I had to hope so.
21
TOBY
Even as I returned to captivity, I felt freer than I had since I’d left.
He held me so tight, as though he was afraid he’d wake from a dream to find me gone — and honestly, I wasn’t so sure this wasn’t a dream myself. Why else would I leave everything behind to come back to the man who had so badly abused me?
The man I had missed every waking moment since I’d left him.
I didn’t know if I’d been broken beyond repair or if he’d succeeded in making me want him, but it didn’t matter nearly as much as I’d thought it might. I didn’t regret leaving my family behind this time, even though I knew it had the potential to destroy those who had the misfortune of loving me.
But they’d never understand.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, pulling me closer to his front.
I gazed at him, tracing my finger along the scars on his face.
He flinched, looking away from me. “Oh,” he said dully, trying to pull away from me.
I wrapped my arms around him and refused to let him draw back. “Just thinking about you.”
“What?” he asked bitterly. “How hideous I am?”
I shook my head. Once upon a time, I had thought him hideous — inside and out, a veritable beast for doing what he’d done. The more time that had passed, though, the more I’d realized there was more beneath the surface. “You aren’t,” I said softly.
“Why did you really come back?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine.
“Because I wanted to.”
He snorted. “That’s not it, and we both know it.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just felt right.”
He fell silent. I could make a guess at what he was thinking — that he’d just done such a good job twisting me that I couldn’t live without him. Maybe that was even the case. I didn’t know. All I knew was that my home was no longer with my family.
My home was here.
“I did this to you,” he said, his voice soft. He touched my cheek.
There was nothing I could say to change his mind, especially since even I didn’t know why this had happened. It was ironic, considering how badly he’d wanted it, only to reject it now that he had it. But here we were, and I did the only thing I could think of.
I leaned in and kissed him, soft and sweet.
He stiffened, and it took him a moment to kiss me back. When he did, there was something desperate about it — about the way he clung to me, as though afraid I’d disappear if he let me go.
One of his hands slid down my back, and he hesitated before sliding it over my ass.
I started, making him pull away just that quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I shouldn’t have?—”
“I can say no now, can’t I?” I asked him, still clinging to him and keeping him from moving too far away from me.
“Of course,” he said, sounding utterly miserable.
“I didn’t say no.”
