Authors: Jess Dee
Yeah, right. Seth shoved him again, harder than before. Only this time Luke didn’t stumble. Before Seth knew what had happened, Luke had Seth’s shirt in his fist, and he was dragging him, one-handed, across the living room. Fast. So fast. Too fast for him to object. And then a thud resounded through the room, and Seth was pinned to the wall, helpless.
Luke trapped him there. Wouldn’t release him. “I told you to quit shoving me,” he bit out from between gritted teeth.
Seth’s heart slammed into his ribs. This was a side to Luke he’d never seen before. A side that promised violence. Luke’s eyes were tiny slits, and danger seemed to ooze from his every pore.
It turned Seth the fuck on.
“And I told you to man up to your emotions. Quit living in the past and face facts. You love me.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you love me. I’ve said it all along.”
“No. What did you say about me living in the past?” Rage flared in Luke’s eyes.
“I said you need to quit living in it.”
Luke took a very deep breath. “Tread carefully, Seth. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
No, he didn’t. He was only going on what Kaz had told him. That Luke was desperately trying to escape something from his past. Something he’d never shared with Seth. “I know that you love me. What I don’t know is why you deny it. What happened to you, Luke? What scared you so bad, you’ve lost all confidence in your ability to love another person?”
Luke released Seth as quickly as he’d grabbed him. He turned around, squared his shoulders and spoke without looking at Seth. “You need to leave now. You need to walk out of this room and not come back.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s got you all freaked out.”
“The door’s right over there. Use it.”
“What happened to you, Luke?”
“Leave, Seth. Leave now.”
Seth pushed away from the wall. “What happened to you? All those years ago. Before you met Zachary, before you met me. What made you the man you are today?”
Luke’s back turned rigid.
Seth stepped forward. “You might as well tell me, ’cause I ain’t leaving until I have answers.”
“I have nothing to tell you.” Luke’s voice sounded odd. Lower than usual. “Now, go. Get out.”
Seth knew he should leave. There were vibrations coming off Luke he’d never felt before. He also knew there was no way he could go. “You wanna hear something interesting? About the woman you tried to shove me off on? She has a gift. A special ability we never knew about. She reads auras. She can look at someone and understand a whole hell of a lot about them, just by interpreting the color that surrounds them.”
Luke remained motionless.
“Would you like to know what Kaz sees when she looks at you?” He waited for a response but got none. “She wouldn’t tell me at first. Didn’t think it was any of my business. But after you left me in her care, she decided it might be better if I knew.” He walked over to Luke, touched his back.
Luke shrugged his hand off, so fast, it slapped Seth on the thigh. It didn’t stop him from registering the clammy feel of Luke’s skin or hearing the ragged gasp of his breath.
“She sees a desperate man, Lucas. Someone trying hard to deny his true feelings for another man.” Christ, couldn’t he react in some way? Turn around and face him? Say something?
“She sees a person escaping his past, determined to rise above whatever it was that knocked him back when he was younger. She sees a man who knows no other way of protecting the ones he loves than pushing them away as far as he can get them.”
Was it his imagination, or did Luke’s breathing now sound shallower? “And you know what’s interesting? Now that she’s pointed out all she sees to me, I see it too.” He stepped closer, so close his shoes touched the back of Luke’s feet. He felt Luke’s rage as tangibly as if it were a living thing.
And he felt his own rage build. His own fury.
“I don’t understand why you’re running from your past, Lucas. And I sure as hell don’t see why you’re hiding that past from me. I don’t get why you feel the need to deny your love, either. But you know what I’m most blind to? Understanding how the fuck you think you can substitute yourself with Kaz. ’Cause that, my friend, just makes no sense whatsoever.
“Just how the fuck did you think I would ever let you replace yourself with someone else? How the fuck did you think Kaz would fall for that? How the fuck could you be so arrogant and so stupid as to try to manipulate both of our lives like that?”
Jesus Christ, Luke’s silence was killing him. Frustrating the crap out of him. He wanted to hurt him. Wanted to hit him. Or shove him again. “You’re a manipulative asshole for pulling that stunt, you’re a faithless bastard for hiding your past, but most of all, you’re a shit-assed coward for pretending you don’t love me.”
Still no response. Nothing but Luke’s rigid back and shallow breaths.
Seth lost it. He lost the plot completely. “For fuck’s sake, Luke, talk to me.” With all his might, he pushed Luke, and the man didn’t move an inch. “Say something. Anything. Tell me you love me, tell me you hate me, tell me I’m wrong.” He shoved again. “Tell me nothing happened in your past that freaked you out. Tell me you’re not afraid, not damaged.” Another mighty push. “Tell me something. Anything.”
Nothing. No response.
“Goddamn you, Luke,” Seth roared. “You stupid son of a bitch—”
Luke pivoted and took him down in one smooth sweep. It happened so quickly, Seth didn’t even realize he was on his back, on the floor, struggling to breathe until Luke shifted his knee, pressing it down on his solar plexus.
His face was scarlet. Livid.
With the last breath he possessed, Seth spat out at him, “You’re a spineless goddamned son of a bitch.”
Something grazed the tip of his nose, air whizzed past his cheek, and Luke’s fist sank into the floor beside his face with an almighty thud.
Luke roared and hit the ground again. Then again and again and again.
Seth didn’t see it. He couldn’t, not from this angle, pinned to the ground. But he heard it. Heard the pounding as Luke’s fists connected, over and over. He heard the agony in Luke’s muffed gasps, and he felt the desperation coming off Luke in waves.
No, he couldn’t see colors, but he felt every iota of Luke’s frustration, desperation and anguish. He lay there and waited, letting Luke hammer the floor, letting him smash the hell out of his fists, letting him roar and swear and grunt.
He lay there forever, not moving, not speaking, as Luke’s strikes hit the carpet. One hand, the other hand. One hand, the other hand. Fast, fluid, beautiful, lethal. He lay there, immobilized under his lover’s muscled frame, blown away by the fact that Luke had finally lost his cool. Lost his temper. Lost all sense of control. Seth had known him for eight years, and in all that time Luke had never come close to this kind of meltdown.
Luke’s skin was no longer cold. It was hot, burning. His face looked feverish, his eyes glazed with fury and hatred.
It was that hatred, and that hatred alone that instilled fear in Seth’s pounding heart.
Seth could handle anything life threw at him. Anything. Except Luke’s loathing.
His chest heaved, his lungs closed, and a gasp of misery escaped his mouth.
Luke froze. With a fist in midair, his entire body turned rigid once again. He shifted his face to look at Seth. Really look.
It took a while, as though Luke needed to clear his vision, establish what he was seeing. And then his face crumpled and horror crept into his eyes, along with dismay. “Seth,” he moaned. “Oh, God, Seth. What have I done?”
Chapter Ten
Luke’s hands were everywhere, on his face, his cheeks, his nose, touching his hair, his head, stroking over his chest, his neck. Gentle, so gentle. “Where did I hurt you? Where’s it sore? Where did my blows land? God, Seth, tell me, so I can make it better.”
“Luke—”
Luke’s hand stilled on his cheek. “Here? Did I get you here? Are you in pain?” He traced his fingers over the bone. “It’s not broken, Seth, I swear, it’s not broken. Thank God.” His voice was laced with panic. “Where else? Here?” His hand was on his forehead now, the softest caress, almost as though Luke was afraid to touch him. “Christ, baby, there’s blood. I made you bleed. I hurt you.”
Blood? How on earth?
And then Seth knew.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. So sorry.” Luke dabbed at Seth’s forehead. Was he trying to wipe the blood away? “What have I done to you?”
“Luke—”
“I’ll make it better. I swear.”
“Luke!”
“Hospital. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Luke, damn it, listen to me.” Seth sat up, forcing Luke to jump out of his way.
“You can move.” Luke’s tone was full of relief and wonder and self-loathing.
“Of course I can move, I’m fine.”
Luke shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re hurt. I hurt you.”
“No, you didn’t. Look.” Seth grasped Luke’s forearm and lifted it in the air. “I’m not hurt, Lucas. You are.” A lump formed in Seth’s throat. Luke’s hands were bloodied and raw. Skin peeled off his fingers, and large scrapes—carpet burns—turned the uncut skin purple. “I’m fine, Lucas,” Seth soothed. “It’s you who’s bleeding.”
Luke fell back on his haunches and stared at his hands. Just stared. For a very long time.
Seth scrambled to his feet, raced to the bathroom and found two facecloths, which he drenched in cold water. Squeezing the excess from them, he raced back to Luke, dropped on his knees in front of him, and ever so lightly wrapped one hand in a cloth.
“I hurt you.” Luke’s expression was a study in agony and regret.
“No, you didn’t. You hurt yourself.” Seth wiped away the blood on Luke’s other hand, careful with the bruised skin.
“I tried to hurt you. I meant to hurt you.”
“You could never hurt me.” Tenderly, he wrapped the hand. “I know you, Lucas, and I know you could never hurt me.”
“I can, Seth. I almost did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“It’s why I can’t love you.”
Seth didn’t look up, he kept his gaze firmly on Luke’s hands. “What is?”
“This. Me. I hurt people.”
“You didn’t hurt me, Luke.”
“I love you, Seth, and I tried to hurt you.”
“No, you didn’t.” Seth didn’t react to Luke’s admission, didn’t dare. “You may have wanted to, but you didn’t.”
“I hurt him.”
“You hurt who?”
“My father.”
“Your father?”
“I almost killed him.”
Oh, fuck. Jesus. “When?”
“Long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“He hit my mother. Again.”
Seth’s heart twisted. “Again?”
“He hit her a lot.”
“Did he hurt her?”
“Always.” Like his hands, Luke’s voice was raw.
“Badly?”
“Sometimes he broke bones. Sometimes he just left bruises. A few times she ended up in the hospital.”
Christ. “What about you, Lucas? Did he hit you?”
“Sometimes.”
No. No, no, no.
“Did he hurt you? Did he leave bruises and break bones?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you end up in the hospital?”
“Only once.”
Seth couldn’t speak. Not for a very long time. He could only sit there, speechless, his heart aching for the man in front of him.
“I’m just like him.”
“You. Are. Nothing. Like. Him.”
Luke nodded. “I use my fists, just like him.”
“You protected your mother from a violent attack.”
“I left him on the floor, with three broken ribs, a broken nose, a snapped knee joint and a dislocated shoulder. And I wouldn’t have stopped. I would have carried on hitting him, only…”
“Only?”
“Only my mom begged me to back off. Begged me to leave him alone. ‘Don’t act like him, Luke. Don’t become your father. Don’t do this, please.’” He stared at Seth, but Seth had a feeling Luke only saw his mother. And perhaps his father, lying beaten on the floor. “I stopped, because she asked me to. But I am like him. I’m exactly like him. I proved it that day, and I proved it again today.”
“Lucas…” Oh, God. Never mind Luke’s hands, Seth’s heart was bleeding, breaking for the man he loved, the man lost in his past. “What was going through your head when you hit your father?”
“Just that I needed to stop him hurting my mother. Needed to stop the beatings and the abuse.”
“And what was going through your head now, when you did this to yourself?” He held Luke’s hands up.
“Just that I needed you to stop talking, stop pushing me, stop pressing me for answers.” He looked so bleak, Seth’s heart broke all over again. “It’s how I work. When I feel desperate. When I want something to stop. I use my fists. I stop it physically.”
“You ever hit anyone else?”
Luke shook his head.
“So it was just your dad?”