A.N. Same old cast announcements here. Isaac, who I know a lot of you already hate from unspoken events of the past, is still cast as the gorgeous Nick Jonas. He's just so brutal and fiery, I'd let him slap me about any day, every day, all day. But then again, I'm just all shades of fucked up. All the best people are, though. Vote and comment, and enjoy the chapter, as always, xoxo, Clay.
"I'm a little bit naked, but that's okay."
-Lady Gaga
♔ Chapter Five ♔
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," he smirked. His arm planted onto the wall that I was leaning against, locking me in place.
"Once wasn't enough?" I dared to ask, avoiding his icy hard gaze. Of course, some part of me should have known he'd come back. Not every rent boy would let him do to them what he did to me.
"Nope." His other arm swept around to the other side of the wall, so I couldn't escape. His arms kept me there, his body surrounding me. I should have been scared, but I wasn't. His closeness only made me hard. Harder, anyway.
"I don't know," I said, "does it not seem inappropriate?" I don't know why I suddenly became so put off by the idea of getting with Isaac again. In fact, the thought alone was making me so nervous that I was trying to avoid it at all costs. Like I'd suddenly become unready for sex. Wow. Now I felt even more ridiculous. I mean, when wasn't I ready for sex? I was being stupid.
"Why would it be inappropriate?" He gave me a totally blank look after that, even though we could both think of at least forty two and a half reasons exactly why it would be inappropriate. But for now, my mind could only focus on one.
"You know why," I blurted, like I'd just now realised how actually inappropriate it was. Obviously, I knew before, but last time was different. Last time, I'd convinced myself that it would only be a one time thing, that Tom wouldn't mind, even if he was dead. I'd convinced myself that it was okay to do it just once, to let it slide one single time. But to have him come back for more, that crossed a line that I never even knew I'd drawn. "Because of Tom."
Isaac stiffened as soon as the name left my mouth, and his entire composure switched. He went from leaning forward suggestively, with his eyebrows raised and his eyes scouring me over, to a protective stance. He crossed his arms, stepped further away from me, and blinked. He wasn't even looking me in the eyes anymore. If this was what the mere mention of Tom did to him, he must be holding a lot of shit inside, even this long after his death. And to think, I never saw Isaac as the type to cling onto someone so tightly, to care so much. To care at all, really. But he did, about Tom at least.
I hadn't thought much about it before, but maybe Tom's death affected Isaac a little more than he had lead everyone to believe. At the time that Tom killed himself, all everyone knew about Isaac was that he was one of those popular guys. Typical jock, with abs as hard as rocks, failing most of his classes, and beating up the basic nerds. He had a girlfriend, too, so no one suspected for a second that he preferred sex with men.
After Tom's death, I may or may not have let slip to his girlfriend that they were fucking behind her back, and she may or may not have ended up telling everyone. Even after everyone knew, Isaac never grieved for him. When the news spread, it was almost like he'd already let Tom go. People were half-expecting him to break down or cry, but he never shed a single tear. Not until now, right before my eyes, as I watched him crumble.
It was weird. Nothing I really ever expected to see. His eyes glazed over, but he showed no sign of sadness. It looked almost like he was leaking, emptily, rather than crying, but maybe he held his face so tight to stop the grief from peeking out inbetween the cracks. I'd never really seen Isaac as someone who had feelings, until that moment. I'd just considered him to be a cold, calculated piece of shit. Someone who acted in the moment, but always had a plan. A kind of sociopath. I mean, my mother was a therapist, so I was brought up around this kind of twisted behaviour.
He coughed awkwardly, trying to casually wipe at his eyes without me suspecting him of crying. It was easy to tell that Isaac was one of those big, buff men that tried to hide their emotions and mask them behind their male ego. Someone needed to inform him that holding it all back never works, and at some point, the dam would break, and all his pent-up feelings would come flooding out.
"Uhm. What does he have to do with us having a quickie?"
"We both loved him," I heard myself saying.
"Don't pretend to grasp things that you can't possibly understand, Darby." His voice sounded almost threatening, in a hushed and animal-like growl, but I ignored it. It may probably come as a surprise, but Isaac didn't scare me one little bit. I knew how to hold my own against him, so I didn't feel remotely threatened.
"I understand plenty about your relationship with Tom," I whispered, just quietly enough that he heard, but not loud enough to piss him off.
"Like what?"
"Like how you treated him like total shit. You may as well have thrown him from those cliffs yourself," I spat, my voice raising.
It occurred to me in that moment that Isaac did hold a lot of the blame for Tom's death, and that I was still angry at him for how he treated him when he was alive. No, not just angry. Enraged. Disgusted. And there was never any justice for any of it, because Tom was already dead by the time anyone found out what was going on between them. And by the look of things, Isaac hadn't changed a single bit. He still tossed himself around like an arrogant, smug little prick, abusing anyone who gave him a passing glance. Tom's death didn't even change him, not like I expected it ever would.
"What did you just say?" His voice grew even deeper, and much more callous. He took a quick step towards me, his shadow lining over my face. I continued anyway.
"I think you heard me. You drew him to suicide. You beat him, and you raped him. But more than any of that, you convinced him that he was in love with you. That love was supposed to be like that. You made him think that he was happy, only to crush it. You played sick and twisted games with him, and now he's dead, because of you."
"Don't you dare fucking speaking to me about him!" I saw, in the corner of my eye, his fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly, trying to keep his anger at bay. I knew what type of person Isaac was. He was a brutal, vicious animal; he was a lust-filled, angry teenager; no, but more than anything else, he was just an absolute bastard.
"Why?" I asked him, my voice just as threatening as his. More threatening than I thought I could be. "Feeling guilty?"
"I loved him!" he screamed. "I loved him so fucking much that it hurt. I just wanted the pain to go away. The suffering. Everything. It just kept building and building up, everything that I was feeling, and I couldn't fucking help it. I had to do it. It was the only way to make it stop." His hands flew to his head, pulling at his own hair hard. He looked almost in pain, serious pain. His fingers turned white from pulling at his own scalp. I cringed at his tolerance for pain, especially self-inflicted.
"What are you talking about?" For a moment, I found myself actually worrying about him. Caring about him. I pushed that aside as fast as I could.
"None of your business!" he bit at me.
"What did you need to make stop, Isaac?" I persisted. I had to admit, his little outburst had me curious - how fucked up was this kid, really, on the inside? How dark could he really be?
Isaac looked back up at me, in that moment, his eyes dead and emotionless. Not exactly carefree, but held down by his own inner demons. "The voices."
"What voices?" I whispered back at him. Both of our voices had quietened down, as we teetered at the crossroads into an alley and the main road. It was the perfect time of night for secrets.
"The ones in my head. Telling me things, whispering in my ear, lying to me. The ones that told me to hurt him."
"Why did you listen to them? Why did you treat him like shit?"
"Because they told me things. That he was eyeing other guys, that he was leading me on, just like he does with everyone. That's what Tom did, they'd tell me. He went around, turning all the guys gay for him, then he'd ditch them. I couldn't let him do that to me, not when I was falling in love with him. They told me he deserved it, for being such a stupid little slut, for not loving me back."
"Tom loved you so much, more than you could ever love him, more than I could ever love him. You had to know that. The way you treated him, that was the real problem."
"Maybe he did, I don't fucking know anymore. But then, maybe he deserved everything he got in the end."
"Don't talk about him like that," I warned him slowly.
"I'll do what I fucking want, don't you dare tell me what to do, you filthy little whore." He turned his back away from me, and I half expected him to turn and walk off. But he didn't. He swung back around in a quick flicker, pushing me hard against the wall. My back hit, and I felt something crack, letting a low groan escape my lips. One hand found the scruff of my neck, pulling at it, lifting me up off of the ground. His other hand formed a punch, readying itself to hit me straight in the face.
I wasn't afraid of people like Isaac, though, and I wasn't afraid of a little it of pain, so I welcomed it. "Hit me," I egged him on. "Go on. Give in. I know you want to. Treat me like Tom."
He swung for me, and my eyes closed. Just as I was expecting his knuckles to collide harshly against my cheekbone, instead, it was his lips that I felt against mine. Rushed, hushed, and wet. His hands found mine, roaming gently along my arms, up my shoulders, and stopping at my neck. He held them there mid-kiss, tightening his grip until he was choking me.
The pain of his hard squeezes on my neck made me wheeze and try to pull him off of me, but the harder I tried, the stronger his hold became. I was breathless, lifeless, and I felt myself turning purple, my eyes clotting in darkness. His lips didn't leave mine the entire time, so I nipped his lower lip in mine and bit down. I tasted blood pouring into my mouth, and bit harder, but he didn't push away. Seconds away from passing out, I snapped my head back and butted him in the forehead. He was thrown back a few steps, and finally released his hold on my neck.
I heaved in the air as soon as I could, coughing it back in, clutching at my neck for dear life. "What the fuck, man?" I screamed at him.
"Don't be such a pussy," was his simple response. His face, with blood dripping out of his mouth and down his chin, looked kind of pleased. It made me sick, just looking at him, thinking about what he just did. But even worse, it made me sick how excited I was. The adrenaline rush pumping through me at the mere thought of his hands at my throat, of the taste of his blood in my mouth, of biting down into his bare flesh. The fact that my trousers were tightening, that I actually... liked it.
"You nearly choked me to death!" I coughed out.
"Now you're just being melodramatic," he sighed, waving his hand in the air in dismissal.
"Fuck you, Isaac, don't come near me again!"
"Fine, I won't." I didn't believe him for a second.
"God, I hate you," I cursed. "I hate you so fucking much, you know that?"
"I don't believe you," he laughed. "I think you want me, and that's what you hate. You hate how much you want me. How much you want to fuck me. You're too afraid to admit that you like it with me. You like it when I'm rough with you, when I hit you, when I choke you. You're just too afraid to admit it, too afraid, all because Tom couldn't handle it, and you know inside that you can."
"I don't want you," I told him, more to remind myself than anything else. "I don't want any of the shit that you can give me."
"Okay, sure."
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want to eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
"Nope."
"I really don't like you," I repeated.
That was when he took yet another step towards me. "Well then," he started, his voice breathy and tight, "what are you going to do about it?"
"Shit," I cursed, because I knew I couldn't handle it. I knew I was going to give in before I could even contemplate what was happening.
Suddenly, the gap between us had closed, and our lips latched back together. I threw my arms jauntily around him, grabbing at the hairs on the back of his head, and I kissed him with everything I had. I felt him smile into me, after realising that he was right about it all. He was right about everything. I liked it with him, every fucking moment. I liked it rough. I liked the pain, when he hit me, when he choked me. I loved it, so I embraced it. I embraced him, the last person in the world I ever thought I'd let myself go with.
When we broke apart, it was only to gasp for air. The look on his face was absolutely striking - a look of power, because he knew he'd overwhelmed me, and a look of passion, because he knew what was going to happen next. His eyes passed by me and down into the alley, and the two of us almost ran down there, hand in hand. When we were hidden in the shadows, he tossed me down onto the floor behind a set of bins, and lifted my t-shirt off of me. His hands found my jeans and ripped them down with such force that they were off in one pull. In a single blink, his shirt was off, and in another, he was naked.
"Turn over," he ordered, so I stood up on all fours, and waited for him to fuck me. "I'm going to fucking own you."
A.N. Tbh I don't really know if my writing in this book is even good. I'm sort of feeling like this isn't as good as Take Me and it's annoying me because I'm trying to one-up myself. I'm hoping it's better and my writing is better but tbh I can't judge it for myself because I'll end up shitting all over my writing. Idk if it's good and I don't think it is but if you guys like it I'll be happy. Vote and comment, as always. See you next time, babe. Clay.