In Flight(88)

I saw a fine tremor rock his body. I touched his jaw softly with a fingertip. “

I want to kill somebody,” James whispered. I traced his jaw. “I can’t bear the thought of the man who beat you as a child running loose. I can’t believe that someone like you was made to live on the streets, unprotected.”

“I had Stephan,” I said simply. He had made all of the rest of it worth it. Having someone like him at my back had made my life bearable during the horrible times.

“I love that guy. Remind me to buy him a ridiculously extravagant gift. I know he likes cars…” he trailed off.

I laughed, and it felt surprisingly carefree. “I love him too, but I refuse to encourage you there.”

“I need you to answer a question for me. Be brutally honest. Is this bad for you, what we do together? Am I like your father? We don’t have to do any of the rough stuff, if it’s too much for you. I don’t want to be bad for you.”

I traced his lips, choosing my words carefully. “I’ve been fascinated by the BDSM stuff since I can remember. It embarrassed me, and so I hid it well. Obviously, I had no experience with it, but I felt drawn to it, always. And the way you embrace it, with no shame, is liberating to me. My past has shaped me, that’s true of anyone, but I don’t think it’s bad for me to confront it in this way. It’s good for me to have someone like you, who can help me with this outlet. Someone who I think I could learn to trust. And you are nothing like my father.”

I could see that my words reassured him. He leaned down to kiss my forehead softly.

“Thank you,” he murmured against my skin.

“And we’re getting off track. You owe me a painful revelation. A few of them, actually. Why do you hate alcohol so much?” I asked.

I knew there was something there. I just sensed it. His reaction to seeing me drunk, and his instinctive tensing every time he thought I might drink alcohol, was all just too personal.

He ran his hand up my torso, tracing my ribs.

I gave him a few minutes of silence while he watched me broodingly, and formed his answer.

“I told you about my first guardian when my parents died. He was an older cousin. His name was Spencer, and I despised him. Supposedly, he was a close friend of my fathers. I could see why, right at first. He seemed nice at the beginning, never giving me any rules or restrictions. I was barely fourteen and he would let me have wine with dinner. I thought he was the coolest guy in the world. Until I realized that he was drugging the wine.”

A hand went to my throat at his words. I held my breath for him to continue, knowing with inexplicable certainty that the rest would be bad.

“It took me awhile. I would just have these blackouts. I wouldn’t remember anything after dinner. But there were…signs.”

“I was sore in places that I shouldn’t have been. I had marks on my back, and wrists, and…other places. And Spencer changed. At first it was just something knowing in his eyes. After a time, he started to brush up against me in broad daylight, and I just knew. I just knew that he had done things to me, things that I hadn’t consented to. Not that a fourteen year old can consent to any damn thing.”

Tears filled my eyes for the first time in many years, and my hands stroked him reassuringly. It both broke me, and touched me, that he would share such a thing with me.

He noted my tears, and brushed them from my cheeks almost absently, continuing. “It was just a guess on my part, but I suspected the wine. So I pretended to drink it one night, and let him lead me to his room. He had me handcuffed before I realized what he was doing. But by then, I was helpless. And then I got to experience the whole disgusting thing without the benefit of drugged wine.”

I traced those tiny scars on his wrists, and he let me. He shut his eyes tightly when I kissed them, but he didn’t stop me.

“I think he knew that I wasn’t as drugged out as usual almost immediately, but I really don’t think the bastard cared. He had convinced himself that I was a willing participant, no matter what I said or how I struggled.”

“He didn’t let me loose until morning. That was the longest night of my life. I was exhausted and sick down to my soul, but I still had the gumption to beat the shit out of him the second I was free.”

“He steered clear of me after that. And not even a year later, some angry lover choked him to death. He liked younger men who could overpower him physically. I guess it finally backfired. At least that lover wasn’t underage. It was a huge family scandal. All of my relatives were mortified. But I relished the news.” His eyes had glazed over as he told me the gory details, but they cleared as he finished, and seemed to focus back on me right away.