novelxo Sworn Enemy: Chapter 25
It’s the pain in his eyes that does me in. Justin doubles over, his hands to his face as hitching sobs rack his body. I pull him into my arms, letting him bury his tear-soaked face in my neck as I wrap my arms around him.
Protect this man at any cost.
He sobs uncontrollably, barely able to breathe. I stroke my hands up and down his back, whispering gentle words to soothe him.
“It’s okay. Let it out. Breathe with me, baby.”
Eventually, the sobbing slows down, and he’s finally able to take a few deep, steadying breaths. Slowly, I disentangle myself from him and give him some room.
“Sorry,” he says, unable to meet my eyes. “Thought I cried out all my tears before, but apparently, I hadn’t.”
I kiss his forehead. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. You can always call me when you’re having a rough day. It’s not a burden.”
He sniffs, wiping his tears. “How do you know that’s what I was worried about?”
I answer him truthfully. “When the people who should love you are actively working against your wellness and sense of self, the first thing they do is make you feel like you’re not worth it. A burden. It’s unfair and untrue. You’ve done so much work to get to this point, Justin.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, his eyelashes stuck together in sharp points, held in place with tears. “He told me he wanted me to be sober next time, so I don’t miss,” he says, his voice hitching again.
Motherfucker.
A cold, steady fury thunders through my veins. I grip Justin tight, silenced by my desire to do grave harm to those who hurt him. His eyes meet mine and then, impossible as it seems…brighten. With an amused quirk of his lips, he kisses the hard line that’s formed between my brows, gently pressing it flat with his thumb.
“You know, if this is the expression you give human traffickers, I bet you have them shivering in their boots.”
Reluctantly, I will the tension in my body to stand down and crack a minuscule smile. “Maybe.”
He touches his lips to mine, grinning, making my heart flutter and pound. “You really are very sweet,” he says, his voice trembling.
I pull him to me, tucking him under my arm so I can give him a noogie, the kind he used to give me.
He laughs and pushes my arms away. “I take it back!”
I stop and kiss him deeply. “No takebacks. Sorry.”
The way his eyes go soft and molten nearly takes me off course. But there’s something else I’ve got to say.
“Look. I don’t want to tell you how to live your life. But I don’t think a man gets to kick his sons out of his life and then just decide to show up whenever the fuck he wants to and say horrible shit like that. I mean it. He doesn’t get access to you. Period. Does your mom know what he told you?”
He shakes his head. “He’d never say something like that in front of her.”
“She’s the one who found you, right? She’s the one who called the ambulance?”
He nods.
“Then whatever her faults, and there are many I could list for you, she does not want you to have better aim next time. She doesn’t want you to have a next time. She might not know how to support you, but she doesn’t want you to ever feel that way again. I think she needs to know what her husband said.” I pause to hug him tight. “Then again, I’m pretty pissed right now, and I want him to hurt for what he said to you.”
Justin grins despite the tears still falling, and I wonder if he appreciates my anger on his behalf. He buries his face in my neck again. “Why are you defending me?”
“Because, you asshole, like I told my mom, it’s impossible to hate you. Worse, and so embarrassing, is that it’s impossible not to fall for you.” I lay kisses on his cheeks and nose and mouth. “According to my mom, that makes you a dickhead.”
Justin snort-laughs through the tears, first just a little, but then his body begins to shake with laughter. Soon I’m joining him, and we dissolve into each other, laughing at my stupid inability to hate him.
He’s still laughing when I kiss him hard. And fuck, his lips feel like home. The relief of his laughter washes through my entire body, leaving a wrung-out sort of peace in its wake.
I deepen our kiss, pushing him against the door.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” he whispers against my jaw.
“You won’t be,” I whisper back.
He pulls away from me and grabs my hand, tugging me down the hallway. We get to his room and wordlessly strip down to nothing. Carefully, we get into bed, and I spoon him while he tucks back into me. I wrap my arm around his chest, and Justin settles his hand over mine.
We breathe together through a few more tears, his hitching chest expanding and contracting rapidly before finding a peaceful rhythm.
He squeezes my hand, then surprises me when he reaches into the side drawer and takes out a condom and a bottle of lube. Wordlessly, he passes them over his shoulder.
“You sure?”
He nods, still unable to remove the sadness from his eyes. “Need it.”
I take the supplies but spend a few minutes peppering his skin with kisses and light touches, letting him acclimate to the feel of gentle acceptance.
After he’s relaxed a bit more, I slick myself, then my fingers, and find his hole, still clenched tight. I’m gentle as I add more lube to my fingers, swirling them around the furled skin, coaxing them into the warm clutch of his body. I take deep, rhythmic breaths, my heart swelling as he follows my lead.
Eventually, I’m able to loosen him with fingers and more soft kisses to his shoulder, the shell of his ear, and the top of his spine. I notch against him, slowly stroking into him, stretching him, reveling in his groan.
I move carefully, so very carefully, until I’m fully seated. He moans again when I pull out and push back in, a little faster this time, but no less gentle. I trace his body with my hands, gripping his hips with each slow thrust.
His pained-yet-loving-it moans bring me close to the edge. We fall into a rhythm, and I stroke his cock with a slicked-up hand. After several minutes, he arches against me, and I revel in the heat of his cum as it drips down my fingers. He bears down, and I thrust harder, grunting in his ear as I smooth his cum over his belly. With one final thrust, a soft orgasm takes over, and I spill into him, panting as the pleasure wraps around us.
Reluctantly, we separate, and I dispose of my condom while he wipes himself down with his T-shirt. I borrow the T-shirt and wipe off my cock, then lie back on the bed, pulling him to me as he rests his head on my chest, one arm across my belly, a leg tangled.
Pride fills my chest as Justin starts to drift off, and I’m so grateful that he feels safe enough to sleep after enduring his father’s awful presence.
I want so much to protect him from all of that, to make him understand that I not only accept him, but…fuck, love him for who he has become.
I struggled with forgiving him until I got to know him. After that, forgiving him was as easy as taking my next breath. Loving him after that, I realize, was always a foregone conclusion.
I take a carefully cropped picture of him asleep against my chest and send it to my parents.
Charlie: This is the real Justin.
Charlie: His dad stopped by earlier to wish him better aim next time.
Dad: Jesus Christ. Fuck that guy.
Mom: He said that to his son?
Charlie: Yeah.
Charlie: Justin’s not a bad guy, Mom.
Charlie: I think I’m falling for him.
I wake to the sound of light tapping on the front door. It takes me a moment to remember I’m in Justin’s bed. The tapping continues.
“Charlie? Justin? Are you here?”
“Mom?” I ask, confused as I scratch the back of my head.
Justin is still spread out across my chest, so I ease out from under him and toss on a shirt and boxers. I make my way to the front door and open it, and…sure enough. My parents are here.
“Mom? It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”
“You know how your father is, honey. Up at the ass crack, too impatient to wait for a decent hour.”
“Darling, can we not just stand in the doorway? These bags aren’t getting any lighter.”
I look beyond my mom and find my dad laden with H-E-B bags.
“What’s going on?” I ask, bewildered as I let my parents through Justin’s front door.
“We’re making you breakfast, son,” my father says, giving me a half-hug before trundling to the kitchen.
“Charlie?” Justin shuffles out of the hallway, adorably gangly in rumpled boxers, scratching his belly. He blinks a few times, then starts when he realizes my parents are in his home.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wills! I didn’t realize you were here. I’ll…I’ll be right back,” he says, turning on a dime and racing back to his room.
I scrub my forehead, pretty sure I know what my mom is doing but embarrassed by it all the same. Justin doesn’t know it yet, but…yeah. He’s about to get adopted.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s one of the things I love about my mother. She’s fiercely loyal and protective and cannot stand aside and do nothing if there’s a bird with a broken wing.
My father’s already got the coffee going, and Mom is fussing with taking out all the groceries.
“Do you think he would prefer eggs and toast or pancakes with sausage?”
“I think he’d like pancakes with sausage,” I say, running my hands through my hair. “So we’re having breakfast together?”
My father turns around and cocks his brow at me. “Son, I thought we raised you to be more observant than that. Yes, of course, this is breakfast. Though…I do hope we didn’t interrupt anything.”
I shake my head, laughing. “The only thing you interrupted was my sleep. But I could give a damn about sleep when your pancakes are up for the taking.”
My father grins, proud of himself. He and my mother return to their funny little dance of food preparation. For as long as I can remember, they’ve always done family meals together, with my father as the cook and my mom as his sous chef.
“Does Justin take coffee in the morning?” Dad asks while Mom pulls down mugs.
“Yeah, with a lot of cream and sugar.” I scratch my chest, deciding to just fucking go with it.
My father takes the mugs from my mother, grinning. “Sweet and creamy, just as God intended.”
Mom and I share an exasperated look. Neither of us could ever understand how someone could destroy the bitter, nutty taste of coffee with cream and sugar.
Justin walks in wearing a fresh set of clothes and looking sheepish. Mom points to the mug on the counter as she hands Dad the plate of raw breakfast sausage patties and slides a two-burner griddle onto the stove. I grab our coffee mugs, handing Justin his.
He takes a sip, and his eyes drift closed. “This is some damn good coffee.” Looking over at me, he asks, “Did you actually put enough sugar in it this time?”
My father answers for me. “No, son. I did. These two drink it black like their souls. You and I walk among the civilized folks,” he says, holding out his mug.
Justin’s eyes ping-pong between my father and me before reaching out to clink mugs with him.
Meanwhile, Mom’s opening up his kitchen cabinets. “Where are your mixing bowls?”
“Uh…to the left of the stove on the bottom.”
My father reaches down, grabs a large mixing bowl, and hands it over to my mom, then goes back to checking the sausages. She tosses in the ready-made pancake flour and other ingredients, then my father takes the bowl, grabs some vanilla and cinnamon from the cabinet above, and doctors the flavor.
He lines up about a dozen silver-dollar pancakes on the sizzling buttered surface, then turns the sausages. Taking a sip of coffee, he flips the silver dollars while my mom finds the dishes and sets out the plates for us.
“The utensils are to the right of the stove, Mrs. Wills.”
“Thank you, dear. Though you can call me June.”
“Uh, sure, June.”
Feeling a little underdressed for breakfast, I step out for a second and pull on my jeans, tossing on one of Justin’s Jennings Ranch Supply T-shirts. When I get back, my father is plating the sausages and silver-dollar pancakes while my mother cuts up fruit.
Justin sidles next to me. “So…this is how they cook?”
“All my life.”
“Your dad does most of the cooking then?”
I nod. “It’s for the best, I promise you.”
“Heard that, Charlie,” Mom cracks, facing away from me.
“Don’t shoot the messenger. You raised me to tell the truth.”
She lifts her shoulder, pulling the rind off an orange. “You’ve got me there. It’s always better to tell the truth if only so you don’t have to remember the lies.”
I chuckle. “And on that note, I’ll be happy to remind you that Justin is all about rigorous honesty.”
“Well, I might lie by omission and not outright tell your mom she isn’t a good cook,” he jokes, hanging me out to dry. “I’d at least be smart enough to do that.”
Mom laughs, and she and Dad bring their offerings to Justin’s little breakfast nook, which we’ve now taken over. As we approach the table, my mom puts her hand on Justin’s shoulder.
“Before we begin, I owe you an apology.”
Justin opens his mouth, already shaking his head, but then Mom sets down the fruit bowl and puts a hand on her hip.
“Ooh. You’re in for it now,” I whisper, elbowing him.
He glares at me and turns back to my mom, who has narrowed her eyes.
“I do owe you an apology. You’ve been through a lot, and you are not the young man you once were. It’s obvious to me that you’ve done a lot of work. And I trust my son. He wouldn’t be spending time with you if that weren’t the case. When I first saw you at the build, all I could see were the number of tubes keeping my son alive, the horrible Frankenstein stitches up his arms. But he’s not that guy anymore either.”
She looks at me, her eyes a bit shiny, accompanied by that understanding mom smile I’ve always found so much comfort in.
Justin, however, looks devastated, his eyes tracking the scars on my arms. My mom takes one look at him and opens her arms. He stumbles forward, awkward because she’s so damn short, and wraps his arms around her tight.
Protect this man at all costs.
My father joins them and runs a soothing hand up and down his back. “Charlie told us about your dad’s visit last night. I’ve got to say, it’s been a long time since I’ve been that mad. You didn’t deserve those words. I’m sure you love your dad, but you didn’t deserve that. Nobody does, and we wanted to make sure you heard it from us. So that you would believe it.”
Turning to the side, I wipe away tears. “Dammit, Dad.”
Mom, also a bit teary-eyed, still hugging Justin, lifts a shoulder. “Your father’s a sarcastic asshole with occasional bouts of insight. It’s annoying, but I love him anyway.”
Justin sniffles and pulls back, laughing. “Are y’all always like this?”
I let out a sigh. “Unfortunately.”
He scowls at me. “Unfortunately? You’re the luckiest jackass alive.”
Looking at my mom, he slaps his hand across his mouth. “Sorry.”
“No, you said it right. He’s lucky and a jackass.”
With that, she takes a seat, and as always, we follow her lead.