Page 74 of Breaking You Open

Nathan rolls his eyes and points a finger at me. “I guess this one is welcome to take a look. You, however”—he points at Louis—“I don’t trust you with my dogs.”

“He doesn’t even know what the damn dog looks like,” Louis protests.

“Yeah, I do,” I say, remembering the Rottweiler that was barking outside Joshua’s house at the party a few months ago. I look up at Louis, trying to communicate wordlessly.

Let me help. Please let me help.

He does so much for me; the least I can do is help him with this job.

“Well, then,” Louis grumbles. “You have five minutes.”

Nathan leads me into a door to the right, and the dogs in the row of cages start barking like crazy.

With Louis out of earshot, I ask, “How do you know him?”

“Who?” Nathan says in a bored tone.

“Have you slept with him?” My voice comes laced with more jealousy than I’d like to admit.

“Oh, we were going to,” Nathan drawls, “but my boyfriend is a bit of a cockblocker.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what I said. We were interrupted. Twice, in fact.”

Nathan saunters up to a cage, and there he is: the Rottweiler I remember from the party. He starts growling as soon as he sees us, but when Nathan makes a strange whistling noise, the dog starts whining instead and wagging his tail.

“Be careful with him,” Nathan says, “he’ll bite your hand off if you try anything.”

I stare at the dog. “So how am I supposed to get him out of here?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Nathan stretches his arms over his head in a yawn. “You’re used to dangerous creatures, aren’t you? Like that guy outside.” He jerks his head toward the reception.

“Who, Louis? Louis isn’t dangerous.”

Nathan hums. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. Be careful with that guy.”

“He’s good to me.”

“Is he, now? So he doesn’t like to try and fuck you when you’re damn near unconscious?”

My mouth falls open. “What?”

“Trust me, kid. Guys like that don’t change. He might like to play around with you for now, but sooner or later, he’ll show you his true colors, and when that happens, he’ll hurt you so badly you won’t be able to come back from it.”

“I told you,” I grit out. “Louis is different.”

Nathan rounds on me, crowding me up against the cage of the barking Rottweiler. The metal fence digs into my back, and Nathan shoots a hand out, gripping my jaw harshly.

“Who hurt you?” he asks. “Your stepdad?” He grips me tighter, and something wild and cruel flashes across his eyes. “Your brother?”

“Let me go,” I snap, wrenching my face away.

Nathan chuckles. “Christ. You’re already too far gone, aren’t you? Haven’t you learned not to trust every person you come across? Most people who treat you kindly want to destroy you deep down, and the ones that don’t are few and far between.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

“What about him?”

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