6. Beast
SIX
Beast
I’ve decided that I very much like having Lucas in my bed. Sometimes, because my instincts are so tuned to conflict, I get upset when he bumps me. My body interprets every bit of contact that I don’t initiate as attack.
Sometimes I can clamp down on my reaction. Sometimes I can’t.
Usually I just growl until he goes still, but I’ve bitten him a few times. Those are warnings, but last time I bit him hard enough that he yelped and scrambled out of the bed and went to his usual spot. He wouldn’t come back when I clearly indicated that he should, so I had to pick him up and carry him. I’m steady enough now to do that, but he panicked and flailed. I think it tore some of my stitches. I don’t mind. I got what I wanted, which is Lucas’s body against mine.
The sexual nature of my response to him is becoming more obvious. It was hard to recognize at first because it’s been so long since I’ve had a sexual response to anything. I don’t know if it’s a good thing. The stirring in my groin feels way too much like aggression, maybe anger.
I don’t remember that being the case with sex in the past, but I’m not the man I was before I found myself in an Eastern European prison where inmates fought to the death in a walled arena. My instincts now are different. My emotions have less range. I’ve had to cut off every emotion that weakens me or makes me vulnerable, and that’s pretty much left me with anger.
I wasn’t always this way.
Fuck, I hate thinking about the past. I’ve worked so hard to bury it, but for some reason, it’s trying to come back.
To distract myself, I focus on Lucas. His body is stiff against mine, but I don’t know if he’s angry or scared. Whatever the case, I don’t like how rigid he feels. It’s not comfortable. I can’t relax with him like that. I growl against the back of his head.
“I cannot possibly lie more still than this.” He says it quietly, but he sounds upset.
I grunt, annoyed that he doesn’t understand that I want him to relax. I sit up in frustration, pulling the blanket off us both.
When I initially stopped talking, it was out of defiance. Words didn’t help me anyway. There was no argument, threat, or protest I could make to change my situation. My silence robbed my captors and handlers of half their satisfaction in abusing me. More than that, it helped me distance myself from what was happening, like they couldn’t really touch me if I buried my thoughts and emotions deep enough.
But the habit is so strong now, my silence so ingrained that I’m stuck in it. I’ve never felt trapped by it before, but I do now.
At the same time, I don’t really want to speak. I’m more comfortable like this. I’ve learned how to exist like this. But I’m frustrated when Lucas doesn’t understand me. I haven’t needed nuance for a long time.
I scrub at my face, unsure what to do. I feel Lucas shift as he rolls onto his back. The mattress is narrow, so I’m pressed against the wall while Lucas is nearly at the edge.
I need something to focus on and his shoes are bothering me, so I edge down to the end of the bed. He jumps when I grab his foot. At my grunt, he stills and lets me take off his shoe. The sole is worn almost smooth, and the rubber is cracking behind the toe cap. I drop the shoe to the floor then remove his other one.
There’s a hole in his faded black sock. When I stick my finger in it, Lucas yanks his foot away and lets out a high-pitched “eee!” that startles the shit out of me. I whip around, instinctively pulling myself into a crouched position. Lucas has a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry,” he mumbles through his fingers. “That tickled.”
I feel my face do something weird and I let out a huffing sound that I don’t recognize. When Lucas lowers his hand, revealing a nervous smile, I huff again, and this time I realize it’s a laugh. Lucas’s smile deepens. I like that, so I reach down and tickle his foot again. He shrieks and jerks his foot away. His knee hits my thigh near the stitches.
It hurts but not enough for me to care about. Lucas, however, sits up looking horrified. He lays his hand on my thigh where his knee hit me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, then his hand pops away from my leg and darts toward my abdomen where blood has soaked through the bandage. He doesn’t touch the wound but mutters, “Shit. You’re bleeding.”
As he scrambles out of the bed, I grab at him, catching his hand. His head whips my way. I don’t know what he sees on my face because it’s another expression I don’t recognize the feel of. I don’t know how Lucas interprets it, but he smiles a little. It reassures me, so I ease up enough to let him stretch away from me. He grabs the first aid kit and drags it close to the bed.
He tries to draw free. When I don’t release him, he squeezes my hand. I’m reassured again, so I let go.
“Lie down,” he tells me.
My refusal is automatic. I don’t follow those kinds of orders. Because men who do? They don’t live long in places like this. Submission is weakness, and weakness is death.
Lucas frowns like he doesn’t understand this. His head tilts to one side as he studies me. Then he says, “Please.”
I’m so taken aback that I probably look like an idiot as I stare at him. Did I even hear him right?
“Please,” he says again.
For some reason, the word puts a tight, awful feeling in my chest. I look away, upset. My jaw clenches. He better not say it again. If he does, I might do something bad.
But he doesn’t. He just waits, like he’s letting me decide.
It takes me a minute to calm down. Then I do what he asked. I can’t look at him while I do it, but once I’m on my back, my eyes are drawn to him again.
Lucas gives me that little smile of his. It reassures me that this isn’t submission, that it’s okay.
“I’ll try to be careful,” he tells me as he peels up the bloody bandage. His frown almost has me lifting my head to see the wound, but I don’t want to take my eyes from his face. I’m hungry for his expressions. I don’t want to miss anything.
“There’s a broken stitch,” he says.
If that’s all it is, there’s no need for his frown. It’s not a big deal. I was pretty sure one had torn when I carried him.
He cleans the wound like I showed him last time. As he hunts around in the bag I wonder what he’s looking for. He pulls out almost everything, littering the floor.
“No scissors,” he says. “I can’t cut the broken stitch.”
I snort. I could have told him there would be no scissors in there. I would never be given a concealable weapon.
My amusement fades as I realize that I couldn’t actually have told him that. I would need words.
He finds a box of wound closure strips. He shows it to me. I nod.
I could do this myself, but I like having him do it. I didn’t like when he was jostling me because it was always unexpected, but this is different. This is … nice. I’m getting used to him touching me.
He does an okay patch job then covers the wound with a fresh bandage. His hands go to hover at the waistband of my black sweatpants.
“Um,” he murmurs, shifting on the mattress.
He’s already seen me naked. I’m often naked and have been seen that way by lots of people. It stopped meaning anything to me a long time ago.
But the increasingly sexual nature of my response to him makes this feel different. Between my long withdrawal from sex and the effects of both injury and drugs, that response has been sluggish. A subtle stirring. A heightened awareness of his body and mine. A faint aggression. Up to this point, I haven’t actually gotten hard, but if I let him keep touching me, I think I might.
I don’t know how I’ll react if that happens. I’m afraid it won’t be good. But I don’t want this to stop.
I lift my hips. Lucas’s eyes flick to mine then back to my waistband. His hands tremble as his fingers slide between the fabric and my skin. I’m hyperaware of the light brush of his fingers as he pulls my pants down.
My eyes are locked on Lucas—and his are locked on my cock where it lies against my hip. His attention sends heat spilling into my groin. Then he seems to shake himself. He clears his throat and goes to work
I hold myself still as Lucas cleans the wound, but that’s the only control I have over my body. My breathing shallows. Heat floods my groin. My cock starts to thicken.
As aggression stirs in my body, I know that I was right. It’s a bad thing. But I still don’t stop him. I should, but I don’t.
By the time Lucas has covered the wound with a fresh bandage, my dick is stiff enough that it’s starting to lift from my hip. Lucas stares at it like he doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t touch it, but his hands don’t leave my thigh either, even once he’s done working. In fact, his fingers flex there, sending fresh heat spilling into my groin.
I can see his chest rising and falling. His lips are parted.
His eyes flick to mine. I’m not ready for it, so I haven’t guarded my expression. I don’t know how I would anyway. I’m too upset to hide it, and I’m not used to hiding things. I haven’t needed to for a long time.
For some reason, seeing that I’m upset, Lucas relaxes. He shouldn’t. I’m very unsafe for him to be around right now. The stirring in my body is too strong, too unfamiliar. I don’t know how to interpret it except as aggression.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I usually snap when I start feeling anything like this.
When Lucas tugs at my waistband, I lift my hips so he can pull my pants up. The material grazes my sensitive cock. A sound breaks from me.
It startles Lucas. His hands jump away from me. I don’t like that. I growl a warning that he’s not to leave, but it has the opposite effect. He tries to dart away.
It is the exact wrong thing to do because it triggers my aggression. I lunge for him.
I catch a handful of his sweatshirt. He panics, twisting and pulling out of the garment before I can get a better grip. Abruptly freed, he hits the ground. I don’t even have to get all the way up to grab him around the middle and haul him back to the bed.
I tug him against me, his back to my front. I bury my face against the back of his head and try to think. I’m shaking against him. The conflict sent all the wrong signals to my body, and now my cock is fully hard and pressed against his ass.
Lucas is breathing harshly, his stomach jerking against my arm where it’s wrapped around him. He’s muttering, “Oh my god, oh my god.”
I growl at him to shut up. My control is fraying by the second. If he would just lie still, if he would just calm down, maybe I could think.
I’m not used to controlling myself. That’s a skill I’ve long since lost. I’m also not used to interacting with people or thinking about them except as threats.
What I’m used to is aggression from others and from myself. It’s the only way I know how to function.
But Lucas isn’t aggressive. And I don’t know why, but I don’t want to hurt him. I just want him to be here. I want him with me.
I don’t want to be alone again.
I shift my grip to better secure him—and feel the hard ridge of his erection.
I freeze. I’ve been so focused on my own unexpected sexual response that I haven’t really thought about his. I actually haven’t even been thinking about sexual acts at all. Not directly. Not specifically.
I know I had plenty of sex with men in the past, but that was so long ago, and it was a different version of me. My body was different then. My instincts were different. I was a man then. I’m not now. I’m an animal. A beast.
As I continue to hold Lucas against me, aware of my arousal and his, the aggression in my body clarifies itself. I understand it now. Yes, it is aggression, but it doesn’t mean I want to hunt or hurt him—because Lucas isn’t my prey.
He’s my possession.