Page 299 of A Vicious Love

Outside, someone laughed faintly on the lawn. The sound drifted through the open windows.

Sienna’s voice stayed quiet. “You slammed doors in my face. You left me at events. I lost count of how many times you said you needed whiskey to deal with me, or before dealing with me, or because I was there and you had to tolerate it. Sometimes you forgot I even came with you.”

The bathwater moved against the stone as she shifted.

“I wasn’t stupid enough to think marriage would make you want me in your house.”

I stood.

Too fast.

She flinched.

The movement killed me.

I turned away before the sight made me do something useless, bracing both hands on the dresser near the wall. The wood pressed hard under my palms. I wanted to break it. The dresser, the cottage, every past version of myself who had left her under awnings, beside bars, on marble steps, waiting for proof that I remembered she existed.

She said nothing behind me.

Good. If she apologized, I might have put my fist through the mirror.

“No one touches me.” My voice came out low.

I kept my back to her because the truth had to leave somehow and eye contact would make it worse.

“No one has since I was seven.”

The water shifted behind me.

I breathed once. Again. Controlled. Ugly.

“I was taken. My father got me back. Fast enough, by Crow standards. Too late, by mine.”

“Jamison,” she whispered.

I turned then.

“I came home and couldn’t stand hands on me. Doctors. Guards. My brothers. My mother.” My throat tightened around that one. “She was affectionate. Always touching our hair, kissing our faces, dragging us close even when we thought we were too old for it. After they took me, I couldn’t bear it. She would reach for me and stop herself.”

Some memories still haunted me. That one never left my brain. My parents death lived behind my eyelids.

“She hated that. She looked at me every time as if she could remember holding me before and had to relearn loving me from a distance.”

I walked back to the bath and sat on the edge again, close enough that she could reach if she wanted.

“The night she died, there was a shooting at the casino.” My voice roughened, and I hated it, but I kept going. “She reached for me.”

Sienna’s fingers found mine on the marble.

“I held her,” I said. “For the first time in years, I let my mother touch me properly while she was bleeding out on a casino floor. And she looked at me as if it was a miracle.”

Sienna’s fingers pressed firmer into my hand.

“I hate touch,” I said. “In my clubs, every touch is discussed before it happens. Subs’ hands were tied because that suited the scene, yes, but also because I needed clarity. No one grabbing without permission.”

Her thumb moved over my knuckles. That loving little ritual.

“My hand with you,” I said, voice dropping, “was different.”