Take My Body (Curse Bound 2)

“And don’t you walk out on me again. I told you to wait in the car,” Caspian said. When he inhaled and the breath tickled Gunner’s scalp, it felt like being smelled by a predator who still considered whether he wanted to eat his prey now or leave it for later.

He whimpered and tried to fight the firm hold of steel-hard arms, but his struggling achieved nothing. A jolt of arousal ricocheted in his balls the moment he remembered Caspian tying his wrists back with the belt.

But Caspian didn’t try to undress him and took his warm hand off Gunner’s lips before spinning him around so they faced one another in the dark. He loomed over Gunner like the hottest manifestation of danger.

Gunner didn’t want to show how much Caspian’s presence affected him, but he didn’t manage to keep his lips from trembling. He could have screamed, and Caspian’s parents would have come running, but he wasn’t in danger and had no right to chase Caspian out of his own room. “I didn’t wanna wait, and I still don’t want to see your traitor face.”

Caspian snorted. “I thought you wanted me to have a good relationship with those fuckers you call friends.”

Gunner’s mouth went dry, but Caspian held him by the shoulders when he tried to step back, away from that inquisitive gaze. “Yeah, but… not like that. Like, I’m really small now, okay? Everything hurts.”

Caspian went still, his face stern like that of some old sculpture. “You’re right.”

Gunner frowned. “I am?”

Caspian sighed and spread his arms. “Yes. I wanted you to learn a lesson on how it is to be in my shoes, but it was also cruel and unnecessary.”

Gunner took a few steps back and hugged himself, unsure what to do with this declaration. He wasn’t used to talking about feelings honestly. “And you regret it?”

Caspian rubbed the top of his head, chewing on his lip before he spoke. “Yeah. It was a shitty thing to do, but I got so angry that I just went with what my gut was telling me. And I acted like a terrible person. I’m sorry,” he said, stuffing both hands into his pockets.

“You don’t… You don’t think I deserved it?” Gunner mumbled and turned on the bedside lamp, just to do something with his hands, but as his adrenaline levels dropped, every movement reminded him of what had happened, creating a cycle of discomfort.

Caspian’s lips twisted, but he stood in the middle of the room, rigid like a statue. “I did. But you were defenseless. It wasn’t fair. I thought I was the better man, but maybe I’m not,” he said, exhaling as he met Gunner’s gaze.

“I told Noah. About the thing.”

“That you’re gay?”

“No!” Gunner whined and pulled off the hoodie to hide his face in its folds, even if just for a moment. “About the body swap. I’m pretty sure I convinced him, and we kinda talked about some things I did in the past. And how maybe this situation is my fault. That maybe the universe is trying to tell me I need to change my ways or whatever.” He took a deep breath and looked Caspian’s way with a heavy sensation in the chest, “I’m also sorry. For yesterday. I shouldn’t have let them do what they did. I see that now.”

Caspian might’ve honestly regretted the way he’d handled the situation at the trailer park, but the truth was that it allowed Gunner to understand the terror he’d put Caspian through the previous evening. They’d surrounded him, and he’d been unable to fight back. Gunner could only imagine how Caspian had felt when the guys pulled his pants down just to mock him.

With eyes stubbornly welling up in a way they never did in his own body, Gunner shoved the hoodie at Caspian for distraction. But before he could have gotten away, Caspian grabbed his wrist and stared at a bruise forming above his elbow.

“Shit. How hurt are you?” he asked in a voice that was oddly soft for a man his size.

“I don’t know. What I’m saying is that I probably deserved it anyway.”

But Caspian wouldn’t give it a rest and urged Gunner to take off his top. There had been quite a lot of pain since the altercation with Bud and the Brown brothers, but the sight of ugly bruises forming on his side and stomach still came as a surprise. His arm didn’t look much better.

Caspian’s face became grimmer with every new mark discovered on Gunner’s body, and he kneeled by the bed, gently touching the bruises with his fingertips in a tender way that didn’t seem even remotely sexual. Yet the gentleness of his hands still made Gunner close his eyes. Sandy had never done that when he’d come back from a boxing match with the taste of blood on his tongue and a swollen face. As if the discomfort he’d suffered was just a fact of life and didn’t need any special attention. But Caspian was there for him, worried as if Gunner had at least suffered a broken bone.