Chapter Seven Damaged Goods
“That could’ve gone worse, eh?” Julian was saying as he tossed aside his parka, once again disregarding the coat rack.
“You and Henri were getting on like a house on fire. And you and Rahul didn’t fight once all night.
I’d thought you two would be going at it like two pumas in heat and I’d have to come between you with a cricket bat and a sausage roll -- you know, for distraction. Pumas are wild about sausage rolls.”
“Shut up,” Michael growled.
Julian turned, startled.
Michael kissed him bruisingly hard on the mouth before flipping him around and tossing him down on the sofa face first. Julian gave a giddy laugh and made to push himself up, but Michael lay on top of him pinning him to the cushions, biting his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt.
Julian gave a little yelp. He tried to look at Michael over his shoulder, an unsteady smile wobbling on his lips. “Eager, are we?”
Michael grunted in reply and pushed a hand between Julian’s body and the sofa cushions, squeezing his still soft dick through the fabric of his trousers. Michael wasn’t just eager, he was entirely overcome. Darkness clouded his vision and his heart pounded like war drums.
Seeing Julian with Rahul always had a terrible effect on him.
Even with the verbose Frenchman taking up all of his attention at dinner, it hadn’t escaped his notice how Rahul had flirted shamelessly with Julian -- and how Julian had done nothing to dissuade him.
If anything, he had actively encouraged him with his own little flirtations.
Michael had enjoyed Rahul’s moon-eyed moping when he’d believed he hadn’t a chance in hell with Julian, that Julian wanted Michael and only Michael.
He had felt empowered then. Empowered enough to fuck Julian almost inadvisably early.
Tonight, however, seeing his Julian, his boy, being seduced away from him right before his very eyes filled him with a jealousy and desire that was altogether darker and nearly impossible to subdue.
He had an uncontrollable need to claim what was rightfully his.
And to remind them both who Julian really belonged to.
Julian sighed as Michael continued to rub him through his trousers, hips gently rocking as Michael coaxed him to stiffness.
He didn’t wait longer than that, moving quickly to unbuckle Julian’s belt and yank his trousers down to his knees along with his pants.
Julian’s hands moved to clutch at the sofa arm, readying himself, though his expression, when he flicked Michael another look over his shoulder, was still wary.
“Shouldn’t we move to the bedroom? We’ll dirty the couch. You hate it when the couch --”
“I said ‘shut up’,” Michael barked, fumbling open his own trousers and releasing his painfully stiff cock. He’d been achingly hard since the restaurant. He’d thought of nothing but fucking the daylights out of Julian since he saw Rahul’s dark eyes devouring him.
“Yes, sir,” Julian squeaked, turning back to rest his forehead on the sofa arm.
Michael pulled a condom from his pocket and hastily slid it over his erection with trembling fingers.
He cast a look at the bedroom door, where the bottle of lube was safely stored in the bedside cabinet.
Fuck it. There was no time. He spit thickly into his hand and coated his cock.
Then again and spread it over Julian’s entrance, roughly pushing two fingers inside him to stretch him, though they fucked regularly enough as to keep him perpetually loose and ready.
Julian stiffened at the rough intrusion.
His head shifted lightly to the side, as if he too were glancing at the bedroom door, realizing what they’d left behind.
“Shouldn’t we --” he began tentatively, but his sentence ended instead in a hoarse cry as Michael pushed unceremoniously inside him, fully sheathing himself up to the hilt in one hard thrust.
Need and anger and jealousy and lust warred in Michael’s chest like vile, tarred things that twisted his insides and poisoned his mind.
He couldn’t see for the red that hazed his vision.
He could hardly feel, needing to dig his fingers harder and harder into Julian’s hips to feel even that.
A small, frightened part of his mind that still clung to sanity begged him to hold back, to not allow the beast to run fully rampant.
He trembled with the effort to contain it.
But he had to claim Julian. He had to make him his forever.
He had to make sure no one could ever have him again.
Michael allowed Julian no chance to adjust before he began thrusting relentlessly into him.
His hips pistoned, hard and fast, the sound of flesh smacking flesh filling the quiet of the room, drowning out Michael’s laboured breaths.
Julian half-screamed, biting into the sofa cushions to stifle the rest of his cries.
Fucking Julian was always extraordinary, an experience full of vivid colour and texture, but tonight it was something harsh and dark.
Where Julian was perpetually light, their coupling tonight was heavy with Michael’s waning restraint.
He fucked him not for the pleasure of it but for the fear of what lived inside of him, a creature that paced back and forth, threatening to claw out his guts at a moment’s provocation.
He needed to expel the fear. He needed to release it into Julian’s warm, exquisite body.
Before it put an end to that warmth altogether.
When Michael had been at Eton, he and one of his mates had been indulging in the commonplace pastime of tossing each other off when the darkness had come over him.
It hadn’t been the first time. When he’d been small, he would occasionally find himself overcome with an indescribable cruelty.
He would twist the skin on a classmate’s arm until the child cried or kick the family dog to make it whimper.
But it had never so thoroughly engulfed him as it had in that moment.
Possibly because there was a sexual element now that hadn’t been there before, but maybe it was some other, altogether less scrutable reason.
Whatever the cause, after the darkness had lifted from him like scales falling away from his eyes, it was to discover the boy he’d been engaged with pale and motionless on the floor of the cupboard where they had holed themselves up.
An asthma attack, the headmaster had told the boys.
A severe one. Such a shame to lose someone so young, with so much promise.
Such a shame, all the teachers had said.
What they didn’t say, because they didn’t know, was that a hand around his throat had facilitated that asthma attack.
There had been scrutiny, of course. A medical examiner would have been derelict in his duties if he had not noted the bruises on his neck.
But Eton was attended only by the brightest boys of the most prominent families, and they were not about to be accused of harbouring a murderer.
The police were highly encouraged to conclude their investigation as an unfortunate accident, as the boy had been terribly prone to asthma, and his family were equally encouraged by having their pockets lined.
It helped that the boy had been there on scholarship.
Having come far too close to the noose for comfort, Michael had promised himself to never again let himself go that far.
He was strong, a man of character and breeding.
He would not let some damned feeling get the better of him and put him and his interests in danger.
He resolved to be more careful in the future.
It was a near impossible feat to keep himself from going over the edge when he was balls-deep in a supple body, fucking him so hard as to see stars, images playing over and over again in his mind of Rahul fucking Julian, of Julian willingly giving himself over to another man, of Rahul’s self-satisfied face, filling Michael with rage even as his orgasm welled.
He lifted a hand to Julian’s head, what could be mistaken as a lover’s caress to his dark hair.
But his hand trailed down to the back of his neck, fingers encircling his throat.
Julian made a low moan into the cushions, hips pushing back to meet Michael’s brutal thrusts.
The growling beast within him grew quiet as he was hit with the astonishment that Julian was loving this rough treatment and that, far from fearing Michael’s hand around his neck, it stoked his pleasure all the more.
The tension in his muscles that had urged him to crush now relaxed and instead he only lightly squeezed.
A keening noise of bald need was wrung from Julian, one of his hands breaking away from the sofa arm to grab at his own cock, tugging with just as brutal a rhythm as Michael was setting with his unrelenting thrusts.
Within moments, Julian was seizing up, back arching.
He was babbling something, but Michael couldn’t hear him over his own heavy breathing and wet slap of flesh on flesh.
Julian’s arse clenched hard around Michael’s cock, and Michael gave a startled shout as his balls tightened and he came in one tremendous shot, emptying his load into Julian’s heavenly insides.
His vision blurred and his heart stilled, all his energy and consciousness draining out of him along with his spunk.
Michael’s hand released Julian’s throat, and he collapsed bonelessly on top of him, not even sparing a thought to settling all of his weight on the slender body.
He lay there, with the boy’s bones biting into his front, as he regained his sanity and breath.
As quickly as the fire of wrath and possession had spread over him, it had just as quickly been snuffed out, leaving him feeling not just foolish, but ashamed. And afraid.
It really had seemed as though Julian had enjoyed himself, but Michael had been so rough with him.
He had been so intent on loosing his frustrations and enacting his ownership upon Julian, he hadn’t taken heed not to hurt him, something he’d always been so careful of in the past. He had tried so hard, for so long, not to let his darker nature put his relationship in jeopardy, and a moment of weakness brought on by something as puerile as jealousy had compromised all of that.
To think what he might have done if he hadn’t been able to restrain himself from clamping his strong hands around that delicate, white throat…
Beneath him, Julian croaked, “Fuckin’ hell, Michael. Give us a chance to breathe, eh?”
Michael eased up enough for Julian to finally roll onto his side.
They lay next to each other on the cramped sofa, Julian’s release quickly congealing on his stomach and the soiled cushions (which would, in fact, irk Michael later).
Julian’s face was mottled red, with a perfect impression of the cushion edge etched into his cheek.
While his expression was slightly wary, it didn’t seem to hold any fear or resentment.
Michael breathed out the final vestiges of apprehension, though shame still simmered in the leftover embers of his rage.
“Got some pent-up frustration, have you?” Julian half-joked, still panting, eyes searching Michael’s for something.
“Mm,” Michael hummed, caressing Julian’s cheek with an open palm.
The raven-haired boy let his eyes slide closed and nuzzled into Michael’s hand affectionately, seemingly ready to forget any of Michael’s odd behaviour.
Good, Michael thought. He didn’t need Julian asking any questions whose answers would only upset him.
Besides, he would never allow himself to get as carried away by his darker urges as he had been tonight.
Not with Julian. It was too dangerous. So Julian needn’t concern himself over what had happened or what was going through Michael’s mind.
Because it wouldn’t happen again. Not ever.
“Michael,” Julian sighed dreamily, his breath moist on Michael’s skin.
He wouldn’t lose him.