Page 4 of Never Leave, Never Lie

The front door slammed. Heavy footsteps crossed below. Ian imagined Alek’s impatient confusion, then ire when he discovered what Ian had done.

The stairs creaked. Ian’s door banged open.

Alek stalked towards him, his black hair ruffled, sage-green eyes promising revenge. He was tall like Ian, but the similarities stopped there. Alek’s skin was a warm olive, except so pale it was almost sickly-looking—probably because he hardly ever saw the sun—and his body was chiseled in hard angles, sinewy like a big cat that hadn’t had a good meal in a while, and with all the same threat of danger.

Ian backed away and before he realized the error of his actions, the scent of vodka and loose tobacco surrounded him as Alek pinned him against the wall. Ian could overpower Alek if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t. Alek would like it too much. Instead, he allowed himself a fraction of a second to sneak a glance down Alek’s shirtless chest to the ‘V’ of abs and trail of black hair disappearing into the gray pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips.

Alek smirked like he knew exactly what Ian was looking at, then leaned in until they were so close Ian could count the jade striations that made up his irises. All it would take was one deep breath for their lips to touch. Ian was desperate to close the gap, but he had enough self-respect left not to kiss Alek after everything he’d done.

“If you were lonely, all you had to do was ask.” Alek’s voicewas saccharine laced with poison. “I would have been happy to let you watch.”

“I hate you,” Ian said.

Alek flinched, but recovered quickly. He fisted one hand in Ian’s shirt, while the other reached down to palm Ian’s traitorous dick where it tented his boxers obscenely. Alek tsked and squeezed. Ian sucked in a sharp breath, arched his back, and groaned from the shock of pain mixed with pleasure.

“That doesn’t sound like hate to me,” Alek said.

Alek inched downward, tortuously slow, until he was on his knees. Every muscle in Ian’s body tensed with the effort not to drop his boxers and facefuck Alek into capitulation. It had been three weeks since he’d felt Alek’s mouth around his cock. Three weeks left with only his hand while Alek stuffed his dick into anyone with a hole.

Alek grabbed the front of Ian’s boxers. “What’s this?” He showed Ian the spot of precome. Then, with only the thin fabric separating them, Alek pressed his mouth, warm and wet against the head of Ian’s dick, swirling his tongue broadly. Alek’s eyes were so dark, his pupils dilated so wide, they were two rings of green around a well of black.

Alek pulled back mere millimeters to say, “That doesn’t taste like hate to me.”

Mustering what was left of his bravado, Ian shrugged and said, “I can be turned on and hate you at the same time.”

Alek’s cheeks were as red as if Ian had slapped him, but not in shame; Alek had none.

“Fuck you,” Alek said.

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“Careful. You’re beginning to make me mad.”

“I like you mad.” The push and pull of power was what first brought them together and the only thing that held themtogether now. “Besides, what can you do to me that you haven’t done already?”

Alek said nothing, but he didn’t need to. Ian had won. He could see it in the way Alek’s cheek hollowed out from where he’d bitten it to stop himself from saying something he’d regret, the way his fingers blanched where they gripped Ian’s hips so tightly there’d be bruises the next day.

In a flash of motion, Alek brought his mouth back over Ian’s cock and breathed out a slow gust of heat that forced a strangled and embarrassing whimper from Ian.

Alek rested his cheek against Ian’s thigh and looked up at him with a sadistic half-smile. The once familiar sight of Alek kneeling before him, challenging him like that, made Ian homesick for the way things used to be.

“All you have to do is say yes and we can be happy again.” Alek’s tone strived for teasing, but desperation bled through. “Wouldn’t you like that? Say yes.” Alek dropped the facade, pleading, “Please. Just say yes.”

It took every ounce of willpower Ian had left to shake his head. Their relationship was ruined beyond repair, like the Gothic Victorian mansion when they first bought it—foundation rotting, jagged cracks in the walls, one bad storm away from collapsing.

Ian never should have invested all his money into rehabbing the mansion with a business partner as mercurial and impulsive as Alek. “We could even cut costs and move in together,” Alek had said. “This house will be our opus.” Now the Victorian felt cursed, like the beginning of a horror movie where an unsuspecting couple buys their dream home, only for their lives to be ruined in the process.

Ian couldn’t say yes, but he couldn’t walk away either. All of his money was tied up in the house and Alek was self-destructing. He had no one. What would happen if Ian left him?

Alek took Ian’s silence for the answer it was and said, “Fine. Have it your way.” He removed his hands and stood.

Ian almost growled in frustration.

As Ian watched on, paralyzed against the wall, Alek walked over to the bed and sat down. He pulled his cock from his pants, spat into his hand, and jerked himself slowly, pausing only to rub his thumb over the head.

Ian’s mouth watered. His balls ached. He hadn’t come in weeks, because every time he tried to touch himself, all he could see was Alek. Before he could stop it, warm pressure foretold the inevitability. Ian came. It was short and unsatisfying and a spot of sticky come bloomed shamefully over his boxers as his dick deflated.

Alek’s eyes widened, his tongue darted out to his lip, his hand stilled over his cock for a fraction of a second. That was the only indication Ian affected him at all. Then Alek put his cock back in his pants and walked to the door. He opened it and said, “Don’t ever touch the piano again.”

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