Page 96 of Bully for Sale

“With…with you. I was only thinking about you.”

“Selfish. But even that wasn’t enough, was it? Because he came here looking for me when he knew you weren’t around, when he knew Earl was gone. What’s been happening at school? What haven’t you been telling me about? Why did he come hunting me today? Why?”

Ned’s skin paled, and he swallowed hard. “Let’s sit down. You’re tired.”

“I don’t want to sit!” Ezer shouted, beginning to pace the room. “I hate this nest. There’s no room to breathe, no air, no freedom. I want to go, but…” He jerked his hand toward the stairs. “Up there is too much to handle. Too many people, andhecame for me up there. He was going to put his cock in my body, force our babies to be exposed to his cum, and there was nothing, nothing I could do to stop him!Youcould have stopped him, Ned! You could have stopped him ages ago!”

“If I’d turned him in after what happened in Roughs Neck for the Bright’s powder and assaulting you, I’d have incriminated myself too!” Ned shouted, throwing his hands up.

Ezer pointed at him. “There! See? You weren’t thinking of me. You were thinking of yourself.”

“I was thinking of both of us.”

Ezer shook his head. “Not that day. Not the day you put your foot my chest. You were thinking of how you were going to get me out of it without impactingyoursituation. That’s not thinking only of me. And at school…there’s something going on. You look so ashamed. What’s been happening at school? Tell me.”

“He’s been hounding me. I’ve been ignoring him. But he wouldn’t let it go. Coming up to me every day. Wanting to know ifyouwere the reason I’d been gone so long. He’s obsessed with you—and me, but mainly you.”

“‘Obsessed’?”

“Yeah, he came up to me saying, ‘I thought Co—” Ned seemed to choke. He changed what he was saying, but Ezer knew the truth. “He said, ‘I thought Ezer switched back to St. Hauer.’ But he’d had a friend check it out, and found out you weren’t there. And then he was all up in my face, all snarly and smarmy, saying, ‘He’s not there. It’s like he’s nowhere to be found at all. Like an omega after a heat, when they’re confirmed pregnant.’ I just walked off, but he wouldn’t shut up about it. Always coming up to me and asking, ‘How was his tight ass? Was it sweet? Was it good? How was his first heat, did he scream for your dick?’ It’s been endless. He’s obsessed. I just wanted him to stop.”

“So you did what?”

Ned flushed. “I ignored him.”

“Ned, you did nothing.” Ezer pointed his finger into Ned’s chest. “You. Did. Nothing.”

“I’ll do something now,” Ned said, turning his back on Ezer, and starting for the stairs. “I’ll kill him. With my bare hands.”

Ezer almost let him go. He almost let him walk out of the room and do whatever it was an alpha did when he wanted to destroy another man.

But he couldn’t.

Not now.

Not when he hadn’t been fucked since that morning.

His body was already rebelling. His heart was racing. His womb felt tight. He felt like he couldn’t breathe properly.

“Wait,” he said, and his voice was faint enough that he was surprised Ned heard him and stopped. “You have to fuck me first.”

Ned turned to him, eyes dark, and a kind of fear on his face that Ezer hadn’t seen before. “You’ll let me?”

Ezer sneered. “I have no choice, do I?”

Their coupling was fast, the way Ezer demanded but didn’t actuallywant, and it left him feeling broken inside in a way he wasn’t sure would ever heal.

After, he fell asleep on the sofa, curled on his side, a blanket draped over him, and Ned’s cum left deep inside.

PART FIVE

Courage

Chapter Thirty

Ned didn’t knowhow to fix things.

Nothing was as it was supposed to be now. Ned still fucked Ezer, and left him satisfied and filled with his cum, but the burgeoning trust and friendship between them had been severed again. He didn’t know how to get it back.