22. Roman
TWENTY-TWO
Roman
I close the bathroom door before turning on the lights. I don’t want to wake Lucas. I need to do this on my own.
It’s been growing in my mind, the awareness of what I’ve been avoiding. Every time I half catch sight of myself. Every time I see how Vitali looks at me.
I avoid it for a few more minutes while I do everything except what I’m really here to do. I even shave with the electric razor just by feel, like I’m used to doing.
My heart starts pounding as I finish. My hand is shaky when I set the razor down.
Then I look up at the mirror.
I experience a weird disconnect when I find that the person looking back at me is, in fact, human.
The fact that I knew that has no bearing on the fact that, somehow, I didn’t expect that. And I don’t like it. At all.
I survived by becoming not human, by letting everything that happened happen to a not-human body.
But it’s a human body reflected in the mirror, scarred and way too lean but undeniably human, with a human face. And the eyes are … afraid.
I watch as my reflection panics. I see the chest start heaving, the stomach start contracting. I hear, distantly, the sounds of distress.
I close my eyes when I can’t take it anymore. My teeth clench. My fists clench. I cannot be that damaged human thing.
Abruptly, I want back in my cell, where I’m not that thing, where I’m strong and dangerous and untouchable. Where no one dares handle me without a shock collar around my neck.
“Roman.”
My eyes fly open. Fury ignites inside me. An awful, inhuman roar erupts from me. Then I see in the mirror what I wanted: the beast I became to survive. It should make me feel better, but it doesn’t—because I also see Lucas approaching me, frightened and worried. And it turns out the beast isn’t untouchable after all—because Lucas’s hand settles on my back.
It’s so dangerous, what he’s doing, so fucking dangerous, but he doesn’t seem to care. He steps behind me like the beast—like I —won’t hurt him.
I watch in the mirror as his arms wrap around me. His skin is fairer than mine. He’s more slightly built. He’s so beautiful.
For a second, I think how wrong my scarred, brutal body looks with his—but I can’t equate that with how right it feels.
Eventually, my breathing evens out to match his. His thumbs stroke me, moving over both scar tissue and undamaged skin, accepting both of them the same. His torso and face are pressed against the scars slashing my back. He’s never asked about any of the scars. Somehow he knows that it’s not something I can talk about, not yet, maybe never. He’s so intuitive. He’s so … loving.
I take a deep breath and let it out.
I raise my eyes to their reflection. I hold my own gaze until I see all of the things I am at once. Mixed together. Complicated.
I can’t say that it becomes comfortable, but I get to where I can turn away calmly. I take Lucas’s hand and tug him toward the shower.
When I turn the water on, he says, “I have to pee.”
I grunt in acknowledgement but don’t let go of his hand. I hold my free hand under the spray, testing the water temperature while I look back at Lucas.
I watch understanding dawn on his face. His eyebrows lift. His lips part. Color stains his cheeks. I wait for him to shake his head, to pull away. He doesn’t, and as he follows me into the shower, I see that his cock is slightly thickened. My own begins to respond as we enter the spray.
I pull Lucas against me, his back to my front. Looking down over his shoulder, watching his cock, I let my hands roam over his chest and belly. His cock plumps as I touch him. His breathing quickens. I massage around the base of his cock. I reach under to cup and roll his balls in my hand. When he’s half hard, I gently take his cock in my hand.
The quickness of his breathing tells me that he understands what I want, but I don’t know if he can do it. I wrap my other arm around his chest, holding him close against me. I drop my head to start kissing his neck.
I’m asking for extreme trust and intimacy. Submission too. I keep kissing him. I need it from him, and he gives it to me.
He starts to make soft little sounds. A breath eases from him as he gives in, lets go. I murmur against him, praising him wordlessly as I watch him urinate while I hold his half hard cock. My own cock stiffens fully where it’s trapped against his ass. It’s so intensely intimate that we’re both trembling by the end of it.
Lucas turns in my arms and huddles against me. I pet his wet hair and kiss him as I reach between our bodies to takeboth our cocks in my hand. I stroke until we’re grinding and gasping against each other. His cock throbs against mine. I can’t usually come from something like this, but in the wake of his submissive, intimate act, I know that I will. I’m so close. All I need is—
Lucas cries out against me. As his cock kicks against mine, spurting hotly in my grip, I clutch him against me and start coming in hard, wrenching pulses. We strain through our mutual orgasm in the tight, close space we’ve made with our bodies.
We stay there for a long time after, arms around each other. I know he feels vulnerable right now. I do too. But I realize now what he obviously realized well ahead of me. He’s safe with me, and I’m safe with him too.