“God.” Jonah sounded ragged. “Ben.”
“You asked for it,” Ben rasped, and reached for the bedframe to brace himself.
Then he was fucking. He had never been rough with Jonah before, never wanted to be, and the wrongness of it howled at him as he shoved into Jonah with brutal force, over and over. Jonah whimpered with each thrust, his body moving under Ben’s with terrible familiarity. Ben grabbed his piebald hair, jerking his head back. “Don’t move. This isn’t for you. This is for me.”
Jonah whispered acquiescence, body stilling and going limp, and Ben stormed him, keeping his tight grip on Jonah’s hair, pounding without regard, grinding his hips against Jonah’s body. He fucked Jonah, and muttered words of contempt and hatred in place of the other words he’d used so often, refusing to think about whether Jonah was aroused, what he was thinking. Do you love me now? Do you?
It didn’t matter. This was vengeance, nothing more. Ben used his calves to trap Jonah’s legs to the floor, hissing at every little grunt and gasp he forced from the other man. I hate you, I hate you…
God, but he felt good, though. The muscled back that he knew so well, flexing under him, braced against Ben’s grip on his hair. Jonah was moving again, pushing back to meet Ben, making incoherent noises that might have been pain, or not, and Ben could only think of burying himself deep in Jonah, making sure the man never forgot him.
“Take it,” he gasped in Jonah’s ear. “Bloody take it. Say my name.”
“Ben.” Jonah’s head was tilted back as Ben pulled his hair, throat exposed. “Ben. More.”
He was aroused, Ben was sure of it. That choke in his voice. Jonah wanted this, and the fact should have disgusted Ben, with Jonah or himself, but dear God, it didn’t, and that just made him angrier.
“You bastard.” He let go of Jonah’s hair and slammed his hips into him, punctuating the words with driving thrusts. “You vicious, worthless swine. I hate you. You know that?”
“I know,” Jonah whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
Ben stared down at Jonah’s bowed head, a tangle of black against the linen, its white streak far brighter than the cloth. “I hate you,” Ben whispered, and came, with little gasping breaths that might have been sobs.
It was only as the aftershocks subsided through his body that he realised his hand, stretched out to the bedframe, was clutching Jonah’s cuffed hand, their fingers tangled together, palm to palm.
He pushed it away. Jonah let his arm fall to the mattress, without protest. Ben jerked out of him, sitting back on his calves, erection wilting fast. Jonah didn’t move. He was sprawled half-naked, skin showing the finger marks of brutal use.
He would not ask if Jonah was all right. He would not.
The silence stretched out.
“I’m going to take you to the police,” Ben said at last. “The Met. You’re going to gaol.”
“Yes.” Jonah’s voice was muffled in the sheets. “But I’ll run. You do understand that? I always run.”
“I won’t let you.”
“You’ll do what you have to.” Jonah sounded very weary. “And I’ll do the same.”
“Of course you will. You already did, and ruined my life with it. Now it’s your turn.”
Jonah’s shoulders sagged into the sheets. “Oh, God, Ben. If you’d just—” He jerked up. “What was that?”
That was a splintering crash from downstairs, and even as Ben’s head turned, he heard the unmistakable sound of a police whistle.
“For Christ’s sake.” Jonah spoke with sudden energy. “It’s a raid.”
Ben recoiled, as though at a blow. No. Surely not. Not this, not now—
Taken in the act of sodomy in a male meeting house. Another conviction. It would be two years’ hard labour this time, a flogging too perhaps, for a shameless recidivist like himself, little more than four months on from his last conviction. He’d been seen all over London’s disreputable haunts, the police would know his face. They could convict him on that alone, not to mention the room, and the sheets, and the reek of semen, and the half-naked man chained to the sodding bed.
He couldn’t go through it a second time. He could not go back to prison.
“Ben,” Jonah said urgently. “Let me go.”
His life, what remained of it, was falling to dust, and Jonah could only think of himself. “No. If I’m going down, so are you.”
“Ben…” Heavy-shod feet were thundering up stairs and along corridors. There were cries of fear, squeals of protest as doors were flung open. They would come to this room soon. Mechanically, Ben started to tuck himself away, not in the hope of hiding anything, just for a little dignity.
“Ben! Oh, well, sod it.” Jonah’s free hand delved into his clothing for a second and came out with a twisted wire, and he was rising from the bed, wrist free, before Ben had his buttons fastened.