Chapter Twelve Tighter than Barbed Wire
CHapter twelve
Tighter than Barbed Wire
Jude knew he’d been seen.
It had been seen.
The ink. The mark. The truth he never let breathe.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He could lie, of course. Say it was a choice. A design he’d picked during a rebellious phase. A symbol of strength, maybe. A reminder of some vague philosophy about pain and survival. He could say he liked it. Kept it for the aesthetics.
But all of that was bollocks.
The real reason he’d never had it covered?
Because part of him needed the reminder. The quiet shame. The burn. The brand. A warning etched into skin, so he never forgot who he’d been and what he’d let happen. And who he couldn’t afford to be again.
His own history.
Ironic, really. Wearing chains to remember freedom.
He yanked on his pyjama trousers, dropped the towel, and turned.
Warren hovered near the door as if he didn’t know whether he should step in or turn around, pretending he hadn’t seen a damn thing.
“Thanks for sorting Lily.” Jude reached for his glasses on the desk.
Mistake.
Because now he could see Warren’s face properly.
Not that Warren was looking at him with disgust. Or pity.
Or judgement. More that he was…interested.
Intrigued, perhaps. As though he wanted to ask.
Mention it. Almost as if he knew the connotations of the ink.
What they’d once meant. But he couldn’t.
It was just barbed wire and rose thorns. A design. Nothing more.
Even if Jude could still hear the voice behind it.
“You’re mine now, lamb. Forever.”
And no amount of distance, or years, or healing would ever scrub that sentence from his spine.
Not when it was carved in skin.
And seen.
“Yeah.” Warren rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “No worries. Teenagers, eh?” He forced a small laugh. “Oh, for the days when I had girls fighting over me.”
Jude breathed out a humourless laugh, running a hand through his still-damp curls.
“Quiet now.” Warren tilted his head towards the corridor. “Sounds like they’ve either passed out or are faking it with AirPods in.”
“As long as there’s no more fights.”
“Yeah.” Warren lingered a beat longer, then glanced at the bed.
The double bed.
Of course.
Every student room had twins. Standard. But this room, meant for a teacher, hadn’t been part of that configuration.
Just a standard hotel double. And Jude, exhausted when he booked the rooms, hadn’t thought it through.
All he’d thought about was lying on that bed, sprawled, alone, maybe naked for the first time in weeks.
No creaking floorboards. No shadow in the doorway. No fear Callum might come in.
It hadn’t happened. Not yet.
But the expectation was enough. That was the trick of control.
“I’ll take the floor.” Jude reached for one of the pillows.
“No, you won’t.” Warren stepped forward. “Come on. It’s your room. I’ll take the floor.”
Jude looked at him.
Warren looked back.
Neither moved.
As if something unspoken lodged between them, thick and charged and completely out of their control.
Then, quietly, Jude said, “We could share.”
Warren arched a brow. “The floor?”
Jude huffed a laugh. “Why not? We can both wake up with sore backs and moral clarity.”
“That’ll definitely get them talking.”
“Right.” Heat rose to Jude’s face. “Yeah, we shouldn’t risk that.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Warren agreed. “If it got back to the Head…”
“Exactly.” Jude gestured to the bed, suddenly very aware of its size. Or lack of it. “So, we should probably consider… sharing the bed?”
Warren nodded, trying to keep a straight face. “We should definitely consider it.”
“How long do you think that kind of consideration should take?”
“I’m not sure…” Warren rubbed his brow. “You’re the history buff. How long did they take to deliberate the Treaty of Versailles?”
Jude smiled, despite himself. “Seven months. Give or take.”
“Well.” Warren glanced at the bed, then back at him. “We don’t have seven months.”
“No.” Jude’s breath caught on the edges. “Just one night.”
One night to feel safe. One night beside someone who didn’t want anything from him but rest. One night to not be alone.
Warren shouldered his bag with casual ease. “Alright. In the interest of not giving the kids something to gossip about, I’ll brush my teeth and try to scrounge something vaguely respectable to sleep in. You…” he nodded towards the bed “…pick a side.”
“I usually take the left.”
Warren smirked. “Good. I’m always right.”
“So you think.”
Warren tilted his head. “I’m sure you’ll tell me when I’m not.”
Jude gave a soft laugh. “I’ll get my red pen.”
Warren kicked off his trainers, then traipsed into the bathroom, leaving Jude a moment to breathe.
There was no choice. And no real decision to make.
So he climbed into the bed, sitting up against the headboard, sheets cool beneath him, heart thudding as though he was about to do something far more dangerous than share space.
He felt like a virgin on a wedding night.
Ridiculous. But also… not entirely wrong.
The bathroom tap ran. A toothbrush scraped gently.
The muffled sounds of rustling. A muttered curse.
Then the door opened, and Warren filled the frame like a statue carved into real flesh and bone in just a pair of boxers.
Jude drew in a breath. God, they were snug.
Tight across thick thighs and clinging to hips in a way that shouldn’t have been legal.
And Warren was all muscle. Dark and smooth, skin marked here and there by old scars and a strength that wasn’t aesthetic, it was lived in.
Lived through. Broad chest dusted with hair, nipples dark, shoulders wide enough to fill the space between doorframes.
And his locs were down, kissing his collarbones, softening the harsh lines of his frame without taking away any of his power.
“Sorry.” Warren held out his arms in display of himself. Not with brashness. More unapologetic embarrassment. “Didn’t think about nightwear.”
Jude couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t breathe.
Could barely think.
Warren was… magnificent.
Not pretty. Not polished. But real. Solid. Towering. A force. A body built for protection, not performance. A man Jude might’ve once feared but now couldn’t stop looking at.
And for a second, Jude forgot how to lie to himself.
God, he wanted this man.
Not just the body. Though that alone was enough to wreck him.
But all of him. The solidity. The warmth.
The quiet way Warren looked at him as if he wasn’t fragile, but real.
As if he was worth something. He wanted to be held.
Protected. Rewritten. And to forget, if only for one night, everything Callum had ever taken from him.
Everything still clinging like rot on his skin.
But he couldn’t. He knew that. Warren was straight and not into him, and Jude couldn’t allow himself the luxury of one night of mayhem to even try.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
So instead, he reached for the light switch and turned it off.
Darkness wrapped around the room. Safer that way. And Jude ducked under the covers, heart hammering, praying to every indifferent god in the sky that Warren wouldn’t notice how hard he was.
“Okay…” Warren drawled, amused.
Then the bed dipped.
The mattress gave under his weight, and the heat of Warren’s body as he climbed in and settled beside Jude was too much.
He was too close. A whole presence sinking into the space, stealing the air from Jude’s lungs.
Everything was too big. Too loud. His heartbeat.
His skin. The way the sheet barely separated their arms. All he needed was for Warren to start snoring.
Then maybe he could breathe again. Maybe he could cope.
But Warren didn’t.
Instead, his voice came through the dark. Calm. Gentle. “Where did you get it?”
The question broke the silence like a whisper through fog.
Jude stared up at the ceiling. The dark made it easier not to lie, but harder to speak. He could feel Warren beside him. Close but not touching. Warm and solid. Steady in a way Jude hadn’t felt next to another human being in years.
“London,” Jude said. Dry. Distant. Too heavy to hold properly. “A long time ago.”
“It’s… striking. And it…” Warren paused, but it wasn’t an empty silence. It was a calculated one. As if he was waiting to see what Jude would give him.
Jude didn’t rush to fill it.
Part of him wanted to know what Warren thought. Striking could mean anything. Ugly. Brutal. Beautiful. Unforgettable. All those same words he thought about himself.
“What does it mean?” Warren asked instead.
“That once, I was stupid. Reckless. And troubled.”
Warren shifted beside him. “Only once?”
Jude turned his head, and their faces were close. Not touching, but close enough to feel Warren’s minty breath sprinkling his cheek. “More than once.”
“We all do stupid things in our youth.”
“Yeah?” Jude tucked his arm under his head, propping himself up. “What stupid things did you do?”
Warren rolled onto his side, facing him, propping himself up on one arm too. “Stole a pack of fags from the corner shop when I was thirteen. Got caught. Mum hit me so hard, I still have the scar.” He reached under the covers, found Jude’s hand, and guided it to his temple. “Right there. Feel it?”
The scar was small but real, above the curve of his ear, a shallow dip in the skin. The contact was too intimate. Too intentional. But Warren didn’t pull away. His breathing deepened, a quiet shift, more awareness than comfort.
Still, when Warren let go of his hand, Jude kept his fingers there.
Tracing. Soft. Hesitant.
“Yeah, I feel it,” he whispered through the dark.
Because he felt it all. Every single thing.