Chapter 5 Ev
FIVE
ev
It was wrong. It had to be, right?
My heart beat too fast, and my hands were too clammy, and there had to be something really wrong with me if I was considering this.
Santos wasn’t into kink, not in the way I was.
He’d said he’d read about it because I was into it.
He didn’t say it turned him on. Sure, he’d gotten very laser-focused when I admitted that Sir Ismael had punished me, and it had been adrenaline-inducing, but that meant nothing. He was just overprotective.
That must be why he was being weird. He must think that he couldn’t protect me from Sir Ismael.
If I kept overthinking it, I was going to start sounding delirious.
Looking like I was on the brink would not help when I was knocking on his door at almost midnight, when he’d been heading to bed at nine at the latest.
He might not hear it. I didn’t knock too hard. It might be for the best—he might think it was an emergency, and this would be ten times more embarrassing for everyone involved.
I’d only taken one step back when the door slammed open. Santos had a pair of loose pants on but no shirt. I did not, definitely did not, stop to check him out. That was not a thing, and I needed to focus.
“What’s up?” Santos frowned. He didn’t sound like he did when he’d been sleeping and something had pulled him out of it. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “Did you want to head out or something? Give me five to shower and put some clothes on, and we can.”
“Uh…” I blinked.
I didn’t want to head out, but it was taking me too long to parse out an answer that made some sort of sense.
“No, yeah, I’m doing that. I’ve been going insane in here. Fresh air will help.”
“Uh, Santos.” I edged closer. I didn’t know what I was doing, but instinct had always been the name of the game with him. I had to believe it was the same now. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
His chest heaved up and down. I moved closer still. Rules and propriety had never been a thing between the two of us. It was why there were no loud voices overthinking the movement when I cupped his face with both hands.
Only confusion when I felt a scar that hadn’t been there before. One that ran from his cheek, all the length of his ear. “What happened?”
I wasn’t that naive. I knew shit happened, but it was asking, or mourning the fact that there was more he hadn’t told me.
The latter was confirmed when he glanced away. “Hazing gone wrong.”
“What?” I shrieked.
My heart now beat for a different reason. Anger wasn’t an emotion I felt often. I didn’t like it—the intensity, the need for violence that assaulted me.
Every time it came, it had to do with him. Santos, who everyone either underestimated or took for granted as the muscles without a brain. No one saw him, not like I did. It made me furious.
“It was a long time ago.” A small smile made an attempt to surface, but it didn’t quite work out. “During camp.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I hissed. It could’ve happened when he was born, and I’d still be furious about it. “You should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t have a phone then, remember?”
Right.
The bittersweet tang of the past clung to my tongue.
After we were caught by his parents, they took him from our school to a military school and confiscated basically all his privileges.
He didn’t have a phone again until he had graduated and gone through the camp or whatever it was he had to do to join the Air Force.
Military anything had never interested me, even though it was the one thing the monarchy still had control over.
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could bring myself to say as I traced the healed silvery line.
“I know.” He sighed. I didn’t know if he was aware, but he leaned into the touch.
And it felt like things were back to how they used to be.
Santos played the role of the big protector with me, but in close quarters, he craved the same amount of affection I did.
“What did you want? Before I freaked out on you.”
I snorted. It had to be a good sign that we acknowledged his rambling about going out, right?
“Will you come to my room?” I licked my lips. “I thought we could, uh, you know, share a bed like we used to? Unless you think it’s silly?”
“We can do that,” he—thank fuck—interrupted me. “I didn’t want to assume since, y’know, you have a Dom now.”
It felt like there was more left unsaid, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to address it right this minute.
“I told him about you,” I admitted. “He says… I mean, no pressure, but he says that we’re not exclusive, and uh, the cage stays on, but we can do whatever. He actually wants a video of you fucking me. If that were to ever happen, I mean.”
“Will you be punished if it doesn’t?”
I reared back. How was that the first question that came out of his mouth after my confession? I thought he was going to tease me, or make it awkward, or be as shocked as I’d been that Sir Ismael had taken it so well.
“I don’t think so.” I wasn’t sure. Just as I wasn’t sure what the glint in his blue eyes meant. “I mean, you don’t have to. I don’t wanna do anything with you because you feel obligated to.”
“Easy.” Santos moved his hand to the back of my neck and squeezed.
He did that a lot when we were in school and shared one of those two-seat desks.
Every time the teachers weren’t looking, he squeezed or massaged the back of my neck, and it helped me sound more confident when it was my turn to read out loud or answer a question.
“For the record, I don’t wanna do anything with you because you feel obligated to, either. ”
“What does that mean?”
Santos sighed. It was a heavy sound, one he didn’t usually make. Not like this. It angered me that his baggage was this much darker now. “Did you bring up fucking because you want to go back to how things were, or because you want to be a good sub to your Dom?”
“No, I mean…” I clamped my mouth shut. This was much easier to do when there was a screen in between us, and there was no pressure and no words to get tangled up. “I’ll…I’ve come to accept that I’ll always want to please a Domm, but I would never say yes to something that I don’t want.”
That couldn’t be considered a good explanation.
I forced my gaze to the floor, to his bare feet.
The floor here was freezing cold. I had to get him a pair of slippers.
I preferred fluffy socks with an anti-slippery sole, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate those.
He never liked clothes that were too thick.
A sensory thing, he’d explained once. They made him itchy.
“So, you want me to fuck you while your dick is in a cage and you can’t come.”
“I can, technically, come. I just can’t get hard.” And my orgasms were ruined, but I didn’t focus on that. “Also, it’s a clit for…kinky times.”
He was going to quit this sham of a job. I’d always been too much for the people who didn’t immediately discard me, thinking I was too little.
Santos hadn’t seen me in person in years, texts and calls aside.
He had just come back from the military, for fuck’s sake, and there were adjustment periods and other shit León and Carlos talked about sometimes.
I should be giving him that space, not shocking him with all my fem clothing and asking him to fuck me and call my dick a clit.
“Hey.” When I didn’t move, Santos pushed me toward his chest. His furnace-hot, naked chest full of the thinnest blonde fuzz. “That’s hot.”
“You think?”
Santos snorted. “Not that I think I’d mind, but remember the pesky tiny detail of me being bi? You could have any equipment, and I’d want in.”
I pretended to hit him in the arm. It obviously didn’t do much more than caress him. “I remember everything.”
“Yeah.” He buried his face against my hair. “So do I.”
I hummed. “Bed?”
“Y-yeah.” I let him basically carry me to the other end of the hallway.
I had a feeling he was using the show of strength to recompose himself, and I didn’t mind being manhandled anyway.
“Hey, I forgot to ask you the other day. When you send him pictures and videos and whatever, you’re staying safe, right? Not showing your face or anything?”
I bounced on the bed where he’d dropped me twice before I could answer. “Pinky swear. There’s nothing recognizable. He’s heard my voice, but I’ve never shown my face, and I don’t have any ink or anything else that could get back to me.”
“Okay.” He nodded—probably more to himself than me.
I waited him out for what felt like a full minute of him hesitating by the foot of the bed. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just sleep.”
Was it an out he was searching for? I couldn’t tell for certain. So much had changed and so much had stayed the same… My head throbbed trying to make sense of it all.
“I’m just…” Santos shook his head. I bet the buzz cut was bothering him.
It had been a point of contention throughout his teens.
His family hated his curls, and he loved the way they framed his face.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself.
I don’t mean with you, but I know we haven’t been the same. And I’m…I’m sorry.”
“Santos.” I sat up right away, legs crossed, and everything about whether or not he was going to fuck me forgotten. “It’s okay, I’m the one who just dumped all my mess on you. You can take all the time and all the space and everything you need. I don’t want to make things worse for you.”
He snorted, then ran a hand through his hair. It bothered me that he was still at a distance. “You don’t make shit worse for me, babes.”
He hadn’t called me that in years.
I tried to hide my reaction, but I bet I was making a shit job out of it.
Which might’ve been a good thing. Whatever he saw had him getting on the bed, pulling at the sheets until I got the memo and got under with him.
“Your new friends know how fucking touch-starved you are?”
“No, I’m…” I frowned. I was touch-starved, but this wasn’t the time to go down that rabbit hole. “I don’t think they know.”
“Hmm.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. He was brushing my hair with his fingers, though, so I didn’t mind. This felt right again. Him. In my bed. The two of us against the world, the way it was supposed to be.