Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

they pulled up in front of a house—a stranger’s house—he gave in and asked Denver what was going on.
    “We’re going to do some weight training,” Denver told him, sounding proud of himself. He pulled a fob down from his visor and hit the button. “In my friend Jase’s garage.”
    The door in front of them went up, and Adam stared at a very sparse, very clean space with a bench, some mats, and some free weights showcased in the center.
    “It’s not the gym, and these are my weights, and a few of Jase’s. I cleaned them all, and everything is disinfected.” Denver gestured to the garage. “It’s someone else’s house, yes. But it’s a garage, and the door is open. I was hoping maybe that would make things easier.”
    Adam wasn’t sure if it would or not, but the idea that Denver had gone to such lengths to accommodate his neuroses touched him in a way that made him want to curl up against Denver and purr. “I’ll certainly try,” he said instead.
    Despite his optimism, it was hard. The garage was pretty sparse, but the door into the house was right there, and random objects littered about reminded Adam that they weren’t his and he shouldn’t be there. What made things okay, though, and it surprised the hell out of him, was Denver. Every time Adam tried to flip out, Denver made him focus on the weights, on the work in front of him. He used the same kind of authority he did when they were having sex, except there wasn’t anything sexy about right now. Adam had jacked off to more than one fantasy of Denver “teaching him weights,” which had mostly been Denver fucking him over the bench. There was no fucking tonight, and no fucking around. Denver took weights seriously , and therefore so did Adam.
    “You got to be careful about how much you start out with,” Denver cautioned him as he taught him how to curl. “Muscles get angry fast, and they yell for a long time. Guys think they gotta kill themselves to bulk up, and it’s true there’s a burn, but you gotta be smart or you’ll injure yourself in a way you won’t appreciate. Especially with arms. Your hip is in a much more secure socket, but your arm isn’t. It’s so you can have freedom of movement, but it comes at a cost. Rotator cuff surgery isn’t any kind of picnic.”
    Adam nodded through all the lectures, listening, yes, and doing what he was told, but it was so much less about weights and so much more about following the sound of Denver’s voice. He began to think Denver could tell him to go into the stranger’s house and lay down on the floor, and he’d do it without wondering what in the room was a fire hazard. Denver’s voice made everything okay. Everything . It made his own voices go still and quiet, ready to obey.
    He tried to show this to Denver, tried to communicate his obedience, his willingness to be a good student, a good boy. He nodded and kept eye contact whenever Denver gave him a direction. A few times he even said, “Yes, sir,” and he meant it from the bottom of his balls. Nothing about any of the weights lesson was sexual, and Adam didn’t want it to be either, not now. This felt like communion. All he knew was that he did not want it to end, and he thought that if he continued to obey, it just might keep happening.
    Denver stroked his face, his fingers catching in Adam’s hair. “You seem pretty calm. That just a front, or are you really?”
    “I’m calm,” Adam assured him, leaning into that touch. “You make me calm.” This made Denver smile, and it spurred Adam to tell him the rest. “I like it when you tell me what to do and how to do it. I like it a lot. It feels like being free. I wish I could do it all the time.”
    Denver’s eyes hooded a little. “Yeah?”
    “Yes.” Adam turned his head so he could kiss Denver’s palm reverently. “Yes, Sir.”
    Denver’s hand kept stroking his face. The door was open, letting in the cool evening air. It made Adam’s skin prickle. It made him want to ask Denver to close the door and fuck him. He didn’t say anything, though, just kept waiting to see what Denver would say next.
    What Denver said was, “Clean up your weights and help me put the stuff back in my truck.”
    It was a little disappointing, but Adam did it anyway, because Denver had told him to. He could feel the spell threatening to slip away, but he clung to it, making it stay, and Denver helped, giving an order every now and again. He started calling Adam boy, too, which made