Page 20 of Broken Obsession

Surprisingly, Ares obliged, though he pulled Eden up with him, using his hold on his arms to turn his body and resettle them so that he was now leaning against the younger man’s chest. He struggled, but Ares merely chuckled and then tightened his hold, strong thighs cinching around Eden’s hips as he trapped his bound hands in his lap.

“Shh,” his chin rested on Eden’s shoulder, laughing when Eden tried to move to the side, only to be forced back into position, “the first game is over, Ransom. You lost already. Don’t hurt yourself more.”

“My name isn’t Ransom!”

“Same difference.”

“It is not! How would you like it if I called you something else?”

The man behind him seemed to perk up. “Like a nickname?”

“No, you crazy freak! Let go!”

“Don’t wanna. You might keep hurting yourself.”

“As if! This is all because of you!”

“You said you liked psychological horror games,” Ares reminded. “It doesn’t get more classic than a home invasion in the dead of night. Turning someone’s private space against them? Soiling their sanctuary? Tainting it so they can’t go a moment within the same walls that had once felt like safety and shelter without thinking of you?”

Eden felt his lungs seize, the words hitting too close to that time three years ago. In the adrenaline rush, he hadn’t had the chance to stop and consider the parallels, but now…

No. No. Half the reason he liked CNC and fake home invasion play was because it helped dash those dark thoughts away. It helped him ignore the scenarios he’d envisioned in his mind whenever the world got too quiet.

Of his sister, upstairs, alone, listening to their parents being murdered.

They’d found Ella’s body in her bedroom. A single bullet to the head. But it’d entered from the front. She’d seen her killer before he’d pulled the trigger and stolen her life.

That fear Eden had felt, had that been even a fraction of the panic she’d experienced? Her clothing had been soiled, but they’d assured him most of the time that was the body’s natural response after death, because there were no longer signals to order the bladder to stay closed.

Those people, the ones who’d broken into the store downstairs intending to hack into the register to steal the measlycouple of hundred coin they’d made that day, they’d ruined any positive memories or attachments Eden had of that place. They’d stolen from him more than just his family.

And now here was another man, come to do the same. To repeat the process and—

“You’re hyperventilating,” Ares sounded…confused.

Eden may have laughed about that if he weren’t spiraling.

“Hey.” A hand pinched his jaw, tipping his head back against a firm shoulder. Red eyes glinted in the beam from the streetlight out front, and there really was a look of bewilderment there. “What’s wrong with you?”

Eden tugged at his hands, and when Ares released him, clawed at his chest, nails digging into his bare flesh since he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The pain was minimal, fleeting. Not enough to ground him. But the panic was overflowing now, consuming him from the inside out, blocking out all rational thought and his ability to breathe.

“Ah.” The Black Hart nodded once. “I see.”

Ares pushed them forward so that Eden was sprawled over the bed a second time, only now he was on his stomach with the man draped over his back. “Can you see anything?”

What the hell kind of question was that?

“Ransom.”

“That’s not,” he sucked in oxygen, but it did nothing to clear his vision, “my name, asshole.”

“Can you see?”

“It’s dark.”

“We’ll skip that one then. Quick, name four things you can touch.”

“What? What are—” Eden was rolled onto his back, but Ares was there a split second later, settling over him. His right hand was captured and lifted, and he didn’t have the strength orability to resist when his palm was forced against the curve of the younger man’s face.