Textual Confusion

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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“What are you doing here?”

The words fell out of Asher’s mouth before he could think through his own question. Because if he had thought about it for only a handful of seconds, he would have realized exactly why Trent was here – at what was supposed to be a private corporate function.

Trent’s father, George Reynolds, was an important client of Kingston Enterprises. Of course the man had received an invite to the soiree.

And, apparently, he’d brought along his son as his plus one.

Why hadn’t Asher seen this coming? And why the hell hadn’t he even noticed that the other man was here until now?

But even as he berated himself for allowing such crucial details to slip his mind, Asher knew why.

It was Markus.

The man blinded him to everything – and everyone else. He’d wanted so badly to please him. And now, due to his own negligence, he was caught off guard by Trent’s presence at Markus’s company dinner.

Those were the kind of self-flagellating thoughts going through Asher’s mind as he stared into Trent’s gray-colored eyes through the mirror.

“Why do you look so surprised to see me?” Trent asked, but judging by the mean smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth, the man was reveling in Asher’s obviously stunned state. “I told you I'd see you soon.”

The texts Asher had received from his ex on the way to Cloud Nine suddenly made a nauseating amount of sense.

I can't wait to see you again.

My cock's already hard just thinking about it.

Soon.

“I missed you,” Trent added, taking advantage of the way Asher had frozen near the sinks by pressing up against him.

The touch jolted Asher into action, and he scrambled away to create space between them, finally turning to face the man intent on tormenting him. “Don’t touch me.”

“Careful,” Trent warned, following Asher instead of backing off. “Or I might start thinking you aren’t happy to see me.”

“That’s probably because I’m not,” Asher snarked without thinking.

But Trent only waved the comment away. “You don’t mean that.”

The man reached forward in an attempt to grab him or touch him again, Asher wasn’t sure, but he swatted his hand away before it could make contact. Considering the nature of the texts Trent had been sending him, Asher was surprised to find himself more angry than fearful now that they’d finally come face to face. “I said don’t touch me.”

Trent’s eyes flashed. “You think you can tell me what to do? You may have forgotten in our time apart, but I own you. You’re mine . That sweet, little body of yours belongs to me, and I can do whatever I want to it – to you .”

Asher’s skin crawled at Trent’s disgusting comments, and he couldn’t believe he’d ever genuinely loved the man standing in front of him.

Then again, Trent had never been quite so unhinged when they were together. Sure, he’d been a controlling, gaslighting asshole (something Asher could admit in hindsight), but he’d never been like this .

“I’m my own person,” Asher retorted as calmly as he could manage after taking a moment to calm himself. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Trent scoffed. “Oh yeah? That hotshot CEO out there know that? Cause it seems to me that you’re the same old slut you’ve always been. Sucking cock like a whore so that some rich chump takes care of you.” Trent shrugged, the gesture nonchalant, but the gleam in his eyes was made of pure malice. “Then again, can’t really blame you, can I? Not like you’re good for anything else.”

It shouldn’t have affected him the way it did.

Trent was angry, and obviously jealous. He was just saying whatever he could think of to hurt Asher. But even knowing that didn’t stop the sudden bout of insecurity from festering inside him. It took all of Asher’s willpower to force his shoulders to stay square instead of curling into himself like he wanted to.

“I’m not a slut.”

Trent snorted. “Really?”

Asher wasn’t prepared for the man to suddenly lurch forward and grab him by the elbow, and he wasn’t able to stop him from using the grip he had on him to drag him forward into his space. “What’s this then?” he demanded, lifting Asher’s arm. The diamonds on the Rolex around his wrist glittered in the florescent lights of the bathroom. “You’re claiming you afforded this on a barista’s salary?”

Asher’s throat felt suddenly tight but he forced his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth in order to speak. “I- I’m a baker, not a barista, and that- that’s not-” he struggled to explain even as a voice in his head – the one that sounded like Sasha’s – screamed that he didn’t owe the man anything, let alone an explanation.

“What? You’re saying you didn’t bend over and present that pretty hole of yours in exchange for this shiny Rolex?”

Asher hated the way Trent made him feel small. Like the arrangement he had with Markus was wrong, like he was wrong. “It’s not like that,” he protested, but it sounded weak to even his own ears.

“What’s it like then? Don’t tell me you think that man out there actually likes you for something other than your body?”

Asher flinched, an involuntary thing, and Trent’s eyes flashed in understanding. He released Asher’s arm, but instead of backing away, he only stepped further into Asher space, crowding him up against the sinks. The man shook his head, his voice taking on a distinctly mocking edge. “Aw, poor baby. You really do believe that, don’t you? That you have a future with him. That he likes you – loves you, even, maybe. The only thing he loves is your hole. I’m the only man who could ever love you for more than that.”

“You cheated on me,” Asher reminded him, struggling to think clearly as the confidence and sense of independence he’d gained since leaving Trent threatened to crumble in the face of the almost crippling insecurity and self-doubt the man always seemed to bring out in him. “How is that love?”

Trent’s brow furrowed in obvious annoyance. “When are you going to let that go? It was one small indiscretion, and I’ve apologized for it over and over again.”

“You never apologized,” Asher snapped back, having recovered a bit of his mental fortitude in the face of Trent’s bold- faced lie. He lies about everything , Asher reminded himself. You can’t put stock into anything he says. And with that realization, the anger Asher had felt earlier made a return. “And I’d hardly call sticking that limp, unimpressive worm you call a cock into some desperate hooker ‘a small indiscretion’.”

Bam!

In hindsight, Asher should have seen the punch coming.

Trent’s fist smashed into his cheek, and the force of the blow had his head colliding with the wall. Asher’s ears rang in the immediate aftermath, and he shakily prodded at the part of his head that had hit the wall – his left temple, just beneath his hairline.

His fingers came back red.

He was bleeding.

Trent had made him bleed.

Somehow Asher had managed to stay on his feet, and maybe it was the shock, but he didn’t feel any fear as he looked into Trent’s eyes. Just surprise. The man looked about as stunned as Asher felt. But he quickly schooled expression. “Don’t fucking look at me like that. I wanted to be nice. You made me do that with your shitty attitude.”

Trent was sick in the head. It was obvious now, if it hadn’t already been clear before. There was no point in entertaining any sort of discussion with him. So Asher did what he should have done the moment he’d recognized his ex in the mirror. His feet, which had seemed glued to the floor moments before, came to life, and he shouldered past Trent, intent on leaving the bathroom and finding Markus.

Markus, Markus, Markus.

If he could just find Markus, everything would be fine.

Asher wasn’t sure how he would explain the blood, but he’d worry about that after he found him.

He should have guessed Trent wouldn’t let him go so easily. The hand that latched onto his bicep was steely in its grip. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to find Markus, then I’m going home,” Asher said. He was still reeling from the fact that Trent had actually hit him and was too stupefied to be anything but honest.

His answer seemed to agitate Trent even further, however, and the grip the man had on his arm tightened to the point of bruising “I wasn’t finished with you yet.”

Asher had had enough.

“Well, I’m finished with you!” he exploded, tugging fiercely at his captured arm. “I’ve been finished with you, but you won’t let me go!” Maybe don’t antagonize the psycho , a rational voice pointed out, but Asher’s rage quickly drowned it out. “We’re done, Trent! You need to stop calling me, and flooding my phone with those fucked up texts! I don’t love you anymore, and you need to move on!”

The vein on Trent’s forehead bulged, and the way he pushed out his response through clenched teeth divulged his anger. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do! And if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll go to the police and have you arrested for stalking. I’ve been saving all the disgusting messages you’ve been sending me. If you think your dad’s embarrassed of his deadbeat son now, wait until he finds out what a sick pervert you are-”

Trent used the hold he had on Asher’s arm to tug him closer, cutting him off and causing him to stumble into his chest. He grabbed his other arm with his free hand and shook him. “You think you can threaten me?” he hissed. “Has our separation really addled your shit-for-brains that much? My dad wouldn’t give a single shit if I choked you to death on my cock in this bathroom right now. He’s rich enough to make anything go away.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately for you and your dad, my boyfriend is even richer.”

Perhaps it was the reminder that for the first time ever Trent couldn’t use his family’s money to turn a situation in his favor, or maybe it was the fact Asher had called Markus his boyfriend – whatever the reason, the man snapped. Again.

He used the grip he had on Asher to shove him harshly into the wall. Asher winced as his head collided with a foreign object for the second time that night. “You really think that fucker out there gives a single shit about you?” Trent spat, nose to nose with Asher, spittle flying into his face. “Even if he does, I guarantee he’ll drop you as soon as he finds out what a filthy slut you are. I’ll tell him myself. How you like to be tied up and degraded, begging to have your pussy stuffed and used as a cum dump-”

Trent must not have expected Asher to fight back, which was probably the only reason that the headbutt worked. He yelped in surprise, finally releasing Asher to bring his hands to his face.

Asher hated violence, but it’d be a lie to say he didn’t feel a spark of satisfaction when he saw the blood dripping from between Trent’s fingers.

“You fucking bitch.”

Then he was on him, once again crowding him against the wall. Except this time, his hands were wrapped around Asher’s neck. “You’ve sure gotten brave since you left,” he snarled. “Probably the influence of that whore friend of yours, but don’t worry, you won’t ever see the bitch again after today.”

Asher pried at Trent’s hands, trying to get him to release him, but the man only tightened his grip in response, digging his thumbs into Asher’s trachea, causing a pained whimper to escape.

“I’m going to choke you out and drag your body back to our apartment. Then I’ll tie you to the goddamn bed and fuck that attitude out of you until you remember your place. You aren’t ever leaving me again. “

Asher continued to claw desperately at Trent’s hands, digging his fingernails into skin until blood welled beneath them, but it was like the man didn’t even feel it. His face began tingling as his blood flow was cut off, and his lungs burned, desperate for oxygen.

“Fuck, this bring back memories,” Trent murmured into his ear, sounding almost fond. “Remember the first time I tried choking you? We stopped because you got scared, but you looked so pretty like that. Face turning blue and eyes glazed over as you lay completely helpless beneath me. My hands wrapped around your throat. My cock pounding into your pussy. We should do that again some time.” Asher froze when Trent suddenly rubbed up against him, and he could feel the press of a hard erection against his stomach. “Fuck. Maybe I should do it now. Choke you out right here and fuck your unconscious body. Let your boyfriend, " he spat mockingly, “find you afterwards, all used and sloppy on the bathroom floor. Bet he wouldn’t want you anymore then.”

Horror filled Asher. Not because he believed that Markus would ever leave him for something as awful and out of his control as being raped. Trent could disparage Markus’s character all he wanted, Asher knew firsthand how kind and caring the usually stone-faced man was deep inside.

More than that, he knew how much the man cared for Asher specifically.

But that didn’t mean he ever wanted Markus to see him like that.

He could feel himself starting to get lightheaded, and panic licked at his insides. So much so that he almost didn’t hear it over the faint buzzing in his ears – white noise that grew louder the longer Trent's hands squeezed around his neck.

Knocking on the door. The knob rattling. And then…

“Asher, baby? You in there?”

Asher felt Trent stiffen against him. “Make a sound, and I’ll fucking kill you,” he breathed into Asher’s ear.

But it was too late. The sound of Markus’s voice had injected hope into Asher, and he felt himself snap him out of the helpless stupor he’d fallen into. A memory from nearly a decade earlier surged to the forefront of his brain. It was Danny, teaching him some basic self-defense moves after learning that Asher was being targeted by a particularly insistent bully.

Asher wasted zero time jamming his thumbs into Trent’s eye sockets.

Trent screamed, a garbled, angry sound, and he finally released Asher in order to tend to his injured eyes.

“Asher?!”

“Markus! I’m in here-!”

Bam!

“You dumb whore!”

Trent hit him in almost exactly the same spot as before, but this time Asher wasn’t able to stay on his feet. He felt his head smack against the corner of one of the sinks on his way down to the ground, and for a moment, his vision blacked out.

When Asher came back to moments later, he was on the floor. The first thing he noticed was that his vision was blurry. The second thing was the litany of sounds exploding around him. But the noises were garbled.

Almost like he was hearing them underwater.

A flurry of movement near the door caught his attention, and Asher distantly noted that the wall beside it had been destroyed, a large crack splintering the drywall. It hadn’t been there before. The door hadn’t been hanging off its hinges either.

Huh. Weird.

Asher’s thought process felt off, and very, very slow. Like he was wading through molasses in an attempt to come to a logical conclusion for the broken mess.

There was a scuffle going on near the door, the blur of color and movement that had first attracted his attention. He could hear loud thuds and wet squelches paired with yelling what sounded like tortured moans.

Then there was a distinct c rack and a crunching noise – the telltale sound of bones snapping.

Asher probably would have been deeply concerned if he could think past the thick syrup slowly filling his brain.

Suddenly, there was a man kneeling before him, middle-aged with an impressive mustache. “Are you alright?” he asked.

His brow was wrinkled in concern and he looked kind enough, but Asher didn’t recognize him, so he was wary. Also, it was pretty obvious that no , he wasn’t alright. Even as his brain attempted to buffer itself, his pain receptors were gradually turning back on, and he hurt.

Specifically, there was a dull throbbing radiating from the entirety of his head, and his throat felt like it was on fire.

The man grimaced, seeming to realize it was a dumb question without Asher having to say so. Either that, or he noticed the blood dripping into his left eye at the same time as Asher did. “Hold on,” he said before returning with a wad of paper towels.

Asher hissed in pain when he pressed them to the wound near his hairline and instinctively tried to push his hand away. But his muscles felt weak – like jelly – and the man didn’t budge.

Logically, Asher knew he was only trying to help him, but that didn’t stop the same sense of powerlessness he’d felt when Trent had refused to remove his hands from him from returning. “S-stop,” he forced out, instantly regretting it when his mangled throat spasmed around the word.

But that regret was replaced with relief when Markus was suddenly there, shoving the man with the mustache aside and snarling to “get the fuck away from him” and other words (and probably threats) that Asher didn’t currently have the brain power to comprehend.

“Markus,” he cried, ignoring the pain it caused him, “you’re here.”

He was so relieved.

“Of course I am, baby,” Markus assured, stroking his cheek. Asher frowned when he noticed that the man’s knuckles were splattered red with what looked like blood. And the sleeves of his expensive tuxedo were suspiciously damp.

Asher knew that should probably mean something to him, or at least spark some kind of concern, but he couldn’t think past the fact that Markus was here. He’d saved him – saved him from-

“Trent,” he croaked, a concoction of unknown emotions filling him.

“ Don’t ,” Markus immediately shushed him. “Don’t say his name. Don’t you dare waste a single breath on him. You’re safe, darling. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Despite his reassuring words, the man looked upset. Markus’s eyes were dark with something Asher couldn’t name as his hands roamed all over him. Asher didn’t know if he was checking him for injuries or trying to comfort him, but he couldn’t help but notice that Markus’s hands were shaking .

Taking in the trembling fingers, Asher couldn’t believe that he’d almost let Trent’s spiteful words get to him. That he’d believed for even a moment that Markus was only using him for sex.

It was obvious the man cared about him.

Maybe… maybe he even loved Asher the way that Asher loved him – something he’d refused to admit, even to himself, until now.

Love. It was a scary word.

Especially since he and Markus had only known each other for a short time. But Asher couldn’t deny that since waltzing into his life, the man had dominated his thoughts. That he made him feel things that no man had ever made him feel before: safe, cherished, just… happy.

Asher would blame it on the concussion later, but in a fit of insanity, he opened his mouth to tell the man. To say the words aloud. I love you.

“I-”

But his throat tightened involuntarily around the words, a painful coughing fit causing his throat to spasm and black to creep into the corners of his vision.

“Hush now,” Markus shushed him again. “Don’t strain yourself. It’s your neck…” he trailed off, a muscle in his jaw ticking and his eyes darkening even further as he stared at whatever damage Trent had done. “Try not to speak.”

Asher’s mouth had a mind of its own most of the time, and he would usually have trouble following such an order, but as the adrenaline that had been pumping through his veins drained from his body, exhaustion swiftly took its place. He could feel it filling his body, a lethargy that made everything heavy . Even his eyelids.

They fluttered shut.

“Hey,” Markus interjected sharply, snapping his fingers in front of Asher’s face and dragging him back from oblivion. “None of that now. It’s possible you have a concussion. You need to stay awake.”

Asher was pretty sure that was outdated medical advice.

Besides, he was so tired.

He didn’t even realize his eyes had drifted shut again until Markus shook him. “Asher,” he snapped, “stay awake. That’s a goddamn order, understand?”

Asher probably would have been more intimidated if he didn’t sound so panicked.

“Asher, you want to be my good boy, don’t you?” the man cajoled, cupping Asher’s face and rubbing his thumbs under his eyes in a valiant effort to keep him awake. “Keep your eyes open for Daddy, sweetheart, okay?”

Asher wanted nothing more than to be Markus's good boy. And it broke his heart how upset the man sounded. But he was exhausted. And despite the turmoil playing out across Markus’s face and the fear in his voice, Asher knew he was safe.

Markus would take care of him.

So the next time sleep pulled at his eyes, he allowed them to close.

And no matter how Markus begged, he didn’t open them again.