by Dani Hermit
Fine Lines
Burn Outs #2
Dani Hermit & Nevi Star
© 2020 Hermit & Star Books. All rights reserved.
Hermit & Star Books
South Bend, IN 46614
www.facebook.com/hermitstarbooks
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATIONS
There are people who have been with us since minute one, and they haven’t wavered in their support and love and tolerating our crazy. We can’t even begin to thank you all enough. Nor apologize enough for the insane weeping messes and manic creation machines that you have been forced to live with for over a decade now. Thank you and we love you.
THE PLAYLIST
When We Were Young (cover) -- Andy Black & Juliette Sims
Sometimes When We Touch -- Dan Hill
Crooked Smiles -- Framing Hanley
We’re All Alone -- Colin Raye
Timeless -- Rob Thomas
In Time -- Kris Allen
Someone You Loved -- Lewis Capaldi
Bar-ba-sol -- David Cook
To Be Alone -- Five Finger Death Punch
Heartache Tonight -- The Eagles
CHAPTER ONE
Though the filming of the video should have been quick and easy, it had taken quite a toll on Colton. Matt had managed to soothe him for a while, and he’d slept. But only for a couple hours. Colton woke up screaming from nightmares. Mythos was not going to let him be. So Matt did the best thing he knew to do. He’d lashed Colton to the bed with strips he’d torn from a sheet and was slowly tormenting his body.
“Do you think that you will be able to take it all this time?” Matt asked, teasing Colton’s ass with the tip of one finger. “Last time, in the rest stop, you came well before I got to properly fist you.”
“You are so full of yourself.” Mythos refused to stay silent.
He’d learned quite a lot from years of having Colton as a host. He remembered these little games and remembered the bitterness that settled in when Colton realized Matt really wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t just gone on a sabbatical to sort out his feelings about burning out. Matt had truly abandoned him. He also remembered how insecure Matt was in the beginning before he embraced how much he enjoyed possessing Colton. All of this was useful now that Mythos had found where to pry open the door to his host’s soul.
“Acting like this body hasn’t had more cocks than I can count. I could show you, Matt. I could use my powers to wake you up to the truth.”
Matt did everything in his power to not grind his teeth together. He was not as strong as he wanted to be and Mythos knew just where to poke. “Don’t bother.” He hissed, forcing his finger into Colton’s ass. “I know that every one was just a poor excuse for mine.”
“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? But while you are stroking your ego I have to wonder, is that what you want him to think?” Mythos challenged. “That you intentionally left him to years of craving you, whoring himself in search of something that would match the great Matt Evans only to become more desperate with every encounter.” Mythos batted his eyelashes and molded his voice to make a more Colton-like sound. “No, that’s not true. Tell him that’s not true, Ham-Ham.”
“You tell him it’s not true, Pony,” Matt demanded. He worked a second finger into Colton, moving them slowly in and out. “You tell this thing that it doesn’t know anything about me or about us. I’m busy fucking you.”
“You’d like it to be easy.” Mythos purred. “You’d love it if he absolved you of all your mistakes. And maybe he would. But I am made of different stuff.” Mythos didn’t break free but he pulled at his bonds enough to suggest he might be able to.
Colton’s body was starting to twitch and fight in that way that told Matt the power was trying to take Colton from him. In their early experiments it was the indication that Colton needed something more intense.
“Are you really?” Matt pulled his hand away, pulling back to assess the bonds on Colton’s arms. They were sturdy enough for now. “I don’t think that’s true. I think that you crave this as much as he does. As much as I do.” He brought his hand down hard on Colton’s thigh, enjoying the loud slap of skin against skin.
“You think you are any kind of replacement for the one I serve? He has shown this body pleasures you have never conceived.” Mythos raised his head and sent a pulse of suggestive energy, a little trace of his power to enhance Matt’s fears. “And he will leave you to return to what my Only offers us. You no longer have the right to say he’s yours.”
“So show me,” Matt taunted. He leaned in, pressing his body tight against Colton’s. He was taking a chance, but he had a hunch about this. “Like you said you would before. Show me how great this child you serve could possibly be.”
“Show you?” Mythos raised an eyebrow. “How would you like me to do that?”
Matt snorted derisively. “I thought you knew everything. How were you going to show me the debaucheries Colton suffered through in my absence? Were you bluffing?” Matt’s eyebrow raised as he met Mythos’s gaze. “Or don’t you have anything to show me between you and your super special friend?”
“I have nothing to prove to you,” Mythos was shaken.
He reached out to Leo, hoping their connection would give him strength. Matt had said just the right thing to force him to wonder why Leo hadn’t come to him sooner. Or, if he was being honest, why hadn’t he come at all since Colton had been rescued? And why couldn’t he remember the sexy things he bragged about? He prayed to the Necromancer. Prayed Leo would come and help him put this silly little man in his place.
“But let me start with this. Can you mark this body the way he has?” Colton’s Chosen Mark burned brighter.
“Blue Bolt didn’t put that mark on you.” Matt said, bending his head down to bite Colton’s shoulder right over the mark. “He just recharged your battery a bit.”
“He gave me a new chance at life.” Mythos spoke in a way that made Colton terrified he was going to mention his sickness. Throwing that in Matt’s face would ruin him and Colton wouldn’t allow that to happen no matter what. He struggled to take back his body.
“Ham-Ham, if he wants you to mark me, then burn me. I never let you before and when it got that rough, we almost lost our connection. But if you can go back to that moment when you wanted that, maybe you can break his hold. Leo’s full of empty promises and he won’t accept it. He’s afraid of how real you are.”
Matt took his hands off Colton’s body and braced them against the mattress to hold himself above his lover. He didn’t want either of the psyches laying under him to feel them shaking. He hadn’t thought about that for years. How far he was willing to go, how deep the desire to mark Colton’s body had been in him. Matt’s needs had been met by Colton’s in every way.
But he had wants, desires to explore how far he could push them both that had never been indulged. Colton had been timid enough with his internalized shame, so Matt had never really pressed his darker urges. They had spent so much time riding the edge, doing just enough to give Colton the break he needed that pushing boundaries had stopped being part of it. They knew what worked, they knew what felt good. There was no danger in their play.
But what Colton was asking for now was danger. He was asking for Matt to use his powers to mark his body. He was asking for Matt to hurt him in that careful, deliberate way that would make their connection more permanent than either of them had ever dared.
Matt slid off the be
d and stood looking around the room, not saying a word.
“Matt?” Colton knew it had been a risk. While his memory was clear, he still questioned whether he knew Matt’s desires. It was hard to ignore Mythos’s constant argument of if he really wanted this he wouldn’t have walked away. Mythos ripped the control of their body from his tentative grasp.
“Maybe if we had been honest back then, maybe we would have been unbreakable. I was afraid of losing you. I was afraid of losing myself. But the truth is, I’ll gladly take anything you want to give me, anything you want to do to me will only excite me more.” Mythos played a dangerous game as he spoke for Colton. Thinking he understood his host’s true fears and desires, he baited Matt to take it too far. In Mythos’s mind if Matt hurt Colton, really hurt him, then he’d never trust Matt again. He’d disappear into the deepest depths of their shared psyche, hopefully never to be heard from again.
Matt didn’t respond. The master bedroom of the ridiculously large house Boris had “borrowed” from his friend had many, many options for what Matt was thinking. But he wanted just the right thing. He found it in a decorative lantern sitting on a side table. Smashing the glass on one of the panels, Matt extracted the metal filigree piece. He heated the metal to bend some of it back to make a handle, and reshaped the other pieces until they resembled a stylized M. He turned back to Colton, crawling onto the bed until he was straddling Colton’s thighs.
“Don’t squirm too much,” Matt ordered, holding his hand under the metal piece and using a small, nearly white hot flame to heat it up.
Whether Matt knew that he was doing it or not, he was creating the strangest internal chaos within the body he had near total control of. Mythos craved the feel of the promised act of ownership. Colton’s excitement was nearly unbearable because Mythos wasn’t blocking his desire with teasing shame, so his usual limits couldn’t exist. He was afraid of nothing but Matt changing his mind. He did squirm but only to entice Matt.
“I said hold still,” Matt growled, bringing his warm hand down to hold Colton’s shoulder to the mattress. His eyes roved over the Chosen Mark glowing on Colton’s chest, looking for just the right place. He brought the softly glowing metal down, stopping just a little above Colton’s skin.
“You belong to me, Pony. I don’t care who fucked you or how good it was. I don’t care how many cocks have been in your mouth or how many men have had you on your knees. I sure as hell don’t give a fuck about this fucking infantile bullshit about Blue Bolt being your only, whatever the hell that means.”
Matt adjusted the angle of the metal, deciding the precise placement in relation to the Chosen mark. “I should have done this years ago, whether you wanted it or not. Because we’ve both forgotten how completely you belong to me and a permanent mark would have reminded us.”
It was an apology for his years in absence. Forgiveness for whatever sins Colton believed he had committed. A declaration of his love. But more than anything, it was Matt’s way of fully and completely asserting his claim on Colton’s body and soul. Even if there was still a fight to pry loose Blue Bolt’s grip, he wasn’t going to be able to forget or give up. He was going to have Colton back and that was the end of it.
Matt pressed the metal to Colton’s skin, holding it in place as it burned. Even as he smelled smoldering flesh, he held it still. He wanted to make absolutely certain the brand was not going to fade with time.
With his words, with his actions, Matt had made time stand still. The fear of future abandonment. The past’s hold on Colton’s heart. Even the pressure of the present. Colton’s entire existence, as he cried out, was the searing pain of Matt’s absolute command and promise. The brand marked far more than his skin. When he could speak his words were ragged bliss.
“I’ve never wanted anything more. Every day and every night to be yours. Whatever way you want to remind me, I live for it.”
Matt let go of Colton’s shoulder, keeping the metal pressed to his skin even as it cooled well below burning. He hooked one of Colton’s legs, lifting it and shifting his body. In one violent thrust, Matt filled Colton and it was only then, when he was as deep as he could get, that he took the hot metal away from Colton’s skin. He left it laying on the pillow next to Colton’s head, right where he could see it in the corner of his eye. The burnt flakes of skin, the filigree singed by Matt’s powers, the mark that he would bear forever.
Matt grabbed Colton’s hair and twisted his head so that all he could look at was the used brand while Matt fucked him mercilessly. “Don’t close your eyes.”
Colton shivered, lost to everything Matt demanded of him. His eyes traced the lines of the “M” thinking it the most beautiful sigil he’d ever seen, how nothing could ever defy their love. Matt’s cock driving inside him was more immediate a need than breathing. And then Colton was overtaken by a different kind of pain altogether. One devoid of anything like love.
Mythos wasn’t having it. He used his connection to the beliefs deep under the old house to force a healing while tearing the fading sacred symbol open from the inside out in a haphazard lightning bolt. Colton screamed, not understanding what was happening. He didn’t need to. It was Matt that Mythos was trying to communicate with.
“You little bitch.” Matt let go of Colton’s hair and put his hand around his throat.
The mark he’d left on Colton’s chest, meant to be a part of his Chosen Mark, meant to be something beautiful, was healing. And not in the quick but still reasonable way of a normal Chosen body. It was rapidly disappearing, as if it hadn’t been there at all and being replaced with a jagged tear that looked just like the symbol on Blue Bolt’s hero costume. Snarling, Matt grabbed the metal piece again, heating it up quickly with a flame hotter and more focused than anything he’d ever wielded before.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
Colton tried to calm down. His heart pounded in his ears. He stared deep into Matt’s crazed eyes trying to show his unbreakable faith. “I’m not afraid of your rage.”
Matt snarled a reply that was more sound than words. He brought the white hot brand down on Colton’s skin, covering the lightning bolt, pressing it deep. And still, he was hard. He didn’t stop fucking Colton, even as he roared in anger and pressed the brand ever deeper into his skin.
“You are mine,” Matt snarled, his fingers tightening on Colton’s neck to hold him steady, to keep their gazes locked. “Absolutely fucking mine. Anyone who wants to take you away will have to kill me first.”
Colton hoped the tears slipping from his eyes didn’t send the wrong message. He might not be able to hold Mythos back, but even if he lost the battle, Matt would win the war. The raging ache of the nearly unbearable burn the brand was leaving made him dizzy. The hold on his neck making it hard to breathe set off little sparks in his head. The demand in Matt’s unyielding gaze the final straw. Colton came as his body continued to shake from Matt’s devastating thrusts.
Feeling Colton’s body shaking in release under him, Matt couldn’t stop himself from following after. He groaned and brought his head down to press his face into Colton’s hair. He eased his grip on Colton’s neck, and ever so slowly, pulled the make shift brand away from his skin.
“God damn, Pony.” His voice was barely audible as he murmured against Colton’s hair. “You really know how to get me going.”
Colton found Matt’s words sexy and just a bit silly. He gifted Matt with the sound of his giggle. “Oh, really?” He turned his head so he could kiss Matt’s face as he teased him. “Don’t blame me for your lack of self control. You did suggest Unruly Flame Devil for your Villain name once.”
“It was a good name,” Matt protested a little sulkily. “And not as bad as some of what Thomas came up with for his.” He slid off Colton, stretching out beside him and lazily undoing the knots on the strips of cloth around his wrists.
As soon as he was free Colton wrapped his arms around Matt. “I don’t know.” He sounded like he needed a good rest. “You had some pretty
bad ones. And if my brain were working at all I’d remind you of them.” He kissed everywhere on Matt he could easily reach. “I love you, Matt Evans. I’ll love you forever.”
Matt shifted until he was comfortably holding Colton, and kissed him back. “Yeah?” He smiled. “Me too, Pony. Now get some sleep, OK?”
CHAPTER TWO
Boris had found a comfy lounge by the pool that was warm from the sun to stretch out on. He was slipping in and out of a light doze, content for the moment to enjoy the peace and quiet. It was probably the farthest point in the house from the master suite where Matt and Colton had been loudly fucking for some time. Not something Boris was keen on listening to. And the only TV he could find was mounted to the same wall that the headboard of their bed was banging against. So watching TV was out.
He vaguely wondered what Thomas was getting up to, but figured that he’d turn up eventually. He was probably eating everything that had been left in the kitchen.
Thomas was closer than Boris thought. He’d been out by the pool eating his way through a plate of sandwiches when he saw Boris’s silhouette moving past the frosted glass on the ground level. He’d picked up his plate and moved before Boris could see him. Observing Boris off his guard, wearing far less than usual was giving Thomas a voyeuristic thrill. He was sitting against the cabana bar, his food forgotten.
The sex with Boris was great and Thomas really liked him. Watching his lean body, how it moved when he didn’t feel threatened or the need to put up a tough front was intoxicating. If they could have what Matt and Colton had -- no. Thomas shook off the thought.
That was far from Boris’s mind. And with both Colton and Matt’s surprise son at stake, maybe it wasn’t the best time for Thomas to have it on his. He slipped his hand against the hard-on in his jeans a few times, trying to decide if he wanted to disturb Boris or just take himself in hand while he watched him like a porn and then disturb him.