Page 37 of Beyond Reason

“Axel? What… I’m fine. Really. I—”

“The last time I held you like this, you were dead, Xavier.”

My voice sounded tight and painful, but I couldn’t hide it anymore. I couldn’t be strong, and I couldn’t push him away. My hands trembled where I held him. “You were cold, and you were dead, and they wanted me to leave you there at the scene and I couldn’t. So… I…” I gasped, the breath I barely managed to draw in like shards of metal in my lungs. “I carried you out of there. I carried you, and I…” I shook my head. “Just… fuck. Shut up and let me get you home, okay?”

For what might have been the first time in his life, he listened to my request. He nodded, his soft response of okay nothing more than a whisper.

Then he tucked his face against the crook of my neck and pressed his lips to my thundering pulse.

My mind was racing. I needed to go back to where the dead man was and take care of the scene. It was what I’d been trained for, what I was good at…

I’d never just left a body behind to be discovered. I’d never left evidence that could incriminate someone, especially not myself.

But all I could think about was getting Xavier somewhere safe and making sure that he was just as okay as he said he was.

All I could think about was pressing my head to his chest so I could listen to his heartbeat. Would it sound the same? Thundering, strong and beating and so full of life?

I’d tried to hear it the last time I carried him, too. I’d pressed my ear to his chest and begged, I’d cried.

There’d just been silence.

It took everything I had to walk at a slow pace, to make sure I didn’t draw more attention to us than I probably already had. If no one looked too closely, I could get away with saying we’d been in a fight, or a wreck. Something.

If people looked at us, they’d realize the blood slowly oozing down my shoulder from Xavier’s injuries couldn’t be easily explained away, and I was soaked in red and silently giving thanks that the shirt I’d worn was black.

By some miracle, I made it back to my house without anyone stopping us, and I barely took two steps through the door before I dropped to my knees, careful to keep Xavier safe in my arms as I went.

“Axel, what—”

How many of our kisses had tasted like blood? This was just one more to add to a never-ending list of moments I would never forget.

That I never wanted to lose again.

I couldn’t pretend not to want him anymore.

I was gentle when I cupped his jawline, a featherlight brush of fingertips that he leaned into. For someone who’d just been knocked unconscious, he was more responsive to my touch than he had any right to be. He slid forward and half crawled onto my lap, and the feeling of his fingers tangling in my hair to pull me closer was Heaven. He yanked hard enough to force my head back so he could slot his mouth against mine, and when Xavier shifted up on his knees and pressed himself flush against me, our heights felt like they used to. When I closed my eyes, nothing was different.

This was just another time when he’d come home, another moment when I was going to have to patch him up because he was soaked in blood, and I’d have fun teasing him about getting it on the couch.

Except I could still feel the cuts on his skin beneath my fingertips, and I was still shivering from the feeling of carrying his limp body against mine. It forced a sound from somewhere deep in my chest, a mixture of a whimper and a moan. Xavier licked into my mouth like he could drink the noise from me before it kissed the air.

“I’m fine, I promise. It takes more than one lackey to get me down, you know?” He leaned back a few inches, the only space I would give him, and stroked his fingers slowly through my hair. “Are you alright? You just killed a man.”

I frowned. “I’ve killed people before, Xavier.”

“Yeah, maybe. But you don’t like doing it. You were never like the rest of us. You…” His lips pressed together for just a second, and his hand lowered, fingers carefully trailing the length of my neck before toying with the chain there. His brows knit together when he touched it, and I held my breath—would he remember the necklace? Would he remember me giving it to him? But just as quickly as the expression came, it faded, and he dropped his palm to rest over the violent thump of my heart. “You’re good, Axel. You’ve always been good. I mean, fuck, out of the two of us, I always knew I was the one that would end up hurting you the most if it came down to it.”

I couldn’t stop the pain that lanced across my features, and Xavier was too observant, even when he was hurt, not to catch it. When he quirked a brow, I answered almost helplessly.

“You're right. I wasn’t the one who died.”

He paused for just a second—I could see the wheels turning in his head, because he knew I was right. Maybe he was more dangerous, but it hadn’t done a damn thing to help in the end.

“Yeah, that’s true. But…” He brushed his lips against mine. “I came back, right?”

“Xavier…” I understood what he was doing. Trying to make light of the situation, trying to make me feel better. How did I explain it to him? How could I even begin to make him understand what it had done to me. “I had to clean your scene. I carried you home. I never…” I paused and took a shuddery breath. “I never got to tell you goodbye.”

His eyes flicked to the side, but I caught the flash of pain there, the moment of either memory or understanding. He spoke softly when he answered. “Maybe that's because I was coming back.”

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