Chapter Twenty-Nine
Liam
When I wake up again, it’s late. Or early. Which in itself is nothing new. My life has been a series of sleep deprivation trainings, from special ops training to going wheels-up at odd hours.
What is new is the way I’m feeling. My head’s fuzzy from the painkillers the doctor gave me. I don’t usually take them, but I was a weak punk when it came to rejecting Ravi. Once I realized it wasn’t right for him to stay, I knew what I did was the only way to get him to go.
The empty chasm that opened inside me when I told him to leave, when he visibly held himself back from crying, is an ache inside me. A pulsing blackness that beats in time with the ache from the bullet graze above my knee. The wound will heal, but I’m not sure the inside of me will.
He was right to call me a coward.
I blame the meds for why it takes me a minute to realize I can’t move. There’s a sound by my head. When I push my hand backward to reach for the gun I keep strapped behind the headboard, I can’t.
Something tightens around my wrist. My fuzzy brain finally clocks the threat, and my eyes fly open wide.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
“Ravi?”
He doesn’t acknowledge me. He doesn’t need to. I know it’s him. I can smell his bodywash, and after this past weekend, the touch of his fingers on my skin is something I’ll never be able to erase.
“I didn’t think you usually slept so soundly,” he says. “I was worried. Didn’t really want to do this while you were sleeping.” He comes around to the foot of the bed, standing there between my spread feet. I can’t move those either.
Not that I’ve never been restrained. I spent some time with a Dom who firmly believed one had to submit before dominating. Still, I’d forgotten how crazy not being able to move makes me until this moment.
Even as I’m itching to fight my restraints, there’s a phantom hand on my chest urging me to be still. Telling me there’s danger present.
Ravi’s never been particularly menacing outside of my attraction to him, but standing here now when all I can see in the nearly dark room is his silhouette and the glow of his eyes? To me, Ravi’s always been sweet and bright. Like eating a popsicle in the sunshine.
I thought I knew all of him, but this is a different Ravi. This is someone new, someone I haven’t met before. This is Ravi as a predator.
And he scares the shit out of me.
“Ravi, what the hell is going on?”
Why the fuck am I tied up?
Unease creeps into my chest. Something terrible squirms around inside that aching chasm, and it knows what’s about to happen. My brain hasn’t quite caught up yet.
“You were wrong,” he finally says.
“Tell me what I was wrong about.” Because in spite of the ache, I’m still convinced that what I did for Ravi was the right thing. I know. Not for me, but for him.
“Remember when you tied me down and edged me until I had knots in muscles I hadn’t even heard of before?”
Do I remember him naked and spread out before me, writhing and begging with tears running down his face? If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never be able to think of it without getting hard. It’s the worst kind of comfort, right now. He’s carving me into pieces while singing me a lullaby.
“Yeah, kid.” My voice scratches and cracks. “It rings a bell.”
“You left me. Before you left me, though, you said something like, ‘You got what you wanted.’ Remember?”
My lungs lurch involuntarily. I tug at the ties around my wrists and ankles, knowing they’re strong enough that it would be hard to get out without help. I’m the one who purchased them, after all. I’m the one who attached them to my sturdy steel bed frame.
“I remember.”
“But I didn’t though, Liam.” The bed dips as he climbs onto it, creeping on all fours between my legs. “I didn’t get what I wanted at all. You know what I wanted?”
I’m going to regret this. I already do. “Tell me.”
“You. You were always what I wanted. Well.” His laugh is dry and harsh and so unlike Ravi’s it stings my skin. “Mostly at first I wanted my parents back.”
His grief makes me wonder if I might drown. “I know. I’m sorry.”
He scoffs at me. Fucking scoffs. “Later, though, when I finally made peace with them being gone? It was you. You were my first crush. My first obsession. My first love. I wanted you to want me back so badly. You know, I saved myself for you, thinking you’d make it so good for me.
Then I realized you were never going to love me back the way I wanted, so I just wanted it gone. My virginity, my loving you.”
Fuck. Fuck. I can’t see blood, can’t smell it, but I know it’s there, leaking out of me from every goddamn pore.
“Ravi, I’m sor—”
“Save it.”
Those two words slice right through me. My mouth closes up before I’ve even processed the command.
Or maybe I can’t process it because I’ve realized Ravi is moving again, slinking forward like a panther in the dark. He’s climbing on top of me. Straddling my hips.
He’s completely, utterly, one hundred percent naked.
“Ravi, what the hell is happening right now?”
It’s a useless question. The fingers tugging at my loose sweats, hooking under the edge of my boxer briefs, are pretty damn self-explanatory.
“I haven’t gotten anything I’ve wanted, Liam,” he says matter-of-factly as he drags my pants and boxers off my body. He’s careful over the wound above my knee, and then he must realize his logic error because he stops.
The sweats are loose, and the fabric of my boxers is stretchy, but there’s no way to remove them completely without untying me.
“I guess those will have to stay right there,” he murmurs. Not sure he’s even talking to me.
“What’s happening? What are you doing?” I want to hear him say the words.
“It’s like I said. If you couldn’t love me, then I wanted to lose my virginity, and I wanted to leave you behind. So. It was a virgin auction, Liam. Technically speaking, I’m kind of still a virgin.” He sounds exasperated, as if I’m an unruly child he’s having to patiently explain the rules to.
“Virginity is a construct.”
“Fine,” he snaps. “I wanted to get fucked, okay? I wanted to try things, Liam. So I intend to get what I really wanted before I leave.”
Of all the words he’s said so far, the last three are the hardest to hear.
“You intend to, do you?” I manage.
My answer is the snick of a bottle, and then there’s the telltale slipperiness of lube drizzling over my dick.
“It’s the kind that gets warm when you rub it in,” he explains. “Simon gave me lube and condoms before the auction. He wanted to make sure I was prepared.”
Prepared. For some other man to fuck him. Bile rises in my throat.
Then he demonstrates the warming lube to me, sliding his grip up and down my shaft. A better man wouldn’t buck into his hips. Wouldn’t revel in the slide of his fingers.
I’m not a good man.
“Oh. I almost forgot. Your safe word is red,” Ravi adds.
Fuck. My. Goddamn. Life.
His silhouette rises onto its knees. Then he moves to straddle me. The hand that was jacking my cock leaves me aching and needy as it slides behind his back and works its way down.
He’s using his lubed-up fingers to prep himself. Even in the dark, I know that’s what he’s doing. I’ve seen that hole up close. I’ve seen my own fingers pushing inside. My hands jerk again, itching to reach for him. Again, I’m stopped by the force of the restraints.
Holy ever-loving motherfuck.
Part of me is furious. How dare the little shit do this to me? Part of me is pissed that I’m not the one pushing into his warm hole, spreading him open.
My hips give another kick. The stoicism I’ve worked hard to cultivate is nowhere in sight. Especially when a cloth chafes my dick, wiping off the lube.
Even knowing what’s coming, the telltale rip of foil makes my pulse shoot sky high. So does the cool sensation of a condom at the tip of my cock, the squeeze of Ravi’s fingers as he rolls it down. Goddammit, I wish I could see better right now.
His knees press into my hips as he rises up again, positioning himself over me. His hand is on me again, his slippery fingers braced on my stomach. There’s some wiggling and squirming as he tries, I assume, to get himself into the right spot.
Then I feel it. The tip of my cock presses at his opening. It’s all I can do not to buck my hips again.
“I’ve been practicing,” he whispers. “You’re bigger than my dildo, but that’s okay. I think I can take you. I know I can.”
This is going to end badly. You need to stop him.
I’ve never been more certain of anything. This is an absolute train wreck.
He’s angry. So am I. Whatever this is right now, it’s toxic.
Nothing good can come out of it. There’s also an ugly, selfish voice whispering in my ear that this is actually perfect.
He’s giving me what we’ve both always wanted, and I don’t have to feel like shit about fucking him if he’s got me tied down.
So, when he says “Remind me of your safe word, Liam” I don’t try to buck him off. I don’t tell him to stop like I know I should.
I say, “My safe word is red, kid.”
Then an unholy sound rips out of me as he begins to sink down, squeezing my tip in the most delicious, amazing, constricting heat.
He’s using me. I’m merchandise. An upgraded fucking dildo.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.
“I’m going to fuck you now, Daddy,” he whispers.