TWENTY-ONE
The room was too bright and too quite. And too stark. Gray. All fucking gray. At least it wasn’t white. He’d had enough of white rooms to last him a lifetime. Or puke green. There’d been a few of those scattered about in his memories. Bland colors meant to keep people calm and sedate. And to cheaply paint over when the stains became too obvious.
The only splash of color and warmth in the whole room was lying very still on the mattress. Well, that and the lovely shades of red that streaked his arm. Kit held up the one hand to note that the tingling sensation there actually was a cut. Blood still seeped from the new slice. He gripped it tight to stop the flow. Maybe this one wouldn’t scar.
The man on the bed studied him with the wariness of a coiled snake. Kit tilted his head to take him all in. Beastly. He remembered going to bed with him, but that was in a completely different room. And he’d definitely not been wearing jeans and a T-shirt at the time. Kit leaned back against the softly padded wall and closed his eyes.
“How long?” He signed the two words and waited for his carefully planned life to go to hell.
“Three days. I think.” Beastly replied with a whoosh of air. Almost as if he was a balloon losing its air. Kit opened his eyes to find Micah lying on his back with his hand up ticking off fingers. He seemed to be almost as lost as Kit was. “Yeah, counting the day I found you like…well…three days, tonight would have been three nights…I’m pretty sure.”
Kit wanted to smile. “Did they lock you in with me for a reason?”
“I was taking the night watch so Sam and Lydia could rest. You cut your arm.” Micah sat up and yanked his shirt over his head.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the view, but what are you doing?” Kit had to ask when Micah tore a long strip out of the shirt.
“Making a bandage for your arm. You’re still bleeding and I don’t know when the warden will be down to spring us.” Micah crawled on his knees across the bed to perch in front of Kit. He looked so very tired. Almost as tired as Kit felt. “I appreciate that you appreciate the view. The appreciation is mutual.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Kit jerked his arm away from Micah so he could talk. He was cranky and didn’t want to parse out a word puzzle. “Leave me alone, jerk.”
“Ah, there’s the foul-mouthed, ill-tempered elf I’ve developed a thing for.” Micah wouldn’t be deterred. He took Kit’s hand in his and gave him a look that dared him to try to take it back. “Hold still for a damned minute will you.”
Kit held still. Micah’s hands on his arm sent too many warm and tingly sensations darting around his muddled brain. Micah wrapped the long strip of ripped T-shirt around his cut and tied the ends off when he was satisfied that the wrap was tight enough to staunch the blood flow but not too tight he let Kit have his hand back. “There. Nothing to get your knickers in a bunch about now was it?”
Kit pulled his arm up to his chest. He rubbed the soft cloth almost absently while he tried to get his bearings. Three days. Three days wasn’t so bad. He would have to push the test phase of the game back a couple of days. It was scheduled to release in the late summer. There was time. Still plenty of time. He wasn’t planning to start work on the next project until spring anyway. Okay. This was good. This was…uncomfortable.
“It’s tight.” He signed in frustration. His body felt strange. His skin was too prickly.
“It’s supposed to be tight, that’s why it’s called a bandage.” Micah raised an amused eyebrow at him as he leaned back on the bed, arms tucked behind his head like a pillow, his ankles crossed. All pretty and half naked…he was only making it worse…scowling like that. Made it tighter.
Kit whimpered and pulled his legs up closer to his chest. The feeling wouldn’t stop. “Not that.” He signed out. His arm didn’t bother him. He didn’t even notice the scratch or the bindings.
“Then what?” Micah was on his knees again and coming his way. He looked frightened and…so, so pretty that Kit wanted to…do bad things to him. “Where are you hurting?”
“Who said I hurt?”
“Your face says you’re in pain. You look distressed. If it’s not your arm, then what is it?”
Kit hid his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure of this Beastly. The concern made Kit ache more. “You’re hurting me.”
“Me?” Micah stopped moving and held his arms out to his sides, palms spread as if to show that he wasn’t doing anything. He looked as confused as Kit felt. “I’m not even touching you. How the hell can I be hurting you?”
Kit whimpered again, the strain was beginning to make him want to cry or…reach out and hurt someone. He wanted to hurt Micah. He wanted to make him hurt in the same way he did. He wanted to make Micah scream and…he let his knees fall apart to rest on the bed. “What’s wrong with me?”
Stunned, Micah sat down hard on the bed making Kit bounce. And didn’t that just make things all fun?
“You’re still hard?” Micah seemed incredulous and far too amused by Kit’s problem.
“What do you mean still?” Kit signed forcefully, hoping Micah got that he was shouting at him. “Is this what it feels like? This hurts.”
Micah swiped a hand over his face. He tried not to grin, but Kit saw him hide his amusement.
“This isn’t funny. If this is what it feels like, I’d rather not…” He stopped signing as his gaze narrowed in on the growing bulge in Beastly’s jeans. Oh…and didn’t that make it all so much better. “I’m leaking just looking at you.”
“It’s called arousal for a reason, ya’ nimrod,” Micah finally said. “You’re boy parts finally caught up with the idea that they’re men now. Don’t fight it, baby, it’s natural.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do to make it not hurt?”
“Touch yourself.” Micah sighed and lay back on the bed, on his side this time, head propped on one hand. The bulge in his jeans growing bigger as Kit watched. “You need to be the one to learn to deal with it.”
“What the hell?”
“Masturbation, Chris. What most of us figure out around age thirteen or so. How to massage the one-eyed beast to make it behave. Touch yourself, baby. Find what makes it feel good.” Micah unbuttoned his jeans while he talked and eased the zipper down with one hand. He stroked his own dick running his fingertips around the rim of the head. “I like this.”
Kit watched him for a couple of minutes while his dick got harder and his balls pulled up tighter into his body. He couldn’t help but give into the need to make it stop, one way or another. He couldn’t help but take what he wanted. Micah. He didn’t want to touch himself when Micah was there to be touched.
He launched himself across the mattress, pushing Micah onto his back. He wanted that. The look of surprise that Micah couldn’t suppress. He wanted everything Micah—the taste, the touch, the sound, the scent. The need for Micah was stronger than anything he’d ever experienced. He didn’t talk. He didn’t try to explain. He took what he wanted. Micah’s lips under his. He opened his mouth to let Kit inside. Kit climbed on top of him to get better access to his mouth. This, this was what he wanted. Not his own hand.
Touch me! He yearned for the man, hoping he could hear him. Please, hear me. Micah did the whimpering this time. He slid his hands up Kit’s arms and around his shoulders to pull him into his embrace. His kiss became sloppier. And Kit melted into him. This. Thank you. Touch me more.
Micah raked his fingers through Kit’s hair pushing it back away from his face but by doing so he pushed Kit away while he dragged in air. He stared up at Kit with eyes gone lush with desire. “Is this what you want? Make sure, Chris. Just make sure it’s something you’re ready for.”
Kit thought about everything Micah had told him about his past. Why the mental image of him with his former partner flashed through his head when he couldn’t remember much of his own life baffled him. Micah’s admission that his partner had used him to satisfy his own dark needs made him angry. Micah deserved better than that. He also deserved better than Kit. “I’m not him.” He signed the words without knowing how to explain what he meant. He didn’t want Micah thinking he was using him.
“I know you’re not, Chris. You don’t have to apologize for wanting something. Especially when it’s something I want as well. But please—”
Kit didn’t give him a chance to finish his warning. He had an itch to scratch and he didn’t want to scratch it with anyone but Micah. He broke Micah’s hold on him and covered the man’s glorious mouth with his own. Kissing Micah was like nothing he’d ever expected. He could kiss him all day and never grow tired. Micah sighed into his mouth and kissed him back. Hands now sliding down Kit’s back, finding spots that made him flinch and spots that made him want more. More touching more everything.
Micah pulled him lower with each stroke of his hand until Kit lay sprawled on top of him, skin pressed to skin. He could feel the press of Micah’s dick between them. He could feel the ache of his own as it rested next to Micah’s.
“Move, baby,” Micah whispered into his mouth as he grabbed Kit’s ass. “Take what you want.” He arched into Kit, lifting his hips as he pushed at Kit to do the same. The moan that came from Micah as their dicks grazed had Kit’s balls pulling up so tight he couldn’t breathe. “More. Don’t stop. This is good,” Micah said, letting Kit find his own rhythm. “Kiss me again.”
Kit kissed him. Micah thrust his tongue into Kit’s mouth and Kit took it, sucking on it as he humped against his body. Micah ran his hands all over Kit’s body, from his shoulders to his thighs and everywhere in between. Kit lost himself in sensation as his body seemed to figure out what he needed. Micah stroked him, encouraging him. God he wanted this. He wanted so much more…the slide of a finger down his backside to press against his hole supplied the electrical current Kit had been missing. The sizzle in his balls fried into his brain. He clenched Micah’s shoulders as his dick erupted between them. God, fuck, fuck, fuck…he couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t think. He could only feel. The finger stroking his asshole, the wet slide of Micah’s cock growing harder between them. The taste of Micah’s sweet mouth. He growled. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
Micah’s jeans were in the way. The material was rough against his skin. He hated Micah in clothes. Micah should be naked. All the time. Micah. Fuck. Micah. He…needed…to fuck Micah.
Micah helped him get rid of the offending jeans. He even spread his legs for Kit to move between. He didn’t ask. He didn’t stop kissing. He didn’t deny. Kit reached between them, smearing his hand in his own cum to grip Micah. Micah fell back on the bed throwing his head back, exposing his throat to Kit. The bite mark at the apex of his neck and shoulder fascinated Kit. Enough to want to taste the mark.
Micah let him control him. He clawed at the mattress as Kit stroked him harder, pulling up from his root to the head, squeezing him hard just like he’d done that first night before…Kit fit his mouth to the mark and bit down. His. This was his man. This was his. His mark. He remembered making it. He remembered…too much. “Fuck me.”
The words startled Kit into letting go. He rose up on his hands and knees to hover over Beastly. Mistake. Oh God, that was a mistake. Micah was golden. All over. His body was toned and golden and Kit wanted so much to make him happy. Micah gasped and seemed to come back from the place he’d been when he’d made the request. A request that had Kit hard again. So fucking hard he didn’t know what to think other than exactly what Micah had said. Fuck. He needed to fuck. He needed to know.
“Is that—?” He didn’t finish the question. Micah pulled his legs back to expose his hole. His balls were tight against his body, his dick still hard and dripping. Kit remembered the afternoon in the ballroom and how Micah had licked him until he was begging. He’d have done anything Micah wanted just to feel something inside him.
Micah didn’t answer. Kit dragged his fingers through the slick on his lover’s belly and leaning over him, he stroked a path down Micah’s body to touch that spot that Micah seemed to want him to touch. He didn’t push inside, he simply rubbed his finger over the puckered area and Micah opened for him. “It’s been a long time, Chris. Heath was—”
Kit pushed his finger inside. Hard. He leaned over Micah making sure he saw him mouth the words. “No. He’s dead. He’s not here. If you want me. It’s just me.”
Micah reached for him and pulled his face down. “I want you. I need you. Not for sex. I need…Chris. I just…you. You. Take what you need from me. Use me.” Kit pushed in deeper. The words made him angry. He didn’t even understand why. He didn’t understand why Micah got to him in the first place. Seeing him weak and begging like this, pissed Kit off. Micah arched into his hand, his voice gone now as he moved on Kit’s finger looking for something. “Fuck me, goddammit. Chris, fuck me. Don’t make me beg for it. I want you so damned much. I can’t take the first. I can’t be the first. You have to be the first. You have to set the limits. You have to understand. I can’t have you unless—”
Kit got it then. Micah was holding himself back for Kit’s sake. And Kit hated him for it. He rammed his finger in deeper making Micah wince and then groan as he threw his head back into the mattress. He withdrew and sat on his knees. Fuck, he wanted to take what Micah was offering. Fuck. He wanted the power. He loved the power. Power and control over this man who… “Don’t treat me like a child. They all treat me like I’m a child. I’m not a child.”
Micah sat up and cupped Kit’s face in his hands. He held him gently, placing soft kisses on Kit’s lips. “I’ve never treated you like a child. What kind of sick fuck do you think I am?”
Kit let that sink in. “Then why do you hold yourself back. You didn’t with your lovers before me. Why me? Because I’m crazy?”
“Because you’re a virgin, Chris. A complete virgin. You’ve never even masturbated. I am not going to do anything that will ruin sex for you. As much as I want to spread you out and take everything I want from you. This has to be your decision. I want you to fuck me so damned badly. I want you to feel safe and that you can be with me because you want to be with me not because I forced something on you that you weren’t ready for.”
Kit absorbed that. He’d never thought about sex before Micah walked into his life. Maybe in the far back recesses of his mind there was a desire for something. But that desire was never strong enough for him to act on the urge until Micah. “You saw my crazy. Is that what you want? I hurt people when I’m like that. Why would you want to be with me? I have to be locked in a padded room to keep me from tearing the house apart.”
“You didn’t hurt me when I came in.”
“I bit you. Looks like I tried to—”
Micah took his hands and clasped them together. “Stop talking.” He leaned his forehead against Kit’s and sighed. “You were in a rage. Yes. Your body was…fuck, Chris, you were in the middle of orgasm when you bit me. Like you needed the release and that’s what you needed so you took it.”
“I tried to kill my uncle.” Kit mouthed the words again, enunciating slowly so Micah could read his lips.
“Gideon is a prick. And he probably deserved it.” Micah locked his legs around Kit’s thighs and scooted closer to him. “I was leaving, okay. As soon as they locked you up, I decided this was more than I signed on for, and I was packing. Between pacing the outer room and worrying and fighting bouts of anger for what they let happen to you and wanting to come in and, I didn’t leave. I was going to leave. But I didn’t. The snow melted. The roads were cleared for travel. I still stayed. I’ve slept out there. Waiting for you to work your way back. I was waiting for you.”
Kit shook his hands free and tried to crawl out of the cage of Micah’s thighs. Micah held him tighter, frustrating Kit into screaming at him again. “I might not have come back. One day I might not come back at all. One day I might have to be locked away.”
“That’s called borrowing trouble.” Micah cradled Kit’s face with rough fingers. Kit’s blood surged at the tenderness, yet he couldn’t let himself forget. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to shout with those wicked fingers of yours… just don’t, Chris.”
“I’m not normal.” He shouted anyway.
“Neither am I.” Micah shouted back. “I’m angry. All the time. I’d rather sit in the dark than face what I let happen to that little girl. I’d rather it had been me instead of Heath that died that day. I didn’t deserve to live. I haven’t been home in years because I have killed people, Chris. Really killed them. Not just tried to because I was thirteen fucking years old with no outlet and no one hearing me screaming for help. I can’t be around my brother or my sister because I’m afraid of…”
He stopped shouting and looked away. Kit could hear the sorrow in his voice and reached out for him, cradling his face much the same way Micah still held his. Micah’s eyes were shiny with tears when he met Kit’s gaze. “Why?” Kit mouthed the question.
Micah shrugged and tried to look away. Kit wouldn’t let him this time. He sighed and closed his eyes as if to make it go away. “I am the oldest. The one who took care of them. I don’t want them thinking…that I’m some kind of monster.”
“You’re not a monster.” Kit was shocked that he would even think that. He was a hero. He’d done his best to save that kid. He’d gone to war because that was what his country expected of him.
“You call me beastly.” Micah reminded him. “I’m marked for my crimes. The scar. I’m ugly.”
Kit shoved him onto his back and leaned over him. He ran his hands through Micah’s hair fanning it around his head on the mattress before running his fingers down the scar through the scruff of a beard that didn’t do anything to hide the scar tissue. “I call you Beastly because you look like a lion fresh in off the hunt. All golden and fierce. The scar just adds to the image. You try to tame it all back and put on a civilized face but I can see the wild simmering beneath your calm. And I’ve trapped you here in this zoo with me.”
Micah tried not to flinch at the touch of his fingers on the scarred area. He reached up to run his fingers through Kit’s hair much the same as Kit had done him. “I’m not trapped here, Chris. If I didn’t want to be here—”
“You’d be in your car and gone. That’s why I had it brought out. So you could have the freedom to leave.”
“I didn’t leave.”
“Why?” Kit didn’t understand any of this.
“Because I let you matter to me.”
“I’m not Sophie. You can’t save me, Micah. My demons are internal. There’s no one who can save me.” He tapped his head.
“You’re the only person who can save you. You know that right?” Micah eased his legs apart to wrap them around Kit’s thighs, hooking his feet behind his knees. “And yeah, baby, it is all up there. You have the power to purge those demons.”
“I don’t have the power to stay out of the fucking dark. I can’t fight what I can’t see. And even you admit it’s all in my head. I’m out of my fucking mind crazy.” Kit wasn’t ready to be psychoanalyzed this soon after waking up to find himself in the padded room. “They have a straitjacket somewhere in this fucked up place. In case I lose my shit completely.”
“And if you’re finding your shit this time?” Micah smirked at him as he tucked one arm behind his head. He slid the other hand down Kit’s chest, skimming over his skin to grab him between his legs. Kit gasped. He felt the air leave his lungs. Stars shimmered behind his eyes. His whole groin area seemed to pull up so fucking tight he couldn’t breathe. “You’re dick woke up this time. It’s still awake. I’m thinking that mental block came crashing down this time.”
“What about next time?” Kit had to mouth the words because he couldn’t remember how to sign a damned thing. Micah grinned at him. Fucker lay there on the mattress like he had all the time in the world…to tug at Kit’s dick and make him quiver with this incredible sensation of… “Don’t stop.”
“You like this?” Micah sounded pleased with himself. “All I have to do to turn your overactive brain off is jerk your cock for you? I was wondering.”
“I hate you.” Kit leaned closer in, making sure Micah could read his lips before he plastered that grinning mouth to his.
“As long as you fuck me with this rather large tool, you can hate me all you want.” Micah gasped out when Kit broke the kiss a few moments later. Kit shook his head to deny the request.
“Don’t know how.”
“You know how. You already started. Finish what you started.”
The cum on Micah’s stomach had been smeared between them when they were arguing. Kit slipped his fingers between them to figure where he’d been when Micah had asked for the impossible. “It’ll hurt.”
“It usually does,” Micah agreed. But he pulled his legs back like before, spreading himself wide for Kit. He released Kit’s dick just as the tingling at the base of his spine started to seep into his balls, to wrap his big hands behind his knees. “I need you, Chris.”
Kit closed his eyes. The plea was beyond anything Kit ever expected to hear from this man. Or any man. His body reacted violently to the mental image of being inside another human being. He gripped himself, sliding his hand through the slick dripping from his own dick and acting on instinct he rubbed the head against Micah’s puckered hole. Rubbing him until he flared open.
“I need you too. So much.” He managed to sign as he pushed inside. Just a fraction. Enough to lose every coherent thought in his head. “Oh God,” he said falling onto his hands to hover over Micah once again. “Oh God. I’m inside you.”
“Go deeper.” Micah wrapped his hands around the back of Kit’s neck and tugged him down. “I want this. I want you so fucking much. I want to be the one…”
Kit didn’t hear anything after that, his hips jerked forward. Maybe Micah had something to do with that, he wasn’t sure. All he was sure of was that heat shot from his spine through his balls and out the tip of his dick and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it but hold on tight until his ass unclenched enough for him to feel his hips.
Micah’s deep chuckle was the first thing he heard after his heart dropped out of his ears. “I came like that the first time I fucked a guy too. Takes care of the lube problem at least.”
“I came. Is that what that was?” Kit didn’t think he could deal with the tight clasp of Micah’s now slick asshole around his still painfully hard dick. “Oh fuck, don’t move. I’ll come again.”
“That’s the point, genius.” Micah pulled him down for a kiss his breath hot on Kit’s mouth as he whispered. “Stop talking and fuck me until you can’t anymore.”
Kit heard the whimper that left his throat. Micah’s kiss consumed him. Sucking at his tongue, he shut down Kit’s brain until all that was left was the urge to make this man cry out his name.
Micah bit the tip of his tongue and Kit lost control. His hips took over as if they knew exactly what to do and Kit struggled not to help bite his own tongue off as he buried himself inside Micah.
“Oh God.” It wasn’t Kit who uttered those words this time. Micah’s eyes rolled hard into the back of his head. His nostrils flared as he tried to absorb the pain and kiss at the same time. “Again. Don’t stop. That’s the…right there, Chris. Make me come.”
Kit eased back and waited for a long breath while Micah held his, to plunge back and this time Micah clawed at his neck and shoulders and tried to pull him off balance. Not this time. He wanted to watch Micah fall apart.
“Harder. I love you. Make me…love me. Chris. I need…”
That. Kit wanted to make him ache so much he couldn’t form a complete sentence.
“Deeper. Touch me.”
Kit flexed into him, feeling him open and stretch with each small thrust. He gloried in the power. This was his. He’d claimed this man. Fought off the dark to be with this man. He felt Micah’s body go stiff. His anus seemed to pulse around him as if Kit had somehow found his way into his very heartbeat. He slipped his hand between them to stroke that part of Micah that he’d ignored. No sooner had he wrapped his hand around the silky hot flesh and stroked did Micah sink his nails into Kit’s shoulders and arch his hips up to impale himself on Kit. Cum spurted over Kit’s hand. Micah cried out his pleasure against Kit’s mouth. Begging him for more even as he pulsed and shivered with orgasm.
Kit’s body listened. He rammed himself in deeper. Slamming that spot that made Micah crazy until his breath caught and his vision faded out to black and he couldn’t move not for the life of him. Micah held him while he poured everything into him. Kit heard his voice in his head. Coming. I’m coming. Micah. Micah. He wished Micah could hear him. He wished Micah could know exactly how he felt. I love you. Love you. Micah. He screamed in his head as the dark burst into a million sparkling pieces.