Scum (Wrong Side of the Tracks 1)

Ros knew what effect he’d always had on Shane and didn’t hesitate to use it. A part of Shane admired his cool in the face of danger, but he wasn’t born yesterday. Before the slender hand could have dived into his pocket, he grabbed the boy and tossed him at the mattress so hard Ros wasn’t able to save himself and fell on it face-first.

“It’s either this or I make sure everyone connects you to Pete’s disappearance,” he said.

Hurting another person had never been so goddamn hard.

Then again, he’d only ever beaten people up, not fucked them for blackmail.

Ros turned as fast as he could and sat up, stilling at Shane’s words. “You wouldn’t. Your DNA’s all over that, and you’d incriminate your buddies too!” He was like a pretty butterfly, pinned to the wall, yet still desperately fluttering its wings. Too bad those were getting ripped off soon. Shane had enjoyed stroking them when they were intact.

“So what? I spent a third of my life in the can. It feels like home. But how would you fare in there with that pretty face?” he asked, making sure to pin the boy with his gaze so his meaning would be understood without any doubts.

As those words left his mouth, scenes from prison passed through his mind, and when he imagined Ros accosted in the showers, it became clear as day that he would have never implicated him in anything that would put him behind bars. But the bluff would remain effective for as long as he appeared cruel and unfeeling.

Ros’s lip curled when they dueled, with eyes as their weapons. “I hate you,” he whispered, but must have understood he was cornered, because the graceful fingers Shane had so often kissed moved to the buttons of his shirt. He unveiled the pale skin hiding under the elegant fabric, but his fingers trembled, and every second felt like an hour.

Shane flinched but then remembered the way Ed Beck had stared at him yesterday, and how Rosen wouldn’t even admit to them being friends. The sudden flash of anger set off a charge deep in his chest.

“Hate me? You don’t fucking know what that word means! Your father called me to deal with his mess and paid me by blaming me for something he did. Ten years lost! That’s a third of my life! I wish to fucking squash his neck with a vise, cut off his fingers, then feed him his own dick, but that would have landed me on death row. This is the next best thing, and I need to destroy him, even if I have to walk all over you to do it!”

Ros threw his shirt to the floor and looked away when tears rolled down his cheeks. “Let’s get this over with then,” he said, but the moment Shane kneeled on the mattress, set on executing his plan, Ros’s elbow came at his eye out of nowhere.

It wasn’t the strongest of punches, but the elbow was a damn hard place, and the eye—one of the most vulnerable. The hit toppled Shane as a dull pain spread over the surface of his skull before reaching deep into his head, as if he’d been stabbed.

“Fuck,” he roared, but when the soft surface shifted, he had enough willpower do grab Rosen’s ankle and cut his legs from under him.

The boy yelped when falling, and Shane pulled him right back to the mattress, but instead of freezing like before, Ros kept lashing out. Shane’s fighting experience kicked in and he blocked as many knees and elbows thrown his way as he could, but even as he managed to press Ros down, the boy smacked him in the face, dragging his nails over it with a primal screech of fury.

Shane stiffened, gritting his teeth when each muscle in his body itched to respond in kind, but when he opened his eyes and looked into the twisted features partially obscured by his own shadow, the natural urge to beat the shit out of the guy who dared to lay a finger on him dispersed like spit in a river.

“Calm down!” he roared as he managed to grab Ros’s wrists and pin them to the mattress, while blocking Ros’s legs with his own.

Ros’s heart rattled against Shane’s chest, and his sweet breath came out in frantic hisses. “I. Will. Not.” He met Shane’s gaze and only quick thinking saved Shane from getting headbutted. “We both know you’re stronger and that I’ll lose. But I’ll give you all I’ve got. So go on. Try to film this rape. I will kick and scream all the way through. Gag me and tie me up if you wanna stop me. Won’t be much of a sex tape though, will it?” he growled, tossing his head so violently his beautiful hair escaped the tidy bun he’d arrived with.