“Tell me what?” he asked slowly.
I blinked, turning back to the stove to put the bird in the oven.
“I was in a relationship before I moved to Anchorage.”
I straightened and turned back to face Jae who had crossed his arms over his chest. “Was he a Ghost?”
My lips quirked at his use of the slang term, and I shook my head. For a moment, I had forgotten just how much he knew.
“Oh,” he said with surprise. “So, he was just someone you met wherever you were living?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“And I take it he was an asshole?”
Was he? Obsessive, a little controlling…but an asshole? No.
I blew out a breath and shrugged. “Just, um, a little unstable.”
Jae frowned, staring at me. “Unstable?”
I cleared my throat and grabbed a baking tray, lining it with foil.
“Shiloh?”
I clenched my jaw, letting out a silent growl. “What?”
“What do you mean, unstable?”
“He wastooin love with me.”
I could feel Jae’s stare on my back, and I dumped the potatoes onto the tray.
“What did he do?” Jae asked after a moment of silence.
I pulled the sleeve to my shirt over my shoulder and Jae stepped closer. He leaned over, eyes scanning my tattoos, lingering for a moment on the healing red marks, before looking up to my face.
“He made you get tattoos?” he asked with confusion.
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “No, dipshit.”
I grabbed his hand, and he looked at me a little panicked like I was about to make him touch my boobs or something. I placed his fingers over the scar that ran diagonally from my shoulder to my bicep.
Jae sucked in a breath, running his finger over the mark a few times before dropping his hand.
“That’s not love, Shiloh,” he said, chinned dipped as he looked up at me with intensity.
I pursed my lips and turned back to finish the potatoes with fresh herbs and oil.
“Not the way that Enoch loves me, but…I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I sighed with an internal groan.
Theo did love me. He showed it in the ways that he cared for me, in the ways that he wanted me to be blessed, wanted me to be his partner and not just his submissive wife. He would help me in the kitchen without my asking. He would ask me my opinion on things. He would offer soft touches and gentle kisses, make sure that I was comfortable after a lashing, or healing after a miscarriage.
And maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome, but after eighteen months together I started to believe that I loved him too.
