More Than My Words Read online

  “I don’t typically have a lot of time to read, but I guess I’ll have to start,” Mason said.

  “I believe he has a couple of popular, long-running series,” Stacy offered. “One series is called The Bronson Experiments, and the other series has the word chronicles, or maybe it’s odyssey, in it somewhere. I forget. The last Tessler book my husband read was titled “Back From Hell,” and I believe it’s from The Bronson Experiments series, but I’m not sure where it falls in the book order. You could Google him and find out easy enough.”

  “The books I’ve read all seem to fall into the true crime genre or military stuff,” Mason said.

  “That’s understandable considering your background,” Stacy replied.

  Mason nodded and considered her statements. “Maybe when I get home I’ll look him up on Amazon and order one of his books.”

  “That sounds like a great idea.”

  Mason felt a like a weight was lifted from his chest, and he could breathe freely again for the first time in weeks. For the next thirty minutes, he continued to tell Stacy everything he knew about Tessler and the brief conversations they’d shared. Before he knew it, Stacy announced their time was up and that she’d see him again in a week.

  Mason was so deep in thought, he barely registered the fact that he was back in the hired car and on his way home from his therapist’s office. Had his session really been consumed with talking about Tessler? Did that mean his interest in this man had slipped headfirst into obsession? Was this even healthy? As intriguing as he found Tessler to be, the man was more closed off than anyone else Mason had ever met. When it came right down to it, he knew very little about the man and to be attracted to someone strictly because they were mysterious was just plain crazy.

  Mason thanked his driver as he exited the backseat of the sleek SUV by the curb in front of his apartment complex. Once inside, he changed into his workout gear and went into his den. He faced all his equipment and decided to give the treadmill another go. None of his other attempts on this machine had been successful, but that was before BB had started working with him. He was hoping things might feel different now.

  He stepped up onto the belt and set the machine at a very low speed and started to walk. Agonizing pain shot through his leg as he kept at the snail’s pace he’d set. Mason wanted so badly to give up and drop himself onto the couch in defeat, but he didn’t. Not this time. He simply tightened his grip on the handrails and breathed as best as he could through the pain. One step after the other, and with tears burning his eyes, he pushed himself to keep walking until the nerve endings in his leg finally started to calm down.

  Halle-fucking-lujah. There is a god.

  Mason managed one, slow mile before exhaustion made him stop. He reached for his cane draped over the back of a weight machine and hit the bathroom in the hall to shower. His body might have been second guessing his decision to use that treadmill, but Mason ignored it, and instead, celebrated this for the victory it was. Best of all, he found himself excited to tell BB about this accomplishment at their next therapy session.

  Since when did he ever get excited for another session of physical therapy?

  Mason laughed at himself, and it felt so good to be doing that. He finished his shower and dried off while leaning against the wall, then wrestled to pull on a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. It was incredible to feel the fatigue of a workout, muscles warm from exertion, and his heart still slowing down. Things were definitely looking up for him; Mason could feel it in his bones. His confidence was coming back, too, and who knew where that would lead?

  Perhaps a dinner date—in bed—with Tessler.

  Now he was being ridiculous, but even that felt like a major shift from the kind of crazy he was feeling before he’d met BB … and Tessler. The fucking author was in nearly every one of his thoughts, and that was something Mason was nervous about. It probably wasn’t healthy for him to be paying this much attention to a man like Tessler, who showed basically no interest in Mason whatsoever. It put a lot of stress on what might never be more than a casual or temporary friendship.

  That was okay, wasn’t it? One could always use more friends—especially if it was him.

  Chapter Six

  Six more chapters of edits and he’d be done with this latest book project, then he could send the manuscript on to the next step closer to publication. He studied the title of the story on the top of the page. The Fury Within was typed in a boldface font. He remembered the inner turmoil he’d felt when he picked that title. At the time, the title and the main character seemed to fit with what was going on inside of him to a T.

  Tessler moved the manuscript pages forward to the next chapter and began implementing the editor’s suggestions from the sidebar. The story was filled with enough angst to fill a cargo ship. Why? Tessler wasn’t sure he had a logical answer for that. Since the main character was very loosely based on him, the story was a way to purge all the shit he had piling up inside. But he felt lighter these days with a softer edge to him. Maybe it was because his one real vacation of the year was ahead of him, so close he could taste the idea of that time away on his tongue and the men he hoped to sleep with while he was there.

  Sun, surf, sand, and sex. Did it get any better than that?

  Damn, he looked forward to this trip every year. His one constant in the Keys was a man named Marcus who worked in Old Town as a tour guide at the Earnest Hemingway Home and Museum. Tessler would stop there first and say hello before he went to his rental cottage on the beach. He also hoped to set up a time for later that very night to fuck Marcus. Jesus, he needed to get laid.

  The vivid thoughts of him pushing into Marcus had Tessler’s cock straining inside his pants. He pressed down on the bulge with his palm, then squeezed it. A soft moan rolled from Tessler’s mouth as his eyelids closed. He slid down into the leather chair at his desk, pushed his t-shirt up onto his chest, and unzipped his jeans before he reached inside. Another groan rumbled in his throat when the heat of his shaft met the cooler temperature in his office loft. His fingers tightened around his girth and began to pull off slow, concise strokes on his cock. Half a dozen tugs into it, the familiar visuals of Marcus morphed into images of Mason from the coffee shop instead.

  “Fuckkkk,” he said softly into the room.

  It was Mason’s larger and more muscled body who he had pressed face first into the mattress. Tessler’s calloused fingers now gripped at Mason’s neck and hips, letting him thrust deeper inside of Mason’s very needy ass. It was Mason’s deep voice that called out Tessler’s name when he came mere seconds before Tessler did.

  Tessler kept his eyes closed while he slowly stroked himself through the aftershocks of his orgasm. Once he had milked the last drop from his tip, he glanced down at the mess he’d made of himself. Thick ropes of come were now splattered across his stomach and dripped off the fingers still clutching his softening shaft.

  Fuck, that felt good, Tessler thought, as he reached for the box of tissues sitting on top of his desk. It would have been a hundred times better if that hadn’t been a fantasy and he really had been tunneling inside Mason’s ass. If he were being honest, having Mason inside him would have been just as fulfilling, but Tessler hadn’t bottomed for anyone in years, so where that particular fantasy came from, he didn’t know. He tossed the used tissues into the trash can beside his desk and sat back in his seat. He wondered if Mason ever thought of him that way—or hell, if Mason was even into dudes. Sure, the guy seemed interested in him, but Tessler wasn’t always so sure if anyone he’d met these days was truly interested in him or the author behind the name.

  He didn’t get that vibe from Mason, though. In fact, Mason didn’t seem at all fazed when he’d offered up his pen name during their official introduction. It was as if Mason had no idea who he really was, and that was as rare as it was good. Any time he’d been introduced to someone or to a group, and recognized, was the worst. That “Oh my god!” moment readers got when they rea
lized who it was they were meeting sometimes had Tessler recoiling from them and wanting to slip right back into hiding.

  The price of anonymity was enormous, and Tessler was finding it more and more difficult to accomplish with each new book he released as the popularity within the genre continued to grow. It was only a matter of time before the three uniquely different pieces of himself found their way back together as one. And when they did, he doubted he’d ever be able to divide himself again, and maybe he wouldn’t want to. Perhaps he’d be happy just being his one true self? Then again, he’d spent so many years living as three people, he’d lost track of the margins. It was becoming harder to define where Tessler ended and where his own identity began, and that sometimes had him feeling lost within his own life. He had different personas with the various groups of people around him. It made it strange when he looked in the mirror and wondered who the fuck the reflection was staring back at him. Was it Tessler? LJ Mechum? Or the name he was given at birth?

  Christ, it was hard to remember who he was at his core, and that was starting to wear on him. Tessler loved writing and couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living, but was it worth the cost of what he’d lost in order to write in the genres that he did, and to have to hide who he was in the process? Did it even matter after all these years? Would anyone really give a shit if they found out who he was, or the world famous trilogy he’d written under one of his pen names? Or why he now felt forced to lie to them about his identity because of it? His true fame and net worth had all come from a source he didn’t want people to know about because it plucked at a chord too close to him and shed light on a part of his life he felt was long behind him. By admitting he was the author of that trilogy would also be exposing a part of himself he really didn’t want anyone to ever know about. But sadly, secrets never really remained that way—and that was his biggest fear.

  Tessler stood up from behind his desk, stepped towards the wide expanse of windows in his loft, and gazed down at the street below. Dusk was beginning to overtake the day, and the street lights had popped on along the sidewalk. Tessler rested his head against the metal frame of the window for a moment and studied the interesting cloud formations feathering across the sky with its iridescent colors reflecting off of them from the final rays of the setting sun. It almost looked like a storm might be moving in, and the handful of pedestrians hurrying by seemed to sense it as well.

  His eyes dropped to the front door of the gym just as it opened and Mason stepped outside. The sight of him had Tessler standing up taller, and every nerve in his body went on alert. As he watched Mason slowly step over to the curb, he held his breath wondering if he’d make the trip across the street to the coffee shop. Then, he remembered the shop had closed early today to replace a large piece of broken kitchen equipment.

  The light disappeared, turning into a completely darkened sky and rain began to fall. Mason visibly began to pace, seeking some kind of shelter around him. He moved back to stand beneath the thin overhang of the gym building just as the lights inside began to click off. Tessler watched Mason pull out his phone and call someone. He guessed it was perhaps a call for an Uber or to the driver he’d seen Mason leave with from the gym countless times since they’d met.

  It didn’t take Tessler long to make the decision he did, although he second-guessed himself all the way down to the street level of his building and out the front door. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and by the time Tessler reached the opposite side of the street where Mason waited, they were both drenched to the skin.

  “Would you like a dry place to wait?” Tessler asked somewhat breathless from his expedited trek to reach Mason. Tessler’s eyes were glued to the rain droplets dripping from the ends of Mason’s eyelashes and the bristles on his chin, and his breath hitched when Mason licked at the water collecting on his full lips.

  “That’d be great,” Mason said. “My driver got stuck in traffic getting out of LA. I told him I’d wait for him, but that was before it started raining this hard.”

  “Come on,” Tessler directed. “I’ll get you dried off and then you can decide if you want to call for an Uber or something.”

  The walk across the street was slow because of Mason’s careful strides. Tessler wanted to offer his arm to help him, but he wasn’t sure if Mason would accept it or not, and the last thing he wanted to do was embarrass the man for needing any assistance. He remembered the defeated look on Mason’s face the first time they’d met when he fell inside the coffee shop. Tessler had felt so bad for him, but he was also in awe of how well Mason had managed to collect himself and walk out the door on his own terms, head held high, and without the benefit of help from the many onlookers watching him.

  That had taken a lot of guts, which he imagined Mason had a mountain full, considering his military service and his deployment in the Middle East. Tessler wasn’t so sure he’d have the same kind of strength and fortitude needed to survive the shit Mason had in his life. It made the man all the more impressive to someone like Tessler who had spent his adult life hiding in a fantasy world in which he’d created for himself. He wrote about fake people with fake lives and the only real danger he might run into during his day was a possible paper cut. That’s how he explained his chosen isolation from the real world. He’d rationalized in the beginning, it was to keep himself safe; now, he wasn’t so sure if his motivation had been more selfish than about self-preservation.

  “The coffee shop is closed, but I’ve got towels upstairs we can dry off with if you want,” Tessler suggested as they stepped into the foyer of his building. He watched Mason’s eyes bounce to the daunting staircase rising before him and could almost feel Mason pulling away when he added, “I don’t use the stairs. There’s an elevator at the end of the hall that’s a lot quicker.” His words seemed to lift Mason’s shoulders, and once again, the light had seeped back into his smoky, green eyes.

  Tessler showed Mason to his private elevator at the back of the building, and together they took it to the second floor—his personal sanctuary—the place where only a handful of people had ever stepped inside, the one space above all the others where he felt the most protected and could be himself. That’s when it hit him.

  How can I hide who I really am from Mason here? Shit. What the fuck have I done?

  The elevator door opened directly into Tessler’s wide expanse of a living room, and he was almost too racked with fear to step into his own home. It was as if Mason sensed his apprehension and shifted to stand just out of the way of the closing elevator door.

  “Hey, it’s cool if you’d rather I don’t come all the way inside,” Mason suggested. “I mean, I don’t need to drip all over your floor. I can wait right here to dry off, or if you have a hand towel or something, I’ll use it here. I don’t need to move from this spot, is what I’m saying, and I can also give my driver another call for his ETA. I promise to be out of your hair as soon as possible.”

  Hearing Mason’s nervous babbling lightened his own unease about the man being in his home, and he realized he was smiling. This wasn’t so bad, was it? “You don’t have to rush off,” Tessler finally said. “Let me get us some towels, and we’ll figure things out from there.”

  He disappeared down a hallway off of his kitchen and returned a couple of minutes later holding two big, fluffy towels. He tossed one to Mason and noticed he hadn’t managed to shift from his spot much more than an inch or two since he’d stepped off the elevator. Had he made Mason feel that uncomfortable or unwelcome in his home that he was afraid to move?

  Tessler’s hand lifted to remove his ball cap and then realized he hadn’t bothered to put one on when he hurried to help Mason. The hat had become sort of a security blanket to him over the years, offering, at best, a marginal amount of camouflage to conceal him. Most people in town knew who he was but they left him to himself, and as far as Tessler had seen, the only photographs of him to appear on the internet had the ever-present ball cap in place, which had a wa
y of partially hiding his features. To date, no one had been able to piece it all together, and that was just fine by him.

  Tessler rubbed his hand over what felt like a naked head and finger combed his short, dark hair. When his gaze met Mason’s, the smile on his face warmed Tessler to his core.

  “You didn’t have it on when you came outside,” Mason offered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your hat,” Mason added. “It looked like you were just reaching for it.”

  Tessler laughed at that. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It’s like my credit card. I never leave home without it.”

  “Why’s that?” Mason asked.

  Tessler ran his towel down his damp arms and over the wet fabric of jeans. “I guess it’s easier if people don’t get a good look at my face,” Tessler said and then shrugged.

  “Do you have a huge fan base?” Mason asked.

  Tessler chuckled under his breath. “I’m not sure I’d describe it that way, but I do feel fortunate to have the readers I do.”

  “Do you get bothered a lot in public?”

  “Not too much as long as I’m in town here,” Tessler answered. “But all bets are off when I go elsewhere.”

  “That must suck to always have to look over your shoulder,” Mason commiserated. “The guys I work for go through the same bullshit. Everywhere they go, they get mobbed by fans. It’s my job to make sure they get from point A to point B safely, and that’s not always an easy thing to do.”

  “That’s why I don’t do a lot of traveling,” Tessler said. He started to walk towards his kitchen and looked back at Mason, who was still rooted in place by the elevator door. “Feel like a cup of coffee?”

  Mason shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I’m okay. I’m fairly dry now,” he said. “I can go back downstairs and wait by the door for my driver.”

  Tessler grinned at Mason. “You’re still soaking wet,” he countered. “Follow me into the kitchen and we’ll warm up with coffee, or I have beer if you’d prefer something like that.”