Page 118 of Hate Me

I could feel three sets of querying gazes on me in the next moment.

“Pretty sure that should be the other way around after what you let us do to you out there,” Caleb said, now moving to wash my shoulders, careful not to press too hard over the deep scratches and bite marks etched into my skin there.

“Yeah, it went further than I even thought it would,” Bastian said. “Especially for our first time coming back together physically.”

“Wow, B, really toning it down there, huh? Especially for you and your psycho, no-holds-barred tendencies when it comes to our woman.”

Bastian splashed some water from the shower in Caleb’s face. “I’m reading the room, the peacefulness of the moment.”

Caleb blinked away the water Bastian had flicked in his eyes, then licked up the droplets that had hit his mouth. “Yeah, like I said, toning it down. Majorly for you.”

“Caleb,” Caspian spoke in that firm, yet smooth tone of his. He reached out and stroked Caleb’s wet hair softly. “Everything is well. She wanted that, she was ready for it, there are no regrets. Not even concerning the marks that you left.”

Oh. That was why Caleb had seemed so antsy since the scene outside had come to an end and we’d all come back to reality after being caught up in that heady spell of carnality. I remembered Bastian telling me that Caleb had a thing about not leaving any marks on the women he fooled around with. Just women. He’d told me in secret that it was because of the awful things that had happened to his sister when she’d been kidnapped. The abuse she’d suffered wherein the kidnappers had also scarred her in despicable ways. It still haunted Caleb to this day and, despite his need for pain during sex, he’d always been scared to take it too far with me in that vein.

Until tonight.

He’d fed off the animal that Caspian had unleashed and he’d ended up succumbing more than he ever had with me before, marking me with the branch, and even biting me and leaving marks that way too.

I reached out to him and ran my fingers over his cheek. “Caspian is right. What happened was incredible. I wouldn’t change any of it. In fact, it’s gonna live in my memory. And at the forefront too, for a very long time. I’m so happy you finally felt comfortable to let go like that with me. I know what a hurdle it was for you and it means a lot that you gave me that.”

“Yeah?” he responded quietly, a vulnerability that I wasn’t used to seeing from him bleeding through.

“I swear it. And I… I kind of like having your marks on me—all of yours.”

“Kind of,” Bastian spoke. “Those words with those blushing cheeks actually mean you fucking love it.”

He eased my head around as he washed my hair so our gazes could connect, and I grinned at him. “I do. It’s like carrying a part of you all with me.”

His eyes lit up and then he was softly brushing his lips over mine, taking me in a sweet and tender kiss. “We feel the same way about your marks on us, beautiful.”

“I’m glad,” Caleb said, nuzzling my neck.

Caspian tightened his hold around me. “What were you saying thank you for earlier?”

“Yeah, we kind of got sidetracked, sorry,” Caleb said, returning to washing me carefully.

“For helping me when I actually needed it after all, even when I didn’t recognize it at the time. For bringing me back to myself.” I gritted my teeth and forced the next words out, just needing them to be heard, or maybe to cast them out to lessen the toxicity threatening to burn through my veins, “I’m sorry I couldn’t admit it, that I couldn’t let myself see it for a long time… I just hate… feeling like that… needing to be saved… not being able to go it alone with every little thing.”

Caspian cupped my face. “It’s not a weakness to be vulnerable, love. Everybody needs a helping hand once in a while. All of us have over these last couple of years. And taking the help or assistance that we needed has made each of us stronger in our respective ways.”

“He’s right,” Caleb said.

Bastian stroked my hair. “Not asking for help when you need it only leads to more pain, Sky.”

“I get that now.” I smiled sheepishly. “Well, I’m beginning to.”

“We know,” Caspian said, stroking my back. “We know you are, love.”

“Thank you for being here with me through it all, everything you’ve done to help me, all your efforts. It means so much to me.”

All of that, combined with the intensity of what happened earlier took me over, and I couldn’t contain it, emotion taking me over, and before I knew it, I was burying my face in Caspian’s chest and breaking down.

“I’m sorry I got so lost,” I sobbed, clutching his shoulders like a lifeline.

Caspian held me tight to him, then Bastian and Caleb wrapped themselves around me too, whispering words of comfort.

I sank into it, into them.

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