Page 34 of Bound to a Killer

My tongue grows too heavy to form anything coherent, so I keep my lips tightly pressed together and plead with my eyes instead.

I’m not sure what he sees in them, but it emboldens him. He tugs the strings harder as pressure builds at my center, and I tense.

My heart is caught in conflict. Is he going to go deeper? Do I want him to?

“Aren’t you going to tell me to stop?” His words are rough from sleep.

My tongue darts out to wet my lips as I gather my words, my heart racing as I attempt to pull back the leash before it strays too far.

Would he even stop if I asked him to?

In a desperate attempt to regain control, I snap my eyes shut to avoid his stare, too heated, too consuming. Everything’s starting to feel too hot.

“Please,” I whisper, swallowing against my raw throat. “Stop.”

To my surprise, he does. He pulls his arm back.

The air feels lighter as I draw more of it into my lungs,relieved but dangerously aware of the loss of his touch and the mixed effect it has on me. It confuses me. I don’t understand it.

But it doesn’t matter how much I try to rationalize; the truth is obvious. I enjoyed his brief touch more than I want to admit. Heat still engulfs me as I flutter my eyes open again.

He’s still studying me. “Am I already starting to haunt your dreams?”

The question gives me a small pause.

“You’re a bit of a loud sleeper.” He looks at me thoughtfully.

My insides flop. I hate it. “There are worse things.”

And it’s true, there are. What torments me in my sleep is far worse than this. There’s a cruel irony in it. He doesn’t owe me anything. He’s just trying to survive. My family, on the other hand, had a duty to love and protect me. And they didn’t.

“What could possibly be worse than this?” he asks, close enough to feel the warmth of his question against my cheek.

It might sound absurd, but I can’t shake off the fact that someone like him was able to pull back when asked to stop—despite everything horrible he’s done. Why was that too much to ask from the people who were supposed to love me? To protect me?

“Tell me,” he orders.

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

His bluntness clamps down on my chest.

“But,” he goes on, “you might find a lot of solace by talking things out.”

I consider his words.

The last time I shared a piece of myself with anyone, I was scorned, then shunned. That was back in middle school. Maybe that’s just how girls were at that age, but it left a bruise that never fully faded away, one I never spoke about again, not even to Clara.

If there was ever a time I could bare my soul to someone, Isuppose now would be it. What do I have to lose with him, anyway?

“I was molested by my mother’s ex.” Stark silence. “I was eleven.”

His nostrils flare slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt me. He just listens.

“You’d think that was bad enough, but…” A pathetic laugh escapes me. “But my mom would always back him up, and I guess that hurt more somehow. I doubt she even knows I’m missing right now after taking off with my car and all my things. So, yeah.”

There. I said it.