Page 66 of Possession

When I turn the water on, he says, “I have to pee.”

I grunt in acknowledgement but don’t let go of his hand. I hold my free hand under the spray, testing the water temperature while I look back at Lucas.

I watch understanding dawn on his face. His eyebrows lift. His lips part. Color stains his cheeks. I wait for him to shake his head, to pull away. He doesn’t, and as he follows me into the shower, I see that his cock is slightly thickened. My own begins to respond as we enter the spray.

I pull Lucas against me, his back to my front. Looking down over his shoulder, watching his cock, I let my hands roam over his chest and belly. His cock plumps as I touch him. His breathing quickens. I massage around the base of his cock. I reach under to cup and roll his balls in my hand. When he’s half hard, I gently take his cock in my hand.

The quickness of his breathing tells me that he understands what I want, but I don’t know if he can do it. I wrap my other arm around his chest, holding him close against me. I drop my head to start kissing his neck.

I’m asking for extreme trust and intimacy. Submission too. I keep kissing him. I need it from him, and he gives it to me.

He starts to make soft little sounds. A breath eases from him as he gives in, lets go. I murmur against him, praising him wordlessly as I watch him urinate while I hold his half hard cock. My own cock stiffens fully where it’s trapped against his ass. It’s so intensely intimate that we’re both trembling by the end of it.

Lucas turns in my arms and huddles against me. I pet his wet hair and kiss him as I reach between our bodies to takeboth our cocks in my hand. I stroke until we’re grinding and gasping against each other. His cock throbs against mine. I can’t usually come from something like this, but in the wake of his submissive, intimate act, I know that I will. I’m so close. All I need is—

Lucas cries out against me. As his cock kicks against mine, spurting hotly in my grip, I clutch him against me and start coming in hard, wrenching pulses. We strain through our mutual orgasm in the tight, close space we’ve made with our bodies.

We stay there for a long time after, arms around each other. I know he feels vulnerable right now. I do too. But I realize now what he obviously realized well ahead of me. He’s safe with me, and I’m safe with him too.

TWENTY-THREE

Roman

I’m trying to accept Lucas being free to roam the house. It’s not a matter of fairness or justice. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about any of that. I do, however, give a shit about him, and me confining him was making him unhappy.

I don’t quite understand it, but it doesn’t matter. I need him to be happy. In fact, I don’t really need anything else.

But though I would like to fill my days with nothing but Lucas, I’m getting sucked back into the Constantine universe. It started with killing Liam Crowley. Taking out a member of a crime family always stirs up trouble.

It’s coming back to me, that kind of shit, mostly because Vitali has me sitting in on it. He met with Crowley’s son. It would’ve been easiest for Vitali to lie, but that’s not really his style. Anton would have lied, but Vitali had already seized control of this particular situation from our uncle. Vitali told Crowley’s son the truth, and he told him exactly how a war with the Constantines would play out.

There shouldn’t be trouble from that quarter, but the DiMaggios are another story. Before my capture, we were rivals. Now we’re enemies. Over the past four years, apparently, there have been attacks on both sides, captures and torture, territory disputes, and interruptions to business for everyone.

This used to be my life, and it’s starting to come back to me, but only in a weirdly compartmentalized way. It’s like, for short periods of time, if the environment is quiet enough, I can access that part of myself.

It doesn’t take much, though, for that access to get shut down. It’s always abrupt too, like I just snap back to some other form of myself. Sometimes I go completely still. Sometimes I break shit.

A few days ago when Vitali took me to our nightclub for the first time, I did okay for a while, then I suddenly walked out the door and into the street and I have no idea why.

I haven’t told Lucas about any of the incidents, but it always feels like he can tell anyway. Somehow, he always knows what I need, and he gives it to me.

I’m trying to give him what he needs too, but I’m not as good at recognizing it—especially when it conflicts with what I need.

I need him in spaces that I control. I’mtryingto regard the entire house as such a space. I’ve gotten comfortable with the library. The gym and sauna are a work in progress, but I’m doing okay, mostly.

The fucking kitchen, however.

It’s like Grand Central Station, and Lucas loves being right in the middle of it.

The first time we ate breakfast there, it was just us, and though it was exhausting to have to watch two doors and four windows while Lucas explored every goddamn inch of the kitchen before deciding what he wanted to eat, I managed. It was important to him, and I did my fucking best.

The next time we ate in the kitchen, however, there werepeople. I only got through it because Lucas tolerated me being right on his heels and let me touch him the whole time.

But he’s been pushing for more leeway. He seems to like cooking, and I’ve found him in the kitchen alone several times looking up recipes on the phone I asked Sasha to get for him. I don’t like it, but he’s so fucking happy when there’s flour all over his hands and shirt and face.

So this evening when I return to the house and hear activity in the kitchen, I head that way expecting to find Lucas similarly engaged.

He is, in fact.

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