12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Axel

D o you still see me ?

He didn't understand that I'd spent the last twenty-two years with my eyes closed any time I bothered to let another person touch me. He didn't realize I was closing my eyes because a part of me was terrified that I'd look down and realize all of this was in my head, that he wasn't really here.

That I was so broken now that I couldn't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Maybe I was afraid to look at him because I knew, without a doubt in my mind, I would pick the fantasy if it meant I could stay here with him.

But I was helpless to resist, helpless to do anything but give him everything I had left. It had always been his, anyway.

My entire body went loose—I couldn't have kept my eyes closed if I'd tried. It took them a second to focus, but when I did, it was him.

He was there.

Yes, he was smaller, and the angles of his face were softer. But that halo of green was in his eyes, and the expression was something that no one else had ever worn.

"I see you," I murmured almost helplessly, and my fingers twisted in the sheets again. I wanted to touch him, but I was afraid if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop. I'd drag him on top of me and beg him to turn me inside out, and that was the last thing he needed to do while he was recovering from an injury.

Honestly, he didn't need to be doing anything, but I was pinned in place with his gaze when he dipped back between my legs and deliberately ran his tongue along the length of my cock again in such a slow line that my vision blurred with how good it felt.

He could see it, too.

"No, Axel. Focus." His fingers bit into my thighs, the sharp relief of pain drawing me back to myself. "Focus on me. Watch me touch you."

And just like that, I could barely breathe. His voice was lighter than it had been, but it still held the same edge. The softest tinge of some accent I'd never been able to place.

The same commanding presence that could have tied me to the bed more than any chain.

I nodded once, slowly, and shifted myself so I was propped on the pillows. It let me stare down the length of my body as he pressed a gentle kiss to my inner thigh again.

"Good. You're still so good, aren't you, Axel?"

The low hum of his voice sent another tingling shiver up my spine, his words just as intimate as his lips dragging slowly against my skin. If I'd thought this was something he'd forgotten, I was obviously being proven wrong.

"I... Yes." I shouldn't have been—I'd locked that part of myself away the day he died. "For you." The last part was a murmured confession, because I didn't know if he understood what this meant.

What it meant to me .

All the parts of me I'd tried to cut away and close off, that I'd tried to pretend weren't still bleeding and aching… They were opening again every time I looked into his eyes. I knew I wouldn't survive it if I lost this again.

I couldn't lose him again.

"You'll be good for me?" he murmured.

"Yes." The answer was automatic, and he nodded once in approval before opening his pretty lips and swallowing my cock down without any warning. It nearly made me buck off the bed, and it was only through sheer willpower alone that I managed to stay still beneath his touch.

We'd played this game before, and I knew what Xavier wanted—he wanted to drive me wild, and he wanted to see how long I could hold out before I completely broke. It wasn't fair, though, because I was on the edge of breaking every second I was around him. Every time he touched me, it sparked along years of missing him, years of wanting him, of wanting this.

"Mmfm." I only just managed to swallow down the words trying to bubble from my throat. I was already on the edge of begging, and he'd barely started touching me. But no, that wasn't what he wanted.

That wasn't how we did this. And I wanted to give him exactly what he desired, everything he could ask for.

I wanted to be good for him.

"I can feel you trembling, Axel." He pulled off of my cock long enough to speak, but the heat of his breath playing against my saliva-slick skin was almost as enticing as the hot pressure of his mouth around me. Xavier drove me crazy with nothing more than words—he could murmur filth in my ear for hours and have me ready to dissolve from syllables alone. He seemed to revel in it now, and I wondered if this was exactly what he wanted, to see that he could still make me react like this.

I wanted to tell him that he was the only one who could, that he was the only one who ever had, but I couldn't get the words out. I couldn't get my mind to work around anything other than the feel of him so close to me. Real and here—everything I'd been so sure I'd lost forever. But he was here now, and I couldn't seem to control it when my hips arched upward, my body begging in the way my lips seemed incapable of managing.

"Axel." He was so soft, so teasing as he said my name, but somewhere beneath it, I could see that his eyes were burning.

Do you still see me ?

He'd asked it, and the words had poured from him with so much longing, so much need that he didn't have to say anything at all.

"Please?" I whispered it, finally managing to carve the words from my lungs so I could give them to him. "Please, don't stop touching me." Now that I was speaking, I couldn't stop. Now that I'd started, I wanted to give him everything he was asking for. "Please, Xavier. I need you."

Just you.

Only you.

Always you.

I didn't say the rest of it, but apparently I didn't have to. His eyes lit, and he nodded before lowering his head and swallowing my cock down again.

I wanted more—I wanted to roll over and completely offer myself to him, but… he'd been through so much. He'd gotten hurt. Again.

I could wait. I could be patient. Especially when I knew I was done trying to resist him, that I didn't have it left in me to pull away.

That I would let him have me any time he wanted, however he wanted—however he needed, if it let him know that he was the only thing I could see.

He drew me to the back of his throat and swallowed around me, and my body jolted again. I had to fist the sheets, had to force myself to draw in a deep, even breath just to keep myself together.

Xavier worked at a slow pace, so painfully slow I felt dizzy. I could barely breathe around my want, could barely think when he pulled off and grazed his teeth along my thigh, blowing gentle breaths against my skin until I backed away from the edge of orgasm.

The second I calmed, his mouth came right back, his tongue flattening to glide against the vein that ran the underside of my cock.

"Mm, fuck. Please, I—"

One hand slid up, and his fingers wrapped around my balls, the slightest bit of pressure forcing me to swallow my words and back down from the edge again. He knew what he was doing—he knew exactly what he was doing.

And apparently being gone for twenty-two years hadn't made him forget every way to play my body like I was nothing more than an instrument and he was a goddamn maestro conducting a symphony.

"Let me…" I gasped. Let me what? Let me come? Let me breathe . "Let me touch you… mmf… let me make you feel good, too."

As dizzy as I was, his smile was still so perfect I nearly melted. "I'll worry about me. Focus, Axel. Tell me how it feels."

I wasn't sure if I could , but I opened my mouth and started to speak anyway. "Warm, hot… mmfuck. Like Heaven—like everything I've dreamed of and everything I've missed. You're… so fucking perfect." The last few words came out more moan than anything, but it seemed to be exactly what he wanted. I was vaguely aware of his arm spilling from my hip and snaking down the length of his body, the jerk of his shoulder and the desperate way he swallowed me down so deep I felt like he wanted to turn me inside out.

"So hot ," I whispered, because I could barely catch my breath to do much else. "So fucking hot and tight—you make me feel so good. I want to be good , please?"

Xavier groaned again, and his body stiffened. For just a second, I was lost in the feel of him losing himself around my cock—he'd lost his rhythm completely. He was just mouthing at me with tongue and the slightest nip of teeth.

Then he shifted, rising up enough to drift his hand between my legs. The feel of his cum-slicked fingers gliding between my cheeks and teasing at the pucker of my hole was too much.

It was too much.

I wanted so much.

"Xavier, I—" And like he knew he'd pushed me to my limits, he slapped my thigh with his hand. Once, twice, giving it a gentle squeeze. That was all I needed—permission, and his eyes burning like fire when they rolled up to look at me as orgasm swept over my body.

Heat blossomed from Xavier's mouth on my cock and nearly blinded me as it spread along my skin. My back arched, and I had to wonder if it was him holding tight to my hips that kept me from completely flying apart as he swallowed around my pulsing shaft.

My throat ached, and it took me a second to realize I'd been whimpering his name, crying it out over and over until it felt burned into my soul, branded straight into the air and written across the stars.

But it was his hands snaking up along my sides in a sweet, soothing motion that finally brought me down. I was a shivering, sweaty mess… but Xavier pressing his lips to mine as he crawled up my body to feed me back the taste of my cum was somehow exactly what I needed.

I let myself drown in it, and I knew I'd happily sink and never long for the surface again.

This was the only place I wanted to be.

We lay for a while in the circle of each other's arms, and I lost myself in the sensation of rubbing my face back and forth against Xavier's shirt. The scent of him, of us, was intoxicating. Was it possible to get high just from this?

It felt so good to be here. It felt even better when he rolled me over while my eyes were still half closed and started trailing his fingers slowly up the back of my thigh, over the curve of my ass… but then he paused.

He was still for so long that I finally opened one eye and glanced over my shoulder.

His eyes were wide, and it only took me a second to realize why. I'd never wanted a tattoo—he'd invited me to go with him, and I'd always declined. There was no point in me putting myself through more torture than I'd already been through… and my father had certainly made sure I could withstand it if I was ever captured and tortured for information.

But I'd put up with the pain to get the ink on my back. It almost felt like penance at that point.

"Everything and nothing?" he murmured, trailing his fingers along the script. It ran across the length of my shoulders. Beneath it, a galaxy of stars swirled across my back, my spine. He'd only missed seeing it before because I'd been on my back when we were fucking around in the gym.

I could lie. I could tell him that I'd gotten it while drunk, gotten it on a whim. I could tell him that I'd gotten it for an ex-lover.

I didn't have the strength to tell him what it really was, so I settled on a half truth.

"I got it after you died. I needed…" I swallowed hard, and the pain trying to build in the center of my chest almost overwhelmed the small tingles of pleasure still racing through my body, following the trail of his fingertips as they traced the words on my skin. "I needed something to make me feel close to you."

It was almost the truth.

"I was never that far away though, you know? Just another lifetime." He was trying to play it off, but his fingers flattened and his palm smoothed along my back, flipping me to my side so he could press against my chest. Over the feel of my thundering heart. "I'm here now, right?"

"I mourned you, Xavier." My voice sounded as broken as I felt, and I brought my hand up to squeeze the necklace I refused to take off. "I never stopped mourning you." I almost bit my tongue—almost, but I couldn't help it. "I never stopped wanting you, never stopped loving you."

For just a second, I saw something sweet blossom across his features, something soft that I'd barely glimpsed before, but he seemed so much more capable of now.

"You were the first thing I thought of when I woke up. You're the only thing that's left, the only reason I got out of that hospital to find myself." I rolled onto my back, and he shifted, half spilling over my chest so he could look at me. "You've always been my heartbeat, Axel. You're the only thing I've ever cared about, and maybe that's why I came back, even though it should have been impossible. Because of you. For you. "

He had no idea how much it meant, hearing him say that. He had no idea how it felt to have his fingers trailing across the tattoo on my back when it was the only thing I'd had that made me feel close to him for so long.

He didn't understand… and I had no idea if he ever would. I just knew I was done trying to pretend that I could resist him, that being with him wasn't as necessary as oxygen, as natural as breathing.

I couldn't do this without him. Which meant I had to do everything I could to keep him here, to keep him safe. To keep him mine .