won’t completely hide a bruise or welt. It’s not typically an issue. Patrick likes to kiss while he fucks, anyway, and it’s easier to do that if Jacen’s on his back, legs in the air, totally accessible.
But Patrick had been riled that morning. He’d had a streak of bad luck with his acting career. It had soured his mood. He needed an outlet, so Jacen complied. It was too late to reposition or reformulate his plan when Patrick shoved Jacen against the edge of the table and yanked his pants down. There was no room for finesse there. When Jacen apologized and tried to make an excuse about having an accident that caused the marks, it just made it worse. Patrick yanked Jacen’s head back by his hair almost hard enough to rip it right out by the roots. He’d spit in Jacen’s face, called him trash, a pig, filth, a dirty whore. He spun Jacen around, punched him with enough force to split his lip and then fucked him brutally, dry and with no prep until Jacen was biting the inside of his cheek just to keep quiet, tears running in rivers down his face.
He’d been seeing Patrick nearly every week for the past nine months. They weren’t strangers. It wasn’t just like getting a bad call and having to put up with a shitty client until Della could collect their fee and tell them to try going somewhere else, thank you very much. It was Patrick. Familiar, protective but tender Patrick.
You can’t have sex with someone regularly for that long without putting a little faith in how they see you, and getting hurt when they turn around and literally spit in your face. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a job, just money. Something like that leaves a mark that’s even harder to heal than welts from a bad date with a Dominant.
Jacen wipes off his arms, torso and legs, then wraps the towel around himself, hovering in the middle of the bathroom. There’s something about Liam’s reaction that upsets Jacen even more, and he had been pretty upset to begin with. Wanting out of there, to do anything to avoid a ‘talk,’ Jacen grits his teeth and forces himself to walk into the bedroom.
“You have to tell Della. You have to cut these fuckers loose,” Liam seethes as soon as Jacen is standing on carpet instead of tile. He moves to the bed and sits on it, hiding his face in his hands, mainly just so that he doesn’t have to see the way that Liam keeps looking at him.
“First of all,” Jacen argues tiredly, without much will left to fight this particular battle. “She knows already. Second, they’re my highest paying clients, next to Claudia. It’d be bad for business.”
“Fuck the business.”
“Well, that’d be ironic, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t you dare joke about this,” Liam snaps. “If you’d told Spencer to fuck off months ago, you wouldn’t have had this problem with Patrick in the first place, but clearly Patrick is too unbalanced to be trusted any more. That,” Liam growls, pointing at Jacen’s lip, “is assault.”
“...Of a whore. Assault of a whore, Lee. Finish the thought. Don’t fool yourself into thinking what he did was uncalled for.”
Liam reacts dramatically to Jacen’s words, coming at him almost exactly like Patrick did, grabbing his jaw with one hand, forcing his head back to get a better look at his eyes. It makes Jacen flinch away instinctively.
But then Liam’s face softens and he’s too close, Jacen thinks. Liam is
way
too close, their lips inches apart. He holds Jacen there, not letting him pull away.
“Don’t,” Jacen pleads, ashamed, embarrassed, spent.
“Stop saying shit like that,” Liam rasps at him, his large, improbably beautiful eyes searching Jacen’s face in a way that gets Jacen’s stomach to flip-flop.
“Make me. Go on, Lee. I dare you. Be like them. Tell me what to say, what not to say. Tell me where you wanna stick it, how you wanna hurt me, what you’re gonna do to me. Go on.”
Liam’s lips press together in a tight line, his brow creases with
But Patrick had been riled that morning. He’d had a streak of bad luck with his acting career. It had soured his mood. He needed an outlet, so Jacen complied. It was too late to reposition or reformulate his plan when Patrick shoved Jacen against the edge of the table and yanked his pants down. There was no room for finesse there. When Jacen apologized and tried to make an excuse about having an accident that caused the marks, it just made it worse. Patrick yanked Jacen’s head back by his hair almost hard enough to rip it right out by the roots. He’d spit in Jacen’s face, called him trash, a pig, filth, a dirty whore. He spun Jacen around, punched him with enough force to split his lip and then fucked him brutally, dry and with no prep until Jacen was biting the inside of his cheek just to keep quiet, tears running in rivers down his face.
He’d been seeing Patrick nearly every week for the past nine months. They weren’t strangers. It wasn’t just like getting a bad call and having to put up with a shitty client until Della could collect their fee and tell them to try going somewhere else, thank you very much. It was Patrick. Familiar, protective but tender Patrick.
You can’t have sex with someone regularly for that long without putting a little faith in how they see you, and getting hurt when they turn around and literally spit in your face. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a job, just money. Something like that leaves a mark that’s even harder to heal than welts from a bad date with a Dominant.
Jacen wipes off his arms, torso and legs, then wraps the towel around himself, hovering in the middle of the bathroom. There’s something about Liam’s reaction that upsets Jacen even more, and he had been pretty upset to begin with. Wanting out of there, to do anything to avoid a ‘talk,’ Jacen grits his teeth and forces himself to walk into the bedroom.
“You have to tell Della. You have to cut these fuckers loose,” Liam seethes as soon as Jacen is standing on carpet instead of tile. He moves to the bed and sits on it, hiding his face in his hands, mainly just so that he doesn’t have to see the way that Liam keeps looking at him.
“First of all,” Jacen argues tiredly, without much will left to fight this particular battle. “She knows already. Second, they’re my highest paying clients, next to Claudia. It’d be bad for business.”
“Fuck the business.”
“Well, that’d be ironic, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t you dare joke about this,” Liam snaps. “If you’d told Spencer to fuck off months ago, you wouldn’t have had this problem with Patrick in the first place, but clearly Patrick is too unbalanced to be trusted any more. That,” Liam growls, pointing at Jacen’s lip, “is assault.”
“...Of a whore. Assault of a whore, Lee. Finish the thought. Don’t fool yourself into thinking what he did was uncalled for.”
Liam reacts dramatically to Jacen’s words, coming at him almost exactly like Patrick did, grabbing his jaw with one hand, forcing his head back to get a better look at his eyes. It makes Jacen flinch away instinctively.
But then Liam’s face softens and he’s too close, Jacen thinks. Liam is
way
too close, their lips inches apart. He holds Jacen there, not letting him pull away.
“Don’t,” Jacen pleads, ashamed, embarrassed, spent.
“Stop saying shit like that,” Liam rasps at him, his large, improbably beautiful eyes searching Jacen’s face in a way that gets Jacen’s stomach to flip-flop.
“Make me. Go on, Lee. I dare you. Be like them. Tell me what to say, what not to say. Tell me where you wanna stick it, how you wanna hurt me, what you’re gonna do to me. Go on.”
Liam’s lips press together in a tight line, his brow creases with
Similar Books
