He didn’t need to look at her to see her, sense her, feel her. She was inside him, part of him, embedded in his being. Curled around her delicate frame, he kissed her cheek, buried his face in her neck, and waited.
Several minutes passed before he heard Van spitting. Then a wet finger forced its way into his rectum.
Unbidden, he tensed up and stopped breathing.
“Was I the last person here?” Van asked quietly.
Six years ago. More than enough time to physically heal.
“Yes,” he grated through clamped teeth.
“Don’t clench.” Van removed his finger and replaced it with something much wider. “You remember what to do.”
Breathe. Relax. Push back.
The instant Van pushed in, Tate couldn’t help it. He fought. The instinct to buck, kick, spit, and punch was uncontrollable. But he had no stamina, no energy, and Van easily subdued him.
“Hold still.” With a grip on his hair, Van pushed his head toward Lucia, pressing his face into her neck.
Then the hand was gone, and all that remained was the invasion.
Slow and cautious, Van buried himself to the hilt. The burning fullness was much like Tate remembered, but also different. Maybe because his back, his ribs, his arms, everything was on fire. Or maybe it was the comfort of Lucia’s hand on his leg and the rasp of her breaths at his ear.
Van held his body away as he drove in and out, no part of him touching Tate’s back. Fingers clutched his hip for leverage, but this wasn’t a dominant fucking. It wasn’t taunting or cruel with the purpose of degradation.
It was efficient, merciful, and far gentler than anything he’d ever experienced with Van Quiso.
But it still hurt. A shameful, defenseless, lasting hurt that annihilated a man’s dignity in one desecrating thrust.
He clung to Lucia, rubbing his lips against the tears that found their way to her neck. Her tears. And his.
Then it was over.
Van quickly pulled out and rolled to his back. Silent. So quiet it didn’t sound like he was breathing.
“Show me.” Badell leaned forward on the stool, craning his neck.
He wanted to see evidence of Van’s release.
With a shaky hand, Tate reached behind him and spread his cheeks to expose the wetness Van left behind.
“Very good,” Badell said. “Now switch.”
Switch places.
He lay like the dead, half on top of Lucia’s body, no doubt crushing her damaged organs. He didn’t have it in him to move, let alone do what Badell demanded.
His physical self teemed with brutal spasms and fever. But his mind was numb. Detached. Unresponsive.
Unending pain, exhaustion, and humiliation had taken its toll. He’d finally reached the limit of his ability. He couldn’t even will himself to look into her eyes.
“I failed you,” he whispered.
Her head twitched side to side, knocking more tears free. The hand on his leg squeezed, and her other one fumbled between them.
When she bumped into his punctured arm, he swallowed an agonized roar. She whimpered and sucked in a breath, reaching her hand lower, sliding along his thigh until she found what she sought.
Trembling fingers encircled his flaccid cock. Then she began to stroke.
He couldn’t. Even if he were able to send blood to that part of himself, how would he thrust? How would he stay hard inside of Van’s body?
But she was determined. Why was that? She wouldn’t push him into this depravity just to save her own life.
Suspicion aroused his senses.
Shifting his hand from her shoulder to her jaw, he turned her head and leaned up. Vertigo threatened to knock him sideways, and the cords in his neck quivered to hold up his skull. But he pushed through the pain and met her gaze.
Something flashed in her eyes, a fierce spark of perseverance.
If he were somehow able to satisfy Badell’s demand, she would leave this place. She would have to leave him behind. But that wasn’t what her expression conveyed.
He let his head drop, returning his mouth to her ear. “Don’t you dare put your life on the line for me. Understand?”
A feeble nod.
“I can do this.” He reached between them, nudged her arm away, and took his cock in hand.
The task was grueling. Each stroke aggravated the mangled muscles in his back. Every exerted breath squeezed the cracks in his ribs. There was no pleasure in it. And no blood. His dick refused to harden.
Then her hand was there again, wrapping around his, sliding in tandem, and lending him strength. He focused on her touch, on her slender weight beneath him, and on the sigh that parted her lips. He narrowed all his concentration on the pleasure and filled his mind with one image: Her pussy.
Her soft pink folds swelled so beautifully when she was aroused. She was too small for him, and he had to work himself in, but she was a greedy little thing, and she would spread her creamy thighs and welcome him, gasping and trembling as he seated himself to the root.
Christ, she turned him on. Her exotic beauty, resilience, and submissive nature was a trifecta of perfection. She was his ideal mate in every way.
She was his.
He slid his fingers over the top of hers and rocked into her fist. His breathing sped up. His pulse accelerated, and fuck him, but he stirred to life. It was medically impossible and beyond disturbing, but he had an erection and intended to keep it.
Grinding harder against her grip, he angled his neck until his lips found hers. The kiss was clumsy and languorous, but holy hell, her taste. The salty sweetness of her mouth aroused him further, heating his blood and driving his hips.
“I want you,” he breathed against her lips.
“Van,” she gasped weakly and looked at the man leaning over his back.
Van. That was who he needed to want right now. How? How the ever-loving fuck would he do this?
She tightened her hand around his shriveling erection and hardened her eyes. Goddamn, he loved her spirit, but it was going to take a lot more than a glare to push him past the physical and mental blocks.
“I have to rearrange us.” Van moved to kneel on the other side of Lucia, with his jeans partially zipped up. “Lucia, he’ll need his good arm to brace himself. Keep him hard and…positioned.”
Her chin trembled as she attempted a nod.
Van looked at Tate with an expression that didn’t belong on his face. Even in his worst moments, he was power and passion and dominance. But now… Now, he wore a mask that didn’t fit. A facade that buttoned up his emotions and sucked the life from his eyes.
“When we start, don’t look at me,” Van said coldly. “Keep your eyes closed. Focus on her hand. I’ll do the rest.”
Shame coiled inside him, and it quickly spiraled into rage, whipping his heart against broken ribs and chopping his breaths. He gnashed his teeth, hating this for Van and hating himself for being so goddamn weak.
“Listen to me, dickhead.” Van’s voice was sharp and menacing—a tone Tate hadn’t heard since the attic. “You’re going to stop being a pussy and power through this. Close your fucking eyes and don’t open them until you come.”
He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. Her hand, her hand, her hand… He felt the stroke of her fingers, appreciated it, and wrapped all his thoughts around it as the sounds of shuffling moved around him.
The comforting press of her body slid away. Then her touch was gone, too. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to imagine how this would work. Van used to arrange his captives in all sorts of vulgar positions. It was difficult not to think of that as limbs and bodies bumped against him.
He balanced on his side with his head on the floor, his throbbing arm pressed against his stomach, and his limp cock in his hand. Someone shifted close against his front, and he knew it wasn’t Lucia. The breathing was too controlled, the physique too wide and hard.
As he tried to stimulate his dick, his knuckles brushed against skin and rigid muscle. Given the position and shape, he didn’t have to open his eyes to see Van’s bare ass. He suspected Van was face down beside him, with Lucia on the other side of Van.
Her hand wrapped around his sh
aft, her arm stretching over Van’s backside. He didn’t look as she rubbed and fondled him. Didn’t open his eyes as she coaxed the blood back into his cock. He kept his thoughts on her and her alone, fantasizing about every dip and curve on her body, the taste of her lips, and the noises she made when he got himself off inside her tight cunt.
It took a lifetime to bring him to hardness, and by the time he was stiff enough, he’d fucked her in his mind in every position, in dozens of places and scenarios.
She held onto his erection as he shifted his weight and crawled over Van’s prone body. The muscle tone, the masculine scent, even the feel of the t-shirt was wrong. Add to that the blazing pain across his back and down his arm, and he started to soften.
But he’d made it this far. He just needed to…lift…adjust… His good arm shook like a bitch as he braced it between Van and Lucia and supported the weight of his torso.
A sheen of sweat formed on his face, and his lungs huffed and wheezed with agonizing effort. He held his useless arm against his chest and dragged his knees into the V of Van’s spread legs beneath him.
Then the real torture began.
Lucia, who was right beside him now, put all her strength and energy into rousing him. When he hardened, she lined him up. When he softened, she went at it again, stroking, squeezing, and encouraging with determined fingers.
Van must’ve already lubed himself with spit because his opening was wet. But Tate couldn’t get it done. Every time he pressed in, his semi deflated.
Minutes passed. Too many to track. The countless starts and stops and position adjustments put enormous stress on his already weak body. He’d lost so much damn blood. Eventually, his muscles tired. His arm gave out, and he collapsed on top of Van’s back.
Then he opened his eyes.
Van lay face down on the floor beneath Tate, braced on elbows with his head bent and his face pressed in the cup of his hands. Discomfort and strain flexed across his back beneath the shirt. His entire body was a concrete slab of tension.
This man wasn’t a bottom. Not even close. He’d been sexually abused as a child and probably hadn’t taken a man this way since he escaped that trauma.