I fucking hated it when I felt my fingers fist into the front of his shirt so I could drag myself closer—because he was right. Panic was pouring through me and making my body go numb, making my scalp prickle and my lungs feel like they were filling with lead that refused to let me take a breath. He turned his head, pressing his lips to my ear.
“Breathe with me.” And I felt him inhale slowly. I wanted to tell him he was a patronizing bastard, wanted to tell him to let me go because he was a monster… but his arm around my waist pulled me closer, and the other snuck between us so he could lift my hand and press it to the center of his chest.
To his heart that was beating in a soft, steady rhythm, like what he’d done hadn’t even warranted a jump in his pulse. I tried to turn away, but the movement somehow pressed my face into the curve of his neck.
His pulse did jump when my lips found it, his arm squeezing around me tight enough that it forced me to inhale a gulp of air.
“London… He tortured me worse than that for months. Every week. He smiled while he did it. And he told me every time that you were the reason he was there.” My jaw clenched, the same denial I had every time burning up my chest and making it hard for me to breathe again. Before I could work myself up, he kept speaking. “That Nikki was the reason.”
Nikki.
Not me.
“Not me…” I finally squeezed words out around the sensation of my ribs trying to collapse my lungs.
“No, you were never like this.” He slid back on the bed and pulled me closer, his hand trailing up my back so he could run his fingers through my hair.
Some part of me was aware that I was doing it again—I was letting a psychopath comfort me—but for some reason, when my eyes were closed and I could smell his scent, warm and earthy beneath the sharp sting of blood in my nose, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I didn’t know him, but fuck…
It felt like I knewthis.And I knew it wasn’t just my brain being totally fucked, because Hudson holding me after he showed me what a monster he was had never felt like this.
It had never felt like a place I wanted to be…
But I didn’t want to be in Otto’s arms. I wanted…
Fuck…
I tried to push against him, but the attempt was so weak that as soon as his fingers gently tugged at my hair, at the soft prickle of pain dancing down my spine, I gave up.
“Don’t…” It came out weak, and I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say.
Don’t do this.
Don’t hurt me.
I don’t want this…
Don’t stop?
Fuck.
I started crying as I lifted my free arm and grabbed his shirt, dragging myself closer to the only comfort I had, even if that comfort was the entire reason I was in pain to begin with. How had we ended up like this again?
It was fucked up—this whole situation was fucked up—but pressing my mouth to his pulse and counting the steady beat of his heart finally managed to calm me down enough that I heard it when he murmured. Softly. Nearly an accusation.
“You feel… different…”
Different.Everythingwas different, and I was pretty sure it would never be the same again.
Chapter 6
Otto
Thiswasn’tgoingtheway I thought it would. I’d been so sure that as soon as I got Nikki, it would feelgoodto watch him writhe in pain, good to watch him slowly break apart while he had to see our brother being tortured to death.
It felt… unsatisfying… because when I went to Marco, I did it because he’d insultedLondon. When I started torturing him, I wasn’t even thinking about Nikki.
It was that soft face, those sweet blue eyes. A boy I didn’t know.
