Page 68 of Wreck Me

I heard a chuckle and peered around the door to see them both laughing their heads off. My fingers tightened around the doorframe as I then watched her throw her arms around him, hugging him to her and thanking him for being such a patient and perfect teacher.

“I’ve never met anybody like me who struggles with this kind of thing,” she said, as they pulled apart.

Not all the way, though, and her hands came up and cupped his face, her thumbs stroking his cheeks and making his eyes flutter closed for a couple of moments at the sweet softness of it. That was how Caspian touched him—outside of their fuck sessions, anyway.

“Well, it’s actually nice to have somebody else to teach this to,” he told her.

She smiled and eased her hands down, but they were still sitting knee-to-knee in their cross-legged positioning. Her nose twitched. “Is that scent of yours apple?”

“Apple cinnamon.”

“It’s nice.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.”

An intense moment passed between them—attraction, for sure—before Skylar blinked out of it, then shifted her weight and asked him, “So you recognized that was what was happening to me during that fight?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you intervene instead of Sebastian?”

“You didn’t have a connection to me then. It was doubtful you would’ve taken me at my word when you were in that state. You needed somebody who you had some trust in.”

“Trust. Yeah, maybe there was some of that there with him. Even in spite of his demented side somehow.”

That fucker chuckled at that. “That’s his wall.”

“Wall? Like a defense?”

“That’s right. If anyone manages to get past the robot, or if he slips for some reason, he’s got that there as an extra layer.”

She frowned for a moment. “Is it because of his father? Losing him, I mean? Is that why he’s felt the need to do that? To shut down?”

“It stems from losing Wayne, yeah. While Damien is a definite Mommy’s boy, Bastian was really close with his dad. Losing him took him down a really bad road, it fucked up a lot for him. For Bastian to stop himself from slipping back into all the shit that he delved deep into, he believes the only way is to remain shut down.”

“That’s unbelievably sad.”

“Thinking about it now, it’s likely he was picking the same thing up from you, likely where his intensity toward you first came from. Probably made it even more intense when he felt that freer side of you too, something he can’t allow himself to be.”

“You’re saying everything about me is a major mind-fuck to him?”

“I’m saying that the robot is becoming sentient.”

“What does—”

“There have been cracks, his mask slipping. With you.”

Son of a bitch.

I gritted my teeth, the urge to barge on in there and make sure they knew that was all bullshit.

That it wasn’t the case.

That it wasn’t real.

That it… couldn’t be.

I couldn’t… I couldn’t let it.

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