Dante Read online

  DANTE

  BOOK 3

  by

  Daryl Banner

  Author of

  Bromosexual

  Hard For My Boss

  Football Sundae

  &

  The Brazen Boys Series

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  Dante

  Boys & Toys Season 2

  Copyright © 2020 by Daryl Banner

  Published by Frozenfyre Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Photography

  FuriousFotog / Golden Czermak

  Cover Model

  Michael Abatantiono

  Cover & Interior Design

  Daryl Banner

  CONNOR

  BRETT

  DANTE

  ZAK

  DANTE

  CHAPTER LIST

  [ THE PHOTOGRAPHER ]

  1

  2

  3

  [ THE HANDYMAN ]

  4

  5

  6

  7

  [ THE NEW CLIENT ]

  8

  9

  [ THE MONEY SHOT ]

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  [ THE BROKEN CHAIN ]

  17

  18

  19

  20

  [ EPILOGUE ]

  Zak

  What’s next for the boys?

  Other works by Daryl Banner

  Excerpt from Boys & Toys Season 1: Caysen’s Catch

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I want to give special thanks to my buddy (and the photographer of this book’s cover) Golden Czermak / FuriousFotog, who kindly shared his photography knowhow with me to ensure aspects of this book were authentic. He is also an author of paranormal and romantic fiction, and his work can be found on Amazon.

  I also want to give a heartfelt thank-you to Joshua Conner, Kashunna Fly, and Gary Taylor for being my beta/sensitivity readers, and whose opinions I value and respect so much. Thank you!

  And to my dear bestie Chris Rivera, thank you for all the meaningful late-night phone calls where you have bared your soul and shared experiences with me about the state of racial disparity in the gay community. You always keep my eyes open.

  To every LGBTQIA+ person reading this: You belong in this world. Thank you for being your unique and amazing self.

  Happy reading, always!

  XXOO ~ Daryl

  DANTE

  BOYS & TOYS SEASON 2 BOOK 3

  [ THE PHOTOGRAPHER ]

  In the early evening twilight, Mayville is gearing up for another rough and bustling night of partying. Down in the sprawling basement apartment of Piazza Place, the landlord Dante is hard at work snapping photos of a new client. When he works, he carries the hyper focus of an artist. Nothing can come between Dante and the perfect picture.

  1

  “Yeah, a little to the left,” I direct him. “Elbow up. Turn your face to me an inch. Another inch.” I snap a picture—Flash! “Give me that flex. C’mon, give it to me, boy. Abs, too. Tighten them up. Good.” Flash. “Relax your neck a bit. Turn another inch to your left for me. Your other left. Perfect.” Flash, flash.

  I’ve had a long day.

  Flash.

  My morning felt like it would never end. I was woken up by an alarm I didn’t mean to set.

  Flash, flash. “Great shot. Keep that pose.” Flash.

  Then I was called to apartment 202 due to a funny noise Jeremy’s pipes were allegedly making in his bathroom, which I was sure had been dealt with months ago. Sounded like another bang-up job by another dud of a plumber I won’t be using again.

  Flash. “Now relax your face and grip the ropes tighter. Even tighter. Yeah, make those forearms of yours bulge. I wanna see veins. Good, good.” Flash.

  And then on my way back to my place, I was ogled at by Lex on the first floor, who I know has a sort of endearing obsession with me. He just leaned against his doorframe, his arms crossed, pretending like he was about to check his mail. He greeted me with an innocent smile, but I know damned well when I turned away to head into my basement, his eyes dropped straight to my ass.

  I’m no fool. I know many of the guys who live in my building just see me as a hot piece of ass—a big, brooding bodybuilder with a pretty face whose daddy gave him the building to play with. And I know some of them wish my pops Alfredo was still running this place instead of traveling the world snapping selfies at landmarks with my mamma.

  Truth is, no one knows me. Not truly.

  My parents had a rough life. I want them to run around and have their fun—though my pops keeps calling every other day to check on his nice and precious Piazza Place as well as his seven other buildings, managed by seven other well-meaning assholes I’ve never met. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be running this place. I sure as hell never saw myself doing this at thirty.

  Flash.

  But here we are. And here I am.

  Flash, flash.

  And at least I have a roof over my head—a very thick five floors’ worth of roof—and my beautiful camera to keep me company. “Good. Think I got all the shots you asked for. And that wraps up our shoot.”

  My client tonight—the usual horny muscle boy who wants a big hot portfolio to turn his husband or boyfriend on with—sighs with relief. “Finally. I mean …” He amends himself. “Thank you.”

  I smirk. “You can thank me when you see the final edits of these sick puppies.”

  “Great. Um … Can you, uh …?” He squirms.

  Ah, right. He’s having trouble getting himself out of the leather sling hanging from my ceiling. I give him a hand, which almost ends in him flipping right out of the thing like a pancake and eating my hardwood floor.

  “Thanks,” he grunts, red-faced, as he starts to peel off the leather getup he wore for the shoot. In a few minutes, he’s back in most of the clothes he came in wearing straight from the office: a dress shirt, slacks, and polished dress shoes. He reaches for his skinny tie and starts putting it on. “I have to say, I’m really impressed with your, uh …”

  I quirk an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish his sentence as he starts fumbling with the knot of his tie. “Thanks,” I say anyway as I roll up some rope and return it to the wall.

  “I mean, ugh, look, I’m not a total stranger to the BDSM scene. I’ve had several encounters and, well, I happen to be a bit of a fetish guy myself …”

  “Oh?” I start shutting off the lights one by one, starting with the stripbox.

  “Yeah. My boyfriend and I …” He chuckles. “I don’t know if this is TMI, but he kind of ordered me to come and get some sexy photos done. You have a reputation, I guess, for being …” He struggles to figure out his next words.

  I push shut a drawer, then turn and face him, arms crossed. “No, don’t you stop there.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Go on. Tell me what I got a reputation for.”

  He sits down to retie his shoelaces, which were apparently bothering him, but stops to glance up at me. “You have a reputation for … being the only photographer who takes his craft seriously, who isn’t a creep, and who doesn’t hit on his clients.”

  My eyebrows lift a millimeter. That conveys my complete and utter surprise at his answer, by the way. I wasn’t expecting something nice.

  “Oh. Is … Is that unusual?” he asks, noting the (very) subtle change in my expression. “To have that kind of reputation?”

  I give him a microscopic shrug. “That isn’t the usual thing I hear about myself.”

  He squints. “What’s the usual thing?”

  Intimidating. Moody. Hard-ass because of my hard-ass Italian pops. Secretly a sweet softie because of my loving Black mama. Yeah, you bet I’ve heard everything whispered about me.

  “Oh. That bad, huh?” he mutters after a while. He lifts his hands. “It’s okay. We don’t have to hit a sore subject. I should head out, anyway. My boyfriend said he’d punish me if I kept him waiting too long.” He squirms a bit as he pulls his phone out of a tight pocket, taking note of the time. “Ten to eight. Shit. Looks like I’ll be late.”

  I smirk. “Sounds like someone wanted to get punished.”

  He gives me a look, blushing.
r />   I get a sick thrill out of calling people out.

  Just before he heads for my door, he says, “Oh, did I leave you my email? It’s G dot Haines with an underscore and … uh, actually, no, sorry, that’s my work email.” He laughs, embarrassed. “Dumb. I always get a bit nervous when I know I’m going home to a punishment. Sorry. I bet you get clients like this all the time.”

  All the fucking time. “Never.”

  “Y’know what? Your email is on your card you gave me. I’ll just email you when I get home.” He sees himself to the door, then stops. “Thanks.”

  “Close the door on your way out,” I call out to him as I take the memory card out of the camera. “Last shoot of the day’s over,” I say to myself as I breathe a deep sigh of relief. “And now, finally time to rest.” I cross my apartment, bringing the tiny card over to my computer and setting it on the desk next to a notepad, upon which I write “Garret Haines” with the date and time.

  I’ll get to editing in the morning.

  For now: a fucking long-overdue shower.

  I peel off my black t-shirt, which sticks to my frame like glue, then pitch it aside. My boots are next, followed by my jeans and my bikini briefs. My naked ass starts strutting toward my walk-in shower at the back corner of my pad, desperately ready to wash away this hellhole of a day.

  Until I hear the knock, stopping me.

  It isn’t just any knock. It’s a soft, gentle rapping that, even in its wooden hollowness, sounds shy. As I stand there halfway to my bathroom, naked as fuck, I turn my head toward the noise.

  Then: “Hello?”

  The greeting is as timid as the knock.

  Seems like my client isn’t so good at obeying orders as he claimed—even simple ones, like having the decency to close the damned door behind him on his way out of someone else’s home.

  To be clear, there is nothing in this world I want more right now than to feel the steaming lava-hot beating of water down my back, washing away my stresses.

  To have my pursuit of that heavenly shower interrupted makes me chew my damned teeth.

  I snatch a towel off the rack, throw it around my waist, then march toward my door. If it’s Brett regarding that discolored spot on his ceiling—which is not a damned leak—I swear I’m gonna give him a word. If it’s Lex from 101, then I guess I’m about to give him a coronary with the mere sight of me in a towel, which is probably the subject of his every fantasy—and that’s just fact, not me being vain.

  I round the corner of the front entryway.

  Then I stop dead in my barefoot tracks.

  Eyes wide. Heart racing. Lips parted.

  2

  Standing at that doorway is a young man with a buzzed head, which makes his bright blue eyes shimmer with a striking, deceptive innocence. He could be a sweetheart … or the devil in disguise. His black-and-white graphic t-shirt fits his slender, long torso exquisitely, outlining two small pecs and tapering to a tiny waist, his jeans cinched by a belt with a shiny silver buckle that reads “BOY”.

  My heart dances with a mixture of shock and desire. Who is this young man?

  “Hi,” the young man greets me. “I … I heard you do, um … photography?” He clears his throat as his bright blue eyes drop to my bare chest. “A certain … type … of photography …?”

  Under normal circumstances, I might answer the young man quickly, getting to the point, telling him my business hours, and dismissing him until a scheduled time we’ve both agreed on. Hell, I would not even entertain a consult with someone until I know they’ve been properly vetted and worth my time—of which I seem to have less and less lately.

  But I find myself, in this particularly out-of-character moment, struck with the realization that I haven’t found anyone desirable in years.

  I’ve been a lump of stone. A hardened wall.

  And in the space of a second, a crack splits its way down that wall—all my defenses, shattered.

  I’m stricken. I’m speechless. I’m stupefied.

  And I’m very naked under this towel.

  “Are you him?” the young man asks. “Are you the photographer? … Dante …?”

  The sound of my own name sobers me. I look the nervous little hottie over, sizing him up. I find my confidence again. “That would be me,” I reply, stepping aside to let him in.

  He’s still timid when he enters my apartment, as if feeling like he doesn’t belong even after being given permission to come in. His eyes fall on my artwork that hangs from the walls. I wonder if he thinks any of them are mine. He fidgets with his hands in the way some lost student might on the first day of school, unsure where their first class is.

  His curious, endearing innocence is something no camera can hope to capture. His striking face is just the kind I always yearned to put in front of my lens—something beautiful, nearly perfect, and with such humanity, it arrests you the moment you look at it. He’s a dream I could be having in the shower right now with my eyes closed.

  Yet here I am, eyes wide open.

  “I’ve heard … I’ve heard so much …” he starts to say, his voice curious and sweet.

  I notice a bit of an accent. It’s subtle, barely there. “Have you?”

  “Yes. About your work.”

  Hmm, there the accent goes. Maybe I imagined it. “I take it you’re interested in my services?”

  He stops at a small table near the wall, where a one-foot-tall replica of Michelangelo’s David carved in wood sits proudly, lit by a tiny spotlight over it.

  He studies it, taken. That focus in his brilliant blue eyes speaks to me so deeply. When he looks so intently at something in my home, it’s like he’s looking at a part of me.

  I’m behind him. “I take that as a ‘yes’ …?”

  He spins around, surprised I’m there. “I …”

  And his eyes drop to my chest again.

  There’s no sign of hair on the smooth, creamy skin of his cheeks, which warm with the subtlest of pink undertones in my presence. He doesn’t even look like he could grow a mustache if he tried.

  I wonder if he’s like that everywhere.

  “Yes,” he finally says as he peels his eyes off of my body and takes a step back. “I … need a photo taken. Of me.”

  “A photo of you?” I squint at him. “Just one … single … photo …?”

  “Yes. Uh, n-no. I mean, isn’t it cheaper …? Do you have a special package … or something?”

  This is when I make a dick joke.

  A really lame dick joke.

  Instead, I resist the humorous opportunity my bud Brett from upstairs would have leapt on. “No. I don’t offer special packages or discounts. You can’t discount art. Who referred you to me?”

  “Are you going to—” He clears his throat, lets out a nervous chuckle, then revises his question: “I mean, do you need to get dressed? I feel like I may have … interrupted something.”

  “You did. My shower.”

  “Oh. I-I’m sorry. I caught the building door on my way in because someone was leaving, and then the door to your place was open, and I—”

  “Not your fault. My last client left it open.” I shrug. “The issue is, I don’t take walk-ins. You’d have to schedule an appointment … usually.”

  “Usually?” He lifts his eyebrows. “So are you making an exception for me?”

  Those hopeful eyes of his.

  Those full, parted lips.

  His exquisite jawline, high cheekbones, arched clean-cut eyebrows, chiseled nose.

  I want him in front of my camera. Now.

  “Yes,” I finally answer.

  3

  Seeing him survey my apartment piece by piece was one thing.

  Watching his eyes peel back when I take him into my fetish studio is another.

  “What’s this?” he asks, wide-eyed, as he runs his fingers over a prop that hangs on the wall.

  I’m still setting up the camera. I have put on a pair of loose gray gym shorts—san underwear—and a white tank. “It’s a cat-o’-nine-tails.”

  “Oh.” He gives it a moment’s thought, then lets on a humored smile. “Is it an upgrade from the cat-o’-eight-tails?” After a sadly brief chuckle, he clears his throat and faces me. “If you wanted to take your shower first, I can wait. I don’t mind. I’m the one who imposed on your time.”