Page 83 of Torment Me Knot
Then my phone buzzes where its discarded on the kitchen bench. And I remember.
This isn't real. Not for me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aubrey
Heat pressed into my bones from every direction. Weight against my chest. Breath at my throat. Fingers curled into my shirt like they're afraid I'll disappear.
For one disoriented second, my body goes rigid waiting for pain.
None comes.
The floor is hard beneath my hip, but the duvet cocoons us, and Sera's blanket layers on top, her scent threaded through the fabric. Espie's breath is damp against my collarbone, her bare leg pressed to mine, skin on skin. The bond hums low in my chest when I breathe her in, more vibration than sound.
Sunlight creeps across the carpet. The bedroom is quiet. We're on the floor, in our makeshift nest that isn’t really a nest. It’s just a place on the floor we could stand to be in when we first came here.
When's the last time I woke up and nothing hurt?
I can't remember. Years, maybe. Years of waking to Axel's scent, to the clink of the collar, to the knowledge that the day would bring pain in some form or another. Years of bracing before my eyes even opened. Nothing hurts now. My body is heavy in a good way, loose and used and settled.
Now that I'm awake, I remember the heat of Sera’s mouth and the wet slide of her tongue on my cock. My spine arching off the chair when she sucked. The sounds I made, sounds I didn't know I could still make.
My stomach flips. Then lower. A flutter in my belly that has nothing to do with memory. A clench. My body responding now, in the present, to the ghost of what she did.
It felt good. That's the part I keep circling back to. I wanted her yesterday. I wanted Sera's mouth on me, and she gave it to me. She asked first. She gave and I was not afraid.
Slick gathers, pooling where my thighs press together. My body wanting an alpha. My alpha. Espie's scent shifts, gardenia deepening. We're so attuned to each other. Even asleep, her body knows what mine is doing.
She’s the reason I’m aware and functioning and not in a catatonic state in some gray room. Espie and Sera woke me. Kev, Lex and Ezra sustain me.
Espie watched everything with Sera and then she kissed Sera. If that hadn't felt right to her, I would have felt it. Nothing changed. Or everything changed, because Espie hadn’t wanted to stop at one kiss. My cock swells, remembering them together. And now I have a plan for the morning:get my omega and my alpha together.
Espie twitches in her sleep. A small whine catches in her throat and I tighten my arm around her, drawing her in closer. Her whole body goes rigid against mine a half-second before her eyes snap open, and when they open they see nothing in this room. They see cinderblock. They see whatever room she was locked in for years.
A bloom of helpless rage streaks through me at Ethan Wallace. That he'd taken a gentle girl and subjected her to hell. It’s a wonder she’s still functioning. I stifle my rage. She doesn’t need that from me.
“Hey, hey. It's okay, sweetheart. You're not there. You're here with me.” I keep my voice low, even, the same voice I use every morning when she wakes the same way.
Her eyes dart to places I can’t see, then she blinks. Awareness filters through. The cinderblock falls away, and the room comes back. Her breath shudders out of her in one long exhale.
She offers me a shy, self-conscious smile. The kind she always gives me. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.”
She ducks her head. “I’m so…”
I place a knuckle under her chin and hold her steady. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You hear me? Never apologize for that.”
Her cheeks flush. She drops her gaze and nods as a wave of embarrassment flows from her to me. “You okay? And I mean actually okay, not the version where you say you're fine and then I find out later you were drowning the whole time.”
Her gaze finds mine. She strokes my cheekbone with her thumb while she considers. “I am because I’m here with you.” A slight line forms between her brows. “Is it wrong that I rely on you so much?”
I shake my head. “I rely on you just as much, you know.”
She searches my face, feeling the truth of my words. “Last night. With Sera. Was it... I need to know if you're okay. I asked her into our nest and...”
I cut her off because I don’t want her guilt over something that’s not her fault. “It was good. Sera helped me. She… really helped me.”
