Page 88 of Auctioned

Safe?

I’m not safe.

How can he say that after he hung me on that hook? After he looked furious down there in the cell?

And how the hell did Topher’s mom die?

This panic isn’t helping. He’s right about one thing. I have to breathe. Can’t afford to pass out again.

I stuff the panic down. Suck in air. Exhale slowly.

This goes on for minutes. His hand rises and falls with each one of my breaths, with his chin resting protectively on the top of my head.

Better.

I’m better.

Thanks to him.

No, I won’t be grateful to him. Fuck him. Fuck his help.

In a few hours, he’ll take it away. While I’ll be left heartbroken.

I swallow a whimper, swallow the tears. His chest is warm, and I give up. I relax into him. Only for tonight. Because he doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood to kill me.

“That’s it.” His hand slides down my stomach. “Good girl, Ophelia. Rest.”

Tremors rake through me at his touch. At how he drags me closer, pinning me to the hard panes of his body. He keeps pulling me into him, but he’s not trying to fuck me.

He could. I might even let him.

My body shivers harder at the terrifying notion.

“What are you doing?” I whisper when I can’t stand the silence any longer.

“Holding on to my property. In my bed.”

God, it’s embarrassing. I’m wet for him. For being called his property. For being debased like this, by him. I can’t stop arching my back, needing the feel of him against my ass.

“It isn’t that simple, James.” Though my body has succumbed to my needs, my head hasn’t. I have to figure out what’s going on. “Why am I here? In this room?”

His lips press onto my hair. As he inhales deeply, I shudder in his arms. “I’m not sure, Ophelia. I haven’t been sure about many things for a while now.”

“You showered me.” When life stops making sense, best to stick to the facts. Until he’s comfortable around me. Until I don’t teeter on the verge of losing my mind.

At the rate this is going, I will.

Topher’s mom. He killed her. They had Topher, and then…

Could this be what he was trying to tell me? That I’m facing an identical fate?

Later. I’ll freak out later, alone. Can’t afford to have a meltdown around him. Can’t let him hear me screaming my head off.

He’ll see my weakness. He’ll throw me back in the cell.

“I bathed you.” Tingles break across my skin when he lowers his fingertips. When he brushes them along my hip bone and stays there. He seduces me, and like a fool, I fall for it. For this monster. My owner. “In my bathtub. You were asleep the entire time.”

The entire time.

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