Salvation (19 page)

“Can’t you quit, Vincent? Can’t you
untangle yourself from all of that?”

“I wish I could, but I’m right in the
middle of something years in the making and I have absolutely no choice but to
see it through. Another couple months and it should all be behind me. But until
then, I’m locked in.” There was so much agony in his eyes as he said, “If I
could quit for you, Trevor, I would. I swear. I’d quit in a heartbeat. But it’s
just not up to me.”

“I hate what your job is doing to you. I
hate that dangerous people are chasing you around the city! And I hated what
they did to you a few days ago. When I saw you like that, all beaten and
bloody, it was heartbreaking.”

“I apologize,” he said, his voice low.
“I never should have come to you like that.”

“Of course you should have.”

He was quiet for a few moments before
saying, “There’s something I need to tell you, Trevor. I’m not proud of it, but
I really feel like I shouldn’t keep this from you.” He looked up, meeting my
gaze, and said, “Those injuries weren’t a result of my involvement in the
mafia. They didn’t have a thing to do with my job, or with the men that were
chasing us.” Vincent hesitated before saying, “I asked for those bruises.
Actually, I literally
begged
for them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“After you said you didn’t want to see
me anymore, I went into a bit of a spiral. I was already under all this stress
from some of the things I’m involved in, and losing you was just the final
straw, I guess. I started drinking a lot, and…God, this is going to sound
awful.” He took a breath and blurted, “I went to my ex-boyfriend and asked him
to beat me. Actually, ‘boyfriend’ isn’t even sort of the right word for him. He
was my Dom. I was his submissive for almost two years, but I left him thirteen
months ago.” Vincent wasn’t looking at me, his posture slumped slightly and his
arms wrapped protectively around his midsection.

“Oh.” I knew I should say more than
that, but I was pretty overwhelmed right then. I stared at the big, powerful
man before me and tried to picture him as a sub, as someone that wanted to be
hurt and dominated, and utterly failed. It was just so different than the face
he showed the world – the confidence, the cool indifference, the control.
Though maybe that was all just an illusion....

After a pause I admitted, “I’m kind of
at a loss right now. I have no frame of reference for any of this, but I’m
trying to understand it.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to
know.”

I sifted through the million questions
flooding me and came up with, “Do you actually like being treated like that?”

“I used to think it was what I deserved.
Liam encouraged me to believe that about myself. Although I already felt like
that even without his help.”

“And you really wanted him to hurt you?”

His voice was so quiet. “At first I just
wanted Liam. I was willing to do anything to be with him, and that was the
price I had to pay. But then, it started holding a certain appeal. The farther
we got into a D/s relationship, the more I lost myself. Who I was sort of fell
away, until there was just Liam’s sub where once there’d been Vincent. And I
actually liked that.”

“Did you love him?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I thought I did
at the time, but looking back, I don’t think so. I think I became addicted to
him, the same way I was addicted to drugs when I was younger. He was a means of
escape, a way to stop thinking
all the fucking time
, a way to stop
feeling. But eventually I realized it was killing me from the inside out, so I
left him. I guess it’s kind of like, I quit drugs at nineteen, and I quit Liam
at twenty-five. Except that a few days ago, I relapsed. I went back for another
dose because I wanted to stop thinking and feeling, just for one day.”

“Did it help?”

“It did, for an hour or two. When he was
hurting me, the pain was so intense that everything else fell away. It focused
my mind and gave me the escape I’d been looking for. But just like drugs, it’s
a short-term fix. Eventually the session ends, the pain wears off, and there’s
the rest of your life, right there waiting for you.”

“I see.”

“I got really drunk after I left Liam
because I was trying to postpone the inevitable return to reality. It made me
feel worse though, and it lowered my restraint so I let myself come see you.”

“Will you go to him again?”

“God no. It was a mistake, a one-time
relapse.” Vincent shifted position, looking embarrassed as he added, “Just so
you know, I didn’t let him fuck me. I told him he could hurt me any way he
wanted, but I didn’t let him inside me. I know that’s probably TMI, especially
right now when you and I are just beginning to get to know each other. Hell,
it’s probably
all
TMI. But it’s important to me that you know that.”

“I’m glad you told me.” After a pause, I
asked him, “What are you looking for now, Vincent? Because just so you know, I
don’t have it in me to hurt you.”

He met my gaze. “I don’t want that
anymore. I want to leave all that D/s shit in the past. I just want to be
normal, to care about someone and have him care about me. That’s it.”

I picked up his hand and held it between
both of mine as I said softly, “I can do that.”

“I really don’t know why you’d want to,
though. I mean, you see what I am now. You see the stains, the damage. You’d be
so much better off with someone less complicated. Someone like Skye.”

“Why’d you come up with him as an
example?”

“Because there’s obviously a strong
connection between the two of you.”

“Yeah, there is. He’s becoming a great
friend.”

“Nothing more?”

I shook my head. “Skye did ask me out a
few days ago, but I turned him down.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s not you.”

Vincent grinned at that. After a moment,
I got up and said with mock severity, “Bad news.”

“What?”

“I think your hair may have dried that
way.” I smiled at him and tucked an unruly curl behind his ear. Then I said,
“It’s probably wise to let the dust settle a bit after all of that. I’ll be in
the kitchen. See you out there, okay?” 

“Okay.”

I went and rested my palms on the cool
granite of the kitchen island for a while, sorting through all Vincent had just
told me. And the more I thought about it, the less unusual it seemed. I really
didn’t understand the dynamics, or the appeal, of a BDSM relationship. But
wanting a way to escape from your life? Absolutely. That I got. It kind of put
the rest of it in perspective.

When Vincent joined me some time later,
he was dressed in a pristine white polo shirt and a clean pair of khaki shorts.
He was also barefoot, and had wet his hair down and combed it back neatly. I’d
just begun pulling things out of the cupboards, and he asked, “What are you
doing?”

“Making frosting.”

He took a bag of confectioner’s sugar
out of my hands and said, “Oh no.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to let you frost your own
birthday cake.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s
your birthday cake
.”

“So?”

“So it’s not your job to frost it.”

“But if I don’t, you’ll miss out on my
killer buttercream.”

“So, impress me with this homicidally
delicious frosting on
my
birthday cake. I’ve got this one.”

“Deal. When’s your birthday?”

“December.”

I smiled at that, then leaned against
the counter and watched Vincent work. He decided to make a ganache filling, and
it quickly became clear that the guy knew his way around a kitchen. When I
pointed this out to him, he said, “And here you thought I was only good at high
speed car chases.”

“You
were
oddly good at that.
Lots of practice?”

Instead of answering, he just grinned at
me.

As he poured some cream into a double
boiler, I studied Vincent closely. He’d pulled back the curtain today and given
me a big glimpse at the vulnerable guy that lived inside that perfect skin. It
must have taken a lot for him to be that candid with me, since by all accounts,
he wasn’t a person that opened up easily. It felt good knowing he trusted me
with such incredibly intimate details of his life.  

It made me feel closer to him for
another reason, too. I’d thought I was such a mess compared to him, and
wondered what he could possibly see in me. I remembered how nervous I’d been
the first time we spoke, and what a fool I’d made of myself as I floundered for
what to say to someone that I considered vastly out of my league.

But after that awkward start, I’d
quickly and easily become comfortable with him. Now I knew why. I’d recognized a
kindred spirit, someone every bit as lost as I was. He’d just disguised it a
lot better than I did at first, until consciously allowing himself to open up
to me.

I came up behind him when he turned his
back to me and slipped my arms around his waist, resting my head against him.
He’d begun chopping some chocolate, and he put the knife down and turned to
face me. He took me in his arms and fed me a little chocolate shard, and when I
licked it off his fingers, his lips parted slightly. He fed me another piece,
and I sucked on his finger this time as he watched my mouth intently.

Vincent looked into my eyes as he
whispered, “After all I just told you, do you really still want me?”

“More than ever.” He looked surprised,
but then he smiled softly.

He let go of me for a moment, shut off
the stove, and gingerly put the metal bowl of cream in the refrigerator. “Why’d
you do that?” I asked.

“So it won’t scald.” As he said that, he
got a couple clean dishtowels out of a drawer and lightly draped them over the
cake rounds.

“Why would it scald?”

“Because we’re about to get very, very
distracted.”

I grinned at him as I said, “Oh.”

Vincent grinned too as he crossed the
kitchen and took me in his arms. He kissed me with such raw need and intensity
that it made my lust flare like gasoline meeting an open flame. We stripped
each other as we kissed, and once we were both naked he just feasted on me,
there was no other way to describe it. Kisses all over my neck and chest gave
way to little nips and licks, and then his lips closed around one of my
nipples. It felt unbelievably good, waves of pleasure radiating from my nipple
straight to my hardening dick. He sucked it for a while before bending down and
taking my cock in his mouth. As he was sucking me, I told him, my voice rough,
“I need you in me, Vincent.”

He lifted me onto the counter and pushed
my legs apart, kissing me as he stroked my throbbing erection, then returned
his mouth to my cock. After sucking and licking my shaft, he worked his way
down to my balls. Then he went lower. I drew in my breath as he licked the
sensitive skin between my balls and my opening, and I parted my legs wider,
putting my feet up on the edge of the counter.

When he went lower still, I almost
stopped him. What he was doing was so totally intimate that for a few moments,
it made me nervous and self-conscious. But then I stopped overthinking it and
focused on the incredible sensation of his lips and tongue on my hole, kissing
and licking me as he reached up and began stroking my cock.

He took it further still, slipping his
tongue inside me as his free hand came up and encircled my waist. I reached
underneath me and spread myself open for him, giving him all of me. It felt
so
good
. As his tongue penetrated me deeper, opening me up, preparing me for
what would come next, I threw my head back and moaned.

After a while, he raised his head and
glanced around the kitchen. The closest thing to us was a butter dish, and for
a moment couldn’t figure out why he scooped up a dollop of soft butter with two
fingers. But when he brought his hand between my legs and massaged my opening,
I suddenly understood.

I laughed and told him, “I have to say
it. I shouldn’t, because it’s such a bad joke, but I just have to.”

He flashed me a smile. “Go ahead.”

“You’re buttering me up! Literally. I
never realized there was a literal use of that expression, but there it is!”

He was still smiling as he said, “I’d
have to let go of you to get the lube, and I don’t want to do that.”

Slowly, patiently, he worked me open as
he kissed me and stroked my hard-on. I’d never had anything in me before, and
Vincent’s fingers weren’t small. Getting just one in me was a challenge, and I
couldn’t imagine how his cock would ever fit inside me. But I trusted him, I
knew instinctively that he wouldn’t hurt me and that helped me relax, allowing
him better access to me.

I reached over and fumbled with the
butter dish, then took hold of his straining erection and began stroking him,
coating him in the slick substance. I was equal parts excited and nervous,
knowing what was about to happen. But I wanted this, I wanted Vincent to claim
my virginity. It was just so
right
, I couldn’t even imagine giving
myself to anyone else like this. I spread my legs a little wider, sliding my
bare feet farther apart on the edge of the counter as he worked a second finger
into me. Finally, when he thought I was ready, he pulled back and asked me,
“You sure about this? You can still back out if you want to.”