Quick to the Hunt

by Cameron Dane

  Hunter sank his cock deep into Alex’s ass for good measure, right as Alex reared up and howled. Every muscle in his body contracted as tight as they’d ever gone, locking him rigidly still for a heartbeat in time. Then everything let go at the exact same moment, and Alex’s release rocked through him with a second hoarse shout. Alex held on to Hunter, who held on to Alex’s dick, and Alex watched himself shoot line after line of thick, milky cum onto the table. The substance landed on his blueprints, smearing the ink, but Alex was powerless to stop the gushing flow. Alex shook with every spurt of semen he dumped, the depth of which rattled his bones. He clutched at Hunter’s hand as spasms wreaked havoc in his abused ass, each incredible squeeze reminding him of that wonderful, big cock still tucked inside his body.

  Alex found his way back to his and Hunter’s reflections. The twist of Hunter’s hard lips and the stark lines pulling at his face telegraphed the extreme willpower the man displayed not to lose his shit. Alex rubbed his fingers over the back of Hunter’s hand, tracing the wicked road map of scars. “Give it up for me too.” Alex clenched every muscle in or near his ass and hoped like hell he suffocated Hunter’s cock with insurmountable joy. “I need to feel you come.”

  In a shot, Hunter’s gaze darkened past pitch. He ripped his hand across Alex’s stomach and around his side, scraping and peeling back skin along the way. In rapid succession, Hunter reared upright, pulled his dick out of Alex’s ass, and yanked the condom off his shaft. He jerked his length, the tip jamming into Alex’s left buttock, and his face somehow grew darker and more forbidding. “Say it again.” Tilted forward, he worked his cock over with tremendous speed. “Say my name.”

  The request cracked Alex’s heart. “Hunter Tennison.” His voice might have been grittier than Hunter’s just then. Alex looked over his shoulder and found the man’s direct stare. “The person I want in my bed.”

  Hunter opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His body convulsed, and he planted his gauze-covered hand into Alex’s back, maybe to help keep him standing. A second later, those fingers dug straight into skin. Hunter’s eyelids fluttered, and the first hot jet of spunk landed on Alex’s ass.

  Oh hell. Alex slumped to his elbows as the second, third, and fourth line of seed coated his buttocks, marking this mating on his flesh. Yes. Wasted and exhausted through and through, Alex didn’t need anything else. This is perfect.

  THE SIGHT OF his cum dripping down Alex’s ass cheeks spurred darker, rawer, more aggressive desires within Hunter, ones that told him to get this man to a bed, tie him down, and take him again and again, not stopping until he’d broken Alex for anyone else. Thoughts of lashing his belt across Alex’s perfect ass until the pale skin turned bright red invaded, making Hunter growl with anticipation. His cock immediately began pushing to get hard again. I fucking have to take him again, right now, any way I can.

  His heartbeat pounding loud enough to deafen his hearing, Hunter wrapped his arm around Alex’s waist and started dragging him toward the bed he could see beyond a narrow opening at the end of the trailer. Alex said something, but the meaning of his words didn’t penetrate Hunter’s ears -- Hunter could only focus on the dozens of ways he planned to mark this man inside and out, and in ways he would never be able to erase. If he thinks coming on his ass is enough for me, he’s gonna learn the real definition of branding by the time I’m through with him.

  More adrenaline pumped through Hunter’s body, quickly pushing his dick to nearly half-staff. He made it to the bedroom and shoved Alex face-first onto the bed, his body raging to take this night into round two. Hunter hit the bed, on his knees, and the sight of Alex’s pert ass, so ready for another fucking, spurred Hunter forward. He shoved Alex’s legs wide apart, and then smacked the man’s buttocks -- wanting them blistered and bloody.

  Alex shouted again, and this time the words “Slow the fuck down” reached Hunter’s brain and translated into Let me go!

  Hunter jerked and flew off the bed. Blinking and blinking and blinking, he cleared the first wave of desire-filled fog from his eyes. Hunter absorbed the sight before him, and his heart stopped. Jesus Christ and everything holy. Bloody line after bloody line crisscrossed up and down and across Alex’s back, and the man’s hips and outer thighs already burned with deep red coloring, indicating bruises would eventually come. Alex also had a half-dozen bite marks dotted with beads of blood littered across his shoulders. And that didn’t even take into account the wide circle of shiny pink surrounding Alex’s asshole, the ring now hidden between his cheeks again, indicating just how aggressively Hunter had fucked this man. Good God. What have I done?

  Then Hunter remembered what he’d wanted to keep doing just a moment ago -- things much worse and more violent than this. Bile rose in Hunter’s throat, nearly gagging him before he swallowed the bitter acid back down. Swells of panic at the many ways he would have hurt Alex if the man hadn’t stopped him surged in Hunter, making him want to throw up again. The volcano of bad, destructive, out-of-control feelings -- part of what he’d let loose here already -- gurgled inside Hunter’s chest and belly, threatening to erupt. No. Please no.

  Hunter yanked his jeans up, desperate to get away. He could barely look at Alex’s damaged backside without wanting to slam his own head into the wall until his skull cracked. Meeting Alex’s dewy grass gaze triggered an ultra-accelerated, sweat-inducing heartbeat that only fueled the awakened volcano inside Hunter.

  Alex shifted to his knees. “Hunter…” He leaned forward and reached out a hand.

  “No.” Hunter staggered backward, putting up the break signs as he did. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.” The first spits of lava exploded inside Hunter, burning his throat so much it stole most of his voice. “I have to go.”

  Hunter tore out of the trailer with such speed he tripped on the way down the steps and careened into the side of his truck, slamming his shoulder and arm into the passenger side door. All his nerve endings in the area immediately went funny and tingly, bringing to life that strange sensation that came with bumping an elbow. The brief shot of pain didn’t yet do nearly enough to smother the bonfire threatening to burn him alive. Hunter stumbled around the truck and climbed in behind the wheel, desperate to get far away from this place before the ugliness took him over and he hurt Alex again. Hunter dug into his pocket for his keys, as well as the security of his pocketknife, and came across nothing but worn fabric. Shit. The condom. He’d been so frantic to fuck Alex that when he pulled the rubber out he must have dumped everything else onto the floor.

  Thick bubbles of lava shoved their way into more corners of Hunter’s body, pushing at his very sanity. If he couldn’t ice the bad stuff soon, it would leak right out of him and he would self-destruct. Knowing he couldn’t go back into that trailer and face Alex while looking and feeling so disgusting and ugly all over, Hunter dived for the glove box and then cursed when he opened it and none of his razors or box cutters were inside. Fuck. He’d been too cocky, so sure he could handle himself with Alex, and now he sat here feeling like he needed to not only cut into his skin, but to rip out his brain or his heart. Anything so I don’t have to think or feel like I’m crazy anymore.

  Scanning his truck, Hunter spotted the cigarette lighter, and the first inkling of breathable air crept back into the vehicle. He jammed the knob in, but as soon as he did, pictures of Alex’s scratched and bitten back consumed his mind once more. Terror that he could have seriously hurt that man pushed hot tears behind Hunter’s eyes. Another gurgling of panic rose to the surface within. He clawed his shirt open and scratched across his stomach with deep, pointed swipes, scraping over old scars and burns. Hunter broke skin, creating concentrated starbursts of pain in his flesh. The scratches helped to create tiny pinpricks of bright white dots within the mass of black raging inside him, but not nearly enough to chase away the oncoming, charging darkness. Hunter grabbed for the lighter, sensing he only had seconds before losing his shit, and jammed the bright, blazing hot coil straight onto hi
s chest.

  Ahh! Terrible, all-consuming fire ripped through Hunter’s flesh, the likes of which immediately rushed everything but fighting and overcoming that debilitating, consuming shot of fiery pain from his mind. Hunter blew quick, repeated pants through clenched teeth and focused entirely on outlasting the scorching, white-hot damage he did to himself without screaming or even making a sound. The acrid odor of burning flesh tickled his nasal cavity, but Hunter had put a lighter to his body enough times that it didn’t make him gag anymore.

  Within seconds, the unbearable pain sucked every bit of Hunter’s concentration into dealing with only the burn he inflicted on himself. He focused every bit of his will on that pain and eventually pushed the dark, ugly, overwhelming violence back into the background where it needed to stay. So close. So close. In his mind, Hunter tried to envision himself running in a faster and faster sprint, leaving the ball of blackness that chased him in the dust. Good. Good. Good.

  Hunter’s muscles finally went lax. His hand fell to his side, the lighter now dangling between two fingers. A sigh escaped, the sound filling the cab of the truck, and Hunter’s heart rate began to return to normal. He punched the lighter back into its slot, then leaned across the seat to search for some ointment in the glove compartment. Instead the very distinct shape of a human shadow cutting across his truck sank Hunter’s heart into his stomach and made him want to vomit all over again. Oh Christ. Hunter didn’t have to look; he didn’t dare glance up. If he had to witness the horror and disdain in Alex’s eyes, he might not make it through the night. Son of a bitch.

  Hunter’s shirt hung open, and enough light poured into the truck to not only see the burn he’d just inflicted on himself, but the countless other scars he’d etched into his flesh too. Hunter forewent the burn cream and moved back behind the wheel, clutching it for dear life, and stared straight forward.

  Alex reached through the open passenger window; Hunter could see him with his peripheral vision. His hand full, Alex said, “I knew you’d forgotten your glove. Then I noticed your keys and pocketknife on the floor too.” Alex cleared his throat, and it sounded like nothing so much as pity, judgment, and disgust to Hunter’s ears. “I wanted to bring them to you.”

  Ridiculous, throbbing fire still burned through Hunter’s chest from the untended lighter burn, radiating in a wide circle. The acute pain diverted his focus just enough that he didn’t crack right there in front of the man he’d just fucked, scratched, spanked, and bit -- and had very nearly moved into a night of sexual and physical brutalization.

  Hunter could see Alex’s wonderful, perfect hand still clutching his things, but he couldn’t bear to look Alex in the eyes. Not after what Alex had just seen Hunter do to himself. Finding a rough scrap of voice, Hunter said, “You can drop the stuff on the seat.”

  The second the keys hit the battered fabric, Hunter swiped them up and gunned the truck to life. He shifted into drive, whispered, “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” and peeled down the dirt road, the image of Alex’s messed-up back plastered on his windshield as if it were a giant movie screen. A replay of how aggressively he’d thrown Alex on the bed and torn his legs apart to get at his ass again -- mere minutes after he’d taken the man so hard he would likely walk funny for a week -- riled the bile in Hunter’s stomach once more. When Hunter remembered how aroused he’d gotten at the thought of lashing a strip of leather across Alex’s lovely skin, he veered his truck to the side of the road and puked his guts out through the open window.

  His mouth tasted rancid in the aftermath, but it didn’t compare to the sickness still eating away inside of him. Hunter sat in his truck on the side of the road trembling, confused, and terrified. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He didn’t care if other people enjoyed violence in their sex; he didn’t. At least he never had as a man in his late teens and early twenties. Hell, he hadn’t even topped much. He’d always gotten hard at the feel of a man covering him with his solid, warm weight, sinking inside him, and taking his body to great heights of pleasure. Now Hunter only thought and dreamed about owning and dominating another man, taking as much as he wanted, even if he had to tie the man down to do it. Like what I almost did with Alex just now. Hunter could only imagine how far that session could have gone -- the things he might have done -- if the sharpness in Alex’s voice hadn’t snapped him out of the moment and back into reality. Pictures of Alex bloody from top to bottom roared to life in Hunter’s brain -- much as they did in Hunter’s worst nightmares. Violence I convinced myself I could keep in my dreams. Hunter retched again, violently throwing up bitter bile.

  Hunter had experienced an increase in these fantasies since coming home from Iraq, but he’d never let himself get so consumed by a man that he’d ever come close to acting on them. Alex pushed at those walls Hunter had so successfully erected in the last year. Alex got under Hunter’s skin. Hunter had also not thought about so much, respected so much, or come to care about another man so much as he had Alexander Quick in these last few months. For that reason, Alex became the most dangerous person in Hunter’s world. If Hunter had any hope of surviving, he had to stay far, far away from the man. He could never risk losing his control with Alex again.

  Even if Hunter had to leave town to make it happen.

  * * * *

  Holy fuck. Goddamn. Motherfucking son of a bitch.

  As Alex paced the narrow walk space in his trailer with careful steps, he kept mentally cycling through every curse word and phrase he knew. He had to, because for the life of him, he did not know what else to say as he tried to process what he’d just witnessed. He’d watched Hunter put a lighter to his chest and burn a hole into his flesh. And for one of the extremely few times in his life, Alex had been shocked into complete silence. His heart and head had immediately screamed Stop him! but then he’d looked at Hunter’s face and the words remained unspoken, trapped in his throat. Alex couldn’t exactly describe Hunter’s expression as one of pleasure, but rather one of acute focus with a hint of joy mixed in. Alex likened it to catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror during a private prep for a meeting that could change the course of his company -- a combination of focused nerves, determination, and then the confidence in his intelligence and skills that he would go into the boardroom and achieve success. Hunter had been completely inside himself while inflicting that burn on his body. Alex had not been able to make his legs move to walk away, even though he’d sensed he was intruding on an utterly private moment.

  Still, Alex couldn’t stop his brain from racing with speculation. Does he suffer from PTSD, maybe? Or was Alex completely ignorant or possibly even arrogant to assume this act had something to do with Hunter’s time in the military? Alex didn’t have a medical degree; he had no right to sit here and diagnose the man. But he did just fuck you -- with every intention of doing it again. And God, that brief, harsh mating had somehow shot to the top of Alex’s list as the most intimate, personal sexual act he’d ever known. It didn’t matter that they had barely spoken or looked at each other. Alex had felt the urgency in each thrust of Hunter’s cock. He’d sensed the desperation for connection in every scratch and bite Hunter put on his flesh.

  Standing in front of the mirrored bathroom door, Alex pulled down his jeans, wincing as the fabric abraded his flanks. Make that smacks too. Misshapen circles of reddened skin covered his hips, buttocks, and part of his outer thighs. Angling the door allowed the reflection of the mirror over the tiny bathroom sink to reflect back against the door, letting Alex see the narrow lines of blood drying across his back, as well as the circles of tiny cuts showing where Hunter had repeatedly bitten him. Alex had some scrapes across his belly too. And that doesn’t even take into account how tender my ass is and how much it’s throbbing right now.

  Strangely, categorizing the physical results of what had happened tonight brought a secret smile to Alex’s lips. He welcomed the soreness. All of it. It felt…right. As much as Alex didn’t understand it, it felt like Hunter had given Alex some of his
pain tonight -- pain Alex didn’t understand but still somehow made his chest ache with the need to help Hunter carry it.

  As much as Alex studied his injuries right now, his weren’t the only ones at the party this evening. In touching Hunter’s damaged hand tonight, Alex now suspected Hunter had suffered some burns in addition to losing his pinkie and ring finger. Beyond that, though, Alex had seen dozens more fading cuts and burns on the man’s chest and stomach when he’d run outside to return his things. Tonight was not the first time Hunter had put a hot lighter to his skin.

  Self-injuring then? Alex remembered reading about that back in high school but hadn’t heard the diagnosis mentioned much since then. If his memory served, the destructive tendency afflicted mostly teenage girls, and only in small numbers. Then again, how many boys would admit to something that made them appear weak? And self-harming didn’t explain the dominance and aggression Hunter had displayed during sex. Something had driven Hunter beyond the absolute control he’d displayed during their mating; Alex had sensed Hunter would have fucked him bloody if Alex hadn’t jerked him out of his trance. No, he wouldn’t have. Alex grimaced as his gut recoiled and rejected that notion. Hunter didn’t have true violence in him. Alex trusted in his ability to read people, and he’d responded to an innate gentleness in the man, even if right now defensiveness, anger, and self-imposed isolation kept the gentler side buried.

  God. Alex tunneled his fingers through his hair and exhaled. I have the resources to help him. I just have to figure out where to start. Alex needed a shower to help clear his head some more. By the time he toweled off, he would have a plan.