Page 50 of Compulsion

I laughed rather harshly. “Who knows what’s right and wrong at the moment? I wish I fucking well did.”

His phone rang again, a muted, generic ringtone. Seve cursed.

“Answer it,” I said.

He pulled it out of his sweats pocket, glanced at the caller ID, then canceled the call. “No. It’s only Mama. I’ll call her back later.” He tossed the phone onto the table.

“I can leave.”

“Shit, Max!” The bitterness was startling. “Don’t you ever listen? Or do you just not hear? Tell me—why did you come here tonight?”

I tried to think it over carefully, but then just let instinct take over. “To see you,” I said. At heart, it was the raw truth. “To be with you.”

He nodded and drew in a sharp breath. “Why do you want that?”

I knew only too well, but I was scared to say. “Forget it.”

“No,” he said, quickly and sternly. “I won’t forget it. We won’t forget it. But if you have to go….”

“No.” It was my turn to say it. I slipped off the couch to kneel at his feet, and kissed him swiftly but firmly. “We’re free from it for tonight, right?”

Chapter Twenty

IT HAD been a surreal night, and I was confused about everything that was going on—what I suspected, what I knew, and all the other crap that I didn’t. But I’d never felt in any danger from Seve himself. I wanted to see behind Seve’s distress, to learn more about him. Meanwhile, the solace we both sought was a familiar one.

“Come and sit with me, Max.” Seve peeled his shirt off over his head, exposing his bare chest. The living room was lit by a tall uplighter on the floor by the couch, and its muted light made the beads of sweat at his throat glisten. It made me want to lick them off. I sat up beside him on the same couch and he started opening the buttons of my shirt. I helped him push it off my shoulders and soon I was half-naked too. He tangled his fingers in my hair and I bent my head to his. We began a kiss that was tentative to start with, then as fevered as always. He tasted of warm saliva and cool water. The combination was delicious, though it didn’t seem exotic enough for him tonight. He slipped his other hand inside my jeans, over my arse. His palm caressed the dip at the bottom of my spine until his strong finger snuck down between my cheeks, searching for the welcoming pucker.

Except that I didn’t feel totally welcoming. Yeah, he’d said things to me that had really shaken me up—that had excited me in ways I hadn’t expected or hoped for. And he’d sounded totally sincere. But I was still cautious, even if my instincts were telling me to get over myself and run with it. I wanted a truth that I could rely on. There were small flames of rebellion inside me that weren’t extinguished yet, not enough for me to be able to roll over and let him in, physically and otherwise. Not that easily.

I lifted my lips from his, just to make it clear. “Not tonight. Not yet.”

Just as earlier in the club he’d accepted my refusal to leave with him, he calmly accepted my reluctance to fuck too. He must have known that he could have easily talked me around, but he didn’t try. Instead, he pulled my head back down to his and the kissing continued, but he was more careful. More respectful, as if he wasn’t sure how much I wanted. He slid his hand back out of my jeans, and placed it on my groin instead. He started to rub me. The denim was a barrier between our flesh, but his fingertips played a firm little tune up and down my dick. And it was really, really good.

“Let me do this, at least, Max.”

He flipped the button of my jeans and tugged down the zip. I was back in boxers, for all the protection they gave me. He peeled the waistband gently over my hot, oversensitive tip, then pulled me down on the cushion beside him.

“Ouch.”

He stopped, his expression turning to worry. “You’re injured? I forgot….”

“It’s okay,” I said. I shifted to favor the side Peck had kicked. “Let me empty my pockets before I stab myself on something.” I pulled out my wallet and phone, my door key, the crumpled envelope from a birthday card one of the Vs had brought Louis, a couple of pound coins, and the red lighter. I tumbled them all on the coffee table beside the couch.

Seve looked at the pile. “I have never seen you smoke.”

I shrugged. “I don’t. It’s a… souvenir. From a friend.” I’d borrowed it from Stewart one night to help a friend get their onering gas hob going. When I offered it back, he’d waved it away with a smile. Keep it, he’d said. Easy for me to buy another one next week. Then there’d never been a next week—not for him, anyway.

“Max?” The word was almost a sigh as Seve ran his hand gently down my arm.

“I’m fine,” I said firmly. I turned back and leaned into him again. “Don’t treat me like an invalid.”

He didn’t. When he took hold of my dick again, he wasn’t as gentle and the friction was more intense. His strokes were strong and exciting, and he knew exactly where to torment me—how to make me shiver. He tugged the skin over my swelling shaft, teasing out the precome and smoothing it all over the tip so that his hand moved more easily.

I whimpered. Every sweep of his hand dragged the ache in my groin with it, and my hips jerked upward to meet him. My nerves were stretched so tautly I winced every time he varied his touch. He paused at the base of my cock, kneading my balls gently with the pad of his palm. His thumb caressed the hairs, uncurling them with a tug, then letting them bounce back into place. And all the time he stroked me firmly and demandingly, squeezing me toward a climax that I knew was going to be so fucking poignant it was going to be painful.

When he pulled down the waist of his sweats and tugged one of my flailing hands toward his own cock, I grasped it eagerly. I started to pump it in time with his movements. He gave his own soft groan as I worked the flesh up and down.

“This is mad,” I gasped, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I meant. That it was bloody uncomfortable, scrunched up on the couch? That I should just give up and go to bed with him and let him fuck my arse like my body so obviously wanted? That I shouldn’t be here at all? He tightened his grip and I yelped with pleasure. That last one just wasn’t an issue.