Ellis Parker is a lucky man: he escaped his persecuting family, survived his tour of duty, and met Maxwell Clark in the city of New Amsterdam. Clark showed Ellis more than the ropes: Clark helped Ellis figure out who he is -- a gay submissive with a massive fixation on a beautiful, mysterious ballet dancer named Bryn Rothe. Ellis knows a Good Man when he sees one, and he wants nothing more than to score a first date with Bryn.<br><br>Little does Ellis know that Bryn has a violent past that is crawling out of shallow graves to haunt him. Even his hectic schedule and beloved stage aren’t enough to distract him. It’s impossible for Bryn to figure out how he feels about Ellis with his demons between them, but when Ellis saves Bryn not once but twice, Bryn is forced to admit that there’s something about Ellis that Bryn might not merely want but need.<br><br>Together, they journey to the scene of Bryn’s original crime -- Charles Towne, South Carolina. There they will dig up secrets that might explain Bryn’s tortured life but might also be his -- and Ellis’s -- undoing.

Earthquakes

“Something that’ll feel good?” Clark’s hard-on pressed to the blossoming welts on Ellis’s ass, and Ellis ignored the burn of his skin as he ground against Clark.


“Green. Oh God, green,” Ellis moaned into the cross.


“Ahhh, yeah,” Clark groaned, and he encircled Ellis’s cock with a fist. Ellis had gone a little soft during the caning but woke right up with Clark’s sure strokes.


“Need to come, Sarge,” Ellis said or thought he did. His tongue was thick and his lips were numb, but he tried to tell Sarge, to explain how badly he needed to get off. “So it’s…I…Fuck.”


“I know,” Clark replied. He plucked at Ellis’s nipple and teased Ellis’s cock with a loose hand. Then Ellis realized his ankles were being undone, and he looked down, confused.


It was right about that moment that he remembered Daniel.


Chapter 23