Page 25 of The Fighter

Tav was a soul I could save, and I was no longer willing to sit back passively and wait for him. He said I had the power to break him, but he had the power to break me too, already. I was past the point of getting out of this with my sanity. I’d lost it to Tav that first night. So he didn’t get the choice to run from me anymore, at least not for good. I’d give him time, but there would be no more ultimatums. I’d claw his secrets from his chest untilhe was an open wound that only I could fix. Until I owned every part of him. Until I didn’t need rope because Tav was tied to me with invisible bonds.

Yeah, Tav was a soul to save. But I was pretty sure that he was the only way I could save my own soul too.

Tav

He took the same care with my wrists that he had with my face, coating them in antibacterial ointment before wrapping them with gauze and tape. They weren’t even that bad, not really. I’d had worse wounds with no care. But he seemed to want to do it, to need to do it, so I stayed silent.

Con’s face no longer had that hard edge to it. He looked younger in the soft light of the bathroom, wearing a pair of low-slung pants and nothing else. He was well-built but slight. He’d worn a suit that first day I met him, and he wore it well, like he had them tailored to fit him. And based on where he lived, I assumed he had the money to custom-make a dozen suits.

I’d spent a lot of my youth thinking if I had money, I’d have everything. And now… well, I hated it. Money was why my life was shit. So I didn’t care about where Con lived, or what he did, or what kind of watch he wore. He treated me like I meant something for who I was, not what I could do with my fists, and that was rare in my world.

When I was wrapped up, he led me to bed, urging me under the covers. I slid inside, my naked skin slipping on the soft sheets. Con turned off the lights and settled beside me.

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust and when they did, I rolled over. Con’s blue eyes were shining with the reflection of the moonlight. “So you’ll be here when I wake up?”

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” I said. “I can’t stay much later than that though.”

He nodded, content with that. When he kissed me, I let him take control, not wanting to think anymore. I wanted him to make me forget about my panic attack, make me forget about the feeling of being trapped, helpless.

He ran his hands over my body, fingering the scars on my skin. He prepared me with skilled fingers and entered me slowly, facing me. I gripped his wrists, which were planted in the bed on either side of my head and moved with his rhythm, clamping my knees around his hips.

“Feel me, Tav?” His lips glistened, wet from our kisses.

“Yeah,” I said, as he changed the angle of his hips, brushing my prostate with the tip of his cock.

“You let me in here. Remember that,” he whispered. “You gave this to me.”

Something about his tone fired off a warning shot in my head. His conviction speared through me with every thrust of his cock in my body. But I was too weak tonight to resist anything that came to Con.

My voice sounded more like a sob than a pleasured moan as I gave in. “Yes.” I strained as the orgasm began to build.

“And I’m taking it,” he said, his face lined with determination. “I’m taking it all, and I’mkeepingit.”

He couldn’t know what he was asking, that I didn’t have enough to give him and still keep myself alive. But in that moment, I couldn’t speak. I could only feel. He was filling up the husk of my soul, and yet I’d never felt so light.

We came with muffled groans, him in my neck, me in his hair. After he disposed of the condom and crawled back into bedwith me, I tugged him to my chest. We fell asleep with tangled legs, pressed together, breathing in each other’s air. I should have been panicked over his words, but instead I convinced myself he only meant sex, that he wasn’t claiming any other part of me but my body. And I rationalized that maybe I could handle that. Maybe I could somehow live half a life if it was with Con.

ELEVEN

Conrad

When I woke up, it was to a strange sensation. Something was rubbing my belly, something course. I squirmed and a blast of hot air washed over my groin as I lay on my back. I lifted my hands to rub at my eyes.

Wet heat engulfed my cock. I opened my eyes to the site of Tav’s dark head between my legs. He was on his stomach, large feet hanging off the end of the bed. The covers were pushed aside into a balled heap, and he was sucking me down like he needed me to breathe.

He took me to the back of his throat, and I nearly levitated off the bed as a shudder coursed down my spine to pool into my balls. He pulled back to suckle on my tip before he once again took me to the root until his nose was pressed into my groin.

I wasn’t prepared for this. It was too early for me to manage any level of dominant decorum. My dick was in Tav’s mouth, and I wanted to come.

I placed a hand on his head, fingering the dark hair, which had curled slightly in the humid air of the tub last night. It wasadorably rumpled. His muscled ass flexed as he humped the bed with short thrusts while he bobbed his head on my cock. And he made greedy noises the entire time.

Maybe if my brain was working, I’d take over and grip his hair tight to control the pace. Maybe order him not to come. But I could barely function right now, and my cock was hard enough to poke a hole in the back of his skull.

He pulled off and tongued my slit before letting his saliva drip from the corners of his mouth to slide down my shaft and trickle over my balls. He looked up my body and his eyes, those unique eyes were swirling, and he looked so damn happy, so damn content, that I let the orgasm build. “Go on, Tav,” I said. “Suck me. Swallow me down.”

He plunged deep, working hard now, sucking like his life depended on it, and I closed my eyes, arching my back and rearing my head as the first shot of cum hit his throat. He moaned, drinking me down as I continued to shoot. A hand left my thigh, and I knew when he squirmed that he was coming too as his hips punched into the mattress while he blew into the sheets.

He pulled off when my cock had stopped pulsing and rested his head on my thigh. He looked up at me, the corner of his mouth tilting up into a smile, so his dimples showed. “Good morning.”