Page 9 of Bruised

As we turn around and leave, I feel Mason’s gaze lick up and down my body. I shudder at the weight of his attention, and my jeans feel uncomfortably tight as I follow Oliver into the house, away from Mason’s knowing smirk and the weight of his heated gaze.

Oliver and I spend the rest of the day cooped up in his room, making use of our double gaming setups. We have as much fun as we always have, completing quests and doing raids with online friends. We order a pizza for dinner that we devour while still in deep focus mode. Nothing can bring us down.

Except when a loud thump echoes downstairs.

Turns out the garage is directly below Oliver’s room, and who’s down there lifting weights and making a ruckus, disturbing our peace?

Yeah, that’s right—Mason.

“I’m gonna kill him before the end of summer,” Oliver grumbles. “Might do it right before I leave for college, so I won’t have to face the consequences.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I point out. Sighing, I settle down on my temporary bed: the mattress in the middle of Oliver’s room. It’s small, but not much smaller than my bed at Dad’s house. When my ex-boyfriend Micah came over, we could barely fit on the same bed. Maybe that was why the sex was so bad.

Anyway, Oliver and I have already made a complete mess of his already messy room—littering every surface with cans, half-empty snack bags, and plates with the dried remnants of microwave meals.

There’s another loud bang from downstairs, and I picture Mason, shirtless, like he was this morning, lifting weights and being all smug and hot and infuriating, knowing full well how much he’s disturbing our peace and not caring one bit.

I wish it were just the noise that was disturbing, though. His mere presence in this house is a thorn in my side, a tension I can’t release without risking… something. I can’t put my finger on what just yet.

“Hey,” Oliver says. “I saw the way he looked at you this morning.”

I shrug in reply. It’s not my fault that Mason keeps flirting with me. It doesn’t mean I’m going to respond to anything he says. In fact, I should start telling him off.

“Be careful with him,” Oliver continues.

“Careful, how?”

“Just… don’t be in the same room with him if you can help it.”

“Why?” I ask warily. “What’s he going to do?”

Oliver groans and runs a hand over his face. “Just trust me, okay? You don’t want to get involved with him. He’ll chew you up and spit you out like it meant nothing.”

“Like what meant nothing?”

Oliver sends me a glare. “You know what I mean.”

“So he’s gay?”

Oliver shrugs. “Gay, bi, whatever—I don’t think it matters to him. He just likes to control people.”

That fire in my gut has been simmering like embers ever since that time in the kitchen, and now, Oliver’s words are making the logs spit white-hot sparks. “Control them how?”

“He…” Oliver gives a frustrated groan. “Just trust me, okay? He’ll ruin you if you let him.”

Ruin me.

The words echo in my head like a whisper of dark intrigue.

My ex never gave me what I wanted, but I couldn’t put my dissatisfaction into words. Every time he touched me gently, I wanted him to bruise me. Every time he brushed his fingers through my hair, I wanted him to rip my head back so hard I cried. Every time he slid his dick inside me like I was going to break, I wanted him to do just that: break me.

But I couldn’t put into words what I wanted, so it was easier to just end it.

Then I watched this video.

This, uh… porn video.

Of an older man and a younger one. During a blowjob, the man ripped the young man off his cock and spat in his mouth. Fucked him hard, pulled his hair, threw him around like a rag doll…