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Chapter Two
Rayne
The ambient music that played through Rayne’s earbuds came to an abrupt end as the shrill of his seven-o’clock alarm took over. Wincing at the ache in his ears from the cheap headphones, he deftly removed them from his ear canals and set them on his nightstand while massaging his bruised inner ear. It sucked sleeping with them in, but it was better than hearing—and suffering through—someone else having mind-blowing sex just across the narrow hall from him. Rayne listened for any movement from his new roommates as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Wood and his boyfriend, Trent, were decent guys, but they were still a new couple, so needless to say, they had sex like porn stars—loud and often. Not to mention that Wood wasn’t long released from his seventeen-year stint in prison, so Rayne figured he was probably making up for a lot of lost time as well. Hell, if Rayne had a hot, young stud half as sexy as Trent to call his own, he’d be all over him too.
Rayne massaged his temples. He’d never experienced love like the one Wood and Trent shared. One that was selfless and fulfilling. The kind of love that ached and hurt, yet felt so damn amazing at the same time. He may have had the opportunity for love once or twice in the past, but Rayne hadn’t recognized it, too busy focusing on himself and his greed. Now he was alone, damn near homeless, with no job, no money, and no prospects for a better life.
One day at a time were the words he lived by.
Rayne barely had a place to lay his head; he needed to not mess this up. Wood and Trent had been nothing but kind to him by allowing him to crash there, and the last thing he wanted to do was come between them. But that was his nature—his addiction affected his life and anyone around him.
“Not anymore. I can do this,” Rayne whispered, reassuring himself. He quickly made his small bed, tucking the well-worn sheets in on the sides and flipping the flimsy quilt over his lone pillow. He’d been used to luxury for a majority of his life: sleeping in five-star hotels, trips on million-dollar yachts, dining in Michelin-star restaurants, living in penthouses with California king-sized beds draped in Egyptian cotton sheets that melted against his skin. It was pitiful and both comforting how far he’d fallen.
For years, Rayne had enjoyed the finer things in life, but it had all come at an expensive cost: his self-respect.
Now, Rayne was just thankful for the little things he’d once thought were beneath him, low-class. He’d deluded himself into believing he had prestige in society because he had good looks and dressed the best. But when the chips fell along with his façade, all he had left was a bunch of material things that meant nothing and a small rented room in Wood and Trent’s trailer that wouldn’t cost him his dignity if he couldn’t pay his way.
Rayne grabbed his toiletry bag and towel and stepped out into the dark hallway, trying to be as quiet as possible. However, he wished he’d taken his earbuds with him because there was no mistaking the sounds he heard from the door opposite his. The squeaking bed, the grunts—not even the jazz music playing could drown out the sound of great sex. Rayne hurried the last few feet down the hall and practically threw himself into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him as if he were being chased.
He supposed he was. By life.
Breathe, he coached himself as he pressed his forehead to the door, his hands clenched over his ears. Wood’s guttural moans continued to reverberate through Rayne’s sex-starved mind, causing his cock to react. Damnit. Breathe… just breathe. Rayne struggled to ignore the ache. He turned on the cold water and flipped the shower lever up, not caring how loud he yelped when the frigid spray hit his overheated skin. Fuck! He braced his hands against the tiles, his fingers trying to puncture through the yellow-tinged ceramic.
His urge to masturbate was stronger than it’d been in a long time, but he would not give in. Thankfully, the freezing water was already starting to do the trick since his teeth were chattering too hard to feel sexy, and his balls had shriveled to the size of baby walnuts. Continuing to take long breaths, he commended himself for fighting it.
After several failed attempts, Rayne was back on track with his recovery program—three months was the furthest he’d ever made it in the past—but now he was almost a year in, and he’d completed most of his steps. All addictions came with challenges, and his was no different. Rayne was terrified, but he knew he could do this. He could live as a recovering sex addict.
That was how he’d met Herschel Wood. They’d both been at the same halfway house, and after Rayne had propositioned him several times, only to keep getting rebuffed, he began to feel protected around Wood. Like his addiction was safe with him. He needed Wood. Rayne had never had a real friendship before that he hadn’t sabotaged. But he wanted to have more because that’s what normal people had, right? They had friends, bills, jobs, lovers, gym memberships, family responsibilities… and they paid taxes! He wanted to keep striving for some degree of, “normalcy.”
Rayne was finally able to add some hot water to his freezing shower after the cold was effective in eliminating his steamy thoughts. He was rough as he scrubbed his body with his washrag, frustrated with the mess he’d made of his life. But instead of letting his thoughts gravitate toward negativity, he remembered his sponsor’s words and focused on the present. Because while his addiction sucked ass and the recovery was ten times worse, he at least had one person in this world he could trust.
Wood.
“Rayne, you in there? I thought you were out running. Umm… did you just get back?”
“I’ll be out in a second,” he answered, turning the water off before he was able to rinse all of the suds away. He hurried to towel off because if one of his roommates needed the bathroom, he wasn’t about to hog it.
Wood probably assumed Rayne had been out on his sunrise run and thought it was safe to get vocal with his boyfriend this morning. He knew Wood would never make him uncomfortable on purpose, but he’d be lying if he said that it wasn’t difficult to hear. Most days, Rayne left the trailer around 6:00 a.m. as quietly as possible to give Wood and Trent the privacy they were accustomed to before he came along. He’d only been staying there a couple of weeks, and he wasn’t trying to mess up the one good thing in his life, so he tried to make himself small and unnoticeable.
He would’ve done his run today if he hadn’t been exhausted, his feet aching from pounding the pavement from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. yesterday, searching for employment. Rayne needed to pay his own way, or else his idiot mind would conjure up much easier ways for him to pay his share. But those ways were no longer an option. He would search again today, all day if that’s what it took to find something. His last legit job was at Walmart, but he’d lost it for cursing out an old hookup who’d offered him a better job at his marketing firm if Rayne would accompany him back to his condo and spend the weekend with him.
That was how he’d survived the last twenty years of his life, using his eyes, his voice, his charm, and especially his body to get not just what he needed, but also whatever the hell he wanted, to the point that it had become an obsession. He thought he was winning at life by using rich bastards, taunting them with amazing sex, and then draining them for all he could, but it wasn’t until he’d gotten arrested four years ago with the manager of a Bloomingdale’s for public indecency that he realized he had a problem. He’d sold his dignity and freedom for a Burberry wardrobe and Gucci boots. And now, Rayne had a disease that he didn’t know existed until it was too late, and it had wreaked havoc on his life. He’d had no idea what sex addiction was until he’d hit rock bottom and had dragged a lot of innocent people down with him.
Since Rayne’s first arrest, he’d had his ups and downs on his road to recovery, far more down than up. His last release from jail was a little over eleven months ago. It took a while before he believed he could manage the steps of the program and maintain his celibacy. And he had, and he’d never been prouder of himself. Regardless that he had to hock pieces of his beautiful jewelry to pay for his own necessities, it felt good, like an accomplishment that he was taking care of himself. He didn’t have to pay with his body anymore. Besides, it wasn’t as if the men who gave him those jewels meant anything to him. They’d all been disposable pawns in his schemes.
Sometimes, Rayne hated the lonely, helpless feeling that would wash over him when he caught glimpses of what genuine love looked like, sounded like. Being around Trent and Wood made him flush warm all over and not in a pleasant way. It was a hollow ache that started in his throat and ended in his groin.
Rayne hurried and wrapped the towel around his lower waist and cinched his terry cloth robe over his navel. Wood was coming out of his room at the same time Rayne opened the door to the bathroom. There was no mistaking the satisfied expression on his roommate’s face or the way his gray-and-black hair was a tousled mess as if it had been grabbed and tugged repeatedly.
Rayne craved that kind of irresistible love more than anything, and doing so caused an ache to intensify deep inside of him. Would he ever know that feeling? Who the fuck would trust him with their heart, to be a faithful partner… a sex addict?
“Rayne, are you all right?” Wood said, coming closer, smelling of lust and bed linen.
“Yeah, sure,” he lied. Rayne hadn’t realized he’d stopped in front of his bedroom door until Wood tried to inch past him in the tight confines of the narrow hallway.
“Cool.” Wood managed to get by, but before he could close himself in the bathroom, Rayne’s soul screamed out for help.
