Chapter 17 Bash #2
“Alright,” Cato says at last, giving me one lingering, concerned look before closing the door behind him.
“You’re drunk and half-naked,” I say to Xeni, my voice softening now that we’re alone.
“I am,” he agrees with a brilliant, drunken smile that lights up his face like he’s proud of it.
“What did you do to Talia?”
He chuckles, low and self-satisfied. It rumbles against my chest as he pulls my face closer with surprising strength for someone so unsteady. Before I can react, his mouth crashes against mine.
He kisses me with hungry, breath-stealing desperation that tastes of rum and something uniquely him. For a heartbeat, I melt into the perfect way he fits against me, the familiar heat flooding back like muscle memory.
But sense slams back into me, and I nudge him away with a palm flat on his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath my fingers. His bottom lip pokes out in an exaggerated pout as the space opens between us.
“That’s enough,” I scold gently, though my voice wavers more than I’d like. “What did you do to her?”
“It was just a little… suggestion.”
“Suggestion?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he hums. “I suggested she let me out, and she seemed excited. Then I suggested we find the liquor, and after that, we decided to steal your shirt so I could smell like you.”
“And you lost your pants somewhere along the way?”
“Yesss,” he hisses with a grin before he backs up and lifts his arms in another wobbly twirl. The shirt rides higher, exposing those damn panties and the long, lean lines of his thighs.
Miles of pale skin are on display, and the alcohol steals some of his usual grace, but his movements are still fluid. I can’t help it as my eyes shift to the perfect dips on the sides of his ass and the swell between his legs.
“Xenesis,” I say quietly.
He pouts again as he faces me. “Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“Not to you,” he argues as he steps forward, and it catches me off guard as he pushes me.
I land in the chair behind me, and his knees fall onto either side of my thighs as he sinks into my lap. The fabric of the shirt lifts to expose his panties, and the defined crease between his thigh and hip is practically begging to be touched.
“Xenesis,” I warn with the last threads of my control, and I grip his hips to still him even as everything in me screams to pull him closer.
He shakes his head defiantly, white hair falling across his forehead in disheveled strands that make him look even wilder.
“No,” he murmurs, the word soft but stubborn. “I’m not that to you. I’m your Xen… your peaceful place.”
“You were,” I agree, the admission rough in my throat, “but things are different now.”
“They don’t have to be,” he whispers, draping his arms over my shoulders and threading his fingers into my hair.
He leans in until his breath ghosts my lips, and his hips roll slowly, grinding against me in a rhythm that’s pure torture. I bite back a groan as the friction ignites memories I’ve tried so hard to bury.
Nights when this felt like salvation, not destruction.
His fingers dig into the nape of my neck, nails scraping lightly in that way he knows undoes me. The tip of his cock presses against the satin of his panties, dampness spreading across the fabric in a warm bloom.
“We can’t keep doing this,” I manage, my hands tightening on his hips in a futile attempt to hold us both still.
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, his gaze dark and pleading beneath the haze of alcohol.
“Why not?” he breathes, hips rolling with maddening patience. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t feel it too.”
I swallow hard, throat dry as the words stick. “It’s not about wanting. It’s about what happens after.”
His expression flickers, hurt flashing across his face before defiance clamps down hard.
“After doesn’t matter right now,” he murmurs as he leans in until our foreheads touch, his breath unsteady against my lips. “Just this. Just us. Please, Bash… let me have this.”
“We can’t.”
“We can,” he argues, the words both fierce and fragile, and he presses a quick, desperate kiss to my lips. “Hate me again tomorrow if you need to. Just love me tonight.”
The plea in his voice unravels me further, and I close my eyes against the storm, hands sliding up his back despite myself.
“Xeni…”
“Say yes,” he whispers against my lips, the words a soft demand wrapped in desperation. “Just for tonight. Say yes.”
He arches his spine, offering himself completely, but as my eyes move down his body, a streak of crimson on his inner thigh catches my eye.
My haze clears in an instant.
“What’s that?” I ask as I stand, arms banded tight around him to keep him steady.
He whimpers at the shift, a needy, broken sound that tugs at my chest, and he clings to me as I lift him and set him on the edge of the table.
He spreads his legs wider, wanton and unashamed.
His hips rock forward as he tries to pull me back in for another kiss, lips chasing mine like he’s starving.
I nudge his shoulders until he’s propped on his elbows, knees parted wide and chest heaving with ragged breaths. His gaze burns with raw need, but my focus locks on the roadmap of scars covering the inside of his thighs.
Hundreds of thin lines scatter in chaotic, overlapping patterns, some faded to pale pink ghosts, others fresh and angry red against his skin. One weeps slow drops of blood that glisten in the dim light.
My heart breaks all over again, and the fracture steals my breath.
“Xeni, what is this?”
Panic flashes across his face, euphoria draining away in an instant as his eye widens and color floods his cheeks. He tries to close his legs, thighs trembling as he snaps them together.
“It’s nothing,” he mutters, gaze dropping to the floor as he curls inward.
“It’s not nothing,” I retort as I part his knees. I lean closer, tracing the scars with shaking fingertips and a tenderness that belies the storm inside me.
“Who did this to you? Who…”
My gaze meets his, and the shame I find there is crushing.
“Did you…”
Thick emotion closes its fingers around my throat, squeezing until every breath is a chore, and I suck in a shuddering inhale that rattles in my chest as I stare at the patchwork of cuts on his thighs.
“Did you do this to yourself?”
“Bash,” he whimpers, voice so small and even more broken.
“Why?” The question tears from me as my fingers continue tracing the cuts. “Why would you do this? Why would you hurt yourself?”
My hands roam over his skin even as he shakes his head in a silent plea for me to stop.
Searching for more, driven by a need I can’t name, I push at the hem of his shirt and lift it higher.
A mournful, animalistic wail slips loose from my throat.
“Xeni, what is this?”
His mark used to be the same warm chestnut brown as my skin, but now it’s pitch black and wrong, twisted and unnatural, puckered and drawn tight like scar tissue pulled too harsh over a wound that never healed.
Rough beneath my fingertips, raised and jagged, it’s a grotesque shadow of what it once was.
Blinding anger surges through me as my eyes move higher, ready to demand answers, but it’s swept away by the brokenness I find there.
His face is etched in anguish, and his single eye is an endless pool of sorrow deep enough to drown in.
I can’t bear it.
I wrap my arms around his back and pull him forward, tucking his face into the curve of my neck as his first sob breaks free, muffled and shattering against my skin. I stroke his hair in slow, soothing passes, cupping the back of his head and holding him close.
He fits perfectly against me like no time has passed, and for once, I don’t fight the need to keep him there.
“What happened to you?” I whisper into his hair.
“It doesn’t matter,” he cries against my neck. The words are jarred and broken by his sobs, each one a shudder that racks his frame.
“It matters to me,” I say, pressing my lips to his temple. “Please, just tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter… nothing mattered until you, and then you were gone, and nothing mattered again. I hate it, I hate everything, and I hate them!”
His voice rises until it fractures with the volume, and his fists clench tighter in my shirt as fresh tears soak the fabric.
“Nothing matters…” Xeni’s voice cracks, the words dissolving into a choked sob as he buries his face deeper into my shirt. “It doesn’t matter!”
His whole body trembles against mine in violent shudders as he clings to me like I’m his only anchor to the earth. His fingers dig in, like letting go would shatter him completely.
I pull back enough to meet his gaze, and he scrambles to hold on tighter like he thinks I’m walking away. “It’s alright, Xen. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”
“Xen?” he whispers with another quiet sob, and gods, he sounds so hopeful.
“Yeah,” I say, pressing my face into his hair and breathing him in despite the pain. “My Xen. My peace.”
He cries harder as I scoop him into my arms. Curious heads turn as I carry him through the hallway, but I ignore them. Xeni’s face stays buried in my neck, his warmth leaching into me and heating the edges of that soul deep cold I’ve carried for so long.
I balance him to unlock the door to my bedroom, where the dimness inside is broken only by the fading sunset filtering through the curtains. I shut the door behind us, the click loud in the quiet.
Xeni sniffles and lifts his head, glancing around the room before meeting my eyes. Neither of us says a word as I lay him on the bed and separate his knees once more.
“I’m going to clean you up,” I say softly.
His lip trembles, but he nods, and his gaze follows me into the bathroom and out again.
“This might sting,” I say with an apologetic grimace.
“That’s alright,” he whispers, though he winces when I dab alcohol over the open cut.
“You need to drink some water,” I say as I hand him a bottle. “It takes a lot to get you this drunk, Xeni.”
“Yeah,” he mutters before he takes a few long swallows.
I take the bottle and guide his head to the pillow. He watches me as I pull the blankets around him.
“Smells like you,” he murmurs, snuggling deeper with a sleepy, wobbling smile. “Only you.”
“Only me,” I agree, voice thick.
I run my fingers through his hair as he hums contentedly. He’s beautiful even like this—tear-streaked and vulnerable, with his eye red-rimmed and swollen.
“Get some rest, okay?”
He nods, breath already evening out as I place the water bottle on the bedside table.
The empty space beside him feels like a battle zone, loaded with a minefield of memories that could detonate with the slightest wrong move.
Lying there now would be reckless.
It would pull me straight into territory I’ve spent years trying to barricade myself against.
I compromise by dragging the armchair closer, and the legs scrape softly against the floor until it’s only a foot from the bed. I drop into it with a sigh that comes from the deepest part of me, exhaustion and something more tender settling over my shoulders as I watch him.
He’s asleep within minutes, soft breaths filling the quiet.
I sit there in the growing dark, watching him, and the weight of everything presses down until I can barely breathe.
The scars.
The ring.
The truth he still hasn’t fully given me.
For tonight, this is close enough.