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“You were just sitting there, watching me with no emotion that I started to wonder if you could tell if I was forgetting something or leaving anything out.”
“It’s a force of habit,” Dante says with a sigh. “In my line of work, it’s generally better not to react to what you’re told until you have time to think things through.”
“Oh.”
“But were you?”
“What?”
“Were you leaving things out?”
“Maybe. Yes, but they were just some unimportant details,” I say, my blush giving me away.
“Such as?”
“I groped Seven,” I mumble.
“You what?”
“I … I touched Seven, and he didn’t like it.”
There’s a painful moment of awkward silence as I stare down at the glass of water in my hands, wondering why in the world I just told himthatdetail of all things.
A low, rumbling chuckle spills out of Dante, surprising me as I slowly turn to look up at him. I catch the grin on his face just before he covers his mouth with his hand.
“No, I suppose he wouldn’t like it,” Dante says, shaking his head as he moves to sit back down in the armchair.
“Why? I thought,” I start, hesitating for a second before mumbling the rest of my sentence, “I though all men liked to be touched.”
“Most do, but Seven’s a bit of a special case.”
“How so?”
Dante arches an eyebrow at me, pressing the fingertips of both hands together in front of him, as if contemplating how much he should let me in on.
“I’m sure you’ve seensomeof what he’s done to his body, given the state I found the two of you in your first day here.”
“Yes.”
“Most of that wasn’t done of his own volition.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I found Seven, he was part of a brothel that specialized in body modifications, torture, and ... forced intimacy. It’s also where he picked up many of his more off-putting behaviors.”
Brothel? No wonder he seems to put so much emphasis on sexual touch. My mind spins as I try to piece together what he’s telling me.
“Wait, when you say you found him in a brothel, was Seven a patron or …” I trail off, not knowing how to finish my own thought.
“No, he was working there,” Dante says, finishing my train of thought and sending my mind into further chaos. “It’s all he knew. He’d been orphaned and sold off when he was just a boy, trained to service others. I’m still not entirely sure exactly what he was put through, I don’t know if anyone does … but it took years to help him work through some of the more significant traumas he endured. Even to this day, he still reacts poorly to certain things if he’s in the wrong mindset.”
My heart aches at hearing this, and my stomach twists into knots at the thought of what he must have felt when I’d reached for him. Despite his own behavior toward me, I would never have done something like that if I’d known.
“I-I didn’t know,” I breath, aghast with myself.
“Of course, you didn’t,” Dante says. “You’re not to blame here, love. He has a bad habit of forgetting which lines shouldn’t be crossed, and it’s about time he learns not to allow his past to dictate how he treats other. With you, I think he may have finally met his match.”
“I’d hardly call myself a match for Seven,” I snort.
