Escape (16 page)

Luka hadn't imagined it. He wasn't wrong. Tarik was hard, too. Rubbing his hardness against him through their clothes. Against his body. Against his own erect cock.

Luka wanted to say something, to look up and meet Tarik's gaze and smile and tell him it was better than anything he'd ever felt before, but he was terrified looking him in the eye would break whatever spell had made the impossible possible, and when he tried to speak, all that came out was a strangled whimper.

Tarik drew back. Without Tarik's arms around him, Luka felt vulnerable. Alone and lost.

“I'll leave you alone. I wasn't trying to force anything.” Tarik turned away and unzipped the sleeping bag.

Panicked, desperate, Luka reached out, hesitated, then put his hand on Tarik's shoulder.

The fire's reflection danced in Tarik's eyes as he met his gaze, as he let Luka draw him close again. They sank back down onto their rolled up coats, still and quiet for a while, until Luka found Tarik's hand and pressed it to his own chest. Beyond that, he didn't dare touch Tarik, even when Tarik slipped his hand underneath Luka's clothes and caressed his belly, his touch too gentle to believe, even when he started breathing hard, even when he worked one of his legs between Luka's and nudged his stiff cock against his, flexing against him with more and more urgency. When Tarik's fingertips just barely brushed against his nipple, Luka let out a strange, high cry, and that sound, or the making of it made him suddenly aware how close he was, and he wiggled away from Tarik's pumping hips.

Tarik's hand went still against Luka's chest. “Too much?”

“I'm afraid I'm going to...” He was too embarrassed to say it.

“Afraid? Why?”

“I don't want to...gross you out.”

Tarik laughed. “If that was going to gross me out, I wouldn't be touching you and rubbing against you like this.”

Tarik grabbed Luka and pulled him hard against his hips and slid up against him, clutching and squeezing one ass cheek. The contrast with his slow feathering caress over his nipple was dizzying. Then everything stopped and Tarik slipped away and instead of his hot, writhing body there was just cold air licking Luka's humid skin, but the next moment Tarik hoisted him up, planted him on his back, and mounted him, tugging Luka's pants down without bothering with his fly. After a moment of fumbling and struggling, Tarik lowered himself against him, pushing his thighs open with his legs. Luka gasped and a feral thrill tore through him at the sensation of Tarik's naked, stiff cock nudging and brushing against his own.

No sensation had ever been so delicious as the sliding caress of Tarik's hot, damp skin against his, shirts yanked up, chests grazing, bellies sliding. And then it happened, hard and sudden, the convulsion curling Luka's spine, wringing a strained, helpless groan from his lungs.

Tarik pulled away.

Shaking again, face burning, Luka mumbled, “Sorry.”

“Shhh.” Tarik's hand slid between them, and then he was humping again, his cock slip-sliding over Luka's wet belly, and soon he was groaning, almost growling, and Luka felt the warm wet of Tarik's cum spill onto his skin.

For a few seconds Tarik panted, collapsed on top of him. When Tarik lifted himself and met his eyes, cold air hit the sticky wet coating Luka's belly, and his face went hot again. “I'll go get something to clean up with.”

“Why?” Tarik's hand circled over Luka's abdomen, slowly spreading the wetness over his skin, until it turned tacky, and then until the stickiness diminished. In the dark, Luka thought he felt and heard him do the same to himself, the fur on Tarik's belly making a different sound than Luka's nearly bare skin with its sparse pelt of fine, fair fuzz. “I like the smell.” Tarik smirked. But then he met Luka's gaze, and his expression softened. “Get undressed. If you feel safe with me.”

How could he not feel safe? He'd have yielded happily to anything Tarik wanted. Besides, the fire had died down and it was so dark, Tarik wouldn't really be able to see him. They both shucked off their clothes, and Tarik coaxed Luka into position and lied down behind him, nestled up close against him.

“I like this better. Skin against skin.”

Luka's heart felt like it had a balloon inside it, swelling up bigger and bigger. “Me too.”

“We should sleep now. Get an early start.”

“Okay.” Luka swallowed the question he'd been about to ask. “Goodnight.”

Without answering, Tarik pulled Luka harder against him. Hardly a minute later his embrace slackened and he started to snore.

CHAPTER SEVEN: Sisina

Without realizing it,

the individual composes his life according

to the laws of beauty

even in times of greatest distress.

Milan Kundera

Alone. Luka gone. Luka's warmth, Luka's lithe, eager body no longer pressed to his own. Tarik writhed free of the sleeping bag and rolled it up before any less pleasant guests could crawl inside.

When he spotted Luka at the edge of the stream, a warm, heavy contentment sifted through the vague, chaotic anxiety that had started bouncing around inside of him when he'd recalled and realized in a sudden simultaneity what they'd done the night before, and that Luka had slipped away without waking him. But that lulling contentment upended and capsized when Luka startled at the sound of his boots crushing the branches and desiccated Sweetgum pods underfoot, and threw Tarik a quick, anxious glance over his shoulder before turning away again, his head half sinking below the horizon of his shoulders.

Later, watching Luka peck at his meager breakfast, Tarik realized he'd fucked up. He'd caught and trapped his luminous alien as cruelly as those pathetic shits in that unsafe house, scared him as badly, used him as selfishly. How could he have been so reckless? Why, after everything Luka had suffered already, hadn't he been more careful with him?

All day they trekked in strained silence. A dozen times he sensed Luka sneaking a glance at him from the corner of his eye, but each time he tried to meet his gaze, Luka dodged him. When they stopped for the day, Luka slipped away into the fluttering darks and brights of the woods while Tarik dug the tarp out of his pack and lashed it over a few sturdy branches he gathered and propped up for a lean-to, since it looked like it was going to rain.

When more than ten minutes had passed, Tarik succumbed to his suspicion that Luka hadn't just retreated a polite distance to relieve himself. Following his tracks, Tarik spotted him sitting, back to the massive trunk of an elder oak, forehead resting on his knees, arms wrapped around his shins. Maybe he was crying. When Tarik took a few steps toward him, Luka's whole body seemed to tighten and shrink in on itself.

“Can I sit with you?”

No answer.

Tarik sank to his haunches. “You okay?”

No answer.

“Luka? Could you look at me? Please?”

Silence. Stillness.

Heavy worry filling him up until he could barely lift his arm, Tarik rested his hand on Luka's back. When Luka flinched, Tarik pulled back. “You're afraid of me again?”

Tarik couldn't tell if Luka was shaking, or just breathing erratically. A wet, garbled noise that might have been, “No.”

“Last night, I didn't mean to...”
Corner you. Trap you. Take advantage.

“Okay.” Wet and choked. Fuck, he was either crying, or trying to swallow back the urge.

“Luka.”

He probably shouldn't touch him. The last thing he wanted was to scare Luka, hurt him more than he already had. But he couldn't talk to him like this, Luka curled up in a ball like a frightened animal hiding from the hunter and his hounds. Instead of touching his back again, where his shirt, damp with sweat, clung to the ridge of his shoulder blade like a second skin, Tarik laid his hand over Luka's own, grasping his knee. Less threatening, less possessive. The back was the body. Part of the landscape of intimacy. Hands were for everyone. Strangers shook hands when they first met.

“Please, look at me, Luka.”

Instead of the slow pour of fine grains of worry and guilt sifting through him, weighing him down little by little, the sudden pain of Luka's fear-tinged sadness flattened him under its solid mass. How could he have been so fucking careless?

“I'm sorry. This morning I realized... last night, I ignored my conscience a bit. You kept promising me you weren't afraid, but maybe on some level, I half knew you were. I know it's not an excuse, but I just wanted you so much.”

Something bright began to rise up from the murky depths of Luka's unusual eyes, luminous facets of blue edging the perimeter of his irises, going green and finally brightening almost to gold around his pupils. Stunning. “You did?”

A little laugh burst through the frost of Tarik's guilt. “Wasn't it obvious?”

Luka blushed and hung his head, but Tarik thought he saw the start of a smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

“I thought you wanted me, too. I hope you know that, at least. I wouldn't have done that, last night, if I hadn't thought you wanted to. But I'm sorry if I misjudged.”

Luka was staring into the dirt and detritus between his feet, and the taunting start of a smile was gone. “You didn't.”

“I didn't?” Tarik caught himself whispering, as if he were afraid of startling away prey he was stalking. He wished Luka would say something more. That he'd meet his eyes. “You wanted it? What we did last night?”

Tarik barely heard Luka's choked, “Yes.”

The weight of a million sharp-edged grains of cold sand leaked out of him. Tarik was getting lighter, lighter. “Then why have you been so far away all day? Why were you sitting here, crying?”

Luka shrugged.

“Come on, Luka. Meet me part way.”

“I...” After a few silent seconds he finally raised his head and met his gaze. “Today, you were the same as yesterday. I thought you wanted to forget it.”

A haze of sadness dimmed Tarik's eyes. “When I got into your sleeping bag with you, it wasn't to fool around. I just wanted to take care of you. Keep you warm. Help you feel safe.”

The murky deep swallowed up the faint light in Luka's eyes.

“Wait.” Tarik touched Luka's chin and made him face him again. “I wasn't planning on trying to fool around, because of everything that's happened to you. I didn't think you'd want that, last night. But when I realized you were...excited, I got excited, got carried away. All day today I've been worried I pushed you too hard. That maybe you didn't even want me to do that to you last night.”

Luka barely gasped out a desperate little, “No.”

Tarik smiled. “But you didn't touch me. You didn't let me kiss you.”

Blushing. Quiet. “Did you want to kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“I was nervous. I was...”

Tarik remembered Luka hiding his face, hiding his tears, hiding his embarrassment at being hard, at being so desperately aroused. And he had the feeling, even now, Luka wanted to bow his head, hide his burning face against Tarik's chest, that Luka was forcing himself to keep his chin lifted, to keep meeting Tarik's eyes. Tarik waited, then finally asked in a quiet voice, “What?”

“Scared.”

Luka's quiet confession made Tarik's throat go tight. “I'm sorry I scared you. After what those assholes did to you—”

“I wasn't afraid of you like that.”

“Why were you scared, then?” When Luka didn't answer, Tarik lifted his hand, hesitated, then caressed his cheek. “Are you scared now?”

“No.”

“But last night...why?”

“Because when...when that happens, people always get angry.”

“When what happens?”

It was agony, looking into the collapsing darkness of Luka's eyes. “When you first got in the bag with me, I didn't mean to... Sometimes I can't help it.”

“You were afraid I'd be angry that you were hard?”

As if he'd wanted to say something, Luka's lips parted. But before a single syllable emerged, his eyes flooded with tears and he bit down on his lips.

“Couldn't you tell from the way I was touching you, I wouldn't be mad? Couldn't you tell I wanted you, but I was holding back?”

“You said...”

Tarik waited, but Luka never finished. “What did I say?”

“You said you're not...”

“Not what?”

After another heavy silence, Luka finally mumbled, “A pervert.”

“What? When did I...?” Luka must have misheard something he'd said.

“The first night, after the cave. When you tied me.”

A jolt to his gut, as if he'd been punched. The memory of Luka's desperate, shrieking fear cut into Tarik. From that wound, a flood of shame spilled through him. Shame for terrorizing his already traumatized hostage. And for letting him believe... “I didn't mean...” Tarik sighed. All that time, that's what Luka'd been thinking? “All I meant was, I wasn't going to hurt you.” He forced a deep breath in and out of his lungs. “You seemed so terrified, I thought you were afraid I was about to...”
Do something like what Begović and Armin did.
“I knew you'd been assaulted, before. Beaten and tied up. You got so scared, like you were afraid I was going to... All I meant was, I'm not a rapist.”

Luka ducked away, hiding his eyes. His face, probably going crimson again. Hardly more than a gasp, “Oh.”

“You thought I meant it was perverted to... be with another man?”

Luka was quiet, face still hidden.

“Even after you knew I was hard, too?”

“That never happened before. I didn't know how to be.”

“Never?” He was speaking softly, but beyond his control, his question spiked with surprise. “Hasn't anyone ever touched you? Kissed you?”

“Once. One boy kissed me. But then the soldiers guarding the camp walked in on us, and...” Maybe without being aware of it, Luka was running his fingers back and forth over the welt of scarring flesh at his wrist.

Tarik's sadness burned up in a flare of rage. “
That's
why they beat you half to death?
That's
why they tied you to a tree and left you to die?”

For some reason, Luka looked surprised by Tarik's surprise.

A flood of diaphanous ephemera: Luka skulking off when Tarik had forced him to bathe. A dozen flashes of shy eyes turned away whenever Tarik blithely stripped to change clothes or wash himself. “And all this time...” Tarik sighed. God, he'd been obtuse. “Is that why you've been so skittish every time you needed to bathe? Or change clothes? Every time I got undressed? You were afraid I'd get angry if you...” He thought of all the times Luka had dressed his wounds without ever so much as inadvertently grazing his skin with a fingertip.

“If I stay away, no one can accuse me of doing dirty things.”

Heat flamed through Tarik, a chemical fire of anger, not at Luka, but at whatever had filled him up with so much doubt and shame. “Do you think what we did last night was dirty?”

“I guess I feel dirty when someone feels disgusted by me, afraid of me.”

Tarik smiled through the sadness pressing down on his chest. “I wasn't disgusted or afraid. I wanted you hard for me.” A twinge squeezed his heart, seeing Luka startle and blush. “I wanted to touch you. I wanted to kiss you, Luka.”

Brave Luka, fighting himself, holding Tarik's gaze. “I didn't know you're...” His blush darkening second by second. “I never would have guessed that you're...”

Tarik's grin was a dare. “What am I?”

“You like men.”

“I like you.”

Luka went stark still, eyes wide and bright, fixed on Tarik in incomprehension or incredulity. His lips parted, and maybe he said, “I...” or “I'll...” before his pink cheeks went crimson.

Tarik leaned in an inch or two closer. “Will you let me— Do you want me to kiss you now?”

For a few seconds, Luka didn't answer. It didn't even look like he was breathing. Then his lips parted. Tarik could hear him suck in a breath. Then, barely audible, “Yes.”

A wild, startling thrill tore through Tarik in the wake of that single, fragile syllable.

Holding himself in check, he went slowly. Brought his hands to Luka's flushed face, soft skin hot under his fingertips. Luka's eyes big and watchful and frantic and intense, hopefully with anticipation, with want, something close to the dizzying desire Tarik was feeling, and not fear. Luka's warm breath on his lips. A brief caress, almost as light as the sigh that came after. Sweet soft press, lingering. Slow rising hunger. Wondrous, thrilling touch, soft wet tip of tongue pleading for the parting of Luka's lips. Luka yielding, whimpering against the tongue touching his tongue.

Tarik wanted that kiss to last forever. But they were both already panting, and he was hard, the ache in his groin driving his rising urge to touch Luka, to bare his skin, to lick, to taste. To put him on his back, like he had the night before. Fuck, to put him on his knees...

A fat drop of rain splatted on the nape of Tarik's neck, the cool wet running down over his hot skin.

“Come on.” Tarik took Luka's hand and led him back to the lean-to. By the time they were huddled under the tarp, rain-drops were plopping into the soft mulch carpeting the ground, whispering in the leaves overhead.

He meant to be patient. To give Luka a little time, a little space, but everything—his want, the chill dusk air, the tiny enclosure pushing them toward each other—urged him back to Luka. Luka's cheek cool and wet with rain, now, where it had burned with his blushes during their first kiss. And so soft. So smooth. He really had no beard to roughen the velvet skin of his jaw, his throat. A gray shadow of guilt slid over Tarik, darkening his want.