Love is a Bloodhound

by Reid Astor

  He's scared, it's in his heart tight like a knot that only gets stronger the more it's tugged on. In the blood he's drawing from Lars' ribs under his nailbeds, in the air he can't breathe when Lars' tongue runs along his lips. "Stop," he murmurs, pressing against him and feeling the man's erection press back on his thigh. "Stop."

  "Are you asking me, little bull?" He feels Lars smiling rather than seeing it- the man's smiles take the form of hands firm around his body, in the kiss he leans in for next that tugs on his lips and draws him in.

  Niklas tears his lips away and turns his head, ignoring how Lars takes hold of his hair and pulls, ignoring the burning pain that digs through his scalp as his neck is exposed. "No," he grunts, scrunching his eye up in pain. "It's a demand. Stop."

  "No," Lars echoes, chuckling as he wrestles in against him and kisses him again- and again, and again, like a hungry animal. He slips his leg to lock over Niklas' body, pressing and grinding his stiffness against him, and pushes him back, swings them both so he's straddling him on the bed and pushing him down by the jaw into the sheets.

  Lars’ lips relent so easily to his teeth that he isn’t even sure what he’s done until he tastes the iron tang against his tongue and rolling into his mouth. The man exhales sharply, shuts his eyes and draws away, the corners of his mouth stained crimson and dripping.

  He's about to speak when Niklas interrupts, spitting the blood he tastes away. “I'm not your whore and I never will be. Get off me.”

  Lars sits up straight, wiping away his mouth and glancing at the trail he leaves all across the back of his hand. "Fair enough. How about this," he begins in a leisurely tone, running his thumb over his jawline, "just tonight. I’ll be good to you. And then I'll let you go. I won’t fuck with you again. Trust me, the way you've made me feel these past couple weeks..." he points a finger to the wound on his chest, traces his hand over the bruises and the moon-shaped wounds now raked over his ribs. He bows his head and says, “I think I just need to have you.”

  “No.”

  What happens next is so quick he only barely has enough time to swing up and try to punch the man- Lars seizes his wrist and twists it hard, wrestling him onto his belly and, for punctuation, delivering a measured blow to the blind side of his face. He doesn't have time to cry out before he's mangled and feeling his arm yanked the wrong way at some unnatural degree behind his back, and then Lars has his other arm, and then the hard bite of leather comes down around his skin to the sound of rustling.

  And the pain in his bones is done screaming because now he's just groaning, he can't move his arms without meeting resistance- if he could fashion a guess in the blindness and confusion, he'd suppose Lars is tying him down in some crude fashion with his own shoulder holsters, sans the gun.

  The weight of the man peels off of him, but before he can even wriggle onto his back and regain some dignity, Lars' hand comes down on the back of his head and shoves his face into the sheets. "Nikky," Lars says softly over his suffocating breath, "Nikky, you fascinating beast, why do you always insist on making the tough choices?"

  He goes blind, thrashing and kicking and rolling around and trying to reach the man, headbutt him, anything, stumbling at him with his hands behind his back- and Lars just sidesteps and catches him in an off-balance charge, using the momentum to turn them both around and throw him back-first onto the bed.

  He feels his waist pinched as Lars tugs and undoes his belt, feels the climbing sense of urgency reach its peak on the sweat that gathers on his brow and the dull pain throbbing in his head and groin. But there's no point in it, is there? He asks himself, shutting his eyes as the cold air laps at his thighs and Lars gently yanks his pants upwards and pushes his legs into the air.

  No point, he thinks as the callused hands slip between him and gently touch him through his boxers, tracing, mapping, tugging him away into nakedness.

  "I won't forget this," he says as Lars lowers himself onto him, pushing up his shirt and lining kisses down his rising and falling abdomen.

  The calmness and method melts away from Lars at those words, and he grins up at him as his hands trace the line of hair running down to his bare groin. It’s feral, amused- more than anything, though, the lingering of his gaze tells him he’s savoring every moment of it. "I promise you, I won't either." His hands reach and stroke him.

  The man takes him in his mouth and Niklas goes blind in a completely different way. What Lars doesn't handle, his fingers do, pumping the length of him from his base, swallowing him in the thick moist heat that his mouth brings. And it should not feel this good, but if he shuts his eye and cranes his head back, it almost feels like a woman's lips and a woman's tongue running the length of his shaft and pumping him until he's fully hard.

  Why, he asks himself, why am I turned on, why am I-

  Lars takes away his hand and brings him in entirely, and he feels the tip of himself plunge against the man's throat, and shifts unintentionally upwards into him. It brings him all the more pleasure when the man gags ever so slightly, jostled, and he thrusts up with even more enthusiasm, looking down and finding that Lars' eyes are shut in concentration and his hand is curled in a fist around Niklas' shirt.

  "Fuck," he lets out the small cry and it blends in with the word. The man draws back and leaves him coated in spit, running his tongue over his head and pressing it ever so slightly between his lips. And Lars looks up at him as he comes back down on him, hand returning and running over the wetness. Niklas feels it as he fucks his mouth, Lars' fingers, now wet, trailing over to his base and lowering- he tenses up as the heat crawls against the inner sides of his ass, as he realizes what he's doing.

  Lars seems to know, and brings his other hand to pump him as he rubs his fingers against his entrance, ignoring the now discomforted noises Niklas hisses through his teeth. "Don't- don't-"

  It happens too quickly. It draws the whimper from him like a knife in the gut when Lars' fingers enter him and the man goes down on him at once, sucks him so well and so hard he can almost not feel the digits brushing him and taking him from the inside, running in and out as he thrusts insistently against the man's mouth, struggles, sweats.

  When Lars comes up, it's with a gasp and a trail of saliva still stretched between his lips and the head of Niklas' cock. He laughs a little, pausing the loose fist he's made around him to thrust his fingers in even deeper, eyes on him as he runs a tongue over him. "So you're not above making noises like that, are you?" he comments, fingers rolling over the tip in a loose circle, drawing out beads of pre-cum. "You're- delicious-" he punctuates those words with a third finger, watching as Niklas' legs thrash in protest and the man throws his head back with the effort it takes not to make a sound.

  Carefully, he draws out his fingers, leaving a burning heat inside him where his digits used to be. Hand still around him, Lars leans in and kisses him, tongue brushing against his as he pulls in- and Niklas tastes himself and hates how Lars makes him moan anyway, jerking him harder than ever until he's practically burning with the friction and stinging with the pain and so fucking hard he's sensitive to both.

  And then he stops, takes his hand off and pulling himself to stand above him. And Niklas knows he's probably a goddamn sight, his pants and boxers tugged down halfway to his knees and pre-cum rolling down his erection and the dull thumping bruise on his blindside temple. He glares up at him, spits, “I bet you’re famous for your self-control among all the private detectives in New York City.”

  The man just snorts and walks away, shedding his button up and baring his tattoos as he kneels down before his bag. The church on his back stretches taut as he drops down, zipping it open- for what, Niklas doesn't know. In moments he comes back, a bottle of oil glistening in one hand and a roll of tape and scissors tangled in the fingers of the other.

  This isn't happening.

  They're thrown on the bed beside him as Lars takes to tugging off Niklas’ boots, his pants, his boxers. He feels them peeled one by one from his skin, tenses
his jaw as he's left completely prone waist-down. With one decisive moment, he raises a leg in an attempt to kick the man, swing him away, anything- the impact is weak from the bad angle, and Lars just laughs softly as he tugs the last of his pants off his ankle and climbs onto the bed above him. He tugs his shirt up, running his hands over the bare skin underneath, hands hot and coated in a film of sweat the slicks between their skin.

  In this light, Niklas can see the full view of his cock, outlined and hard in his pants. He blinks, giving it a half-lidded stare, and is brought back to attention by the sound of tape ripping. "No, you're not-" he's silenced by Lars' hand forcing his jaw closed and the line of tape plasters itself down on his lips as he stares at him.

  "I'm not what?" Lars asks calmly. For good measure, he reaches up, and yanks the eyepatch off of him- and smiles, satisfied. "You look good like this." Jostling open his zipper, he reaches down, keeping full eye contact as he jerks himself slightly through his pants before slipping them off leg by leg. Commando, Niklas notes with disgust as his erection comes into view. He’s so hard he feels it immediately prodding against his thigh.

  The man bucks against him, rubbing them together and causing a jolt of strange and awful pleasure to roll up his abdomen and straight into his mind. He inhales sharply, murmuring through the tape, but Lars doesn't say a word. His hand reaches for the oil, soaking his cock with it and running it over Niklas' own for good measure, rubbing it in and causing him to moan as the slippage takes away the friction and brings their bodies crushing against each other with fluidity.

  Lars raises his legs, gripping him at the knee, and brings the tip of himself against the entrance. He squeezes his eye closed and resolves not to give the man the pleasure of making a noise. He's large, notably a little larger than he is himself, and the sensation of that girth pressing against him drains his face of blood and fills him with breathless fear. No, this isn't happening, he tells himself, as Lars eases in and stretches him apart.

  "Oh, fuck, Nikky-" the man groans as Niklas takes more than he realized he ever could take. "Ah-"

  He's crying, he realizes, as the heat licks down his cheeks and the pain burns hard inside of him and his every breath is ragged and noisy through his nose. "Shh," Lars whispers, as he feels the man's hipbones touch his ass and he realizes he's entirely inside him. "Shh," he repeats, leans over and kisses his sweat-soaked brow, touching him as if he could massage out the furrows of pain on his face. "It'll hurt more if you don't relax."

  He eases out slowly and ever so slightly, and comes back in, and the pain doesn't go away- it just recedes and pinches back all the more. Niklas feels the pain jolt up his legs, but even as he twists and tries to get out, Lars' hands grip his legs tighter and push him back and the bindings around his arm bite his skin. He feels the man's cock pulse and grow harder inside him, feels his own body tightening and screaming against it, and Lars- Lars moans, draws back, and thrusts in viciously.

  What he feels next cuts him apart entirely. The man's reached something, something inside him that sends the heat and pleasure straight up inside his brain and to the head of his cock and it's like a stab of pleasure fucking shooting through his entire body. He rips out a scream through the gag, a scream torn between pleasure and confusion, and Lars, inches away from his face, whispers, "I found it, huh?"

  The man begins to thrust into him at a brutal rhythm, growing faster and deeper and so violently that there is not a single thing on this earth that Niklas can think of to take his mind away from thunder of white-heat pain and carnal gratification jolting through his blood.

  It's with a cry of pain that he receives the sting of the tape gag ripped off all at once, a strip of burning pain running across his mouth even before Lars comes in and crushes their lips together, kissing him steadily even as his hips move with fervent, unsteady pace. He pushes their bodies closer together, groaning as his wounds graze Niklas' bare skin.

  Forcefully, Lars pushes back, drawing out and leaving his entire body clenching on nothing. He flips him over onto his belly, taking a fistful of hair as he enters and tugging his hips into the air, into his cock, leaving Niklas to keen into the sheets as he takes it all again and Lars resumes fucking him, hitting that spot deep inside him harder and with even more torturous precision.

  The man reaches around and pulls his hand around him, drawing a gasp out, and he hears him say, "Ah, fuck, Nikky, I finally got you on your knees. And you feel so good-" and it's not in his normal accent, or in his normal voice- there's something base and primal in that lilt coming out in the rhythm of his thrusts, rapid, rough.

  "I'll never forget this," he whispers, before the moan crawls up his throat and spills into the sheets, before Lars groans loudly and speeds up impossibly faster, before he feels him throb inside him. He clenches, squirming in his bindings as the heat pours against him, pushed inside by each thrust, pushed against the deepest part of him and staining him irrevocably, as Lars leans over him and trembles and jerks him to climax.

  And he can't tell himself this isn't happening anymore because Lars' rough hands are around him and Lars is coming inside him and he can feel the heat speckle over his chest, his chin, even his lips and the sheets as he shakes and the pleasure washes over him in a blinding cascade.

  When he comes back, he finds his ass still in the air and his open mouth still pulling in air to supply his strained lungs, his heartbeat a dull but consistent thudding in his chest. He feels the seed spilt dripping from his chest, on his shirt, from his entrance, inside him, and shoves his face to hide in the linens as the pain and emptiness sets in. Lars' hands trail over him, from his cock to his back, calming and abhorrent at the very same time, and he feels a gasp of relief as the man tugs away the makeshift constraints and he feels his hands, blood-dead, fall to his sides.

  Pins and needles dance on his skin as Lars turns him over, brushing the stick off his chin and chest and holding him close for a long, soft kiss. He feels his eyebrows knit in pain and confusion as their lips brush gently and Lars hovers there. "I love you," he says into his lips, brushing away the beginnings of tears from his lashes, "don't forget that."

  He chokes back the pain still dully resounding in his body, and the self-disgusted flush that comes to his face as the tears well in his eye. He turns his face away, raises a weak arm to wipe away the rest of the cum set on his shirt, looks at it gathered on his fingers through his distorted vision.

  This isn't what love looks like.

  * * *

  The man in the bathroom mirror is decorated in bruises. He reaches to touch the various angry red marks across his neck, as well as the small mark dashed across his right temple above his eye, memorizing them. His arms themselves seem tattooed a darker shade in spans around their circumference, but the redness has mostly receded from his mouth, where Lars tore away the tape.

  The pain pulses through him- and now it's leveled out everywhere, in his ass, in his back, in his head and on his skin. He has to raise his hand to contain the gasp, and even then- it feels like Lars could be anywhere beyond that door, that he's still aware of him out there. Biting back a noise, he throws aside his disheveled and soiled shirt to the tiled floor and proceeds to the shower.

  It's with violence that he pushes the knob open to the hottest level possible, with fear that if he moves any slower he'll be overtaken. The shower head sputters out a weak stream at first, but finally evens out into a healthy shower of lukewarm water that pours over him, mats his hair, and sluices over his body with gradating heat.

  It takes too long to get hot enough, too long for the coat of steam to gather on the rippled glass. He lets out a long breath it scalds him, stinging locally in such an ethereal way at first, then tingling, then- nothing, a strange bright numbness distributed in cascades over him. Methodically he unwraps the cheap complimentary soap, lathers over himself and washes himself away, washes Lars away, washes the filth of the day away.

  Only then, numbed by the blistering heat, does Niklas Baranov permit
himself to cry.

  * * *

  He has to go out eventually. He's been standing in here in his pants counting bruises like a map, tracing over the welts on his arms and memorizing the trail of hickeys for at least fifteen minutes. He tells himself the Lars waiting outside is the private investigator, the professional, and not the man he had to wash away from inside him. That they're different, and that after his shower, he’s different- that in the scalding hot water he burned down all the skin Lars ran his hands over and left nothing to remain.

  Focus on the operation at hand, he tells himself. The pain inside him has alleviated from a warm wash, but it won't be gone forever- use your mind while you have it. With resolution he slips on an undershirt and eyepatch and opens the door.

  The smell of sex and cigarettes pervades, hanging thick in the dim atmosphere and bringing him, for a brief moment- back to an hour ago. Stiffly he proceeds, and as the wall comes away from view he sees Lars, poised straddled on the chair by the open window and blowing smoke into the wind. "I had an apartment like this before," the man says, without looking at him. "Good times."

  "You said you had something on my father," he responds. "I want to see it."