Page 41 of Beyond Reason

“Hm?” This time I forced myself to keep my wits about me, and I gave his hips another gentle squeeze.

“Look at me, Axel. Do you still see me?”

I needed him to look at me, to see me, not this new body I was in.

I needed him to want me just as much as he had before, just as I was now.

Chapter 12

Axel

Do you still see me ?

He didn’t understand that I’d spent the last twenty-two years with my eyes closed any time I bothered to let another person touch me. He didn’t realize I was closing my eyes because a part of me was terrified that I’d look down and realize all of this was in my head, that he wasn’t really here.

That I was so broken now that I couldn't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Maybe I was afraid to look at him because I knew, without a doubt in my mind, I would pick the fantasy if it meant I could stay here with him.

But I was helpless to resist, helpless to do anything but give him everything I had left. It had always been his, anyway.

My entire body went loose—I couldn’t have kept my eyes closed if I’d tried. It took them a second to focus, but when I did, it was him.

He was there.

Yes, he was smaller, and the angles of his face were softer. But that halo of green was in his eyes, and the expression was something that no one else had ever worn.

“I see you,” I murmured almost helplessly, and my fingers twisted in the sheets again. I wanted to touch him, but I was afraid if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d drag him on top of me and beg him to turn me inside out, and that was the last thing he needed to do while he was recovering from an injury.

Honestly, he didn’t need to be doing anything, but I was pinned in place with his gaze when he dipped back between my legs and deliberately ran his tongue along the length of my cock again in such a slow line that my vision blurred with how good it felt.

He could see it, too.

“No, Axel. Focus.” His fingers bit into my thighs, the sharp relief of pain drawing me back to myself. “Focus on me. Watch me touch you.”

And just like that, I could barely breathe. His voice was lighter than it had been, but it still held the same edge. The softest tinge of some accent I’d never been able to place.

The same commanding presence that could have tied me to the bed more than any chain.

I nodded once, slowly, and shifted myself so I was propped on the pillows. It let me stare down the length of my body as he pressed a gentle kiss to my inner thigh again.

“Good. You’re still so good, aren’t you, Axel?”

The low hum of his voice sent another tingling shiver up my spine, his words just as intimate as his lips dragging slowly against my skin. If I’d thought this was something he’d forgotten, I was obviously being proven wrong.

“I... Yes.” I shouldn’t have been—I’d locked that part of myself away the day he died. “For you.” The last part was a murmured confession, because I didn’t know if he understood what this meant.

What it meant to me.

All the parts of me I’d tried to cut away and close off, that I’d tried to pretend weren’t still bleeding and aching… They were opening again every time I looked into his eyes. I knew I wouldn’t survive it if I lost this again.

I couldn’t lose him again.

“You’ll be good for me?” he murmured.

“Yes.” The answer was automatic, and he nodded once in approval before opening his pretty lips and swallowing my cock down without any warning. It nearly made me buck off the bed, and it was only through sheer willpower alone that I managed to stay still beneath his touch.

We’d played this game before, and I knew what Xavier wanted—he wanted to drive me wild, and he wanted to see how long I could hold out before I completely broke. It wasn’t fair, though, because I was on the edge of breaking every second I was around him. Every time he touched me, it sparked along years of missing him, years of wanting him, of wanting this.

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