But it can’t crush what it doesn’t know exists.
And I refuse to let it crushus.
So I lie, even though my heart is screaming the truth loud enough for him to hear.
“No.” The word puffs past trembling lips.
“Good,” he murmurs, his lips barely moving but still drawing my eyes. “That would have made things…complicated.”
As if this isn’t already the most complicated shit I’ve ever walked into.
There’s alcohol on his breath, and my eyes dart to the bottle of bourbon beside his bed.
Coke. Booze.
I should push him away and get the fuck out of this head trip of a house before shit goes down…because it’sgoing down.
Pent up frustration, violence, sex—it prickles in the air like static.
I can see it in his eyes, how hooded they are. He wants something from me. Something I’ve never given to anyone.
Something I’m not sure I even know how to give.
I’m locked in place by my own treacherous muscles. My sadistic mind begging me to quench its curiosity because it wants to see what’s gonna happen.
It’s why I approached Haven that first day I saw her in the woods. She’d been alone, dancing and skipping through a small patch of wildflowers beneath a maple tree, in what soon became our favorite clearing.
I’d never seen someone so happy.
So carefree.
It made me angry, how easy it was for her. Just like it makes me angry how easy this is for him. How effortlessly he’s taking control of me.
But then I came to know Haven better. I found out her life was a miserable suck-fest, and the version of herself that arrivedat the woods each day was the one she climbed into to escape reality.
Bastian slides a hand onto my shoulder and pushes me down on the edge of the bed.
Again, I don’t resist.
Again, curiosity wraps around me, binding me in place.
Tohim.
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
I just hope I survive long enough to find out what that satisfaction feels like.
“Stay here. I’ll fetch Haven.”
My heart gives one hard thump in my chest, my only warning before I snatch hold of his wrist, halting him mid-step.
“Don’t hurt her.” I push through clenching teeth. Fuck, will I start rolling again from that tiny hit of coke he rubbed on my gums? Or does it just feel that way?
Rooke studies my face, spending so much time on my mouth that my lips tingle.
“I won’t, boy,” he drawls.
I flinch when he drags a knuckle over my jawline, again as creases appear at the corner of his dark eyes.
