Just a Bit Heartless (Straight Guys 13)

“No. I just don’t like it.”

Rolling his eyes, Jordan said, “You let people touch you when you have sex.” Though, come to think of it, Jordan now remembered how little Damiano had touched the redhead when she had sucked his cock. It had almost seemed as though he’d been just putting up with it.

“That’s different,” Damiano said.

“How is that different? Sex makes you feel good. Cuddling makes you feel good, too. Both activities are recreational and involve physical touch.”

“I don’t have sex to feel good.” Damiano’s voice was full of derision. “Sex is tension relief. It’s a physiological need.”

“And hugs and cuddles aren’t?” Jordan said, stroking the side of Damiano’s torso. “It’s been scientifically proven that babies need physical touch and affection for normal development.”

“I’m a grown man.”

Yes, but you were a child once.

Jordan paused as a strange, horrible thought occurred to him. Had this man been hugged at all? Surely he couldn’t be the first person to touch him like this?

He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know the answer either way.

“Does this really feel unpleasant for you?” he asked instead. “Like, skin crawling, nausea, anxiety, stuff like that? Because we sure as hell can stop if it’s—”

“No.”

“Seriously, if it’s really bothering you, I’m not that cold—”

“I already said no,” Damiano said irritably. “Of course it’s not physically unpleasant. I’m perfectly aware of how brain chemistry works, and the effect of oxytocin on the body.”

Jordan blinked, once again reminded of the fact that this man was more than just brute strength and violence; he was also very intelligent and well educated.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Then I’m not moving.”

Jordan had no idea how long they lay like that before the hatch above opened again and a male voice barked something in Italian and threw down the ladder.

Jordan’s arm tightened around Damiano.

He felt Damiano sigh. “Let me up. No point in annoying them or they won’t give us food again.”

Hating how desperate and kind of clingy he felt, Jordan let go. He watched grimly as Damiano climbed the ladder. He did seem a little better after a night’s rest, but Jordan had a bad feeling that it wouldn’t last.

He counted to five thousand and forty-seven before the hatch was opened again and Damiano was carried inside by two men.

His heart in his throat, Jordan staggered to his feet. “What’s wrong with him? What did you do to him?”

The assholes said something to each other before dumping wet wipes and a bucket of water on the floor. “Don’t let him die,” one of them said before they left.

“Damiano?”

The other man didn’t reply.

His heart pounding, Jordan carefully touched Damiano, trying to see where he was wounded. He must have been seriously wounded to lose consciousness like this.

His chest looked fine. Jordan couldn’t see any new bruises on top of the others he’d already had. But when he turned Damiano onto his stomach, he sucked a breath in. Damiano’s back was a mess of blood and flesh, his torn shirt completely soaked with blood. They’d whipped him.

Bile rising to his throat, Jordan carefully tore off the pieces of the shirt still clinging to Damiano’s back and reached for the wet wipes and the bucket.

His fingers shaking, he cleaned Damiano’s back as best as he could. He applied pressure to the deepest wounds until they stopped bleeding, little by little.

But there was nothing more he could do. He didn’t have an antiseptic or anything to bandage the wounds. He could only hope they didn’t get infected, but he didn’t have high hopes for that, considering that their environment was far from sterile.

Unfortunately, he turned out to be right.

Within an hour, Damiano was running a fever. He was delirious, muttering something under his breath in Italian.

Jordan didn’t know what to do, and he utterly loathed the feeling. He was a competent man used to things always going his way. He was used to bossing people around at work, being in charge of any situation. But he felt completely out of his depth right now, like another person entirely, not the cool-headed, composed man he normally was.

“Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die,” he found himself whispering, running his fingers through Damiano’s sweaty hair in his lap. He whispered it like a mantra, trying to get his breathing under control again, all the while fighting the panic clawing at his chest.

At some point—maybe hours later—the assholes returned.

Jordan glared at them. “He’s in no state to be tortured,” he bit out, cradling Damiano’s head protectively. “He’s unconscious, he has a fever! Bring me something to treat him—he needs antibiotics, bandages, painkillers!”

The men exchanged a look.

Desperation clogged Jordan’s throat. “You don’t want him to die, do you? You need him alive! He’s burning up. He probably has an infection.”

He must have convinced them, because one of them returned with some penicillin, antiseptic, and another bucket of water, as well as food.