Beast took a deep breath. Of course it was fine to change one’s mind. Of course it was, but he couldn’t help feeling that there was something deeply artificial about the whole situation. It didn’t seem like Laurent hated what they’ve just been doing, or that something got him scared. He seemed calm and completely fine, like someone who decided to switch movies after the first fifteen minutes, because the current one wasn’t as much fun as they’d expected.
“So you’re not in the mood anymore?” Beast asked, looking at Laurent’s stiff cock. Maybe there was still a way to salvage the moment. Maybe they could just settle into their usual fare, and the uncomfortable mood would go away.
Laurent licked his lips and shook his head, pulling the comforter over his lower body, as if to signal he was off limits.
The fuck was this bullshit?
Beast exhaled, trying to reason with himself. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Are you okay with not doing anything after all?”
“What do you want me to say?” hissed Beast and rolled off the bed, pacing through the dark room, hands tightly interwoven at the back of his neck. He could hardly breathe, and right now all he wanted was to leave and go for a ride, but with Laurent behaving so strangely, he didn’t want to leave him alone either.
There was something odd about the way Laurent’s eyes followed him in the darkness, the side of his face illuminated blue by a lamp outside. “I want you to say it’s okay,” he whispered. “I need to know you will stop if I ask.”
Beast stood still and did a double-take of Laurent, suddenly so choked up he thought he would just storm out, to be as far away from Laurent as possible. “What are you saying? That this was some kind of fucked-up test?” he asked in the end.
The way Laurent curled his shoulders instead of instantly denying the accusation, made Beast’s stomach clench and his erection deflate as if someone had kicked him in the nuts. “How am I to otherwise be sure? Sometimes you think you know a man well, only to find out he is not the gentleman you expected him to be.”
Beast pushed his palms to the back of his head, breathing hard through the pain in his chest from the sheer sense of betrayal. “What’s wrong with you? We’ve been together for weeks now, and I’ve never done anything you didn’t want. This isn’t a game. You can’t play me and test me for no reason!”
Words pushed their way out of him one after another, until he didn’t have any air left in his lungs anymore and leaned against the windowsill to recuperate. “Fuck. I’m so stupid.”
“No, Beast…”
He heard Laurent getting off the bed behind his back, and he couldn’t believe he’d thought of Laurent in terms of ‘innocence’ just minutes ago when the boy had been manipulating him all along. The soft footsteps on the wooden floor beckoned him to accept the touch, pretend this never happened and again stop asking questions, but the shock of this revelation had him despise the idea of being touched at all.
Beast gestured at Laurent, wordlessly telling him to back away. “This is so fucked up. I thought we had a good thing going. I didn’t even pry into your past, like you wanted,” he said bitterly, squeezing his other hand on the windowsill.
Laurent looked to his feet, and the worst thing was that the deceptive beauty of his body and face were still there to taunt Beast. “I’m sorry. I just… I’ve met a man before who made me trust him.” Laurent was gasping as if it was him who’d been wronged here. “And he used to be caring, and even bought me gifts, and then he—”
“He what?” hissed Beast, uncertain whether he even wanted to believe anything Laurent said. It hurt to know how little trust Laurent had in him, but maybe at least he would get a scrap that would somehow justify the stupidity of Laurent’s actions.
Laurent curled his shoulders, and his hair fell down on them, obscuring his face. “H-he wanted to force himself on me. And he hit me. And I killed him,” he said the last bit in a higher, breathless pitch, making Beast stall as he tried to process what he was hearing, only to have Laurent go on. “I grabbed a pair of scissors, and I stabbed them into his throat, and there was blood all over both of us.” His whole body shook like a leaf in the wind.
Beast was by him before he could even think. He pushed Laurent on the bed and kneeled in front of him, squeezing both his hands as the moonlight revealed the dampness hiding in the big brown eyes.
“Was that his blood? When I found you?” Beast asked, horrified by what he’d just heard. He was still agitated by the way Laurent got about dealing with his trauma, but now at least he understood. He wanted to understand. “Where did you leave the body? Is it somewhere in the clubhouse?” asked Beast, feeling his stomach sink. Was it possible that there was a rotting corpse hidden somewhere in the vast building or nearby, and no one has found it yet? They needed to get rid of it, because he wouldn’t have Laurent taken away from him.