Page 65 of Beyond Reason

He drew me against him and slowly took us both to the floor. It didn’t matter that I was bigger than him—it didn’t matter that I was worried I’d crush him. Xavier pulled me until I was half on top of him and took my face in his hands.

“I promise.” It came out in a whisper, and he brushed his lips against mine. “Fuck, Axel. I’m sorry. I won’t leave again.”

I pulled him closer, wrapping my arms around him so tight I was worried he might break.

“I love you,” I said. “Fuck, I love you. I can’t do this without you.”

“You don’t have to. I’m right here, Axel. I’m not going anywhere. Nowhere so far you can’t find me, right?” He lifted his head, and I was lost in the swirl of green in his eyes, in how much they burned. “I love you, too.” It seemed too hard for him to say it when he was alive before, but it came unbidden and unfettered now, raw and real and everything I needed to hear.

His lips pressed against mine, trapping the words on our tongues so he could feed them to me in slow, sweet strokes that calmed the thundering beat of my heart and made me believe it. When the kiss finally broke, I leaned back to look at him, and I was almost afraid to ask my question.

“Can we go home now?”

Home. That house had only become home again when he’d come back. He smiled at me and nodded.

“Yeah, Sunshine. We can go home.”

Chapter 19

Xavier

Icouldn’t leave him again—I could see it in his face when he’d come after me, the way I’d nearly broken him. Being away from him had been a physical pain, something that burned every second we were apart.

All I wanted was to go back to the house and lead him straight to bed. I wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon taking him apart piece by piece, until he completely forgot the pain I’d seen nearly drowning him—pain that I'd caused.

I was so focused on the thought that I didn’t realize until it was too late that there were two men standing in Axel’s living room when we walked into the house.

I had no idea who they were, but they apparently knew me. One of them stared, with his lips parting slightly, and hazel eyes gone wide. The other moved in a blur of motion that was too quick for me to track—too quick, and too efficient, and just like that, I realized who was standing in front of me.

He was one of the deadliest people I’d ever seen, definitely the most dangerous person I’d ever worked with.

And fuck, he barely worked with other people. It was usually an afterthought, when we were both assigned to the same job without being told first, and I could always tell that it irritated him. He didn’t want to know me.

“Kade, what the fu—” But that was all that I got out, because there was suddenly a gun pointed at me, and the only reason he didn’t pull the trigger was probably because Axel acted at the same time.

Whoever the small man beside him was, Axel’s gun was pointed squarely at his chest. It drew Kade’s attention from me instantly, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. “Fetterman, if you know what’s fucking good for you, you’ll put that gun down now. If you don’t, you’re going to beg me to kill you long before I’m finished.”

Yeah… that was definitely Kade. But he didn’t look exactly right. He was taller, buffer. His body was covered in tattoos… and there was a ring of blue in his eyes that didn’t belong there.

And…

He was exactly the same age that I remembered him.

Oh.

Oh, shit, I’d read about this on the flash drive.

“Fuck, you’re like me, aren’t you?” Kade’s eyes never left Axel, even though the gun was still pointed at me. The young man beside him glanced at me, though, and his eyes widened.

“You’re the guy from the building… the guy Clay stabbed with the needle. I saw you that night, but I didn’t know if you made it.” He actually smiled, and it was too sweet for the situation. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

It was a faint memory, crawling out of the building, the two figures standing in the distance… the smaller one leading the bigger one away.

“You stopped him from seeing me, didn’t you?” When he nodded, I frowned. “Why?”

He looked at me with a flat expression, then made a point to glance between the gun pointed at my face and me.

Oh. Well, that made sense. But I didn’t understand it. “Why? I didn’t do anything to either of you.” I paused, “Well, I did a lot to him, but that was a long time ago.”

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