My lungs lurch involuntarily.I tug at the ties around my wrists and ankles, knowing they’re strong enough that it would be hard to get out without help.I’m the one who purchased them, after all.I’m the one who attached them to my sturdy steel bed frame.
“I remember.”
“But I didn’t though, Liam.”The bed dips as he climbs onto it, creeping on all fours between my legs.“I didn’t get what I wanted at all.You know what I wanted?”
I’m going to regret this.I already do.“Tell me.”
“You.You were always what I wanted.Well.”His laugh is dry and harsh and so unlike Ravi’s it stings my skin.“Mostly at first I wanted my parents back.”
His grief makes me wonder if I might drown.“I know.I’m sorry.”
He scoffs at me.Fucking scoffs.“Later, though, when I finally made peace with them being gone?It was you.You were my first crush.My first obsession.My first love.I wanted you to want me back so badly.You know, I saved myself for you, thinking you’d make it so good for me.Then I realized you were never going to love me back the way I wanted, so I just wanted it gone.My virginity, my loving you.”
Fuck.Fuck.I can’t see blood, can’t smell it, but I know it’s there, leaking out of me from every goddamn pore.
“Ravi, I’m sor?—”
“Save it.”
Those two words slice right through me.My mouth closes up before I’ve even processed the command.
Or maybe I can’t process it because I’ve realized Ravi is moving again, slinking forward like a panther in the dark.He’s climbing on top of me.Straddling my hips.
He’s completely, utterly, one hundred percent naked.
“Ravi, what the hell is happening right now?”
It’s a useless question.The fingers tugging at my loose sweats, hooking under the edge of my boxer briefs, are pretty damn self-explanatory.
“I haven’t gotten anything I’ve wanted, Liam,” he says matter-of-factly as he drags my pants and boxers off my body.He’s careful over the wound above my knee, and then he must realize his logic error because he stops.
The sweats are loose, and the fabric of my boxers is stretchy, but there’s no way to remove them completely without untying me.
“I guess those will have to stay right there,” he murmurs.Not sure he’s even talking to me.
“What’s happening?What are you doing?”I want to hear him say the words.
“It’s like I said.If you couldn’t love me, then I wanted to lose my virginity, and I wanted to leave you behind.So.It was a virgin auction, Liam.Technically speaking, I’m kind of still a virgin.”He sounds exasperated, as if I’m an unruly child he’s having to patiently explain the rules to.
“Virginity is a construct.”
“Fine,” he snaps.“I wanted to get fucked, okay?I wanted totrythings, Liam.So I intend to get what I really wanted before I leave.”
Of all the words he’s said so far, the last three are the hardest to hear.
“You intend to, do you?”I manage.
My answer is the snick of a bottle, and then there’s the telltale slipperiness of lube drizzling over my dick.
“It’s the kind that gets warm when you rub it in,” he explains.“Simon gave me lube and condoms before the auction.He wanted to make sure I was prepared.”
Prepared.For some other man to fuck him.Bile rises in my throat.
Then he demonstrates the warming lube to me, sliding his grip up and down my shaft.A better man wouldn’t buck into his hips.Wouldn’t revel in the slide of his fingers.
I’m not a good man.
“Oh.I almost forgot.Your safe word is red,” Ravi adds.