Collared Page 5

  “I was your first love. You were my first soul,” Math said. His voice scraped along the edge of a low, thick growl. He tightened his grip on the back of Jack’s head as Jack went still, old wounds caught on the raw, and rolled his hips in a slow, hard thrust. Math’s cock slid over Jack’s tongue and bumped the roof of his mouth. The taste of him, the smell of him filled Jack until he felt dizzy with it. Some old indoctrinated part of him wanted to be ashamed of how much he wanted this, was pretty sure he should be, but Jack ignored it. He had a lot to be ashamed of, and he’d never deny that, but not Math and not this. He braced his hands on the desk and sucked eagerly as Math thrust into his mouth again. His tongue pushed against and around the thick cock as Math’s voice dripped into his ear. “It felt… neat, like a closed circle. Most deals aren’t so satisfying. Some miserable little man who smells like grease and bad coffee comes to you with an envy-bitten soul and an ambition as underwhelming as his cock.”

  Math pulled Jack’s head back to look up at him, his cock still in Jack’s mouth and his knuckles against the back of Jack’s skull. His eyes were still blue and sharp as he searched Jack’s face to make sure he understood.

  “It gets dull.”

  Math pushed Jack off his cock and dragged him to his feet. A quick, harsh kiss stole the penny-sharp taste of his cock from Jack’s mouth.

  “My heart bleeds,” Jack gasped out raggedly.

  Math dragged his T-shirt down over his shoulder—the thin fabric made a wet, almost organic sound as he pulled it too far—and leaned down to press his mouth to the still-open wound. He laved his tongue over the torn flesh, mapped the edges of the bite, and then he bit down on it. Jack sucked in his breath raggedly and grabbed the back of Math’s neck. He could feel the tendons work in his throat, the long lines that ran up into the corner of his jaw, as Math tasted him.

  “So I see,” Math said as he raised his head. He licked blood from his lips. “Still sweet as hemlock, Jack.”

  “I thought I didn’t have what you wanted anymore,” Jack said.

  Math pushed Jack back onto the desk. Old papers crumpled under his back, and the sharp edge of a book dug into his hip.

  “You don’t have what I need,” Math corrected him. “What I want, though?”

  Math skimmed his hand in a tease of a caress over the hard bulge at Jack’s groin. The blue of his eyes drained into black as Jack hitched his hips up into the touch. Math dragged Jack’s jeans down his thighs and left them hobbled around his knees. He cupped Jack’s balls in his cool, callused fingers—callused for no reason; he’d never worked, but still he had the hands Jack expected—and squeezed hard enough to make Jack swear and writhe on the slick walnut surface.

  “What I want is right here,” Math said as he tugged on his handful of flesh. “And we both know what you want, Jack.”

  He let go and rolled Jack over onto his stomach. Jack swore, a strangled blurt of noise, as his cock was trapped between his stomach and the wax-polished wood of the desk. It made him squirm, ass in the air, until Math slapped his ass with a sharp crack of sound and a seductive jolt of hot, stinging pain.

  “Unless you don’t want it?” Math teased as he kissed the sting better, his breath cool against hot flesh. “Do you want me to stop?”

  Jack laughed. His breath ruffled the papers under his jaw, the ink smeared where he’d sweated on them. “When have I ever?”

  He felt Math pull his cheeks apart and his asshole puckered tight at the wet flick of Math’s tongue against it. Jack groaned and pressed his head down on his forearm. The backs of his thighs ached and trembled, the heavy knot of lust in his groin tight enough to hurt as Math pushed his tongue inside him. Jack tried to squirm against the table, but Math’s arm over the small of his back pinned Jack in place as Math worked.

  The crabbed, ugly script on the papers under his nose swam into focus. Jack recognized the shape of the letters. He’d seen it on the card Math’s father had sent to the church to request… “spiritual guidance” after the death of his wife. It hadn’t even been a well-laid trap. Despite himself, Jack picked out one word after another on the crumpled page.

  …shame and piety to the straight and narrow. The Boy is set on him, but I still wager the old priest wants heaven for himself more than he fears….

  Jack closed his eyes. The torn pages were just dream flotsam, cobbled together from memory and old paranoia. Even if they were real, there were things Jack didn’t want to know.

  Math’s hand was curled around his hip hard enough to bruise, and his spit slicked Jack’s hole and dripped wet down to his balls. That was enough to focus on. Jack clenched his fist and pressed his knuckles against the wood. His cock throbbed heavily against his stomach, and he couldn’t stop the frustrated hitch of hips as he ground himself against the hard, scalloped edge of the desk.

  “Do you know what demons do to dull people?” Math asked as he gave Jack’s ass one last kiss.

  “Leave them alone?”

  Math snorted and ran his hand up Jack’s back. He curled his fingers over the bloody bite wound and squeezed down. The sharp pain of it got tangled up in the delirious, ball-aching hunger and melted into a queasy pleasure that made Jack whine and grind against the desk.

  “Once they’ve gone to so much trouble to get my attention? Seems rude,” Math said. The thick, blunt head of his insistent cock pressed against Jack’s ass, and Jack struggled to hold on to what Math actually said. He knew it was important, but as Jack felt his ass stretch around Math’s rigid shaft, it didn’t feel important. “No, what we do is make them interesting, give them much more than they thought to ask for. At least, those of us with power to spare do. It makes it so much sweeter when we take it back.”

  “You guys need to look into hobbies,” Jack said raggedly.

  He could feel the tight pressure of Math’s cock inside him as it worked deeper with each slow roll of his hips. Jack’s ass stung as he stretched, a reminder that even the bad-idea itch he’d scratched with Ambrose had been a while back, and then bled into the hot, pleasant warmth of worked muscle.

  “You’re my hobby,” Math growled at him.

  He buried himself inside Jack in one long, smooth thrust. Jack gasped and cursed raggedly as he was shoved forward. His stomach muscles clenched, hot and fluttery under his skin, and his thighs trembled as he tried to brace himself.

  Math fucked him with long, hard strokes that stretched Jack wide around him and forced him down against the wood. Jack’s cock, trapped between his stomach and the smooth, waxed surface of the desk, throbbed with dense lust.

  “God,” he muttered, mindless with want.

  Math laughed and ran his hand up Jack’s back. He traced his fingers along the tight play of muscle from his ass up to his shoulder as he thrust again and Jack’s muscles clenched.

  “Try again,” he said. “What do you want, Jack?”

  He knew the answer. It was the same answer whenever Math asked. All he wanted was to make Jack say it.

  “My soul,” Jack said.

  Math twisted his fingers in his hair and pulled him back.

  “Right now?” He thrust roughly, and his cock slid a quarter of an inch deeper inside Jack’s ass. A dark, liquid sensation pooled in his stomach, and a sharp, desperate noise escaped the tight arc of his throat. Math leaned over him, pressed a sharp-toothed kiss to the pulse under his jaw, and mouthed against wet skin, “One-time offer, Jack. Tell me what you want, and you can have it.”

  It was a lie. Or that’s what Jack tried to tell himself, but he knew it wasn’t. Otherwise the choice he was about to make was just stupid.

  “You.” The admission scraped its way out of his throat. “I want you.”

  Jack felt the smug smile against his throat.

  “I know.” Math braced an arm on the desk and pushed himself off Jack. His cock slid out of Jack’s ass as he did so, and the hollow it left cramped up into Jack’s bowels.

  “Turn over,” Math told him.

  It wasn’t
graceful. In the dream-trap of an incubus, you’d think it would be all graceful fucks, not papers slid onto the floor, jeans tangled around your shins, or expensive-looking inkwells knocked over onto the floor with a very realistic crack of crystal against wood. Maybe then people would know it wasn’t real.

  Jack awkwardly shoved his jeans down his legs and kicked them off. His T-shirt was plastered to his stomach with sweat, the neck torn from collarbone to nipple, and his cock was slick with sex, come, and spit. Somehow Math made being mostly dressed look more lewd, his hand wrapped around the hard, wet curve of his cock and his jeans slouched low over his hips. He tilted his head to the side and licked his lips.

  “I should have fucked you on my father’s desk when I had the chance,” he said. “Or on his corpse.”

  “We did make out on my mom’s grave,” Jack said. It wasn’t funny… in a twisted way that made it funnier.

  Math clicked his tongue as he stepped in close and nudged Jack’s legs wider apart. The dull ache between his hips made Jack’s stomach muscles flinch.

  “She clawed her way out years before,” Math said. “It hardly counts.”

  His cock nudged up against Jack’s taint as he leaned over him, and a hot thread of pleasure sliced briefly through everything else. Jack squirmed under him, the hard plane of Math’s stomach hardly softer than the table against his aching cock, and shuddered as Math scraped his teeth roughly across the flat bud of his nipple.

  Jack wrapped his legs around Math’s lean waist, his ass lifted into the air, and Math reached down between their bodies to adjust his cock. The wet head of it nudged against the sensitive skin of Jack’s asshole, and everything from Jack’s ass to his navel pulled tight and tender as Math shoved roughly into him.

  They fucked messily on the desk, possession scrawled on each of their bodies in spit and bruises. Math’s kisses dappled blood down Jack’s throat, and Jack raised welts on Math’s shoulders and across his back.

  Each thrust slapped Jack’s ass against the sweat-slick and slippery desk and tightened the screw on his balls. Math’s eyes had bled black, the whim of glamour lost, and he worked his hand between their bodies to grab Jack’s cock. His knuckles dug into Jack’s stomach as he squeezed roughly in time with each stroke and the seams of his jeans chafed against Jack’s thighs.

  It felt like holding your breath. The tight pressure, the sense of weight, and the steady build toward that gasp of relief. Jack came first in a wet spill over the tight cuff of Math’s fist. It glazed Math’s fingers like milky icing as he raised them to his mouth and licked them clean. Dry hunger wrung painfully through Jack as he watched Math’s throat work as he swallowed, and his ass clenched tightly around Math’s cock.

  Math leaned down and kissed Jack, lips sticky and warm from Jack’s come. He came inside Jack, cool and sparse, and then sprawled out on top of him. His lean body seemed heavier than bone and tight muscle had any right to.

  His cock, soft now, slipped out of Jack as Math whispered in his ear. “Get what I lost back.” His breath, musky with sex, brushed against Jack’s cheek. “Or I might not have your soul to return to you.”

  JACK WOKE up in his cold bed. The evidence that it hadn’t been quite a dream was dried sticky on his balls and chewed into his skin. His shoulder had knit itself back together, and Math’s bite was bruised dark where the raw flesh had been. The sheets were sweat-soaked, tangled around his legs, and ripe with the smell of sex and Math.

  He knew better than to think it would wash out. The cotton could be doused in bleach for a month, and the smell would linger, pungent whenever Jack grabbed his cock or brought an itch back to scratch. His skin was the same, but he couldn’t burn that.

  Jack thought about whether he should get up and change the sheets before he got hard again. He couldn’t be bothered. It could wait till morning. Until then he could just sleep in Math’s spoor. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  If he did get his soul back, it might be the last.

  4

  TO SOMEONE—something—in Hell, a world of fresh food, sunny days, and dogs must look like heaven. And what wouldn’t you do to get into Heaven?

  BACK IN South Carolina, the first flowers of Hell’s blooms had sprouted in the fisheries. In Craven it had been in the Backlin and Yard slaughterhouse. Jack didn’t know how it started. The workers who were laid off when the place finally closed their doors had shiny new SUVs and nondisclosure agreements. But Hell settled in to stay when Brixton Yard’s secretary found her boss neatly butchered and laid out in cutlets on his desk.

  The official cause of death came down as suicide, the county pathologist bought a shiny new boat, and Martin Backlin’s vintage Chevy remained parked in his assigned spot in front of the boarded-up building.

  Jack saw it as he rode past on his bike. The dark-red Chevy looked fat and well-fed in the morning light, with no dust or rain spots to mar the paintwork. Despite the fact that the slaughterhouse hadn’t been in use for six years, the stink of death—blood, fear, and shit—still hung in the air like a dark perfume.

  Between Jack’s legs, his bike’s engine coughed harshly, and his nerves gave a cold pinch on the nape of his neck. Stupid, but driving past the Chevy felt like walking past an alligator in the woods, or when Jack used to sneak out of the house through the narrow window before his dad got abusively drunk.

  Like one wrong step and it might not kill you, but you’d regret it.

  It felt stupid to be wary of what, in car years, was basically a retired septuagenarian. Jack felt the itch of it down his spine anyhow, until he took the corner at the end of the street and the Chevy was out of sight.

  The corruption had spread out under the slaughterhouse’s high chain-link fence and into the surrounding streets. At first it was only at night and only if you were—on some level—looking for it, but soon enough the personable fellow at the crossroads with his sharp suit and sharper nib could be found at noon. Children would run past old dead-eyed houses with bad histories—even though a month ago they had just been houses with swings in the garden and lazy old men who drank beer in their underpants on the porch—and teenagers would dare each other to go in and, sometimes, they’d not make it back.

  After a while anyone with good intentions left. They got new jobs somewhere else or went away to college. Or, sometimes Backlin’s Chevy would be spotted, parked outside a house, and by morning, the family living there would be gone. It was okay. No one had liked the new neighbors anyhow—the demonic, the soulless, the stupid kids in black leather and cast-iron amulets who thought they were the next John Dee.

  That’s when the rest of the city had named the whole area the Badends. No one questioned why, and if asked, they’d say it had always been called that.

  By now Hell’s roots had gone deep enough there that some streets couldn’t even be found on Google Maps. Even Hell’s architecture was predatory, and neglected streets and empty cul-de-sacs made for easy prey. Jack needed to find one of those cuckoo streets if he wanted to find Clem. One of the few things that could be said about Clem Runnell was that he never half-assed anything. He’d made his choice, and he wallowed in it.

  When a pass through the streets didn’t turn up anything, Jack pulled in to the curb at an intersection. The shadow of the city’s overpass lay damp and unwholesome over the street. Damp gray moss crawled up out of the drains, and fat, twisted things that looked like rats scrapped with things that looked like cats behind the dented rows of garbage cans. A thin man with greasy hair showed teeth the same color as the moss to two women whose hair was too glossy and clothes too department-store nice to belong down there.

  Jack kicked the stand down and got off the bike. One of the women, dark-haired and stocky, gave him a wary glance as he walked toward them. She had glitter smudged into the corners of her eyes from the night before and the slightly worried look of someone who realized they were in over their head.

  “Marissa,” she hissed as she grabbed her friend’s elbow. “Maybe we shoul
d go.”

  The other woman, smaller, blonder, and angrier jerked her arm free. “No. Fuck that, Janey. She deserves this. She is my best friend and she fucked my girlfriend.”

  A weary, unsurprised look flashed over Janey’s face. Maybe she’d thought coming into the Badends without even a chance to wash last night off her face would elevate her to best friend or girlfriend, but she wasn’t surprised it hadn’t.

  “This is stupid,” she said. “None of this stuff is real. Let’s go. Just tell everyone what she did.”

  Jack stopped out of grabbing distance and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

  “You should listen,” he said. “This isn’t something to mess with.”

  “Shut up,” Marissa spat at Janey and then swung a venomous mascara-masked glare toward Jack. “And you can mind your business. Who do you think you are? My father? Mattie always wanted to have a ‘real’ supernatural experience. All I’m doing is making it happen.”

  “It’s not real,” Marissa repeated. Her voice was low and a lot less convinced of that than it had been a minute before. She bounced nervously from one flimsy pump to the other and glanced at the scrapping monsters as they rattled between the trash cans. “I mean, it’s just urban legends? Right?”

  Janey huffed in irritation and rubbed the heel of her hand over her eye. It didn’t help unsmear her makeup.

  “Mattie will think it’s real,” she spat. “Keep up.”

  “Well, I’m leaving,” Marissa blurted. “This is stupid.”

  She turned and scurried away toward the cute blue VW parked a few yards away. Janey hesitated for a second and then flapped a “wait here” hand at the greasy gray man. “Just give me a minute to get her to stop freaking out. She’s my ride.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to try and catch the bus around here,” Jack said.