Page 72 of Running Feral

It’s impossible to know when to trust my own judgement where Tobias is concerned. After all the work we did to sew that particular bag of issues shut, it’s been ripped wide open again. I’m right back where I started, weighing each thought anddecision to see if it’s genuinely in his best interest, or if I’m really motivated by my own wants.

It’s terrifying. Utterly, bone-chillingly terrifying. If there’s one thing that makes me want to retch, it’s the thought that I could let my worst impulses get the better of me. Even if my impulses aren’t garbage ones like wanting to fuck him… I don’t care if he never wants to have sex again. That’s not the point. I’m more concerned about the deep-seated desire to center myself as the hero of his story.

The thought twists in my head until I’m scared to move or breathe or even touch him sometimes, which doesn’t help him either.

He came to me. He wants me. Denying him the comfort that he wants isn’t any better and is just as much of afuck youto his autonomy as the rest of it.

I have to walk the line. To be the man he deserves without letting it feed my own ego, or all this falls apart.

I’m still stroking his skin as I think this through. I’m not supposed to wake him. I read it online when I was deep diving into trauma recovery. It’s not like this is a brand-new subject for me, but I’ve never been this closely involved before. Normally, I limit myself to offering a place to stay, maybe a job, and the occasional shoulder to cry on.

I work very hard not to get invested. With Tobias, I’m lying here, wide awake and more invested than I’ve been in my life.

Tobias opens his eyes, although he stares at me like he’s not seeing anything for a long time. Then he takes in a small, sharp breath, and the world seems to come into focus.

“Gunnar?”

“Yeah, baby,” I say, keeping my voice soft and low as I take his face in my hands. “It’s me. You had a nightmare.”

He shivers, working his body closer to mine under the covers before finally fisting my shirt in his hands the way he was trying to in his sleep.

“Okay.” The word comes out muffled, because he’s already sinking lower and pressing his face against my chest.

I can see light creeping in around the curtains, so at least we made it through most of the night before he woke up. Between the time I spent before bed making him eat, shower, and hydrate, then a decent amount of sleep, he’ll at least have been able to metabolize all that fucking vodka.

I assume he’s trying to fall back asleep, so I shift until my arms are wrapped around him and hold him tight. But his breathing doesn’t even out again. It stays fast while he keeps squeezing me to him, and for a second, I wonder if he’s having a panic attack.

Just when I’m about to lean back and look at him, though, I feel his teeth scrape across my chest through the fabric of my shirt. At the same time, his deft fingers dig into my ribs, and he drags his hips against mine in a way that can only be described as seductive.

It’s so fucking unexpected, I freeze. He keeps going for a few more seconds, teasing my nipple through my shirt and making arousal shoot through me when I wasn’t prepared for it. I gasp, before palming the back of his head and tugging him up where I can look him in the eye.

“Baby, what are you doing?”

His voice is quiet, still sleep-soft and thick with his own arousal.

“Fuck me, Gunnar,” he murmurs, grinding against me again for emphasis.

My brain goes entirely blank at the thought; I’m so caught off-guard.

What do I do? My body is already on board, lighting up at the barest touch from him, like always. So much of me wants to bethat close to him, like it’ll cement the connection between us in a way that no one can rip apart.

But I never expected him to want it so soon.

“Maybe we should talk about it first,” I say, still holding him close because the last thing I want is for him to feel like I’m rejecting him.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he says before kissing me, plunging his tongue into my mouth while he continues to grind against me, his hands sliding down to squeeze the flesh of my ass. “I want you—mmph—inside me.” Now his cock is half-hard, and he drags it slowly against me before wrapping his legs around my hips as well as he can in this position.

I kiss him back, letting my hands roam up the expanse of his back while he squeezes me tight.

“Fuck, I want you too, baby,” I whisper in between kisses.

I can already picture it. He would look so beautiful beneath me, flushed with arousal and begging for more.

But that mental image triggers another one—the memory of how he froze up when I accidentally put too much of my weight on top of him. I still ache from the guilt of making him feel that way. How much worse would it be if we got halfway through sex and he started to panic?

The memory would be tainted forever for both of us. It could set him even further back in his recovery. It could make him frightened of me.

Or even worse, he could start to panic and not tell me, pretending everything was fine. Because he’s strong and I know how much he wants to feel ‘normal’ again.

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