AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They’d wanted to commit me, put me in one of those. Oh my god, what if they had? What if every day since was nothing more than made up?
A never-ending nightmare of stalkers and monsters.
And impossible clues.
What if—
“I think the film crew left it. Looks like a prop one.” Val interrupted my thought train just as it was going off the rails. He’d followed my gaze, and now he walked over to get the jacket.
I swallowed and nodded. “It’s just that...” I swallowed again. “I have bad memories.” I left it at that.
Val fingered the cloth, his voice almost distant. “I get bad memories.”
It didn’t sound like a platitude; it sounded like he had history too.
“You know what?” I walked over. “I’m going to put it on.”
Superheroes didn’t have space for kryptonite. That’s what we were, weren’t we?
My fingers trembled, and my skin crawled as I slid my arms into the grotesque sleeves. “See nothing to it.”
Nothing to it.
The trick was to keep saying it.
The jacket was short, light and not asylum functional—Val was probably right, it was just a prop. My tension eased another knot.
Val yanked on one of the multitudes of straps and buckles flapping behind me and reeled me into his chest. “Facing your fear is the first step. Wanna know the second?”
Did I? My stomach flip-flopped between terror and comfort as his arms came around me, catching the long overflow of sleeves and wrapping them around my waist and knotting them.
I couldn’t breathe.
“The second step,” his teeth slightly scraped up my neck, “is making positive associations.”
Who needed to breathe?
CHAPTER33
Val
I usedthe leather straps at the back of the straitjacket to trap Zara tight up against me. “Do you know how we’ll know the positive associations are working?”
She shook her head.
“Because you’re going to get wet.” I slipped my free hand up under her skirt and between her thighs. “Very wet.” I cupped her mound—heat trapping heat.
She tried to grind against my hand, but I kept moving it just out of reach.
Close enough to feel.
The curl of my fingers closed the gap to brush her through her underwear.
“More.” The word was a moan as she spread her legs wider.
“Tsk. We have to progress your immersion therapy in stages.” I stroked a finger along the edge of cloth and skin. No hurry. Who was going to burst in here and find us?
“When it comes to sex, you’re a bastard.”
