Page 52 of Twisted Bonds
"With all the good you're doing with those victims? You have more than darkness in you, Ry."
"You don't get it. Helping them is the only way I can begin to atone for all my sins. I tried to help them in an honest way, and I was punished for it. My punishment was so bad that I never tried to lift another finger to help them again. I went another route, but in the meantime, I had to ignore all the cries for help while Mario and his goons were raping virgins and putting the male captives in their place. It's up here." I poke hard at my head as tears flow down my cheeks. "It's always right here, playing in my head like a broken fucking record."
"Ryan," he says softly and takes a step toward me.
I shake my head and step back. "No, Beau. You need to go. Go find happiness somewhere else because you will no longer find it with me. I don't want to bring you into this darkness; nobody should have to live with it." I spin on my heel and run from the room, leaving Beau staring after me.
Twenty-Nine
Ryan
Instead of returning to the room Beau wants us to share, I go to my old room. Everything is how I left it as if I just time-traveled back to when my mother and I still lived here; only her things are still at the Manor.I should pack them up and bring them back here. I doubt Chloe will want another woman's clothing in her home.
Sighing, I turn off the light and climb into the cold bed. The bedding smells musty, but I'm too tired to change it, so I try not to think about it. Rolling over to face the outside wall, my eyes land on the tree outside the window. The same tree that would scare the shit out of me during storms when I was younger still stands. The branches are overgrown once more since nobody has lived here in years, and each time the wind blows, they scratch against the window and the house siding.
The door squeaks open as Beau comes in. He didn't even give me two minutes before deciding to come to me. How am I supposed to think in peace when he isn't giving me the time to do so?Do you really want him to just walk away?
The blankets are pulled back, but Beau doesn't stop there. He scoops me up and carries me from the room, never saying a word as we walk down the hall to the Master suite. Kicking the door closed with his foot, he continues to carry me to the bed, where he gently lays me down and covers me back up.
Beau's eyes meet mine with a mixture of hurt and—anger? "Beau, we can't…"
"Just shut the fuck up, Ryan. I've tried being the understanding husband, boyfriend, whatever the fuck I am to you anymore. Hell, it almost feels like I'm nothing to you. Is that it, Ryan? Do you feel nothing for me? Am I just a guy you kept around because you were bored? Now that things have gotten rough, you'll wash your hands of me and what we were together?"
"No! That's not it at all, Beau!"
"Really, because you seemed hell-bent on making me leave you just a few minutes ago." Beau pauses, scrubbing his hand over his face, "Jesus, Ryan. I know better than anyone the hell you must have gone through. I saw the videos every time they touched you and made you touch them. Do you think that was easy for me? At least you weren't trapped behind a wall of bars, left for days before they remembered to feed you? The only reason they remembered was because they brought my mother back downstairs after using her, and only to fuck her again in front of me."
Beau goes on and on about why I'm wrong and that he isn't a good man, but I find it hard to believe… He's proving it now as he stands before me, arguing his case. The fact that he can forgive me for everything I have done while he was MIA proves what type of man he is. However, the more he repeats himself, his words start to resonate, and I begin to wonder if my decision is the best one.
"Do you think I'm clean of all sins or the filth my uncle put me through, Ryan? You say that you don't want to dirty my soul. What makes you think it isn't already dirty? It may possibly be dirtier than yours. Then again, maybe it's because I'm selfish, and I don't want to give you up because you keep me grounded." He sits on the edge of the bed and reaches up to caress my hair.
The look in Beau's eyes in this instant isn't the soft emerald ones that I adore. They've turned darker green, like the forest, and they have a hardness. My heart rate speeds up. I've seen that color before; it's been years, but I know them from the dreams I used to have when Beau Huntley was my tormentor. I could never decipher whether they were dreams or nightmares, but thinking back on them now and knowing what I now know about myself, I can safely say that they weren't nightmares.
Realizing what this means takes hold, and a titillating chill runs through me. My body craved what my bully was doing to me back then; it's just thatmy brain hadn't caught up to what it was that we really wanted. Beau was my bully and then my lover and I love him with everything I have, but will I be able to go back to what we had, how we had it, after everything I've endured and become accustomed to?
I enjoyed what Beau did to me back then. The humiliation of belittling me in front of our peers, the constant shoving me into lockers or walls, deep down, I liked it. The day he caught my hair in my locker, it was like my hair being pulled when I'm fucked from behind… I loved it all; my brain just hadn't caught up.
Ever since he arrived, his tender look has sent me into a tailspin of emotions. I know I'm fucked up deep inside, and it's going to take someone almost, if not more fucked up, to be with me. I couldn't stand having Beau look at me with forgiveness, but this look, this hardening, and covetous look—it has my woman parts firing their pistons and my heartbeat speeding up in anticipation.
I remember how my body got turned on by how Brock treated it. However, deep down, I hated myself because I knew Brock didn't love me, not like Beau loves me and not how Bain loves me.Bain.That will need to be discussed because try as I might, I can't stop thinking about him, and my heart cracks open a little more every time I think about never having what we had again. Now isn't the time to think about him, though. This time is for Beau, and he deserves my full attention.
"Beau…"
"I don't want to hear any of your excuses, Ry. Thinking back on our times together, I didn't think I'd ever lose your love. I'm finding out that may be wrong, but you know what? I don't give a fuck anymore. You. Are. Mine. Ryan. You have been mine for six years, ever since I saw you in the hall at school. Is that what I have to do to get you back? Do I have to bully my way back into your heart?"
"You still have my heart, Beau…"
"Maybe—but I want the rest of what belongs to me. You gave yourself to me, Ryan, which means—" His hand slips from my hair and slides down until he cups my breast and squeezes as he says, "These tits are mine."
My breath catches as he pinches and pulls my nipple, making it harden before abandoning it to move his hand lower. I can't stop gazing at him, and when I notice his features starting to soften, I squeeze my thighs together when he gets to my center and tries reaching between them. His facehardens once again when I breathe out, "No." Denying him access is only a ploy, a test, really, and I'm about to find out if what I'm thinking is true. I know I shouldn't play with his feelings, but I need to know if he has it in him.
A low growl leaves his lips as he asks, "What's wrong, Ryan? Am I not an asshole enough, or is it because I don't know how to use a whip? I can learn, you know, but I don't want to. Tell me, did you enjoy all those times the D'Angelos used you? Be honest now. This is an important question."
After a brief moment, I nod. "I did enjoy it—most of it anyway, and only towards the end when they stopped being vicious," I tell him, and hurry to say, "But it was always you that I was thinking about."
Beau swallows hard, then scoffs, "I never did those things to you, so why would you think of me? Just because you thought you should because by thinking of me, you could pretend that you really didn't like it?"
"No. I thought about you because I love you more than anything." I pause briefly before saying, "I imagined you doing those things to me, Beau. I liked what they did to me but didn't likewhowas doing it."
