AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You heard me.” He grabs my wrist and hauls me out of the kitchen. “I want to make a few things very clear. First, it isn’t your fault I zeroed in on you. It’s not your fault guys like Dylan or your professor did, either. Belief in a just world is a fairy tale that people tell themselves so they can feel safer. ‘That could never happen to me because I wouldn’t do the things she did.’ It’s self-soothing bullshit for people who can’t cope with reality. The world isn’t just. Bad things can happen to anyone, and you can’t always protect yourself. There are much worse fates than being vulnerable to hurt, Sophie. Being hurtable does not mean something is wrong with you, and having something bad happen to you is not an indictment of your inability to protect yourself.” He stops in the hall to look back at me. “There is nothing you could have done to protect yourself from me. You didn’t do anything wrong to catch my attention. If you had dropped out of school Monday morning and moved away, I would have hired an entire team to find you. If you had gone underground, I would have razed the city and searched the rubble until I located you. I’m glad you’ve bent as much as you have because I prefer your happiness, but not having you was not an option. If you had fought me tooth and nail at every turn, I wouldn’t have given up and released you. I would just put you in smaller and smaller cages until you eventually gave up. These aren’t healthy impulses. I know that. But I don’t care. I feel a certainty when it comes to you that I wish I could share with you because if you could step inside my mind for a single minute, you would never again doubt my devotion to you. I’m not going anywhere, Sophie. Whether you believe it or not, that’s the truth. It’s okay if you don’t trust it yet. It annoys me because I don’t understand why you think you’re so easy to leave, but time will show you I mean what I say. I adore you. I worship every cell of your being. Iwill never let you go. This feels like too ordinary a phrase to even bother saying, but I love you, Sophie, and I always will. I can’t show you any roadmaps to ease your mind because I’ve never traveled this road before, and I never will again. You’re it for me. You’re my path. There is no alternate route.”
He grabs my waist and pulls me close. His eyes are green flames as he speaks to fears, desires, and needs I don’t even fully understand.
“You can rely on me, Sophie. I promise. I’ll be here for you, loving you, until I draw my last breath.” He slides his hand into my hair and pulls me closer.
I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my body fully against his.
“I know you don’t always ask for what you want, but I wish you would. You can ask me foranything, and it’s yours. But since I know you won’t, and I want to take good care of you, I have to pay close attention. Every time I figure out what it is that you want, I’m going to give it to you.” He tugs my hair to pull me back and looks down at me. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘closed mouths don’t get fed’?”
I shake my head.
“No? Well, it reminds me of you.” He presses down on my bottom lip, then leans in and kisses me. “Fortunately for you,” he murmurs with our faces still close together, “I’ve found pretty effective ways of opening this pretty little mouth. Going forward, I’ll make sure to find a few more.”
My cheeks heat, but it’s the pleasure his words stoke more than the mild embarrassment I’m most full of.
Not just pleasure because now he’s hauling me into the bedroom and I know orgasms are forthcoming, but because he gets me in a way no one ever has.
Maybe Iamlooking for trouble where there isn’t any.
Our relationship may have its dysfunctional qualities, but regardless of how it started, I can’t deny that I feel truly loved by him.
Maybe I’m crazy to have butterflies in my tummy as my one-time stalkerish kidnapper hauls me to our shared bedroom for pre-dinner sex, and maybe he’s crazy for being willing to chase and stalk me when by all rights, he should already have me locked down.
But maybe we’re the right kinds of crazy for each other and that’s okay.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Sophie
Moonlight fills the room when my eyes open.
I’m lying on the floor with Silvan sprawled beside me. We watched a movie last night and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up to him nibbling on my breasts, and only moments later, his cock was inside me.
We ended up on the floor—thank god this rug is so soft—and I guess we fell asleep here.
I try to muster the gumption to wake up Silvan so we can go to our room, but his body is so warm and comfy, I just lie here sprawled naked on the floor with my body pressed against his.
A notification causes his phone to light up.
It’s late and I’m curious, so I check that he’s still asleep, then I peer over at the screen to see what it says.
It’s just a notification about some new follower on Instagram, but my eyes widen and my stomach drops when I read the one below it, a text from someone named Leslie.
“Maybe you need a new girl then.”
What the fuck.
I grab the phone without thinking and try to swipe the screen, but of course, he has a pass code.
What am I even doing?
I put the phone down and try to stop thinking about it, but I can’t.
A moment later, I grab the phone again and try to think what Silvan’s pass code would be.
I nearly jump out of my skin when his sleepy voice rumbles, “It’s 1031.”
My guilty gaze jumps to his. At first, I think he means the time, but it’s much later than that.
