by Litte, Jane
“That’s a second date sort of question, don’t you think?”
Sympathy stabs at my chest and I yield to it. “Look. If you’re smuggling anything, tell me now and get it out. Otherwise, I’m obligated to report what I find.”
His buttocks clench and he looks over his shoulder at me, frowning. “What, exactly, do I get out of owing you one?”
“Nothing. I mean, you wouldn’t,” I say, feeling stupid for offering. I wipe slick from the back of my middle finger over his hole, then twist the tip against it. He tightens completely and I lift an eyebrow at him. “If you’d relax—”
“If you’d fucking get on with it,” he snaps, facing forward. “You’re hardly popping my cherry.”
“Fine,” I say, giving up all pretense of gentleness. I’m too slippery, insistent, and one twisting thrust later, my slim finger pushes into him, the clamp of his entrance slowly squeezing down the length until it’s choking the second knuckle. He is nothing but smooth and hot and empty inside and I pause for several seconds. I lay a hand on the small of his back and, low-voiced, I tell him, “Exhale all the way and relax for me.” When I hear the air rushing out of him, I murmur, “Good.” Tension shifts in all the muscles of his back and then, incrementally, the tightness around my finger eases.
As I withdraw, he gasps and his scrotum tightens. When I look up and away, I spot the flush creeping down the back of his neck. He drops his head to his hands and whispers, “You know, I wish I were hiding something. I’d owe you.”
I have nothing to say to that because it summons thoughts of repayment. Specific thoughts directly related to his current position. Thoughts that dry my mouth and draw my attention to my own flesh. I try, but I can’t help myself; I harden as my two fingers slide in with unexpected ease. Carefully, I feel around, hitting a particular and unavoidable spot.
He takes a ragged breath. “I’d like owing you.”
My face heats, as much from guilt as arousal, and when he abruptly clamps around me, I notice the blinking on my wrist. I realize I’m pushing into goldenrod territory and my face grows hotter. I ease out of him and turn away, stripping my gloves and dropping them in the trash. After counting to ten, I turn back, composed, and inform him, “The blood scan takes a few minutes.”
He pulls his shorts back on and eases up on the table. While I busy myself updating his chart, he crosses his ankles and swings them, watching me. Before long, he says, “You’d never make it in the arena.”
I don’t bother looking up. “Obviously.”
“Not with your hair. Too easy for a man to get his hands on.”
I glance at him, and of course my bangs have chosen that moment to fall in front of my eyes. My dark brown hair is wavy, long enough to tuck behind my ears and earn me more of my father’s disappointment, but it’s nothing noteworthy. “Yeah. That’s what’s holding me back.”
“C’mon. I bet you’re a scrappy one.”
“I’d never make it to the arena.” I’d never break the sorts of laws that would put me in that position. And if I did, I’d like to imagine I’d be smart enough not to get caught.
“Never’s an awfully big word,” he says. “You’ve never been in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“This is where you tell me you’re innocent, right?”
“Hardly.” He grins broadly, then winces and licks at his split lower lip.
“I can fix that if you’d like,” I say.
“I would.” He’s compliant as I clean him, only hissing once as I paint a thin line of dermaglue over the cut.
“You shouldn’t start with them before the game,” I tell him. “You should save your energy.”
He presses his lips together a few times, licks at the sealed cut, then nods his approval. “Your concern touches me deep in my heart. Tell me something. You ever think maybe the guards started with me?”
“Did they?”
“And that maybe,” he says, voice taking on an edge, “I know best what I need to get ready for the floor.”
“Pissing off the men with the sticks? That’s what you need? That’s the best you can do?”
He narrows his eyes and studies me. Then, with the lightning-fast reflexes that have kept him alive this long, he’s on his feet, gripping the back of my neck, and swinging me around ’til the table digs into my back. “I’ve got a couple other methods,” he grinds out past clenched teeth. “But I like this one. Go ahead. Push the panic button.”
“You’re smarter than this,” I say calmly, even though my heart pounds against my ribcage. Deep breath, slow exhale, and again as I try to bring myself down. But he’s right there, a wall of hard flesh just a hand’s breadth away, head dropping ’til it rests ear-to-ear beside mine. His hot breath gusts against my neck and one of us, I’m not sure who, moans.
He closes the last few inches and as he presses his body against mine, he must feel my cock stirring to life. As seconds pass, one heartbeat at a time, I know I should feel humiliated. I should feel scared. Instead, I feel more alive than I have in a long while. This time, I know that it’s me who moans.
He relaxes his hold, then swallows hard and carefully rakes his fingers through my curls before grabbing the table on either side of my hips. “Go on, Brendan. Do it.”
I clear my throat. “You need to step back now. You need—” I startle as his mouth opens against my neck, just above my shirt collar. Heat sinks from my cheeks to my chest and then lower, prickling its way through me ’til it pools between my legs. “I’m not going to help you get yourself hurt.”
His lips barely brush my jaw, then they’re moving against my ear, hot and soft. “But isn’t that your job?”
“Step back, please.”
He looks me in the eye, and whatever he sees there makes him frown thoughtfully and lean back.
I run a hand through my hair, and as it drops, he catches my wrist in a light grip, easy enough to break if I tried. Instead I just watch as he undoes the wristband’s strap and slides it two notches looser. He refastens it so it’s secure, but no longer biting into me, then he brings my inner wrist to his mouth and kisses the faint pink dent in the skin. “Getting smacked around,” he explains, uncurling my fingers and kissing the tips. “It gets me in the right frame of mind. The pain helps me focus. God, your hands are soft.” He kisses my palm.
“Hey!” I snap, jerking my hand away, then I grab his chin and force him to look at me. I’m ready to tell him to quit this, then I see it. He’s terrified and this is how he hides it. I want something reassuring to tell him, but I’m at a sudden loss for words.
“No, it’s all right,” he says, shrugging out of my grasp. “I’ll just start with them on the way to the floor.”
“Whatever,” I say, stepping out from between him and the table and rolling my sleeves back down. “Just don’t involve me in your masochistic games.”
“I don’t like the pain,” he says slowly, as if to a half-wit. “I use the pain. If I weren’t here—”
“But you are, so whatever you’re about to say is pointless.”
“But I am,” he says ruefully, “and you’re right. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re too scared to play with me.”
“Nice try.”
His expression darkens. “Oh, and far too smart to fall for such ham-fisted manipulation, right? Too good to enjoy hurting me. So noble, you’d never enjoy something so base as the Tournament. Yet here you are, with your fine shoes. Here not by need but by some twisted choice, rubbing shoulders with brutes like me. Patching us up when we break and shoving us back in the grinder. Not a chance you’re a sadist.”
“Are you finished?”
“Hurt me,” he demands, lunging into my space. “Just hurt me and I’ll owe you.”
“You’ve got nothing I want.”
“Liar. Another place, another time, and you’d be on your knees by now, wouldn’t you? I’d be down your throat. I’d be licking my taste out of your mouth and fingering your ass until you fell the fuck apart.�
�� His breath catches, then one of his thumbs is pressing to my mouth and tugging it open as he leans in, first-date slow.
He’s close enough for me to taste his breath when I step back and hold up a hand. “But we are here, and in a few minutes, you’ll be on the floor. So just sit down and wait for them to collect you.”
“You could be my very last kiss.” He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and smiles, but something in his eyes makes me want to cut myself. For a moment I’m stupid enough to ponder the impossible, another life where I bring him home to scandalize my parents. I imagine the things I could do to his mouth. I realize I’m staring at it when the corners curl up and he says, “Oh, I’d love to see the inside of your head right now.”
Fate smiles on me and the scanner chooses that moment to chime. I step back, and when he follows, I press a palm to his chest. “Shut up and sit down,” I say. Then I turn away and busy myself with the scanner. Screens of charts scroll by, declaring him clean. I pretend my hands aren’t shaking.
Of course he’s silent. Of course I’ve got no warning before his warm hands settle heavily on my shoulders. I manage not to jump, barely, as the solid bulk of his body presses flush against my back, but when he shifts his hips, nestling his erection against my ass, I drop my stylus. He covers both my hands with his, lacing his fingers through mine, and then he rubs his face against the back of my head, breath gusting hot and fast on my scalp. “You didn’t say please,” he murmurs.
I drop my chin to my chest and try to summon the sense to push the panic button.
“You could be my last everything.” He kisses the back of my neck. “Wouldn’t that be horrifically romantic?”
My chest tightens. “No.”
“Say please, Brendan,” he whispers, releasing the hand without the wristband. I could reach for it. I could stop this. I should want to. He sets a hand on my hip and squeezes. “Say please,” he says as he carefully untucks my shirt from my trousers, then he’s spreading his big, hot hand, skin to skin, over my belly. “Say, ‘Please stop.’ ”
I cover his hand with my own and breathe, “No.” Then, trembling, blood racing through my veins, I summon the courage to push his hand down between my legs. I don’t recognize my own voice when I say, “Please.”
He grunts like he’s been gut-punched and I reach for my wristband. I’ve got it half undone when he seizes my hand and slams it down on the counter. Then he’s fumbling with my fly. I try to help him, but he growls, “Quit,” and mouths the nape of my neck until my knees weaken.
Just as I begin to sink, his free arm wraps around me, supporting me and as he shoves down my trousers, I scramble to grip the edge of the counter. When he finally closes his hand around my dick, I drop my head back to his shoulder and thrust forward, desperate for friction. “Go on,” I beg. I reach up and back for his face, turning my head; his mouth finds my cheek, my jaw, then my lips, capturing a hysterical laugh as he drags his thumb over the slick head of my cock.
Another shudder passes through his frame and then finally, finally, he begins to stroke. I arch my back, grinding against his erection and he ruts forward, mouth falling open, sloppy and hot against my chin. I moan when he releases me, but then he’s shoving down his shorts and my briefs and the hot, bare length of his cock against the cleft of my ass all but undoes me.
“I need, I need, oh God.” I close my hand over his, squeezing tighter, stroking faster. “I need—”
“I know.” His cock slips along the sweat between my cheeks, shallow thrusts in time with our hands, nudging me over and over into his fist. “Next time.”
When the tip of his dick catches on my hole, the thought jolts through me—No. Now. I go up on my toes, trying to lean forward, but his arm’s an immovable bar across my chest. I shift and press back and feel the exact moment he realizes what I’m going for. He shudders against me, going still except for the rise and fall of his chest against my back. I squirm just enough and finally the hot, slick head of his cock pops in.
It’s blunt and rock hard and fat enough to hurt, just sitting there, stretching an ache into me. He spits and a second later, it’s rolling down my tailbone and he’s smearing it around the circumference of stretched skin. I whine—humiliatingly high and sharp—and then he pushes, sinking just a little deeper.
The sharp, hot pain steals my breath for a few seconds and I brace for more, but he goes still again. The burn melts into a heavy, aching need to be filled all the way up and I reach blindly for the supply drawer, saying, “I need you slick and I need you moving and I—oh God.” I clamp my fingers around my shaft, fighting the inevitable. “Fucking lube.”
“Too late,” he chokes out as he slips from me. A heartbeat later, he pitches forward, pinning me down on the table as he shoots, hot and sloppy, all over my back. He’s heavy and I’d worry about breathing if I gave a fuck about anything but my own climax barreling down on me. He fumbles for my cock and seizes it, tugging and urging me, “C’mon, almost, that’s right. Give it.”
I thrust against his fist once, twice, then he drags his dick through the wet mess and I do fall the fuck apart, spilling into his hand and clutching at the counter as I white out and make some throat-ripping noise I can’t hear over the rush of blood in my ears. I can’t catch my breath or feel my fingers, but somehow, when the world comes back to me, I’m still standing, barely, semen cooling as it rolls down my thighs. Suddenly, my back is exposed to air. And my watch is blinking red.
I look over my shoulder and see him on the floor, eyes rolled back, body jerking. I drop to the floor beside him and the skin on my knees tears. I barely register it as I get a hand under his skull and cradle him until the seizure passes. After what feels like an eternity, he finally goes limp. Limp but breathing, thank God.
I fall backward onto my ass, panting hard. The trickle of blood from my knees catches my eye and some automatic part of my brain hauls me to my feet, locates some bandages to slap on, then grabs my trousers and mechanically pulls them back up. It takes four tries to button them, because I watch him the whole time. Him and the crimson stains next to him on the floor.
A glance at the clock tells me I’ve got minutes, at most, before the guards return, so I grab some towels and get to my knees beside him, ignoring their screams of protest and the way my shirt clings wetly to my back. I mop up his stomach and hand and then lower my forehead to his and breathe, willing him to wake up. “Please.” I grab his sticky hand and squeeze.
He gasps and I sit up to watch as his eyes flutter open. They meet mine, go wide, and then he just throws his head back and laughs. He keeps laughing as I sit back and wipe my hands on my trousers. By the time I get to my feet, it’s subsided to a chuckle and he’s propped himself up on his elbows. “Look at you.”
“Get dressed. They’ll be back any minute.”
He groans at me, but tugs his shorts up and eases himself to his feet. As he fetches his shirt from beside the exam table, he says, “I would murder for a fucking smoke.”
I’m still trembling and he thinks this is a joke. I spit out, “Yeah? That what you’re in for?”
His smile disappears, replaced by something cold and hard. He says in a flat voice, “No, darling. I killed for love.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle up.
“Your shoes,” he says after a few moments.
“Yeah, right.” I wedge my feet back into them, then run my fingers through my hair a few times. “I’m not,” I start, then I pause, searching for how to put what I feel into words. “I don’t—”
He holds up a hand. “You don’t do this, you’re not like that, this never happened. That about cover it?”
“No, that’s not it. This happened.”
“Then what?”
After a moment’s hesitation, I know what to say and it comes out in a rush, “Tonight’s a melee round. You’ll want to get to higher ground early.”
His lips compress into a suspicious frown. “How the hell do you know that?”
&n
bsp; “It’s been promoted all week. ‘First real bloodbath of the season.’ ”
The echo of boots in the tunnel reaches us and he asks, “What do I owe you for the tip?”
“Stay alive.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “And?”
Something unfamiliar and horribly warm twists in my gut. Softly, I say, “Ask me next time.”
Then the door’s sliding open and he’s spinning on his heel. “Gentlemen,” he shouts, spreading his arms wide. “Let us get this dog and pony show on the road.”
I remove my wristband and toss it to one of the guards, nodding as he catches it. “He’s good.”
“Wrong. I am fantastic.” I can’t help but hear the false edge of his bravado and it rips at the ache in my chest.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, I force myself to finish his exam report. I use a few alcohol wipes to clean myself more thoroughly. Then, advising myself against it the whole time, I go somewhere I haven’t gone in years.
MOTHER is the only one in the box tonight. “Sweetheart. What in the world are you doing here? Is something wrong? Did someone—”
I kiss her cheek. “Everything’s fine.” Onscreen, the opening titles flash. The sound’s muted, but the theme music vibrates up from the floor below. I sink down beside her on the plush couch and watch as the camera pans slowly over the contestants, pausing on each long enough to bring up their names. When a popular veteran appears, the arena rattles with tens of thousands of stomping feet. I lean forward, watching intently. The second to last is Tom, and unlike the rest, he looks directly into the camera. Then he winks.
My heart skips a beat. Below us, the crowd goes wild. Beside me, Mother says, “He is a cheeky one. What do you hear about him, Brendan? The one I was sponsoring left last week.”
The one she was sponsoring bled out last week. She complained about it for three days. I ask, “Isn’t last year’s runner up more your style?”
She glances back at the screen where they’re taking their positions. “He is awfully attractive.”
