab a couple for you, but…man you smell so fucking good. Have you always smelled this good?”

Jack got up and moved away from the table. “Get me the suppressants.”

Chapter Eight

Maltin rolled over andfelt the bed cold under his hand. That woke him in a second, and he sat up and looked around for Jack. When he didn’t see him, Maltin got out of bed and stood at the rail to look down at the rest of the apartment. “Jack! Jack, get back up here!”

He’d woke with his cock throbbing and wanted to sink it into his mate again, but the silence reverberated in his voice, and Jack didn’t call back.

He ran down the stairs, searching the apartment, finding the extra toothbrush in the holder on the wall near the mirror, and seeing the French press in the sink. “What the fuck?”

In the warehouse, he saw Jack’s shoes were gone, then his eyes fell on the Corvette, and his heart dropped to his feet. “Oh, gods. What did I do?”

Both cars were a mess, but that was secondary at the moment. Thinking about that briefly, he felt the changes that Jack hadbrought to him. If anyone had told him a week ago that he’d be so uncaring about his cars, he’d have slapped them for lying.

“Jack!”

When he returned to the apartment to shower and change, needing to look for Jack, he saw the note on the coffee table.

Maltin,

I’m sorry I left while you were sleeping. I had a few errands to run, including heading to Hands-E-Men. I’ll be back later.

Jack

“Hands-E-Men?” Maltin’s mind went to the darkest place at that moment. He thought Jack was there to do another job with another client…

He hurried to dress and leave the warehouse, driving the Thunderbird down the street so fast that he nearly hit two pedestrians.

As he drove to the freeway onramp, pictures went through his mind of Jack, bent over for another man, writhing in ecstasy as he was fucked for money.

His toolbelt the only thing on his body, the metal of the hammer and wrenches clattering as he was banged from behind him. Maltin’s vision turned red from his anger, and he was ready to use every bit of the rest of his magic, death be damned, to kill anyone who came near his mate.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything except rage. His hands gripped the wheel, and he was ready to wreck another car, right into any man thinking they could have his mate, even for an hour.

At a stop light he barely noticed, he got on his phone to punch in the address to Jack’s work. Once the mechanical voice droned on the directions, he turned right, then drove a quarter mile before turning left. He saw the building, the office on the corner, windows painted black.

Like they were hiding something.

“They’re hiding my fucking mate,” he seethed.

Like magic, Jack came out of the building. Just as Maltin started to roll down his window to call out to him, Jack got into a car; into the passenger seat.

Assuming it was a client, Maltin had to prevent himself from ramming the Thunderbird into the other car, a dented and rusted Kia Picanto that used to be white but was so dirty it looked gray.

Maltin couldn’t see the driver, but he could imagine him. An ugly man, dressed in stained clothing, having saved for a month to afford a romp in his crusty-sheeted bed with a beautiful man like Maltin’s mate, Jack.

Jack would pretend, of course, to enjoy it, but would he think of Maltin at all? Would Jack picture Maltin when he was getting fucked?

Suddenly, his heart was broken, and his anger faded into despair. He followed the car, ready to grab Jack and ask him why, tell him that he was no better than any of the other men he’d been with. Then Maltin would go home to be alone again and wonder why he thought that could change.

They drove toward the part of town where most of the studios lay. He could have driven there without looking, he knew the route so well. It was one of the few places in the city he traveled to.

When they parked across the street from the Colorado Jave Company, Maltin parked a few spaces down from them, watching Jack exit the car to run across the street and into the coffee shop.

When he came out a few minutes later with a piece of paper in his hand, Maltin guessed he was gathering contacts for more clients. His heart was breaking, his tears flowing, but his anger returned as Jack waved the paper at the man in the Kia.

---