40. Forty
Forty
Brennon
We ran. Xavi dragged me by the hand through the kitchen and out the back doors to the smoking pit.
The peaceful night sky and dark woods stood in a fucked-up contrast against what we’d just experienced.
My brain still felt scrambled from whatever drugs Jack had used to knock Toni and I out.
That, combined with my lungs and heart both working overtime in my chest was making it hard to stay upright.
The only thing keeping me standing was Xav. The two of us pressed together against the wall. This little enclave sheltering us from anyone’s eyes. Pulling him more firmly against me, my words fumbled, I half-whispered, half-cried, “I got you back. We got you.”
I ran my fingers desperately through Xav’s curls, kissing his head, his cheeks, his neck, his lips. Any part of him I was able to reach. He tried to soothe me back, whispering over and over again against my chest, “I’m okay, Brennon, I’m okay.”
Relief to have him back in my arms, at the feel of his tan skin against my own, made the need to kiss him overwhelming.
My lips, my whole fucking body, swept against him as he opened for me, letting my tongue explore his.
I poured every ounce of my fear and worry from the last few days into that kiss, until it settled into something slower and deeper.
Only once the hammering of my heart slowed, did I pull back.
I could finally hear and process our surroundings without blaring sirens of panic going off inside of me.
The panic was still there, not gone, just dimmed enough that I could think somewhat straight.
Enough that the rumble of engines reached us and had both Xav and I inching out of hiding.
We watched through the brambles as two big black SUVs rolled up to the dining hall doors and a pair of goons got out of each one.
Only to be greeted by that fucking scumbag Jack Walker.
After what I’d seen and learned this summer, I knew Toni’s father and brother deserved to be tortured, beaten, and stripped of every single thing they valued before we stuck them in an unidentifiable hole in the ground and let the worms chow down on their poisonous souls.
And now, I was contemplating burying Jack right beside them.
Jack directed the men toward the doors, and I watched in horror as they ran towards where we‘d left Toni and Cole behind. At the thought of Cole, of what he’d done, of the way he’d smiled when the bullet caught his chest, opened a gulf inside of me that I didn’t know if I would be able to close until I had them back.
“We have to go back for them!” I urged, pulling Xavi’s arm back toward the door we’d escaped through.
“We can’t, Bren,” his voice stretched too thin, “We can’t. Because she needs us out here.”
He pointed back to the cars, and the last shreds of hope drained from body as I watched two of the men hauling Cole’s limp body.
The way his arms and legs hung was at odds with the physical strength I was used to from him.
Silently, I begged for Cole’s wrath, for those arms of his to throw just one more punch.
For him to roll his eyes at me across the dark and impatiently tell me to fuck off.
Anything. I wished he would do anything.
Because anything was better than nothing.
Anything was better than watching them toss him in the trunk like he was nothing.
Then came Franklin, leading the other pair of men, one of whom had Birdie slung over his shoulder.
Our girl wasn’t going peacefully, though.
She was screaming and crying, kicking her legs into the man’s gut so hard that even in the dark, I could tell he was struggling.
I almost whooped just so she’d know I was cheering her on, until the other asshole came along and hit her with something in the back of the head. Then, just like Cole, she went limp.
At this rate, this whole fucking forest was going to be full of bodies.
I’d never considered myself a violent person.
Turned out watching the people I love get hurt made me one.
Xavi’s hand stopped me from running towards her, and he quaked beside me, “She’s just knocked out.
He wouldn’t let them kill her. He needs her. ”
He tilted his chin toward Toni’s father, who watched as his men loaded our girl into the backseat of the other SUV before getting into its front seat. They hadn’t spoken a word, and without Toni screaming Cole’s name, the sound of the car doors slamming rippled across the darkness.
We watched. Me, in despair, and Xav, face hard and unreadable, as they drove off.
Going back to my cabin was anti-climactic after everything we’d witnessed.
Yet, where else could we go, especially as the chill of the night pierced through our shock.
We hadn’t spoken much on our way to the Village.
Behind his hazel eyes, I could practically see the cogs of Xavi’s genius brain turning.
He made just one request, that we stop by his cabin out past the parking lot first.
There, he’d collected his cell phone and nothing else. Inside my cabin were hints of all the nights we’d spent together here in the last couple of weeks. Some of Birdie’s books, a set of Xav’s running shorts. Mementos that reminded me that our love was real.
I needed those reminders right now, I needed Xavier.
To sink into him, or risk sinking into something much worse.
Maybe he needed me too, because his hands grabbed at my belt loops and dragged me into another heated kiss.
Just like the one we’d shared behind the dining hall not so long ago.
Only this time, the heat grew and grew as his hands swept to my zipper, rubbing at my hardening dick while never breaking our kiss.
I was eternally thankful for the elastic waistband on nearly all of Xavier’s clothing.
Easy access; one of the perks of loving a runner.
I wrapped my long fingers around his dick and started to pump, loving the rigid feeling of it in my palm.
But that wasn’t enough. I ached for more of him.
To feel more of him. To feel every inch of him.
Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him ever closer, leaning down to him so our foreheads could touch, while my other hand loosened its grip on his perfect inches just long enough that I could bring my cock alongside his, before wrapping them both up.
My long fingers were a blessing, and I jerked us both off together.
His whimpers and moans started low, though, eventually, they filled my ears, stitching some of the pieces of my heart back together. Still, it wasn’t enough. I released him, and pushed him back toward the bed, following behind him, each of us shedding our clothes on the way.
“Lay down,” I ordered, my dominant side coming out.
After the last time, I was determined that the next time I fucked Xav, I would ensure he was taken care of properly.
So, when the nurse had come to me two weeks ago with a request to order a few more medical supplies, painkillers, bandages, and the like, I had slipped a bottle of lube onto the order and made sure to snatch it before delivering the rest to the nurse's office.
I pulled it from my drawer, before joining Xav on the bed.
Spread out beneath me, he looked so beautiful.
All sharp angles and defined muscles, and a perfect dick.
Part of me longed to slide it against my tongue, but I had other things to focus on, so I directed him instead, “Touch yourself, Xavier. Let me see you.”
Tentatively, his hand reached around the base of his shaft, and slowly, slower than I would have expected, he began to move.
So did I. Squirting some of the lube into my right hand, I reached between his cheeks and began to massage the ring of muscle there.
After a minute of teasing, my finger finally slipped inside of him, causing his hips to buck upward at the sensation.
“Brennon,” he groaned.
I smiled, my dick impossibly hard as I continued to watch him work himself over, “Yes?” I asked casually, like we had all the time in the world, “Did you like that?”
He gulped and nodded.
“Does my little toy want more?”
He nodded again. In other circumstances, I might play a bit longer, let him beg me for it, but tonight I needed him.
My own cock ached to be inside him. I added another finger, scissoring them back and forth until his movements became unrestrained, his hips and hand moving faster, not that I would let him finish that way.
When I withdrew my fingers, he sobbed at the loss.
But I needed my other hand so I could squirt more lube on my shaft, relishing the feel as I coated myself.
Once I was ready, I grabbed his ankles, lifting them so that he was exposed for me.
“This will still sting, but less than last time,” I warned as I positioned the head of my cock at his opening.
My prep work had done its job. Still, I moved slowly, letting my dick sink into him inch by inch.
He snarled at the bite of pain, though, judging by the way he continued to jerk himself off, a part of him relished it, too.
Some of the ache, the fear, the darkness subsided just from the feeling of his muscles squeezing me so tightly as I seated myself fully inside him. Transferring his ankles to my one hand, I leaned over him and kissed his shoulders and neck. Every part of him was sharply carved, as if from glass.
“Are you ready, baby?” I asked, looking up at him, while my tongue swirled over his nipple.
“Ready?”
“I’m going to fuck you now,” I explained, as I slowly pulled out before slamming back into him. He gasped, but when I did it again, it was like looking down at a piece of art. His body, his hand, his dick. I thrust again and again.
“God, you feel so fucking good,” I moaned, unable to hold it back.
“This ass. I’m going to fuck this ass every day.”
I was drunk on the feeling of him, unable to restrain my dirty mouth, “I’m going to fill you with so much cum, baby, that it’ll coat your ass for weeks.”
He groaned again. I wasn’t done.
“I want you to come for me. I want you to make a mess of those perfect abs. I want to see what I do to you. I want you fucking painted in it.”
“In both of us,” he panted, “I want to be painted with both of us.”
That was my undoing. Picturing him marked with not only my cum, but his own, my messy, dirty, boy, sent me into overdrive.
I rutted into him so hard; I swore the bed beneath us nearly gave way, and I roared out my orgasm just as white-hot ropes burst from the tip of his dick, coating his stomach as if they’d heard my request.
Both spent, breathing hard, we collapsed together.
As my cock softened and slipped out of him I whispered, “Stay,” pulling the covers up over him.
I got up briefly, grabbing some tissues from my bedside and sneaking outside so I could clean myself up without disturbing him.
When I returned, his dark eyes watched me until I crawled into the bed at his back.
We needed to talk about his disappearance, about what happened after Mitchell’s murder, only, not now.
Judging by the heaviness in my own body and the way he sagged into my mattress, it would wait until tomorrow.
When my arms wrapped around him, I felt his body sag with relief as he whispered, “Brennon. You know I love her, right?” My body seized for a second. Then melted again as he said, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, too.”
He nestled in closer as I replied, my voice thick with feeling, “I know, Xavi. That’s how it was always supposed to be.
” I was more sure of it now than ever. And though our girl was taken from us, though I couldn’t quite bridge the hole in my heart that would always belong to Cole, tomorrow we would find a way to get her back.