Cold Hard Truths 1: Vices (15 page)

“I’ll never forgive you,” I told his back. “For what you’ve done to Bruno.”

He stood in the doorway, his back still to me, but turned his head to glance at me over his shoulder. “I know,” he said, then walked away.

* * * *

Training the following two days was hard. Working out without Bruno, going into the hand-to-hand combat circle without hearing Bruno’s sarcastic, good-natured remarks from the side of the room, even eating lunch with the team: it was all hard.

I missed my friend more than I thought I would. When we’d had to part ways for seven years, it never felt like this. I had always known he was out in the city, taking care of himself any way he had to, making ends meet with his resourcefulness. But now I knew where he was, knew he was suffering for something he was wrongly accused of. I regretted that last night I’d spent with him, getting high and talking about some of the things we’d done during our seven long years apart. I regretted not paying more attention to him, the things he was saying, maybe even warning him to turn himself in and explain to Corp about what he’d done and how he hadn’t meant for his snooping to turn into this. Instead I just sat there, laughing with him, unknowingly spending my final moments with him high.

Seno had thrown me to the ground twice in a row without so much as a fight.

“Get your shit together, man. We all know you miss your boyfriend, but this is ridiculous,” he practically spat at me.

I shot up from where I was lying on the ground and reared back before punching him hard in the face. Seno stumbled backward a step or two, then lunged at me. He wrapped both of his arms around my waist as he head-butted me, dragging me to the ground as all the air was sucked out of my lungs.

We fell with him on top of me, and he hit me right back across the face with his robotic arm. It hurt. A lot. My face whipped to the side, and I tasted blood. I wrapped my leg around one of his and somehow managed to flip him off of me, throwing him to the side. My fist collided with his stomach the same instant his left hook caught me in the side of the neck.

Both of us scrambled to our feet, fists clenching, fuming in rage. After a few moments, Seno rolled his shoulders and laughed. He grinned at me in his usual shark way, then turned and walked to the other side of the room to begin examining the weapons on the table, obviously dismissing me. Up until that point, I’d assumed I was the least mentally stable member of the team.

I didn’t understand Seno, and that bothered me. I’d assumed he was the type that loved to raise hell and pick fights, but I never would’ve guessed that walking away from me in the middle of scrap, as though we were just kids playing on the playground, would be something he would do.

I touched my face and looked at the blood that was running down my fingers. My lip was cracked wide open on the side and my nose was bleeding, probably broken. I could feel the skin around my left eye begin to heat, signaling the bruised eye I was going to have tomorrow.

Ko sauntered over after having watched the small battle of testosterone between myself and Seno. He shyly looked up at me through his eyelashes.

“Bruno wasn’t really your boyfriend, was he?” Ko asked me coyly.

I grinned widely at him, feeling the blood rolling down my neck and knowing that my teeth were likely covered in blood from the cuts in my mouth.

He giggled and reached out to run his index finger down one side of my chest, right over my nipple, assuming no one was watching us. He winked at me and turned to walk away, wiggling his ass in display for me, which I obviously watched.

When Ko was out of sight, I noticed Carver on the other side of the room, facing me. Arms crossed, feet spread, wearing his training gear. He had the same impassive expression as always, but his jaw was clenched tighter than normal.

I managed to grin wider at him.

Later that night, I flopped down on my bed, exhausted. I’d gone to the medical room and had myself patched up, along with my nose reset. Seno had done the same but was practically beaming the entire time, likely because he was insane.

Surprisingly, we hadn’t gotten lectured about fighting each other. Corp said it was because it had been the first sign of human life I’d shown in days. The entire day left me tired, physically and mentally, so when I finally managed to haul myself back to my room, I’d stripped off my sweaty gear, showered quickly, and crawled beneath the smooth sheets on my bed.

I lay on my stomach and breathed deep, feeling the gentle pressure of the soft pillow against my bruised eye. Seno’s fist had hit right below my eye, bruising mostly my cheek and the skin next to my eyebrow. My eyes began to drift closed as I looked out at the small, flickering light on the side of the tablet on my wall. All the muscles in my body were sore after having worked to the point of physical exhaustion. Tanis had watched me sweat and push myself past what my body could take, and had suggested that I accept the offer to talk to the shrink again. Everyone apparently thought I was mentally unstable. They were probably right.

The silence was one of the best parts of having a small, underground room to myself. In the city, silence was something like a prized possession, meant to be cherished and appreciated. Cars could always be heard from almost anywhere you were, indoors or out, and the constant sound of clamoring electronics and machinery was difficult if not impossible to avoid. And I wasn’t an idiot, so I did take those few minutes before sleep every night to lie in bed and try my best to be thankful to whoever had decided to grace someone like me with those few seconds of peace and quiet.

Just as I began to doze off, I heard the gentle slide of my bedroom door opening. My heartbeat instantly picked up, thumping hard against the inner wall of my chest. Moving on instinct, I slowly slid my left hand under my pillow to reach for my gun. My eyes crept open, looking for another sign of life in my room.

For one horrified instant, I thought it was Ko and that he’d somehow figured out how to bypass the lock on my door and slip into my room. I wasn’t sure my head or heart were in the right place to deal with Ko.

Instead, a taller, slightly bigger figure than Ko’s stood in my middle of my small room. I could just make out the gentle sheen of his blue hair being illuminated by the soft lighting coming through my bathroom door. His tight black suit was plastered to his skin, reflecting in the lighting like thick tar, covering him from toe to neck. The scar running down the side of his face was noticeable, pinker than the rest of his skin. He barely moved, barely shifted, standing still like the statue he was.

I let my fingers slide away from my gun.

Carver stood there, watching me as I looked right back at him. His thumb ran a line from his wrist to his palm, first pulling off one of his gloves, then the other. He tossed the gloves on the floor at the same time he toed off each of his loosely tied boots and socks.

My throat went dry. My tongue felt ten times its normal size.

He reached up and painfully slowly pulled at the zipper that started near the collar of his shirt. It zipped down from the center of his collarbone into a half circle that ended at his side. That was the next piece of clothing to join the pile on the floor.

I wanted to touch myself. I wanted to roll over onto my back and stroke my thickening cock like some horny teenage boy who was witnessing his most erotic fantasy firsthand. But I didn’t dare avert my eyes even for a second, half-afraid that if I blinked too long, he’d disappear.

His fingers gently ran down the sides of his stomach, lower toward his hips, just before he took hold of the zipper on his pants and pulled it down. Carver’s gaze never left mine, almost transfixed, watching me stare at him. It was erotic as hell, far past anything I’d ever imagined I’d be witness to. When his zipper was as low as it could go, he put his thumbs into the waistband and pulled his pants down. He bent over and continued to pull them down until they pooled on the ground, and he stepped out of them.

Carver stood in front of me, completely naked, covered in scars and a few bruises I’d given him. His dick was fully erect, resting against the flat skin below his abdomen. He was watching me still with those empty eyes of his and vacant expression.

In that moment, as I gazed upon Carver bare in front of me, I wondered if the dull ache in my chest was love. I’d never asked Carver to be something he wasn’t. I’d never asked him to be passionate or kind or to feel for me the way I felt for him. I wanted him the exact way he was, with all his flaws, disinterest, and seeming lack of human emotion. I wanted his empty eyes on me, and they could stay empty for as long as he wanted, for as long as he lived, just so long as they were looking at me.

I loved a wild thing, a person without a heart to give me. But as long as I loved him the way I did, that would be enough.

Carver walked over to me and stood next to my bed. He reached out and began pulling the sheet off my back. The bed shifted when he got on and straddled my lower legs, so I closed my eyes and waited for him to begin touching me. It felt familiar, like the dreams I’d had of him over the years—they were pathetic reflections of the real thing. I carefully spread my legs for him as I kept the side of my face pressed against the pillow, not looking at him.

“I’m not asleep this time. I won’t be able to pretend this wasn’t real,” I told him quietly. He ran his fingers from the base of my neck down my spine, lower even between my cheeks, and finally down to my balls lying against the bed. I shivered and exhaled slowly.

Gentler than I thought he could be, he took my shoulder in his hand and turned me so that I followed his lead. He flipped me over onto my back so I was looking up at him. This new position was different, completely foreign and entirely frightening. My heart beat fast, and my breathing came out low and ragged. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, if he was going to touch me or just wanted to look at the expanse of my naked body from where he sat on top of it. When his eyes raked down my flawed form, taking in the deep scars years of life had left me, and the tight skin around my large muscles, I felt self-conscious for the first time in my life. I’d never been beautiful like Carver, and I knew that. I accepted that, and it even made me value that about him more. But the way he looked at me left me feeling worried that someone as gorgeous as him might find me lacking in some way.

Carver moved back and got between my legs, keeping his hands touching my skin. He reached out one of his arms over the side of the bed, and then I heard the sound of a cap popping. Carver took my leg and carefully lifted it up and placed the back of my knee on his shoulder, exposing me.

When his first cool, slick finger pressed gently against my opening, I let a quiet gasp slip out of my mouth. Like the expert he was, he kept pushing, applying pressure until his middle finger was inside me up to his third knuckle. I could feel it there, an invasive presence that I’d missed so much over the past few years. It had been a long time for me to be opened like this, and he must’ve known because of how careful he was. It made me think of how I’d treated him.

Carver reached out with his other hand and wrapped his fingers around my thick cock, which was lying against my stomach, leaking drops of precum. I moaned when he touched me, in awe of the sensation of the lube that coated his hand, especially when his hand began to move up and down my shaft, almost leisurely, letting his thumb trace around the edge of the tip every so often, making my breath catch.

My gaze flickered on the camera on the wall, momentarily worried that this would be both of our last nights as soldiers for ENAD.

“Shh,” Carver said quietly as he began pushing a second finger inside me next to the first. “I took care of it.”

He always did. When it came to matters of leadership or sex, Carver always took care of me. Before he left, Carver made sure I came, and that he left me feeling boneless and completely empty, physically and mentally. And I knew to trust him with our safety; ENAD regularly ran STD tests on all soldiers, and the results were always announced to the team. After all, nothing was private when someone else owned you.

I laid my head back on my pillow and watched him work. He was lovely there, hovering above me. His light blue hair was perfectly swept to the side of his forehead, and his thick, black eyelashes were casting small shadows on his cheeks. His red lips were so good, so fuckable; I wanted to beg him to put my cock between those gorgeous lips. He was so much older now than the last time he’d fucked me. His body was longer, leaner, harder in all the right places, and just as soft in the areas that counted. The abs that were visible on his stomach weren’t as defined as mine, nor were the long muscles in his arms, but they were perfect on him, just the right juxtaposition of sweet and sour.

When his second finger was up to the knuckle, like the first, he curled his fingers to press against the small bundle of nerves buried deep inside me. My body bowed off the bed, and I huffed, trying to restrain myself from crying out.

“Shh,” he told me again, letting go of my dick and running his lube-covered fingers up my chest and neck and to my lips. He leaned forward more, making it easier to press two of his fingers inside my mouth. They tasted like silicone, and I twirled my tongue in between them, licking it off as I moaned quietly around his fingers.

Carver kept fucking me with those two fingers rubbing against my sweet spot, leaving me breathless and wanting more. When the third finger finally squeezed in with the other two, I had to reach down and grab ahold of my aching cock, allowing myself a few pumps with my hand.

I felt him trying to spread his three fingers apart as he moved them inside me, gently sliding the tips against my prostate. He was trying to stretch me as much as possible to ready me for him, which was completely unnecessary. I wanted to feel the tight burn of his dick inside of me, pulling me open to let him in.

Carver extracted his fingers from my mouth and used them to lift my other leg and put it on his shoulder. He inched toward me, pressing close at the same time his fingers did.