First Chapter: Sleepwalker

About Sleepwalker:

Oliver is determined to resist the young artist who walks his dog. But though Oliver excels at controlling everything in his life, the one thing that he can't master—aside from his dog—is his own heart.

Corporate lawyer and part-time municipal judge Oliver prefers to keep his life simple and predictable. Then he acquires Cujo, a stray Chihuahua who is just as vicious as she is tiny. Luckily, Oliver's dog walker, Blake, is just as competent as he is surly. When Oliver works late or has to travel, Blake is a text away. When Cujo needs a sweater or allergy medicine and growls in that way that promises bloodshed, Blake is there to save the day.

Then one day Oliver looks up from the bench where he’s seated in judge’s robes and finds his quiet, handsome dog-walker standing in front of him in cuffs.

Blake’s life is kind of a mess. He has nothing to show for his art degree except a portfolio reminding him that now, every time he gets in front of a canvas, he gets a splitting headache before he can create anything worthwhile. His dog-walking business isn’t much of a business really—it doesn’t pay the bills. It’s also the only thing he’s done lately that he feels good about. And just when things didn’t seem like they could get more bleak, he’s been busted for marijuana possession.

Sleepwalker is a low-angst romance with an age gap and BDSM (a D/s relationship, consensual heavy impact play, and consensual use of restraints).

AMAZON | KOBO | BARNES AND NOBLE | APPLE

Chapter One

“If you back out now,” Bria said, her voice calm on her end of the phone call, “I will fucking kill you.” 

“I’m not backing out,” Blake muttered. His bedroom was almost perfectly dark, but when he closed his eyes, he saw a dozen ominous, floating orbs in an arc—a little rainbow of prophesied doom. “I just think I might be getting sick.” 

“Then suck it up!” Bria snapped. 

If only it was that easy, Blake thought, but didn’t say. He had never explained the headaches to Bria. He’d never explained them to anyone except for the migraine doctor his mother had insisted he see, and that had only been because the doctor had forced every detail from him, question by question. 

Bria sighed and the line fell quiet. He could imagine her closing her eyes, fighting to temper her natural abrasiveness and be gentle with him. He was never sure how to feel when she tried to smooth all her natural barbs for his benefit; he was torn between being glad she cared enough to try, and hating the feeling of being handled. He didn’t want to be fragile. 

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “We can cancel if we need to cancel. Do we?” 

Blake heard what she wasn’t saying. This shoot could be Bria’s break—and she needed one. He knew that, as she got closer to the end of her senior year at Walland, she was becoming increasingly freaked out about what came next. 

“We don’t need to cancel.” 

She exhaled in relief, so hard that there was a burst of static on the line. It felt like a needle in Blake’s ear. He pushed his forehead into a cool spot in his pillow. Fuck. Fuck. “I’ve gotta go,” he muttered. “See you down there. Don’t forget—no lotion or moisturizer.” 

“I won’t forget. And, Blake—thanks.” 

The call over, Blake stared at his bedroom wall even though it was invisible in the darkness, and he tried to figure out how to make the day and night work despite his brewing migraine. The list of options wasn’t long, and none of the choices were good ones. Blake never took his weed with him outside of the apartment. He never got high anywhere else. He was going to have to today, though; it was his only chance of making it through tonight. 

He’d smoke, lay down, and then get up in two hours to walk the dogs. He could be done by four. Then, he’d smoke again, get ready, and take a couple joints with him to the warehouse just in case. 

He’d do it for Bria.

And because he wanted to paint. 

And because, even if it made him a stupid fuck-up, if he didn’t live in the moment, then he’d risk getting a glimpse of himself from a perspective that would remind him just how pathetic his life had become. 

He thought fleetingly of the last time he’d had a frank conversation about said pathetic life—a huge screaming argument with his mother. Well, he’d been the only one screaming. She’d just watched him with sad eyes and asked, “Are you really going to sleepwalk through the rest of your life?” 

That fight had been almost eighteen months ago now. They’d mostly communicated in cautious texts ever since. Shaking off that train of thought, Blake sat up to assemble a joint by feel in the dark. When it was lit, he lay back on his pillows, eyes falling closed as he took the first deep toke. He vaguely remembered that, among the dangers of smoking, cigarettes or otherwise, was the risk of falling asleep and converting your bed to a bonfire. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply anyway. 

The warning lights still danced in their eerie rainbow as the smoke curled into his lungs. The first few draws always made him feel an odd, full-body tickle at the invasion. Even after a year of using weed at least a couple times a week, he still had the almost unbearable urge to cough. But it passed, and after a few drags, he relaxed. When he’d smoked the whole thing, he folded the stub into a piece of foil on his nightstand and pulled his comforter up to his sternum. 

The darkness in the room was soothing. The dancing lights behind his eyelids were dimmer. If he stayed here all night—and called Jay, his back-up, to cover the dog-walking route, and bailed on Bria—he might even be fine by tomorrow. 

But he wasn’t going to cut out of his route or flake on Bria. So, tomorrow he’d be fucked. 

Two hours later, Blake turned on the dimmer lights under the kitchen cabinets while he looked for his shoes in the narrow closet he’d kicked them into the day before. When he’d located them and pulled them on, he somehow found himself face-to-face with the easel by the shrouded window. The incomplete project mocked him. A single, half-finished eye, the ghost of a profile, and the very beginnings of texture on the brow. 

Yesterday, he’d stretched and prepped the canvas before taking out an old sketch he’d always intended to paint one day. Then, early this morning, he’d transposed the sketch onto the canvas. 

At first, everything had felt right. He’d looked at the pencil lines and been able to picture the brushstrokes that would bring the flat shadow to life. 

As he’d begun adding shape and color, though, the rainbow behind his eyelids had fired to life, and hadn’t gone away no matter how many different light sources and intensities he’d tried, or how frequently he’d paused and rested his eyes. 

Finally, he’d given up, angry with himself for having the audacity to try after so many painful failures. Now, he clenched his jaw, shut off the light, and walked through the apartment and out the door in the darkness, the canvas safely out of sight again. 

After an hour or so, the company of the dogs and the activity started to feel good. With the pleasant distraction, he could almost ignore the sensation of a small rubber ball bouncing rhythmically off the bottom of his left eye socket. 

At the first five stops, the owners weren’t home; that was typical for all of his clients. They wouldn’t need Blake if they could be home to take out their own dogs. The exception was Oliver. 

They didn’t meet as often as they once had, but Blake still made Oliver’s house his last stop, just in case they needed the time. If Oliver was home, Blake did a training session with Oliver and Cujo instead of a walk with Cujo alone. 

He always hoped Oliver was there. 

Blake’s crush was pretty normal, probably. Oliver was hot, in an intense, very lean, sharp-edged way. His smiles all had a hint of wickedness, and those quick, dark blue eyes missed nothing. Not to mention his auburn hair, alabaster skin, and attachment to a dog who was as likely to bite his knuckles as lick them. 

Yeah, of course, Blake was into all of that. 

Anyway—usually, Blake didn’t see his clients. Other than Oliver, he only bumped into them if something had come up or their schedule had changed, and they’d forgotten to let Blake know. 

Today, though, someone was home at Pumpkin’s house. Three days a week, Blake walked Pumpkin, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, for Mary and Abel Moriarty, who were professors in the math department at Walland. They were both fairly intense, but Pumpkin loved Blake, so they loved Blake, too—although he was aware that, if he ever made a mistake, they would probably turn on him in an instant. 

Blake’s first clue was a car in the driveway. Then, when he unlocked the front door, the house was quiet. As he stepped back outside, Abel appeared around the corner of the house in the fenced backyard. Pumpkin was at his side, sniffing intently at the perfect turf of the Moriartys’ prize-winning lawn, but when she saw Blake, she threw her head up so fast that her long, silky ears flipped inside out. Then, she ran at top speed for the gate. 

“Oh, Blake,” Abel said. “I thought that must be you.” He was a short, bristly man, from the top of his spiky-haired head down his full sideburns to his fluffy beard. He always wore suits that were a little big for him, the way people of a smaller statute sometimes did, Blake knew, to try to seem bigger and taller than they were, and which generally had the opposite of the intended effect. 

“Hi, Mr. Moriarty,” Blake said politely. “Did you want me to skip today?” 

“Well, yes. As you can see, I’m home.”

Blake nodded at once, hiding his irritation with the ease of long practice. 

“This afternoon, the planning board is discussing that rezoning application,” Abel went on, before Blake could wave politely and go on about his day. 

“Oh?” Blake asked, noncommittal, and internally cursing his bad luck. This wasn’t the first time he’d inadvertently had to entertain one of the Moriartys’ causes. Last year, they’d had a sign in their yard for months to protest the repaving of a sink-hole-ridden brick street in another neighborhood, insisting that the pavers had historic significance and that tearing them up was some kind of a crime against humanity. 

“I can’t believe they’re considering developing ten acres of natural parkland, and for what? Another strip mall?” Blake was vaguely aware of the divisive proposal for a new shopping center, and generally sympathetic to the sentiment that trees, grass, and a lake where people liked to ice skate was preferable to the construction of an Old Navy. But he also really, really needed to be going. 

Luckily, Abel’s phone rang at that moment. 

“I have to take this. Have a great day, Blake. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.” Abel turned away as he answered his phone.

When Blake took a step back, Pumpkin’s wagging tail froze and her lolling tongue disappeared. Like all Cavaliers, she was basically the canine equivalent of a baby doll brought to life, and Blake wasn’t strong enough to resist her disappointment. So, while Abel took his call, Blake petted Pumpkin through the fence and gave her a couple of the treats he had in his pocket for Cujo, and then he hastily took off before Abel could get off the phone and pick up where he’d left off in his tirade. 

For December, it was a nice day. Ordinarily, Blake would walk to Oliver’s house in this kind of weather, even though it was on the outskirts of town and took a solid half-hour. But, mindful of time constraints and his burgeoning migraine, Blake drove instead. Oliver’s house was a sprawling, modern two-story in one of the newest and most upscale parts of town. Blake had grown up in this kind of neighborhood, but he didn’t miss it. Fussy neighbors and too many empty rooms in houses like this one, as far as he was concerned. 

The garage door was cracked open, which meant Oliver was home. And when Blake knew Oliver was home, he always knocked instead of using his key, so that’s what he did now. 

Immediately, he heard Cujo barking frantically, which made him annoyed—not with Cujo, but with Oliver. She would have been past her issues with people knocking by now if Oliver would just make all of his guests follow the steps Blake had taught him. Not wanting her to reach the door before he could intervene, Blake impulsively decided to let himself in instead of waiting for Oliver. Finding the door unlocked, he pushed it open, taking a treat out of his pocket at the same time, and he threw it into the corner of the foyer at the foot of an oak coat rack. 

Cujo had almost been at the door; her nails made a skittering sound as she braked hastily and rerouted her bounding strides toward the treat in the corner. She collected her morsel and turned to him with an expectant look. When she kept a polite distance instead of assaulting his shoes, Blake tossed her another treat, which she happily picked up and swallowed before walking over to him, her little tail wagging cautiously. 

She had periods where she didn’t bark at all, and just waited by the coat rack for whomever was arriving to toss her a treat, but Oliver clearly wasn’t being as consistent as he should be. 

Blake shook off his irritation and smiled down at Cujo. “Very good girl,” he told her, kneeling so that she could smell his knuckles before he scratched her chin—very carefully and gently. 

“That was amazing,” murmured an unfamiliar voice. Apparently, Oliver had a guest. 

Blake looked up and froze, quickly revising his assumptions. A young, petite man with a lovely, triangular face and sleek black hair leaned against the doorway into the living room. And he wasn’t just a guest, judging by the fact that all he wore was the towel wrapped around his hips. 

He glanced at Blake and back to Cujo with open bemusement, but then seemed to remember all at once that he was wearing a towel in the presence of a stranger. Still, he wasn’t exactly modest—just wry. He straightened up and set a hand on the rolled fabric tucked into a fold on his right hip, like he just wanted to ensure it stayed in place. “Hi. I’m Lyle.” 

Lyle was definitely pretty: doe-eyed, with smooth, lean arms and a narrow torso. A twink, some people would say, though that word had always made Blake feel a little uncomfortable. He didn’t know why it was okay to put people in categories based on their body type. He was pretty sure straight men weren’t supposed to do that with women. Then again, he’d met plenty of very proud, self-declared twinks and bears, so who knew? 

Anyway, Lyle wasn’t the sort of person who would normally catch Blake’s stare, but he did right now. Not so much because he was pretty, but because he had a row of whip marks up the side of his thigh—visible through a gap in the towel, and as neat and perfectly spaced as tattoos. 

Lyle noticed the focal point of Blake’s stare and lifted his chin, a challenging glint in his eye. “Want a picture?” 

Blake blinked and adjusted his gaze hastily to look at Lyle’s face instead of the mesmerizing pattern of his marks. “What?” 

Cujo had made her way all the way to Blake’s knee; he was still crouched down to greet her, his wrists resting on his thighs, and she darted out her tongue to give his knuckles a cautious lick. It was a huge move for her, so he let another treat roll out of his palm and she happily picked it up, her little tail curled up over her back and trembling excitedly. 

“I asked if you wanted a picture,” Lyle said, flashing a grin. “I just took a bunch in the mirror. I could send one to you.” 

Blake smiled slowly. He could appreciate Lyle’s balls. Well, not literally. Again, Lyle was not his type at all. But fucking with someone who he thought was judging him for something that was none of their business—yeah, Blake admired that in a guy. And he couldn’t help feeling an instant camaraderie with someone who liked to be hit, under certain circumstances. Blake happened to like that, too. 

It was disconcerting, though, to learn that a guy like him was wandering around Oliver’s house in a towel. In fact, the knowledge was doing some complicated things to Blake’s head—totally fucking with his mind, really. Because he had already known Oliver was unfairly hot and interesting, and for the universe to add this element to Blake’s laundry list of reasons for wanting Oliver to fuck him just felt mean-spirited. 

“No judgment, man,” Blake said. “You just surprised me. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here, let alone—” He made a vague sort of gesture and winced when a pulse of fiery pain sounded in his forehead. He hastily closed his eyes and counted backward from five while his stomach rolled. Cujo licked his knuckles a few more times, and he felt a wave of protective love for her. Blake opened his eyes again to find that Oliver had appeared behind Lyle. 

As usual, Blake couldn’t help doing an appreciative once-over. Oliver’s body type was on the verge of slight, like Lyle’s, but he was so much taller, leaner, harder… any comparison between them was unfair. Oliver reminded Blake of something carved from marble, aided by the fact that he was always dressed and groomed as perfectly as a sculpture. Though with his dark red hair and penetrating eyes, he was more vivid than any statue. 

Oliver always looked amazing, but standing next to Lyle —well, Blake had seen porn that was less hot than the centerfold-come-to-life that was the fully and impeccably clothed Oliver standing beside Lyle. Lyle, whom he’d painted with welts like Blake painted canvas with a brush, and with Oliver sparing him nothing but a careless sidelong glance. That glance lingered around the marks—his handiwork—with a brief flash of self-satisfied light in his dark, dark blue eyes before he looked away dismissively. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Oliver told Blake. “I’m not having any luck getting her to take her meds.” 

Blake regarded Cujo, who was still sitting at his knee with her large ears pricked. They were pink on the inside, making her look the slightest bit like a black mouse. She had a patch of red on the left side of her muzzle, visible through the black hairs, that Blake hadn’t noticed until he looked for it. She had flare-ups of allergies all through the winter, but the pills were very effective when she took them. 

“You don’t want to take your meds, little girl?” he asked her in the same tone he’d speak to a person. Well, maybe a slightly more pleasant tone than he used with most people, but it wasn’t baby talk. Blake didn’t do baby talk. He didn’t think it helped dogs, and it sounded ridiculous. 

Cujo blinked in answer. He gave her throat a final scratch, then slowly got to his feet so he didn’t startle her. She stood up right away and backed up to what she clearly thought of as a safe distance—out of stepping-on or kicking range. 

“I’ll take care of it. You can do… whatever.” Without meaning to, Blake shot Lyle a pointed glance on the word “do”—and then realized what he’d said. While a horrified blush climbed up Blake’s neck, Oliver stared at him for a wordless moment, and then laughed. 

“Right.” He looked at Lyle again, his smile fading to a frown. His tone shifted, becoming more deep and cool as he addressed Lyle directly. “Your clothes are folded in the bathroom.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Lyle rubbed the back of his neck and drifted off, and Oliver looked back at Blake. 

“I’ll get the pills. Are we doing this in the library?” 

Blake blinked. “I meant it. I can handle it, if you need to…?” 

Oliver looked back at him steadily. “I don’t need to.” Blake felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for Lyle, and hoped that Lyle had gotten at least a quick cuddle earlier. He’d seen how methodically Oliver had laid his stripes on Lyle’s thigh. Someone who took that care in his craft would know how to ease someone through the comedown. Not that how Oliver approached aftercare was Blake’s business, or belonged anywhere in the vicinity of his imagination. 

The library was the room they’d chosen for Cujo’s kennel back when Oliver had first hired Blake. The room was kept quiet, and not used often except for when Oliver wanted to read. It was a strange personal detail that Blake only knew from working with Oliver and Cujo, but it had struck him more than once over the intervening months, out of context. He’d pictured them here, Oliver reading quietly with Cujo free to lie in her kennel or, if she felt secure enough, on her padded mat by the ottoman. 

Blake sat on the center of the Persian rug and held out a treat for Cujo. She came over on her silent little feet to take it. Even for the breed, she was on the small side—probably not more than four pounds. She took the treat, sitting just within range of his crooked forefinger and tilting her head back to present her neck. Blake obligingly stroked the strip of white fur down her throat while she chewed and swallowed. 

“Here they are,” Oliver said quietly as he came back in. Blake held up a hand without looking up, and Oliver set the bottle in his palm. 

In the process, Oliver’s fingertip brushed Blake’s skin. Their eyes met abruptly, as though they were both realizing in the same instant that Blake was sitting at Oliver’s feet, and that there’d been a tiny but powerful burst of energy in the passing touch of their hands.

Blake broke eye contact first, wondering why he was so flustered. He’d spent a lot of time around Oliver, particularly at the beginning when Cujo had been at her worst. They’d probably been in this exact position before, both of them totally focused on Cujo, with no room for distractions or intrusive thoughts. But, apparently, seeing Oliver’s handiwork on Lyle had fundamentally shifted the way Blake saw Oliver. Inconvenient, to say the least. His daydreams about Oliver had gone from strictly hypothetical and unlikely to almost tangible. 

He really didn’t have time for obsessive thoughts about Oliver. He needed a joint, a nap, and a couple hours of darkness, STAT, or he wouldn’t be able to stave off the headache long enough to get through the shoot. And he’d promised Bria. 

He took a deep breath and, keeping his movements slow and easy to track, Blake opened the pill bottle and shook one tiny tablet into his palm. They were small enough to be easy to swallow without chewing. Cujo got them every day. At this point, she should have been taking them willingly, knowing she’d get a treat afterward. 

But doing what she “should” just wasn’t Cujo’s way. Her ears went flat against her head as she watched him, but she didn’t move. 

“Pills, then you get the rest of the good stuff. Everything I have on me; the whole pocketful; the jackpot.” As he talked, Blake leaned toward her and held the back of her head cupped in one hand, and with the pill between his thumb and forefinger in the other, he quickly pushed the pad of his thumb, pill and all, into the side of her mouth,

past a row of small, sharp premolars and through the entrance to her esophagus. 

Then, he swiftly took his hands off of her and poured about a dozen treats from his pocket onto the floor. She cleaned them up so fast that it was like watching a time lapse video of a Roomba. 

“What do you think you did wrong?” he asked Oliver. 

Oliver’s brow was furrowed. “I have no goddamn idea,” he said. “To me, it seemed like I did it just the way you did. To her, apparently not.” 

“Sorry, I should have had you try while I watched.” 

Oliver shrugged as Cujo dove under the sofa for a stray treat. 

“Do you need me to take her out?” 

“No, thank you. But while you’re here…?” 

“Yes, I can put her sweater on.” Blake smiled at Oliver’s relieved expression and called Cujo back over to him while Oliver left the room, returning shortly with a small, navy blue striped sweater. One of Oliver’s worst bites had come from an early effort to wrestle Cujo into clothing, which was actually necessary considering that her ancestors had adapted to the opposite of the winter climate of the midwest United States. She was much better about it now, but Oliver had hang-ups that Blake didn’t mind indulging. 

He had the sweater on her in no time. 

“Thanks,” Oliver said. 

“No problem. You should get her one with little bells on it.” He caught Oliver’s eye and winked. 

Oliver immediately looked pained. “No Christmas sweaters.”

“I think they’d be cute on her,” Blake teased, grinning. “I still haven’t seen her in the one I got last year.” Blake had debated last year—for days—before finally gathering the nerve to give Oliver a Christmas sweater for Cujo. He’d been well-aware Oliver would never use it, having been the audience to more than one of Oliver’s rants about how “costumes” stripped small dogs of their dignity. But he’d had a feeling it would make Oliver laugh, and he’d been right. So, in a way, it had been Blake’s gift to himself. 

Oliver rolled his eyes, but Blake saw how the corner of his mouth twitched, fighting a smile. Blake straightened the hem of the sweater, set Cujo out of his lap, and stood up, their lighthearted moment interrupted by a little stab right between his eyes. 

There was his reminder that he didn’t have time to try to coax smiles out of Oliver. 

“I’d better get going.” He blinked until his vision cleared. 

“Oh, sure,” Oliver said, sounding almost disappointed. But that was probably Blake’s imagination.