Page 50 of Broken Obsession

Eden wasn’t exactly all there either, though. He could acknowledge that much. Understood that normal people didn’t deal with their grief by developing an odd obsession with home invasions and being hunted down and taken like an animal in heat.

His therapist—who he stopped going to after this little nugget of wisdom—had explained it as his twisted way of coping. He’d developed a need to control the very situation that had gotten his family, and the only reason it’d developed sexual connotations was because it’d been easy for him to look up partners willing to interact with him in that context.

There was a large market for controlled non-consent play online. On a drunken whim one night, Eden had created a profile requesting someone willing to pretend to attack and take him. There’d been over a dozen offers within an hour.

Still, he’d been smart about it at first. In the beginning, he’d only met with men at hotels or motels. Then once the thrill of that stopped working, he’d escalated it to being caught off guard in the parking lot, forced into his car and…Well. The public sex angle had brought its own type of excitement. Until it hadn’t.

A part of why he did all of that was guilt. It’d started as a way to punish himself, and things had taken a turn for the dark and kinky before he’d known it. Now, he was left with even greater guilt and a hard-on whenever he thought about being jumped, which had so not been the result he’d been after.

“Idiot.” He ran a hand down his face.

Three years ago, watching someone be brutally murdered right in front of him would have been enough to have him screaming and running for the police. But now? He’d gotten sickfrom all the sounds, from the smell of piss and tangy copper and salty sweat.

From the splatter of crimson and the way it’d squelched under Ares’ boots.

Eden had not, however, been disgusted by the act itself.

He hadn’t been horrified watching the life beaten out of a living creature.

Hadn’t once wanted to jump in and stop it.

What kind of person did this make him? What sort of person was hoping to get fucked on the same night a psychopath made a killing for him?

Was Ares a psychopath? He seemed too emotional for that, now that Eden was thinking about it. Psychopaths lacked empathy but could feel other things, right? So he couldn’t entirely rule it out just yet.

The shower had done what it was meant to, and that cold-to-the-bone feeling was gone. It’d been a while since he shut the water off and stepped out, so there was little chance Ares hadn’t noticed. Did he think Eden was hiding? Stalling?

That earlier thought about him potentially not even being out there returned, and shooting into action, Eden yanked the door open and practically rushed into the hallway.

Only to be greeted by silence.

He paused, listening, trying to convince himself that it wasnotdisappointment he was feeling when there wasn’t so much as a clink or a step. Of course Ares had just been messing with him. They weren’t too far apart in age, but they were still at very different stages of life. Ares was a university student with a million options. How many times had he already mentioned this was only a game?

Eden checked his bedroom and found it empty, then walked into the living room. Still nothing. He should stop, but his feet dragged him across the way toward the kitchen. Hedidn’t expect to find anything, so when his eyes locked on the figure hunched over his kitchen table, his breath caught in his throat.

Ares was asleep, his arms curled beneath his head. There were two steaming mugs of what was either hot chocolate or coffee set out, whisps of white still drifting off the surface.

“Damn fallen angel,” Eden murmured to himself, unable to help it as he slowly eased forward to get a better look at that devilish face.

A single dark curl fell over long, inky lashes, and his burgundy lips were parted slightly. Ares had changed clothes at the boathouse, but the style was the same as he’d been wearing when Eden had arrived, black pants and a tight black-shirt. He’d removed and left his boots at the front door.

The right thing to do would be to wake him and make him leave, but Eden carefully pulled out the chair at the side of the table instead and sat down, angling himself so he could continue to stare.

Ares was surprisingly a little boyish-looking when he was relaxed like this. A real pretty boy, so to speak. Almost innocent when those piercing red eyes were closed. Every time they were on him, Eden felt like those eyes were stripping him layer by layer, digging deep beneath his skin. Burrowing into him in ways it shouldn’t be possible.

They hardly knew one another—the damn Black Hart still referred to him as Ransom even.

That was another thing Eden didn’t know how he felt about.

Did it bother him that the only reason Ares had barged into his life at all was because of some made-up character in a game? Sure, Ransom had been physically modeled after Eden, and there were a few personality traits they shared, a few likes and dislikes, but they weren’t the same.

Eden wasn’t some character, he was…just Eden. Once he realized that, would Ares even want to keep him for a lifetime? Would he grow bored with all of this and walk away? Toss Eden aside as soon as he stopped being shiny and new?

If he could get the Black Hart to complete his revenge for him, would it even matter if that ended up happening? It wasn’t like Eden loved the idea of signing himself over to another. Giving his body in exchange once in a while was one thing, but a lifetime of servitude?

He hadn’t spent the past three years a slave to vengeance just so he could swap out one owner for another.

But could he stop at getting even with those who had actually harmed his family? Would he be able to leave Daven Dephik alone, knowing he’d been the reason the police had been unable to seek justice? The man had covered up a horrible crime so his son could get away with it. Certainly that deserved punishment…but was it worth Eden’s life in exchange? His future?