Page 99 of Hate Me

Wow. “Yeah?”

He nodded, then shifted so his head was resting on my chest.

I wrapped my arms around him, and then he clung to me.

So tightly. So intensely.

“Cas?” I asked worriedly. “Do you need me to start aftercare?”

“No. Let’s just stay like this for a while.”

“Something’s wrong. What is it?”

He nuzzled my chest. “While you were gone, I spent a lot of time at Obscura.”

“I figured. That’s your thing.”

“I don’t want it to be my thing anymore.”

“What?”

“Not with anyone else, at least. It was… hollow. Every time I went there to take the edge off, it left me with a bitter taste, and just drove home to me that you weren’t here, that our foursome was fractured.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It did make me realize something, though.” He shifted a little to look up at me. “I need it to just be us going forward.”

I frowned. “You want us to be exclusive?”

“The four of us, yes. Nobody else.”

“Wow, really? You’re sure you can be satiated without the rest?”

“The way things have shifted so much, I know I can’t be satiated with the rest.” He studied me. “Can you, though?”

“You mean, given my whorish tendencies?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I grinned. “Because you’re being super diplomatic about it.”

“Caleb.”

“Is this partly about Damien? Perhaps a certain other whose name you won’t let me speak in your presence? His lover too?”

He started. “You slept with Jonah as well?”

“I wouldn’t call it sleeping with.” It was an explosion of savagery, through and through.

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want the details. Ever.”

“Understood.” I liked that, more than he realized. Him being all jealous and possessive of me did things to me.

“It’s about all of them. The idea of Skylar with Wheeler too. Me with the subs at Obscura. It just feels wrong now.”

“I actually agree.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

---