Cross Island

by Santino Hassell

  I started to deny it, but the lie wouldn’t come out. “It’s not just that.”

  “But you admit it’s partially that?”

  “Yes, I fucking admit it. The whole drive here from Manhattan, I kept seeing you dead. Do you get that?” I put my hands on his shoulders, drawing him closer to me. His eyelids lowered, and he sucked in a breath. “I have this thing where I picture the worst-case scenario. Doesn’t matter how irrational. Someone’s late? I start thinking of all the ways they could have randomly died. So, this situation?” I barked out a low laugh. “You vanishing on me? It messes with my head.”

  “Sounds like pretty crippling anxiety.” I scoffed, and he gave me another narrow-eyed glare. “Don’t do that. Don’t make light of mental health issues.”

  “Yeah? So, what, I should take a pill? Talk to someone?”

  “Yes, maybe so,” Clive said bluntly. “It sounds to me like you have a pretty serious case of PTSD and anxiety, and that’s dangerous for your line of work. You’ve admitted yourself that your behavior and thoughts aren’t rational. You’ve also admitted that talking to me about the past is like a weight off your shoulders. Don’t let toxic ideas of masculinity make you shrug off getting help and dealing with serious issues, Victor. It hasn’t worked out well for you in the past. Your entire life has been you hating who you are and what you feel, and then you having all this fallout as a result.”

  I flinched as if he’d hit me and looked away. He splayed his hand along my cheek, touching the scar there gently, but I didn’t meet his gaze. His words had stung bad. Especially because he had a point I didn’t want to admit to. That I’d never wanted to admit to. My fear of being gay, my hatred of who I was and not being the right kind of man, had driven me to assaulting the object of my affection over and over again. It was how I’d gotten involved with Shawn. Why my sister could barely stand the sight of me.

  “Guess you have it all figured out,” I said darkly. “Except for the fact that your personal life is just as screwed up as mine, you shut everyone out, and act like you’re so invincible that you can lure out a potentially violent stalker. Because that’s what this is about. You being as reckless as Shawn—thinking you’re untouchable and acting without thinking—while trying to make it about my issues.” I looked up only to scowl into his smug face. “You being my size and working out doesn’t mean a damn thing. Fighting doesn’t have anything to do with your pecs or your abs. Fighting is hard. It’s not panicking. It’s making choices while someone is trying to slam your head into the pavement, and being calm enough to reverse that position. It’s not getting gassed in the first thirty seconds of wild struggling. You think you’re hot shit?” I jutted my chin at him. “Let’s put it to a test.”

  Clive’s eyes gleamed. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

  Cross Island, ch 13

  Chapter Thirteen

  Clive

  The basement wasn’t finished, but I’d cleared out all the junk to throw down a big mat, install a punching bag and callisthenic equipment I used when I was too mentally exhausted to go to the gym. Since those days had been less frequent after I’d left the hedge fund to work at QFindr, my home gym had seen little use until Victor had moved in.

  He flipped on the dim lights and stood in the middle of the mat, hands on his hips as he glowered. The suit and tie were gone and swapped for basketball shorts and a T-shirt. It was warmer in the basement than in the rest of the house, but I still had a chill without my shirt on. Victor did not seem to notice.

  “This is stupid,” he said. “I wasn’t being serious.”

  “I thought you were concerned for my well-being?”

  Victor gave me a flat look. “I want to prove you’re not a fucking MMA fighter just because you’re a gym rat. That didn’t mean I’m trying to ‘spar’ with you.”

  “Mmm.” I moved to the center of the mat and smirked. “Sounds like you’re insecure that you’ll be wrong.”

  “Wrong about you being a MMA fighter?”

  “Wrong about me not being able to defend myself.” I arched an eyebrow, smirking wider. “I understand if you’re scared.”

  Victor’s glare seemed to intensify before he rolled his eyes upward with a tiny smile playing on his lips. “You’re mad annoying. Like for real.”

  “Maybe, but I’m rarely wrong.”

  He scoffed but spread his hands in surrender. “Fine. You want to try it? Let’s do this. I’ll show you a self-defense exercise I used to teach at this YMCA in Chicago.”

  “The kind they give to old people and oblivious people who get robbed in malls?”

  “Yeah. They work real well for oblivious people who go for drunk jogs at night.”

  I flipped him off. He ignored it.

  “Basically, no one is laying hands on each other. I’ll pretend to be your stalker, and I’ll come at you in a way I see him coming at you during one of your jogs, and you’ll try to escape. I’m gonna set a timer on my phone for ninety seconds.”

  “That’s it?” I asked, skeptical. “I figured it would be longer.”

  Victor shook his head. “You really are underestimating how much can happen in a short period of time.”

  “Maybe so,” I admitted. “But that’s why we’re practicing.”

  “Is that the reason? I thought it’s because you’re not trying to listen to anyone and want to prove a point.” Victor glared at me in a way that would have likely frightened other people. He looked foreboding in the dim light with his scars and tattoos, his big beat-up hands curled into fists, and his voice low and gravely. But it didn’t scare me. It only made me wonder how quickly he downshifted from aggressive to needy once he was naked and sweaty with someone else. “Get over here,” he said softly. “Let’s do this.”

  I moved to the center of the mat, waiting for instruction, as he set his phone on the arm rest of my power tower. “What do I do?”

  “Close your eyes and wait. I’m not gonna tell you how I’m gonna come at you or where I’ll be coming from. I’m not giving you any strategies. You just do what you’d do in the situation if it happened in real life.”

  “Fine.” My heartrate picked up. We hadn’t even begun, and my body was singing with adrenaline. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  I nodded and shut my eyes. With the world dark, I tried to pay close attention to the sounds around me. There was a low beep of him starting his timer, and then I heard nothing except the whoosh of the boiler, the distant hum of another appliance, and the natural creaks and moans of the old house. I couldn’t pick out a foot fall, or even the rustle of his shorts.

  An arm encircled my throat from behind before I was ready for it. Even knowing it was Victor putting me in a chokehold and trying to drag me backwards, my heart jolted. Panic caused me to jerk forward in an attempt to escape, but that only increased the pressure on my throat. It was only a brief memory of his words, about how people wildly flailed after an initial attack, that cleared my head just a bit.

  Instead of trying to escape his arm, I began twisting until I managed to turn my body in his direction. Once we were face-to-face, I jerked up one hand to shove against his throat or face, but Victor shoved his foot between my own. I tripped over it and fell forward.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Victor didn’t respond. He was on some kind of autopilot, or in complete role play mode, and pounced on me during the brief moment of me being on my knees. Once again, he grabbed me by the neck and tried to drag me backwards. Irritation flashed through me, because this was obvious now. The fucker was trying to prove a point about someone coming up on me from behind, and wanted to show that I wouldn’t be able to get out of a choke hold fast enough. Well, fuck that.

  I twisted faster this time, breaking his hold, and swung at him even though laying hands on each other had been against the rules. Victor dodged the blow and drove me forward, shoving his entire body against my chest with enough force to flatten me. I grunted when he crushed me to the floor and blinked away stars from t
he impact of my head against it. Even with the mat, it hurt, and that brief moment cost me valuable time.

  Victor straddled me with one hand on my throat and the other restraining one of my hands. Again, I twisted and bucked my hips, trying to dislodge his heavy body. He was like an immovable object. No matter what I did, his weight didn’t so much as shift. He seemed to bear down on me with every ounce, and didn’t flinch or move no matter how much force I attempted to use.

  Frustration powered through me, mixing with the adrenaline of the struggle, and I surged against him. Every time I managed to gain an inch, he reacted almost immediately and was there to restrain or stop me. It went from a controlled sparring session to me sweating and panting in a desperate attempt to get him off me. When the alarm went off, signifying ninety seconds had passed, my lungs were burning from exertion and our bodies were tangled together.

  I scowled at his calm expression. He was out of breath, but nowhere near as winded as me. “Fuck off.”

  He backed off me and sat up on his knees. “I told you, man. Fighting isn’t easy. It’s not like the movies.”

  “I never said it was,” I growled. “But do you really think my little stalker is going to be in as good of shape as you? Or would have your same stamina?”

  “Maybe not, but your stalker would definitely be way rougher than I was being. To be honest, if I’d been pretending to have a weapon, you’d have been dead. Even without a weapon, I could have choked you out or slammed your head against the floor until you passed out.”

  Discomfort moved through me, slithery and cold, and coiled in my stomach. I pushed myself up as the scenario he was describing played out in my head. Yes, there was a chance an assailant wouldn’t be in the same shape as Victor, but I’d still be caught off guard. That person would be a lot more ruthless. And if I considered the fact that he’d been able to leap fences and shake my bodyguard? It was unlikely the guy wasn’t at least somewhat fit.

  “I want to try again,” I grunted. “Now.”

  Victor made a face. “Man, we can do this tomorrow when we’re not—”

  I lunged at him, knocking him off balance, and pinned him to the mat the way he’d just done to me. This time, it was him trying to throw me off his body, but I grabbed his wrist and pinned them while clenching my thighs to hold him in place. He bucked his hips in an attempt to throw me to the side, but I pressed all my weight down on him. After a couple of moments, he abruptly stopped struggling and tilted his head back against the floor.

  I leaned down until our faces were nearly touching. “Giving up that easy?”

  Victor’s jaw clenched. “Get up.”

  “Get me up,” I suggested. “You’re not even trying.”

  He remained completely still, and glared up at the ceiling as a flush rose up his neck and spread over his light brown skin. I moved just slightly, cautiously, and the source of that rosiness pressed against my crotch. His dick was rock hard.

  Victor’s mouth fell open as I settled against his erection, and his eyes slid nearly shut. “Fuck.”

  The uttered word said in such a low hoarse voice riled me up almost as much as the feel of his cock jutting against me. I watched in fascination as his brows snapped together, his throat working as he swallowed thickly. He shifted restlessly beneath me. I tightened my hold on him, clutching his wrists a little harder. A breathless sound slipped from his mouth.

  “I forgot that you liked it rough.” I slowly rocked forward and drank in his raw moan, the way his lower lip trembled, and how his hips automatically jerked up in response to my grinding. “You went from zero to hard as fuck as soon as I pinned you down, didn’t you, Victor?”

  “I don’t know.” He was breathing as hard as I’d been during our initial struggle, but was still staring stubbornly up at the ceiling. For as erect as he was, his reddened complexion and drawn together brows spelled out embarrassment. Not just lust. “You wanna get off me?”

  “Is that an invitation?” I asked, staying still but keeping my cock pressed against his. “Or are you saying you want me to stop.”

  Victor’s lip curled. His nostrils flared.

  I ground against him, making sure he felt every inch of me. He shivered, and I leaned down further so our lips were nearly touching as I spoke. “Either tell me to stop, or tell me to give you what you need.”

  “What do you think I need?”

  “To use you while you’re pinned to the ground.” I want to lick his wide mouth. To suck on his tongue. Instead, I crushed his hands in mine hard enough to hurt. He didn’t flinch, but he did moan again. It was deep and low and caused me to start rocking against him again. “Make you take my dick, then play with yours but make you beg to come,” I whispered. “Remind you how much you used to want a man to treat you like their personal slut.”

  “Oh fuck.” His hips were moving of their own accord it seemed, trying to seek friction against me. I imagined his heavy dick throbbing, the tip damp with precum, as his balls tightened. Then I imagined his ass clenching from want of something deep inside. “You don’t know what I used to want,” he panted. “You’re just talking shit.”

  I released one of his hands to grab his chin with my fingers digging into his flesh. “Did you or did you not used to fantasize about getting fucked hard? Of someone forcing their cock down your throat, or of ruthlessly using that ass of yours.”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded drunk—his tongue thick and clumsy, and his words slurred. “Fuck, I don’t know what I want. Please, Clive…”

  God, that plaintive moan. The way he said my name…

  I was shivering, hands shaking, and we hadn’t even begun. I’d barely touched him and we were both already falling to pieces.

  “Tell me what to do,” he whispered. “Please.”

  I released his other hand to tangle it in his hair, yanking his head back a bit so I could lick down to his throat. He lay immobile beneath me, no longer trying to pull away. If anything, he had become limp and pliant. His long strong limbs sprawled out so his body was just there for me to play with and take.

  “Two options,” I said against his damp skin. “We stop right now and forget this happened. Or even though there’s a chance this might cause an issue later on, we keep going, and I fuck your brains out until we forget stalkers and Rodriguez brothers, and the past.”

  Victor looked up at me with damp, dilated eyes. “That work for you with your Grindr randoms?”

  I gave him a slow closed mouth kiss. “No. But you’re not a random, and I want to know what it feels like to be inside you.”

  He watched me from beneath his lashes, lips damp and parted. “Yeah, okay. It’s worth a shot, right?”

  If I wasn’t so fired up for him, his response would have stopped me cold. Without thinking, I’d given him an out. Now, he was going to tell himself that he wasn’t going to have sex with me because he wanted me, or because me holding him down and bossing him around turned him on. No, he was going to tell himself he was fucking a man for the sole purpose of “taking a shot” at forgetting Raymond and Shawn.

  It was bullshit. Internalized homophobic bullshit.

  But I wasn’t in the mood for a teachable moment or to be his queer guru. I wanted his ass.

  “Get up,” I grunted. “And get upstairs right now.”

  ***

  Victor

  I was overcome with the same unquenchable desire that had sent me crashing to my knees for Shawn four years ago on that rooftop.

  All my worrying about being too familiar because of my overprotectiveness was out the window as I entered Clive’s bedroom for the second time that night. It was a bad idea, one I knew I’d regret later, maybe even hate myself for later, but right now?

  There was no way I would say no. I couldn’t. I wanted this. My body needed it. Even the walk upstairs hadn’t sobered me. I was still heated and throbbing, my brain supplying filthy ideas of what I wanted from him and what he could do to me.

  I stood in the middle of his room,
clenching my hands into fists, and waited for an instruction. It had been four years since I’d had contact with another human being, and before that the only guy I’d been with had been Shawn. The idea of someone putting their hands on me, their mouth, of Clive touching me… I was nearly salivating. It was disturbing how quickly this burning need came back, and how strong, after so long of not being with anybody at all.

  He shut the door, armed the security system, and turned to me. I couldn’t stop staring at the shape of his dick in his tight pants. When he cocked an eyebrow, I looked away quickly.

  “Now you’re worried about security?”

  He took a step closer. “We’re about to be distracted. Better safe than sorry.”

  Time to say something interesting. Something to show there was more to me than a failure of a bodyguard who was a headcase about gayness and still thirsty for his touch. I turned words over, struggling, but all I could do was stare at his crotch. The outline of his erection. I wondered how he’d smell if I pressed my face against it. How he’d taste if I licked it.

  “Take your shirt off,” Clive said softly. “I’ve never gotten the chance to see you naked up close.”

  I grabbed the back of my shirt and ripped it over my head. He crossed the room, expression defaulted to neutral, and studied my torso. His fingers glided over my skin, tracing scars and tattoos of skulls and angels, staring eyes, roman numerals, and birds. I expected him to ask about them like everybody always did, but he settled for twisting my nipples before he circled me to examine my back. It was less scarred but had a huge tattoo piece of a man walking up a giant staircase that led to a dark night sky.

  Clive pressed his fingertips against it, tracing it as goosebumps spread over my skin. When he pressed his cool dry lips to the middle of my shoulder blades, I jumped.