Chapter 20
Julien
I’m swimming in the ocean, and the waves are large.
It’s dark out, and the only thing I can see are the stars in the sky.
The current is pulling me farther and farther out.
I’m fighting it, but the waves keep crashing over me, and the tide keeps pulling and tugging at me.
I’m supposed to let it take me until I can break free of it, but all my instincts tell me to swim harder.
Swim faster. Survive. Live. Don’t drown.
I don’t want to die.
Suddenly, the water becomes even more turbulent and thick, like molasses. It doesn’t smell of salt and brine, but of iron and copper. I’m struggling to swim through it. It’s too thick and heavy. I don’t have the strength.
The panic washes over me. I’m fighting for my life now, struggling to stay above the surface. I can’t breathe. My lungs protest, demanding oxygen.
Then I see him. He looks different. Distorted. Twisted. He has sharp teeth and blood dripping from his mouth. He’s huge. His head envelops the sky, blacking out the stars.
I have no strength left to swim, so I float. But he won’t let me. A massive hand, bigger than a house, comes down on me. It shoves me under. All I can hear is the muffled tone of laughter. It’s sinister. Sadistic.
That’s when I want to die. I don’t want to live if I have to see Holt’s evil face again. It’s better this way. He won’t be able to torment me anymore. No more pain. No more suffering. No more rape.
I close my eyes and accept my death. Blackness is better than this. Anything is better than this.
“Julien, baby… wake up.”
My eyes burst open, and I gasp for breath. My heart is racing so hard it almost hurts, and I’m instantly awake.
A nightmare. Fuck me. That wasn’t just any nightmare; it was pure terror.
I rub my face, then my chest, where my heart is fighting to get out of my chest.
Romeo is hovering above me, his brown and green eyes watching me with concern.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. I’m not. Not one fucking bit.
That nightmare was a reminder of my mission.
I’m sure killing someone has a lot to do with it.
No matter my growing feelings for Romeo, I can’t get sidetracked.
He doesn’t love me. He’s paid to be here.
I think he likes me, but it’s not enough to keep me here.
Nothing is. Despite my nightmare, I’m not afraid to go.
I resigned myself to my mission a long time ago.
I want the blackness. To never feel pain ever again. I fucking crave it.
My eyes are watering, so I close them. I don’t want Romeo to see. It wouldn’t be the first time I lost it in front of him, but I don’t want to now. If he sees me, I’ll fucking shatter.
Before I can get up, Romeo presses a kiss to my lips. It’s soft. I don’t know how he does it, but it pulls me back from the abyss. He calms me.
He kisses me again; this time it’s deeper. We don’t care if our mouths are filled with morning breath. It doesn’t matter. As he deepens the kiss with his tongue, his hand slides under the blankets, under the band of my underwear, and fists my cock.
I kick off the covers and pull down my underwear enough to free my dick, which is growing harder by the second. The more Romeo touches and kisses me, the more the nightmare diminishes.
He doesn’t waste time getting me off. He’s a pro with his hand, expertly stroking with the perfect amount of pressure and speed. His thumb grazes the head, swiping away precum while his mouth consumes mine.
It doesn’t take me long to come, shooting my load all over my bare stomach.
Romeo’s hand has cum on it, too, but he cleans it off by licking his hand. That sexy scene right there erases the last of that fucking horror show.
“So hot,” I rasp.
He grins at me as he sits up, slides off his underwear, straddles me, and gives himself a handy.
“I can do that for you,” I tell him.
“I got it.”
His eyes are closed, his bleached hair falling in his face, and his lips are parted. He’s a fucking stunning creature.
I brush my thumb over his nipple, pulling a groan from him. “Like that, do we?”
He nods, so I do it again. Then I gently pinch it.
Just when my cum gets cold and uncomfortable, he’s exploding all over me, our cum now mingling together.
Romeo climbs off me, heads for the bathroom, and comes back with a warm rag to clean me off. I pull my underwear back up and curl onto my side when he comes back into bed.
“Morning,” I say, making him smile, his face still blissed out from coming.
“Morning. Feel better?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I finger his hair back and tuck it behind his ear. “After learning about your past last night, I was thinking.”
His smile drops, and he looks at me. “About what?”
“Would you like me to call you Aleksandr? Or Aleks? Or do you still want to be called Romeo?”
He gnaws on his bottom lip as he thinks about it. “I honestly don’t know. Romeo is all I’ve known. Aleksandr feels… foreign, like it doesn’t really belong to me. But…”
“But what, baby?”
“The name Romeo doesn’t belong to me either, does it?
Does it sound weird that I feel even more…
How do I explain it? Like, I have no identity or something.
Nothing real, anyway. I thought I’d feel complete when I found answers, but all I feel is worse.
Then I start to feel bad that I don’t feel better because you had to kill Tito to save me, just so I could learn who I was. Does that make sense?”
God, I love how he opens up to me. Everyone in my life had been so closed off. We were always in competition with each other. Vulnerabilities were seen as weaknesses. But Romeo is so free with his thoughts and feelings. He trusts me, even though he has every right not to trust anyone.
“It makes perfect sense, actually. I can see that. You feel disjointed.”
He shrugs and looks at me sheepishly. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means, like… having a lack of connection.”
“Oh, yeah, then that sounds about right, I guess. I don’t feel connected to my birth name, but I don’t feel connected to Romeo, either, because it was never my real name.”
“I can stick to calling you ‘cupcake.’”
He giggles and nods. “I like that. Okay.”
I feel similarly to him. When I think about my Romeo, I don’t think of him by his birth name. And I hate how he came into the name Romeo. But I’ll call him whatever he wants until it’s our time to go our separate ways in nine days.
With a yawn and a stretch, I grab my phone, open the bank app, and pay Romeo.
I want to pay him the full amount of what I’d planned to pay Tito—all of it.
He should get all the thirty-seven thousand, but I need to call my accountant to handle that.
For now, I send him as much as my bank limit allows, which is five thousand.
I show him before I hit send. His eyes grow wide and watery.
“You’ll get the rest once I can call my accountant. ”
He nuzzles his face into my neck as a sob escapes, and says, “Thank you! Thank you!”
“You deserve it, baby.”
And you’ll have a lot more when our time is up, you and Jinx both, I say to myself. I’m not sure how I feel about Jinx yet. He’s abrupt and pushy, but he’s smart as fuck. He’s suffered, too, so he deserves some happiness, just like Romeo.
“Ugh, it’s fucking hot,” Jinx complains as we hike a worn trail over rocks and shrubs. He’s got his shirt off, tucked into his shorts, like I do. Romeo leaves his on, since he’s paler than a ghost.
The area is rocky with shrubs and plant growth, but very few trees.
“We’ll be there soon enough,” I say. “Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”
“I trust you,” Romeo says.
I smile at him and take his hand as we keep on walking.
After about three miles, we come to a copse of trees, and the temperature drops significantly, with the sun no longer blazing down on us.
“Oh, this is pretty,” Romeo says.
Jinx stops in front of a tree and touches the trunk. “Why are the trees covered in graffiti? They cut initials and shit into them, too. Rude.”
I chuckle. “It is, but without it, it’s harder to find those secret spots. I want a place that’s quiet, away from people, but we don’t want to get lost either. It’s the weekday, so it shouldn’t be too busy.”
“Have you been here before, Sugar?”
“No, I’ve only researched it. I spent over a year mapping out where I want to visit on the way to the Grand Canyon. I made reservations at all the places we’re staying at, too, because I didn’t want to risk not being able to find a place.”
“Traveling in luxury, nice,” Jinx says. “I had a client once who took me to his house. It was fucking huge, a mansion. He had a pool and taught me how to swim and everything. He became a regular, and I worked so hard to get him to buy me from Tito, but he refused to sell, saying I was too valuable. Bastard. I could’ve lived the life of a wealthy person as this man’s boy. ”
“Jesus, you make it sound like this is so normal,” I say.
“Well, it’s my normal. Romeo understands that.” Romeo nods in agreement. “When you got nothing, you do all you can to find even a little bit of happiness. Even if I’d still be owned, I know the older man would’ve been nicer to me.”
“How old were you?” I ask Jinx.
“This was… two years ago. I was fourteen then.”
“Fuck me.”
“It’s life, Julien. You have no idea how many kids are stolen to be used like this or worse. I’ve heard stories and watched the news.”
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
“Probably not, but you should. It’s in the millions, dude.”
The idea that so many kids are treated like a sexual commodity makes me sick.
Romeo holds my hand tighter, but turns back to look at Jinx as we keep on walking. “Let’s talk about happy things. This is Julien’s journey, Jinx. He’s been hurt as much as we have, so he deserves this.”
“Hey, I’m here for it. It’s a nice change. Lips are zipped.” Jinx mimics a zipping motion over his mouth and shrugs.
“It’s fine, Cupcake. We’re all processing right now.”