Page 91 of Fool Me Twice

Hart didn’t want to hear any of it.

He just wanted to feel.

Cane’s wounds were tender, bruises harsh and dark, visible even against the tattoos. Cane had been more than roughed up and somewhere beyond the haze, Hart knew he was hurting him with his actions, but it didn’t stop him taking what he needed.

Cane didn’t stop him either.

He gripped his hips and helped slam him down harder, making Hart really feel it. He hit his prostate with every movement and Hart couldn’t help the moans and screams falling from his lips as he rode him harder, faster.

“Shhh.” Cane tried again to quiet him, but Hart didn’t care.

He raked his nails down Cane’s chest, his cock trapped between their bodies, getting the friction he craved.

He was so close he could taste it.

He leaned forward, gripping Cane’s tattooed pecs as he sank down one last time before coming between them. Through the haze, he heard Cane hiss at the sting of Hart’s nails on his already abused flesh. Hart wanted to let go, but he couldn’t force himself to. His brain whited out, the sound of his own hoarse voice drowning out anything else.

Vaguely, he noticed Cane coming inside him, his entire body locking up under Hart’s. White nothingness had painted the backs of his eyelids and detached him from reality almost completely.

Distantly, he could feel someone pushing at him. Arranging his limbs until he was standing on wobbly legs, empty and shaking. He could feel himself being turned and directed somewhere, body lax as he followed along.

He was led into a different room, and it wasn’t until water splashed his overheated skin that he finally tuned back in.

As his mind cleared, he realized Cane was washing him as best as his body would allow, running rough hands over Hart’s body, enveloping them both in the familiar scent of Hart’s bodywash.

Hart sagged against the side of the shower stall, eyes half-lidded as they ran over Cane. The bullet wound on his cheek was bleeding, aggravated again by the water, turning it pink. He looked shaky on his feet and more vulnerable than Hart had ever seen him.

Something inside him loved it, and he felt distantly horrified, almost sick to his stomach…before the feeling passed like it had never been there at all. He allowed himself to be steered out of the shower, onto the fluffy towel thrown on the floor of his bathroom.

“You should have killed them,” he said before he registered the words coming out of his mouth. They had no inflection. It was as casual a statement as a comment on the weather.

Cane scanned his face for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do!” Hart said, grasping his wet arm and digging his nails in. “They’ll try again and you know it.”

“Well, it worked shit for them this time,” Cane said, roughly drying them. “I’ll make sure it goes the same next time.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time,” Hart hissed, batting the towel away.

“I’m fine,” Cane said, but even as he spoke, the wound on his face let out another slow trickle of blood.

Hart stared at it for a few long seconds, watching its progress down his face. His lifeblood slowly seeping out. Draining. Would it leave him a husk eventually if it kept going? Taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left…

That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“Hart?”

Hart blinked back to himself, the strange thoughts sinking back into quicksand. He could barely even recall what they’d been. He refocused his gaze on Cane’s face and raised a hand to hover over the wound. “We’ll ask Black to stitch this for you. He’s good at it.”

“I don’t need stitches.” Cane glanced at himself in the steamed-up mirror. “It isn’t that deep. Just give me a painkiller. Or a beer. Works about the same.”

“I just said you do,” Hart snapped. He captured Cane in a stare-down until the other man relented.

“Fine.” Cane rolled his eyes. “Psycho cherub can stitch me up.”

Hart got himself dressed in some un-ironed suit pants and a polo shirt and texted Black while Cane slowly shuffled into his own clothes and sat on Hart’s pristine coverlet. He lay back in a stretched-out gray Henley and his usual baggy jeans, propped against the pillows.

He groaned, holding his ribs. “Definitely need that beer.”