The Man He Needs

by Sarah Masters

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  The Man He Needs

  ISBN # 978-1-78184-975-0

  ©Copyright Sarah Masters 2014

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright February 2014

  Edited by Sue Meadows and Sarah Smeaton

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 1.

  This story contains 47 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book containing 9 pages.

  THE MAN HE NEEDS

  Sarah Masters

  Two mistrusting men who have secrets they’d rather not share…

  After a drunken night out, Christian goes back to Alfie’s house for sex. The thought never crossed his mind that Alfie would hold him hostage in his cellar. Christian would never have thought he’d come to care for Alfie either—but as the weeks pass he does. Although he can’t explain how he feels, it doesn’t much matter. There’s no one out there to miss him anyway.

  Alfie has his reasons for keeping Christian tied up, and they are heartbreaking. He’s had a terrible past, one no child should ever live, and the morning after the night he took Christian home, he snapped. He couldn’t bear for yet another person to leave him and, knowing what he was about to do was wrong, he did it anyway.

  Despite their harrowing pasts, the two men form a bond and together discover that there is a way to trust…finally.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Jean Paul Gaultier: Beauté Prestige International.

  Doc Martens: Permira

  HP: HP Foods

  Chapter One

  The beginning of the end

  There’s only so much cock you can take up the arse in one day before it feels like your rim’s going to rip right along with your soul. I wanted cock, but not quite so often, and as for the soul… I thought Ted loved me in his own way. Turns out he really didn’t give a flying fuck.

  For now, my arsehole’s all right, but I’m not so sure about my soul.

  I’m here now, with Alfie, and Ted’s in the past. Shame he doesn’t stay there. You know how it is—the past remains in your head, doesn’t it, churning out memories every so often to let you know it’s still there. And Ted… I’m sure he’s watching me, documenting my every move. So if that’s the case, he should know I’m here, yet it’s been four weeks and no one’s arrived on a trusty white steed to rescue me.

  That knight in shining armour lark is all a load of bollocks anyway.

  I shouldn’t be here at Alfie’s, yet I want to be. I shouldn’t have gone out that night, yet I did. Hindsight and all that. They say it’s a wonderful thing, but most of the time it isn’t. Not really. It gnaws at you, taunts you, and what the fuck’s wonderful about that? What the fuck’s wonderful about being incarcerated by a man some would call a freak? What’s wonderful about me wanting to stay here?

  I don’t know. I just don’t sodding know. But it is wonderful.

  What I do know is when Alfie comes in here, all broad shoulders and rippling muscles beneath his T-shirt, I want him to fill my arse again. And that isn’t right, is it? To want someone who’s kept me locked up like this. It’s consensual locking up, but not.

  Odd to explain, that.

  Maybe I’m the freak. Maybe I’m the one who has something wrong with him.

  The other week, veins buzzing with too much alcohol, the need for picking up a bloke—any bloke—driving me out to the clubs, I spotted him as he lounged against a wall in The Mason’s Arms. When I think about it now, if he’s one of those mental abductor types and has yet to show it, he’d probably spotted me first, chosen me. At the time, my mind on one thing and one thing only, I’d not been in any state to think too clearly. Four years of failed relationships behind me, I’d decided no-strings fucks were the only way to go, and that night was just one of too many to count where I got spruced up in order to attract a bloke and get some attention.

  And we all need that, don’t we? Maybe that’s why I’m still sitting on this dirty concrete floor in his cellar or whatever fucking room I’m in. Maybe my need for a relationship—any relationship that’s more than a quick shag, a brief connection that leaves me colder than I’d been before—keeps me from trying to get away.

  I mean, who the hell would remain here by choice?

  A bare light bulb gives off a measly glow in the centre of the ceiling, highlighting the old wooden beams surrounding the cream-coloured electrical cord. Spider webs, they’re everywhere up there, complete with fat, eight-legged buggers no doubt waiting for flies or whatever to get caught. Eaten. And I can’t help but liken it to my situation. I’m caught, Alfie the spider waiting for me to make the wrong move so he can eat me whole.

  Jesus.

  A hacksaw sits in the corner, the red handle indistinct in the shadows. But the blade—the bit of the machine that can cut off a man’s leg in no time—shines, the edges the same as a dolphin’s teeth, except they’re pointed. I wonder if he plans to use it on me, to be the weirdo people would undoubtedly say he is and hack off my limbs one by one, him watching me bleed to death. Would he bury or burn me after…well, after I’m gone? Or would he be like those killers you read about, who freeze the bodies or mummify them and keep them forever?

  I don’t sodding know about that either.

  Footsteps tap on the stairs outside the wooden door opposite me. My stomach contracts, and not just from a speck of fear either. I never know when he’s going to turn funny—whether he even intends to. That’s where the fear comes from. But the excitement? I enjoy seeing him, enjoy studying his features, the way his nose slopes up at the end when I view his profile, and the shell of his ear, plump and ready for sucking. I wonder, then, whether his cock needs sucking but shut the thought away. He hasn’t shown any desire for me to do that, just asks if I mind him touching me, wanting me. He gently primes my arse with lube, suits up and pushes in, telling me he’ll make me feel good. And he does. I just wish he’d let me make him feel good too.

  God, he makes me hard, makes me wonder why I even get hard when this situation is about as messed up as you can get.

  It isn’t normal to think this is okay, surely
.

  Stockholm Syndrome, that’s the term I’ve been trying to remember for days. But it isn’t that. It can’t be, when I fancied him something rotten in The Mason’s, I went with him willingly after he’d chatted me up for a bit. Who wouldn’t, with his sexy-as-fuck grin that gives him dimples in his cheeks, his tousled brown hair sometimes hanging over his eyes, and that undeniably hot sway he’s got going on with his hips. He’d got me then and he’s got me now.

  I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Not if I have a say in it.

  I suppose I could get out if I gave it enough thought. Get rid of the cable tie that binds my wrists. Somehow. Rub it over those hacksaw teeth or something. Wait behind the door for him to come inside and smack him on the head with the hacksaw handle. It’d be easy, to knock him out, run up those steps behind the door over there and get the fuck away. He’s a big guy and I’m pretty small, but with the element of surprise on my side…

  So why am I still here?

  He inserts the key in the lock, and the door swings open, bashing against the wall. A shower of loosened breeze block crackles on the floor, and I wonder what’s got him so riled. He stares at me, brown eyes blazing with all kinds of anger, cheeks flushed, mouth set in a grim line.

  “What’s up?” I ask, so familiar with him now, my chest tightening, making it difficult to breathe.

  “You thinking of leaving?” He strides towards me, arms bowed at his sides, emphasising the breadth of him, the sheer size of the bloke.

  “What? How the fuck can I leave? I’m tied up. Locked up. You’ve seen to that.” I laugh a bit to show him I don’t mean any malice.

  “Yeah, but you’re thinking of going, aren’t you? Of leaving me. Like he did. Like they all did.”

  I have no idea who he or they are, and I’m not about to ask. Prying might set him off, get him angry as fuck, and I don’t fancy being hit today. Tonight. Or whatever time of damn day it is. I want to get inside his head, to find out what’s going on in there, why he’s doing this. If I’d done that with Ted, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.

  “I’d have stayed, you know, if only you’d asked,” I say, manoeuvring to get up. It’s difficult with my hands tied, but I manage it, drawing upright as he comes to stand in front of me.

  I have to tilt my chin to look at his face, him being a head taller. He smells of aftershave, Jean Paul Gaultier if I‘m not mistaken. You know, the bottle that’s the shape of a man’s torso. Blue glass. I almost smile at the fact that the body has no cock, just a swollen bump in place of a dick.

  “Yeah, you would say that,” he says.

  His voice, it does things to my insides like no other voice has.

  And he has a point. I suppose I would say that. But I mean it. That first night, me giddy from booze and him giddy on me agreeing to go home with him… It was enough. Except he panicked the next morning when I dressed, me saying I’d ring him later and maybe we could get together again. I know now, after hours of dissecting everything, it was that word—maybe—that had started the ball rolling. His spiral into panic had got a firm grip, ending with me being put down here, him creating the ruse of needing me to help him haul logs upstairs for the fire. Except there weren’t any logs. Wasn’t anything down here at all back then except the toilet in the corner. He told me he was sorry, that he couldn’t let me leave, and if I liked him as much as I’d said I did the night before, he’d fuck me, make me feel good. I wouldn’t need for anything.

  He’s been hurt in the past, I get that—what else could it be?—but keeping me here isn’t going to solve anything, is it? If he gets caught, he’ll be in deep shit and then some. I don’t want him in trouble. I want to help, get him talking, make him open up so I can understand why he’s doing this. Help him to trust again. Have him see I’m not going anywhere, that when I do leave, to go to work—if I ever get another damn job—I’ll come back. It’s got to be worth a shot, worth the hard work. Let’s face it, I’ve got fuck all else to do with my time. No job, again, rent paid by the social.

  He stalks over to the hacksaw, stands in front of it with his back to me. Is he thinking of using it? What’s it doing down here anyway? It’s the only thing here apart from the toilet, the rickety wooden table and chair, and my steel bed he brought down a few hours after he locked me inside.

  “You going to use that?” I ask, thinking it’s better to know what’s coming my way if I can.

  “Not on you, no, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  I had been—that much was obvious—and relief weakens my legs. My knees jolt, and I brace myself for toppling forward and cracking my head on the concrete. Lifting my arms, I hold myself steady on the wall beside me, heart tickering nineteen to the damn dozen.

  “What do you use it on then?”

  I’m pushing it, talking to him this way, especially if he turns out to be some nutter in the end, but what have I got to lose? I live in a crummy bedsit—doesn’t matter if they discover I’m gone and rent it to someone else, and no one gives a shit about me. Mum, the last time I spoke to her, when she found out I’m gay, kicked me out and told me never to come back. Never to darken her door again, filthy little bastard that I am. I have no other family, it had just been me and Mum all along, so me going missing will hardly cause a stir, will it?

  Maybe that’s why I don’t mind being here. At least he wants me.

  “Wood,” he says. “For the fire.”

  “Can I see the fire? Sit in front of it? It’s kind of cold down here, and when you brought me back, you know, the other week, I didn’t get to see the living room.”

  He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even flinch, and I get to wondering what he’s thinking. What’s a good-looking guy like him playing at doing something this mad?

  “Look, man.” I dare to walk towards him. I glance at the door, can run out of here right now if I have a mind to, but I ignore it, instead refocusing on him. On his back, the rigid set of his shoulders. The way they seem to be shaking. “I’ll stay, I promise. No one needs to know you’ve locked me down here. I’ll be staying, won’t I? It’d be like you invited me here and whatnot, yeah? We can forget all…this.”

  He spins to face me, cheeks wet, eyes watery. “I don’t believe you. Everyone leaves me in the end.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but he prevents any words coming out by lifting his hand.

  “But you can come and sit by the fire. I don’t like the thought of you being cold now the season’s on the turn.”

  He walks to the door, jerks his head at me to indicate that I should follow, and fuck, I follow, with every intention of sitting in front of that fire.

  * * * *

  In the living room, the blaze crackling, we sit in silence. It’s often like that with us. Minimal conversation, some nice, easy fucking, his big warm hands all over me, massaging away the kinks my mattress brings. Him bringing me food and drink. Leading me to the corner where he turns on the hose acting as a makeshift shower. I could do that bit myself, but he’s said he wants to do it, makes him feel good.

  “I’m looking after you,” he’d said.

  He’s by the door now, sitting bolt upright in a ladder-back chair. I’m lying on the rug, a shaggy affair that feels good on my body, me having been used to the hard mattress on the steel bed or the concrete floor. I fiddle with the pile, inch-long, dark red strands that are so soft they tickle. He keeps a clean place, I’ll give him that, and as the heat warms my chilled bones, I take in my surroundings. I know he’s watching me, probably thinking I’m nosing about so I can tell the police what I’ve seen should I ever get out of here, but really, I’m not.

  I’m interested in the man who chose dark red for his walls and black suede for his furniture. Curious as to why he’s picked abstract art for his walls instead of scenes filled with people or ships on lonely seas. And he’s a ship, isn’t he? Full of cargo, I’ll bet, floating along with a destination in mind but seemingly getting nowhere fast owing to the lack of wind. I mean, he hasn’t ind
icated to me that he’s about to take his journey further—if he even had a journey or plan in the first place—unless you count him allowing me up here. For all I know, he could have picked me up on a whim, brought me back here and, after we’d fucked, felt we’d got some connection, one he didn’t want to lose.

  The same as I had.

  I decide I’d be better off finding out what his intentions are if I want to gain his trust. Be the wind in his sails.

  “Uh, what do you plan on doing next? With me, I mean?” I stare over at him, watch as he fixes his brown-eyed gaze on me and gnaws his full bottom lip. “I don’t want to sound a know-it-all bastard, but you don’t seem the type to do this. Doesn’t feel as though you’ve got it in you to hurt me, to kill me when you’re bored of me. Not the abductor kind. So what happened?”

  “None of your business.” He narrows his eyes, turning them into slits. Two deep crevices appear between his eyebrows.

  “It is, though, isn’t it? I’m here, you’re keeping me here, so it is my business. Might not seem like it to you, but whatever’s happened in your past has had a direct effect on me now, yeah?”

  His expression darkens, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing again.

  “Not that I don’t like being here,” I go on. “As I said, I’d stay if only you asked me to. But you haven’t, and no amount of me telling you I’ll stay is going to cut it, is it? If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either.”

  He clears his throat, sits more upright, placing his hands on his knees. “So tell me, why would you stay?”

  I grab the chance to talk, to have him listen, to believe. “I liked you that night—still do, mind, otherwise I wouldn’t have come back with you. I thought… Fuck, I thought, after…after we’d fucked that we’d clicked, you know? I wanted to come back, see you again. Even had some fucked-up idea of us having a relationship. A proper one. Exclusive. But I haven’t got a job and I live in a dive. Got nothing going for me, if I’m honest. You wouldn’t want me like that.”