Page 25 of All Ghosts Aren’t Dead (The Forgotten #1)

They were given to me by my dad when I was fifteen.

He didn’t say why, just handed them over one afternoon after I’d put my fist through a drywall panel and nearly shattered the bones in my hand.

He told me to wear them when the world got too sharp.

That it’d help with the noise in my head and give me something to grip when the ground shifted under me.

And it did.

For years, those gloves were the one thing between me and losing control. They soaked up blood, sweat, and fury. Not from the outside world, but from me .

I needed Blue to have something of mine. Not just a token. Not just proof that someone believed in him.

Something real.

Something that had held me together when I was unraveling.

I knew what it felt like to walk into a room full of monsters and not know who you were yet. I knew how fast the past could come screaming back, how easy it was to forget you had a choice.

So I gave him the gloves, and he’d held onto them like they were more than leather.

“I touched them before I started,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “And again when it was over. Just to make sure I still belonged to you.”

My throat closed around something raw.

“Blue baby.” I brushed a thumb across his cheek. “You always belong to me. With or without them.”

His eyes glistened. “I missed you.”

I pulled him into my chest, the gloves still cradled between us. “I missed you more.”

We stayed like that—quiet and folded into each other as the noise of the day dimmed around us—until the sharp sound of footsteps pounded down the hall.

Blue turned his head just as the chaos hit.

Bay skidded into the room at full speed, socks sliding on the floor. Rune and Miller were close behind, less theatrical but clearly just as eager.

“Bluebird!” Bay shouted. “You’re back! Was it awesome? Did you draw blood? Tell. Me. Everything.”

“It was fun!” Blue bounced in my hold. “I tortured a guy wearing Daddy’s gloves.”

He said it bright and innocent, voice light as breath, like he’d just returned from baking cookies, not burning flesh.

Bay froze.

Rune tilted his head.

Miller blinked once.

“I’m sorry,” Bay said, holding up both hands. “Can we rewind to the part where you said tortured a guy and daddy’s gloves in the same sentence with that cute little smile on your face?”

Blue grinned wider. “They smell like him.”

“Oh my god . You wore your daddy’s gloves to fuck someone up ?” Bay clutched his own chest. “Why is that so hot?”

Simon sighed. “Bay.”

“I’m just saying—” Bay waved his hands. “There’s something so feral about it. Like, emotional support gloves but make it arson-adjacent.”

“I didn’t set anything on fire,” Blue offered helpfully. “But they did let me use a blowtorch.”

“Jealous,” Rune muttered.

Miller’s brows lifted. “Like you didn’t set someone on fire for your first mission.”

Bay made a wounded noise. “My first mission, I had to sit in the car.”

“You were fourteen,” I reminded him. “And a fucking flight risk.”

“I still have trauma.”

“You are trauma,” Rune whispered.

Blue giggled.

He slid to the ground from my arms, but stayed close, one hand brushing the side of my ribs where sweat had dried across my bare skin.

Bay’s gaze caught on the movement. “Wait… are you shirtless ? Jesus, Sam, you’re kind of ripped.”

For fuck’s sake.

He stepped closer, and his eyes caught the mark on my back. “Oh my god ,” he whispered. “What the hell is that?”

Before I could turn, Bay reached out and tapped his fingers to the curve of my shoulder blade.

I flinched so hard my whole spine snapped rigid.

The touch hit like a live wire, the burn of it crawling across my skin like acid under the surface. The spot pulsed with nausea, like my body couldn’t decide if it needed to fight or vomit.

Heat flashed behind my eyes. My jaw clenched so tight my molars ached.

Bay looked ready to cry. “Shit—fuck—I didn’t mean to. Sam, I’m so sorry?—”

I couldn’t answer— not yet .

Every nerve in my body was on fire, braced to lash out at anything that moved too fast. The world narrowed to a pinpoint of sensation—the ghost of fingers on my skin. Every part of me wanted to rip free of my own skin just to escape that feeling.

Goddamn it.

“Daddy.”

Blue stepped behind me, pressing his palm flat over the spot Bay had touched.

I closed my eyes.

His fingers curled, digging into my skin like he knew I needed something solid to come back to. He didn’t pet me like I was fragile. Fuck no. He gripped me, claimed the spot that had gone wrong, and rewrote it with heat and pressure, and the slow drag of his thumb in small, grounding circles.

I clenched my teeth. My hands flexed at my sides.

The nausea didn’t vanish, but it shifted—sank down instead of climbing. I could feel his pulse through his fingertips, and it settled something wild under my ribs.

My body still wanted to react. It still itched to tear the whole goddamn room apart, but the thing keeping it tethered wasn’t willpower or control.

It was him .

The only fucking person I could stand to touch me when my skin didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

He stayed pressed to my back, hand still moving, until the white-hot coil in my chest loosened just enough to let air in.

I turned and looked down at him.

Blue tilted his face up, wide-eyed and steady. His hand slid from my back to my side, resting just above my waistband, grounding me in a different way now—one that reached somewhere deeper.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. “I hate this.”

Reaching upward, he pressed a palm to the center of my chest, right over the place my heart still hammered like it was trying to escape.

“I know,” he whispered.

I bent and hauled him into my arms.

A small, surprised noise passed his lips, but then he settled, arms looping around my neck and face pressed to the side of my throat like he’d been waiting for it all day.

I didn’t look back.

I carried him out of the hall, away from the noise, the questions, and the memory of touch that hadn’t belonged.

My office door was still ajar from earlier, lights low and the air cool. I stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind me.

The click of the latch was louder than it should’ve been.

I didn’t make it to the couch, didn’t even fucking try.

I dropped to my knees right there on the ugly rug, arms still locked around him, chest heaving like I’d been holding my breath for days.

Blue’s legs folded on either side of me, knees bracketing my hips, his weight pressing into me in that way only he could—like he wasn’t afraid of breaking me.

I buried my face in the side of his neck, breathing hard against his skin, the scent of him dragging me out of the red haze that was still clinging to my skull.

God, I fucking hated this.

The way it lingered. The way the wrong touch stayed burned into my body hours after it was gone. The way I wanted to hit something, even though I knew better.

I could’ve hurt Bay. Goddamnit, for a second, I wanted to—just to make it stop.

“Daddy.” Blue hummed, threading his fingers through my hair, scratching lightly at my scalp.

I held onto him a beat longer, breathing him in, letting the sound of his voice pull me back.

“Stand up for me, baby,” I murmured, loosening my grip.

He rose to his feet, boots brushing the ground as he looked down at me, chest rising and falling.

“Good boy.”

Wrapping my hands around his thighs, I soothed the muscles, letting the rough denim scrape the skin on my palms. A contented, happy sigh filled the air before morphing into a low whine. Thumbs hooked in his waistband, I lingered there for a moment, teasing his skin.

“Are—are we going to play, Daddy?”

“In just a minute, baby. Look at me, please.”

His chin dipped instantly, obedience sharp and instinctive, but his eyes— fuck.

His eyes found mine with a kind of hunger that stole the breath from my throat. Wide and dark, pupils blown, lashes damp at the corners.

That sweet, simmering ache that lived just behind his innocence—always there, always ready to burn for me if I asked.

It pinned me.

I swallowed hard, pulse dragging behind my ears. “Good boy.”

His throat bobbed.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Daddy, you don’t have to?—”

“Bailey,” I exhaled, sharp through my nose. “Tell me.”

“I know that Daddy loves me. I know I can say stop whenever I want,” he whispered, then hurried to add, “but I won’t say stop, Daddy. I want you so much.”

Christ.

I yanked his jeans down in one sharp motion, letting them fall around his ankles.

Leaning in, I pressed my face into the space between his thigh and his hip, breathing deep.

His skin there was soft and flushed from the heat still lingering in his body.

I shoved my nose into him like I was starved for the scent. And I fucking was.

Blue made a keening sound and pushed both hands into my hair, all ten fingers tugging at my curls. His breath left his chest in short little puffs as he shifted again, his thighs tightening.

My scruff brushed against his thigh, and he groaned.

“Touch yourself, Blue baby.”

He stilled above me, breath catching.

My thumbs stroked slow circles into the sharp lines of his hips, grounding him there. “I want to watch, baby. Right here, with my mouth on your skin and your hands on what’s mine.”

His breath shuddered out of him. “Daddy?—”

“Go slow,” I said. “I don’t want you coming yet.”

With a slowness that made my heart race, Blue reached down and wrapped his fingers around his cock.

I pressed a kiss to the crease of his hip.

He whimpered above me, hips rocking ever so slightly, muscles tight beneath my hands.

“Good boy,” I murmured, letting my teeth graze his skin just enough to make him shiver. “Let me hear you.”

His fingers curled in my hair again, tighter this time, but his other hand didn’t stop. Spine arching, his hips twitched as he shoved his slick cock into his fist. Every motion sent another wave of sound tumbling out of his throat.

“Daddy, I—I can’t?—”