Page 24 of Broken Highway (Cult Boys #1)

SEVEN

If I still believed in god, I would have no choice but to rationalize the fury of the sudden storm as his way of washing the sin from our bodies.

To put out the flames of the fires we stoked.

No sin is unworthy of forgiveness when repented for.

So when we stumble across a church in the middle of nowhere, I can’t help but to feel as if my non-existent faith is being tested.

Magnus once said a church was nothing more than four walls and a roof.

I took it to mean there was nothing special about a church, that the only thing that separated a house from a church was the people inside it.

It turns out that’s exactly what Magnus meant.

Three walls, four walls, or a hundred walls.

A wide-open field, a cinema, a prison. Church is an idea, not something to be physically defined.

A church, as the rest of the world calls it, is nothing more than a material thing.

When the day of Ascension comes, earthly possessions will be left behind.

It seems that day has finally arrived. I always believed it to be decades away, but I can’t help but to think killing Magnus has expedited the timeline.

Noah pushes open the double wooden doors of the old church. A real church, parked somewhere between the wreckage and civilization. It’s an older structure, the paint chipped by the passing of time.

A single lit chandelier suspends from the arched ceiling. Half of the bulbs are burnt out and the other half are dim, casting a dull light over the sea of wooden pews.

We leave a trail of muddy shoe prints down the narrow aisle as rainwater drips from our clothing.

As we pass each row of pews, I think about all the ghosts of people past sitting on the wooden benches.

Eyes full of judgement and deranged glee as they watch two sinners about to combust in a fire lit by their own vices.

Sunlight breaks through the storm outside, passing through the stained glass windows and painting the floor of the chancel with visions of Mary and the Three Wise Men. My legs give out and I drop to the ground, wincing in pain as one leg collides with the wooden floor.

“Let me see your leg,” Noah grabs the bottle of bourbon from the bag and tosses the duffel onto the floor. He takes a seat on the edge of the platform, twists the cap off the bottle, and washes the blood and dirt from his hands with the alcohol.

When he leans over me, I swear I can still smell the smoke from the cigarette. The cramping pain in my leg makes me not care so much. It makes me want to take a long drag and pray the nicotine will soothe me.

He scoots forward and lifts my shirt by the hem.

I raise my arms as he pulls the fabric gently over my head, disposing of the wet shirt behind him.

He runs a hand over the length of my chest, examining my naked torso.

There are scrapes and bruises but nothing too severe.

His touch soothes the dull ache in my chest, and when he reaches the button of my jeans, I let out a gasp.

His eyes meet mine as he pulls my jeans down my legs, just as gentle as when he removed my shirt. I’ve never seen him like this. Never seen him so soft. Each touch feels like silk, like I’m fragile. Like if he uses any force at all, I might shatter.

He examines my leg, tracing his fingers around the outline of a purpled contusion on my right calf. I grit my teeth and he stops. Looks to me with heavy eyes. “There might be internal bleeding, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

“You’re full of interesting trivia. I didn’t know you studied medicine.”

“I didn’t.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t allowed to go to college. Kevin liked his property to be dumb. He liked his property to need to rely on him. ”

“You weren’t his property.”

“Please go back in time and tell that to my ass that was always sore from the day I turned seventeen. Legal enough to fuck. Not legal enough to marry. But from that day onward, I was his property.”

So maybe he was. Doesn’t really matter anymore, though. The piece of shit is dead, but I’m not about to say those words to Noah. Not right now.

I arch my head backwards and catch the sight of a stone pedestal hiding in the shadows. Atop it, a true-to-scale wooden crucifix with nails hammered into each side, but the body of Christ is missing.

“When you heal, when you get better, I’m going to beat your fucking ass for dragging me into this mess.” He rises to his feet and pulls his tee over his head.

The muscles in his body look the same way a bodybuilder looks after a good pump.

It’s like the adrenaline in his body is firing on all cylinders.

His chest is slicked with sweat and rainwater, making the trimmed hair on his body look darker than it is.

He kicks off his shoes, one at a time. Unbuckles his belt and pops the button of his jeans.

Hooks his thumbs into the waistband and pushes them down the length of his legs.

The sight of his naked body used to make my cock jump.

What little common sense I had always went straight out the window.

Now, the blood rushes elsewhere. Not down, but up.

A surging sea of butterflies fluttering through my insides, through twisted arteries that feel more like wayward vines that clamp tighter over my heart with every careful step he takes towards me.

Like I can’t fucking breathe.

Like I don’t need to breathe.

Because with him, I’m safe.

Because if I stop breathing, he’ll breathe life right back into me.

The light through the window paints the visage of a cross over the lower half of his naked body. Try as I might, I can’t recall ever seeing his cock soft before. It’s still big and hangs lower than his balls.

He closes the distance between us and crawls to the floor to meet me at my side.

“And then I’ll stay and nurse you until you’re better again,” he whispers, a thumb passing underneath my eye.

Soft.

Gentle.

I’m lost for words and so I say nothing. Whatever vomit that’d come out of my mouth would ruin whatever the fuck this is.

He nuzzles his lips to my ear. “Are you in pain, punk?”

I swallow nervously. “A little, yeah.”

He drops his hand flat against my chest and runs a path from my nipple to underneath my black briefs. His fingers brush through barely-there hair.

I choke on a gasp when he cups my balls and gives them a gentle squeeze. And then he’s massaging both my cock and balls in a circular motion, grinding them against each other. Rock hard. Running out of room in my briefs fast.

Addicts don’t know when to call it quits.

We’re both sleep-deprived, running on empty. Instead of resting as we should, we’ll fuck, because that’s what we do. Fuck when we’re awake. Fuck when we’re tired. Fuck when we’re happy. Fuck when we’re sad. Fuck when we’re scared. Fuck when there are no words. Fuck when the words are too hard.

Just fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fuck until there’s nothing left.

He paws at my underwear as I arch my ass just enough to give him the leverage to pull them free from my body. My hard cock slaps against my stomach, leaking a pool of precum onto my abs. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he spits into his hand, reaches for my cock, and begins to stroke.

I shudder, my hips thrusting up into his grip, and then he stills in place. Makes me do the work as I fistfuck my way through his tight grip. The friction mixes the spit and pre-ejaculate into creamy lube.

He rolls over my body, landing with a knee on each side of my hips.

“Whaaa—” I choke, gravel in my throat. “What are you doing?”

His chest heaves as he apparently asks the same question of himself. He arches his ass forward, grabs my throbbing cock, and lines it up to his hole .

His eyes are filled with apprehension, even as he lowers himself onto my cock, the heat of his entrance enveloping me. Even when he’s like this, he’s in control.

“I—” I sprawl my arms outward, reaching for anything to ground myself. For anything to hold on to that’s not his body, because I know I’ll tear through his skin. My fingers dig over the hardwood, dirty fingernails scratching into the surface. “Noah, please…”

His eyes strain at the corners, upper lip trembles as he flashes his teeth. His groans are earned as his hole stretches around my cock while tugging at his own. Furiously jerking the full length.

There’s something uncanny about the way he bucks over me.

The sight of a man built like a god bottoming for a man two-thirds his size.

Something awry about the role reversal. Something sinful about enjoying the way the head of my cock hammers into the deepest parts of him.

If this is what it feels like to wreck someone, then I fully understand why he can’t ever keep his cock out of me.

The rest of the world just falls away, and the only thing on my mind is filling every inch of him.

To feed the way I’m always fed. To lose myself completely, to inject a part of me into him.

I can feel it coming.

Can feel the explosion building.

A warmth in the chest, a throbbing in my cock, a tremble of my lips .

And I break, coming not from my cock but my mouth, “I love you.”

His gaze crashes to me, his teeth chattering, his chest heaving.

Just looks at me like I’ve broken something within him.

His grip tightens over the purpled head of his swollen cock, but he can’t fight release.

He hunches forward, his entire body quaking, and shoots rope after rope, painting my face in endless shots of jizz.

He pumps through his release, the last of his load landing with a whisper on my belly.

And when he’s done, he’s a sweat-drenched mess.

A winded look of peace washing over him in dazed strokes of batting eyes.

He looks nowhere, everywhere. Rests in place with my needy cock buried within him.

He arches forward, his ass gripping the length of my cock one last time before it’s met with a plop of air.