Page 22 of Unleashing Mayhem
Nightmare would never have let Matteo see such horrors if he didn’t have a way to clear them from his memory.
“You tortured him,” Matteo said softly, his eyes still on the corpse in front of him. “Inside his head.”
“Yes.”
“And killed him.”
“Yes.”
Matteo took a deep breath, then clutched the edges of Nightmare’s shadows to his chest like the clasp of a cloak. He slowly walked over, looking much too soft to survive in this world, with his short, mussed hair and his giant, tired eyes.
Matteo tugged gently at Nightmare’s shirt. “Bend down for me, please.”
Nightmare lowered his head, and his sweet, tender summoner pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. “Thank you,” Matteo murmured.
“Again and again and again,” Nightmare promised. “As many times as needs to be done.”
Matteo kept hold of Nightmare’s shirt as he said, slowly and clearly, “When it’s Dominico’s turn, I want it to last longer. I want it tohurt.”
Bright, acidic lemon filled the air. Tart and perfect.
“Yes, sweet,” Nightmare vowed. “I swear.”
And then Matteo was throwing himself into Nightmare’s arms, clutching at his waist with surprising strength. “Thank you.” He peered up at him, blinking up at him through thick, sooty lashes. “Can we watch a movie now? I’m not tired anymore.”
7
Matty
Matty watched the end credits of the movie blankly, making no move to grab the remote just yet. He might have liked to put on another, but Nightmare had let him watch this one curled up in his lap, warm and safe and cozy. Matty was worried that if he moved, Nightmare would come to his senses and shove him off.
Okay, he probably wouldn’tshove.But maybe he’d slip out like one of his shadows. And then Matty would be cold and alone and sad, with no one’s strong arms surrounding him.
And maybe Nightmare hadn’tlethim so much as Matty had just crawled up onto the demon’s thighs and settled in, wrapping blankets around them both before anyone could protest.
So. No moving.
But it didn’t matter, because Nightmare was already slipping out from under Matty, just like Matty had thought he would.
Although, less expected was how Nightmare knelt in front of the couch, his hands on either side of Matty’s folded legs. The position put them at eye level with each other, and Nightmare’spair were a flat white at the moment, narrowed slightly as he stared at Matty.
“Hello,” Matty said.
Nightmare stayed silent. Watching. Waiting.
Ugh. It was time for Matty to start talking, wasn’t it? The thought made him weirdly petulant. “There’s still a body in the foyer,” he pointed out. “A dead one.”
Nightmare didn’t even twitch. “My shadows will take care of it.”
“And the glass?” Matty frowned at him. “Sascha’s been really nice to me. I don’t want him to come home and find everything all messed up.”
“My shadows will repair the damage.”
Matty picked some fuzz off his blanket with a scowl. “They can do just about anything, huh?”
If Nightmare thought Matty was being a brat, he didn’t say so. He only nodded regally. “They can do many things, yes.”
His antlers were so close. And because Nightmare had yet to refuse him any sort of touch (except that one time Matty had tried to jerk him off, and Matty wasn’t letting himself think about that time because it was too embarrassing to mention), Matty reached up, stroking one of the branches. It was velvety soft. He pressed his thumb against it to test its strength. Solid. Sturdy.
