Bouncer’s Folly
BOUNCER’S FOLLY
Zara’s Bois 3
Gracie C. McKeever
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
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BOUNCER’S FOLLY
Zara’s Bois 3
Copyright © 2008 by Gracie C. McKeever
E-book ISBN: 1-60601-089-1
First E-book Publication: May 2008
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2008 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
For those who proudly live their lives outside the closet and are not afraid to be who they are, no matter the consequences.
BOUNCER’S FOLLY
Zara’s Bois 3
Gracie C. McKeever
Copyright © 2008
Chelsea, New York City – Current Day
Trevor, don’t die! No!
Travis Carmichael woke in a cold sweat, panting as he jerked to a sitting position in his king-sized bed and blinked at the nightstand clock to bring the glowing red numbers into focus.
Three a.m. and he’d be willing to bet his brother wasn’t home.
Of course Trevor wasn’t home because Trevor was…Christ, no!
Travis choked back a sob, swallowed hard over the sudden lump in his throat.
He didn’t know why he was so overcome with grief and shock. He’d been prepared for his twin’s death for at least six years now, ever since Trevor came out to their parents on his eighteenth birthday and let the doorknob hit him where God had split him, as his parents put it.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, they said.
Differences and wildly divergent views on life notwithstanding, Travis didn’t agree with this sentiment. Sure Trevor was a carousing party boi, shameless philanderer and alcoholic druggie. But his brother was
not
garbage no matter what their parents said.
Trevor was his blood, his heart, and soul. Trevor was his other half.
What was he supposed to do now that his brother was gone?
6
Gracie C. McKeever
Maybe he’s not gone. Maybe you just had a horrible nightmare. Yep.
That’s all it is.
But that kind of thinking was a special kind of denial that Travis refused to buy into. He knew the truth, couldn’t escape it.
Might as well get used to the idea, the reality of never seeing Trevor’s crooked smile again, of never having the outrageously charming slacker con him out of fifty bucks that he had no intentions of ever paying back.
Thinking about his brother’s endless tab made him smile and think how useless it was to keep track of things like a meaningless debt when life was so fleeting.
His brother was dead.
As much as he wanted to reject the idea, he repeated the sentence to himself again and again to get used to it because his instincts had never been wrong, his bond with Trevor never failing him. And his instincts told him that his brother had partied hard one too many times, had dropped a tab of ecstasy or meth—or whatever else it was he and his friends got high on nowadays—for the last time.
The sensations of suffocation still lingered, making Travis work twice as hard to get any air into his already depleted lungs.
He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths and counted to twenty before he felt like he could breathe again. He was still bothered by one vague but persistent feeling. His brother had not been alone when he died nor had he died by his own hand.
Bouncer’s Folly: Zara’s Bois 3
7
Zara’s, The Village, New York City – Current Day
Zara tasted vomit. Ewwwwww!
What the hell had her angels thrust her into this time? Was this the thanks she got for making a perfect love match between Patryk and Keir?
Her angels had told her she was being rewarded for that good deed. Well, they could keep their lousy
reward
then. She certainly didn’t need this crap, whatever this crap was.
Zara shuddered and coughed spasmodically, smacking her lips together and trying to rid herself of the horrid, acidic taste in her mouth.
A pair of hands cupped the back of her head—a pair of big, strong masculine hands—and held her while she turned her head and retched.
“Damn, we thought he was dead and you like, brought him back to life, dude.”
“Why don’t you guys back up and give him some room?”
Nice voice, commanding, deep and vaguely familiar. But what the hell was going on and who had almost died?
Zara tried to sit up but one of those firm hands that she was becoming quickly accustomed to latched onto her shoulder and gently shoved her back. She felt some sort of makeshift cushion
behind her head, a rolled-up jacket or shirt maybe, the spicy sandalwood scent of the material
deeply erotic and pleasing despite her queasy state.
It was the queasy state that made her settle back against the cushion without any protest, resistance or even opening her eyes, silently going with the flow until she figured out what the hell was going on.
She didn’t have to wait too long before a commotion broke out several feet away.
8
Gracie C. McKeever
Zara jerked her gaze to the door across the room where two EMTs rushed across the threshold wheeling a stretcher between them.
Quincy followed hot on their heels, expression a mixture of concern and irritation. “What’s up, Ramsey?”
“Just a twinkie getting into the usual trouble. I’ve got things under control though.”
“Sure? I heard someone was near death in here.”
Zara blinked as several sets of eyes—the EMT’s, two club bois, Quincy and Ramsey— turned to her and stared. “I’m…fine now. Really.”
“Let the paramedics check you out to be sure.”
Zara glanced at Ramsey kneeling beside her, entranced by his smooth coffee-brown skin and warm brandy eyes. She used to think Quincy Powers was a hunk of burning man, but Ramsey Logan put her former crush to shame.
She vaguely remembered handing the bouncer a napkin with Patryk Andrews’ phone number written on it in her last incarnation as an angel-in-training matchmaker.
Then she’d been trying to hook up the shy and once-burned Patryk with his soul mate, Keir Monroe, a tortured but talented painter and one of Zara’s most popular bartenders.
What was her assignment now?
Her angels, Micah and Jamaereh, hadn’t said much to her before whisking her away. All they would share was that they were sending her home.
What and whose home was the question.
Come to think of it, how come Quincy hadn’t even said hello to her?
Was he still mad at her for what she’d done to Zack? Damn, didn’t he recogni—Oh-oh. Something was wrong besides her sitting on a cold bathroom floor with the sour taste of vomit in her mouth and whatever else she had taken during a wild night of revelry.
One of the EMT’s put a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm while the other checked her eyes with a penlight and told her to follow his finger with her eyes.
When she wasn’t following the EMT’s finger, her gaze found the bouncer, Ramsey, still crouching at her side and squeezing her hand with
Bouncer’s Folly: Zara’s Bois 3
9
one of his. He cradled the base of her skull with the other, his fingers gently ruffling the hair at the nape of her neck.
She closed her eyes, subtly leaning into his touch, belly trembling and nipples hardening beneath her shirt at the rasp of his skin against hers.
Oh my God, something else was hardening besides her nipples!
Zara popped open her eyes, one hand flying to her crotch where, as she’d suspected, an erection reigned supreme, front and center, straining the zipper of her pants and making her breath hitch in her chest.
Damn it, they’d done it to her again!
It was the last thought Zara had before she passed out.
* * * *
He never meant to hurt Trevor, but he’d had no choice. The boi had
brought it on himself
rejecting his offers and efforts to be a friend, rejecting
him
when all he’d ever wanted to do was take
care
of Trevor, not harm him.
That he’d allowed the twinkie, sexy and irresistible though he was, to
make him act out of character, lose his temper and resort to begging and
violence, more than annoyed him. He never lost his temper, especially in
public. Even when he dominated a sub, he was always in control, doling out
just enough discipline, just enough candy to keep his bois in line. And in all
his life he had
never
had to beg for anything. Family money and status saw
to this. His own dominant nature and power saw to the rest.
He sat in the VIP section of
Zara’s
, drink on the table before him and
looking as inconspicuous as his blond, blue-eyed Nordic good looks would
allow, his six-six that usually made him the welcome cynosure in any crowd
now a definite and unwanted drawback.
Mentally, he retraced his steps, knew no one had seen him go into the
restroom with Trevor. He was sure of it. He had been very careful. And with
the way the music blasted throughout the club, no one on the dance floor or
anywhere else in the club could have heard their raised voices. He was sure
of that too.
Still he watched the bathroom door, wondering what was going on
behind it, what was happening to Trevor.
10
Gracie C. McKeever
By last count he’d seen at least three people go in and not come out—
the two twinkies who had found Trevor OD’d on the tile and the bouncer
they had summoned.
Just as he thought it two EMTs rushed through the crowd wheeling a
stretcher.
Okay, it was just a matter of time now for his crime to be revealed, just
a matter of time before the coroner came to declare Trevor dead, right?
As much as Trevor had angered him, he still didn’t want to watch them
take him out in one of those black body bags. He would have to turn his
back, he decided, the thought of Trevor’s pretty-boy features forever still
and stifled beneath that dreary plastic depressing him.