Page 85 of Sick Bargain

I look into his eyes. The blue pulses, bringing the monsters within mine to the surface while his demons wake up. We are sick. Sick individuals who are sicker together.

“And?” I ask, liking the heat of his hand on my chest.

His grin is shy but sinister. “I like it.” He leans in, lips brushing my jaw. “Might even say I’m fucking obsessed with it.”

27

CONFLICTED FREEDOM

REMIEL

I can’t be certain,but I think Krypt is conflicted.

His over-the-top possessiveness doesn’t know how to mesh with his newly discovered acceptance of feelings, and he can’t decide if he’s fucking me like he owns me or fucking me like he respects me.

His natural inclination is to force me, but his conscience is nagging at him because I’m wounded. He can’t grab my wrists or tether them to anything. He can’t dig his fingers into my skin without opening my stitches. He can’t force my face to the mattress without risking my forehead sutures. He can’t wrap his hands around the healing tattoo on my throat. He can’t even spread my thighs without opening the slices there. He’s stuck, unsure where to put his hands and what to do with my body when he isn’t controlling it. Previously, he wouldn’t care. But now…

He gets frustrated. He pushes on my shoulder, forcing me away. His cock pops free from my ass, and I brace myself against his bed, turning to face him.

“Look what I’ve done to you!” he screams at me, losing his cool for the first time. Well, not for the first time. I’ve seen himsnap, but this time, he’s losing it on himself. “I can’t even… fuck!”

I know better than to touch him right now. He’s more volatile than the storm building outside, flashing lightning through the single, uncovered window.

“I’ve fucking ruined you! Look at your body, Remiel!”

I’ve seen it. I don’t need to look. It’s scarred and marred, healing and disgusting. I look like a stitched-together version ofFrankenstein’smonster, and Krypt is myFrankenstein. I didn’t ask to be cut open, but I don’t resent him for doing it.

Krypt’s chest heaves, his eyes full of something other than his monsters. Shame. Worry. Fear, maybe. The burn on his chest is red and harsh, panting SICK with each harsh breath. But sickness hurts when it heals as much as it hinders, and that’s what he’s experiencing right now. A new outlook. The result of his behaviour. The consequence.

My mutilated body. He’s seeing it for the first time through a set of eyes not shrouded by demons.

But so am I. I’m looking at my skin and seeing his protection. I’m looking at his worry and seeing how important I am to him. Nothing about us is healthy or even moral, but sometimes, two wrongsdomake a right, and together, we’re something close to warped perfection.

Turns out, I do need him.

He needs me.

Nothing else really matters. Because Reeven Matterson is dead. Gregory Malone is trapped in the asylum for at least two years, not haunting me. My brother will be guarded to keep him alive.

And I’m Remiel Sauder, Krypt’s pathetic hero who is going to make it to twenty-seven.

I hold up my wrists, showing him his brand there. “Pain becomes protection.” I trail my fingers over the Xs on mysternum. “Xs cancel out my mistake. To shatter shows you care, but it shows me I’m important enough to break you.” I bare my throat to him. “Scars serve as a reminder, a safety net, a promise that I’ll think next time I do something so suicidal.” I let him look at every set of stitches on my body. “And this.” I pat the word SICK on my chest while looking at the one over his heart. “This connects us, and I don’t want it severed.” Finally, my hands move to his name, the first tattoo he gave me on my collarbone. The significance of our bargain. “Bargain struck, Krypt?”

A new bargain. One where we move forward in life together, no matter where it goes. I don’t kill myself, and he doesn’t lose himself.

His silver eyes meet mine and his dark hair hangs over his face, the back pieces brushing the tops of his shoulders. I don’t want him to regret what he’s done to me. Regret is for our moment of death, and if I get my way, that won’t be for a long time. He wars with himself, trying to align his hopes with his morals and his fears with his failures. But it’s too late for all that because hemademe his the night I walked into Vile House, and Ibecamehis when I taunted him into fucking me. We’re already weaved together, warped and twisted so all our parts meet, and I don’t want him to free me.

Shifting his eyes over my body one more time, he looks past the scars to see me. I’m not privy to his thoughts on any of it, but the creatures within him surge back to the surface, showing me they accept me. Will Krypt?

Naked, hard, and daunting, he closes the distance between us. With nothing more than his knuckles under my chin, he tilts my head and says, “Bargain met, Remiel.” He inhales, lips against mine without kissing. “You’re going to regret this.”

I spin him and push his back to the bed. Crawling on top of him, I straddle his legs and look down at his harshly handsomeface. “I take back what I said.” I put his hands on my thighs, tempting him to touch me without hesitation. My inner thigh stitches tug, cracking open a little.

“Which part?”

I line his lubed cock up with my ass, sinking down slowly. Fuck, the way he fills me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. All that numbness inside me gets pushed out when he pushes in, and the feeling is torturously comfortable. Bending, pressing my lips to his, I whisper, “Guess I am gay after all.”

“No,” he growls, fingers digging into my nape. “You’re mine.”

---