Page 43 of Breaking the Code

I do as he asks, but the moment he turns his back, I raise up on my elbows, watching him walk away. My heart feels as if it’s being pulled out of my chest—like it’s trying to follow him.

They should outlaw that ass.

“Sleep,” he growls as he stops at the door.

Oops!

More giggling fills my chest, and the room, with lightheartedness. I’m slaphappy, but I’m also happy-happy for the first time in my life. Well, sort of. He is walking away from me.

He looks back over his shoulder at me. He huffs, and his lips twitch for a moment before the stony facade falls back into place. I’m not sure what that look on his face is—a mixture of longing and regret with a dash of lust, if I had to guess.

I smile at him, and when he opens his mouth, I say, “Yeah, yeah. I know. Sleep.”

He nods and shuts the door behind himself as he leaves.

I flop back onto the bed. The pillow folds up around my head, and I fold it over my face to scream into it. This beautiful feeling of butterflies in my stomach is completely foreign to me. While most kids were experiencing crushes and their first physical attraction, I endured beatings and rape to avoid being sold into a brothel or some rich bastard’s secret harem.

“Don’t go there, Tavish,” I chide myself.

I remember Mack telling me once that the past is the past. It can’t be changed. I have to quit dwelling on what’s happened and focus on what is yet to come.

I glance under the blankets.

“Hopefully, I’m what’s yet to come,” I grouse, staring at the erection Draven ignored.

Looking at the door, I think long and hard about taking myself in hand, but something just seems wrong about doing it without him. He’s the one I want to be with. I have no desire to get myself off alone.

I flip over on my belly and force myself to relax. It sounds stupid; I know, but bit by bit, everything dims, fading away to darkness.

The last waking thought is…I want him to want me. After losing everything, everyone, I’m not sure if that will ever happen.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DRAVEN

“I’ve got an assignment for you,” Tavish says as I walk into his hidden lair in the basement.

I dinnae ken how he kens I’m here, but he always kens when I’m on the grounds. Maybe he has some sort o’ sixth sense. I dinnae ken, but since the night o’ initiation, he’s known I’m here the minute I set foot on the property.

“What sort o’ assignment?”

He sighs, spinning his chair around to look at me. With a cocked brow, he looks at me as if I’m an idiot. He disnae say anything, but just the look on his face is enough to provoke the anger o’ the Dom I imprisoned all those years ago after Simon was murdered.

Simon had nae been submissive, but we indulged one another. He made sure I didnae drink myself to death and that I slept occasionally, and I made sure he worked out and ate right. It was a delicate balance since we were both Doms.

This boy in front o’ me calls to me in ways Simon never did. His small size, his giggles, his bashfulness in some areas and his bold, brashness in others, it all lights my soul on fire and makes me want things I havenae wanted since before my husband died in my arms, beaten and bloody.

For months, I’ve watched him, lusted and longed for him. I’ve lost count the number o’ times I’ve left this room with my cock standing tall. I keep telling myself it cannae happen. There’s too much against us.

His age.

My age.

Simon.

His dad killing my family.

Me killing his dad.

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