Free Sullivan (Leopard's Spots 7) by Bailey Bradford Page A

the wall, buckling the thin sheetrock as it collapsed under his weight. Sully heard the front door slam.
    “Fuck!” He’d screwed up everything! Somehow he’d disgusted Bobby—probably he’d been too rough and inexperienced. It was possible he’d even hurt Bobby by fucking him so hard, wasn’t it? Bobby wouldn’t have said, being all manly and shit.
    Then he’d freaked Mando the hell out. Sully thought Mando had overreacted, but then again, it wasn’t like Sully had a lot of experience with any of the things that had happened the past day or so. Still, he suspected there were many things in Mando’s past that made him leery of trusting, and he might even have run because he was afraid of being let down in a bigger way if he stayed. Sully was sure there was a psychological element he was missing to Mando’s behaviour—probably a whole textbook of them.
    Sully groaned and forced himself to get up off the floor. He hurt all over, and it’d been a pleasurable pain while Bobby had been tearing at him, but now he just ached and wanted it to stop.
    “Oh Goddamnit,” he grumbled when he saw the size of the hole in the wall. He was going to have to buy a sheet of drywall, and replace the whole stupid hall, just about. Added to that, he would have to tape and float it, and he never was any good at that. He always left bumps and lumps because he couldn’t sand the drywall mud down enough. Granted, he’d only hung drywall a few times, but he’d screwed it up every damn time.
    “Considering the shape of this place, no one will notice a few lumps. Probably not even the hole.” Sully hobbled into the living-dining-kitchen area, his knee aching. He saw the keys to the place on the floor, along with bags of groceries. Mando hadn’t taken a key, and had apparently come right in to check on him when Mando had got in. Then Sully noticed something else—Mando’s ratty duffle bag was gone.
    It was only then he realised Mando had never unpacked it. Did that mean Mando had never intended to hang around?
    Sully rubbed at his chest, trying to ease the pinching around his heart. He didn’t know why he was so concerned about Mando when Mando obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Regardless, Sully was going to find the boy.
    And he was going to find Bobby, too, and if he had to force the man to tell him what the hell he’d done wrong, then so be it. Sully would tie him up and get some answers, then he’d see what he could do to convince Bobby to give them a chance.
    Possibly he was being stupid, and developing some pathetic crush on his first lover, some puppy-dog teenage angst thing he’d missed out on up until now. Sully figured that had to be it, because he was feeling some very strong urges to run after Bobby, to find him and fuck him and keep him.
    “Well, no wonder Bobby hauled ass. He knew I was a burgeoning psycho-stalker,” Sully mumbled. He should check into changing his major to psychology and see if he could figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

    * * * *

    “Are you practicing for the priesthood or something?” Paava asked.
    Bobby waved off his best friend and head bartender’s question in favour of snapping an order at one of the repairmen who seemed intent on goofing around. “Think you can get your head out of your ass long enough to maybe finish tearing out that wall there? I’d like to open this place back up sometime this century.”
    The worker, a man named Chad—of course, Bobby had never once had a good experience with a Chad—glared and muttered something Bobby shouldn’t have been able to hear. However, he was a shifter, and one angry and confused at that. Never a good combo for a wild animal like his wolf.
    “You think you can kick this faggot’s ass, come on over here and try it. I’ll break you in half so fast you won’t get to experience your life passing before your eyes.” Bobby backed up the threat with a wave of power that he hoped made Chad piss himself.