Safe Harbor

Chapter Thirteen

Late the next afternoon, Sully went to take a nap. His leg still bothered him off and on and he needed to rest. Mac uncapped a beer and walked into the living room. Clarisse sat, reading, in one of the chairs. Mac settled at his usual place on the sofa, seated on his towel.

On the coffee table, he placed a red folder.

He nodded to it. “Go ahead. I’ve already talked with Sully. You need to see that. It might help you understand.”

When Clarisse realized the folder was full of personal paperwork—wills, powers of attorney, other such items—she immediately closed it. “I can’t look through this. This is your private stuff.”

“Read it,” he softly said. “Please.”

She didn’t want to. It felt like she was intruding on the most private and intimate part of their lives.

Then she chided herself. How could it be more private than what she witnessed on a daily basis or at the party?

Mac watched as she opened the folder.

Sully’s will sat on top. She glanced through it and faltered as she realized everything he had—quite a considerable amount—totally went to Mac in the event of Sully’s death, with a provision to care for Tad, if he was still alive. The power of attorney paperwork covered medical as well as financial decisions and again gave Mac total control of everything.

The folder contained similar paperwork for Mac, ceding power to Sully. A huge life insurance policy on Sully naming Mac as the sole beneficiary. The cars and properties had been set up in a trust with the two men as the sole beneficiaries. Deeds for the house and several rental and commercial properties listed Mac as co-owner through the trust. And a sort of pre-nup, a private contract between them, notarized, specifying how they would divide their assets if they ever split, regardless of who wanted the “divorce.”

With Mac getting quite a considerable amount. Then she noticed a number that concerned her. “Why would you only get twenty-five percent of your bank account?”

“Because I only contribute approximately twenty percent. He was generous. I was willing to settle for a flat sum, or even something like ten percent. He wanted to make sure we split it fairly. Between his pension, benefits, writing, and speaking engagements, he makes a helluva lot more than I do in a good year, sugar.”

“What’s all this stuff mean?” She closed the folder and set it on the table.

“I wanted you to see that this isn’t all it appears to be on the surface. He went through a lot of trouble to make sure I was protected. That’s why he got the life insurance. Again, Sully did that, not me. He wanted to make sure that if something ever happened to him, I was protected and no distant relatives could swoop in to try to take over. That’s the only reason I’m on the properties and the trust. I didn’t want to be. I wanted him to totally own everything, but the lawyer said with properties that it would be better if we were both on them because it would save the other on IRS crap in case one of us died, and it would help prevent any other issues.”

“Relatives like who?”

“Sully’s ex-wife, for one. She’s friends with a cousin of his. I wouldn’t put it past them to try something. Fucking bitch.” His expression darkened as he took another pull on his beer. “My brother’s cool with it. He wouldn’t try something.”

“Ex-wife?” She didn’t realize Sully had been married.

“Yeah.” He leaned back, crossing his legs. “She presented him with divorce papers while he lay in the hospital after the shooting.

Could barely open his eyes, and she forced him to sign everything.

Fortunately, I helped him get that overturned because he wasn’t coherent.”

Rage built inside her. Despite her stubborn, lingering reservations about Sully, the fact that someone would take advantage of him like that boiled her bacon.

Mac hadn’t finished. “He told me I could tell you about how we got together,” he softly said. “I think you should hear it.”

Clarisse nodded.

“It started almost nine years ago.”

Mac sat at the lunch counter with the paper opened to the want ads. His mood darkened with each failure. He didn’t want to reenlist, even if the Army would take him back. He’d end up in the brig after punching some CO out, without a doubt. Since Betsy’s death, he struggled every day just to get out of bed, and then it was a fight not to kill someone until he went to bed every night. He couldn’t get rid of the anger.

The guilt.

The waitress, Lisa, walked over and refilled his coffee. “Real fucking shame, isn’t it?”

If she wanted to bust his balls, today was not the day to do it.

“What is?” he growled.

She gave him a strange look. “Didn’t you hear?”

He slammed his pen onto the counter. “Hear what?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! You haven’t.” She set the coffee pot down, her mood totally changed. “Sweetie, there was a shoot-out last night. A drug bust at some bar went bad.”

A chill washed down Mac’s spine. He didn’t want to hear, but he asked anyway. “What happened?”

“That detective friend of yours. The one who worked your sister’s case. He’s in Harborside’s ICU. They don’t know if he’ll make it.”

Mac didn’t remember the drive to St. Pete. He knew the way to the ICU and fortunately recognized two of the officers standing vigil outside the unit. They found their supervisor, who spoke to the nursing staff and got Mac in. HIPAA be damned, Sully was a cop, one of their brothers, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

There was no one else there, no family, no friends. One of the other detectives walked in with him, a friend of Sully’s, and explained the basics.

Mac remembered how hollow, nearly dead he felt as he forced his feet across the room to stand beside Sully’s bed. Unconscious, on a ventilator, tubes, and IVs and monitor leads all over him.

For a moment, he flashed back to when Betsy lay in a bed in this very unit, then he shoved that away.

Mac didn’t want to admit what he felt. He’d meant to call Sully several times over the past few months, just never got around to it.

He’d thought about him a lot, especially over the past several weeks as the anniversary of Betsy’s death drew near. They’d talked all the time in the beginning, several times a week, sometimes several times a day after Betsy’s funeral. Then Mac let things drift, didn’t return all of Sully’s calls.

Didn’t want to admit he struggled with his anger, grief, and guilt.

Didn’t want Sully to think he was looking for a handout or pity.

And here he lay in a bed with fucking tubes and wires in him. The only person who seemed to understand him, who’d had the right words, and knew what he had gone through because he’d lost a loved one in a similar way. The anger.

The guilt.

Love. He wanted to break down and cry and hold Sully’s hand and confess that yes, maybe it was weird and strange, but he loved him.

The detective who stood on the other side of the bed while helpfully droning details about Sully’s condition made that impossible.

So did the wedding band on Sully’s left hand.

Mac didn’t even know what that meant for him. He wasn’t gay, yet here lay a man he’d gladly spend the rest of his life with if given half a chance. A man who’d talked him out of killing himself, who’d spent more than one night sitting with him, watching him until he sobered up. The man who’d called 911, rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital, and stayed there three days with him, then drove him home and stayed a week with him after he’d decided to chase fifty Tylenol PM with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s following Betsy’s husband’s conviction.

A man who’d given him hope. Friendship.

Who had faith in him even when his own had shriveled and died.

After their fifteen minute visitation ended, the detective led Mac back to the waiting room. He asked to speak to Sully’s wife, he thought he remembered her name was Cybil, but he’d never met her.

After some of the officers exchanged uncomfortable looks, they told Mac she wasn’t there and probably wouldn’t return.

Protective rage surged within Mac. He pulled Sully’s partner aside to talk with him privately. He’d been helpful with Betsy’s case but Mac didn’t feel a fraction as close to him. “What’s going on?”

The detective, Jason Callahan, glanced around and lowered his voice even more. “She’s on the way out, okay? He didn’t know it, but she was planning on filing for divorce next week. She’s met someone else.” He looked disgusted. “She told us all of that while we waited on him to make it through surgery. Once he was out and stable, she took off. We got the impression she’s hoping he doesn’t pull through because it would make her life easier. Bitch.”

“Who’s taking care of him?”

He shrugged. “We’re here for him.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“He doesn’t have any close family, if that’s what you mean.”

“Can I stay and help? Please?”

Jason’s expression softened. He knew Sully and Mac were close friends. “He wouldn’t expect you to do that.”

“Please?”

“Okay. We’ll talk to the staff for you.”

Jason convinced Cybil to sign permission forms allowing Mac to be there in her absence, to help care for Sully.

To make things easier on her, he’d explained. So she could work at her business and not have to spend all day at the hospital.

Mac admired how Jason skillfully handled the bitch. She’d signed the paperwork, glad to have one less burden. Mac found out from Jason that she was ten years older than Sully, and he was her third husband. Her first two, much older than herself, had both died of natural causes, leaving her fairly well off.

The seemingly endless hours marched on until four days later, when Sully finally opened his eyes.

Mac sat at his side. Despite what it might look like to others, Mac openly wept and held Sully’s hand. Sully couldn’t speak because of the ventilator, but he looked at Mac. When Mac squeezed his hand, Sully squeezed back.

Mac rarely left his side. Good thing he could crash on Tad’s boat, because he’d basically lost everything and had to vacate his apartment since he didn’t have a job. When Cybil had waltzed in one afternoon and demanded Sully sign the divorce papers, Mac had wanted to stop it but couldn’t at the time. She’d threatened, as Sully’s wife, to have Mac removed from the room and banned from the hospital.

She could have done it.

Mac thought fast enough to have a nurse and doctor come in and witness everything so they could testify Sully wasn’t competent to sign the paperwork because of his medication and physical condition.

As Sully grew stronger in body, he withdrew emotionally. The stunning shock of being served with divorce papers put him into a tailspin that Mac didn’t know how to pull him from. But damn, he sure could sympathize.

One evening, once Sully’s cop friends left after their daily visit, Mac pulled his chair over to Sully’s bed. The nursing staff let Mac stay bedside since Sully had been moved to a regular room. Sully had asked them to allow it, especially after Cybil’s bombshell.

“You okay?”

Sully’s grey eyes appeared dead and distant. Mac knew it wasn’t just because of the pain meds. “I want it over. It’s all fucking bullshit.

Why bother?”

Mac wanted to confess and knew he couldn’t. Sully had quit wearing his wedding ring, but Mac didn’t know if Sully would ever want him the way Mac wanted him. “You told me life goes on, one step at a time. That’s what you told me.”

“I was wrong. It’s all fucking bullshit.”‘

“No, it’s not.” Mac wanted to cry for him. He’d seen the depths of Sully’s compassion and love for others, his emotions, his selflessness.

This man was an empty wasteland. “You can’t give up on me, man.”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t have a home. Don’t have a wife. I can’t take care of myself. Can’t be out in the field anymore, I know that.

They’ll offer me a desk job if I’m lucky, probably disability, retirement, and benefits, shuffle me off.” He looked at Mac. “What difference does it make?”

“I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you get better.” His need approached desperation. How could he prove it? “Please, Sul, you were there for me with Bets. Let me help you through this. You didn’t give up on me. I won’t give up on you, I swear.”

Two months later, after extensive rehab and rounds with a lawyer to protect Sully from Cybil, Mac helped Sully walk through the door of their new apartment. They’d gotten the divorce settlement overturned. Cybil had to pay Sully half the value of the equity in the house. That would help him. Mac, along with Sully’s lawyer, had gone in with a court order, deputies, and Jason Callahan, and retrieved as many of Sully’s personal effects as they could.

Sully was still a broken shell. Worse, he’d sunk into anger.

Mac didn’t take it personally. One evening, while Sully lay on the couch watching TV, he fell trying to stand by himself. He pitched an angry tantrum that dissolved into nearly hysterical tears. Mac held him, his heart breaking for this man, his friend.

His soul mate.

And he couldn’t even tell him.

“Let me lie here, Brant,” Sully cried. “Like the fucking trash.

That’s all I am.”

Mac forced him to his feet, one of Sully’s arms around his shoulders, and into bed. He helped him undress as he usually did, while Sully still ranted and railed, vacillating between anger and anguish.

Finally settling on rage, he screamed at Mac. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

Mac turned on him. “No! I’m not going to sit by and let you waste your fucking life. You’re going to get better and when you do, you’ll figure out where to go from there. When will you get it through your thick goddamned head that I’m your friend and I love you and I’m not going anywhere no matter how much you tell me to?” His breath caught in his throat. It was as close as he’d ever come to confessing.

Sully’s evening meds had kicked in, adding to an already bad mood. He grabbed his crotch through his boxers and screamed, “Fuck you! You can suck my dick. Life sucks. I wish they’d let me fucking die!”

As good an invitation as any, Mac didn’t have time to consider the consequences. He pinned Sully’s wrists to the bed. “You’re telling me to suck your cock, Sul?”

“Yeah!” Sully sneered. Sully’s pupils had dilated, the pain medicine mostly in charge at this point. “You want to fucking stay here with me? Well make yourself useful and suck my goddamned cock, asshole!”

Mac grinned. “Okay.” He’d never done it before, but had to admit he’d fantasized about it plenty of times while helping Sully with his bath or going to the bathroom. Before Sully could protest, Mac yanked down Sully’s boxers and greedily sucked the man’s cock.

Sully went silent and still. Mac, not releasing Sully’s cock, changed position to kneel between the man’s legs so he could look at him. Shock, disbelief, and…more than a twinge of lust painted Sully’s face.

After a few minutes, Sully’s head dropped to his pillow and he started working his hips in time with Mac’s mouth. When Sully’s hands tangled in his hair, Mac closed his eyes and slowed his movements, trying to think about how he loved getting a blow job and what girls did to him and doing that to Sully. He didn’t feel at all squeamish about it.

He’d consider the consequences later.

After a few minutes, Sully started muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” under his breath. Mac grabbed his hips and held on as Sully’s body tensed, then Sully moaned as his climax hit. Hot seed pumped over Mac’s tongue. Again he didn’t have time to consider it as he swallowed every drop. It felt right.

It felt good.

Sully didn’t move his hands, left them resting on Mac’s head.

From the ragged sound of Sully’s breath, Mac knew he was still awake. Mac finally released his cock and rested his cheek against Sully’s hip. He didn’t move, was almost afraid to breathe.

Sully still didn’t move his hands.

After long, anxious minutes, Sully whispered, “I’ve never done that before.”

Mac laughed. “Well join the club. Neither have I.” He felt that maybe it was safe to lift his head and look. “I’m not going to apologize for it either. You’re the first guy I’ve ever been with. I don’t know why you, why I love you, but I do. So you’re stuck with me for a while. If you want to tell me to get the fuck out, fine, I accept that. At least let me stay with you until you’re on your feet again. I owe you that much for keeping me going and not letting me die. If you tell me never to do that again and want to pretend it didn’t happen, fine, I accept that, too. I’ll even apologize if you want. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy it when I did.”

Sully’s grey eyes settled on him. For once, they seemed less dead than they had for the past several months. “You love me?”

“Yeah. I thought I was only into girls. I still like girls. But I love you. So gay, bi, whatever that makes me, I don’t care. All I know is I love you.” He took a deep breath. “Do you want me to go?”

Sully slowly shook his head. “No,” he finally whispered. “I don’t want you to go.”

Mac felt a relieved sigh escape him. “Good, because I don’t want to go.”

“Then what happened?” Clarisse asked.

Mac shrugged and took another swallow of his beer. “We went to sleep and woke up the next morning, both of us sort of uncomfortable.

His painkillers had worn off and I thought, ‘Oh shit, I hope I didn’t screw things up.’ We talked, kept talking. It was a long road between then and now. A good road. Not a perfect one. We’re like anyone else with a relationship. There’s good and bad times. In our case, very few bad and minor compared to many people’s problems. The good always makes it worth it.”

Mac looked normal, natural in a collar, nipple rings, and nothing else. He damn sure had the body for it. “How did you become his slave?”

“That happened early on. I ran naked out of the bathroom one day to grab the phone and he joked that he liked the look on me. I started walking around naked.” He smiled as he took another swallow. “That led to more interesting things.”

“But how did you know you were submissive?”

“How do you know you’re a girl? I’m not like this with everyone, if you haven’t noticed. Only him. Even then, we switch it up a little.

On the boat, I top and he bottoms.”

“You mean he’s your slave.”

“Fuck no. He’s always my Master. Top and bottom can be different from Dom and sub or Master and slave. He lets me top on the boat. I get to call the shots. Like the day we found you, he’s still my Master and I defer to him. He would never try to get his way while we play when I’m topping. That goes back to trust. That lets me get my needs taken care of to be in charge, lets him relax and turn over control in a safe way.”

She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I don’t understand why you only want to be in control sometimes.”

“When we didn’t have the boat, we had a different arrangement, like one weekend a month or something, we’d switch. I like that structure, knowing that in certain cases, this is what I am and do and the rest of the time it’s all him. I loved that about the Army, the protocol, the procedures. I hated some of the assholes I worked under and getting my fucking ass shot at. Master gives me what I need and want.”

“That didn’t answer my question about how you knew.”

He shrugged. “I loved taking care of him, being there for him. I didn’t want to stop. As he healed, I started doing other things for him.

Let him focus on his writing and, later, the classes he taught. It made me happy. It made him happy. Hell, if you’d told me a few years ago I’d be happy doing this, I’d have said you were nuts. Much less that it was with a guy.” His brow furrowed in concentration.

“Master and I…fuck labels. They’re just that, better for clothing or food contents than people. We’re not gay. We don’t go lusting after guys. If we see a cute guy, yeah, sure, we might make a comment to each other. It’s not like my dick hardens. A beautiful woman walks by, honey, my dick stands up. So does Master’s.”

He met her eyes as she felt molten heat pool between her legs. “I look into Master’s eyes and I want to drop to my knees and beg him to fuck me. He’s the only guy that does that to me. You walk by and my dick screams for attention and tries to talk me into fucking you.

Believe me, I wish I could, because I would in a heartbeat.” He finished the beer before standing and walking out to the kitchen.

His words rang in her ears. They weren’t gay.

Numb shock washed through her system. When a wild-assed hope from far left field popped its head up and screamed for attention, she beat it back. She didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to hang her hat on impossible hopes and have her heart broken. Sully and Mac were devoted to each other. Only a moron could miss that.

She wished they felt like that about her.

Sully felt his BlackBerry vibrate next to him on the bed, rousting him from his nap. Without looking, he fumbled for it and answered.

“Nicoletto.”

“Hey, Sul. It’s Jason.”

Sully flexed his leg. It hurt, but not as bad as the other day.

“What’s up?”

“You know me, can’t mind my own business. I’ve been doing some digging.”

“What?”

“I found out something interesting about Officer Bryan Jackson.”

Sleep left Sully’s system. “What?”

“Ed and Lorraine Moore died in a tragic hit and run accident three years ago. Their car plunged off an embankment one evening. Paint scrapes showed another vehicle was involved.”

Sully rolled over. Jason had his full and undivided attention.

“Clarisse’s parents?”

“Yeah. That same day, about an hour before the accident scene was discovered, Officer Jackson reported his car stolen. Never recovered.”

Sully chewed that over in his mind. “Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah. Get this. I requested the accident report from the Licking County sheriff’s office up there. One witness reported a car the same color as Jackson’s car leaving the area about the time the accident would have happened, but it was dark and they didn’t get a tag or make-model or see the accident happen.”

“He killed them?”

“He had an alibi. He was sitting in the station, filling out a report on the car. Before that, he’s on surveillance video shopping at Wal-Mart, complete with a time-date-stamped credit card receipt. His car was stolen from the lot, also caught on video, but the perp was never identified.”

“No one ever thought to put that shit together?”

“Jackson’s father and the police chief of that charming little hamlet went to school together.”

Sully closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Clarisse received a hundred-grand life insurance payout when they died.”

“He might have known that since they dated for a couple of years before.”

“Most likely. Son of a bitch.”

If she’d stayed, how much longer until Clarisse would have met with an “accident”? More importantly, how much danger was she in now that she’d pressed charges against Jackson?

After dinner, Clarisse curled up on one end of the couch to watch TV. Sully emerged from his office. “Mind if I join you?”

“It’s your house.”

He settled on the far end of the couch. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She tried to focus on the show and not Sully’s presence.

After a few minutes, Mac finished cleaning up the kitchen and joined them. Instead of sitting on the couch, he sat on the floor by Sully.

Clarisse felt her heart skip as she watched Sully tenderly stroke Mac’s hair. Mac’s eyes dropped closed as he settled against Sully’s leg.

She wanted that. The bond, the closeness. The tenderness.

The love.

She found it difficult to focus on the TV show. Part of her wanted to crawl across the couch and snuggle with Sully.

When the show ended, Sully tapped Mac’s shoulder. Mac startled.

He’d been asleep. “Bedtime, buddy,” Sully said.

Mac sleepily nodded and stood. “Good night, sweetie,” he said to Clarisse.

“Night.”

Sully offered a smile. “See you in the morning.” Mac followed him to their bedroom, leaving Clarisse alone with her own conflicted desires.

She headed for bed with a book. Chances Taken, by one S. N.

MacCaffrey.

She smiled. Sully wrote under his own name too, for his nonfiction and some of his fiction. For the erotica, however, he used the pen name. This was the first chance she’d had to read any of his books. It touched her that he used Mac’s last name for his pen name.

Three hours later, Clarisse yawned, but she was so engrossed in the book she couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t just erotica, but a gut-wrenching, emotional, beautiful, and sexy romance between two men who loved each other, yet life and circumstances kept them apart.

Fortunately, it had a happily-ever-after ending. From the depth of the writing, the skill used to weave the story around the intensely erotic scenes, she knew Sully’s still waters ran deep, so to speak.

When she closed the book, she was surprised to find it almost five in the morning. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, thinking about the book and wondering if she’d ever find her happily-ever-after.