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“What do you mean?”
“I’m not ready!” Carter half-cries, half-shouts. He turns to face Nathan, so upset that the pain from the movement barely even registers. “I’m not - how am I going to - the world out there - what if - I can’t-”
Nathan’s frown deepens. “Carter, I don’t understand…”
“I don’t know who I am outside of here!” he sobs. “What if I never get better? What if - what if - I mean - those people - the guests - they fucking - the things theysaid. The - the stuff about Maison not loving me anymore. And being a slut and a whore and - and liking being hurt and-”
“Hey, breathe. Just breathe.” Nathan reaches for him, arms dropping when Carter jerks away. This time, the pain definitely registers. He has to bury his face in his hands and dig his teeth into the meat of his palms to keep from screaming. “Carter, you can’t believe what those people say. They’re fucking monsters. And they don’t know you. They don’t know us.”
“I’m disgusting!”
“Carter-”
“I came tonight!” He drops his hands and lifts his chin, looking at the man who made him come. “I came in front of all of them. And they were right - that’s fucked up. I mean, fucking - look at my body, Nate! Look at what you and all of them did to me! And Icame!”
Nathan cups the back of his head, trying to pull him close again. Carter shakes his head and moves away. A metallic taste coats his tongue. “Stop touching me. Just –stop it.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.” Nathan backs away, hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. But you have to fucking listen to me, Carter. Fuckinglisten, okay? The first time I raped you, on that stage at the auction, you didn’t come. You didn’t even get hard. When I made you ride me in front of all of them, I couldn’t get you hard then either. When Todd Henley tortured you, you didn’t-”
“Idid,” Carter whispers. “I got hard. He kept forcing me to get hard, just so he could hurt me and make it go down again.”
“Did it feel good? Or was it a fucking biological reaction?”
Carter sniffles, his chest aching with the force of his labored breaths. “Just a – a reaction.”
“Carter, you don’t get off on being tortured or raped. You get off on being dominated in certain situations. You get off on being good for someone youwantto be good for. And yes, I think you might get off on a little pain - nothing extreme, just a little bit. But none of that is wrong. None of it. Do you understand?”
“Maison-”
“-will always love you. Always.” Nathan sighs. “You should really call him. Talk to him. He would love to tell you all of this himself.”
“I can’t. I’m not ready…”
“I know.” Nathan sighs. “But you’ll have to be soon enough. When this is over, you’ll go to the safehouse with him. At least until the dust settles and he can make sure that you’re safe from any lingering threats.”
Carter wipes the tears from his cheeks, sniffling again. “Will Casey be there? At the safehouse?”
Nathan laughs humorlessly. “Always worried about Casey, hmm?”
“It’s a hell of a lot easier to worry about him than myself,” Carter admits.
Nathan nods like he can relate. Maybe he can. Maybe that’s how he feels about Carter. “Casey will be at the safehouse too, yes. No one will separate the two of you ever again.”
“And you’ll be there?”
Something dark passes across Nathan’s expression. Not the kind of darkness that indicates his monster is lurking, or that he’s about to put up walls, but something else. Something Carter can’t quite place.Sadness? Frustration?“I’ll be around.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I’ll be around.” He flips his phone over, looking at the screen.
In case he’s about to end the conversation and say they should go to bed, Carter jumps on the only other topic from tonight he’s been wanting to discuss. “Who was that man tonight? The one with the accent.”
Nathan hesitates long enough for Carter to know he's fully aware of who Carter is referring to, even though he says, "You'll have to be more specific."
"You were surprised that he still has a slave even though it's been more than 30 days. He made a comment about doing your jobs or something?”
"Ah. Right. That would be Ronan.”
