Page 32 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

When my orgasm became a pressing need that couldn’t be ignored any longer, I eased into a more upright position.

Fingers gripping August’s hips, I focused on the place where cock met hole, watching as I slid in and out of him, the visual making it ten times hotter.

A pull out almost to the point of losing contact, the head of my cock pale as August gripped me tightly, a rush of blood to suffuse it with color, and then a push back in, August’s hole accommodating the girth perfectly.

And the lube was something else, slippy and slidey and oh so fucking good.

Intent on enjoying the whole show and not just our genitals coming together in such a holy union, I let my gaze wander, taking in the swollen perfection of his cock, the sweaty glow of his skin, the way muscle tension gave his abs more definition, the sharp angle of his collarbone, the slight redness of his lips from kissing, and finally the dilation of his pupils.

I paused for a moment to regain some control, my body desperate for the orgasm while my mind fought to eke it out a while longer. August laughed, reading the struggle on my face. “I want it to last,” I said.

“We can do it again. Tonight. Tomorrow. My grandma wants us to stay for a few days. We could do that and fuck ourselves stupid for the next few days.”

It was another example of my brain and body wanting different things.

My brain said I needed to get back on the road, that I’d already waited too long for vengeance.

My body, though, said something completely different, that I deserved this, that life had been hard even before I’d been turfed out of the army, and I should take a moment—or days—to experience something more.

Especially if taking down William Anderson proved to be a suicide mission.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes, yes.” I punctuated each affirmation with a thrust of my hips. August wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked it in time with my thrusts, our eyes locked together. I wanted to watch him come first, but I’d already held off too long, my orgasm slamming into me.

I came for a long time, spilling my load deep inside August and taking a primal pleasure from it unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

I came back to myself to find my nose buried in August’s sweaty neck, his breath a hot whisper on my ear.

“Did you come?” If he hadn’t, I was going to feel like the worst lover in the world.

When August shifted beneath me, I took the non-verbal cue and gave him some breathing room, levering myself off him to lie at his side rather than crushing him with my weight. “Yeah, I came.”

I hid my relief by heaving myself up against the pillows—yeah, actual pillows—to lean against the wall. Closing my eyes, I replayed the entire thing and luxuriated in it. When I opened my eyes, August was watching me, propped up on one elbow.

“You really like to fuck.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

He gave a one-shoulder shrug before rolling onto his back.

Silence reigned between us for a few minutes.

Not an uncomfortable silence. Quite the opposite.

It was the silence of two people who didn’t need to make meaningless small talk.

But then we’d started from such an antagonistic place we’d never really done that.

Maybe we should have. It was almost a shame to break the peaceful lassitude, but now we’d worked the restless tension out of our bodies, I had questions.

“So you were brought up here?”

August lifted his now mostly limp cock, extracting it from the puddle of cum it lay in before letting it drop with a wry smile. “I was.”

“And what about your parents? You’ve never mentioned them. Not unless you were making up stories that weren’t true, anyway.”

The sigh that escaped said it wasn’t a comfortable subject for him. “My mother died shortly after childbirth, so I never knew her. She bled to death. I survived. She left me with a name and not much else.”

“And your father?”

“He got himself killed when I was ten.” I waited, sensing this was a touchy subject and unwilling to risk August clamming up if I pushed too hard. “He wasn’t immune, and he got himself bitten.”

“I’m sorry.”

August turned his head to snare me in his gaze. “I don’t blame him for that.”

“No?”

“He didn’t turn straight away. He came back.”

“Okay.”

“There was a rainstorm one night. A red rainstorm. He’d been out farming that day, and he’d left tools outside.

He was concerned about them getting rusty, so he went out to get them.

It was stupid. He should have known better.

I should have gone out to get them, or we should have just left them out there.

They were tools. Since when are tools more important than people? ”

“They’re not,” I agreed.

August shook his head. “He turned. One bite. One rainstorm. That’s all it took for him.” I winced, the truth cutting deeper because of my infection status. His eyes narrowed. “How many times have you been caught in the red rain?”

I did a quick calculation. “Three.”

August nodded. “Most people last six or seven exposures from what I’ve been told. Did you know that?” I shook my head. “And he got one. Just one. He had a kid. You’d think he’d have been more careful, right? Especially when he was the only parent I had left.”

“You had your grandmother.”

August’s voice softened. “Yeah. And she was both mother and father to me.” His hand lifted to his throat, fingers closing around the chain there.

“Her parents gave her this on her thirteenth birthday while they were escaping London. When I told her I wasn’t going to stay locked inside these walls forever, she gave it to me.

Said it would keep me safe, that it would always bring me back to her. ”

“And it has,” I pointed out. “You’re alive.

Whole. Still in one piece with all your limbs intact.

” It might have sounded like an offhand joke, but it wasn’t.

Escaping biters wasn’t simple. Sometimes they latched on, and the choice came down to dying or losing whatever limb they had hold of.

Most people chose to die. “Who killed your dad? You?”

The look August gave me was scathing. “I was ten.”

“And I imagine you were just as capable then as you are now.”

His jaw tightened. “No. I didn’t do it. I couldn’t.”

I didn’t push, sensing his patience fraying. “That’s why you let me in that night. Out of the rain. Because of what happened to your father.”

He kept his expression blank, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Sometimes I think it would have been easier if my parents had turned,” I admitted. “You grow up expecting it. Preparing for it.”

“What happened?” August’s voice was gentle again, empathy returning.

“I know only the version I was told.” When he stayed silent, I continued.

“When Serena ran off, they got careless. My dad fell and got himself banged up pretty good. My mum did what she could to look after him, but financially, they were already on a losing streak they’d never recover from.

Things got worse, and then they both caught something.

No one knows what because they couldn’t afford to see the doctor, and if they had scraped enough together, they wouldn’t have been able to afford the medicine anyway.

According to the neighbors, they died within days of each other.

Unless they told me that because they wanted me to feel better.

If I’d known I could have done something, but―” Guilt thickened my words.

Guilt, I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried.

“I should have been there to provide for them. I shouldn’t have left them.

Any of them. The neighbor kept the ring for me.

She could have sold it, and I’d never have known.

But she didn’t. They should have sold the damn ring. I don’t know why they didn’t.”

Fingers curled around my arm and tugged me sideways. Confused, I allowed August to pull me until my cheek rested against his bare chest. His hand smoothed gently over my hair—so carefully I knew it was new for both of us. I relaxed into it.

When I didn’t pull away, he grew bolder, stroking my hair more firmly. “It’s not your fault,” he murmured.

“It is.”

“It isn’t. You had to live your own life.”

“And because I did, they’re dead.”

“Yeah, well… join the dead family club.”

“You still have your grandma.”

Silence followed, heavy with the thought that neither of us voiced: how much longer could an eighty-nine-year-old who’d been through so much, who’d seen so much, survive?

“Do you know why I con people?” August said out of the blue.

I turned my head into his chest, breathing in the musky scent of sex. “Why?”

“Partly the thrill and the excitement. Partly because if you make other people your victims, you can’t be one yourself. Or at least that’s what I thought. Then I ran into you. And Oz. More Oz. He made me look sane.”

“You are sane.”

“My father died going out in the rain. And here I am, conning people into believing I can make it safe when I can’t.”

“That makes you a bastard. It doesn’t make you insane.” I tipped my head back to see his face. “Are you going to keep doing it?”

“Not that con.” August’s lips twitched. He tried to fight the smile but lost. “I was damn good at it, though.”

“You were,” I admitted. “You fooled me.”

My eyes drifted shut, lulled by the rhythm of his fingers in my hair. When I surfaced again, I caught August saying something, but had no idea what. “Huh?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. It wasn’t important. Sleep.”

I did, my body deciding that was all the permission I needed.