Julian groans in discontent, his fingers tightening slightly around my curls. “You like it then? Waking up with all of those harsh marks? Being fucked so brutally?”
The urge to sob returns to me, now mingling with my arousal, because I do. I do enjoy the way it pounds into me, and that is my greatest shame.
“Yes,” I whisper, and I hear the guilt in my own voice.
Julian leans back slightly, just enough to peer down into my eyes. His features soften, and the fingers of one hand begin to massage my scalp.
“There are worse things to like,” he tells me.
“Like what?”
“Like murder, or arson.” Julian grins, and I can’t help but chuckle at his declaration.
“That’s true.” Slowly, my smile fades, and I remove a hand from his side to lay it gently on his chest, right over his heart. “Julian, do not ever enter the west tower again.”
He stares at me, those dark eyes full of anger and concern, his smile long since fallen away.
“You really expect me to believe I made up half of what I saw?” he asks me, still caressing my head gently. Every word he speaks lands against my mouth with how close he’s standing.
I nod. “It’s the truth; why wouldn’t you believe it? You saw something you wish you hadn’t seen, so you’re trying to find a way around it. There is no such thing as monsters, Julian. Only men.”
“You’re right: I wish I hadn’t seen it,” he agrees.
My heart splits in half.
Julian pulls away, taking backward steps until he stands in the center of the room, leaving me to pant against the door alone.
I’m thankful at this moment that I chose to wear a high-necked, black shirt today. If he had the marks, convincing him might have been a bit harder.
“I guess my imagination is very active in this big house,” he continues. “I won’t go into the west tower again. I’m sorry for interrupting you and your boyfriend; it won’t happen again.”
The look of disgust and anger on his features is making me nauseous; it confirms all of my worst fears. I need to run; I need to escape his eyes.
I nod again, my trembling hands lying flat against the wood behind me. I’m watching him the way a wounded, terrified animal would. As if my entire life rests in the palm of his hands, and I’m desperate to know when he’ll strike next.
After a long moment of just watching me, Julian says, “Please leave now, Young Master Atlas.”
I have never fled from a room so fast in my entire life.
As my loafers slap against the hardwood, drowned out by the rushing in my ears, I let the tears fall.
He was disgusted by me. In the end, I convinced him it was my boyfriend rather than the incubus, and he was still disgusted by the method of the pleasure he believed chosen.
If he were to learn the truth, it would only get worse. If he learned that Ilikedwhat amonsterdid to me? Oh, god.
There is every possibility that Julian hates me now. That he saw what he did, and now he despises me. I mean, he just kicked me out!
And worse than that—worse than the only man I’ve ever looked at and wanted to devour whole, looking at me like I’m scum—is that I was wrong.
I am still sick. I am uncured.
Who knows when the incubus will show up again?
Was there ever a cure at all?
Julian
12
