Chapter 6 #2
Asher turned the weapon over and clicked something on the side like he did with the rifle, lighting up a small display, then pressed the barrel to Levi’s temple.
“This is why you took this? Not for the creatures, but to protect yourself from me?” He grabbed the zipper of Levi’s jumpsuit and pulled it down to his waist in one smooth motion.
Levi swallowed hard. “Asher, stop.”
“I don’t want to scare you.” His fingers hooked the jumpsuit off Levi’s shoulders, yanking it off of each arm and letting the material pool at his waist. “I want to show you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“You’re holding a gun to my head.”
“I know.” Asher’s knuckles grazed Levi’s side through the undershirt — light, tracing the shape of his ribs — and goosebumps rose on Levi’s arms. “Is it working?”
“Is what working?”
“Are you paying attention?” Asher’s hand slid up his undershirt, his palm pressed flat against Levi’s stomach as the muscles contracted under his touch.
Levi held his breath as Asher’s teeth grazed his Adam’s apple.
The barrel of the gun pressed harder against his temple and Asher’s hand slipped lower, popping the release on his belt buckle before shoving it inside his jumpsuit and between his legs.
“Because I really fucking need you to pay attention.”
Levi bit his lip as Asher stroked him through his boxers. It’s not the time. Don’t respond. Don’t respond. It was too late, though. He was already hard in Asher’s grip and now just trying to hang on to what little dignity he had left.
The gun left his temple.
For one second — less, half a second — Levi’s body believed it was over. His shoulders dropped, relief arriving like a reflex, automatic and total.
Then the barrel was on his throat.
Levi’s breath died as the metal traced down the side of his neck the way Asher’s mouth always did, and it was cold and wrong and his body didn’t care. His chin tipped back before he could stop it, his throat presented for a gun the way it did for teeth, and he hated it.
“See?” Asher murmured as he pressed a kiss to Levi’s jaw. “You don’t need the gun. You don’t need the timers.”
The barrel found the bite mark and pressed, and Levi’s hands hit the wall flat as his hips jerked forward in one sharp involuntary movement he couldn’t take back. Asher smiled against his skin.
Fuck. Fuck.
“You just need me,” Asher whispered, and the barrel moved across his collarbone, dipping into the hollow of his throat, and that all too familiar heat in his belly was following it the way it followed Asher’s hands.
“In this place, in the sanitarium, in the forest…all you’ve ever needed is me.
You don’t always have to fight what you want because you think you have all the answers, Levi. ”
“I’m trying to get us out of here, Asher—”
“Why?” The barrel traced down his sternum over the undershirt, the metal warming against him through the fabric. “We can be happy together anywhere if you just let yourself be happy.”
Levi clenched his jaw so hard his molars ached.
His hands were fists against the wall and his hips were very still through sheer effort alone as the gun rested against his stomach, the barrel pointed down, almost forgotten.
“I’m tired of dying,” he said through his teeth.
“It’s hard to be happy when I’m constantly fucking dying. ”
Asher pulled back enough to look at him.
His eyes moved over Levi’s face — the flushed cheeks, the swelling from the slaps, the split lip, the tears from the compression still drying — and his expression did the thing it always did that made everything worse.
His face lit up and he smiled that terrible tender smile.
“I did this,” he said. “All of this. The color, the breathing, how hard you are for me right now—” He stopped. Looked at the lip under his thumb. “I made you feel all of this.”
Asher placed the gun on the desk, then cradled Levi’s jaw, his thumb stroking his cheek with a gentleness that had no right to exist in the same room as everything else. “You’re so beautiful when you cry.”
Levi’s hands were still fists against the wall.
The gun sat on the desk. His cheek ached and his hand ached and his body was still doing what his body did.
Asher’s heartbeat was visible in the pulse at his throat — fast, much faster than the steady voice and the careful hands — and that was the thing that reached him. The hammering underneath the calm.
He’s scared too.
He uncurled his fists. He reached up, closed his hands in the front of Asher’s shirt, and pulled. Asher didn’t resist as he was tugged down and Levi kissed him.
He felt the shock move through Asher’s body — one second of complete stillness, every muscle locking at once.
The kiss tasted like copper from his split lip, but Asher’s mouth was careful around it, aware of the damage, navigating it with a precision that meant he knew exactly what he’d done and was choosing to be gentle with the result.
Asher made a sound against Levi’s mouth, raw and unguarded and grateful, and Levi couldn’t find the will to defend against it.
Levi pulled back. Not far. Asher’s forehead pressed against his, both of them breathing hard.
“Promise you’ll answer me honestly.” Asher nodded too many times, his stilled hand stroking Levi’s cock again as he leaned in for another kiss.
Levi bit back a moan and whispered against his lips, “Then yes. You can have me.”