Trust in Oneself, Draft 1, CH 21 (Patreon)

“Are you there yet?” Thomas said on his phone as he paced the living you. “Rol, this is the Orrs, I really don’t want to have to explain to them why a teleporter arrived late. I doubt they’re going to care that I’m down to one landing spot in San Francisco after what the Chamber did.” He paused. “No, they are going to care and pick one for me and probably fuck me until I know the room by heart. I’ve only dealt with two of them at this point, and that’s enough. So I need you—you’re there? Good, we’ll be there in a sec.”

Paul tilted an ear. “You dealt with they Orrs? I don’t remember you mentioning them before.”

“Don’t deal with Aaron, and whatever you do, do not let Aiden fuck you. You don’t need to start singing on top of dancing.” Thomas grabbed his arm, then was falling into them as instead of being in Donal’s house, they were in a locker room.

“I got him,” another rat, naked, said, picking Thomas up.

“Hey, Paul,” the raccoon, in the process of undressing, said, “your ride’s not here yet.”

“Ride?” Paul asked, looking around. “I thought—” he stopped as Neil pushed him against the lockers. “I thought you were going to help Roland with Thomas.” He grinned as the raccoon started unbuttoning his shirt. The grin fell as he remembered he liked Roland’s boyfriend and knew him well enough they’d already fucked, which meant…

“Neil, you should stop. This isn’t you.”

The raccoon tilted an ear. “You suddenly think you’re ugly or something? When don’t we want to have you fuck us?” Niel groped Paul and the golden tiger swallowed the moan. Did it matter if he was influencing his friends? It wasn’t like they ever said no to sex with him before.

He kissed the raccoon hard, running a hand down until he had it around the hard cock. A hand reached behind and undid his tail strap, then Niel also had a hand around his cock and Paul moaned. Fuck, he needed this and—

“Can you lot hurry this up? We’re on the clock.”

Paul broke the kiss and looked over Niel’s shoulder. The tiger in the doorway was lean, but his leather jacket and pants were tight enough on him to show muscles. He looked at them impatiently. When he noticed Paul and smirked.

“You have a meeting. Either pack it in or finish this pronto.”

Paul swallowed and pushed Niel away. “I can drive myself,” he said, reaching behind before his pants dropped any further. The tiger got enough of an eyeful to smile and lick his lips.

“You’re not getting behind the wheel of anything after you drove your car off the Golden Gate bridge. Who the fuck taught you to drive?”

“My mother,” Paul replied, “and she did a great job. If not for the Chamber trying to kill me and Shila, I wouldn’t have done that.”

The tiger snorted. “There’s still way better things you could have done. Since you’re all wrapped up again, I’m guessing you prefer the meeting over the sex. Good choice. Arnie’s not a patient guy.”

“How are you again?”

The tiger smirked. “I’m Adam Orr.”

* * * * *

Paul looked at the passing buildings, trying to prepare himself for the meeting. He couldn’t think of one good thing that had been said about the Orrs beyond, they looked after their city. Madoc only had good things to say about Dietrich, but the rat was kind of besotted by the mountain of a tiger, and Dietrich was always addressed as his own entity, rather than part of the Orrs who ran the city.

“I’m not feeling anything,” Adam said, glancing at him before looking ahead again. There had been something hyper about the tiger in the locker room, but that had vanished as soon as he sat behind the wheel. As if he couldn’t wait to be driving again.

“Should you?” Paul asked.

“Isn’t that your thing? You know, any guy around you just wants you to fuck them? Not going to happen, by the way. I do the fucking. That’s what Brislow said to Arnie. Don’t call him that, by the way, he hates it.”

“It only affects guys I know,” Paul replied. “As far as we could work out. I don’t know you, so…”

“You want to?” Adam asked with a lewd grin. “Get to know me so intimately you won’t be able to think straight by the time I’m done with you?”

“No.”

“So what’s the point of only influencing guys you know. You’ve already gotten what you needed out of them, I figure.”

“Haven’t you ever had sex with someone you actually know?” Paul asked. He knew the answer, since Adam wouldn’t be saying that otherwise.

“Fucked my brothers. And I know them way too well. So, yeah. I don’t see the point.”

“At least I don’t need to coerce anyone into having sex with me.”

Adam snorted. “With that power of yours, it isn’t like you have a choice. Fuck, how long does it take you to get to know a guy enough you’ll start affecting him?”

Paul shrugged. “It’s not like I need to fuck all the time. Unlike the lot of you, I can go more than a day without putting my dick in an ass.” He chuckled. “Fuck, it’s been two weeks since the last time and I was able to pull my—” He slammed into the seatbelt as the car skidded to a stop.

“What?” Adam demanded, staring at him.

Cars honked as they drive around them. Paul saw a few middle fingers from the drivers that passed them.

“I told you, I don’t need to fuck all the time.”

The tiger stared at him for a few more seconds. “Call my asshole of a brother.”

“What?” a man said over the sound system before Paul could ask what that meant.

“Arnie, change of plan. I’m taking golden boy here to my club.”

“No.” There was a lot of annoyance in the way that one word was growled.

“Arnold, the kid hasn’t fucked in two weeks.”

The silence stretched, and Adam smiled in triumph.

“No.”

“Arnie.”

“Don’t call me that. And it’s still no. He’s gone two weeks already. He can survive the time it takes to work this out, and then he can go to my club and get laid properly.”

Adam looked at Paul and grinned. “You are so lucky I don’t have to listen to one when he says.” He started driving again, forcing drivers to swerve away and honk angrily.

“Adam, if you aren’t at the office in fifteen minutes with him, I am putting you on watch duty over Wolf and his nannies for a month.”

“You wouldn’t,” Adam replied, sounding less than certain.

“Try me.”

The tiger swallowed, then slammed the accelerator down.

* * * * *

Paul stood as the men around the table looked at him. They didn’t look as old as Paul expected. From the stories he heard, he expected them to be in their fifties or something, not at most in their late twenties. The only one who looked like he might be pushing thirty-five was the one with his feet on the table and his eyes glued to his phone, playing a game, by the way his fingers moved.

Two of them wore suits, and only one of them looked like he belonged in one. He seemed almost leaner than Adam. He shoved the feet of the older one off the table before sitting.

“What the fuck?”

“Put the phone away, Ani.”

“Fuck you.” He put his feet back on the table.

“Not today,” Adam replied.

Paul pulled his attention away from the two because the one in the clearly expensive suit was looking at him with a calculating expression he didn’t like.

“He doesn’t look like much,” the only one standing said. He was leaning against the edge of the table. He was only rivaled by the one in the cheaper suit in build, the one seated at the head of the table and who looked like he wanted to rip the suit off. “We sure he’s ours?”

The speaker wore unlaced construction boots, ripped jeans and an unbuttoned shirt under a biker’s jacket.

“I like his coloring,” one said, “but he isn’t mine. I swear that other than that one time Arnold talked us into—” he shuddered “—I haven’t touched a woman other than to pose her.”

“He’s an Orr,” the one at the head of the table said. “Brislow confirms it.”

“Oh, and of course, you believe him,” the one in the expensive suit said. “It’s been over a decade, Arnold. Have you decided to move on and love ano—”

“Finish that, Aiden, and I am going to rip your tongue out.”

“No, still touchy about Art,” Ani said. “I think it’s a fatal condition.”

“Oh, Anakin,” the one who’s talked about posing a woman replied, putting a hand to his heart. “Such a vicious blow. I never thought you capable of it.”

“What?” Anakin said, looking up from his phone. “What’d I say?”

“Look,” another on the leaner side said, standing, and Paul’s eyes immediately went to the holstered gun at his hip. Then noticed the one under his arm. “We know he isn’t one of ours, so he’s got to be one of the Folk’s projects we missed when we cleaned house.”

“Can’t be,” the one who had to be Arnold said. “The whole reason they took Brislow’s kid was to ‘replace’ us. If they had him, they wouldn’t have needed to.”

Aiden snorted. “After how he pissed them off?”

“I’m not saying they wouldn’t have done it, but it wouldn’t have been to replace us; just to make Brislow suffer. They’d probably have just killed the kid.”

“If it’s not us and not them, that only leaves the uncles,” Gun-toter said. “I’m guessing you’ve asked them already, since you are so much smarter.”

“You want the chair, Alex?” Arnold asked. “Do any of you want to finally take the fucking chair so I can go back to having a life?”

The snorts around the table made it clear that none of them wanted it.

“Then how about you fucking stop questioning and undermining my authority?”

“Maybe if you got the fucking moving,” Anakin said, still not looking up from his phone. “We wouldn’t be bored and feel the need to entertain ourselves at your expense. Some of us have guys to go fuck, you know.” He looked up long enough to glance at Paul, then back at his phone. “If none of you take him, I will.”

“He’s family,” Arnold snapped. “So we’re all having a go at him.”

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there,” Paul said, then found himself at the receiving end of six testosterone-filled glares.

“Oh, you’re fucked now,” Anakin said, eyes on his phone.

Instead of outright telling them he had no interest in sex with any of them. He pointed out the one thing they seemed to be missing. “Who says it has to be one of you?”

“You’re an Orr,” Arnold said. “There aren’t three ways that happens.”

“Not that I’m not an Orr. Why are you acting like I’m one of you by way of someone still alive? Maybe one of your ancestors lost track of a kid like with Thomas’s family and It was just a—” yeah, not happy “—coincidence I got initiated.”

“That’s not how it works for us,” Arnold said. “The only way to be initiated is for your father to have fucked you, so he’s alive.”

Pal snickers. “Oh well, now I know you’re wrong.”

“Do tell.”

“Come on, Dietrich was the last guy I had sex with. Something would have happened if he…was…”

Paul had been with Shila from the day after that one and there had been no guys Paul knew until they were in Denver, and found Donal, who he knew a little and wasn’t bad looking. And who had kissed him before even saying hello.

“Oh, fuck.”

Dietrich Orr was his father.