Chapter 3
THREE
Tav
They called me Husk. Short for Husky, because of my eyes, I guessed.
It fit, though. Because that’s what I was, a husk of a human being.
Dramatic and depressing, sure, but it was the truth.
At one point, years ago, they knew my name, but they never used it.
That would mean admitting I was a human being, and they didn’t want to be reminded.
I hadn’t said my name for so long, I wasn’t even sure I had remembered it.
I blinked slowly, my body protesting consciousness while my brain fought to be alert.
The window to the city was at my back, and Conrad was on his side, facing me.
The sun had just barely peeked over the horizon, throwing an orange glow across the bridge of his nose.
He had a few freckles, so light they were barely visible. I hadn’t noticed them last night.
I always thought people looked kinda goofy when they were sleeping, their mouths hanging open, face slack.
But Con still looked… regal. His one hand was tucked under his pillow, the other flat on the bed in front of him.
I wanted to pick it up and hold our hands up, palm to palm, like kids did when they measured to see whose hand was bigger.
I knew mine was bigger, but I just… wanted to touch him.
But even though he’d untied me before we fell asleep, I kept my hands to myself.
The guy was asleep. I should have been too.
It’d been so long since I was intimate with anyone.
Hell, it’d been so long since I even touched myself, I had wondered if my cock was broken.
It wasn’t, though, not when he touched me.
I studied him as he slept, mapping his likeness so I’d be able to picture him in my head when I was alone.
Con was almost… pretty. With small features on pale skin.
A sharp nose, although his mouth was surprisingly wide, with full lips.
He was older than me, probably, with silver hair beginning to lighten the dark blonde hair at his temples.
His face was unlined, no laugh lines at the corner of his blue eyes or around his mouth.
That bothered me, tightened my chest. Con should smile.
I wondered what he did, because this apartment must be a few mil, easy.
He had crazy security, too, I noticed, what with the fancy keycards and the passwords and alarm system.
There was a file folder still on his nightstand, which he’d been looking through while I sucked him.
But I wouldn’t look through it. I wouldn’t betray him after what he’d done for me tonight.
I hadn’t been Tav in so long, I wasn’t sure I knew how to be.
I’d always thought I’d been into submission in bed, but I’d never found the right partner that I felt comfortable with.
That I thought could take me on. But Con had been so sure in the club.
The way he gripped my face. The way he spoke.
So I’d taken a chance, and I’d been rewarded in just about the best way possible.
I’d spent the last five years with no control over my own life that it had felt so fucking good to hand over control to a person I’d chosen.
I’d only been at that club because I’d just finished a job that took another chunk of my soul and I needed…
something. So I’d stumbled into the first club I came to.
Of course, then I’d realized what kind of club it was.
I’d spent an hour sitting on that damn stool at the bar, trying to remember what it had been like, back when I’d been a normal guy, free to fuck.
And then Con had approached me, and instead of punching in his face, I’d gotten in his fucking fancy-as-shit car.
Now here I was. And it hurt, it hurt all over again because I remembered now.
I remembered what it’d been like to be Tav.
I didn’t want to remember. I did now, though, and so I relished the last few moments I could be Tav until I had to empty out my shell and return to life as Husk.
Con was a gorgeous man, thinner than me but still well-built.
He had such a pretty cock too, long and slender just like him.
I tongued the corner of my mouth, remembering it between my lips, the taste.
It’d been hot as hell, to have all that time with my mouth on him, while he’d been busy.
He’d let me take care of him, pleasure him.
I hoped he let me taste him again before our time was up.
I lifted my gaze back to his face and startled when I saw his eyes were open, staring at me.
They were so blue that I didn’t have words to describe them.
Like the ocean and sky and whatever else was blue and bottomless and vast. I suddenly wished I read more so I had a better vocabulary.
I didn’t say anything, because he seemed to like it when I was quiet.
Since that was how I preferred to be, it worked out well.
I shifted my jaw and bit the inside of my cheek.
His hand on the mattress lifted, and he cupped my jaw, sliding a thumb over my chin. “Is your jaw sore?”
I blinked at him, and opened my mouth once, now noticing the dull ache. “A little.”
He began to rise. “I’ll get you some ibuprofen.”
“No!” I said, a little forcefully. He froze with his upper body raised off the bed and tilted his head as he looked down at me.
“No,” I said softer. “I, uh, I like it. The soreness.”
He didn’t move for a minute, then slowly lowered himself back to the bed.
I wanted to lay on his chest so he would run his hands through my hair.
I loved that, the feel of his fingers on my scalp.
No one had done that since… well… her, and since she hated me with every fiber of her being now, I’d never feel it again.
I stayed still, though, as Con cupped my face again.
He slipped his thumb between my lips. Relishing the ache in my jaw, I sucked.
His body shifted beneath the blankets, and I watched his eyes, the way they focused on my lips, the way a blush began to stain his cheeks. It turned me on how much he wanted me.
When he drew his thumb out of my mouth, I didn’t have to feel beneath the sheet to know he was hard again. He reached behind him and grabbed a condom off his nightstand. I was hard already, just from the crinkle of plastic.
After the condom was on, Con drifted a hand down my chest, gripping my hard cock and stroking it, then his fingers palmed my balls, tugging on them.
“On your back,” he said.
I complied immediately, rolling onto my back with a grunt, giving him better access. I drew my feet up, spreading my legs and planting my heels on the bed.
His fingers slipped lower, teasing my entrance which, yes, was sore too. But I didn’t give a good goddamn. I wanted him to fuck me again.
He rose up and kneeled between my legs, running those soft hands over my chest and stomach. He eyes took me in greedily, and I ate it up, wishing he had more than two hands so he could touch me everywhere at once. I wanted to be surrounded by Con, consumed by him.
“So gorgeous,” he said, softly, gaze on his hands where they traced my hip bones.
I didn’t look in the mirror anymore. Gorgeous wasn’t in my vocabulary. I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize myself. He braced a hand by my head and used the other to position his cock at my hole. I sucked in a breath and tried to loosen my muscles as he pushed.
His head drooped between his shoulders as he entered me, like it was too hard for him to hold up. I wanted to touch him, but I wasn’t sure I was allowed. That was why I liked when he tied me up. No questions.
My hands twitched, and Con was so fucking perceptive. His head shot up, and his gaze locked with mine. “Touch me, Tav.”
I loved the way he said my name, his top teeth cutting into his full lower lip on the v. I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair, then down his shoulders to settle on his narrow waist.
He began to thrust into me, gentler this time, maybe because we’d only had an hour of sleep after fucking each other half to death.
Because he’d taken me twice more last night until I was a boneless heap and he’d had to clean me while I was nearly unconscious.
But this morning…well, it wasn’t quite fucking.
I wasn’t sure what it was, but he rolled his hips slowly, and I never understood what people meant when they said it wasn’t the size of the ship, it was the motion of the ocean—but now I knew.
Because the motion, the rhythm Con was thrusting, was enough to make me feel the beginning of my orgasm in my spine in minutes.
His one hand was still planted in the bed, but the other was on my chest, squeezing skin and muscle, to the point of pain before he’d back off and move on.
I squeezed his hips with my thighs and matched his rhythm, rolling my hips with him, because that was one thing I could do.
I knew how to move my body, because if I didn’t, I’d get dead.
Last night, he’d talked during sex, uttering filthy shit that made my balls tight and my mouth dry. He spoke of all the things he wanted to do to me and all the things I wanted to let him do. I still hadn’t tasted his cum.
But this morning, he was quiet, holding eye contact so intense that I had to look away every once in a while. He stroked me and gave me a nod to let me know that I could come. I was already close, so I let it build and build, until I came in his hand, gripping his ass as my neck strained.
Con came too, his eyes closed, mouth slack in bliss. Then his head fell onto my chest, his hot breath tickling the cooling cum on my stomach. I rubbed the skin I’d squeezed and ran my hands over the muscles in his back.
I’d hated my life for a long time, but I’d never hated it more in this moment, with Con in my arms, knowing that this would be it. That I’d only ever get snatches of happiness.
So I shut up my brain, and I focused on being Tav for these last few moments.