“You don’t know that!”
“I don’t fucking care! He—” Noah frowned, jaw clenching and nostrils flaring. “He sent me a fucking video…”
That was what Mikkel had said, but something in Kaj’s brain refused to acknowledge what they were talking about.
“Of what he did to you.”
Until reality slapped him across the face.
So, it was true.
Jesper had filmed the abomination of what he’d done to him. And he’d sent it to Noah.
“What did you expect me to do? Sit and wait? That’s what I’ve been doing for months. But I’m done with letting him torture me, saying shit like you’ll always belong to him.”
Kaj was dizzy, red and black mixing at the corners of his eyes as bile turned into acid in his stomach. Noah had seen actual footage of Jesper raping him. He’d seen… Kaj didn’t know what he’d seen. Didn’t even want to know which part of his nightmares were physically recorded for eternity.
Keep fucking breathing.
“He probably thought I was gonna let him walk away from what he did to you unscathed. But he was wrong. I’m not the shy little boy I used to be. He just reaped what he sowed.”
Metaphors fell short of explaining the way Kaj’s viscera turned inside out, bleeding all over his memories. It hurt, but it also made him whole like nothing ever had before in his life. The way Noah welcomed all of him, opening his jaws and baring his teeth to protect him, was so primal, so brutal.
Kaj just wanted to go where nobody else would ever go. Crawl into Noah’s mind and every drop of his blood. Be one with him.
Exhaling sharply, he stepped closer to Noah until they were chest to chest and he could wrap his hand around his neck. Not to hurt. Not to restrain. But to make him listen. “And what about you? What if it’d been you who didn’t make it out alive?” he rasped.
Noah inhaled and closed his eyes, abandoning himself to Kaj’s touch. “I don’t care about that.”
Kaj’s grip tightened. “You don’t get to say that.”
As Noah opened his eyes, Kaj was plunged into a wild and achingly beautiful lagoon. “What do you want me to say? That I regret it? Because I don’t. I would repeat it a thousand times.”
Without breaking eye contact, Kaj brushed their lips together. “If I were to die, would you die with me?”
“Yes.” Noah didn’t even hesitate. “I would die for you. I would kill for you.” He clutched Kaj’s wrist with both hands, holding onto reality—onto them. “You’re my fucking everything, Kaj. Remember? Always and forever.”
Unable to contain himself, Kaj grunted. He bit Noah’s bottom lip and sucked it between his, then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before resting his forehead against his.
“It goes both ways, you fucking idiot.” He let out a breathless, bitter laugh. “I won’t make it without you anymore. I don’t want to. If you go to jail, if you die—I’ll follow you to hell.”
Something ignited in Noah’s eyes. Something desperate and feral. Before Kaj could get another word out, Noah crashed their mouths together.
They transformed into a cloud of heat as war arose between their lips. They were all tongues and teeth. Primal urges and desire. Kaj’s grip slid from Noah’s neck to his jaw, tilting his head to angle him the way he wanted to deepen the kiss. And like a moonflower at night, Noah opened up for him.
They stumbled back, legs hitting the coffee table, knocking over something they didn’t care to acknowledge. Clothes were ripped and carelessly thrown around as they undressed their bodies and souls. Because when they were together, it wasn’t only physical pleasure they sought, but the sensation of skin on skin. A connection that went beyond human understanding and trespassed all lines of defense.
As they lay on the couch, Kaj splayed his fingers over Noah’s ass, grabbing him possessively while he grinded his hips over Kaj’s. His right hand buried into his hair, fisting and pulling while the other stroked Kaj’s chest, his abs, his right arm and leg like he was afraid he’d disappear. But that was not happening again.
Beneath the perfected masks they’d created over the years, they were a toxic bloom rooted in the tragedies that had broken them apart in the past. They were daggered thorns and poisonous leaves. They were two halves of the same entity, reuniting in a darkness so deep that societal norms blurred, leaving them alone with this raw need that forced their true nature out.
“Fuck me,” Kaj moaned, unraveling inside as the heads of their cocks rubbed against each other. “Fuck me. Mark me. Breed me. Make me yours, inside and out.”
Noah lapped Kaj’s lips, twirling his tongue over the piercing before slipping it into his mouth. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Without another word, Noah got up and disappeared down the hallway that led to his bedroom.
