Ethan just snickered at the challenge, his voice regaining a bit of its usual sharp edge as he tried to mask his lingering embarrassment.
"Fine," he said, shifting slightly on the edge of the desk. "Let us just start and get this over with."
Jayden squeezed a generous amount of the cooling ointment onto his palm.
As he looked at Ethan's exposed torso, that heavy sense of guilt settled in his chest once again.
Even though Jayden was nursing his own set of bruises, they didn't look nearly as severe as the marks he had left on Ethan.
Against Ethan's porcelain skin, the bruises appeared incredibly dark and terrifying, almost like deep ink stains on white paper, it looks very frightening.
Jayden knew logically that this was simply because Ethan was so fair, but that didn't change the cold reality of the situation.
He was the one who had caused this damage.
