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“Of course.”

I lick my lip. “And the deep throat?”

“Yeah. I figured I’d leave the double penetration until you have a bit of anal training though.”

Holy fucking shit.

“It shocked the hell out of me when you told me you were a virgin,” Callum announced. “I mean, the PI file did kind of confirm that: I couldn’t see proof of any dating, or any private shows at the club…but that’s a hell of kinky list of interests for someone who hadn’t even had sex.”

He’s not really asking me, but I find that I want to share.

“When I was little my mother would receive…clients in her flat.” I wince. “She’d tell me to go in the closet, but sometimes I’d watch under the door. I used tohearthem. I guess that stayed with me.”

After a long moment, Callum reaches for my hand, squeezing it. “I’m sorry you lived through that.”

“You are?” I don’t know why that surprises me.

He nods deeply. “Children are meant to keep their innocence. You should have turned into a pervert at a pool party orgy at sixteen like the rest of us.”

“Sixteen?”

“Oh, yeah. Estelle had this tiny string bikini on and damn Caden pulled the little bow.” He chuckles. “Next thing I know, my cousin’s lifting her pussy up to his face and half the other girls want to know what makes her scream so hard so they’re sitting on our mouths.”

“Seriously?” The sheer decadence of the scene he describes is baffling.

“I don’t even know who jumped my cock—I was asphyxiating under a fat pair of buttocks. Good times. I’d had sex before, but that party determined how I fuck. How most of us fuck really.”

My introduction to that sort of thing wasnasty, but his somehow feels worse; not the kind of things sixteen-year-olds should naturally lean towards.

Again, it shows a stark difference between my world and his. I never went to a pool party, but if I had, it would have ended with swimming.

“We’re a mess,” I conclude.

“Yep. Would you pass the bread?”

He doesn’t fucking care one tiny bit.

And when I search my feelings, I find that I don’t either.

We are seriously fucked up, but we wouldn’t work if we weren’t.

Shit. I think his kidnapping idea is working. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, because I think I finally get it.

“Okay,” I say, not actually reaching for the bread. “You like me. And I think, in your weird, seriously need a shrink kind of way, you’re serious about it.”

He smirks. “That was faster than I thought. Now tell me howyoufeel about that.”

I flush. “I like it.”

I’m fairly certain any other answer would result in another day or two in his golden prison, but that’s not why I admit it.

“I likeyou.”

“Wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” Callum’s smile broadens, showing me all his teeth. “But I really would like the breadbasket, please.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

LIV