Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“By then they’d started adding pictures of women in the slideshow and surprise, surprise, I didn’t get shocked when those appeared. I played their game after that. I pushed the button the right number of times each and every time,” he murmured. He’d calmed down considerably but I could also sense him trying to emotionally distance himself from the past.
“He won. I told him what he wanted to hear even though it was a lie, but he still ended up winning,” Theo said quietly after a couple minutes of silence.
I remembered the night I’d kissed him for the first time. He’d been turned on, but it hadn’t been until I’d touched his dick that he’d freaked out. I wanted to cry as I realized I’d caused him pain.
“You still feel the shocks when you get turned on, don’t you?” I asked.
Theo took a moment to respond. “I didn’t even know it would happen until that night when you touched me. I haven’t been attracted to anyone since I left The Tower. I knew I was still gay, but I did what I’d sworn I would never do. I lied and claimed I was cured. I put on a good show for Father Abbott and my parents who finally came to see me once they’d learned I was fixed. To this day when Father Abbott or my parents call to check on me, I still lie.”
I rubbed Theo’s back to try and get some warmth into his body. He pulled back a little before saying, “I let them take the truth from me, Lincoln. And now they’ve taken you away too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THEO
As soon as I heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, I felt like I was going to throw up the few sips of tea I’d had while I’d been sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him.
Cam was clearly surprised when he saw me, but he didn’t miss a beat as he made his way to the coffeemaker. Fortunately, the coffee machine was the kind that made the coffee itself at a certain time in the mornings, so I hadn’t had to worry about trying to make it on my own for Cam. It would have been just as easy to let the man make his own coffee while I waited, but I’d been afraid that if I’d been given any opportunity to lie about why I was in the kitchen so early in the morning, I would have taken it and run.
“Morning,” Cam said. The man wasn’t a behemoth of a guy or anything, but he was tall and well-built and that, combined with the uniform he was wearing which included a holster with a gun in it, made the kitchen feel small.
He made me feel small.
“Morning,” I managed to get out, but I barely even recognized my own voice. I’d cried so much the night before as Lincoln had held me that my eyes burned and my throat felt like it had shriveled up into nothing.
I didn’t need to be looking at Cam to know what he was thinking. There was a reason I’d carefully extracted myself from Lincoln’s embrace long before the sun was even ready to rise. While I’d cried myself to sleep the night before, it hadn’t taken a genius to realize that Lincoln had carried me to bed at some point. I’d woken up just before four o’clock and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. With the way Lincoln had been wrapped around me, I’d felt his morning erection pressing against my ass. I’d waited for the searing pain to hit me, but it hadn’t come.
But I knew if he’d been awake, things would have been different. All he would have had to do was place a soft kiss against the back of my neck or graze my ear with his lips as he said good morning to me.
I could have gone back to my own bed but lying in Lincoln’s arms had made me feel safe.
And warm.
God, to wake up every morning feeling warm instead of slowly freezing from the inside out—what would that even be like?
It wasn’t something I’d ever know, and as I’d watched the minutes pass on the clock on Lincoln’s nightstand, I’d thought about the supposed man of God who’d taken so much from me one minute at a time. Degradation and cruelty for three years… just over a million and a half minutes. For what? So Father Abbott could prove to himself and anyone who would listen that he had the power to take the sins from sinners and make them pious and whole again?
The chair across from me scraping against the wood floor made me jump. I had to focus on my breathing as Cam eased himself into the chair. I could feel his eyes on my exposed arms. I’d purposefully taken off Lincoln’s Henley and had set it on my lap. The move had been an insurance policy. I’d always made sure no one ever saw my scars because they were proof that I wasn’t okay like I always told everyone.