Bargain With the Beast (7 page)

“
I could,” the Beast
replied. “But I won’t.”

“
But why not?” Tobias
groaned. “Why not?”

The Beast shrugged. “Honestly? Because
I don’t want to.”

Chapter Seven

Tobias looked into the eyes of the
Beast and practically shook from the riot of feelings running
through him. On one hand was anger, because what the Beast was
telling him was wrong on so many levels. But on the other hand were
the nerves. Tobias didn’t think he had ever been so nervous in his
entire life, because the man that stood, looming over him now, was
a completely different man to the one who had walked through the
door when he had been manacled to the bed.

That man had been calm, considerate,
almost tender.

This one was furious.

Tobias took a step away from him,
trying desperately to work through his thoughts, to plan what he
was going to do next, but he was coming up with blanks, because
like it or not he knew there was only one way out of this
place.

Through the
Beast.

Still, he tried, because what else
could he do? “This is crazy,” he said. “You can’t simply keep me
here. I have a job, an apartment, friends, a life.”

“
But no
family.”

Tobias narrowed his eyes, wondering
once again just how much these people knew about him, and how they
had found it all out. Abruptly, he imagined them combing through
his apartment, picking through his life, and in that moment he
realized that even if he had managed to escape, they would know
exactly where to find him and drag him back!

Fuck.

“
For all intents and
purposes,” the Beast added. “You are alone in this
world.”

“
How do you know that?”
Tobias demanded.

“
You just listed
everything in order of importance,” the Beast said. “People do that
without even realizing it. Your job comes first, then your
apartment, and then your friends. Had you a wife, children,
parents, you would have mentioned them first.”

“
My parents are dead,”
Tobias said.

“
Siblings?”

“
None.”

“
And you are not married
to a female.”

“
No.”

The Beast nodded slowly. “Because
you’re attracted to other males.”

He was completely right of course but
Tobias found himself shifting, almost wanting to deny that. “You
can’t know that.”

The Beast took a step forward,
negating the distance Tobias had just put between them. “Of course
I can,” he said, and his voice was low now, almost husky. “I can
smell the arousal coming off you.”

Tobias gasped, though somewhere inside
he knew he shouldn’t be surprised, not after what Petrov and
Gregovitch had said, and not after his own suspicions of what ‘the
turning’ might be. “No…”

“
Yes,” the Beast said. “I
knew the moment I walked into this room. When you looked up at me
with those big, blue eyes.”

“
No…”

The Beast took another step forward.
Tobias took one back, though he regretted it a moment later when
the backs of his knees brushed up against the edge of the bed. “You
desire other males, and right now that includes me.”

“
You’ve abducted me,”
Tobias said, his tongue suddenly feeling too big for his mouth.
“Chained me to the bed. You’re not letting me leave. Why on Earth
would I be attracted to you?”

The Beast smiled, and as
he did so Tobias couldn’t help but notice the way his yellow eyes
seemed to glow. “Because you’re responding to
my
desires,” he said. “The fact that
I want you? You feel it and you’re responding to it.”

His words were so close to what Tobias
had thought as they walked the tunnels of this underground town
that he shivered. If he didn’t know better, he’d start to think the
Beast was a mind reader or something. From the beginning—and it was
just a few hours ago—it was like this man knew exactly how Tobias
was going to act, how he was going to respond, even what he was
going to say. It was too much. Too intense on top of everything
that had already happened. Tobias held up his hands. “Stop,” he
said. “Just stop.”

The Beast sighed, and then to Tobias’
absolute horror, and intense, unwelcome delight, he took the edges
of his tee-shirt…and in one smooth move he pulled it over his
head.

Tobias could do nothing but gape at
him. Shock fizzling through every cell of his being. The Beast was
muscled in all the right places, worse, he was dusted in a light
sprinkling of tawny hair, and Tobias had always been a sucker for
hairy men. The urge to step forward, to run his hands over those
muscles, made Tobias gasp again. He could imagine catching his
fingers in the curls…tugging on them…

He swallowed hard. His hands itched,
his heart raced, and his cock thickened in an instant. The reaction
was so swift, so visceral, that Tobias didn’t know what to think of
it. He could only take a deep shuddery breath.

“
There is no stopping,”
the Beast said, his eyes fixed hard on Tobias. “Not now. Not after
you ran. Perhaps if you had done as I asked I would have been able
to control myself for longer.” He shrugged. “But you’ve awoken it
now, Tobias. I can’t stop it.”

“
I—”

“
Feel it, Tobias,” the
Beast added. “It is
pulsing
between us. There is only one way to sate
it.”

“
It?” Tobias asked.
“
It
?”

The Beast smiled. “Desire,” he said.
“It’s been there from the very beginning. It has always been just a
matter of time until I had you.”

He is not for
you…

Those words spoken to
Gregovitch, the words spoken now, they brought a million different
images to Tobias’ mind, and it was ridiculous but he actually felt
weak-kneed. He knew exactly what the Beast was talking about, and
he shuddered at the thought of doing those things, not because he
didn’t want to, but because he
did
, so badly…in that moment Tobias
realized why he had taken so long to run, why he had let his
curiosity override his fear.

He wanted to be fucked by the
Beast.

But he didn’t
want
to want
it.

“
I just want to go home,”
he whispered.

The Beast lowered his hands until they
were on the top of his jeans. Tobias gulped at the intent of that
movement. “Only I have the power to grant that,” he
said.

“
Because you rule here,”
Tobias breathed.

“
Precisely.”

“
Then grant it,” Tobias
said. “Please.”

The Beast shook his head,
and then slowly, like he wanted Tobias to see every movement, he
popped the button of his jeans. “That is not how it works,” he
said. “Here if you want something you have to
give
something.”

And so Tobias asked, though he feared
he already knew the answer to his question. “What do you
want?”

“
The same thing I have
wanted since I set eyes on you.”

“
I prefer to pick my
lovers,” Tobias said. “Not have them forced on me.”

The Beast laughed and pulled on his
zipper. “You would like nothing better than to have me in your bed,
and, I suspect, some force will simply arouse you all the
more.”

“
No.”

“
Yes, Tobias,” he said,
almost chidingly. “I see the lust darken your eyes when you look at
me. You want this. You want me to bend you over and sink my cock
into your pucker.”

Tobias’ dick pulsed and he closed his
eyes, as if to block out the images the Beast’s words had created.
“No…”

“
You want me to force inch
after inch of my length into your luscious lips.”

And thickened ever further.
“No…”

“
And we’re
going
to do that,
Tobias,” the Beast whispered. “There is no choice anymore. Not if
you want what only I can give.”

Tobias snapped his eyes open. “To go
home.”

“
Precisely.”

“
So if I do
this…”

The Beast removed his hands from his
zipper and crossed his arms. “Then I may grant your
request.”

“
May
?”

“
If you are as beautiful
as I suspect,” the Beast said. “If it is as good as I have been
imagining it will be.” He paused, and then he smiled, that same
smile that had made Tobias shudder in the very beginning. “If you
please me then yes, Tobias Thorn, I will allow you to go
home.”

Chapter Eight

Tobias couldn’t believe he
was actually thinking about doing what the Beast was asking, but
there was no denying that his mind
was
moving in that direction, and
moving there fast. He shifted on the spot, trying to understand why
he should be feeling this way about a man who had not only chained
him up, but had also told him he couldn’t leave unless they
fucked.

It was blackmail, Tobias
realized.

The Beast was blackmailing him for
sex. And yet, Tobias knew, and there was no denying this, that if
the Beast had simply coaxed, seduced even, that there would be no
need for blackmail. The Beast had been right about one thing.
Tobias did want him, and he wanted him so bad. In fact, he couldn’t
ever remember feeling so attracted to another man. His cock was
throbbing in his pants, and he could feel the low wrench of desire
deep in his gut. Tobias wasn’t a virgin, despite many, many years
of a bleak dating landscape, but he wasn’t hugely experienced
either. He’d taken very few men inside of him, orally or anally,
and he’d never been at a point where he longed to do just
that.

But now, looking up at the Beast, at
his corded muscles, his tawny hair, those intense yellow eyes,
Tobias was overwhelmed with the desire to sink to his knees, open
his mouth, and take inch after inch of cock into his
throat.

It made no sense, and already Tobias
was beginning to wonder if he had been compromised in some way
being here. Perhaps the emotional toll was making him act
irrationally. Or perhaps they’d drugged him in some way. He didn’t
know. But he did know that, attraction to the Beast or not, he
wanted to go home. He wanted to open the door to his apartment,
look out on to the ferocious waves, and forget about the craziness
of this night.

There was only one way that was going
to happen.

He had to fuck the Beast.

And he had to make it good.

As those thoughts raced through his
mind the Beast uncrossed his arms and moved towards the bed. He
moved with a clear intention, his body saying everything that his
words already had. And Tobias was in no way immune to picking up on
those intentions. The Beast was painfully attractive…and Tobias was
painfully aroused.

“
Your answer is yes,” the
Beast said a moment later.

Tobias shook his head. “You can’t know
that.”

“
I can feel it,” the Beast
said. “You’re hard already.” He reached down and palmed his cock
through his jeans. “I’m hard too. I’ve been hard from the moment I
attached those manacles to your wrists.”

“
Then it was you,” Tobias
breathed.

The Beast nodded. “When I wrapped my
fingers around your skin…” He paused. “When I felt how soft it was.
It was all I could do not to strip you there and then. I imagined
you waking up naked, confused and aroused. And then I imagined
coming in and feeding my cock into your throat. You would be
wide-eyed, bewildered, but before long you would be wrapping your
tongue around my cock-head, loving how I taste.”

“
Why didn’t you do that?”
Tobias whispered, his heart racing at the images the Beast was
putting in his mind.

“
Because I imagined
something else too,” the Beast said. “I imagined this.” He waved a
hand to the bed. “You lying there, knowing full well what I want to
do with you and how I want to do it, and consenting
anyway.”

“
To fuck me,” Tobias
whispered.

The Beast nodded. “Hard,” he said.
“Because it will have to be hard, Tobias. That is the only way to
ensure that the others know I have claimed you as my own. Your
hair, your eyes, your skin…” He sighed. “You are too beautiful,
Tobias, and too many of my men are long without a mate. They will
try to claim you if I have not.”

“
Claim me?”

The Beast stepped forward, his hand
still pressed against his cock, and Tobias couldn’t help but look
down. He could see it, the outline at least, and for one moment
felt his heart hitch. The Beast was big all over, big across the
chest, big hands…and a big cock. Tobias swallowed at the prospect
of taking the full length of it inside him.

“
That is what we do here,”
the Beast said. “When we find someone we want we claim them for our
own. Once that is complete they stay here with us.”