Trusting Tennyson by KD Ellis
Book 3 in the Out in Austin series
General Release Date: 9th August 2022
Word Count: 92,524
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 363
Genres:
ACTION AND ADVENTURE,BONDAGE AND BDSM,CONTEMPORARY,CRIME,CRIME AND MYSTERY,EROTIC ROMANCE,GAY,GLBTQI,MEN IN UNIFORM,MÉNAGE AND MULTIPLE PARTNERS
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Book Description
Tennyson thought this would be just another undercover assignment. Catching feelings for two traumatized men wasn’t part of the plan.
When FBI Agent Liam Tennyson was embedded in the La Familia cartel, he didn’t expect to meet not one but two young men whose terrified eyes haunt his dreams—and stir up feelings he thought long buried.
Asher Downs left his homophobic family behind the day he earned his high school diploma. With little more than a bus ticket to his name, he moves to Austin to meet his online boyfriend, Devon. Unfortunately for Asher, life doesn’t always go according to plan.
Misha might have been born as Dimitri, but now he answers to whatever name Master gives him. Snaring another innocent young man into this life is the last thing Misha desires. But Master gets what Master wants—and Master wants a matching set of toys to play with.
When a mole in the justice department compromises Tennyson’s identity—and jeopardizes his plan to rescue Misha and Asher—Tennyson is left with no choice but to go on the lam. Can the two traumatized boys learn to trust him to keep them safe?
Reader advisory: This book references child trafficking, abuse and Daddy play. It is best read as book three in a series.
Misha’s hands shook as he picked up the gray and green controller with the complicated buttons and little joysticks he didn’t know how to use. He’d had to reimburse Master for the controller—and the game and the Xbox—with his mouth, even though it was Master who wanted him to get to know Asher, the boy from the videos—not that Master would care if Misha claimed it was unfair.
Now that he had all the equipment, though, he didn’t know what to do with it. He barely remembered the last time he had been able to watch TV, let alone anything so radical as play a video game, not when Master thought he’d use it to call for help. Who would he even call? The only family he had was the man who’d gotten him into this situation in the first place. What was he going to do, call his Uncle Urvan and beg him to take him back? He had nothing to offer—nothing except his body, which hadn’t been his since he’d been a child.
Master lost patience with his stupidity quickly, ripping the controller from his hands with a curse. Misha watched as he moved his thumbs over the buttons to get the console set up to the large television, then downloaded the strange game that the boy—Asher—had said he liked to play. Master even set up his login before he chucked the controller at Misha. It struck his chest hard enough to bruise and landed in his lap, but he knew better than to flinch.
“Thank you, Master,” he said instead, offering a small smile he thought Master would like.
Master just threw a headset with a mic at him. “Get set up.” He grabbed Misha’s blond hair and yanked, tilting his face harshly up until their eyes met. Master’s were dark and cold, narrowed in threat. “And don’t forget. My men are listening to every word out of your cock-sucking little mouth. Go off script and I’ll slit your throat. Give myself a new hole to fuck. Got it?”
“Yes, Master,” Misha gasped, crying out in pain as Master gave his hair another harsh tug. “I’ll be good. I promise.” He was stuck, and he arched his back severely to lessen the painful pressure on his neck, until Master grunted and released him.
“You can play with your new friend until dinner. I expect to hear you’ve made progress.” Master spun on his heel, his shiny black shoes squeaking on the wood floor, and left.
Misha gripped the controller tight, his hands shaking as he plugged the auxiliary cord of his headset into the little headphone jack. He pulled the heavy headphones over his ears and almost immediately got nauseous, fear swelling at the way it muffled the room around him.
He wouldn’t be able to hear Master if he walked up behind him right now to shove him forward or tighten a hand around his throat or…or anything he wanted to do while Misha was distracted.
It left him feeling weak and vulnerable, more so than he always did.
A loud ping filled his ears before he could dwell on the discomfort as he received a friend request from ThemBoyFemBoy, which he quickly fumbled to accept. A few seconds later, a box popped up on the screen, asking to voice chat, which he accepted as well.
The voice that filled his ears was familiar from the videos, yet at the same time different. Asher sounded less scripted, more real.
“Devon?”
“Hey,” Misha replied to the name Master had given him to use, his own voice shaking with nerves. Except for Master, his friends and the few guards that patrolled Master’s compound, he hadn’t talked to anyone since his uncle had sold him. “Um. I’m really excited to play with you, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No worries. I can talk you through it. The game’s pretty simple, not so much a fighting game as an exploring one. Have you used an Xbox before—or are you more of a PlayStation guy?”
“Neither,” Misha replied with an awkward laugh. “I think board games are more up my alley?” Not that he’d played any of those lately, either, but he used to love Candyland.
“A gaming virgin, then.” Asher sounded darkly amused, and Misha could imagine him rubbing his hands together. He didn’t have the heart to say he hadn’t been a virgin, in any sense of the word, in years. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you. Okay, so you see the joysticks? The left moves the camera, the right moves your character. See?” Slowly, with Asher’s help, Misha got the hang of the controls, and within a half hour, their two characters were strolling side by side through a glade, searching for some treasure called the ‘Chest of Knowing’.
He didn’t understand the point of the game, but playing was secondary to talking to Asher anyway. The only reason Master had got him the Xbox was to get closer to the boy, and he needed to remember that.
Needed to remind himself not to get attached.
They weren’t friends—couldn’t be friends. Best-case scenario for Misha, Asher bought the lies he told him—that his parents were divorced and his dad was a dick and all he wanted to do was go to college to be a fashion designer but his dad wanted him to be a lawyer like him—all things Master had coached him to say to be more relatable and to engender sympathy in a boy like Asher.
Best-case scenario for Asher, though, he saw through the lies to the truth. Better if he found Misha boring or stupid, not worth wasting his time on. Better if he logged off and never logged back on.
Misha would be punished for not holding his attention, for not reeling him in like a fish on a line, but Asher would be safe to follow his dreams. Misha would remain here until he got too old or too ugly to keep Master’s attention, then he would be cast aside, sold to one of the cartel’s brothels until he was used up.
It was just a matter of time.
* * * *
Asher stood on the sidewalk, clutching his diploma and a backpack in his shaking hand. His life stretched before him like bare skin ready to be painted, to go from plain to airbrushed perfection. He had just enough money in the bank for a bus ticket to anywhere and a month’s rent, just enough clothing to last for a week until laundry and just enough hope to ignore the pain of leaving the relative safety of his parents’ house.
And just enough phone battery to last him until he got where he was going. It was reckless to leave like this, on a whim, to meet a boy he only knew from the Internet, but he felt like he knew Devon better than himself. Not a single day had passed in the last month without them talking, either online, on the Xbox or, more recently, on the phone.
Devon’s voice was always soft and slightly anxious, an endearing murmur that made Asher want to just squeeze him tight. They’d even Skyped once, for a few minutes, and he’d been surprised by how cute the other boy was. His hair was even lighter than Asher’s, though less curly, his skin so pale it looked like polished ivory.
Asher didn’t really have a type. He was equally attracted to both burly men with strong shoulders and to slender waifs like himself. Devon was even smaller than he was.
He’d taken quite a lot of pleasure in telling the other boy how cute he was, watching his skin turn from cream to blushed pink to scarlet. They hadn’t been able to talk long. Devon’s dad, a big man with silver-streaked hair and a scowl, had invaded the screen to say it was time to do his chores, but Asher still cherished the memory.
It was proof that Devon was real, not some creepy old man planning to lock him in his basement.
Asher took one last look at the house he grew up in, with its blue siding, black shutters and white picket fence, then left it behind him. He’d left a short note for his little brother to say goodbye, but he didn’t say where he was going. He probably wouldn’t get it anyway, if Mom or Dad found it first. They hadn’t let him talk to Ryder in forever, afraid he was going to corrupt him or, worse, that being gay made him some sort of sick pervert.
He’d get settled in Texas then email him. Maybe they could talk on social media sometime, keep in touch.
It was going take him almost two days and three line transfers to get where he was going, but Devon had promised he’d be there to meet him.
He boarded the Greyhound from Wilmington to Richmond, sending a quick text to Devon before he shoved his phone into his pocket so he could store his backpack in the overhead compartment.
It closed with an audible click. Asher dropped down into the off-gray seat by the window, trying to ignore the mystery stain just off-center. It was no larger or less suspicious than the one on the aisle seat, and he’d worn his oldest jeans, the ones just a bit too baggy in the ass, for a reason.
The bus quickly filled up. He’d shown up early to get a good seat, one not too close to the bathrooms but not too far away, either, by the window if he could manage it. By the time the bus rumbled into motion, a young woman was sitting nervously beside him, clutching a handbag on her lap like it was a grenade.
“First time?” Asher asked. He’d intended on keeping himself to himself for the trip, staying quiet and playing on his phone maybe, but she looked terrified, her eyes skipping from one passenger to the next, like any one of them was going to shank her while her back was turned.
She flinched before eying him up and down. She relaxed a bit, probably because his glitter-crusted pink shirt with a unicorn on the front was about as threatening as a bag of cotton candy. “That obvious?”
Asher shrugged. “Just a guess. It’s my first time, too.”
“I shouldn’t be nervous. I’m only riding to Richmond. It will barely even be dark when I get there, and my boyfriend’s going to pick me up. God, I’m so dumb.” She loosened her grip on the handbag for the first time since sitting down.
“It’s not dumb to be scared of something new,” Asher said. “I’m fucki— Sorry. I’m terrified right now. I’m going to see my…my boyfriend, too. Um, in Austin.”
“I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s a really um…accepting city.” The woman’s smile was shaky.
Asher’s phone buzzed in his pocket, cutting off the somewhat nice but a little awkward conversation. He dragged it out and grinned at the message from Devon waiting for him on the screen.
Can’t wait to see you
Thank goodness the Greyhound had charging ports, because his battery was flashing red. He pulled his charger out of his other pocket and plugged it into the wall. Then, he leaned back in his seat to text his boyfriend. They had a lot of plans to make and a lot of dreams to wish for.
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KD Ellis
KD Ellis is a professional cat wrangler by day, and an author by night. She moved from a small town to an even smaller village to live with her husband and wife and their two children. She loves reading—anything with men loving men. She writes queer romance in between working her two jobs and cuddling her pets—all six of them, which confuses the turtle.
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