Bad Things (48 page)

“Lying?”

“
If you’re not lying to me, you’re lying to yourself.”

“
Why? Because I’m too stupid to know how I feel?”

Xavier’s mocking grin turned tender. “I’m giving you something you need. You need tearing down and breaking apart. But when we’re done, you’re going to need to go and get strong and healthy again. And you’ll do that with someone else.”

“Why not with you?” he asked, not even hopeful, his chest aching.

“
I just told you. Because you’ll never be whole with me.”

“
That’s crap. You’re just throwing yourself a fucking pity party.”

A melancholy laugh. “You’re probably right. But it’s still true.”

Why had Xavier even said he wanted the kind of love Dario and Aidan had, if he was so fucking convinced he wasn’t capable of it?

After a long quiet, Xavier said, “I’m good—very good—for something most people are useless at. I’m good at demanding sacrifice. At forcing people over the lines they’re terrified of crossing. At making them cut away the infected parts of themselves. Because people hate, people are scared, people are too weak to help the people they love, when it means hurting them in the process. But for me, it’s easy. Because I don’t love as easily as other people. And because the two or three people I have loved, I’ve enjoyed hurting most of all.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

Xavier went so still, his focus suddenly went so sharp, he looked like he’d just been slapped.

“Carson. Don’t.”

“
Don’t what?”

“
Rewrite history.”

“
I’m not.”

“
You are. You were more honest before. The night after you escaped. And you should thank God Elena stumbled into my basement and found you. Because I hadn’t even gotten started, hurting you.”

Carson was sure Xavier was being cruel on purpose. But knowing it didn’t make it hurt any less.

“You’re the one who’s lying. You know I was full of shit, before. You know I was just too scared to admit how well you read me. How perfectly you gave me exactly what I needed.”

Xavier’s smooth mask was almost believable. But maybe it was something in his eyes, or maybe Carson could just feel it, like a charge in the air, the way something inside Xavier was reaching out for that exoneration. Trying to grasp and hold on to it.

Carson felt like shit. He’d really left Xavier carrying that burden all those months they were apart. And worse, all during the trial, and ever since they’d been back. Even while Xavier was still shepherding him so carefully, so perfectly, through the minefield of his war with his dad, his war with himself.

Taking the magazine from their laps and setting it on the table, Carson took Xavier’s hand, a little surprised he didn’t pull it away.

“Dario told me. But I didn’t get it.”

Indulgent grin. Sad eyes. “What did Dario tell you?”

“He said the things you do, the way you are, you’re not feeding on other people. You’re sacrificing yourself.”

Still grinning, Xavier said, “If that’s true, it’s only because I enjoy my own pain, as much as anyone else’s.”

“Why are you trying so hard to convince me you’re a bad person?”

Letting Carson go on holding his hand, Xavier raised the other, and caressed Carson’s hair. Met his eyes. “Because,
cariño
. I am a bad person.”

“
No. You’re not.”

Xavier pulled his hands away. His grin disappeared and Xavier’s dark eyes went hard and cold. “Stop pretending you know me, Carson. Stop kidding yourself I’m your fantasy bad boy lover. You think I’m telling you I’m bad, because of what I did to you in that basement? You have no fucking idea what I’m capable of.”

“Tell me.”

“
You’re not my fucking priest. I don’t have to confess to you.”

Oh God. He was going to lose this. Lose him.

“Xavi. You told me to be naked for you. And I did it. You know how scary that was for me. I did it over and over again. Because you asked. Because I trust you.” He was terrified to ask. If Xavier said no, now, maybe he’d never get another chance. “I wish you would trust me, the way I’ve trusted you. I wish you would be as naked as I’ve been. As brave as I’ve been.”

“
I’m not protecting myself. I’m protecting you.”

“
I don’t want you to protect me. I don’t want to be your delicate little protégé. I want to be your friend. Your lover.”

Xavier’s fucking mocking grin.

“I know!” Carson took a breath and got his voice under control. “I’m this inexperienced kid, by your standards. I’ve been hiding in my hole in the sand since I was nine years old. I know I don’t get to be your equal just because I say I want it. So let me earn it. Hurt me, if it’s going to hurt.”

Xavier was up, taking such big, sudden strides, Carson almost yelled at him to stop because he thought he was about to walk out the door. But when he’d half crossed the room, he turned, faced Carson, and met his eyes.

“I tried to find Max. I couldn’t get to him. But if I could—still, now—I’d go after him. I’d take him hostage. Like I took you hostage. I’d gag him. I’d rape him. I’m not talking about what I did to you. I mean, I would use my body to tear him apart. And then I’d kill him. But probably—I’m not sure I’d go through with it, but I think I would—I’d torture him first. I mean, cut off his balls, cut off his dick. Stick the blade of a knife up his ass and fuck him with it.”

Carson’s stomach rolled, and he had that cold clammy feeling. He knew he was pale. Sweating.

Xavier’s dark, cold gaze was taking it all in. How sickened he was by what he’d said. But it wasn’t the image of Xavier cutting Max as he screamed that was making Carson feel faint and nauseated. It was the instant, unconscious impulse to help him do it that had almost made him retch.

“
Good,” he barely heard himself say.

Xavier’s grin wasn’t mocking. It was utterly derisive. “Good?”

“Yes. Good. He deserves it.”

“
How many people have you tortured, Carson?”

Obviously a rhetorical question.

“There’s a big fucking difference between deciding, using some mental moral balance sheet, that someone deserves to be tortured, or killed, and doing a thing like that with your own hands. Looking into a man’s face while he waits for you to hurt him. To make him start screaming again.”

“
I know.”

“
You don’t fucking know.”

Carson suddenly realized. “Do you know?”

Xavier was still. Was he even breathing? Then, like a statue come to life, like one of those bronze-painted men on the boardwalk who startle tourists for tips, Xavier’s jaw and mouth moved.

“
Yes.”

Carson should have been more surprised than he was.

“What did you do?”

“
I tortured someone. For hours.”

Carson didn’t know what to say. “Does it hurt you to talk about it?”

“I’ve never talked about it. But no.”

“
Then tell me what you did.”

Xavier said everything like he was doing his best to hurt Carson. To disgust him and scare him. “I brought him here, unconscious. Blindfolded. Not a real blindfold. His T-shirt pulled up over his face.

“Just like with you, I took him down into the basement, and put him in the restraints. Put a hood over his head, because I was worried the T-shirt wasn’t good enough. That he might be able to see through it. I waited for him to wake up. Then I poured ice water over him, just to make sure he was good and alert.

“
He had no idea what had happened. He’d just been unlocking the door to his car when he got knocked out, so he had no clue where he was, or who had brought him there. He started asking questions. Threatening. Begging. Just like you did.

“
I let him carry on like that. I didn’t gag him. With you, it was different. I was worried you’d persuade me. Make me feel bad for you. But with him, I enjoyed it. The whole situation, having him helpless, hating him, knowing what I was going to do to him, more or less, already had my dick hard. But him crying and all that helped. Got me even harder.

“
I didn’t really undress him. I just undid his fly, and the way he screamed and squirmed made my dick ache. I pulled down his pants. I sniffed his cock, and told him it smelled like pussy. How would I know, right? It did smell different, but fuck if I could say whether it smelled like pussy. I asked him if he liked raping women. I asked him if he liked fucking women he’d drugged so they just lied there, blind and limp while he stuck his dick in them. He cried like a baby, telling me a bunch of lies about not having the right guy.

“
Then I did it.

“
I made him suck me. I came in his mouth. All over his face. I trussed him up, face down, ass in the air, and told him when I came back, I was going to fuck him. I left him down there to dwell on that for an hour, and then I came back down and did it. I wasn’t easy on him, the way I was with you. I used a little lube, just enough so I wouldn’t rub my dick raw, but that was it. No prep. I just tore my way into him. Fucked him hard, taking breaks now and then to make it last.

“
Then I trussed up his dick and balls, nice and tight. Told him I’d cut off so much of his circulation, his capillaries were already starting to die, and his junk was definitely going to be damaged. At least some loss of sensation and function. That if I forgot about him and was gone too long, they might have to be amputated. Fuck, I’ve never heard anyone beg like that. I almost changed my plan and fucked him again, right then, his sobbing had me so worked up. But I wanted him to have to just sit there, alone in the quiet, terrified the blood vessels in his cock were slowly being choked to death. That he’d never fuck again. Never rape again. That maybe they’d have to cut it off, and he’d be disfigured forever.

“
Well. I played with him a little more than that. But those were the highlights. I kept him for sixteen hours. He could barely walk, when I finished with him. Not because of anything I’d done to him, physically. But because there was no strength left inside him. What’s that expression about how a coward dies a thousand deaths? That guy died at least ten that night.”

Xavier stopped talking. Carson waited, but that was it.

“You let him go?”

“
Yes.”

“
Why didn’t you kill him?”

Xavier’s grinned, but there was something sad about the look in his eyes. “Not because I’m a nice guy.”

“So? Why?”

The grin faded. “Because. He wasn’t mine to kill.”

“What does that mean?”

“
It would have hurt someone else, if I’d killed him.”

“
So you knew him? Or he knew someone you know?”

“
I won’t talk about that.”

“
He raped someone? That’s why you did that to him?”

“
Yes. More than one person.”

“
How do you know?”

“
A reliable source.”

“
How did your reliable source know?”

“
I won’t talk about that, either.”

“
Are you sorry?”

“
No.”

“
Good.” Carson meant it.

Xavier’s grin had a sharp edge to it. “So, you’re just fine with it?”

“It’s not like I didn’t already know you had a dark side.”

“
And what? Now you want to go out for pizza, or something?”

“
No.” Carson took a breath, and forced out the question he’d been too scared to ask for so long. “Now I want you to tell me what happened to you ten years ago.”

Xavier’s grin faded and his voice softened. “What? You mean what happened to Elena? You already know.”

“Not what happened to Elena. What happened to you.”

“
Nothing happened to me.”

Carson reached a hand out toward Xavier, still standing in the middle of the living room. “Come back to me.”

As if even now something was amusing about this—maybe Carson’s tender invitation to the couch, like an overly sensitive therapist offering him a box of tissues, maybe the idea that Carson thought he was afraid to sit down with him, be still, and face him—Xavier cocked an eyebrow, came over, gave Carson his hand, and let him coax him down onto the sofa.

“
Of course something happened to you,” Carson said, keeping his voice low and matter-of-fact. “Somebody did something horrible to someone you love.”

Xavier didn’t break eye contact, but his dark eyes looked like they’d turned to glass. Hard. Brittle.

Quietly, Carson said, “I know it’s a lot, but can you be naked for this, too?”

Xavier flinched. Then he took a deep breath. Let it go. He fell into that slow, even rhythm of breathing, like Carson had seen him do before, when he was trying to calm himself. Finally that cold hardness in his eyes softened, and his gaze went so tender, it made the center of Carson’s chest hurt.