Marked by Grief (11 page)

"You don't have to go home," Jason told him softly as he began peeling the tape and gauze off his back. "Not if you don't want to."

"I don't," Kit said adamantly as he watched Jason work. Jason just nodded and tossed the bandages aside.

"It looks good. I'l let you see it in a little bit, but it looks good."

Kit watched as he took a clean washcloth and began patting it over his skin. He flinched at first as the hot water sliced through his open wounds but then he relaxed as Jason's hand came up to the back of his neck, steadying him.

"The pain helped me focus during sex," Kit said quietly.

Jason nodded. "That's what it's supposed to do.

That and I just like seeing the marks."

"And it made each touch matter more," he tried to explain.

Jason grinned and leaned forward to kiss Kit's shoulder. "Yeah, it does."

Kit smiled and let his head fal onto his chest.

Jason tossed the washcloth aside and puled him back against his chest. Kit shifted slightly so that he was turned into Jason and his new tattoo wasn't touching him. "When did it start for you?"

"It?" Jason asked him as he tucked Kit's head under his chin and circled his arms around his smaler frame.

Kit fumbled. "The spanking and stuff?"

He felt Jason's chuckle through the other man's chest and smiled at the sound close to the lower growl of thunder. "I was eighteen the first time my partner tried to spank me. Back then I didn't know I'm a top.

There was another guy with us, and though I didn't like being spanked, I enjoyed spanking him. The most experienced of the three of us showed me how to use a flogger on the other guy. He liked canes too, which I don't. But it was good experience and my first taste of the less traditional side of sex."

Kit had asked but he realy didn't like hearing about Jason with another guy. Stil though, he was curious. "Your first time was with two other guys?"

Jason nodded. "At a club no less. I was just barely over eighteen. Bear didn't know. I was too nervous to tel him. But he folowed me there and watched as I went in. Thankfuly he didn't come in after me but he did ask me about it the next day, especialy when he saw the red marks on my wrists. I don't do wel with being tied and had struggled pretty violently until the guy untied me."

"Why try it then?" Kit asked him quietly.

Jason shrugged. "To be honest I was embarrassed and new. I didn't know what I liked or didn't, or how much. And I didn't want to appear to be a wuss in front of the other guys. It was a valuable learning experience, but not my fondest sex memory. A year later Bear came over here unannounced and let himself in when I didn't answer the door right away. He wanted to borrow a movie and got a pretty big shock when he heard the guy I was with in the bedroom. He didn't see anything but he did give me a strange look when he saw the guy's wrists as he was leaving a few minutes later."

Kit flinched. He didn't want to know any more.

Didn't want to know about the guys Jason had done exactly that to. "Please… stop…"

Jason's arms tightened around him. "Talk to me, Kit."

Kit pressed his eyes tightly together to keep from crying. "I don't want to hear about you with anyone else. No more."

Jason ran his hands down Kit's arm and side.

"Okay. I won't say anymore. But, Kit, you asked. And you knew I wasn't a virgin. Before you came to the shop, you didn't even know I was gay. You can't be mad at me for having experiences that didn't involve you years ago."

Kit knew he was being unreasonable. "I just don't like it. I want to be your only one. No one else.

Not ever again."

"I know you do, Kitty."

Kit grinned. "I'm going to kick your ass."

Jason laughed. "You're going to need to eat a whole lot more for that to happen. Even then it'l be a slim chance."

"I know." He had to start eating again, and going to school and getting a job. "Little steps though.

Right?"

Jason nodded. "Nothing you aren't ready for."

A slow smile came over Kit's lips. He could handle that. "Can we stay like this then? Just a little longer?"

"Yes. As long as you want," Jason told him quietly. "There's no rush. We'l stay like this and I'l hold you until the water gets cold." Kit sighed against his chest and Jason wrapped his arms around him, holding him close as Kit closed his eyes and relaxed against him.

Jason was awakened wel before he wanted to be by an unfamiliar noise in his bedroom. He held his breath and counted to ten. The exercise helped him focus on cataloguing his surroundings the way he'd done since he was a kid. His bedroom door was stil shut and locked. He'd had to petition the apartment manager to alow him to instal that deadbolt but it had become a necessity for his peace of mind over the years. He looked to the blinds. They were undisturbed and the windows were stil locked behind them. The wind outside would have been making them move if the windows weren't closed. Good. No one else was in the room with him and Kit. He blew out the breath he'd been holding.

There it was again, the muffled cry that had caught his attention, even in the deepest recesses of sleep. He turned to Kit and frowned when he saw the bal the smaler man had managed to turn himself into during the night. Jason put a hand on his shoulder and then barely missed getting punched in the jaw as Kit blindly lashed out at him with both fists.

"Fucking hel, Kit," he ground out as he grabbed Kit's thin wrists and pinned them up above his head. Jason knew he had no right to be mad at Kit for having a nightmare. And he wasn't. Not realy. Groggy and irritated at his sleep being disturbed, sure, but not mad. It was more fear and concern that made his heart race as Kit struggled violently beneath him. And holding onto him was a balancing act. Jason knew his own strength. He had to, as a Dom who liked to mark his partners with his hands and the flogger. If he didn't know how strong he was he could easily hurt someone.

But holding Kit as he fought him without even realizing it was dangerous for the younger man and Jason didn't want to hurt him because of it.

"Bear!" Kit yeled, his voice hoarse from the tears Jason could see running down his cheeks. "Help!

Bear!"

"Shit." Jason's heart clenched as he looked down into that pale, pain torn face. He shook Kit's wrists as carefuly as he could, hoping the jolt would wake him.

"Bear. Sorry, Bear." He shook his head from side to side and thrashed under Jason.

He cursed and turned his head away as Kit's hips pushed up against him, finding his cock and giving him just enough play to get his body's attention. This was absolutely the wrong time to get a hard-on but his cock could have realy cared less. "Kit!" he shouted into the man's face as he shook him again.

Kit went stil under him. Slowly the fight seemed to drain out of Kit and Jason released his hold on the man's wrists. "What's your name?" Jason asked him quietly. He was puling at whatever therapy techniques the counselors had taught him when he was a kid. He'd had nightmares then, but most of the stuff they'd taught him he hadn't thought about for years.

"Kit Gibson," he said, shutting his eyes tightly as he turned away.

Jason nodded. He no longer looked like he was in pain, though he was stil paler than Jason would have liked. But then again, he'd been looking like that since he walked into the tattoo shop. "And who am I?"

Kit's eyes fluttered open. "Heavy." His voice was just a whisper but there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

Jason chuckled. "No, what's my name, Kitty?"

"If I cal you Jason the Asshole, wil you let me go back to sleep?"

Jason leaned down and trailed a faint line of soft kisses over Kit's cheek and jaw. "Glad you're okay," he said as he released his wrists. He wasn't ready to stop touching him though. As wrong as it might have been in the moment, Jason liked feeling Kit's body pressed against his. They hadn't put clothes back on after the bath and the feel of Kit's soft skin was just too much of a temptation for Jason to ignore.

Kit scowled at him. "Course I'm okay. What are you doing on top of me?"

"You had a nightmare." He couldn't explain more than that.

Kit's mouth flattened into a hard line. "Always have them. Sorry." He yawned loudly.

Jason nodded. "It's okay." He should realy get off of him. He realy should. Fuck. He dipped his hips, just a fraction of an inch, and felt Kit's cock there waiting for him. Kit's eyes closed as he moved his hand between them and brushed the length of Jason's cock with unsure fingers.

"Guys do it like this sometimes, don't they?" Kit whispered as he dropped his head to the side.

Jason rubbed against the length of his cock, feeling the hard flesh pressing against his own and biting back a moan. "Yeah, they do," Jason said, remembering Kit had asked him a question.

"I haven't." His inexperienced fingers fumbled over Jason's cock as he tried to rub them together.

Jason reached between them and tangled his fingers through Kit's, puling his hand aside and bringing it up to the pilow next to his head. "You just had a nightmare." It was a weak excuse as he felt Kit lift his hips up to meet his. "Ah fuck, Kit, don't do that," he ground out between clenched teeth.

"I always have nightmares." Kit dropped his hips back down to the bed. "Don't usualy have you."

His eyes were open and Jason could just barely make out the green of them in the soft glow of light from the nightlight he kept in the bathroom.

He swalowed thickly and nodded. Kit was an adult and he knew what he wanted, and hel if it wasn't what Jason wanted too. He opened the bedside table with his free hand and puled out the smal tube he kept for his solo play. He didn't usualy do this with other guys. It had been too intimate for him in the past since he had to face his partners when they rubbed their cocks together. It was too hard to pretend the guy he was fucking was Kit when it wasn't his face staring back at him, moaning in a voice that wasn't his, saying things Kit would have never said.

But this time as Jason leaned back just enough to spread a few drops of the lube over their cocks, he didn't have to pretend. And as that slow warmth started spreading over his hard skin, he took the mouth he'd been dreaming about for years in a possessive kiss.

"It's warm," Kit whispered in awe when Jason broke their kiss just long enough for them to catch their breaths.

He nodded. He'd bought it specificaly because of that and it had worked as he'd closed his eyes and pretended the liquid warmth was Kit's mouth as it slid over his cock. He took their cocks in his hand and began sliding them together as his fingers clenched around Kit's. Kit bucked beneath him but Jason leaned down and kissed him, forcing him to focus on something else as Jason chose the rhythm. A moment later he felt Kit's short nails biting into the muscle of his ass as he clutched at him.

Jason broke the kiss and let his head drop beside Kit's hand on the pilow. Kit was moaning incoherently as he moved beneath him, trembling as Jason sped up and squeezed them harder together. "Oh fuck, Kit, you feel too good."

Kit nodded and pushed his head back, giving Jason more of his skin as he nipped and licked at the tender flesh Kit so eagerly offered him. "Please, Jason,"

he begged as he shook beneath him.

Jason gave Kit everything he had been wanting and so much more as their climaxes hit at the same time, pushing them both higher than they would have ever been alone. As Jason moaned loudly into his mouth, Kit clutched them tightly together. They lay together for a few long minutes, sharing breaths and gentle kisses.

"Think you can sleep now?" Jason asked as he roled off of Kit. He ignored the mess on his stomach as he puled the other man toward him.

Kit had a smal smile on his swolen lips as he pressed his back against Jason's chest. His arms came around Kit, holding his thin frame against him. He stil couldn't get over how much weight he'd lost. Or how quickly it had happened. He could feel Kit's ribs under his fingertips and the points of his narrow shoulder blades dug into his muscular chest. Kit shuddered with every shalow breath as he quickly fel back to sleep.

And Jason nearly cried.

"I promise you, Kit," he whispered as he kissed the back of his head. "I'l always be here for you. No matter what, and regardless of what anyone else says. I failed you once and I won't do it again."

"Osssay, Jassson… loves you," Kit breathed sleepily.

Jason smiled. He loved Kit too.

Kit passed every test Jason threw at him. Not that he liked to think of his sex life as a series of tests.

But it often felt like that. His partners would do something, usualy without meaning to, which would ruin anything they and Jason had constructed in their short time together. And it was always short; Jason couldn't remember any of his relationships lasting more than a few weeks.

But Kit, he was different. Sure, he could be stubborn, but Kit had always been like that. And stubbornness wasn't a deal breaker as far as Jason was concerned. Insolence was and fortunately Kit had never developed that particular trait.