Bad Things (39 page)

Then—fucking beauty—Carson groaned into the pillow, convulsing, already coming. Crying and bucking, knuckles white, lashed down by his feet. Xavier licked, sucked, drank, swallowed. Delicious. He could have gone on eating him forever.

Instead, not even waiting for Carson’s warbling sighs or tremors to stop, he rose up, got a condom on, greased up his hole—his cock rearing and twitching at the feel of Carson’s sphincter grasping at his finger, at the grunting noise he made as Xavier slowly penetrated him—and got in there. Fucking God, Carson was tight. A tormenting strain, every time, working his dick into the cruel grip of him. And so fucking worth it.

Was it too much? Riding him now, in that precarious post-orgasmic moment when everything—body, brain and soul—is at its most sensitive? Xavier bent over him, slid his arm around his neck, bracing against his chest so he wouldn’t really choke him, just give him that thrill of danger, of being taken. Now he could see him in profile, mouth wide, animal grunts shaking out of him every time Xavier plowed into him, brows knit. Body quivering in his arms. Total surrender as Xavier fucked, as he came, growling and clawing, sinking his teeth into the firm flesh just inside Carson’s shoulder.

He was going to leave him there like that. Lie him on his side, still bound, abandon him for an hour, sure that he’d be hard and wanting again by the time he came back. But something in Carson’s expression changed Xavier’s mind.

Instead, he got rid of the condom, sat up against the headboard, and hoisted Carson up, onto his lap, so Carson was straddling his thighs, wrists still bound back by his ankles. Carson’s spent cock, pink and swollen and limp, draped over his, still half hard. So familiar, by now. Those pretty blue eyes glinting with anger.

In a way, it was selfish—Xavier could admit that to himself. Selfish because he wanted something from Carson—he wasn’t sure what, exactly, but something—other than his trembling submission. Selfish because, even though he knew that however badly Carson needed what Xavier was giving him, it wouldn’t sustain him forever, but he didn’t have any damned idea what would. Sooner or later, though, being hurled onto the bed, bound and fucked wasn’t going to nourish Carson’s soul anymore. So Xavier risked it. Gambled the sustenance he could offer Carson. If you toss an apple to the ground and let it rot, someday you might get a tree, right?

Xavier faced the cold hard anger in Carson’s eyes, and smiled.

“
I thought we’d gotten things nice and clear between us. I thought you handing me my belt was such an elegant, simple contract. And every time we start, you’re so perfect. So yielding. But now, you’re looking at me like you might wish you were brave enough to punch me in the face.”

Ooh. An excited flare of heat behind that cold blue rage. Carson liked the idea of hitting him.

“You’re lying to yourself if you think you want me to be tender with you. And you’re lying to yourself, if you think it’s me that’s afraid of tenderness, or incapable of it.”

Jesus, when the word “tenderness” came out of his mouth, Carson looked like he’d just seen the Devil soothe a crying baby. Something impossible and disturbing.

“Every time I’m sweet with you, every time I’m gentle, I see you receding away from me.”

No trace of surprise or denial. But Carson turned away, his head slightly bowed down for a moment, before he took a breath and met Xavier’s eyes again, cold defiance in his gaze.

“Fuck, that’s not even it. I watch you disappearing from yourself. Like the center of you turns into a black hole sucking you inside. But the moment I wrap my hand around your throat, pin you to the wall, hold you down, force you open, the center of you lights back up and comes rushing toward me.”

Carson let out one of his bitter, angry laughs.

Xavier braced himself for what would come next. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“
How convenient for you.”

“
What?”

“
How your pseudo psychoanalysis of me gives you a free pass to treat our…”

Xavier grinned, waiting, dying to hear what the rest of that sentence was going to be.

“…whatever the fuck we’re doing…”

Meh. That was disappointing.

“…as an excuse to use me as your—what did you say to me in the basement? Oh, yeah. Your come bucket.”

“
Carson,” Xavier taunted, “why do I get the feeling you’re lodging a complaint about some kind of imbalance in our…roles.”

Another sour laugh.

Xavier grinned, but made himself stop when he saw how it was wounding Carson. “Oh, lover. I’m sorry. I honestly thought you knew.”

“
What? That everything belongs to you? My dick. My hole. My mouth?”

Voice earnest, now, Xavier said, “That if you want me to kiss your delicious cock,” he ran his finger lightly over the length of Carson’s limp dick, then wrapped his hand around it and gently squeezed, “or if you want to mount me and fuck me, all you have to do is say so. I’ll gladly get on my knees for you. Or on my back. Just tell me how you want me.”

Carson looked shocked. And a little sad.

“
In retrospect,” Xavier admitted, “I can see it was pretty dense of me, assuming you’d know that. Assuming you just didn’t want it. Assuming you knew I was trying to give you what you needed, and not just using you for my own power trip.”

Was that all? Really? As if he’d been waiting for those exact words for three months, all the sharp cold edges in Carson’s gaze softened. The other surprising thing was how hopeful Xavier suddenly felt, without really knowing what he was hoping for.

“Good,” Xavier sighed, staring into Carson’s eyes, wide open. Not in that sense where people say, “Keep your eyes open,” meaning, look around and pay attention. Wide open to let him in. “There you are. Really naked for me now, aren’t you?”

Xavier stroked his hair, gazing in at Carson’s confused suffering. It was selfish, because Carson was in pain, but he couldn’t resist kissing him. Xavier wasn’t even sure what magnetic force was dragging him to Carson in that moment. A rare, overwhelming feeling of tender affection. But after a lingering, soft press of lips, he forced himself to back away.

“You’re not angry with me anymore,” Xavier said.

“
No.”

Pobre
. He sounded so sad.

“
You’re feeling hurt. Am I hurting you, when we’re together? Did I hurt you tonight?”

“
No. Yes.”

Carson closed his eyes, and it was like the compass Xavier had been traveling by had just snapped closed. He’d lost his point of orientation. He was lost. Then Carson opened his eyes and met his gaze, and Xavier had his bearings again.

“I don’t want you to stop doing those things,” Carson said.

“
Then why are you so upset?”

“
Because I don’t understand.”

“
You don’t understand what?”

“
I don’t understand why I feel better, safer with you than I did with Dario and Aidan. I don’t understand why I only feel really safe when you’ve got me tied up. Or you’re holding me down. When you’ve got me gagged, or your hand is clamped down on my mouth so hard I can’t make a sound.”

“
Yes, you do.”

Carson shook his head. Fine, let him guard his omission, for now.

“Why do you want to understand?”

“
Why? What do you mean, why?”

“
You feel safe when we do that?”

“
Yes.”

“
It feels good. Comforting.”

“
Yes.”

“
Then that’s all that matters.”

“
No it isn’t.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because. I feel like something must be wrong with me.”

“
Because you’re not supposed to feel good?”

“
Because I shouldn’t like being treated like that.”

“
Like what?”

“
Like I’m being—”

“
Say it, Carson.”

“
Like I’m being used.”

“
Used? Come on. Stop censoring yourself.”

“
Like I’m being raped.”

Xavier tried not to let Carson see him flinch. “Is that how it feels to you? What we’ve been doing?”

It took Carson a long time to answer. Xavier made himself breathe, slow, steady, in out, while he waited. Finally Carson said, “I don’t know. No. No it doesn’t feel that way. But that’s what we’re playing at, right?”

“
No. Not for me. And not for you either. Unless I’ve been reading you really badly. There’s a big difference between wanting to feel helpless, feel under someone else’s control, and needing to be hurt. But we’ll stop, if that’s what you want.”

He watched Carson collect his courage. A deep breath. A bracing of his body. “I like everything we do.” He said it like he was confessing a crime. “I love being with you. How I feel when we’re together.”

Startling, that Carson could bring himself to say that. And even more shocking, how it made Xavier feel, hearing it.

“
When you’re controlling me, something happens to me. Something I never experienced with them.”

“
It’s all right. It’s not a bad thing. People like to talk about honesty being important. About how you have to know yourself. Tell yourself the truth. But there’s such a thing as a beautiful lie. Lies can comfort you. They can even liberate you.”

“
Liberate me from what?”

Xavier grinned. “I don’t think we can play it both ways.”

“Xavier.”

Fuck. Nothing scared him as much as this. Feeling so fucking needed. Should he slowly circle in on him? Or lunge straight for the throat?

“Are you gay? Or bi?”

It was so strange—not unexpected, but still—that Carson could be sitting on top of him, their spent cocks limp and nuzzled against each other, and be embarrassed by that question.

“What you say to me won’t change anything,” Xavier said. “The truth is the truth, either way.”

“
I’m not bi.”

“
Then say it.”

It took him a minute, but finally Carson said, “I’m gay.”

Xavier was impressed. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it.

“
When I fucked you in my basement, were you a virgin?”

“
More or less.”

Xavier didn’t let himself laugh. “Explain how you were
‘
more or less’ a virgin.”

“
I’d slept with a few women.”

“
Even though you’re not bi?”

“
Yes.”

“
All right. Tell me why you got to be almost thirty without ever fucking a man.”

Carson dodged his gaze, then visibly forced himself to meet his eyes again. “Untie me.”

“No.”

“
It’s too weird, talking like this.”

“
We both know it’s easier for you to be naked when you’re bound.”

A heavy sigh. A frustrated squirm. Then he gave in. “I didn’t want to be gay.”

Xavier grinned. Maybe he could have stopped it, but he didn’t. “That’s like me saying I don’t want to be Mexican.”

“
I didn’t know that, then.”

“
When?”

“
Most of my life.”

“
You thought you could be straight?”

“
I never really believed it, I guess. But I really, really wanted to.”

“
Why?”

Deep in Carson’s wide open eyes, Xavier saw him choose to tell him. To be naked and honest and vulnerable. And he could see it was something dark and sad. But what Carson told him was uglier than anything he’d guessed he might be about to say.

What Carson’s father and the rest of his family had done was uglier than Xavier’s father beating the shit out of him when he was fourteen years old. Because the father who beats up his gay son might be trying to show him he’s a sinner, or less than a man, but a man only hits a person who exists. A person he sees. Usually, a person he fears.

It was even uglier than the stories he’d heard about parents who throw their kids out of their house. Because a kid thrown out has it rough, but even if the journey is dark and cruel, they’re moving from a world where they don’t belong, to a world where they’ll find the people they do belong with.

But Carson’s parents had tried to erase him with that fucking T-shirt. Make him invisible, steal his existence. And someone who doesn’t exist can’t walk away from the world where he doesn’t belong, and find a new life.

Xavier untied him, but didn’t let him off his lap.

When he cupped Carson’s face in his hands and lightly kissed his lips, Xavier felt a tremor run through his lover’s body, but Carson didn’t pull away. He yielded to the next, deeper kiss. Let Xavier wrap him in his arms, pulling him close, so their chests and bellies were pressed tight together while they kissed, but he was trembling.