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“Yes,” I said.
He raised a brow.
“I mean, yes, Sir. I’ve decided you can’t help me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you want me to feel safe before we start, and I don’tdosafe, Sir. That’s not what I want from you or from anyone right now. I want fear, pain, and hurt. I want to forget I’m dying. I get off on knowing the man who’s fucking me hates me, hates wanting me, andhatescoming for me. I love that. You won’t give me what I need. You can’t.”
“Can’t I?” he asked, standing and stalking toward me, his expression darkening. “You think because I’ll enjoy fucking you that I’ll be soft for you? That I’ll make you feel loved and wanted?” He shook his head, putting one hand on the door and the other across my throat.
I panted, my cock thickening in an instant. He stared into my eyes until, intimidated and horny, I looked away from his gaze, swallowing hard.
“Think about it,” he said, pressing slightly against my throat, a tease of the kind of pressure I wanted. “Maybe I’ll surprise you. Whatever you decide, call me.”
He released his hold and moved me bodily away from the door, opened it, and shoved me out. “We’re done now,” he said, and shut it in my face.
I blinked, breath hitching and legs trembling.
In a daze, I stumbled out to my truck, not even saying bye to Cherise again. I sat there holding the papers in my hand, staring at them like an idiot until the sun vanished and evening fell.
As I turned the key in the ignition and drove away, doubts circled my mind.
Luke could never be enough. He couldn’t give me what I needed to escape my own mind and the helpless terror that awaited me there. I was going to die. There was no way around that for me. Everyone knew AIDS was a death sentence, and I surely wasn’tgoing to be one of the lucky ones who got years of reprieve before the Reaper came for them. When had I ever been lucky?
So, no. Luke and his contract, and his whips, and his sexy voice couldn’t save me. No one could.
I didn’t deserve to be saved anyway.
Chapter Three
‡
Luke
The last Fridayof the month meant dinner at my parents’ house up in Johnson City. Mainly because the lastSaturdayof the month, I went to visit my sister Betsy at Riverwoods, her special-needs living facility on the Cumberland Plateau. Mom always made a meal she knew Betsy liked so I could take the leftovers over to her the next day.
Betsy had been born with Down Syndrome, and she’d lived at home for most of her life. But when she was in her mid-twenties, my father had suffered a stroke, and with the increase in caregiving responsibilities, my mom had fallen apart. Everyone, including Betsy, had decided it was time for her to get outside help.
Riverwoods was an expensive option, but one that Betsy was thrilled with. She’d long wanted to have more independence, and she saw the boarding facility as a huge step away from being reliant on our family. They’d helped her get a part-time job, and she was happy there. She’d even found a boyfriend, a fellow Down boy that made her light up whenever she talked about him, and who’d been very sweet when I insisted on meeting him. Not a sadistic bone in that kid’s body.
Unlike Betsy’s older brother.
When I arrived at my folks’ place, I’d tried to put aside my thoughts about the bratty young man who’d sat across from meyesterday, fighting his instincts to run. But as I stirred the spaghetti sauce and Mom put the final touches on Betsy’s favorite dessert—almond bars—I couldn’t stop my mind from going back to him.
It’d been hot seeing all that push-and-pull warring within such a tasty form. I could only imagine how much fun that tension would be in a scene. His lithe, pale body naked and trembling for me. Fear in his eyes, shaking with the urge to get away, with lust overpowering it all. Making him sweat. Making him sing with need. Making him scream. Making him come.
We could be good together. If he’d give in and let me show him just how dark I could go, I’d rock his world.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mom chirped, pulling out a chair at the old, comfortable kitchen table and indicating I should leave the sauce alone and sit.
“Ah, it’s nothing.”
The wood grain was familiar beneath my fingers as I obeyed, tracing the pale outline left long ago by a cola can. I was twelve, and my father had swatted my ass for letting it sweat on my mother’s nice table.
“You’ve been so broody the last few months,” Mom said, taking over the stirring and casting a glance over her shoulder. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”
Ever since HIV had made the nightly news, my mother lived in terror that I’d contract it. She knew I was gay, and she knew I slept around. Shedidn’tknow about my professional Dom practice, she’d never met Benji or any of my prior boys, and as far as she knew, I’d never been in love.
