“This is horrible,” he says. “But at least we have more information. I’m going to—ungh!”Atlas groans, and when I snap my head in his direction, I realize that my forearm has brushed his, the contact bare.
Suddenly, I’m remembering how Abigail once told me that when Atlas getssick, he doesn’t let other people touch him. It must be too much to handle.
“Fuck! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“I’m going to go rest,” Atlas interrupts, his voice raw as he pants quickly. “Excuse me.”
Then he’s turning and fleeing up the steps. The back of his thick-strapped tank top is soaked through.
I feel incredibly guilty. As if he wasn’t already suffering enough, I go and make it worse. Why he’s refusing my help, I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean I want him to be inmorepain.
With this guilt, I hide in the altar room for most of the day. In fact, I don’t even read. I just hide.
I’m too scared of running into someone and hearing how miserable Atlas is, only to feel worse.
I want to help him so fucking badly that it’s eating me alive. More than wanting to feel his touch, to taste his skin, I want to ease his troubles and cool him off. I want to save him.
I might have a savior complex when it comes to Atlas Chastain. The longer I sit on this thought, the idea of fixing him, the more frustrated I become.
I could be up there right now, relieving his tension one slow touch at a time. Hedeservesthat. He should know what being touched softly feels like. Is he trying to sleep right now, waiting for the sun to set so that fucker can come back and destroy him? Or is he sitting on his bed, sobbing and whining into his pillows?
I wanted to stay in the altar room and wallow for the rest of the night, considering it should be around dinner time by now. I really, really did. But my feet have other ideas, and I know it’s toxic and definitely not what Atlas asked of me, but I know how to pick that ancient lock.
And I know he’s hurting. He’s suffering.
Even if I don’t enter him—even if I never feel a lick of pleasure—I want to help him.
I can hear the sound of cutlery scraping against porcelain as I stand before the grand staircase, which tells me the family is eating dinner. I should be free from running into Atticus or Abigail.
If Atlas is still in his room, I should reach him unbothered.
I race up the steps and across the landing, reaching the end of Hall W4 in record time. Then I’m sprinting up the warm space that holds the steep staircase of the west tower, taking the tip of my fingernail and lodging it into the slit of the lock, and flipping it.
They should really give Atlas better security if they intend to keep me out.
I push the door open softly, his cries already reaching my ears in a sweet, mournful melody.
He’s on his bed, chest pressed to his mattress, and his arm reaches behind himself as he buries his fingers into his hole. Ican see the shaking in his movements, telling me that his other hand is wrapped firmly around his dick, which is hidden from my view.
Completely naked, covered head to toe in a sheen of sweat, and bright red, Atlas is trying to work through his flare-up all alone.
A delicious cocktail of rage, pity, and lust courses through me at the sight.
“Atlas,” I call, closing the door behind myself and locking it.
At the sound of my voice, a loud, desperate cry leaves him.
“Julie?” he whimpers, turning his face from where it was previously pressed into his pillows to face me.
His cheeks are soaked with tears, his lips trembling as he gives me wide, sad eyes.
“What are you doing, sweet thing?” I take a step toward him. “Why are you suffering alone?”
A sob leaves Atlas’s throat. “I-I have to. You can’t h-help; you’ll get hurt!”
“That’s why you’re pushing me away? You think I’ll get hurt?” I ask, and he nods viciously against the pillows. “Am I not old enough to make my own decisions, to handle myself?”
Atlas pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, and with each slow step I take, his fingers work faster, more desperately.
