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“This isn’t a good idea, Matt.”

Matt smiled wider, knowing he had James, now. “’S’a very good idea.”

Matt’s fingers traced up James’s hip bone first, then back down, following the join between James’s thigh and pelvis until Matt hit his tendon. James sucked in a breath and held it. Matt could feel all of James’s heat through the soft material of his lounge pants. He smiled even wider, running his thumb along the taut sinew for a few seconds before turning his hand and tracing James’s sac with one fingernail. Matt turned his hand over and slipped it between James’s legs, pressing up gently. James expelled the breath he’d been holding with a groan.

Matt turned his hand again, and ran his palm up past James’s balls to trace along his hard cock. It was longer than the length of his hand. Matt rubbed a little with the heel of his hand and grasped the head between his fingertips, gripping it. James rewarded him with a soft grunt.

“Never woulda thought I’d have you in the palm of my hand like this.” Matt grinned up at James. James’s eyes were closed, but he cracked them and looked down at Matt.

“Whaddya mean?” James was breathing a bit heavily. Matt loosened up his grip a second then squeezed again. James gasped softly. Matt gave a little hip wiggle, thinking about how that must feel.

“In high school, you hated me. Now you want me. Feels good. Like payback.”

James froze. “This is payback to you?”

Matt’s smile slipped. “Kinda. Guess so.” He shrugged, feeling uncertain. And fuzzy-headed.

James took a large step back and just stared at Matt. Still hard, still breathing a little heavy, but no longer looking very happy about it all. “Oh.” He stared at Matt a moment longer. “Guess I kinda deserve a little payback.” He looked away, standing rigid and still.

Matt got a bad feeling in his stomach. Like he’d really fucked something up. He brought his arm down from where it was hanging in mid-air and flopped back on the pillows, looking at James. The drugs were making him loopy, and he was trying to puzzle things out. Should he apologize? For what, exactly? Weren’t they both enjoying that?

“James…,” he began uncertainly.

“Should get that vial off your arm. ’S empty.” Carefully, James sat next to Matt on the bed and leaned over him, removing the IV from Matt’s wounded arm. He was careful not to let his body touch Matt’s.

Matt could tell James hated doing it. He didn’t like needles sticking in himself, and apparently he wasn’t fond of needles in other people, either. But Matt couldn’t figure out how to make this easier on James without making things worse. Mostly because he didn’t understand what had happened. His head was just too fuzzy. And its blood supply was still compromised.

When he was done, James looked up at Matt and hesitantly reached a hand out. He looked sad. Running his hand through Matt’s hair, he gripped the back of his neck. “Get some rest,” James said scratchily. He kissed Matt on the forehead.

Not really where Matt was hoping to be kissed.

Th’fuck happened? Matt lay there, watching James with all their equipment, repacking bags, and tried to piece together what he’d done wrong. His eyelids got heavier and heavier, and he finally drifted off with no more clue than he’d had when James had stepped away from him.

The whole time, without really realizing it, he kept his mind shielded. But just before sleeping it slipped. Just enough that James suddenly stopped puttering and turned to look at Matt.

Chapter 13

M
ATT
slept almost twenty-four hours. He woke up twice to pee, and once James woke him to spoon soup into his mouth, but that was all he remembered. When he woke up at 1618 he figured it had to be the next day. He was almost positive it had been evening when he’d fallen asleep.

Unless it had been two days. He got himself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He was nowhere near as high as he’d been yesterday. When he sat back on the bed, he took stock.

He was hungry. He no longer had to piss, due to his trip to the bathroom. His arm and shoulder ached, but it was bearable. He wasn’t supposed to leave this prefab. James was nowhere to be found.

And fuck, James was mad at him. Or maybe hurt. Or both. Because Matt had been an asshole, then too high to realize what he’d said. Matt groaned and dropped his head in his hands. Fuckity fuckity fuck.

He didn’t know if James just wanted to fuck him or wanted more, but he was pretty sure the guy didn’t want to be the victim of a revenge fuck. Matt wouldn’t, in his situation. Well, probably. Revenge sex could be hot. Especially when bondage was involved (all parties consenting, of course).

If Matt was going to be honest about it? He’d like more from James than just sex, so it might be smart not to fuck up so early on.
Just a little FYI, self
. Because, if there was even a little possibility of a relationship, he wouldn’t turn that down.

Matt’s stomach growled, reminding him that it was an empty pit and would like him to get over his horny, emotional self and put something in it.

He searched the room but found both com units still there and no message from James. Matt flopped back on the bed. Great. Stuck here until James or Pearl remembered him and showed up.

But he
could
send James a message. He could pick up brain wave echoes, or ricochets. Something. Matt found the e-latches for the windows and opened both of them.

Shit, it was cold out there! Course, it might help if he was wearing more than undershorts. Whatever—he was hungry. He sat on the bed yogi style (couldn’t hurt, right?) and concentrated on James. And food.

It took about ten minutes before he heard James at the door. Unlocking it with an old-fashioned key card, it sounded like. Matt could have sworn they had codable thumb locks, but most of their arrival was fuzzy. James was unfamiliar with key cards, considering the amount of difficulty he was having. Matt untangled himself and went to let James in.

He probably should have seen it coming. James wouldn’t make that much noise. But Matt was still a little loopy, so when he opened the door and found a girl-nun in wimple and habit standing there, he was nearly as surprised as she was.

Embarrassingly, he yelped. A small yelp. Fortunately, it was drowned out by her shriek. Her very loud, attention-getting shriek. Matt’s training kicked in, and before she finished he had one hand over her mouth and was muscling her into the room.

She struggled, but didn’t really fight him. Didn’t even try to take advantage of his obviously injured shoulder. Did they teach these nuns anything about self-defense? Christ. It wouldn’t have been hard to get away from him. He was still weak and his shoulder hurt like fuck, restraining someone like this. Matt shoved her against the wall, uncomfortably aware he was in his shorts and pressed up against some of her girly parts. Ick.

She had on enough layers for both of them, fortunately. Matt held her pinned there, still covering her mouth. “I won’t hurt you, but you have to be quiet.”

She nodded vigorously.

“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth, and you’re going to stay silent. If you start shrieking, I’m going to knock you out and gag you. If you try to run, I’ll knock you out, tie you up, and gag you.”

More frantic nodding. It was downright enthusiastic. Carefully, Matt lifted his hand off, letting it hover in front of her mouth for a good minute. Her face was white and her eyes were huge, but she remained silent, breathing rapidly.

“Good. Okay, now I’m going to—”

Suddenly the door burst open and James came in, shutting it behind him firmly. He was on full alert. Matt watched James scan the room until he found Matt pressed up against the nun, next to the door. For a split second, he looked really, really pissed. And hurt. Then James’s face slipped into his normal non-expression.

Although it didn’t seem so normal anymore. Matt had seen so many sides to James in the past few days, and most of them didn’t wear this expressionless mask.

“Situation,” James snapped out. Matt tried very, very hard not to roll his eyes. He might even have been successful.

“I thought you were having trouble working the lock, so I opened the door for you and found, um, her.” He tipped his head toward the girl-nun.

“You
opened the door
?” James wasn’t expressionless now. He looked like he thought Matt was a gargantuan idiot.

Matt gave his eyes full rolling privileges. “She was gonna come in anyway, James. I was able to grab her.”

James appeared to have a jaw tic Matt had never noticed before. “What’s with the undershorts?”

Matt stared, speechless. On the queer spectrum, he was about as penis-centric as a boy could be. “I. Just. Woke. Up.”

James blinked. “Oh,” he said, relaxing a little. They stared at each other a minute. Matt felt like it was maybe a little meta-communication. He just didn’t know what he was saying. James relaxed further, unclenching his jaw and looking away.

Oh. He’d been reading his brain waves. The ones he hadn’t been shielding. For some reason, this pissed Matt off. He could feel his own jaw clenching. James glanced at him, then away again.

“Excuse me,” the forgotten nun said in a tiny, shaking voice. Matt and James both re-focused their attention on her. “Um, are you going to ravish me now?”

S
ISTER
B
ENIGNA
—the girl-nun—apparently felt ravishment was in order. “You’re wearing your undershorts,” she pointed out with patient logic from her perch on the bed. Matt had set her there once she agreed not to run, scream, or fight. “It’s the logical next step.” Somehow, Matt wasn’t convinced that logic was her forte. Or calm her MO.

James, for reasons Matt couldn’t understand, seemed to find Sister Benigna hilarious. He was actually laughing. Matt gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “Th’fuck, James?”

James wiped his eyes and tried to sober up a little. He came and stood close to Matt, sub-vocalizing, “She wants it.”

What, and James wanted to give it to her? Matt kept glaring at him. James sobered up for real, this time. Matt was leaking brain waves, but didn’t care enough to fix it.

“No, I don’t want to give it to her! I just think it’s funny. And I think she’s checking out your package.” He was grinning again.

Grumbling, Matt went over to their packs and looked for a clean pair of all-weathers. Let Mr. Chuckles deal with Benigna.

Oh, nice. Mr. Chuckles did the laundry.

“Sister, how long have you been in this convent?” James was incredibly nice to her. Just like he was with everyone, Matt remembered. Everyone he felt needed his protection. Matt stopped just short of sealing his fly when the thought struck him.

So, when James wasn’t nice to someone, was he protecting himself? What did that mean about when he wasn’t nice to Matt? Or those times when he was so pathetically nice?

“My parents sent me here when I was twelve,” Benigna answered cheerfully, recalling Matt’s attention. “They really couldn’t afford so many kids, and I was the oldest, and everyone knows you can send your daughters to the sisters and they’re always happy for new novitiates—”

“How long ago were you, um, ordained?” James interrupted her.

She tittered—God, she was just the old-school nun stereotype, wasn’t she? Except for the horny thing. “Oh, I wasn’t ordained. That’s for priests, silly!” She batted her eyes at James. Matt frowned at her, but she didn’t notice. “I took vows! Like getting married. I’m one of the brides of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior.” She sounded less than enthusiastic about that. “And that was three years ago, when I was eighteen.”

She was twenty-one? She looked fifteen. She barely topped five feet. Malnourishment in childhood, probably.

James looked over at Matt, giving him a long stare. Matt stared back.
What?
, he thought, feeling James might like to talk to him in private. But they couldn’t leave the nun here on her own, at least not without cuffing her to the bed or something. James gave a little nod.

Matt shook his head.
He
wasn’t tying up the nunette.

James sighed and turned toward her, clearly thinking he would have to do it. He wasn’t proud of it, but Matt perched his hands on his hips and stomped his foot.
No you aren’t!
James looked at him with both eyebrows raised.

Matt scowled back.

James quirked his lips.

“Um…,” Benigna said. James turned away from her, to the door.

That’s when Pearl knocked and walked in. “Shit,” she said in a resigned voice. “I should have figured you’d make it here, Benigna.”

I
T
APPEARED
Sister Benigna was a known troublemaker. Pearl had cuffed her to the bed—and threatened to cut off her sulky lip, in the process—telling her, “If you didn’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you wouldn’t be cuffed to a bed.” Then she gagged her.

Matt thought that was just because she’d always wanted to stuff a sock in Benigna’s mouth. A dirty sock. Yuck.

James was grinning again. Matt decided he didn’t need to know anything about a nun’s fantasies and how being cuffed to a bed figured in them. James looked at him and smirked.