An Unlocked Mind (Secrets #2)(38)

Vic didn’t want his apologies. He wanted to know what the fuck was wrong. “Rob, where are you?”

“Oh, I’m at… hang on.”

Rob called out to someone. Then, a moment later, directions were yelled back. Vic got up from the couch and grabbed his jacket.

“Okay, I’m at Flannery’s Pub. Why you wanna know?”

Shit. Rob was in London. Vic hadn’t been in Flannery’s, but he’d seen the place a few times. And Rob definitely sounded the worse for wear. Just how much has he drunk?

Vic snatched his keys from the hall table and hurried out the front door. “I’m coming to get you.” He opened the car door and got behind the steering wheel. “Stay where you are.”

“Nah, don’t bother. I got beer, so I’m good.”

Vic slipped into Dom mode. Rob needed to hear him, and he needed to obey. “You’re going to stop drinking. Find somewhere to sit in the fresh air. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” The wheels spun as he pulled out of his driveway.

“Nah, mate. You don’t want to come get me. Hell, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me if you really knew me.”

Vic shoved the phone into the center console and went to hands-free mode. “Oh? So what are you really like?”

Rob’s voice poured out of the speakers. “I’m a liar. I couldn’t tell the truth if my life depended on it.”

Vic clamped down on his fear and irritation. “What’s the truth, Rob? You can tell me.” Automatically he followed the road signs for central London, his mind in a whirl. What the hell has happened?

“Nah, it’s because of you that the truth is messing me up.”

Me? “What do you mean? Rob, you need to tell me.”

“No!” Rob’s groan went right through him. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” Vic demanded. “Because whatever it is that you’re not saying is clearly tearing you apart. Tell me, Rob.” His heart ached at hearing the pain in Rob’s voice.

“You wanna know the real reason I went to a BDSM club? Because of Alex, my brother.”

Vic waited, unwilling to interrupt. Keep talking, boy. Let it out. He put his foot down and shot through the traffic, keeping a wary eye out for any police cars.

“He’s different now. He’s strong, fierce. He’s become a good man, nothing like the brother I knew. An’ the more I thought about it, the more I realized it had to be down to what he and Leo did. So I went to the clubs because I thought… I thought maybe I could find someone who would do that for me. Make me into someone I didn’t hate.”

The self-loathing Rob plainly felt was there, in every word, and Vic wanted more than anything to grab him and hold him close, to tell Rob there wasn’t a hateful bone in his body.

“Then I met you and…. Fuck, you were nice to me. You didn’t treat me like I was shit on your shoe. You acted like I wasn’t this horrible person and that I wasn’t fucked-up in my head.”

“You’re not,” Vic insisted. “You’re looking for something, yeah? Maybe you went about it the wrong way, but there is nothing wrong with what you want. We all want that one person who helps us become something more.” Hell, even he wanted that.

There was a moment of silence, and Vic began to panic.

“Rob? You still there?”

“You don’t get it.”

Vic was so relieved to hear Rob still on the line that he exhaled a long breath. “Tell me, then. Tell me what I don’t get.”

“I don’t want just anyone. I want… I… fuck. I want you.”





Chapter Twelve


WHAT THE fuck?

Vic thought for a moment that he was hearing things, that some part of his brain had decided to play tricks on him. Then he realized he was forgetting one vital piece of information.

Rob was obviously drunk.

That one thought was enough to set him upon a course of action.

We’ll discuss this when he’s sober. If it turns out it was the booze talking, all well and good. What lad in his twenties hasn’t got plastered and let his mouth run away with him?

And if it wasn’t just the booze? That was a subject best handled in the cold light of day, when Rob had had a chance to reflect.

Either way, Vic had a boy to find and put to bed. Time enough to discuss this in the morning.

“Rob? Where are you now?”

There was a pause. “Outside Flannery’s.”

“Stay there, okay? You do not move from that spot, do you hear me?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Not good enough. “Repeat it back to me. Tell me where you’re going to be when I pull up outside that pub.”

“Outside, all right? I’ll be here. God, you’re bossy.”

Vic shook his head. You have no idea. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He disconnected the call and gave himself completely to the very serious task of hurrying through the streets without attracting the attention of the various speed cameras along the route.

Twenty minutes—and a lot of swearing—later, Vic spotted the pub and pulled the car toward the curb. The pavement in front of the place was filled with people drinking, laughing, and talking. He scanned the crowd, searching for Rob. It wasn’t until a group of three or four people moved off that Vic spied him. Rob was leaning against the red brick wall, an empty pint glass in his hand and a bag at his feet, his head bowed, the picture of dejection.