Page 56 of Seek Me Darling

“You shouldn’t know this,” I bite out. My chest aches, my throat closes up, and I hate how exposed I suddenly feel. “You shouldn’t know this is my favorite.”

He turns his head, just enough to tilt the mask. “We know everything.”

The words shouldn’t feel like a caress. But they do.

I grit my teeth so hard it makes my temples throb. My jaw pulses with the effort not to scream. “This isn’t kindness,” I growl, every syllable a knife. “It’s manipulation dressed up in melted cheese.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t argue. Just lifts half the sandwich, the cheese stretching between the slices in slow, sinful strands. “Does it matter,” he says calmly, “if it tastes like both?”

I don’t answer.

But my stomach does. Loudly.Betrayal: level unlocked.

“Open,” he says softly, holding the sandwich just close enough to tempt, not touch.

I stay still. Frozen. Mouth clamped shut. Eyes narrowed.

“You can starve if you want,” he continues, voice low and impossibly even. “But you did agree to a truce.Andyou’ll still be here. Still be ours. Still be chained and dripping and angry. And you’ll still want the next bite even more.”

My pride flares, white-hot and violent. Screaming at me to slap the food away. To spit in his face and curse every last thread of control he thinks he has.

But my mouth opens anyway.

And the first bite hits like a fucking memory.

Warmth. Cheese. Bread. Butter.

I chew.

And Ihatehow good it is.

Hate the way my eyes threaten to flutter shut. Hate the way my body forgets for one stupid second that I’mchained to a bedand not curled up on my couch with a blanket and bad TV.

He watches every flicker of emotion on my face like it’s his favorite show.

“You were crying the first time you made this,” he says quietly, like it’s a secret he’s only just decided to share. “Your hands were shaking. You burned one side. But you made another.”

My blood runs cold.

“How—” I choke out.

He lifts the sandwich to my mouth again, not answering.

I shake my head. “How thefuckdo you know that?”

“We watch,” he says simply. “We remember everything.”

Rage claws up through my throat, hot and useless. “You’re insane.”

“No,” he says, voice too soft. “We’redevoted.”

And fuck me, there’s something in the way he says it that makes my chest hurt.

Another bite. I should resist. But my body doesn’t listen anymore.

I hate him just a little more for knowing this version of me. The quiet one. The sad one. The one no one else gets to see.

He feeds me the last bite like it’s a ritual, like he’s proving something I can’t quite name.

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