So deep, you sowed deceit in my heart

How do I ever believe again?

Love would always be a masquerade

Trust, a questionable bargain.

~ from Axel's notes

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☘︎ Eᴠᴇ Kᴀᴠɪɴsᴋʏ ☘︎

Kissing Axel is like a dead star coming alive, like snuffed out embers lightning up and creating fire.

The feel of the softness of his hair, the hardness of his jaw, the intricate shape of his lips molding against mine, it was akin to a soul breathed into a dead being, water to a drought land. So, so bewitching. So, so devastating.

I gasp, stepping back, eyes wide. "I—"

Before I can let the shocked apology at my reckless action slip past, he invades my space, his scent capturing my senses like an addictive aprosodiac, dark eyes holding me captive.

Axel grabs me by the waist, flipping us around effortlessly so that my back is against the wall now. His left arm rests next to my head on the flat surface, the other going to my throat once more, feeling the thrumming pulse. I faintly recollect that his shoulder is in a gauze, that straining his arm that way was going to hurt but all rational thought escapes me when he presses down on my pulse, evoking a sharp breath out of me.

"You're not sorry, Eve. At all." He whispers, then his lips devour mine.

And boy, he could kiss.

The hand on my throat slide up to my jaw, long fingers spanning across my cheek and chin, tilting my head back as his tongue evades my mouth, sliding and rolling against mine in a way that has my toes curling, nails digging into his skin where they'd somehow found purchase against his bare chest.

I rise on my toes, snaking my hands up and into his hair again, feeling the thickness and luciousness of the locks, tugging at them, angling his head down so I could kiss him back just as ferociously. My teeth nip at his bottom lip, pulling it along but all Axel does is wrap his fist around my wet hair and tug at it while his thumb somehow manages to swipe against my rapidly beating pulse again, and I turn putty in his hold, letting go. He inches closer into me, angling my head to the side, bitting down on my bottom lip in retribution before soothing the stinging ache with a stroke of his tongue.

I'm not sure how exactly, but in the next second, I'm lifted up by my thighs with a rough grip and my legs are around his torso, my arms around his neck, my bathrobe is in a haphazard mess sliding off my shoulder at one place while exposing most of my legs on the other and for some reason oxygen seems to be difficult to inhale. . .

Axel pulls back with a groan, somehow far more composed than the breathless mess I must be resembling. For a moment, my head spins and I rest my forehead against his chest, trying to settle myself down, trying to clear the haze in my mind that is corroded by his musky scent and the minty taste of his mouth. Who knew Axel Hernandez's disciplined ass could kiss like that, taking my breath away. Literally.

There's another low groan, and I feel the dampness of something under my fingertips where they rest on the base of his neck. Sudden horror has me snapping my eyes to his wound and sure enough, blood is seeping past the gauze. Idiot Idiot Idiot.

I don't recognize the foreign panic in my tone as I try to get of off him, "Your wound–"

"It's fine." Axel interrupts, his palm spanned against my lower back stopping me from getting down on my feet. He starts walking past the balcony entrance to our room silently, with me still in his arms, while I fuss over what to do with the white bandage darkening into crimson rapidly.

"You should've told me it was bleeding–" My sentence quietens midway into pure speechlessness, when in a balanced combination of unceremoniously and gently, he drops me onto the bed.

"Quiet." His finger is on my lips as his wounded arm tuck me in with a duvet, "Sleep, Miss Eve."

Bossy. Why do I love it? Oh, stop it, Eve, this is not the time for this!

"Your wound—" I don't quieten the way he so sexily commanded.

Axel presses his thumb on my lips, shutting me off again and for a moment, his eyes darken as if the feel of my lips remind him of sins dripped in desire, sins tempting him to ruination. But then he abruptly removes his hand from me, stepping back as if startled by something.

"—will be taken care of." He completes the earlier sentence, grabbing a fresh pair of gauze from the drawer next to the bed and striding off to the bathroom.

I watch his silhouette disappear behind the door as they shut after him and get the strange intuition that I freaked him out. I think of knocking and asking, apologizing if need be, helping him with the bandaging. Then decide against it, knowing he must need a moment alone to collect his thoughts.

I wait for regret to wash in. But for the love of God, I can't bring myself to regret kissing him first, knowing the ravishing way he kissed back. If given chance, I'd do it again. The certitude instantly raises all the warning signals in my system and I scream into my pillow, half aware that Axel could hear me, coming to the staggering realization that. . .

I'm utterly and irrevocably, doomed.

.

☘︎ Axᴇʟ Hᴇʀɴᴀɴᴅᴇᴢ ☘︎

It was appalling to be so enchanted by the complexity of someone, that you were but a sailor willingly allowing yourself to be lured by the siren.

In the moment when her lips met mine, I was the sailor and she the siren.

There was poem in the way she moved, enchantment in the way she touched and explosion in the way she kissed. I've always been in absolute control, kept myself under the tightest of leashes and yet the urge to consume that had taken over me at the merest touch of her mouth on mine. . .baffled me, stunned me enough that I stayed cooped in the bathroom for hours and waited until she was asleep to return to the room and even then, she was just there, sleeping beside me in her flimsy bathrobe, her dark hair a halo around her face and it was so difficult to not think about the way her skin felt under my hands, think about all the unspeakable things I could do to her. She was a seductress casting her spell and I was spellbound in her sweet temptation—

"Earth to, Axel." A hand waves in front of me, my grandfather's trusted employee's face appearing in my periphery, his black eyes squinted in suspicion. Huh?

I blink, my senses returning to the present.

The birds flap their wings and fly away somewhere in the sky, chirping their morning song. The porch outside the mansion is lighted up by the sunlight, the breeze making the wind chimes hung at the entrance of the main door ring in the peaceful silence. Right, I'd freshened up, grabbed my breakfast before Eve could wake up and ended up here to avoid colliding into her inside the house.

Palm pressed against the woodsy flooring of the porch, I push myself up and then down again, balancing myself on one hand while my injured arm remains twisted behind my back. Working out in the morning was supposed to clear my mind of off the inappropriate thoughts it keeps spouting, it was supposed to help me infuse faster recovery—while the wound was deep, it had only pierced through skin and nothing vital, which meant with proper measures, I'd be back in shape within a week or two—but in the end, I'd ended up obsessing over her again. One kiss wasn't supposed to make me feel like this, it wasn't supposed to make me think of how she would look under m—

Stop. It.

I give Yuvraj a blank stare, pretending my mind hadn't been otherwise occupied. "What?"

Rising from his scooted position in front of me, he gives me a bland look. "You really didn't listen to anything I said in the last fifteen minutes?"

I do not bother to reply, continuing to do the push-ups, back muscles flexing as I strain my weight on one arm. Yuvraj could repeat if he wanted or he could leave, I did not fancy having a conversation with him to begin with. Or anyone associated with my grandfather, for that matter.

Yuvraj sighs loudly, "Fine, I'll say again."

"About the incident with the gunshot you asked me to inform the local police, it's done. They're looking into the matter. The other thing I was informing is. . ." He places an iPad down on the floor near me, "Look."

With a furrow between my brows, I glance down at it to find a camera footage back from my Grandfather's event at the live theater. The screen displays the image of the presidential candidate, Pierce Fangley, falling off the balcony, his body aflame. His bones make harsh contact with the stage and shatter-

Gritting my teeth, I avert my gaze to Yuvraj instead, rasing a brow in question.

"Your wife." Yuvraj sighs once more, as though he's repeating the same thing for the nth time, "She wasn't beside you when Pierce fell, I saw you. But the footages show that she was there standing next to you. It's strange. . .suspicious."

My form goes still at the insinuation, a wave of cold fury pulsing into my blood. Abandoning working out, I rise onto my feet in a single move and take a step towards Yuvraj. "I know grandfather doesn't trust his own blood. Tori and I are used to it." I lean ahead, warning lacing my tone, "But I won't stand him dragging my wife into his illogical distrust and suspicion too now."

Yuvraj shakes his head, "It's not how it seems, Axel. He's not-"

"You weren't even there at the party." I remind him, lest he think I was easily fooled.

"I was, you just didn't see me. Mr Arthur told me to observe you from hiding-"

"Are you admitting to spying on me on behalf of my grandfather because he didn't trust me enough? Again? And now he's insistent my wife is shady too? Does he know I was shot? Did he ever bother to ask how I am doing?" I cut him off, a sound of disbelief slipping past my mouth at Yuvraj's silence. "Tell him, that he could suspect me, Tori and now my wife too, forever, but it wouldn't change the fact that we never did anything. It's about time he accepts that everyone in our family are not my parents."

With that, I turn around to leave. I am done with this blasphemy. With my grandfather always acting like this.

I might've been disturbed enough by the sight of the gruesome death that day to notice my surroundings, but it didn't mean Eve couldn't have been beside me. And even if she wasn't next to me, it didn't entail she was not anywhere within the main theater hall itself or she killed Pierce.

It didn't take a genius to figure out why Arthur Hernandez had sent his employee to show me the footage; he suspected her of being involved in the murder. But I didn't. I trust her.

"Your grandfather wants you in New York!" Yuvraj immediately speaks up when he realizes I wasn't listening to one more second of his accusations, "He's transferring the inheritance to you there."

I halt, look over my shoulder with a small frown. "Why New York?"

"Mr Arthur's lawyer is in New York. He also wants you and your wife to attend an event hosted by his friend at the end of this week in Manhattan." Yuvraj elaborates.

It didn't make sense. My grandfather could have the lawyer fly to Paris, there wasn't any need to go visit the lawyer in New York. This was Arthur Hernandez's own sick way of gaining an upper hand in the situation by indirectly declaring I wanted the inheritance, while he wasn't eager to pass it on and hence he'd make the process more cumbersome. It didn't matter to him that I wanted the law firm to seek justice for my brother, not for my own gain or due to a purpose of greed.

"At the end of this week?"

I tell myself I am not dissapointed at the thought of leaving this vacation, that I wasn't bothered by the fact that it would mean my solitary time with Eve would lessen once we're back, that getting my inheritance meant shifting my focus on putting Michael Lee Voroski under a heavy lawsuit become my priority, keeping me more away from her. But the sinking feeling keeps increasing.

Yuvraj nods, walks over to me. He places a hand on my shoulder, almost seeming tired. "Things are not the way they seem. Don't trust anyone blindly, Axel. You'll only be hurt in the end."

Then he's gone, leaving me with an ominous feeling.

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Short chapter? I know I know.

Originally, this chapter was supposed to be combined with the next one. But when put together, I felt like it was too many scenarios clustered into one chapter and the length of the chapter was also going to nearly 6k, so I cut them into two. Last chapter was a teeny lil heavy and the next one will be too and hence let's consider this as a simple one to balance things out. That being said, the next chapter will be longer and will sorta have a disturbing flashback from Axel's past too...

Anyways, how did you like the chapter? How do you feel about Axel's grandfather suspecting Eve? Don't you think it's kinda suspicious he'd want them to go to New York....Also, your thoughts on the kiss?👀