Loyalties Read Free Page A

chair. Something bloomed hot and tight in his chest, as thick and choking as he imagined the rope would’ve been. Pain, maybe. Definitely. But something else, too.
    And then he fell into Roger’s arms.
    He hadn’t meant to do that either, really. Maybe the shock or the adrenaline had weakened his knees, or maybe he was just feeling sappy from all the reminiscing, or maybe some part of him was happy to have survived and wanted to share that primitive joy with the only kind person left in an increasingly cruel world.
    Roger didn’t say anything. Didn’t back away and leave him cold. Just enfolded Mat against his big solid body and . . . held him. God, held him . Mat hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being touched by someone who wasn’t using that touch to hurt him. Or to lull him into a sense of false security just to hurt him more.
    None of that. This touch was comfort and understanding, and all the things Mat once used to seek in the arms of men.
    “You’re all right,” Roger said, gruff voice full of masculine tenderness, and that , after everything that had happened today, the last few weeks or months, was what finally broke Mat.
    He clutched at Roger’s shoulders, pressed his body to Roger’s, and slammed their mouths together in the most desperate kiss of his life. He wanted this. Wanted this connection, wanted to know there was something left to live for. Not Roger himself, but what Roger symbolized: the freedom to love and touch and need and be needed, and to do it of his own free will. Not that Roger wasn’t a good outlet for those urges—he was kind and handsome and kind and strong and kind and had a gentle smile and beautiful green eyes. Out in the real world, it wasn’t completely out of the question that Mat might have picked him up at a bar.
    He wondered what Roger had been like before he’d come to this place. Would there ever be any chance for them to meet outside these walls? Would it be real ? Or had this place tainted everything, ruined everything, twisted them both around so hard they couldn’t even tell what they were looking at anymore? He’d backed Roger all the way across the room, backed him into the wall, had his hands tangled in Roger’s soft blond hair and his tongue shoved halfway down his throat and his cock grinding hard into the line of Roger’s hip and thigh and this was a man who’d tied him down against his will once upon a time, I don’t have permission to feel sorry for you , stood by and watched as he’d been raped and beaten and raped again and how was it that Mat couldn’t even bring himself to care about that now, to care about anything but the slight minty taste of Roger against his tongue and the softness of his lips and the firmness of him beneath his need—
    But apparently Roger cared. It finally got through to Mat that Roger was trying to push him away. Not panicked, not even struggling, not really. No, of course not, how can you rape a fuck-toy? Just . . . insistent. Firm, but gentle. Mat wondered how often Roger had the option of refusing sex, and God, giving him that had to be just as important as him giving Mat the option to choose sex.
    Mat pulled off with a gasp. “Sorry,” he panted, wiping at his mouth and stepping away, giving Roger as much space as he could. “Sorry, I . . . I don’t know what—”
    “Shush.” No rancor, though. All kindness. Mat noticed that Roger hadn’t bothered to wipe his mouth. That Roger’s full cock was pressing hard against the confines of his jeans. Breathless relief at that, that he hadn’t forced him, hadn’t hurt him. Roger took a step forward. Another. Re-closing the distance between them. “It’s all right.” He was in Mat’s space now. Reached out and touched Mat’s arm. “But I love someone else, you know that. And even if I didn’t . . .”
    Roger cast his eyes down and to the side for a moment—not so much sad or even resigned as just . . . habit, maybe. He didn’t finish his sentence,