Chapter 18 #2
“I told him to stop. More than once. He kept going, and I freaked. I scratched him hard enough to draw blood, but the fucker still fucking came inside me.” Lincoln’s expression went stormy, both angry and scared, and it made Emmett want to find this Tom person and beat him senseless for making Lincoln feel that way. For putting him at risk like that.
“Fucker got pissed at me for scratching him.” His fear was slowly being beaten back by anger. “Said I should have asked for what I wanted, but I put the goddamn condom on the dresser. It was right by the fucking lube. I mean, fuck!”
He surged off the couch, hands fisted by his sides, his face scarlet. “Fuck him. Fuck him!”
Emmett watched helplessly from the couch as weeks-old pain rose to the surface so fast, burning so hotly, that Lincoln didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
He paced the length of the living room, angling every few strides as if he meant to take a swing, maybe put his fist through the wall. Or punch an invisible assailant.
It explained a lot. The moments of tension, when Lincoln froze up or pulled back. Reacting to Melody’s assault. Emmett raged alongside his boyfriend, even as a little piece of his heart broke for him.
And then a terrifying thought jumped to the forefront of his mind. “Babe, did he give you something?”
Lincoln froze in midstep, halfway between the couch and the kitchen.
Some of his anger seemed to bleed away, and he swayed.
Concern had Emmett on his feet and gently pulling Lincoln back to the couch to sit with him.
He held both of Lincoln’s cold hands in his and squeezed them tight, fighting back his own panic over what Lincoln might or might not say.
“I still need to do a six-month follow-up to be absolutely certain,” Lincoln said. “But all of the initial tests were negative. You have no idea how relieved I was to know that.”
“I can’t even imagine.” Emmett pressed his forehead against Lincoln’s temple. “I hate him for what he did to you. You put the condom in plain sight, and he chose not to wear it. He also chose not to stop when you revoked consent.”
Lincoln released a ragged breath. “Between the beer and the anxiety, I ended up in so much pain that I think I barfed on him a little. I know I hit the floor with it.”
“I wish you’d barfed in his lap.”
“Yeah. I’m glad I haven’t seen him since, or I’d have probably punched him in the junk.”
Emmett tried to laugh but it came out more like a grunt. “Me first.”
“I felt like such a loser after it happened, you know? I mean, if my head hadn’t been screaming in pain, I could have stopped him. But it hurt so fucking much that I couldn’t defend myself.”
“Stop blaming yourself, Linc. Things happen in the heat of the moment, sure, but if this Tom jerk had enough sense to reach for the lube, he could have reached for the condom, too. He chose not to use it, and if you hadn’t been in pain, sure, maybe you’d have noticed sooner.
But him continuing to fuck you after you told him to stop? That’s on him. That’s assault, period.”
Lincoln shivered again, and Emmett pulled him closer.
Wrapped his arms tight around his boyfriend, while Lincoln sagged against his chest, his face pressed into Emmett’s neck.
They sat like that for a while, the mood to make love gone, and that was okay.
Lincoln had carried the weight of Tom’s assault for weeks, letting the anger and shame eat away at him a little at a time.
Now that the events were in the light, their weight shifted onto Emmett’s capable shoulders, maybe Lincoln could start to heal.
“Goddammit.” Lincoln pulled away, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not now.”
Emmett retrieved a pill from the bathroom without being asked. Lincoln downed it with a sip of water. “Let’s go lay down for a while okay? It’s been a stressful day.”
“Yeah.” Lincoln’s face hinted that lying down was the last thing he wanted to do, but if they could ward off the migraine before it really got going, the rest of the day would be way more pleasant.
He got Lincoln out of his dressy clothes and into bed wearing only his briefs, then fetched an ice pack and towel to cover his eyes.
Once Lincoln was settled and comfortable, he shed his own slacks and button-up shirt and slid into bed.
He curled up facing Lincoln, his left hand resting over Lincoln’s heart.
“Thanks for this,” Lincoln whispered.
“You don’t have to thank me for supporting you.”
“Yeah, I do.” His eyes were covered, but emotion stilled roughened his voice. “Dom tried to get me to talk about it last weekend, but I couldn’t. Not with him.”
“Why not?”
“He went through something kind of similar but really different, and I just . . . the first time you talk something out? It’s like, I don’t know, lancing an infection. You gotta get the bad shit out, but you don’t want certain people to be there for it.”
The metaphor was kind of gross, but it also made sense. “I’m so glad you could talk to me, Linc. I mean it.”
“I feel like we could tell each other anything, no matter how awful. Is that weird, when we’ve only known each other a few weeks?”
“No.” Emmett kissed his bare shoulder, one final confession on the tip of his tongue. “It means we have a unique connection. Something to fight for.”
“Yeah.”
“Rest, okay? We can talk more later.”
“Okay.”
Emmett stayed in bed, not really tired, and listened to the sound of Lincoln breathing. The way it evened out as he relaxed, as sleep slowly stole him away. The cadence of it allowed Emmett’s eyes to droop and eventually close, and he drifted.
His hand stole out, seeking warmth that had been there before, and found only the cool sheets.
Lincoln forced his sandy eyelids apart, struggling to escape from the odd dreamscape that had been a beer with his migraine pill.
Colors and shapes without form or emotion.
He hated those kinds of naps, because he always woke out of sorts.
And today he was unexpectedly alone in bed. The mostly shut curtains didn’t show any stray light, so it was after sunset. He’d slept for hours, and while he was fuzzy and off-kilter, the pain had disappeared.
Thank fuck for small favors.
He also had one hell of a hard-on. Sitting up didn’t send him keeling over with dizziness, so he tried standing. Still good to go. The faint sound of the television drifted from the living room as he crossed the hall to take a piss. Never an easy task with a woody.
Lincoln had spectacularly blown the moment this afternoon with his idiotic little freeze-up, mere minutes after Emmett asked Lincoln to fuck him.
He’d been enjoying the more aggressive side of Emmett all the way up until the second his mind wandered.
Until Tom showed up in his memories. Emmett had been the right person to tell all that shit to.
He listened and he called it for what it was, and he didn’t give Lincoln platitudes.
Emmett was like his personal Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way.
Nobody’s perfect, dude.
Except Emmett had never once given Lincoln a reason not to trust him.
He wasn’t sure if sex was still on the table tonight, or if he’d find Roxy watching TV instead of Emmett. Discovering the former would kill his problem pretty quickly. The latter might want to help him out with it.
Adrian was the last person on earth he expected to find on his sofa, engrossed in something on television, so yeah, the woody died a fast death.
“Dude, what are you doing here?”
Adrian yelped as he twisted around on the couch. “Fuck, man, make some noise or something.”
“Sorry.” Not so much.
“Emmett asked me to hang out here until you woke up, or until Roxy came home. He was worried about your head.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure if that was irritating, or totally adorable. He went with adorable, because Emmett wasn’t the smothering kind, but he did worry. “Oh. Thanks?”
Adrian shrugged, then turned to face the TV. “Don’t mention it.”
“Figured you’d seen enough of me these last few days.” He settled on the other end of the couch.
“Nah. You make Emmett happy. He deserves it after everything he’d been through.”
“And is still going through.”
“Yeah.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure how to tell Adrian that he was pretty sure he was falling in love with Emmett, so he kept that to himself.
The guy sometimes seemed uncomfortable around Lincoln, and he couldn’t figure out why.
Then again, it could all be in his own imagination.
Instead of making things awkward, he went for totally off-topic. “So, are you seeing anyone?”
Adrian laughed out loud. “Why, you wanna go out on a date?”
“You’d be so lucky. Just curious, is all.”
“Sex, yes. Date, no.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes. “Player, huh?”
“Not really. It’s hard to date in a resort town. You’ve either already fucked the local girls so you know which ones are crazy, or you end up in an awkward thing with a girl who lives a thousand miles inland, and who’s only here for a week. I tried long-distance once, and it sucked.”
“Works for a friend of mine.”
Kind of. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Benji at any great length about his relationship with Joshua when he’d been in town, and he regretted that. The two guys were great together, but their schedules clicked even worse than before now that Benji was touring. Plus the open-relationship thing.
“To each his own,” Adrian said.
“Ah-fucking-men, dude.”
“Okay, so if your head isn’t in imminent danger of imploding, I’m going to go.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He walked Adrian to the door, because that seemed polite. “I’m going to text him, but when you see Emmett tell him I said thanks for looking out for me.”
“I will. See you, man.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Roxy got home a little after midnight and promptly interrogated him about the hearing.
Lincoln kind of hated that Gunn was getting off with assault charges, instead of manslaughter, but he wasn’t a lawyer, and he wasn’t Emmett.
Emmett wanted closure as soon as possible, and he wanted to avoid the spectacle of a trial. Lincoln couldn’t fault him for that.
“It’s too bad you can’t pay a guard to beat the asshole up in jail,” Roxy said. “He’d deserve it.”
“Yeah, he would.” Lincoln wouldn’t have minded taking a few swings at the guy himself. Too bad the courtroom had been full of witnesses. “But Emmett wouldn’t want that.”
“That guy is too nice for his own good. He’s lucky he’s got you around.”
“I’m lucky to have him around.”
She ruffled his hair. “Aww, Lincoln West, am I crazy, or are you falling for this guy?”
He shrugged, then switched off the living room lights. “I’m going to bed.”
“That’s as good as a yes.” She whooped a little as she scurried into the kitchen.
Lincoln crawled into bed, then texted his thank-you to Emmett.
He might not see it for a few hours yet, but it would be waiting for him when he got off work.
Today had been a few ups, and a whole lot of downs, but it had also been the beginning of an ending for Emmett.
The end of Emilio Sharif’s life in Baltimore, and the new start of his life as Emmett Westmore.
A chance to start over fresh and discover what he wanted out of life.
And as sleep stole over him once more, Lincoln did something he’d never done before. He prayed to whatever deity might possibly be out there and listening to let him continue to be part of Emmett’s life.
I need him.