I can’t see, but the hum of the car I’m in the backseat of is as soothing as the thick scent that fills the air.
It’s my second week as a pledge. Jesse and I have already endured a few of Alpha Theta Mu’s rituals. In one instance, the guys locked a bunch of us in a room and made us listen to music with the volume amped up. In another, we were forced to strip to our boxers and raid the Phi Theta sorority down the street. I can only imagine what this latest adventure will entail. Earlier tonight, my big brother Tad called to let me know Jesse and I needed to wait for some of the brothers to arrive at our place. They would take us to our next location for the rest of the ritual. Lawrence and Tad showed up to our apartment, tied us up, and blindfolded us. They put me in the back of a car, and I’m guessing they took Jesse to another because the only sounds I’ve heard since I’ve been in here have come from the driver’s seat.
I recognize the aroma that fills the car from having my face buried in Brad’s cock.
He must’ve signed up to take me to the next location. I want to believe it’s because he wanted to get me alone. Considering what he let me do to him on bid day, I know he still wants me. But since pledging Alpha Theta Mu, I haven’t had a chance to get him alone. To let him know how much I want him. How much I need him. He’s avoided me at every event. At every meeting he doesn’t even look at me. Surely because he feels like he’s betrayed Aaron. But that’s not doing me any favors.
Before Brad, every day was painful. Every day my chest constricted and my muscles locked with tension. My thoughts ran through various scenarios—played out the many ways I could free myself from the crippling sensations that, at times, made it hard to get out of bed. Sometimes the thoughts come so quickly that it’s hard to escape a public moment—sneak off to the restroom or to some equally private location—to collapse to the floor, shivering as the dark thoughts overtake me. They aren’t thoughts that seem to originate within me. They’re a thousand voices shouting at me. They are the living nightmare I’ve endured for so long. Pain quiets the voices. Or at least dulls my awareness of them. Pinching my arm. Bashing my fist into my leg. Such temporary relief. But more effective than any therapist’s well-intentioned words. Or pills that have only scattered my mind, making the voices come and go in a way that was even more concerning than when they were a constant threat. When Brad fucked me, though, throughout that experience, the pain he put me through silenced all the voices. Silenced all the hate I have for myself. In that moment, I experienced a high far beyond anything I’d encountered before. My emotions ceased their assault on my consciousness. And that’s where I want to get to again. That’s why I need this so much.
Brad wants me, and I want him. That should be enough. I’d just chosen Aaron because I thought it would get me closer to Brad, but now that I understand their friendship, I realize why that’s such a shitty idea. I could have chosen any other brother in the house and it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But because it’s Aaron, I’m off-limits.
This is my chance to get Brad again, though. Or at least to know if it’s worth the effort. If he can push me away, then I must be wrong about how he feels. This is my chance to find out if I’ve been lying to myself all this time. If I should just give up. Or maybe if we do something and it isn’t as hot, I’ll be free of this horrible pain within me.
Stupidest idea ever.
I shouldn’t have volunteered to pick him up, but since I know how rough some of the guys can get during the rituals, I wasn’t about to let some other asshole manhandle Ian. And I knew Aaron wouldn’t volunteer because he didn’t want to appear biased toward him. Just like I didn’t want to seem biased toward Jesse. So I stepped up to the plate. I could tell Aaron was relieved it was me, but if he understood why I really volunteered, he would’ve been concerned about his trick.
“You can fuck me if you want,” Ian says.
My muscles tense up like they would if someone was insulting me. “How the fuck did you know it was me?”
“I can smell you.”
His words creep me out, but also arouse me.
“I was just letting you know,” he continues, “that if you wanted to pull over and fuck me, I wouldn’t stop you.”
My dick is so fucking hard right now.
God-fucking-damn him. As if every day since he’s pledged I haven’t thought about taking his hole. As if I haven’t conspired to find a way of getting him alone and tricking him into fucking me again. As a brother and Vice Archon, I have so much control over him. But I’ve been wise enough not to abuse my power the way I’ve so desperately wanted to abuse him. It doesn’t stop me from imagining twisted scenarios where I rough him up. Show him how much I want to tear him apart. Fortunately, I have Jesse to help me unleash some of those fantasies on. It’s not enough, and being with the real thing only makes me feel like I’ve been missing out on something that I don’t want to die without having ever experienced again.
I just have to get to the rendezvous point, which is only a few miles away. It’s an abandoned warehouse, where we’ll strip the guys down and make them wrestle in a kiddie pool of mud until there’s a victor.
It’d be easy to claim I got lost. I could have accidentally put the wrong address into my phone. Could have made an innocent mistake of driving Ian to the last place where we performed our Alpha Theta Mu ritual. Things like that happen all the time. I’ve heard plenty of excuses that give me every reason to stop right here and give Ian what we both want.
“You know we’re not supposed to talk,” I say. “So keep that up and I’ll report you. Then you’ll be really fucked, okay?”
“Jesse tells me about what you guys do, and I know you need more than that.”
Saliva rushes into my mouth as though I’ve seen a delicious meal after having gone a day without eating.
“Just stop,” I say.
“You can do whatever you want to me.”
I pull over on the side of the road and turn to him.
“I told you, I can’t do that.”
“You didn’t have a problem before.”
“That day in the study was a mistake. I didn’t even know who you were.”
“Bullshit.”
His face is locked in a stiff expression. I can tell that a small part of him is scared that I’m being honest, and I won’t make him believe that he is meaningless to me. I’m not that heartless.
“No, I knew. And I knew it was wrong too. We made a mistake. But on top of me being the worst thing that could ever happen to you, now you’re screwing my best friend, and I’m not going to do anything else behind his back.”
“Like he doesn’t do anything behind my back?”
A fair point since Aaron has at least four different pledges he’s fucking. However, as far as Aaron’s concerned, Ian is his property. He doesn’t share his toys. Never has.
“Just come back here,” Ian says. “Talk to me.”
Temptress!
He doesn’t want to talk. He knows what will happen if I get back there.
“Fuck you.” I say it because I hate that he can control me like this. That he knows how much I want him. How much I ache for him. How much I need him. I hate that he knows that all I want to do is take him out into the woods beside us and fuck him until he bleeds. It’s this demon within me. This passion that, when he’s around, is too much for me. I’ve even had to leave the room when he’s there because I know that I’ll try to do something. My body isn’t my own right now. I can tell when I try to move too close to him, and when I accidently end up beside him. Or in this case, when I’ve put myself in the position to be alone with him.
He springs from the back and kisses before him, missing my lips but hitting my cheek. He kisses across to my lips.
The fire that surges through me is too much for me to deny. I take the kiss, feeling his soft lips on mine. Appreciating them. Loving them. Why does he have to feel so good? I despise Aaron because all I can think is how I wish this was mine. However, considering this darkness within me and Ian’s evident suicidal nature, I know how dangerous it is. But in this moment, what’s right evaporates. I shove him back against the seat and climb over the console. His hands are still bound behind him, and as much as I feel I should free him before we go any further, I can’t help myself. I need to be inside him. Filling him. Feeling his dry hole.
I lift his legs and pull his shoes off. Then I undo his pants and pull them up with his briefs. Soon, I have my own jeans and underwear at my knees. After I offer myself a few spits for lube, I stab into him. He cringes as he opens his mouth wide and screams so loud that if anyone was within thirty yards of the car, I’m sure they hear him. I’m not gentle. I know what he wants. And maybe if I’m rough enough, he’ll learn that it isn’t what he wants. That it shouldn’t be what anyone wants.
As he screams out, I ram into him, my cock pushing into his unwilling hole.
He twists, struggling but not refusing my intrusions.
I remove his blindfold. I want him to see me take him. I want him to see my desire.
I should stop. I regret every thrust. I regret how I cling to his legs as I push in deeper and deeper. A tear rushes down his cheek, and I can tell it’s too much for him, but he begs, “Harder!”
So I obey.
It’s not enough, though. I pull out, and he gazes at me with a desperate expression. I flip him over and press him down on his chest so that he’s stretched out across the seat. I yank his jeans the rest of the way down and toss them on the floor with his briefs before spreading his legs. Ducking and maneuvering, I slide into him from behind, shoving so quickly that he cries out as loudly as he did the first time I pushed within him. I wrap my arm around his throat and pull back so that he’s in a surely wildly uncomfortable position—one he doesn’t complain about. But I like knowing how much it hurts him, and I can tell by the way he grunts he likes it too.
He’s so tight.
I bite at his neck. Softly at first. Then I take a much harder bite that makes him moan.
“You’re my bitch,” I say. “You’re mine. You’re fucking mine.”
What am I saying? Why am I doing this?
“Yes, I am,” he says. “I’m all yours.”
His words of reassurance make me feel that same lack of inhibition that I felt that first time we fucked.
I grip his hair and shove his face into the seat cushion. With my other hand, I grab his bound wrists and pull them up, straining them.
He cries out.
“Is this what you wanted from me?”
As I raise them higher, he screams even louder.
I restrain myself. I want to hurt him like he needs to be hurt, but no more. Nothing that could seriously injure this beautiful boy.
I raise his arms some more, drilling within him as it becomes easier and easier to insert myself.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says.
I pull out and urge him onto his back. I slide his shirt up and pull the collar over his head, tucking it behind his neck. Then I remove my shirt before I pull his legs apart and reenter him. I spit across his body just to claim him. I can tell by the way he rolls his eyes back that he’s loving it. I lean down, and as he opens his mouth, I grab his face and force him close as I spit directly into his mouth. He swallows it quickly, and I offer him another. When he opens his mouth for me to offer it again, I spit on his face instead to remind him that he doesn’t get to decide what I give him.
He leans forward like he wants a kiss, but instead, I grab his head and cock it back so that he can’t see me. So that he knows that I control what he gets to see. With my other hand, I squeeze his erect cock. Then I reach down to his balls while I’m pushing within him and grip on tight.
“Oh, shit,” he says as he squirms.
“Uh uh. Be good.”
He stills, though it’s clear that his body is encouraging him to move. To fight against me.
“You’re mine,” I say again, though I don’t know what’s possessing me to say this because I know he’s not and that I can’t do this. But as I’m inside him, taking him, a primal force controls me. Makes me want to break him. Makes me want to hurt him so that he truly understands the meaning of the word pain.
I squeeze his balls even tighter.
He curses, and I release them and clasp onto his throat with both hands. I grip so tight that his face turns pink.
I wonder about the pressure on his arms as they’re bound behind him, pinned beneath his body. He seems fine, though. As he struggles to breathe, a rush of adrenaline soars through me. His breath and his life are totally within my control. He depends on me. He needs me. He trusts me in a way that he shouldn’t.
I release him and grip onto his thighs as I continue fucking him.
He cries out, “Hit me.”
I know that’s what he wants. I’ve known it since that first encounter. I slap him so hard that his head jerks to the side, leaving a pink mark illuminated from the streetlamp that beams in through the window. He recovers and looks at me defiantly. It’s as if he’s challenging me to strike him even harder. As if I’ve disappointed him for not making it hurt more. I consider what I learned about him in the background check. The dark secrets he hasn’t shared with me. The things that are surely part of the reason why he’s like this. And I understand why he needs the relief.
I give him another slap and lean down to him, staring into his eyes to let him know who is in charge.
Although, I know it’s him.
His breath slaps against my face as I force within him again and again. I can tell he’s in more pain than he’s willing to show me. So I grab his nipple and twist sharply. He’ll show me his pain whether he likes it or not. He growls, but doesn’t let up his gaze.
I grip onto his chin and insert my thumb into his mouth. He sucks on it like he’s trying to let me know just how much he wants to please me. How much he wants my body.
I’m getting so fucking close.
He maintains eye contact. I’m about to blow.
I pull back to get out of him, but he wraps his legs around me.
Devious bastard.
I give him another good slap, one that makes him curse, but he maintains his hold to my waist. I struggle against him, pulling out just in time as my come oozes from the head of my dick. I stroke my cock as it spews onto the rim of his asshole.
That’s all you get, you greedy whore.
He looks to me with sad eyes. I can tell he knows I’ve filled Jesse, and he’s jealous. That just makes me want him even more.
I like knowing that I can hurt him like this, especially considering all the grief he’s given me since the first day we met.
I shift my cock about so that the head runs in a circle around his hole as I collect the semen around it before shoving my dick back inside.
“Untie me so that I can jerk off,” he says.
“No.”
“What?” His expression sobers.
I snatch his cock and stroke it myself. His pleasure is mine. His load is mine. I get to choose when he releases it. I pound him as hard as I did before, my cock springing back to life. It’s an impressive display of my refractory period.
I lean down, stroking my thumb across the head of his dick.
“I want you to come for me. Come all over yourself.”
He whimpers before releasing himself across the back of my thumb. He keeps coming and coming, reminding me that he has a big-ass load.
I pull back to witness his explosion as he continues shooting across himself. As he releases his last bit across his abs, I collect it in my hand and pull it to my face. I lick it up and swish it around in my mouth.
He watches like he doesn’t know how to respond.
I lean down—still inside him—and get right before his face.
He must sense what I want to do because he opens his mouth. I open mine, but I don’t spit. Just allow the come to fall within his mouth.
It’s disgusting. Vile. This boy will do anything I want him to. The fucking moron. Everything about how stupid he is—how moronic he is for wanting me the way he does—makes me want to show him that he needs to rethink these horrible priorities that are in his head. He’s going to get hurt like this.
As he swallows his own seed, all I can do is kiss him because I’m terrified that it might be the last time we share this passion.
It has to be.
I wasn’t eager to swallow my own come, but I’ll do anything he wants. Anything so he won’t let me go again. Anything so he’ll admit that this is right. If this experience hasn’t shown him that the passion between us is too strong to deny, I don’t know what will.
He lay on top of me, catching his breath from the effort he put into our workout. My gaze settles on the mole on his cheek—a beauty make that has always appeared to me to be the symbolic signature of the artist who crafted this beautiful specimen.
My legs hurt from the awkward positions he forced me into. My ass feels as if someone’s driven nails into it. My arms are the only thing that seem to have been spared pain since lying on them has put them to sleep.
He’s done a good number on me, but I don’t have any complaints because even when it hurt it felt good. He shifts about and pushes himself up onto his palms. As his gaze wanders, I know what he’s thinking. He regrets what we’ve done. I hate him for that because our moments together are the only thing that give me the relief I’ve needed for so long. Too many times I’ve dreamt about how wonderful it would be to just end it all. To finally defeat this burning pain within me. But with Brad, that all goes away, and it terrifies me to think that he’ll deny me the only thing that’s ever offered me freedom from that hurt.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Not that I need to.
“We can’t do this.”
“Oh my God. Just cut it with that shit, will you?”
“No. This isn’t right. What we do...it’s...”
“Hot,” I say. I lean up for a kiss.
He pushes me down.
“I can’t do this,” he says.
A sharp pain stirs in my chest, nearly as acute as the pain in my ass. He crawls to the other side of the car, where he fetches his boxers and jeans and squirms into them.
I sit up. Lifting my ass, I slide my wrists under and down my legs until my hands are before me. I scoot close to him and grip onto his beefy arm.
“Why not?” I ask.
“You’re reckless. You obviously don’t have any concern about getting hurt.”
“I would stop you if I thought you were going to really hurt me.”
“Would you?” he asks.
“Of course I would. What the fuck is this about?”
He stares at me like he’s considering sharing the truth, but I can tell he won’t.
“I deserve a reason.”
“You don’t deserve anything. We shouldn’t have done this. Aaron’s gonna be—”
“I don’t give a fuck about Aaron, and you know that. And what about Jesse?”
“Jesse knows what we are.”
“And Aaron couldn’t care less if I was any of the other guys he was fucking. I’m not his property.”
“You’re more his property than you realize.”
I want to punch him, but instead, I feel tears stirring in my eyes. I slide across the seat to get away from him.
“I’m not the one trying to pretend like there’s nothing here,” I say.
“I’m not pretending anything. I’m telling you that nothing can come of it. Do you understand that? I’m not going to change my mind. So you can keep pushing, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have to get over the fact that nothing can happen between us.”
The tears are sliding quickly down my cheeks. Not because I have any romantic feelings for this prick. Just because, in this moment, I hate his guts for depriving me of what I really want. His body. His touch. His kiss. His abuse.
That hit he offered that first time we were together and the ones he gave me this time are the only things that have satisfied this hunger within me. My dom two years ago couldn’t fill this need like he can. It’s why I haven’t picked that BDSM shit back up. It never satisfied me. I thought it could, but the control...the rules...the role-play wasn’t enough. I needed more than a hit or a slap. At the time, I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t realize it until my encounter with Brad—that first time when the passion ignited within me and he soothed something deep within. It wasn’t just the act that I craved. It was his passion behind it. The need in him to do that to me. And when I experienced it for the first time, it was as if I’d come up for air after having my head held under water to the point of nearly drowning.
“Don’t do this to me,” I say. I’m not above begging.
As he looks to me, I see the concern in his eyes. He cares. He doesn’t want to leave me in this desperate state.
“I can do whatever to make you feel like it’s safer.”
He shakes his head.
“I’ve hurt someone like this,” he says, his gaze shifting quickly. “Badly. And I’ve learned that I just can’t control myself. Not the way I need to. Even with this, it got so much worse than I’d hoped. I thought maybe I could control it, but I can’t. There’s something about you, Ian. Something that makes me want to tear you apart. Can’t you see how wrong that is? Can’t you see how fucked up I have to be to want that?”
“But I want it too.”
“That’s what scares me.”
He quiets. Stares forward, lost in thought.
The guys are going to wonder where we are. They’re probably blowing up his phone right now. But I’m not going to mention it to him because I don’t want this moment to end. Painful as it is, I’ll take this over not being near him.
“When we ran the background checks on some of the other guys,” he says. “I ran one on you too. Behind Aaron’s back.”
I freeze. Some things I can’t escape.
“I know about that pedophile,” he continues.
My hurt transforms into rage.
“You don’t know shit,” I say.
I’m still crying, and it’s even worse now that he’s brought back one of the most painful experiences of my life.
I grab my briefs off the floor and hurry out the door. With my wrists still bound together, I scurry into my briefs and start down the road. I pull my shirt collar back over my head and tug my shirt down until it covers my nude torso. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going to go looking like this, but I can’t be around him. Not right now.
“Ian! Ian!”
He dashes out of the car and chases after me. He grabs my arm and pulls me back.
I yank away from him. Clasping my hands together, I pound against him. I know I can’t do much damage to his powerful body, but any sting is enough for me.
“Leave me alone, you fucking asshole!”
He snatches my wrists. I continue struggling, but he doesn’t let go.
“Ian, please! Stop!”
I surrender as I lose what strength I have left. I burst into tears and lean against him, using his nude chest to hide my face.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he assures me. “It’s not your fucking fault. You were just a kid and he took advantage of you.”
I pull away again. “He didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want him to do.”
“You were sixteen.”
“Sixteen’s legal in Georgia, you dumbass. It was only illegal because he was a teacher.”
“And what about the whips, handcuffs...”
“It’s called BDSM, and he sure as hell was a lot safer than anything you guys are into.”
Silence.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No. That’s what I didn’t like about it. It was too safe. I was going to call it off before his wife found out and reported him. Before that bitch got video of us—”
“How could you want him to do that to you?”
“You didn’t pick that up in the background check? Did the trail of therapists and psychologists throw you off?” I’m practically screaming at him because he didn’t have a right to look into my past. To know about the things he must’ve discovered.
He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows what I’m referring to.
“I’ve had the best therapists money can buy, and they can’t make it better.”
“You were a kid. It was an accident.”
“How the fuck do you accidentally shoot your brother?”
Tears fill my eyes as I recall Jacob on the floor, motionless. So different from the kid I was used to seeing. Always smiling. Always laughing. Blood rushed down his forehead, moving toward his lifeless blue eyes—eyes that used to sparkle as we bounced around the living room with our Power Ranger action figures.
I wonder what Brad’s thinking. Is he judging me? Is he pitying me?
“Ian, I—”
“I don’t need your sympathy. I just need you to fuck me.”
I need him right now. After everything he’s stirred up, I ache. I hunger. I pine.
“We’re seriously fucked up,” he says. “We need therapy. Not to be seeing each other.”
He starts to head back to the car, but I grab his arm and pull him back to me, pushing up against him. I kiss him passionately, reminding him of why he has to give me a chance. He surrenders, which makes the kiss even more gratifying. Once again, his kiss erases everything we just discussed. Wipes it from my mind.
I’m free.
My dick hardens. He pushes away from me.
“Come on, Ian. We can’t fucking do it.”
“You’re not doing either of us any favors by stopping this. I’m not asking for anything other than sex. Please. Just fuck me. Fuck me like you want to fuck me. I won’t ask for a commitment. You know why I need this. Just give it to me. Make it hurt. Make me cry.”
He looks at me the way I imagine he would look at a panhandler. With pity and disgust. But I’m not ashamed of what I want.
“You’re a fucking masochist,” he says.
“And you’re a sadist. Doesn’t that make us perfect for each other?”
He lunges at me, kissing me again. An explosion of energy chases all my thoughts away. I hope he’s as caught up in these sensations as I am, so he won’t stop this next encounter.
Take me, Brad. Hurt me. Break me.