Authors: Kim Dare
As he watched it happen in his imagination, Bayden scrabbled for his fly in the real world. Freeing his cock as quickly as he could, he wrapped his fingers around the length.
Axel wouldn’t have bothered jacking him. Bayden’s cock wouldn’t have been his concern. The only thing he’d have been interested in was Bayden’s arse.
Bayden squirmed against the bed, pumping his cock hard and fast as he imagined Axel ploughing into him, burying his cock in his arse over and over again, without caring if Bayden liked to be screwed that way. Axel wouldn’t have given a damn about anything except his own orgasm, and making it clear to Bayden exactly how things worked between them.
There wouldn’t have been any money on the table. It would have been very simple. One man giving another what he wanted, for free, just because it was so bloody obvious that was the way it should be.
Bayden rocked his hips, thrusting into his hand as he imagined Axel coming deep in his arse. In his mind’s eye, he saw Axel pulling away, leaving him there as he walked off, not even looking over his shoulder.
Biting down hard on his bottom lip, Bayden stifled his howl as he came. In the flat above the pub, he’d have been left hard and frustrated. In the real world, he spilled in long ropes across his stomach and up over his vest. He kept his hand moving. Even when his cock started to soften and his touch became more painful than pleasurable, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
The fantasy was too perfect. Giving it up was too hard.
Bayden gasped, rolling onto his side and curling in on himself as he finally admitted defeat and let everything he wanted slip away. His ragged breathing filled the air. He had no idea how long he lay there, unable to stop reality from reasserting itself around him.
When he opened his eyes, his breathing had steadied. His cum was drying on his skin. The air was cold against his exposed cock.
Bayden’s limbs felt stiff as he forced himself to roll over and sit on the edge of the bed. Given a choice between thinking about how far-fetched the fantasy was and dealing with more mundane matters, Bayden pulled himself to his feet and stripped off his clothes.
In the bathroom, he started the shower. He let it run for a few seconds on the off chance, but his luck wasn’t in that day. The water failed to heat up. Stepping under the frigid spray, Bayden quickly washed himself down.
If anything, the water seemed to get even colder. Shivers ran through him by the time he stepped out of the cubicle. Towelling himself dry coaxed a bit of warmth into his muscles. He wrapped the towel around his waist as he made his way back into the main room. Boiling the kettle got him enough hot water to wash out the vest he’d come all over.
The radiator in his room wasn’t working today, but it was still a convenient place to hang his vest and towel to dry.
Switching back into his wolf form, Bayden wrapped his fur around him like a security blanket. The chilly air became far less relevant. He padded over to his bed and jumped up onto it. Poking at the blankets with his nose, he burrowed under the covers. Curling into a small ball in the darkness, Bayden waited for the space to warm up enough to let him fall asleep. In the meantime, he tried not to think too hard about Axel.
It might have been like that if Axel hadn’t been so focused on talking. It might even have been like that if Bayden had been able to give Axel the answers he’d wanted during their conversation. But it wasn’t actually like that.
In the real world, agreeing to let a human make those kinds of decisions for him would be a mistake. It would be abandoning all the freedom and all the progress werewolves had made since they left human captivity. Just because those things didn’t seem important when he thought about Axel, that didn’t mean he could ignore them.
Anyway, in the real world, agreeing to follow Axel’s rules would be agreeing not to be able to pay his rent next time Mr. Phillips ambushed him in the hallway. It would be agreeing to see the tin tucked away in the back of his mother’s kitchen cabinet go empty. That was important. Even with his head full of Axel, it was still important.
Bayden curled himself into a tighter ball. There were only two tiny points of light in a world full of darkness. Axel had given him permission to come back to the pub, and he’d given him permission to jack off. The latter had just allowed him one of the most intense orgasms he remembered having. The former gave him just a tiny bit of hope.
Bayden’s mind reeled. He scrabbled for thoughts, but they careered through his brain too fast to be understood.
He gasped, but there was no air. Hands closed around his throat. Sweat broke out across his skin. He tossed his head trying to shake off the confusion that surrounded him.
Pain sliced at him, drawing slow, purposeful lines across his skin. There were people, but they were insubstantial shadowy forms. He couldn’t focus on them. They were human though, they had to be. Pain and humans were inextricably linked.
Darkness gradually closed in around him, then snapped away—quick and jarring. Calm. He knew he had to stay calm, but, in the midst of his panic, that knowledge did him little good. Outwardly calm. He could do that. He was good at that.
He wouldn’t let anyone see he was afraid. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Axel mustn’t see him afraid.
No. Not Axel. Axel was different. Axel was comfort and stubbornness, he was control and longing.
The world wavered, and Bayden was trapped in a space between asleep and awake, between wolf and human. Time had no meaning. His tumbling thoughts took on different voices. His mother telling him to be careful. His father demanding that he stand up to humans. His grandfather warning him to keep his head down. Miss Kemp standing at the front of the class, talking about laws she’d never understand let alone be able to explain to school children. Axel’s voice was there too, winding through all the others.
Dizzy. When was the last time he ate? No, it didn’t feel like that kind of dizziness—Bayden was used to that. This was different. It came with pain that was totally unlike the hollow ache in an empty stomach.
He closed his eyes, pushing mindlessly at the world around him, not sure if he was trying to escape from reality or a dream. It didn’t feel real, but it was impossible to believe that a nightmare could hurt so much.
He wanted Axel. Asleep or awake. Human or wolf. If Bayden didn’t know anything else, he knew that. He wanted Axel. He needed Axel.
* * * * *
Axel bit back a curse when the pub door swung open. It was barely ten minutes to closing. After a long evening manning the bar on his own, he wanted the stragglers to bugger off, not an extra idiot to join them. He looked up from where he’d already started cashing up the till.
Bayden.
Axel’s annoyance vanished. A man couldn’t be blamed for feeling tolerant toward a hot sub turning up whatever the time. But still, if Axel had needed any proof of just how obsessed he was with the boy, the fact that he found it amusing rather than ridiculous that Bayden had taken the time to put his sunglasses on, even when it was pitch black outside, probably said it all.
A yard away from the bar, Bayden hesitated.
Personal space.
“Running late?” Hale asked, from his stool.
Bayden checked the clock on the wall behind Axel. He took half a step back.
Axel pointed to the stool next to Hale before Bayden had time to retreat further. “Grab a seat.”
Bayden’s movements were slow, almost wary. It was the first time he’d been to the pub since their discussion the previous weekend. A certain amount of nervousness was acceptable but, really, looking like an extra from a bad mafia movie wasn’t.
“Lose the glasses.”
Bayden didn’t seem enthusiastic, but he took the sunglasses off, folded them up and set them on the bar.
“Good boy.”
Bayden’s lips twitched into something vaguely like a smile, but he didn’t seem to be in a rush to meet Axel’s gaze. He set his elbow on the bar and propped his head up with his fist on his temple.
Axel’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been drinking?”
Bayden shook his head.
“You look knackered.”
Bayden shrugged. “It’s late. I should go. I only called in on my way past.”
The pub was on a little used road leading out of the city. It wasn’t the kind of place a man passed unless he wanted to, and a lie that badly thought out didn’t deserve an answer. Axel grabbed a bottle of Coke and set it on the bar.
Bayden put his money on the counter. When Axel offered him his change, Bayden turned his palm up to receive it. His jacket sleeve slid back an inch.
There was a mark around his wrist—the kind bondage left in its wake. Jealousy hit Axel like a snowplough. He caught hold of Bayden’s hand and pushed the sleeve back further.
The moment he saw the bruise clearly, Axel’s assumptions faltered. This wasn’t the kind of mark that many subs would smile about when they saw it the next day. It looked painful as hell—the kind of injury a man got when he was desperately trying to escape his bondage rather than the memento of a guy who’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Axel pushed Bayden’s sleeve back another inch. His heart lurched in his chest. There were fresh cut marks on Bayden’s wrist. Axel looked up.
Bayden met his gaze for a second before turning his face away. He tried to pull his hand out of Axel’s grip, but Axel wasn’t in control of those particular muscles. He couldn’t have let go if he’d wanted to, and he didn’t want to.
“Bayden?”
Nothing. He didn’t even look in Axel’s direction.
Someone on the other side of the room moved his chair. It scraped across the floorboards. Bayden tensed. Axel looked past Bayden to the men still there, before leaning across the bar and speaking quietly to Bayden.
“Listen to me. You don’t move off that stool. Understand?”
For a long time, Axel thought he wouldn’t get any answer, but Bayden finally nodded.
Somehow, Axel managed to release Bayden’s hand but the thought still screamed through his mind—someone had hurt Bayden.
Autopilot kicked in. It couldn’t have taken Axel more than five minutes to get everyone out of the pub, but it felt like hours. Someone had hurt Bayden. Axel couldn’t stop himself looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds, checking that Bayden was still on his stool.
Bayden didn’t move a muscle, not even to open his Coke and take a sip. Doors locked, Axel sat on the stool next to Bayden.
“Am I allowed to leave?” Bayden asked, quietly.
“No.”
Bayden didn’t react. It didn’t seem to occur to him to say that Axel didn’t have the right to make that decision.
“Look at me, pup.”
Bayden half-turned his body, but he kept his face averted until Axel touched his cheek and coaxed him around.
There was a mark next to his eye.
Axel got off his stool. Holding Bayden’s face still, he examined the wound. A narrow cut an inch and a half long and perfectly straight—it ran right onto his eyelid.
It wasn’t hard to imagine Bayden getting into a fight, but it was impossible to picture the kind of blow that would cause a cut like that without leaving any kind of bruise around it. The cut had been hidden behind Bayden’s sunglasses when he came in and it had been obscured by Bayden’s hand when he’d supported his head on his fist—that wasn’t a coincidence.
“Bayden?”
He made no attempt to pull away, but he didn’t try to answer either.
“What happened?”
Finally, Bayden cleared his throat. “It’s nothing.”
“Bollocks. Someone hurt you. Who was it?”
Silence stretched out between them. “It was a bet.”
“A bet,” Axel repeated, blankly.
Bayden nodded.
“What kind of a bet?” But Axel had a horrible suspicion he already knew the answer.
“One hour, no limits. I won.”
Axel still had his hand on the side of Bayden’s face, holding him in place.
A bet… Axel glanced down at Bayden’s wrist. The leather had fallen back over it, completely concealing his injuries. Axel took in a few extra details about Bayden’s appearance.
His jacket was zipped, his collar turned up. Suddenly, that didn’t seem to be a sign that the weather was turning colder.
“Take off your jacket.”
“I shouldn’t have come here tonight,” Bayden mumbled, rubbing at his uninjured temple.
“You’re exactly where you should be.” Axel’s voice was the complete opposite of Bayden’s—full of confidence and certainty.
Bayden remained still, his gaze lowered.
Axel’s hands itched with a desire to just make everything very simple. He could take the jacket off Bayden himself. Bayden wouldn’t stop him. But, one wrong move, and Bayden wouldn’t ever trust him again. A move like that, when he had no idea what Bayden had already been through, and he wouldn’t deserve to be trusted.
“Tell me about the bet,” he ordered.
“I won.” He half turned away from Axel. “Coming here was a mistake.”
Before Bayden had a chance to get off the stool, Axel put his hand on his shoulder. He pushed Bayden’s hair back off his face with his other hand, careful to keep his movements slow and easily predictable. “Why?”
Bayden stared down at his sunglasses. His grip on them was white knuckled. “You’re angry with me.”
“I didn’t say that.” However he’d felt when he saw Bayden’s injuries, Axel had been very careful not to utter those particular words.
“Scent doesn’t lie.”
Shit.
“I knew you didn’t want me to do scenes with other guys,” Bayden blurted out. “I did one anyway. I should have—”
“Should have?” Axel prompted.
“I should have had the sense to stay away until I could have pretended I hadn’t done a scene.” His voice dripped with contempt at himself.
“No.” Axel tightened his hold on Bayden’s hair, giving him no choice but to look up at him. “You don’t hide being hurt—not from me.”
Bayden swallowed rapidly before he tried to speak. “I’m fine.”
Axel pushed Bayden’s sleeve back, just enough to expose the bruise. Bayden peered down at the injury, as if he’d never seen it before.
“You were tied up?”