“How are you doing?” Theo asked, his arm coming round my shoulders. I nuzzled in on instinct.
“Like I want to go home, but I’m not sure where that is,” I replied right away. The urge had been growing. I didn’t want to keep running and chasing. I wanted to find a base, settle into it and never leave. All with him. Screw anyone else. Spending five minutes with anyone else turned me into a lunatic. I’d either killed or yelled at anyone who wasn’t Theo since I escaped Rafe.
I wasn’t healthy. But at least with him, that was okay.
“I can give you a home,” Theo whispered. “I’ll be your home. As long as we’re together, we’re home.”
I smiled up at him, my heart squeezing at his words. “Of course.” He was so warm, our skin pressed together no longer too sticky, just comforting, snuggly, safe. No single shower would remove all we’d done to each other, but I didn’t care. “I don’t think I can actually put it into words, Theo, how much you mean to me.”
“You don’t need to; I know. I know it. That’s one thing you can be sure of, baby. I know how much you love me, because I feel it, too.”
He kissed my head, then turned and took a sip of his tea, sighing. It was still the perfect amount of hot, and for a while, we just sat together in comfortable silence. It was easy with him, our bodies aching and satisfied, no one else to bother us. Once again in our bubble where nothing bad existed, only security and comfort.
“One day I want you to tell me everything that happened in that house, Violet,” Theo said, breaking the peaceful quiet with evil reality. He sounded hesitant, like he didn’t want to say it but needed to. “One day, when you’re ready. It doesn’t have to be now; it doesn’t even have to be soon, but I need you to tell me. I need to know so I can bear the brunt of all of it with you.” He paused and looked at my face, studying my expression. I was okay, though, so I gave him a small smile. He nodded, satisfied, and carried on.
“We’ve been doing it already, sharing whatever weight we can, but I know it wasn’t all sexual; it wasn’t all brutal, loud torture; there was more to it. More I need you to share with me, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied right away, no hesitation. It was never difficult with him. I wanted him to know it all, even if it hurt. My sisters knew, I’d held nothing back from them, mostly to scare them, so it was only fair. With Theo, it would be harder, more confronting. When I was ready.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, Theo, you can have all of me. All the ugly, the bad and terrible.”
He smiled and kissed me, cupping my cheek. His lips were warm from the tea, making me hum in joy.
“I also want to discover your favorite movie,” he said against my mouth. “Book, food, music. Everything our dickhead parents wouldn’t let you use. There’s a whole world of stupid shit for you to figure out.”
“Well, I had books.”
“Mm, Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters — let’s try your dark and twisty mind with something else.”
I laughed. “Let me at them, then.”
Theo continued to chatter about all manner of media, movies I hadn’t seen, TV shows I’d never heard of, all the things he wanted to show me, make me listen to, feed me. Everything I’d missed.
And it was perfect. We sipped our tea and yapped about the future. Not what it would mean for us, but the superficial of it. The mundane things I’d missed out on locked in that mansion. Both of them, in fact, the childhood home I was never allowed to leave, then Rafael’s compound, a place of only horror.
We needed to discover who I was when I had nothing holding me back, when there wasn’t a chef under my mother’s thumb feeding me only lettuce leaves and melon cubes. And with Theo, I was excited. There was, for once, joy in looking ahead.
After all, there were restaurants I ought to visit.
Twenty-Five
Theo
Iwasasleep.Iknewthat. Was consciously aware of the fact that I was unconscious, halfway between a dream and rousing, my mind stuck flitting between the fantasy land of giant tits and melting chocolate and Violet’s moans, and reality.
Because of that, the first bang didn’t register, not really. I was too warm, too cozy and comfortable with my arms wrapped around Violet and my face buried in her messy hair while she too, slept.
We’d talked for hours, drifting off at last when the insanity of our long day snatched us up and she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. That couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago, because my body had a hard fucking time pulling itself out of unconsciousness.
But then my brain caught up when Amy’s frantic shout, just down the hall, yanked me from sleep like a sledgehammer to the face. Violet stirred as I did, gasping and looking around in a panic before we both scrambled out of the bed. Connor’s angry voice joined Amy’s, an argument, loud and angry.
“What the hell is happening?” Violet asked, pulling one of my shirts over her head, sticking her legs into her underwear and standing, swaying a bit. She was still drowsy, confused as she blinked herself awake.
I shook my head, baffled. After the house had been so quiet for hours, now it was all kicking off. Everything had been so dead when I wondered through the halls last night, but now, it was like a fucking party.
Once we were dressed, we raced for the door together. At the last moment, I encircled Violet’s wrist with my grasp and tugged her back, twirling her around to face me even as the yells continued. I just needed to look at her face, categorize it while we were still in our bubble. Just a few more seconds.
