Page 38

“Yeah, I wrestle,” I admitted. Thought, a moment later - but too late again, far too late to take it back - that I maybe should’ve kept that a secret, too.

He reached for my arm; paused, fingers splayed, not even an inch from my skin.

“You don’t mind, do you, Eoin?”

It felt like a ridiculous thing to protest about, considering everything I’d been ready to do. I tensed my arm - trying not to have it look like I was making an effort - as his hand wrapped around my bicep.

“Well, damn. That’s impressive. Lots of hours in the gym, right?”

I jerked, in surprise, as the man on my right squeezed my other arm.

“I guess,” I conceded.

“Big arms, big chest, big thighs.” There was a tinge of amusement in there, along with the mild awe. “You’re big all over, aren’t you.”

“Big enough.”

Another laugh. “’Big enough,’ he says.” Half-yelling past me, to the guy on my other side still pawing at my arm. “Stands here looking like this, and says he’s only ‘big enough.’”

I shrugged, feeling tongue-tied. Could only watch as his other hand stroked across my chest, squeezing at my pecs.

“And what about your dick, Eoin? Is that ‘big enough’?”

His fingers slid down, fingertips brushing over each of my abs. Barely a sensation, but it sent a full-body shudder rushing through me.

The other men in the room were paying more attention, now. Their conversations forgotten as they watched me being pawed at. Expressions rapt in the dimmed lights.

I pulled away, the motion abrupt. Felt the cold splash of a drink against my arm, then heard the bray of laughter from its owner a second later. Amusement not anger; I hated how I felt relieved at that, still conscious of Harvey on the other side of the door, holding Brayden’s job over my head.

“M-maybe I should dance now,” I suggested, wondering if I was meant to climb up on the table or the couch to do so. These strangers’ curiosity further filling the space, making it feel tighter and more enclosed.

“Have another drink,” someone offered, pushing a glass toward me. So many open bottles on the table, there was no way to know what it contained.

I went to brush it off; was surprised by the strength in his arm, the insistence with which he held it out. The glass tilting and then another stab of cold as liquid soaked into the tight muscle-shirt. A sharp, almost acrid smell of liquor I couldn’t identify filling my nostrils.

“I... I’m good,” I stuttered out. Knowing I needed to be louder if I wanted to be heard, and yet simultaneously terrified of bringing in attention from outside. Letting Harvey know how badly I was handling the whole night. “I’m meant... I’m meant to be dancing.”

“You’re meant to be entertaining us,” another man corrected. His voice was rasp-edged, breath heavy with the stink of old cigarettes. He held his drink to my mouth. “Don’t be rude, now.”

He raised the glass, its contents spilling against my tightly-closed lips and down my chin. Across the shirt that was, I realized with horror, being pulled up by one of his friends.

I tried to push the hand away, then yelped as fingers pinched my ass cheek. The cloying taste of cola and something sharper, more bitter flooding my mouth; instinct making me yank my head back, away from the almost-empty glass. Hearing the jeering delight as I coughed and spluttered.

A chuckle from alongside me. “I bet you’re real pretty under the mask, right, Eoin?”

I tried to swat his hand away as he pulled at the edge of it. Aware of the grind of someone’s crotch against my hip, of sly fingertips stroking the jockstrap’s bulging pouch through my shorts.

“Be a good boy,” someone scolded, tone like he was talking to a kindergartener.

I wanted to tell him to stop, that I wasn’t some kid he could order around - no matter how much they’d paid for me to dance for them - but the words wouldn’t come. Claustrophobia and swelling panic stealing my speech; each attempt at protest fizzling out before it could properly form, like my body was an engine struggling to start.

Fists clenched, I yanked myself away. Twisting as I did it, my feet catching in the legs of the men clustered around me. I made it a few desperate, tottering, ill-fated steps before I slipped on the liquor-slicked floor.

The impact like a stab, my grunt of pain lost as the side of my head ricocheted off the table’s sharp edge. Vision briefly strobing as if the lights were flickering like they had on stage.

“Careful there, buddy.”

Hands on me again, too many of them to count, dragging me upright and into the hot cluster of their bodies. Brushing across the tight muscle-shirt, over bare skin where it’d been tugged up; pulling at the straps of the jock and working under my clinging shorts. Squirming, probing, mindless fingers with no aim but exploration and then intrusion.