Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Dane definitely wanted to leave, but if he earned Jag’s trust, he’d surely be offered more freedom, and therefore also have an easier time at escaping this place. So he shook his head and removed his glasses, placing them on a small metal box. “You’re an attractive guy. What I can’t stand is the whole… alpha male thing.”
Even if it was hot at times.
Jag unlocked the collar with his brows furrowed as if he was trying to compute brand new information. “I’ll do better?”
“No more of that bullshit. I’m an adult human male, not a… I don't even fucking know what, because most animals don’t live in the kind of groups your family had. Definitely not wild cats. Do you know lionesses hunt more than male lions?” he asked, racking his brain for arguments straight from nature documentaries and meme sites.
Jag tilted his head and took off the collar. It felt like getting an anvil off his chest. Jag grabbed Dane’s hand and pulled on it, taking a step back. The atmosphere shouldn’t have felt intimate but in the semi-darkness, with the trinkets above reflecting the light, and the tap of rain against the roof, Dane gave into the touch.
“I didn’t know that. Would you like to learn to hunt?” Jag asked.
Dane agreed without thinking, because hunting would require covering more ground, and therefore, finding out how to get out of this rusty desert of scrap. “Of course. I’d like to contribute,” he said, sliding all the way down the sloped floor, to the nest of fabric. His skin was slowly warming, but he still shivered when Jag’s arm swung close by and sent cool air toward him.
Jag sat first, and his needy green gaze pulled Dane in more efficiently than a leash ever could have done.
“Okay. That’s fair. I suppose we are both men.” Jag frowned and nodded as if he’d only now arrived at that obvious conclusion.
Dane was not about to discuss feminism with a guy who chose to live in a scrap yard. Especially that there were no women around to defend from Jag's backward thinking. “Well. Yes. Were you not at all permitted to follow your nature back where you’re from?” he inquired, pulling a blanket over his shoulders while the sky roared above their safe haven.
Jag took the opportunity to lean against him under the same blanket, and while he wore a T-shirt, his hairy forearm rubbed against Dane’s. “No. I… We used to go to this market once every few months. I was a teenager when one guy caught my eye there. I didn’t know what I wanted, but he was more… knowledgeable. We kissed behind a haystack, but by the time I wanted to touch him more, my father found us and… well. I wasn’t allowed to go to the market anymore.”
Dane’s lips pressed together. Jag was a handsome young man, with lush hair and a long, shapely nose. What he lacked wasn’t charm but social skills that had been clearly not taught to him at an appropriate age. “And he… made decisions about all those things?”
Jag struggled with the answer, and while Dane shouldn’t have been feeling sympathy for his captor, he still stroked Jag’s hand under the blanket in silent encouragement.
“Yes. He was the leader. Four winters back, he decided I should marry. He said I was getting too argumentative and needed a woman to temper me, but I think I was just growing to be my own man, you know? So even though he found me a bride, I ran.”
Dane froze. “What? He wanted to make you marry someone? Just because? That’s terrible!” His family had been plagued by many problems, but he’d always felt loved, and his feelings—treated with respect. He couldn’t imagine growing up in the kind of community Jag was alluding to.
Jag groaned. "He said I was lazy, that I was dodging responsibility, but that wasn’t true. I'd work hard for my mate. Give him the world. But I need it to be a him. I just know it. And even though I’ve been away from them so long, the world out here still feels dangerous and alien. Frank’s helping me," who the hell was Frank?, “but finding a mate is something I need to do on my own.”
Dane shrugged, but the arm touching Jag’s sparked with sensation when he remembered all the times Jag had kissed or hugged him, never trying to force his attentions, as if he knew it wouldn’t give him the fulfilment he craved.
“You’re a handsome, fit guy. You would have many takers if you chose a different strategy.”
“You mean I could be successful if I changed everything about me, played by someone else's rules, ate hummus,” Jag said bitterly, and Dane was so shocked that the guy knew of such foods he barked out a laugh.