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Zade’s hold tightens painfully, trembles racking his body as he clings to me. He stuffs his face in my neck and he just… listens.

Listens to his heart breaking inside my chest.

The voices in my head amplify, and I’m clawing at my skull, desperate to get them out. But his hands stop me, grabbing onto them and trapping them between our chests.

“They are not here anymore,” he whispers unevenly. “Listen to my voice instead, baby.”

I shake my head, but he keeps talking anyway. He tells me about the first time he saw me and how unsure of myself I seemed in a room full of people. He says I looked like I was trapped in a glass box, and everyone else on the outside was observing me like a zoo animal. Then, he talks about the first time I confronted him. How I ran out of my door screaming like a banshee, fire in my eyes and spewing venom from my tongue. He recalls how utterly stunned he was by my courage, and how deeply he fell in that single moment.

“I’ve seen the woman who could hardly stand to be in her own skin, and the woman comfortable in a gothic mansion, at home with herself and the ghosts that haunt her. I loved both versions of you, and I love who you are now—someone full of both strength and vulnerability. Yet still, you carry fire in your heart, and that will never fucking change. They will never take that from you, Adeline.”

His words only make me cry harder, but just as he promised, it slowly chases away the voices.

An indescribable amount of time passes before I finally calm down enough to string together a sentence.

“Sometimes, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully tolerate your touch,” I confess in a broken whisper.

“Are you okay with that?” he counters. “Is that how you want to live your life? Fearing the touch of a man—of me.”

Do I? Part of me wants to retreat in on myself and not let another man lay his hands on me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to see the images flash through my mind every time I feel skin slide against mine.

But then there’s another part of me that rages and lashes against that notion. The same part that allowed me to use his hand and that knife handle as a release. I don’t want those men to take more from me than they already have.

Because if I do, they’ll never stop. I’ll continue to hand over every piece of myself until there’s nothing left but a chalk outline.

“I don’t know how to… be okay with it.”

“Not even with your own hand?” he rasps. He pulls away, gently setting me on the floor.

“You took back the power with that knife. Now you can take it back when it comes to physical touch. Let me show you.”

My brows furrow as I stare up at him through puffy eyes with confusion.

His glistening stare picks apart my face, and I don’t need a mirror to know that my skin is flushed red and dried tears mar my cheeks.

Reaching over me, he grabs a rose on the nightstand, twirling the stem in his fingers. The thorns slice through his skin and tiny pinpricks of blood sprout.

“You didn’t clip the thorns,” I whisper.

“I’ve been protecting you from getting hurt, but sometimes embracing the pain is the only way to overcome it. Take off your dress,” he orders quietly. I blink and open my mouth, but he cuts me off, “Just trust me, Adeline. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.”

I only stare at him, my heart picking up speed as his spoken expectations linger between us.

Swallowing thickly, I reach behind me and blindly unzip my dress, letting the top half drop down my arms. Quickly, I shuffle the material down my body before I can think about what I’m doing. What he’s making me do.

“Good girl,” he breathes. “Your bra, too, Addie. Take it all off.”

I shake my head, the remnants of their voices starting to rise again.

“Don’t think right now. Just do as I say.”

Biting my lip, I snap my strapless bra off and throw that to the side.

“Good girl,” he praises. His eyes stay firmly locked on mine. I wait for them to drop, but they resist.

Such a pretty diamond, look at—

“Don’t think, Adeline.”