Page 15 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

Keaton

My arms were already full of firewood when the first drop of rain fell. I called myself all the names under the sun as I turned back to the cottage, my plans to collect more immediately shelved.

I should have known it was coming, should have felt it in my bones like a pervading dampness on arthritic limbs. Why hadn’t I? Because the day had been so eventful, so adrenaline fueled, that I’d put any edginess down to my near demise, and hadn’t considered it as a harbinger of things to come.

And where did that leave me? Out in the very rain this journey was supposed to be about avoiding.

Where was a suppressant when I needed one?

The rain grew heavier as I trudged back toward the cottage, nerve endings sparking to life beneath its onslaught and my thoughts turning more focused, more primal.

This was August’s fault. He’d let me come out here. In fact, if I went back further, there was a long list of things that I could blame on him. Not taking action to avoid the damn oil on the road for a start. If he’d done that, we wouldn’t be here.

Someone should make him pay for all his mistakes, and as I was the only one around, it would have to be me.

A smile slid onto my face as I imagined all the lessons I could teach him.

Would he scream? Would he beg? The desire to know the answers to those questions was a growing ember in my chest. How many hours could I spend playing with him?

Something else warred with the desire to find out how sweet the sound of August’s bones cracking might be as I tore him limb from limb, something that whispered reminders into my ear that refused to be silenced.

How he’d felt in the guesthouse, the blade pressed to my throat secondary to the feel of his wiry strength.

The provocative dance he’d performed in the fire station, his skin glistening with a slight sheen of sweat.

It didn’t matter that it had been designed to distract.

Then there was him pinned beneath me the previous night. Helpless. Unable to move. Straining to be free. If I’d had any sense, I would have gotten more than his damn name out of him. I could have done anything to him, and he wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it.

Yeah, I’d fuck him and then I’d kill him.

Rather than being a hindrance or something to fear, the rain gave me pleasure as my long strides ate up the space between me and the cottage. Toward August and his lithe body. Confidence that I’d get everything I desired filled me.

Tipping my head back, I let the rain stream over my face. It tasted earthy as it dripped into my ears and mouth, my primal brain not caring that I was exposing the soft palate to virus particles.

I wanted to take my cock out and use the rain as lubricant. But I wanted August more. Besides, my hands weren’t free. I had all this damn firewood for some reason.

August wants it.

Great. Then I’d give it to him in exchange for a fuck. And if he didn’t like that idea, I’d hit him over the head with it and fuck him anyway, really show him who was boss.

I dumped the firewood on the porch when I reached it, the loud noise extremely satisfying. Perhaps it would bring my friends running.

Your friends?

Other biters.

They’re not your friends. You’re not like them.

Not yet, but soon.

You don’t know that. There are plenty of people who’re infected for years, who never turn.

I stared at the firewood while the argument raged in my head. August could come out and get it if he wanted it so much. Why the fuck should I do everything for him? The arrogant prick needed to learn that the world didn’t revolve around him, and I was the perfect man to teach him that lesson.

My cock throbbed in time with my heartbeat as I approached the door. I was so fucking hard it hurt. I needed to bury it in something tight and hot that gripped me just right.

A sound erupted from me when the door refused to open, more bellow than words.

Grabbing hold of the handle with both hands, I put my back into it, determined to pull it off its hinges if that’s what it took.

I wanted in. No, not wanted—needed. I needed in.

I needed August. I let out another bellow when my attempts proved unsuccessful.

And then there he was, face appearing in the gap in the door where there’d once been glass.

So fucking pretty. Long eyelashes. Sharp cheekbones.

And perfect lips that would look sublime stretched around my cock.

I wanted to shove it as deep in his throat as it would go and watch him choke on it.

I’d fill him so full of cum that it would bubble out between his lips.

I’d smear the excess over his face. Mark him.

Let him know he belonged to me and that from this moment on, he served no other purpose but to please me.

Then I’d flip him over and shove my saliva and cum-covered cock in his pretty little arse and pound him until he begged me to stop and I came again.

By the time I finished with him, he’d smell of cum and it’d be dripping from every orifice.

I wouldn’t let him wash. Not until he begged.

And then when I eventually let him wash the stink off, I’d do it all over again until my balls had no more to give.

I reached for him through the gap in the door, August stepping back before my fingers made contact. His lips were moving, but my head was so full of white noise that it may as well have been a foreign language. It took a supreme effort to concentrate on the words.

“...need to say something, Keaton. Because right now you’re acting like one of them.”

Them? Who? He wasn’t making sense. He needed to stop being so damn selfish and just do what I wanted. All he had to do was open the door and bend over.

“Keaton…?”

Talk. He wants you to talk. They don’t talk. You do. I worked my mouth, what should have been easy, taking immense effort. “Let… me… in.”

It was good enough, relief flashing across August’s face. “Okay,” he said. “You haven’t turned. That’s something at least.”

I slammed my hand against the door, repeating the one phrase I’d worked out how to say.

“It’s not that simple,” August said. “You might not have turned, but you’re still a threat.”

“Not… a… threat.”

“Now who’s lying?” His gaze dropped to my cock straining at the front of my jeans. “And it doesn’t take a genius to work out what you’ve got planned.”

I kicked the door this time. “Fucking cocksucker!” Words came more easily when I gave in to the molten flow of fury. “Open the door, you fucking piece of shit. You’re going to take my cock, and you’re going to thank me for it.”

August’s expression never changed. “Yeah… about that. I don’t think so.

” He cocked his head to one side and regarded me silently.

Then he nodded, as if he’d decided something.

“Give me the crossbow.” He held his hand out, fingers hovering on the other side of the door in expectation of my following the instruction.

I passed it through, the gap only just wide enough.

It wasn’t like I needed it to fuck. “Now, your knife.” I did that too. “Now turn around. Arms higher.”

I didn’t realize his intention until something cinched around my wrists and pulled taut, and by then it was already too late, August tightening the knot. Anger erupted from me, words spilling from my lips with no conscious idea of what they were.

The door opened, the crossbow—my crossbow—leveled dead center at my chest. “You wouldn’t,” I said, my voice hoarse from whatever verbal diatribe I’d gone on.

August’s lips quirked in something close to a smile. “Oh, trust me, I would. I haven’t survived this long only to let one stupid mistake finish me off. Don’t confuse me with someone who won’t do whatever’s required.”

He jerked his head in a silent invitation, his gaze never wavering from me as I crossed the threshold. August took slow backward steps as I advanced, keeping the crossbow aimed at my heart. When we reached the doorway of the living room, he stepped aside, gesturing for me to precede him.

“Over there,” he demanded, jerking the crossbow at the far side of the room. “Sit down. By the radiator.”

I bristled at being ordered around. Especially by him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. There was no arguing with the crossbow, though. Not with my hands tied behind my back.

Once I’d sat, he swapped the crossbow for his knife, pressing it to my throat in a callback to the first night we’d met.

Blue eyes stared into mine without blinking.

“I’m going to let go,” he said, “so I can tie you to the radiator. Try anything, and I mean anything, and you go back outside. You’re not a biter yet, so they will eat you. ”

I glared mutinously at him as he lowered the knife, securing me to the radiator with a belt taking less than a minute. A quick test of my bindings showed I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Yeah,” August said, satisfaction coming off him in waves as he stood to admire the tableau I made. “That ought to do it.”

Lust and anger flickered like a wheel going round that couldn’t decide which of the two to land on. Lust won out. “Shut up and sit on my cock.”

August laughed. “I don’t think so. I’ve got things to do.” He disappeared from the room, the firewood in his arms when he came back. He let it clatter to the floor, the sound no longer as satisfying now that I was rendered harmless.

He flicked a quick look my way as he crouched in front of the fireplace.

“I’ve never had a relationship where we take it in turns to tie the other up.

Do you think there’s a name for that?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

“I suppose it would be somewhere on the BDSM spectrum, which has never been my thing. You’ll understand tomorrow when you’re yourself again. ”

I stayed sullenly silent. “Nothing to say,” August teased.

“You had plenty to say outside.” I glared all the harder, but he just smiled.

He picked a palmful of something up from the floor and showed it to me.

“The tree in the kitchen came in useful for leaves, which should work as kindling.” He sorted through the wood, discarding the wet logs from the top of the pile in favor of those lower down that were still dry.

“I suppose I should be glad you had enough presence of mind to bring it back. What were you going to do? Club me over the head with it if I didn’t spread my legs for you? Who says romance is dead?”

When I didn’t respond, he turned back to the fireplace. It took a few attempts before he got the fire going, the room quickly heating up. It took even longer to rig up a makeshift system to boil the water. And all the while, I dreamed of what I was going to do to him when I got free.

When he flicked some beef jerky my way, there was nothing I could do but let it bounce off my chest and land on my lap. “Oh, yeah,” he said, as he took a seat opposite. “No hands. I forgot.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He chewed on a strip while he stared at me. I stared right back, the candlelight wreathing his face in shadows. His gaze eventually dropped to my crotch. “Still?” he said. “I thought you might have calmed down by now.”

“You need to suck it.”

That made him laugh so much he almost choked. “Yeah, right? Keep dreaming.”

“Then untie my hands.”

“Not happening. I don’t have a death wish.”

“I want to fuck you, not kill you.”

He pointed the jerky at me. “You, Keaton Levine, are quite the sweet talker. Has anyone ever told you that?” He chewed some more.

“Besides, I see the look in your eye. It might start off that way, but you’ll lose control.

” August leaned his head back against the wall.

“It must be painful to be that hard, though? I should probably offer to help you out. The problem is, we’ve already established that you have nothing of value you’re willing to give. So I guess you’ll just have to suffer.”

A growl came from my throat, the Keaton beneath the surface recognizing it wasn’t a noise I should make, but unable to do anything about it.

August tipped his chin up at the sound, his eyes narrowing. “Go on. If you’ve got some more choice words, you need to get out, let’s hear them. I could have left you outside, you know. I should have left you outside.”

Oh, I had words I wanted to say. Dark words as sharp as razor blades. Ones that told him exactly what I thought about him. It wouldn’t get me what I wanted, though. “I’ll owe you.”

August laughed, the sound so mocking that I struggled within my bindings, the desire to get my hands on him and squeeze the life out of him until no more sounds, especially laughter, could come out, so strong I shook with it.

“I normally don’t take .” He was silent for a minute, his face expressionless as he stared into the fire.

Finally, he gave a quiet chuckle. “Fine. You can owe me. And I expect you to pay.”

“I’ll pay.” I would have said anything at that moment to get relief.

“You will,” August said quietly. “I’ll make sure of it.”