Set about two years after the novel.
Lars looked at the cell phone vibrating on the podium. It was the home number. That meant Brian was back ahead of schedule, which was either very good, or very bad. The arrest had already been made, or Brian's cover had been blown. Dating a DEA agent had its complications, and helping Brian come down after being under cover was part of the package.
"Professor Dahl?"
Lars looked up. "I'm sorry. Where was I?"
"Rove and Machiavelli," the student said. It was Linda, the hippie girl with the tricked-out Mac.
"Right. Just a minute." The phone had stopped vibrating, and Lars picked it up. He texted the letter L for lecture to Brian's cell phone.
"Hey, you're violating your cell phone and texting rule," said another voice, a frat type whose name Lars hadn't bothered to learn.
"What's the exception?" Lars asked the class as he put the phone down and picked up a marker.
"Fear, fire, and flood," Linda said. "Which was it?"
"I'm not sure," Lars said, but something had to be going on. "Okay, let's finish this up, but office hours are cancelled this afternoon." He turned back to the white board. "Rove didn't actually understand the key component of Machiavelli..."
Brian was sitting next to his motorcycle on the floor of the garage, polishing. Lars pulled the car in and hit the button to close the garage door behind him. The Ducati's paint and chrome already gleamed in the overhead fluorescent light, but what caught Lars's eye was Brian's beard. He hadn't seen Brian in almost two months, and he'd never come home with more than a weekend's scruff. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with a leather vest Lars had never seen before. Brian didn't look up as Lars unfolded his long frame out of the black Prius, and instead kept working the rag over the gleaming bike.
Lars wasn't sure what to say, whether to talk at all. He watched Brian for a short moment, then went into the house to put down his computer bag and hang his jacket. He watched through the door for a moment, then took a breath before stepping back into the garage. This was going to be a hard one, and Lars hoped to hell he was guessing right. He stepped out the door and, heedless of the designer slacks, Lars knelt down on the concrete floor, hands on his knees, back straight, head down.
Brian worked a moment more, but his movements slowed. "I had to ride a fucking Harley," he said, his voice sounding rough. "I had to fuck some stupid biker bitch." Brian stopped and cleared his throat. It didn't help. "I had to cover Monkey's ass."
"You owed him one," Lars said without looking up. He stared at the floor, trying to cover the image of Brian and some girl with the dull gray texture of the concrete. "We owe him one."
"Yeah, well we're fucking even now." Brian didn't usually curse like this, but Monkey was a deep cover DEA agent who worked in biker circles. Lars could guess what Brian had been doing for the last two months. Lars waited for Brian to talk again, and was surprised by a question. "What do you want to know?"
"You don't have to tell me, officer," Lars said, venturing to look up and see if the old name had any impact. Brian had dropped his head. "It's the job." Lars knew it. Brian couldn't do anything that would draw suspicion on himself.
"I haven't--" Brian started to say, not looking at Lars. "Since we--" He snorted and threw the polishing cloth at the bike. It caught on a bolt and hung, swinging for a moment. Lars knew what Brian meant. Even under cover, he hadn't had sex with anyone else in five years. Neither one of them had, because fidelity was a promise Brian had demanded from Lars early on. "It wasn't just once," Brian said, scratching at his beard in what looked like a new nervous habit.
Lars thought for a moment, then relaxed his posture, sitting back on the floor with his legs in front of him, resting his arm on one raised knee. "You got some guilt issues to work out? I can switch, Brian. You want punished? I can punish you."
That got Brian to look at him. They stared at each other, and Lars tried to read Brian's expression under the beard. Brian finally said, "Do you want to?"
"If you need it," Lars said. "But I don't." He didn't like imagining it, but it didn't wound. Brian on assignment was someone else, as far as Lars was concerned. As long as he came home in one piece, that was enough for Lars. No, that wasn't right. It was enough if Brian came home with all his pieces, because sometimes it was hard to put Brian back together again. A thought came. "Do I still get to ask questions?" Lars asked. Brian offering had to be an oblique way of expressing a need to talk about it.
Brian looked down and away, picking the polishing rag off the bolt where it had landed, and half-heartedly swiping at the rim of the front wheel. "What do you want to know?"
Lars kept his voice neutral. "One girl, or a lot? Was she fat or skinny? Did they give her to you, or did she pick you out? Did she like to ride you, or was she a doggy style girl. How big were her tits? Did you like playing with them? Did she like her ass fucked? Decent blow job, or just sloppy? Did you like a soft pussy, or were you thinking of my ass to get off? Did she get off, or fake it? Did you eat her out? Did--"
"Stop it!" Brian took three deep breaths. "How can you just--"
Lars tilted his head, but didn't answer. He let Brian calm down. "You're home now. I'm sorry I couldn't leave the university right away, but I came as soon as I could."
Brian looked at him for a long moment, and for the first time, Lars felt like Brian was actually seeing him. "You have ten minutes to take care of anything you need to take care of. I want to find you in the room, naked and on your knees."
Lars got up and did as he was told, pausing only to pull the toy box out from under the bed. He arranged himself in the middle of the bedroom floor with his head to the floor and his wrists crossed behind his back. Brian came into the room moments later, but Lars could only see his boots and hear the sound of him rummaging. Brian pointed to a different spot on the carpet and said, "Here." Lars crawled over, guided by Brian's hand in his spiked up hair. When he settled into the new position, Brian put padded cuffs on his wrists and ankles and helped him kneel upright so he could chain the two together. Lars was effectively hog tied, facing the door to the bathroom.
Brian went to the sink, got out three disposable razors, and went to work on his face. He turned the mirror so that Lars could watch. Over the next half hour, he turned from some biker guy into something more like Brian. Lars was surprised when Brian pulled off his jeans, because there was a tattoo on his upper thigh. It was a dragon, and a pretty good one, placed about where the carp was on Lars's thigh, and just as big.
He stood in front of Lars, cock hanging long and heavy. "You know what I want, freak." Lars leaned forward and caught the head of Brian's dick in his mouth. "That's it. Suck it deep. She couldn't do that without gagging. I had to put up with being sucked like a lollipop. Even imagining you didn't help, because you would never give such a bad blow job. Maybe she was all right for a girl, but she wasn't you. The only way she could get off was on top, riding, grinding down. She loved that I could last so long, but it wasn't easy to get off with her pussy hairs scraping the sides of my dick. Her tits were decent, but she didn't like them messed with, and she always said she was happy I didn't try."
Lars did his best to give Brian what he liked the most, tongue stud moving along the shaft, around the head, in and out of the slit. Brian smelled like he needed a shower, but Lars wanted it, wanted Brian's musk to take over, be everything he could smell and taste, his voice the only thing he could hear, his cock in Lars's mouth the only feeling that mattered. Brian grabbed Lars's head and pushed in, forcing himself for a moment deep into Lars's throat, and then back before he started talking again.
"She was a friend of Monkey's old lady. Nice enough, I guess, when she wasn't drinking. She was a sloppy, horny drunk, not all that smart on her best day." Brian pushed in deep again, and Lars took it, swallowed around it, and heard Brian gasp. "I couldn't think about you when I was with her or I'd go limp. She wasn't unpredictable and smart. She was too small and too soft, and not anything I wanted." Brian gasped again as Lars moved himself forward to take Brian's cock deep. He wished he had his hands free, but that wasn't the point. "She'd do pretty much anything I asked, but it wasn't..." Brian paused, rocking his hips for a moment. "She didn't submit. She wasn't strong. She didn't give over because she wanted to, but because she didn't know any better. She asked me to tie her up once, and I did, but it didn't do anything for her, and I couldn't even get up until I let her loose and she sucked me hard. Oh, God," Brian broke off as Lars moved down to his balls. "This," he said, his voice breaking. "You."
Lars licked up and took Brian's cock in his mouth again, working it with intent, and pulling tension on the chain between the wrist cuffs and the ankles. He was tied, controlled. Brian took Lars's head in his hands and fucked, fragments of words and noises shattering the air until he spilled into Lars's mouth. Lars swallowed and swallowed until Brian pulled himself out. The first time Brian came after he had been gone for a while was always more, but Lars didn't mind. He wanted Brian back in him.
Brian caught his breath but he didn't move away, keeping his hands in Lars's hair. Eventually he stepped back and walked around Lars slowly, looking. Lars could almost feel Brian's gaze, and he fought to control his breathing. There was no telling what Brian would do in this mood. Brian did the last thing Lars expected, which was to sit on the floor behind him, and take off the cuffs. Brian pulled Lars back, off balance, and Lars couldn't do anything but sprawl against Brian's bare, broad chest. "Jesus, you're twice as big as she was," Brian said.
Lars didn't want to talk about her anymore, but whatever Brian needed, he could have. Brian said, "Come here," as he stood up, forcing Lars to take his own weight and heft himself to his feet. "I don't want you like that," Brian said.
"Tell me what you need."
"Remind me of who I am."
Lars wasn't sure what that meant, but he tried. "You're not an asshole biker with a dumb-ass girlfriend."
"Not what I'm not. What I am." Brian stood there, alone, naked but for the new tattoo.
Lars wanted to say, You're my boyfriend, my big, gay cop who takes me down and shuts my brain off, but that wasn't what Brian seemed to want. Not who I am to you, but just who I am. Lars stepped closer. "Tell me why you got the tattoo."
Brian looked away, then sat on the bed. "Remember when you, you know, went crazy and in your head you were a dragon."
"Yeah." Lars moved to Brian and knelt in front of him, not in submission, but sitting back on his heels to look closer at the tattoo. It was well done, the tail wrapping around Brian's thigh, and the head of the dragon right at the same spot where Lars's carp tattoo ended, but where the carp was nosing Lars's balls, Brian's dragon breathed fire. "Did you lose it in there?"
"No, but I had to be somebody else twenty-four seven, with no down time. She never went away, and I remembered how you acted back then, all that fuck-you attitude." Lars didn't say anything, just ran his fingers over the dragon tattoo, its red and gold colors shifting, where the shading from the black worked with it. He remembered the hospital, the sense of dragon wings and breathing fire--the only way he could deal with the world when his head had unraveled. "That's what I had Monkey tell them to call me, Dragon."
Lars kept his eyes and fingers on the dragon, until Brian reached down and took his hand. "I was a baddass biker with an old lady using me as a beer and protection ticket. I was an old friend of Monkey's from back in the day. I kicked someone's ass for hinting he thought I was a faggot."
Lars looked up. "You had to." Brian nodded. The muscle twitching in his jaw called Lars's attention to how it was lighter than the rest of his face, the last vestige of the beard. Lars said, "I don't care. I mean it. All I want to know is did you bring them down?"
Brian closed his eyes. "Local cops moved in, screwed the pooch for now. I got myself arrested, and Monkey's telling everyone I'm facing federal charges in Tacoma." He heaved a sigh. "The only good thing is I helped seal Monkey's credibility, and I've got more evidence for when they do go down."
"So it was worth it."
Brian nodded, a crisp, cop nod. "I think so."
It was a good sign. "If you don't know who you are, then let me remind you of who I am," Lars said. He reached over to the night stand and grabbed the lube in the drawer. "I'm your boyfriend. I'm smarter than 99 of 100 people you meet. And you're right, I kneel for you because I choose to, but right now, you're mine. You've been gone for two months, and I want you to remind you why you came home." Lars rose up on his knees and took Brian's face in his hands, leaning in to kiss him. It was lips, and then tongues, slow and exploring for a long minute, breaking finally with their tongues the last to break the touch.
"That's a start," Brian said.
"Shut up and lie back." Lars flipped open the lube, but Brian didn't lie down.
"Stand up," Brian said. Lars did as he asked, holding the lube in one hand, and squeezed out a drop by accident and Brian leaned in to take Lars's cock in his mouth. Brian sucked him like he needed it to live, like he was learning how all over again. Lars watched as long as he could, but in a few moments, his eyes were closed and he could barely stand. When he was too close to control it, Brian stopped, pulling back with a smile at Lars's groan that wasn't nice at all. He took the tube from Lars's hand and squeezed some on his fingers, warming it before slicking it on to Lars's cock. "Now."
Brian moved up the bed, pulling up his legs and roughly smearing lube around his entrance. "Now."
Lars leaned forward, slid his hand down Brian's thigh, intending to use his fingers, but Brian took his hand and pulled. "Now." Lars followed the pull and put himself between Brian's knees, and pushed up his legs. It was hard to push in. Brian wasn't ready, and he hissed, but his heels on Lars's back wouldn't let him stop. When Lars was all the way in, willing himself not to come, braced on his hands and looking at Brian's face with its sheen of sweat and brows pulled tight in pain and pleasure, Brian panted out, "What were you lecturing on this afternoon?"
Lars snorted once. "I call it interdimensional politics, looking at the commonalities of the behavior of political actors across millennia."
"Tell me," Brian said. "And, Jesus, please move.
Lars pulled back slightly, and twisted his hips back in. "You want me to give you my lecture from today?"
"Talk to me," Brian said, flexing his legs against Lars's shoulders and canting his hips for more. "Crazy smart. Show me. She talked about Dancing with the Stars."
It was a blessing in a way, having the distraction of giving the lecture again to keep his mind off how good Brian felt. Lars fucked and talked, and Brian melted into ripped need underneath him so that by the time Lars couldn't talk any more, it no longer mattered. He was home.