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The words hit me in the chest like a brick. It’s not a shock; I know exactly what our non-relationship is. But Rascal was right. Playing with Shiloh is playing with fire. Because my feelings for him will always be tied into what we do. I can’t separate it.
“I don’t need you to comfort me. I don’t need your aftercare. This week was a mistake. We play. And then I go back to hating you. No more cuddles and random jerk off sessions.”
It’s such a stark difference from twenty minutes ago. From him initiating a kiss to staring at me with vacant eyes lined with turmoil.
“Aftercare isn’t negotiable.”
His jaw ticks, but I stand my ground.
I’ve gotten too comfortable in our arrangement, in his surrender. He can take his power back, but I won’t compromise his safety for it.
“If I wanted to be hurt and coddled I’d go to Atty. I need you to wreck me. And then I need you to leave me the hell alone.”
He moves around me and shoves off the hand I try to catch his shoulder with. Dark, angry pits stare back at me, and then he’s walking back up the path we came, and I have to force myself not to follow him.
I’m a hypocrite for telling Blair that him and Atlas together might be one of Shiloh’s triggers. It’s impossible to look at him and not remember how I found him that night. How he looked hours later on an IV drip hyped up on painkillers.
Who knows what memories of that night float around in his head when he sees me. He’s made it clear I’ll always be associated with his attack.
But I never once asked him about sexual triggers.
I may have just cost him his sobriety.
Chapter 15
Shiloh
It’s like being buried beneath the ocean. Not drowning in it, but being physically below it. With the water sitting on your chest like quicksand.
Flashes of sunlight fight their way through but are covered by the ebbing waves.
Sea-creatures brush my skin with their scaly bodies, and if I could swim away to an isolated hole, I would. My body isn’t mine down here. It belongs to the sea—to the beings that feast on the flesh of lost, unfortunate souls.
I don’t exist as a person, but as a vessel for others’ pleasure. I’m their concubine.
There’s a spell somewhere to wake me up. A kill switch for the deal I mistakenly signed in blood.
But my hands are tied. My eyes are blind. My mouth is stitched closed.
All I can do is take the pain and wait for the numbness to take hold.
Eventually I’ll break the binds and be too empty to stay here at the bottom. I’ll make it to the surface as a broken husk, but at least I’ll be free.
The house hasn’t changed.
I mean, I suppose it has. The porch is new. The ramp wrapping around toward the rickety back deck is new. But it’s essentially the same.
Broken. Decaying.
I haven’t been here in years. I’ve never had a reason to come back. This man was written out of my life the day I ran away to Atty’s when I was seventeen and he didn’t even bother to fight for me.
The son he never wanted.
The daughter he lost.
I could turn around. I could retrace my steps, go back to the dorms, and face Corvin. Or I could make my way to Blair’s apartment and run into Atty’s arms.
He’d comfort me. It’d hurt. But at least I’d have my best friend.
