“You think I don’t know it’s a war? I have done plenty. I have sacrificed. I have struggled. I have done everything in my power to make sure that I’m doing everything I can for this goddamn war.” Kinzer stopped himself. “Why am I even fighting with you about this? You’re not even on my side, but what the fuck was that back there? Who the fuck’s side are you on?”
“I’m on my side. I look out for me.”
“Of course you do.”
“Why are you acting like that’s such a bad thing? Look at you. Look at what you almost did. You almost fucked that… disgusting creature. To get what? Some fucking intel? That’s disgusting. How can you think these things have anything noble in them when they act like that?”
“Are we so different?” Kinzer gave Hayde an accusatory glare. “The flit that was fucking me so that he could set me and my friend up to be killed is telling me that’s disgusting?”
Hayde gulped. He must’ve seen the hypocrisy in his statement.
“You judge them for the same damned things we do…youdo. They’re not worse than us. They’re just like us.”
“I guess you’re right,” Hayde said. “I guess it is just as disgusting to fuck a fallen. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean a clipped.”
Kinzer’s rage subsided, transformed to hurt. This was who Hayde really was. This cruel, heartless creature that lashed out and struck at his most vulnerable insecurities.
Kinzer took a breath and finished putting on his clothes.
“When we fuck,” Hayde said through clenched teeth, “I can’t help but think how you’re poisoning my flesh… how every imperfect piece of your flesh is tainting mine, making me even lower than I already am. You think you fucked me over when you cut my face. That’s nothing to what you do every time you caress me. Every time your lips meet mine, scarring me with your hideousness. I’m amazed Janka could put up with it as long as he did.”
That was it.
Kinzer spun around, gripped Hayde by the throat, and shoved him back against the wall.
He stared into his eyes, threatening him with his gaze.
Tears formed at the corners of Hayde’s eyes, but he clenched his jaw like he was fighting them back.
As angry and hateful as Hayde acted, Kinzer knew there was something else there. There had to be. He’d had the opportunity to kill him, to capture him, and yet he hadn’t taken it. Why? Was he setting him up for something else… as he had with Maggie?
He was starting to doubt that was the case, and he hated himself for that, because the more Hayde spoke, even out of rage, the more Kinzer believed that he was on his side. He had to be. Why else would he have been helping him now? He had to convince himself to keep his guard up, though.
He relaxed his grip on Hayde’s neck.
It wasn’t Hayde’s fault he thought he was disgusting. After all, he was a fallen… a clipped. He might have been right about Janka. Clearly, Kinzer had been mistaken about Janka’s feelings for him. Maybe Hayde was just telling him what he needed to know: the truth.
He took another breath to soothe his rage.
They needed to get out of there and start back on their journey, especially if any of the other motel patrons had noticed their tussle with Lyle, and called the police.
He released Hayde and spun around, but Hayde grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. He pressed his lips against Kinzer’s and threw his arms around him.
Kinzer’s mind crowded with confusion.
Why’s he doing this?He just said my touch made him feel poisoned.
Hayde’s kiss was hard, rough, as his lips worked to cover Kinzer’s. As he caressed Kinzer’s face with his thumb, Kinzer felt the shift in his scruff, a product of several days of negligence.
As confused and disoriented as Kinzer was by the attack, he couldn’t help but delight in it, in being consumed by the desire that radiated through his body.
Hayde jumped and threw his legs around Kinzer’s waist.
Kinzer tucked his hand under Hayde’s leg, holding it up as he spun around and threw him on the bed, kissing him with a frenzied passion. He pressed his knees into the mattress, crawling on top of the arousing flit.
Hayde pulled Kinzer’s shirt off over his head as Kinzer tore through the buttons of Hayde’s. Kinzer pressed his lips against the flesh just beneath his pecs, working his way through the grooves in his abdomen.
Hayde shifted beneath him, throwing his head back as he appeared to get lost in ecstasy. He panted. He groaned.
