Hurt (The Hurt Series, #1)
Page 24
Sweat beaded on his skin. The grip of Rory’s fingers gathered moisture from the tip, smearing it down his shaft and his fist tightened. The punishing hold he had on Callan thrust him into a headspace that made this unforgivable act an unaccountable deed.
He dinnae want to give it, but Rory insisted on taking it.
“No,” Callan gritted through clenched teeth, fighting back the release.
“Yes. Give it to me,” Rory commanded, jerking harder.
He was a master of manipulation. Filthy and fearless in a way that could terrify the strongest men.
Mercilessly, Rory choked the pleasure out of him, twisting his hold with expert finesse until physical need toppled Callan’s ethical will. An agonized moan tore from him as shame erupted in hot, white ribbons across his enemy’s arm.
Shaken to the core, he panted and swallowed back a sob. Denial burned like a sharp, glowing poker through his soul.
Rory released his tortured flesh and stepped back. His eyes followed Callan’s as he used the corner of the bed sheet to clean his fingers and arm.
“I think ye enjoyed that more than ye want to admit.” His mouth curled into an approving grin. “Clothes off. And the weapons.”
Callan staggered back as if he’d taken the hit of a lifetime. Glancing down at his spent erection, spotting the pearled markings clinging to his soiled shirt, a grotesque sense of failure tore through him.
He’d allowed Rory to do this to him while being armed to the teeth. His gaze jerked away. Bile burned his esophagus, and he had to swallow it down.
Rory clicked his fingers—the sharp snap he’d heard a hundred times before when he wanted Innis’s attention—and Callan hated himself for responding.
“We had a deal, MacGregor. Don’t make me find better entertainment.”
Callan removed his shirt and tossed it aside. The sooner this was over, the better.
Stepping out of his boots, he stripped. He kept an arsenal of knives holstered on him at all times.
Unsheathing the trench knife from his thigh, he ripped the harness away and dropped the heavy brass handle to the floor. Then his dirk and bowie. He bent to remove his boot knife. Last, came the kukri, its long, slightly curved blade catching the flicker of the overhead chandelier as he tossed it to the carpet.
Rory sipped a fresh drink, appearing mesmerized by the show. Callan’s gaze dropped to the floor, his focus shifting to his bare chest where the rosary hung.
Christ on the cross, his crucifixion now a poignant spike Callan could feel stabbing through his skin. In the end, it had come to inevitable sacrifice. How much pain could have been avoided if he’d only buckled sooner?
Ashamed of the moments ahead, he removed the rosary and set it with his clothes. When he wore nothin’ more than his scars, he lifted his head, rising to his full height, and stared straight ahead. His cross to bear. Not theirs. But it would ruin him all the same.
“Jesus. You truly are a magnificent beast.” The glass clicked against the table.
Callan stood for inspection, his stare drilling into the far wall as Rory’s gaze crawled over him like centipede legs.
“Have you ever been with a man? Maybe fucked around after one of your fights when the adrenaline’s runnin’ high and no one’s lookin’?”
“No.”
Nor had he ever known the softness of a woman. His childhood propelled him full speed into adulthood. The day his father left, the nurturing part of their mother died. Gavin and Innis had been his number one concern ever since.
His soul ached with wild homesickness for a past that no longer existed. This evil man had taken everything from him. Beautiful Innis. Sweet, wee Gavin.
The reoccurring, ugly revelation knocked the wind out of him, the blinding punch of defeat turning his knees soft as he stood there naked, stripped of everything that made him strong—including his dignity.
He had no strength left. And the sharp perfume of surrender lured him like an opiate calls to pain.
He wanted to fight to the end. But more than anything, he wanted numb oblivion. He snatched up and guzzled the drink Rory had poured him, welcoming the burn.
“So primal.” Rory circled him, and with every step, Callan’s spine softened. “Savage.”
Warm hands covered his back, stroking reverently. There was no cruelty to his touch, which made it all the more impossible to bear.
“You’re a fuckin’ animal.” Damp lips pressed to his shoulders, wet and cold. “And I’m goin’ te break ye.”
Seething hatred burned white inside of him. He’d longed for the death of Oscar Riordan. Whittled that yearning to a sharp, stabbing point that pricked whenever he lost faith in his purpose. But perhaps it would be easier to simply run himself through.
His slithering touch trailed down his spine. Callan’s hips jerked and his arse clenched.
“If ye fight me, it’ll only hurt more.”
It already hurt. The way he touched him added up to so much more than a physical violation.
His body’s betrayal stung harder than any injury ever could. And as his cock lengthened again, like a snake charmed by a Grand Vizier, he feared Satan himself had compelled him here.
“Look at the size of you.”
Rory wasnae molesting him as much as he was caressing him, teasing strokes awakening his body in ways that made him desire things he should never want. It was better when he’d aggressively grabbed him. At least then Callan could blame him.
“Ye like my hands on you.” He cupped his sac, and Callan grunted.
Emotion lodged like a mountain in his throat, choking him until his eyes stung under the wash of shameful tears.
Stroking, fondling, it all collided into an inescapable pain he couldnae bear. The pain had no color or shape. It was dark and deep and hollow and full.
A dizzying need to thrust into Rory’s hand swept over him. Sweat broke out across his chest. Then he was moving. It all started too quickly.
A fire snapped to life in his veins. His breath siphoned through clenched teeth as Rory’s arm whipped harder, twisting and pulling his sensitized flesh, his fingers exploring below his spine, prodding tender tissue, breaching his flesh.
Need rolled through him like a hurricane set on destruction. Callan’s hips thrust violently—shamelessly—into his palm, seeking more.
Shameful need rose, and he told himself it was because no one had ever done this to him before, because he’d been starved for human contact. Desperation pumped through his teeth. His lonesome life, so starved for physical affection, dragged him down like a fallen angel plunging to the pit of hell.
His head tipped back, and he growled at the tunneling relief about to set free. His bucking hips pumped faster, harder, as he panted to get out the poison inside, hissed through the hate-fueled lust.
Electricity zipped up his spine like a lit fuse, and he grunted. Rocking. Jerking. Thrusting. Needing. Screaming. Rory’s grip contracted like a vise, cutting off his release, strangling the rushing flow of blood, and shooting bolts of startling, mind-numbing pain back into his body.
Callan howled in shocked agony, his knees buckling and slamming to the ground, the tight skin at his heels pulling painfully after the sharp collapse.
Rory followed him to the floor, his hold unbreakable, his nails puncturing swollen flesh and ripping an abused roar out of Callan’s raw throat.
“Beg me. Beg me te let ye come.”
His arms trembled, his head dropping between his quaking shoulders. His vision crossed and blurred as a fever shook his flesh off the bones.
Fuck. Fuck. He had to get it out.
“Please,” he wheezed, tears burning his eyes as they squeezed shut.
Weak. Shameless. But keeping it would be like voluntarily swallowing poison. Rory put this sin inside of him, and he needed to get it out.
Never loosening his relentless hold, Rory shoved him forward, and Callan fell like a wounded stag. He climbed over him and jerked his head back.
“Lo
ok into my eyes.”
Callan’s unsteady gaze latched onto his malicious face, jerking over familiar features and landing on flat, soulless eyes. A visceral connection welded them together, a bone-deep hatred sewed through every coiled centimeter of his intestines. Nothing would ever claim his gut as totally as his malevolence for this man.
Rory peered into his soul. “I. Own. You.”
His hand released him, and the pain reversed, only it wasnae pleasure. It was a backward sort of agony, his deprived flesh pulsing as blood rushed to the tip of his cock with enough force to knock him down. But he was already down, so he screamed, rolling to his back. Lost. Pinned as cold, wet lips covered him, sucking and licking.
“No,” Callan cried, but his body was under a spell, drowning in rapids of hate too strong to fight. The current swallowed him, and he let go.
Icy hands petted over the passing of time. Clasped in prayer. Locked in trembling despair. Something held him to this life when desperation begged his physical self to drift away.
His surrender came at the cost of his soul. The sin of a mad man would always stain his skin, and Callan twitched with knowing awareness, that even after Rory finished with him, this would never end.
He’d see it in his reflection whenever he looked into his own shameful eyes. This nightmare would always be a part of him—exactly as Rory wanted.
“Stay just like that.” The command drifted through a haze of confusion.
He rested on his side, limp and covered in things he dinnae dare name. His vision wobbled. His muscles twitched. Relief and phantom pain swirled amongst entrenched sorrow.
For a moment, nothing touched him at all, and he floated in the hands of God, praying the Almighty might take mercy on his soul and carry him to heaven.
Then he plummeted back to the cold earth like an orphaned angel clipped of its wings. Coldness blanketed him, and shivers wracked his body.
Rory rolled him to his chest. His forearms braced against the antique carpet. His damp brow lowered to the floor. The wiry press of hair scratching at the back of his legs forced a whimper past his lips, but he was too weak to make a sound, and only a hollow sob came out when something breached him.
Warm. He focused on the body heat, needing an anchor.
He tried to recall the last time anyone had laid a kind hand on him. His mother. His sister. His brother. No one had touched him in so long—and it pained him that he couldnae recall the feel of gentle hands now.
Rory was gentle. He would be the memory. The scar deep enough that Callan would carry it with him for the rest of his life.
Silent tears wet his cheeks.
And then came the searing pain.
His body locked, turning to cold, unwelcoming granite, but that dinnae stop Rory. Callan’s bellowed cries ripped through the room in a voice he dinnae recognize.
“Aye. Scream for it, Callan. Let them hear how much ye adore them. How much ye’ll sacrifice te save their ungrateful souls.” Fingers dug into his sore hips, as he impaled him, stabbing hard and deep. “Would any of them do the same for you?”
Breath trembled through his burning throat past his dry lips. The searing pain anchored him. The truth was in the hurt.
In the hurt.
The hurt.
Hurt.
Truth.
The truth was in the hurt.
His eyes blinked hard against the consuming agony, some foreign sense of strength teasing the fringing edges of his battered mind. His teeth sank into the pain, grabbed it in a grip only death would break. He tasted the discomfort, drowned in the truth, and swallowed the hurt whole.
He bared his teeth and growled through the demoralizing shock, roared at the soreness until the welcomed slide of control knocked hard against his trembling knees, and his head gradually lifted.
No matter how much he wanted it to end, Callan could not be defeated. He bore the pain. Welcomed the hurt. And accepted the truth.
And once he accepted it, he had control again.
His eyes opened, his fists locking against the pain, inviting it. Grounded by the agony, he let his inner beast feed off it.
Retribution would come. He could bear this. He would survive it.
Dinnae scream.
Dinnae give him the satisfaction.
He cannae break what’s already broken...
Rory’s hips bucked out of rhythm, his plunging madness scorched with the sensation of tearing flesh. Callan welcomed the blood, hoping it would slicken his passage. And then Rory’s guttural moan rent the air and the plunging cock throbbed inside of him, spilling venom into his soul.
He collapsed on top of him, his lungs heaving hard against Callan’s back.
It was over.
Over.
Over...
He wanted to sleep but needed his clothes. Needed his weapons.
The eviscerating pull of Rory leaving his body took a part of Callan with it. Perhaps his dignity. It dinnae matter, so long as he left him his rage.
The need to move gnawed at him, but Callan couldnae feed the urge. Every muscle throbbed and twitched with disobedient relief. No matter how much he wanted to get up and leave, he lacked the strength to move.
Ice clinked, and his ears followed Rory’s footfalls, the heavy pace of deep breathing matching his own.
“Now, I’ll always have that part of you.”
Callan shut his eyes and drew in a long, galvanizing breath. His hands objected as he planted his palms on the carpet, and his wrists shrieked as he pushed himself up.
Rory stood, back in his jeans, smirking over the crystal lip of his glass. “At least ye dinnae hate it.” He snickered. “Ah, but that’s what ye hoped.” He winked.
Callan’s legs trembled from heel to hip as he unfolded his limbs. He clumsily dragged on his clothes, his legs as useless as they’d been just after the fire.
He itched to collect his weapons and disappear from this place. Maybe disappear from the world.
Rory watched him dress with entitled curiosity. “Next time it will be easier.”
Callan’s glare cut across the room, sharp and unmistakable. There wouldnae be a next time.
Rory met his challenging scowl with one of his own. “I own you, MacGregor. I warned ye the job would be permanent.”
Fire blazed through his skull, roaring so loud it overpowered the screaming logic forbidding him not to respond. Too late. This time his conscience wouldnae muzzle his hate.
“You dinnae own me,” he sneered, years of seething rage spewing out of him in volcanic disgust. “And you dinnae own her. It’s our resolve tha’ owns you.”
The words cut through the air and for once he believed he had the lunatic’s full attention. Perhaps even a chunk of his elusive fear.
Callan cornered him with wild eyes, unleashing every pent up truth he knew could hurt.
“We are iron, and you are sand. We’re everything you will never be, and you’re sick with envy over it, obsessed with our mulish tenacity te care for one another, the way no one cares for you. We will be the death of you. It’s why ye hold us so tightly. It’s why it infuriates you te admit you’ll never break us. Ye’ll never sever our love for each other. Ye’ll never compete with our bond—a bond forged of things ye envy but cannae feel.”
Rory seethed with contempt. It beat out of him in waves, but he couldnae deny the truth.
Callan was already half dead. It was time to nail this coffin shut.
“Yer bullshite ownership is just a lie that helps ye sleep at night, Rory. We’re no more yers than this house and all the stolen treasures in it. They’re just pieces of the people ye wished ye could be—memories ye confiscated but never really owned. Trash. A castle of lies. And we all know its nothin’ more than sand.”
His words spilled like acid, burning through the illusions and baring the ugly truth. Rory’s eyes brimmed with fury, the muscles of his face twitched with violent agitation and incarnate rage, as a storm of red indignation burned across his cheeks.
“Ye think I cannae hurt ye?”
He shrieked, and the walls shook under his shrill scream.
Like an atom split open, he exploded, shattering crystal across the room as he screeched obscenities, his fury splattered with menace and wrath.
Callan covered his head as more glass crashed against the wall. Rory barreled toward the door with demonic rage, his hands sweeping things off every surface and hurling them against the wall. Callan’s wide eyes bounced between him and his scattered weapons. No time.
His battered body protested in frantic alarm as he raced after Rory as he tore into the hall.
“Rory, wait!” Terrorizing fear choked him. What had he done?
Everything outside of that room washed by in a flood of hideous reality and he wished he could eat his words. Rory rushed down the steps in a rampage of hungry fury, seeking a target.
Callan couldnae think beyond stopping him, beyond getting between Rory and his family.
His useless feet tripped down the stairs as Rory’s agile steps gave him the speed advantage.
He gripped the banister, jerking toward the common rooms. Rory was several steps ahead. He’d never make it in time.
“Innis! Run!”
The wash of pumping music and baffled faces blurred as they tore through the den into the dining room. The world slowed and silenced as his gaze connected with his sister’s, panic registering in her eyes and she shot to her feet, bolting to the other end of the room.
Her sweeping hair flew like a war flag into battle as she scooped Uma off the floor, sheltering her against her chest and pushing her wee body into the wall.
“Rory, no!” Callan shouted.
Innis used her body as a shield as Rory tore into the room, knocking into chairs and swiping the gun off the table. He aimed it at her.
“No!” Callan’s scream echoed, accompanied by another.
Time slowed, passing in horrific slides he’d never forget as the gun clicked, failing to shoot. Rory snarled and spun to Rhys, and the world cracked into silence.
Blood splatted against the wall, but there was no sound, only the pop of his ears and his sister’s blood-curdling scream.