Let's end Episode 9 with #Axria on the Greek islands...
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Scene 13: Lovers
A.D. 2015
The isle of Ios downright pulsated with life at night - by day, the place was painted all in soft pastels and pristine white, but once the stars came out to play, the streets reflected all the vivid, varied shades of every nightclub's flashing lights. Just the kind of scene where Atria and Axel always thrived. They passed by countless bars and clubs, many named after various sexual positions and other classy things, until they hit their favorite, the popular spot known as Party 69.
"Still down with the plan?" he asked her as they arrived.
"You mean grabbing and going home with some random hunk?"
"Or watching me hit on another chick and coming home with us."
"Keep dreaming. Just make sure you've kicked her out by morning, so that I can skip out from my new short-term fυckbuddy's place before he, like, gets clingy or anything," she matter-of-factly ordered him.
"What if I want to keep the other girl around awhile?" he goaded, solely to gauge the look on her face, since that was not even remotely in the realm of possibility. Although he never wanted to admit it, he hated the idea of going home with any girl other than her, in all honesty.
"That's not the plan. We're each indulging in a one-night stand, just for the sake of 'seeing' other people, but you're still my sugar daddy. So I get first dibs on access to your dick, your digs, and your money, with priority over any other bitches you might 'see', until you decide you're officially done with me. Which I doubt you ever will be."
Axel blinked, wondering whether this was how Atria dealt with all her sugar daddies. "That's, uh-"
"Shut up and good luck finding someone else to fυck," she huffed, then strutted off into the club, a sheet of her sable hair grazing his face as she sharply swiveled her head before walking away. The scent and the feel of her smooth, silken hair always did things to him, and she knew it; she had obviously flicked her sensuous tresses on purpose.
If Axel didn't know better, he might have sensed some bitterness in Atria, about this whole arrangement he'd suggested. But he did know better - he knew that he was stupid and was surely just imagining it. Wishful thinking never failed to turn him into a deluded piece of shıt. By tomorrow, once she'd had a grand old time sleeping with someone else, he should be able to conclude once and for all that she felt nothing toward him, that he was not her weakness, and that - as essentially the only other option, damn it - Eldor probably was. That if she couldn't be with him, her savior and sort-of-but-not-really-big-brother, then she would settle for sex with anybody else and just pretend that she was cuddling with Prince Motherfυcking Charming.
Whereas if she couldn't bring herself to fυck someone else, then maybe, just maybe, some part of her would rather be with Axel only...
Maybe this thought process was not exactly logical. But it was as close to logic as his easily bruised, confused alpha-male ego could get.
Entering the club, Axel hid all of these troubled thoughts behind his go-to mask, a roguish shadow of a smile and beguiling bedroom eyes. It wasn't hard for him to keep up a constant awareness, a sort of supernatural sixth sense, of Atria's location all the while. Even from across a crowded room, amidst a sea of strangers - hell, even from halfway across the world - the hound inside him never once lost track of her.
But for now, he had to focus some of his attention on these other girls, to maintain this charade of being interested in seeing other people, to keep the bullshıt masquerade believable. His goal now was to locate a girl who would make Atria as jealous as possible. If she even deigned to look his way and notice the girl he had chosen, he wanted to see her pretty evergreen eyes flare with envy, because... well, because it made his inflatable alpha-male ego retardedly happy.
In a matter of seconds, Axel found the perfect girl who he just knew would get on Atria's last nerve: the right balance of plain and pretty, an understated and underrated type of beauty, an endearing combination of confidence and insecurity, bright eyes that sparkled with intelligence as well as moral purity. The utter opposite of the dark rose, in many ways, although in other ways they shared deep similarities - the type of girl Axel knew Atria secretly sometimes wished she could be.
The girl appeared to be alone at the moment, luckily. So he wove his way swiftly through the sweaty-stranger-infested space, strode right up to where she stood at the bar, ordered and downed a stiff drink, then cut straight to the chase. Set to whip out the full-on dirty horndog play - suave, roundabout forms of seduction worked on brainless bimbos often, but in this case, he knew it would be a waste.
"I'm really digging this whole vibe," he announced out of the blue.
She turned to face him, furrowing her brows. "Excuse me?"
He waved his hand toward her face and figure in a shamelessly suggestive gesture. "Virtuous little virgin who secretly just wants some gorgeous guy to come along and fυck her brains out."
Her brown eyes went wide in such a way that he could tell that, on some level, she knew that what he'd said was sort of... true.
"Now, I know a jackass like me ain't the guy you've got in mind," Axel openly acknowledged, gesturing then toward himself with a wink and a winning smile, "but hey - at least I'm gorgeous, right?"
She blinked and stared at him in silence for a moment, not blind enough to deny it, but too dignified to admit.
Meanwhile Axel could feel another pair of eyes, dark emeralds all the way across the room, glaring in their direction, which was absolute perfection, and the animalistic heat of Atria's jealousy in this instant was almost intense enough to give him a massive-
Well, fυck if that wasn't the worst boner-killer in the history of ever, he inwardly muttered as someone suddenly appeared behind the brown-eyed girl. Someone who happened to be the last man on earth Axel wanted to see. Firstly because he viscerally hated this guy's guts, and worse yet, because this meant that Atria's envy might be directed toward the little brunette not because Axel was flirting with her, but because she was involved with none other than Eldor.
Eldor the almighty life-ruiner. Who was of course just standing there, all tall and dark and dumb, because mere words were totally beneath him, so inferior to the power of his princely ebon stare.
Axel slammed his empty glass down on the bar and shook his head. "Figures. Of all the girls on the fυcking Greek islands, I'm hitting on yours. For the second time this summer."
More princely stares. While Axel's testosterone raged, impelling him to punch this son of a bitch in his freakishly flawless face, Eldor's simmered far below the surface. What, was he expecting Axel to play into this pathetic, pacifistic staring contest? Did this dipshıt not realize that his holier-than-thou silent treatment got old after, like, two seconds?
There was obviously no point in staying here a second longer. But he paused before he turned to leave. Might as well ruffle the fυcker's feathers, if he could, he figured. "You know, you're lucky I'm backing off now, because if I'd kept at it, she would so choose me over you. All the chicks do," Axel asserted, glaring at Eldor and then locking eyes again with the brunette. "Little girls dream of Prince Charming, but big girls dream of the big bad fυcking wolf. You know it's true."
He then stepped out through a side door into an alleyway to get some badly needed air. After only a few fuming breaths, the phone in his pocket started to vibrate - as tightly wound up as he was, he nearly crushed it to pieces in his fist, but as soon as he saw who was calling, Axel hurried to compose himself as best he could and answer it.
"Mom. Thank God you called," he breathed a huge sigh of relief. "You got there safely? Everything went smoothly?"
The beloved voice on the other end yammered out frantic questions and incoherent expressions of panic. He could hardly blame her, given that he had just arranged for a few of his most trusted friends and employees to forge a fake passport for his mother and see to it that she was safely transported to an obscure, remote location, forcing her to unexpectedly uproot her life for unknown reasons.
He wasn't quite sure how to break it to her that she was in danger because of a sick little boy whose wickedness Axel had gravely underestimated. Jett was obviously all kinds of twisted, but this, Axel would never have guessed. He hoped to never have to tell his mother, because he hoped to high hell that before this week was over, he could somehow deal with the bastard and save her.
"Yeah, yeah I know, Mom. I'm so sorry for all this, but it's just temporary, promise," he swore, hating himself more and more. "I'm going to fix this as soon as I can. For now please just stay safe, okay?"
He spent awhile longer struggling to reassure her, but by the time he had hung up, he felt less sure of her safety than ever. He hadn't slept for so much as an hour ever since Jett had made his threat. Though he'd taken every possible precaution to decrease the chances of Jett finding his mother, still he cursed himself for not having done more, done better.
Axel felt a sudden rush of heat in the night air just then and knew that Atria had seen him step outside and was presently approaching.
He turned toward her, momentarily focusing on his lover instead of his concerns about his mother. She was part of his job, after all, the same job that had put his mother's life in danger, the same job that - if he completed it this week - could at least potentially save her.
"Any luck finding your random hunk?" he asked Atria as she came up beside him. "Or too busy seething with jealousy?"
"Shut it," she snapped. "Does Eldor know I'm here?"
Of course she had to ask about Eldor, as if this night could get any shıttier. Axel shrugged. "He didn't ask. Why, does it matter?"
And of course she had to look fυcking sad that Eldor hadn't asked, though clearly trying to hide it - and now Axel had to hide how sad that fact made him - as if shıt between them could get any more twisted.
Atria fidgeted. "Not really, I just... don't want things to be weird."
"Why would they be?" he tried to speak nonchalantly.
"Because he's like a mom to me, so I don't want him watching when I grab some rando and get down and dirty."
Axel cocked a brow. "Like a mom? Really?"
"Yeah, he graduated from big brother to mother. Which was why I couldn't stand being around him any longer."
"So that's why you left him for me," he inferred aloud, regretting the words the instant they spilled out of his mouth.
She blinked, pausing as if in search of an answer that she herself wouldn't regret, not really caring whether it'd be honest. "I mean, why would I stay with family rather than a fυckbuddy?"
"So if he wanted to fυck you, then you'd be with him right now?" Why the hell did he keep on saying this kind of shıt out loud?
"Oh, shut up, it's not all about sex..."
"Really? Then what else?" he demanded, figuring that at this point he might as well just keep on saying shıt, because he couldn't stop the words; the shıt seemed quite determined to be heard, "I mean, with me that's all you're about, isn't it? Would it be different with him?"
Knowing that Atria would never answer that outright, Axel tried and failed to find the answers in her eyes.
"What? I - why are we even talking about this. Besides, he's with that bright-eyed little bitch," she uneasily dismissed, crossing her arms as if to smother her heart, then hastening to change the topic. "How come you chose to hit on her anyway? No clue what both of you idiots see in her."
After all the shıt Axel had already said, it was time to shift gears now and try to play cool. "Who, that brunette? She's super cute." But you know she's not my type and I'm crazy about only you. He reinstalled the filter between his mind and mouth to stop himself from blurting that out.
"Ugh," Atria rolled her eyes and turned her head to hide her jealous pout. "Okay, let's head back in. I'm sure they're gone by now."
They slipped back in to join the clubbing crowd, both relieved to see that the virtuous lovebirds were nowhere to be found. Axel forced himself to get back to his task, settling for the first girl who pounced on him, a bubbly redhead with model-esque features and slim, shapely curves to whom any guy in his right mind would be attracted, but Axel was rather distracted and had not been anywhere near his right mind for a very long time. He put on a good show, though, enough for the redhead to think he wanted her a fraction as badly as she wanted him, and next thing he knew, she had dragged him out onto the dance floor and begun to do some very dirty things. Axel let her carry on with it solely because he knew that Atria was watching.
And then all of a sudden, some animal urge propelling her across the dance floor over to her lover and the redheaded stranger in a split second, Atria had pushed her way into the nonexistent space between them and grabbed Axel's face and pulled him in toward her, kissing him then with what felt like freaking lifetimes' worth of passion.
Or with... just a mess of pent up hormones. Right. Axel immediately corrected that notion of passion. The word weighed a little too much.
Meanwhile the redhead had gone into a bit of a frenzy. "What the fυck?!" she shrieked, clawing at Atria's skin through her skimpy dress. "Back off, bitch!"
Though she clearly never wanted to, Atria withdrew, biting her lip and gazing up at him, and Axel thought for a moment that he saw something even more than passion in her eyes, but he knew it wasn't true. Couldn't let himself fall victim to such wishful thinking. Hell, he shouldn't even be wishing for that, or for anything.
It was easiest, and hardest all at once, to just go on pretending that he wanted this night to end in a girls-on-guy threesome.
So he did, playfully quirking his brows as the redhead attempted to rip Atria's hair out. "Ohh, catfight. Rawr," he growled.
And Atria paused only for an instant before playing right into it. "Relax, honey," she purred calmly at the girl who was attacking her. "You're pretty hot, too. I came over here for both of you."
She proved it with a deep, sloppy kiss on the redhead's raspberry-glossed lips, which - in Axel's opinion, based on pornos that he'd seen of smooching lesbians - involved too much tongue to look genuine. But the other girl had evidently liked it, which was only natural given that few things on earth tasted sweeter than Atria's lips; Axel watched as the redhead dove in for another kiss, and found himself fidgeting uncomfortably because, for the first time in his life, he felt freaking jealous of a chick.
The jealousy didn't last long, because Atria's hand quickly found its way into his pants and sent his brain off to another place entirely - but that feeling didn't last long either, as she soon broke away from the other girl's lips and smiled coyly up at him while pulling her hand from his crotch, lifting it to her mouth and then sinfully licking her finger. Hot enough to make him want to freaking die. "Take us back to your place, big guy?"
Once they'd made it back to the villa, the three of them had scarcely spent five minutes tangled in his sheets before the redhead flounced off of the bed with a huff and started gathering up her stuff.
Axel hadn't even noticed that she was gone until all of her clothes were back on. He paused and sat up halfway in the bed, Atria noticing the redhead's absence only after he had shifted.
"Whoa, where are you go-" he began to ask.
"I'm sick of this!" the girl hissed. "It's like I don't exist!"
Atria scowled. "What? No, we're just..."
"Oh, save it," the redhead snapped. "You two are, like, fυcking in love with each other. Have fun with that. I'm out."
She stormed out the door, leaving the dumbfounded lovers to stare awkwardly at each other, then at the bed, then at the floor.
Axel cleared his throat eventually. "Let's just, uh..."
"...forget we ever heard that, yeah?" Atria finished the sentence for him.
He nodded slowly, though he never wanted to forget those words and surely never would. "Yeah."
In bed the following morning, just on a random whim, Axel suggested that they hit up another island. Maybe Santorini.
Atria pursed her lips. "Isn't that place for, like, lovers?"
"And what are we?"
"Fυckers."
He wished it didn't hurt to hear her state the obvious so plainly.
And of course, she just had to add insult to injury. "That's all this is. It has to be."
"Right. Totally."
She lay in silence for a while, resting on his chest, and Axel wondered if the beating of his heart betrayed too much, if just the sound of it, beneath the skin to which her cheek was pressed, conveyed more secrets than he could ever confess.
"But I hear Santorini's super pretty. Like your stupid little face," she teased, leaning upward into him and littering his stupid little face with stupid little kisses, in doing so confessing more secrets than he would ever know. "Let's go."
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... #Axria feels?
Next scene, we'll kick off Episode 10, the last one of Book II...
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