"Dominic." He stopped, whirled around. Karl was sitting on the sofa, looking at him with amused eyes. "What are you doing?" "Pacing." Dom would have thought that was obvious. "Don't be cheeky. Why?" Dom shrugged, didn't know, couldn't explain. All he knew was that it was getting worse. A nameless something kept trying to crawl out, to take over. He needed to leave. "I want to go out." "So go." Karl raised an elegant shoulder, his gaze indifferent. "Have fun." "I want you to come with me." "No." No? "It's a simple thing. I want to go out. I'd like your company." Another small shrug. Karl continued to sip his port while looking over his script pages for the next day's filming. "No." No. Just 'no'... Dom took a deep breath, tried to calm down. What did it matter that Karl didn't want to go out? He should drop it, should just go out anyway. But couldn't. "C'mon. Please." Karl had made it clear, time and again, that he'd do anything Dom wanted as long as he asked. "I'm asking." "No." Karl didn't even look up this time. "No?" He couldn't have heard that right. He had asked. "No." Karl flipped another page of his script, the small sound of rustling paper shockingly loud. "It's all been a fucking game to you, hasn't it?" The words tumbled out, unbidden. Karl finally looked up, those unforgettable eyes hooded. "What do you mean?" Dom felt as if he was on the edge of a bottomless cliff, the slightest movement ready to push him over the edge. "I'm talking about this...you, me, everything. You did it to prove a point." Karl never moved, continued sitting there, so relaxed, so calm, still so totally in control. It kicked Dom's temper up a notch. Still couldn't figure out why he was so mad, why he was so restless, why he was pushing this, what the hell was wrong with him. All he knew was that he wanted to fight. "Why do you say that?" Karl asked. "Because you're still sitting there and I'm standing here and I fucking asked you for something and you said no!" Dom shouted the words, feeling that nameless thing just inside his skin, poised to leap out. The wrong word, the wrong gesture, would set him off. And then Karl did both. "I don't feel like going out," he said calmly, and looked back down at the script in his lap. A burning anger unlike anything he'd ever known swamped Dom's every sense, every nerve ending...fucking lying cunt. In four quick strides, Dom crossed the room and jerked the script away from Karl, sent it flying into the wall with a swift movement. Karl's glass followed scant seconds later, the glass shattering as it hit the front door, spraying the room with the sickly sweet aroma of port. "You lying, pathetic motherfucker!" Karl stood, loomed over Dom. "Be extremely careful with your next move." Karl's voice was as low and seductive as ever, but now it had an edge to it Dom had never heard before. He wanted to push it over that edge. "Fuck you." He looked Karl dead in the eyes, didn't waver, didn't look away, didn't back down from the intense heat. "I'm just a plaything to you, and I don't know why you couldn't be honest with me about it." "If you want to go out, go out. I'm not your father or your keeper." "Then what the fuck are you?" "What do you think I am?" "Stop answering my questions with fucking questions!" Dom pressed in closer, anger coming off of him in waves of black. He wanted to maim, to rip, to tear. "What are you?" Karl looked at him, into him, perfect face tinged with something Dom couldn't quite name. "Your need for verbal reassurance grows tiresome," Karl finally stated. And started to turn. No, not this time. "Answer the fucking question!" Dom's hand smacked across Karl's cheek before he could stop it, before he could think. The loud rapport of it echoed, fractured, seemed to grow into a booming earthquake. Dom just stared in shock for a second at the red imprint...but a second was all he had before Karl slammed him face first into the wall, pinning his hand against his back, jerking it up. "Is this what you want?" Karl's voice was right in Dom's ear as Karl twisted his arm higher. "I..." Dom stopped, tried to speak through the pain, to speak through the anger that still coursed through his blood. "I want proof." "You want me to kill you? Would that prove it to you?" Karl no longer sounded calm, in control. Now his voice shook, and Dom could hear the rage trying to break through. "You want me to rape you?" Karl continued. "To keep you in a fucking padded cell and only bring you out when I want a blowjob?" "Would you?" "Would I what?" "Would you kill me to keep me?" Onto Part Twenty-Three
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