Fuck. This was so stupid.
Holden wasn’t related to Dad or Smith or Uncle Ed. Pure chance threw Kit across Holden’s path and dragged them to this moment. Kit was going to die in this basement, beneath the same house he spent so many months in, lost in his haze of drugs and depression.
Like he never escaped his past after all.
A sick, vicious part of Kit hoped Dad would learn what happened tonight. Hoped it drove him mad.
Holden knelt on the bed, but once again stopped before touching Kit. The air heated between them, and Kit’s laughter turned to gasps. Kit screwed his eyes shut before he started crying. It was awful, how part of Kit yearned for Holden to close the distance.
How Kit needed Holden’s arms around him.
“I broke up with you because you were normal.” Kit couldn’t wipe his eyes with his hands bound behind his back. He looked up, trying to read Holden’s face. “Just a normal college student. I didn’t want you to get involved with me. Who are you, really?”
Holden reached out. Paused. When Kit didn’t flinch, he rubbed his thumb beneath Kit’s left eye. Then Kit’s right eye. His touch blazed hot through the dampness.
“I’m a normal college student.” Holden licked Kit’s tears off his thumb, eyes shuttering in pleasure. “I’ve just wanted to kill people since I was five years old.”
“You’re going to kill me,” Kit said, because he liked to be clear.
“Yes,” Holden said. “I have to.”
Kit almost laughed again. How absurd to discuss his own death with his murderer-to-be.
They sat together on the bare mattress like they were trading secrets at a slumber party. The sort of slumber party where the guest was bound hand and foot, and the host kept a gun across the room.
But there was nothing absurd about the intensity in Holden’s eyes.
Memory burned in Kit’s throat. He never had this conversation with the first man who wanted to kill him.
No. Kit’s stomach twisted, something inside him rebelling at the comparison. Holden was different. Holden had to be different. Right?
Did the differences matter, when Holden was still going to kill him?
Holden touched Kit’s shoulder. The heat of his hand spilled down Kit’s bare skin. “What are you thinking, darling?”
Kit shivered. “Do you really want to know?”
Holden’s smile was as bright as ever. “I want to know everything about you.”
Such a gorgeous smile. Such magnetic brown eyes. Holden was different now—not pretending to be normal. But there were still clear traces of the man Kit thought he knew.
“What happened to you?” Kit asked. “What made you like this?”
Holden sat back on the bed. The extra two feet of space felt like nothing when his gaze burned along every inch of Kit. “Are you stalling for time, my adorable angel?”
“That would be smart, wouldn’t it,” Kit muttered, and Holden had the gall to laugh. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know,” Holden said. “Depends how smart your detective is, and how well I avoided James’s cameras.”
Fuck. Kit’s heart sank. Holden had done his research. “I don’t want to talk about them.”
It was the right thing to say. A feral grin spread across Holden’s face. “Nothing happened to make me like this. My family is so nice and normal, it’s excruciating.”
Kit wasn’t stalling for time. He wanted to know how he’d gotten Holden so fucking wrong. And somehow, the sound of Holden’s voice was comforting. Soothing away the terrifying sting of being back in this house.
Yes, Holden brought him here. But Holden hadn’t known.
Kit believed Holden hadn’t known.
