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From the moment I’d touched Christopher, I’d felt the weight of possessiveness fall over me like a shroud. It wasn’t something I’d ever felt with any of the men or women I’d dated over the years. Even the few long-term relationships I’d had hadn’t merited that kind of reaction.
Thankfully, time and distance had forced me to get past the strange emotions. Christopher had returned home, and I’d gone back to work, and we hadn’t crossed paths again.
Until now.
And just like that, that mantel was back. I wanted answers. I wanted to fix whatever had broken inside of the young man in the time since I’d last seen him. But it wasn’t just the need to protect… there was something else there too.
Something I’d been ashamed to mentally admit to four years ago.
I’d been painfully attracted to Christopher. It hadn’t mattered that he was trying to deal with nearly being sexually assaulted. It hadn’t mattered that he was young and clearly innocent. It hadn’t even mattered that he was technically my boss’s nephew.
I’d wanted him… badly.
And with the way my heart began racing and my dick began filling, it appeared I still did.
“I can go wait in the car,” I offered when Christopher’s eyes met mine and he didn’t say anything.
The young man didn’t instantly respond. His eyes scanned me from head to toe, but there was nothing intimate in the move. It seemed more like he was looking for danger. He finally shook his head and said, “No, I’m sorry. Please, come in, Rush.”
I gave him a second to change his mind before straightening and grabbing the boxes. As soon as I walked past him, Christopher shut the door and began engaging one lock after another. I followed King, who’d picked up his own box to the kitchen. By the time Christopher joined us, all three boxes were sitting on the table.
“Figured now that you’ve got your own place, you’d want these back,” King said as he patted one of the boxes. Christopher finally seemed to notice the writing on the outside of the boxes and instantly paled.
Instead of just leaving things as they were, King opened one of the boxes. With the movement of every flap of the cardboard, Christopher grew more and more tense.
I knew King could tell what he was doing was bothering Christopher, but it didn’t stop him.
Tough love.
That’s what King had called it.
King opened the box to reveal dozens upon dozens of paperback books. I recognized them instantly because I’d had more than one girlfriend who’d read the very same kind of books. They were romance novels. I couldn’t be sure that all of the books in the box were the same or if the other two boxes also had romances in them, but one thing was clear when I glanced at Christopher.
He loved them.
Stop. Period. End of sentence.
He absolutely loved them.
But instead of reaching for one or expressing his thanks, Christopher wrapped his skinny arms around his body and took several steps back. His eyes grew haunted as he looked at the books, and then, just like that, the love was gone, replaced by sheer contempt.
What the fuck?
“This one’s your favorite, right?” King said as he grabbed one of the books and began flipping through it. “Gio got it on his Kindle, and now he’s hooked on the whole series,” King continued. “He’s not the only one,” he added with a small smile.
It was painful to watch my friend try and draw his nephew out. King had told me about the events of Christopher’s childhood and how their own bond had been established. Christopher’s real uncle, Micah, had raised his nephew pretty much single-handedly in an abusive household. Thankfully, Christopher had escaped the worst of the violence, but only because his uncle had taken it all upon himself. Christopher hadn’t been left unscathed though. A violent encounter in the house had led to Christopher and his younger sister fleeing as Micah had fended off the attacker. Fortunately, King’s brother, Con, had had a history with Micah and had been outside the house, along with King, in his car. As Con had gone to help Micah, King had followed the children.
I knew the version of events I’d been told nowhere near covered the horror of it, but one thing was clear. Whatever had happened between Christopher and King that night had bonded them as uncle and nephew, not by blood but of the heart. If King was playing hardball with Christopher, things had to be pretty bad.
“I’m sorry you brought them all the way over here, but I told Gio to just throw them away if he didn’t want them,” Christopher murmured. If I hadn’t been looking at him, I might have believed in his dispassionate statement, but the way the young man looked at the books when he mentioned throwing them away was actually painful.
King sighed, seemingly unsurprised by the response. “Talk to me, Christopher…” my boss said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. King was the hardest man I knew, so for him to ask the young man like that… well, it just fucking sucked.
As much as I wanted to hear what Christopher’s response was, I’d already been privy to far too much, so I eased out of the kitchen in the hopes of not drawing attention to myself.
Missionnotaccomplished.
One second, I was turning around and heading for the door; the next, I was doing some not-so-fancy footwork to avoid a kitten that had appeared out of nowhere. Unfortunately, my forward momentum made it impossible to maintain my balance, and I pitched forward. I somehow managed to stay on my feet, but it wasn’t pretty as I stepped forward in an almost slow-motion running fashion while trying to regain my equilibrium. Inopportunely, the tiny orange ball of fur decided to escape in the same direction and once again ran straight in front of me. Knowing that even just the weight of my foot could crush a part of the kitten’s body, I instinctively reached down even as I began falling. I managed to scoop up the freaked feline and cuddled him to my chest as best as I could as I twisted my body so my back would take the brunt of the fall.
