53
Sailor
Revenge is Best Served with Dessert
PENG ALERTED ME TO HIS ARRIVAL.
With a happy meow and flicking tail, he bolted to the back door just as X opened it and stepped into the kitchen without an invitation.
“You made it.” I beamed the biggest, over-the-top smile of my life.
He froze, his eyes locking on mine where I stood by the counter, icing the final corners of the hazelnut chocolate cake. On the top, I’d piped an intricate X covered in flower petals.
Peng clawed his way up X’s jeans, distracting him.
With a softly muttered curse, he plucked the kitten from where he hung on his belt and bundled him into his hands. “You’re a pest.” He held Peng away from him, all while the cat did its best to headbutt every finger and purr like a chainsaw.
I should’ve figured out who X was the first time he’d come round for cake. Peng couldn’t hide his obsession with Zander all because he’d been the one to turn his life into a happily ever after. If I didn’t love Zander just as much as Peng did, I would be obscenely jealous.
But now…we can share.
I snickered to myself, all while watching Zander/X wrangle Peng off him.
Now I knew who he was…it was obvious—even with the black hair and brown eyes. The shape of his forehead, the fall of his thick hair, the faint lines around his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, his lean powerful height and strong elegant hands…even his energy was the same. The same protective, sweet, caring aura that made me feel instantly at home.
“So.” I grinned another megawatt smile. “How was your day, dear?”
“Dear?” He rocked backward on his heels, his eyes narrowing above his skull mask. “Who are you and what new trap have you come up with?”
“Can’t I call you something other than X?” I wrinkled my nose. “I mean…it’s not even a nice letter. Kinda harsh if you ask me.” Spinning on the spot and brandishing the spatula covered in icing, I grinned. “You know what? You could just tell me your real name, and I’ll call you that.”
He huffed and managed to escape Peng’s love attack. “I see what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?” I blinked innocently.
“You know what.”
“How about I guess?” I tapped a finger against my bottom lip. “Let’s see. You could’ve chosen any letter to go by but you chose X. So that leads me to think there’s an X in your real name somewhere.”
He coughed and balled his hands. “That’s ridiculous—”
“You don’t look like a Max.” I cocked my head, studying him. “Or a Jaxon or a Braxton or an Axel.” I tossed the spatula back into the bowl, making him flinch with the noise. “I’ve got it. Alexander.”
He went deathly still. His eyes pinched into a sniper stare. “Why Alexander? I could be a Felix or a Dexter.”
“True. You could be. Alright, I’ll just randomly choose one until I figure it out.” Smiling as brightly as I could, I asked my question again, pretending to be the dutiful housewife welcoming her hard-working husband home after a long day. “So, Hendrix…how was your day?” I waved the question away. “No, that doesn’t suit you. Oh, I know.” I paused for dramatic effect. “How about Lex…you know? From Superman? He was the villain all while Clark Kent wore sexy glasses only to transform into a sexy alien who could fly?”
He choked and swayed on the spot.
I snickered, enjoying my revenge a little too much. “Oh, did I guess right?”
“Think I’d prefer Bronx.”
“Nah, that one isn’t very sexy. Oh, I know.” I giggled. “Pax. How about that?”
“I think this is getting old, and I’d like to know why I’m here.”
“Okay, fine.” Bowing my head, pretending to accept defeat, I asked my question the third time. “But first…how was your day?”
He sighed heavily. “You’re suddenly very interested in my daily activities. Why?”
“Because I’m curious. I want you to share with me.”
“If this is why you texted me—”
“Wow, you really don’t know how to let someone care about you, huh?” I pouted. “You’re going to have to get over that.”
“Get over what?”
“Being on your own.”
He scowled. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
“Nothing much.” My gaze struggled to unlock from the mocking skeleton covering his mouth. The same mouth I’d kissed and tasted. Even once I’d demolished his disguise, I would let him keep the mask. I would even ask him to wear it sometimes because…even though I was accepting that Zander had layers he’d always hidden from me, even though I was ready to forgive every lie he’d ever told because everything he’d done spoke far louder than words, I didn’t want to say goodbye to X.
I didn’t want to choose.
If Zander tried to kill X off… well, we’re going to have a problem.
Picking up the cake, I carried it to the dining table where a candelabra flickered with three candles. Pressed cloth napkins waited beneath polished silver cutlery, and two china plates like the one he’d left in my letterbox waited to be used.
Placing the cake on the intricate stand in the centre of the table, I motioned for him to sit down. “Are you going to answer me?”
He blinked and shook his head as if utterly confused. Ignoring my question for the millionth time, he eyed up the X on the cake, then grabbed the back of the nearest chair. Strangling it, he asked, “Are you…are you not mad at me for leaving that night?”
“Should I be?” I shrugged.
His brown eyes searched mine.
That was the only part of my little sting operation that I couldn’t figure out how to tamper with. I missed Zander’s emerald stare. The muddy brown had to go. However, the blue black in his hair would be my first victim.
Luckily, he’d worn a black t-shirt tonight, and I’d yet to renovate my kitchen because I was about to cause a hell of a mess.
His knuckles turned white as he continued trying to murder my chair. “I don’t understand. You haven’t messaged me for a week. You’re acting strange.”
Getting into character and going over the lines I’d prepared, I headed to the freezer and pulled out the vanilla ice-cream. Carrying the tub to the table, I placed it beside the cake and sat primly in my little black dress. “Me strange? Never.”
The sheer satin meant I wore no underwear to avoid bra and knicker lines, but it also meant my nipples were rather visible.
And of course, he noticed.
His gaze dropped to my breasts, making them pucker with need.
Swallowing hard, he nodded once and sat down. “What’s going on, Lori?”
“Nothing.” I giggled, laying it on a little thick. “I just missed you and figured…why use the dildo you gave me when I could have you instead?”
He coughed. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I talk too quietly?” Leaning forward, I cupped my chin in my hands and smiled. “You appointed yourself as my faceless therapist to help me heal and…seeing as you’ve done such a bang-up job, I’m firing you from that position and hiring you in a new role.”
“What new role?”
“My orgasm delivery boy of course.”
He frowned. “That’s why you commanded me to come?”
“Careful, X.” I ran my finger over my bottom lip. “When I command you to come , you’ll know about it.”
He shivered. His eyes dropped from mine to the cake and back again. “Lori, whatever you’re doing, it won’t—”
“I’m giving you another two choices, dear.” Wedging my elbows on the table, still cradling my chin with my hands, I smiled. “It’s up to you, so I suggest you choose wisely.”
He stiffened. “I don’t need you to give me another choice. We’re over, Lori. I told you that the last time I was here.” His eyes flashed with guilt. “I apologise for how I treated you. I-I hate that I left bruises when I always promised I would never hurt you, but…I only came here tonight to tell you that I’m leaving.”
“Oh?” I blinked like a brain-dead owl. “Where are you going?”
“Doesn’t matter. All that matters is—”
“I thought you were going to kill yourself off? That option would’ve been far more final, don’t you think?”
“What?” His eyebrows shot up. “How did you…?”
Leaning back, I shrugged. “If you wanted to end things dramatically—if you wanted me to give up trying to find you—then you should’ve told me you were terminally ill and only had a week left to live. I would’ve mourned you of course, but I would’ve given up looking in a month or two because why would I search for a dead guy?”
Peng leaped onto the table. Prowling toward the cake, he batted it. Icing covered his claws, making the little demon kitten sit and lick his paw.
X never took his eyes off mine. “I can’t read you tonight. What are you saying? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” His voice turned thick with protection and rage. “Is it Milton? Did he get in touch?”
I grinned, never letting my act slip. “I received the summons to testify against him, but that’s not what tonight is about.”
He moved before he could stop himself. His hand reached for mine across the table. He squeezed my fingers tight. “How can it not be? Knowing you have to see him? Are you doing okay? I know you’re strong enough to face him…but do you know that?”
I squeezed him back, my heart fisting all over again.
I’d invited him here to pick a fight and strip his disguise halfway through. My revenge plan was to show him I knew all along and forgave him, but…I’d never been good at confrontation and had no intention of making him hurt more than he already was.
He was too nice.
Too caring.
Even now…even highly suspicious and on guard, he still put my well-being above his own.
Oh, Zander, Zander, Zander. You just keep messing up my heart, and I just keep on letting you.
“I’ll be fine.” Squeezing his fingers, I stood and headed to the butcher’s block. Sliding out a large blade to cut the cake with, X stiffened as I carried the knife back and placed it slowly on the table.
“When will you have to go to court?” he asked quietly, never taking his eyes off the knife.
“Why?” I sat back down. “Will you come with me? I hate to tell you, X, but I don’t think you’ll be allowed a mask in there.”
“I won’t be there, Lori. I’ve told you this. After tonight, you’ll never see me again.”
“Is that right?” I nodded along. “In that case, I better get to the point quickly then, huh?”
He sighed heavily as if I’d drained him of every strength. “That would be great. Thanks.”
Grabbing the knife, I plunged it right in the middle of the X, slicing through the cake with murderous precision. “Alright then…”
He jerked. “Was that meant to be a threat?”
“Did it work?”
“Kinda, yeah.” He chuckled. “Anyone ever tell you you’re scary when you’re secretive?”
“Guess there are things about me that you don’t know, after all.” I smirked. “Even after all your stalking.”
He scowled. “I deserved that.” Shifting as if to stand, he muttered, “Look, I know I’ve pissed you off with what I did last time I was here. I left when you asked me not to. I was too rough and took too much. I haven’t messaged or—”
“Meh, let’s not talk about the past, shall we?” I winked. “I’m far more interested in the future.”
“There is no future, Lori—”
“Call me Sailor. Every time you call me Lori, it reminds me of my neighbour when he pulled my pigtails when we were kids.”
He stopped breathing.
I smiled full of sugar. “That’s why I told you to use that nickname. I’ve had a crush on Zander North basically my entire life. Did I tell you that? Probably not because I’ve only just figured it out myself. Until recently, I wasn’t even aware how much I watched him. I always thought I kept a respectable boundary between us. That I always looked away. Turns out…I didn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, I’ve been a bad neighbour. After all, he can’t help moving about in his own house, right? He shouldn’t have to put up with his neighbour ogling him when he’s just come back from the gym. He should have privacy instead of realising that the girl next door once stood for a full hour watching him nap on the couch because he looked so exhausted and all she wanted to do was go over there and give him a hug.”
“W-Why are you telling me this?” His hand strayed to the bridge of his nose—the tic so Zander, my heart fluttered with love. But then he realised what he was doing and yanked his mask a little higher instead. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“Is it working?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.” His voice came out all scratchy. “I’m leaving.”
“Not yet, you’re not.”
His forehead furrowed. “You think you can keep me here against my will?”
“I’m willing to try.” I ran my finger over the knife with a crazy smile.
He gulped. “Look, Sailor…I don’t know what you want—”
“I want you to sit there and listen. Do you think you can do that?” I scowled. “And then you can go. You can leave and never come back if that’s truly what you want.”
“I won’t change my mind—”
“We’ll see.”
He shuddered as his gaze shot to the back door.
If he left, I had every intention of spraying him with the hose until his hair turned red, but…he resisted the urge to run and turned back to face me. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about we get straight to the juicy stuff and confess our deepest, darkest secrets?” Cutting a piece of cake, I placed it on the plate in front of him.
He scowled. “You know I can’t eat that with my mask on.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Then why did you—”
“Hospitality? Hope that you’ll trust me enough to take off your mask once we’ve finished talking?” I laughed, enjoying taunting him far too much. “However, if you want to keep it on while doing bad things to me again, that would be perfectly acceptable.” I licked my bottom lip. “One of my secrets is…you’ve successfully given me a mask fetish.”
He twitched and cleared his throat. “Sailor, I—” His gaze dropped to my breasts again.
His chest strained with a heavy breath.
I blushed.
Zander might’ve been hiding the darker parts of his personality that only ever came out when he was X, but…so had I.
I might have gone my entire life pretending that I didn’t have urges—normal, simple urges. Now I was happy to admit, I wanted a man to adore me but also rule me. I was both a feminist and a traditionalist. I craved to be taken care of by a man who I trusted to fight off monsters, but also become that monster in bed when it was just us. In return, I wanted to be the hearth he came home to. I wanted to care for him, protect him, and be the one he could be both man and monster with.
And if I couldn’t convince Zander that he needn’t be afraid of wanting those same normal, wonderful urges, then…drastic moves would have to be taken.
Gathering every shred of courage I had, I sniffed. “Okay, I’ll go first.” Placing my hands on my lap, I forced myself to meet his stare. “Secret number one is…the night Milton tried to kill me…I told you he accused me of watching my neighbour when I’d been distracted and thinking of work. That’s…a lie. A lie I couldn’t even admit to until today. My best friend forced me to realise just how aware I’ve been of Zander North my entire life. Yes, I moved into this house to care for my nana, and yes, I love this home more than any other but…the real reason was him .” I shrugged, my back prickling with the hard-to-swallow truth. “I missed him when I lived in the city. I missed him every time I returned from a visit here. I loved every time our grandparents whispered about us getting married and felt physical pain at the thought that he’d end up with someone else. Living close by—being able to see him, even from a distance—was a temptation I wasn’t strong enough to ignore.”
X didn’t say a word, frozen in his chair.
It still felt odd to talk about Zander as if he wasn’t here, but I threw myself headfirst into making him break, allowing myself to break in the process. “I’m not taking responsibility or excusing Milton’s behaviour that night. I will never forgive him, and there will never be a good enough reason for a man to try to kill his significant other, but…I will admit that it wasn’t just him at fault in our relationship. I went along with it because I thought I couldn’t have the man I wanted. The man I didn’t even admit I wanted. I made do and settled for what I thought I deserved, all while craving someone else. I thought I was so stealthy whenever I’d spy on my neighbour, but it turns out, I wasn’t. Lily noticed. Milton noticed. And that’s when cracks started appearing. The night Milton found me watching Zander in his bedroom, he didn’t say a word. He watched me watching my neighbour and saw how I reacted when he dropped his towel.”
I blushed, confessing this to the very man I’d spied on, doing my best to keep talking about him in the third person. “That was the first time he ever exposed himself in full view of the window. He showed me exactly what I’ve been wanting all these years. I think I must’ve gasped or done something to give myself away, and…Milton retaliated.”
I trembled as the phantom pain around my throat returned. The kicks and the punches, the slurs and the curses. “He tossed me around like a lump of meat that night. He would’ve taken my life if it hadn’t been for Jim, but…the biggest secret beneath all of that horror is…Zander wasn’t my trigger. My feelings for him were.”
“Sailor, stop. You don’t need to—”
“I do. And you need to listen.”
He slouched in the chair, his eyes infinitely sad.
Sucking in a breath, I continued, “All this time, I placed the blame on Zander. I willingly let blindness keep me from understanding that I was partly at fault even though what Milton did was inexcusable. But then you came into my life. A faceless, nameless guardian who held my hand through the panic attacks and hugged me through the terror, and somehow, you made me come alive again. However, what you don’t know is…you also made me become someone else. The night you bruised me and commanded me to kneel was—”
“Wrong—”
“The best damn night of my life.” I balled my hands on the table. “You showed me that I’ve been lying to myself all this time. I might want my sweet neighbour, but the one thing holding me back from attempting a relationship with him was…I don’t want sweet in the bedroom. I want what you gave me. Primal and passionate and so full of emotion that the bruises you left behind were talismans of connection, not abuse. Milton left me with scars but you…you left me with memories I will never forget, which brings me to my second secret.”
X rubbed his eyes with a groan. “I can’t handle hearing another one. I know I said I’d always be there to hear whatever you wanted to tell me, but, Sailor, I can’t hear this. I can’t because I’m not the man you think I am, and—”
“It will be your turn to confess soon enough. Let me finish.”
His eyes flashed the wrong colour, but finally, he nodded. “Go ahead.”
Arching my chin, I said, “I’m in love with both of you. I love Zander, and I love you. My heart has been torn in two over this, and it’s made me feel like a terrible person, but now I know how I can fix it.”
“How?” he asked helplessly.
Tapping my throat, I smiled. “Sorry, confessing is thirsty work. I’ll just grab a glass of water. Be right back.” I stood and Peng trotted over the table from where he’d been lounging beside the ice-cream tub, chilling his tiny tummy and getting his fur all frosty.
Grabbing him, I moved him to the floor. He wouldn’t appreciate this next bit.
While I went to the cupboard and grabbed my mixing bowl, X burrowed his masked face into his hands and slouched.
He didn’t see me fill the bowl to the brim.
Didn’t even look at me while I pretended to slake my thirst.
He still had his head bowed by the time I carried the bowl of water toward him, staying behind him the entire time.
My arms trembled beneath the weight as I whispered, “You know, after a lifetime of being scolded by my nana and raised with the same marriage promise that I have, you should know not to mess with a Rose, Z.”
And then, I dumped the entire bowl of water over his head.