Page 91 of Crave Me

“If you’re open to it, I can. The question is, do you recognize that you need it?”

It was unsettling, the notion of doing something so emotionally and mentally taxing with a virtual stranger, but he did share a similar issue to me, to Caleb. The fact that the guys were worried about me when it came to this was something I couldn’t just gloss over, or turn away from.

“Okay, yeah. Thank you. I want to do this. I need it.”

He smiled and then just sat down right there on the grass.

Crossing his legs, he cracked his neck, then patted the spot opposite him.

“Right now?”

“No time to waste.”

I sat down and pulled my blue leather jacket off. “It’s too restrictive for this,” I explained.

“Whatever makes you feel more comfortable, sweetheart. Also, Sebastian thought you might be ill at ease doing this with somebody you barely know, so he’s watching.” He gestured at the patio in the distance.

I smiled as I saw Bastian had brought his laptop out to one of the tables there and he was looking up intermittently and gazing over at us. He waved and blew me a kiss when he saw me notice him.

Of course one of my men was here to support me.

Even when it couldn’t be all of them, they always made sure at least one of them was present, that I was never alone with this sort of thing anymore.

I settled into a cross-legged position opposite Asher and sucked in a calming, centering breath, before holding my hands out to him.

He took them carefully yet firmly. “Before we get into the heart of this, you need to acknowledge and also accept what triggered this.”

“Two of my men were kidnapped. I was injured. Caspian is barely holding on and—”

“That’s not it. Not the root cause.”

“What are you—”

“Guilt.”

“I—”

“Guilt triggered this. Confirmation that Wheeler is deeply entrenched in this, responsible for Caleb and Sebastian being taken, for the war Caspian was waging not only not ending in his victory, but in fact being reignited to a dangerous degree. You feel responsible for Wheeler’s part in it, due to his obsession with you and it now leading to his intent to hurt your loves.”

“If he wasn’t involved, none of this would have happened.”

“Debatable. Things may not have played out in the exact same way, however, Elijah could have found another ally and that would have actually been even more detrimental to you all.”

“How? He’s completely off the rails.”

“Better the enemy you know.”

Oh. “I see,” I murmured, taking it in.

“As for you feeling responsible, that’s victim-blaming. You can’t control the actions of a madman. He hurt you, manipulated you, abused you. That’s not on you.” His eyes burned into mine. “Logically you know that. But there’s another part of you that blames yourself for his actions, yes? You feel ashamed for what he did to you, what he was able to do.”

“I do, yes,” I found myself admitting. It wasn’t something at all easy to voice, but with him it was actually possible to do so.

And as he spoke again, I got confirmation as to why that was the case.

“I experienced a similar thing with the abuse my father subjected me to.”

“Abuse?”

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