Page 100 of My Lovely Tragedy
I lift, needing to close the distance, but he pulls away at the same time he tightens his grip, constricting my airways. Pinning me. The instinct to struggle against him is instant, but the urge to give in was already there, drowning all else.
I push into his palm but not to resist.To feel.The terrifying pressure. The loss of air. The threadbare line I’m teetering on.
And even though the fireplace has not been lit since he chained me to him, I see the reflection of flames dancing in his eyes. It’s then that I let mine close.
I submit.
“Brooklyn…” Tobias rasps above me.
“Don’t call me that.Please,” I rasp. Heat stretches across the highest points of my cheeks.
“You’d prefer something else?” No judgment. Just genuine curiosity. I nod, unable to speak through my severed throat. “Hmm,my lovelycorvus?” His words are a purr over my cheek, down along the shell of my ear. “Or my darling boy? My sweet beloved.” He drags his finger along my pulse point and presses against it, refusing to let me get away withanything.
I don’t have to tell him how much thosedisgustingly sweetnames make my heart summersault.
I… I can’t lie to him the way he deceives me. And that fucking hurts.
Tears slip through unbidden. They disappear when they drop onto his face, still pressed against mine. “Darling…” I feel his loss like an amputated limb when he pulls away to stare down at me. “You’re crying.”
His acknowledgement makes me cry harder. But silently.
Tobias shifts, pushing himself between my legs until mine are stretched around his, one pushed up against the back of the couch, the other hanging to the floor. My head swims with the effects of the scotch, making everything feel…
“Are you crying because I’m touching you?” He drags his palms up the insides of my thighs, over my—his—blue plaid pajama pants. He circles his thumbs in the crease of each leg, making me jerk up, lifting almost entirely off the couch.
I nod, panting.
“Because I’m talking sweetly to you.”
Another nod. More tears.
“Because you think you don’t deserve compassion and reverence.”
Please don’t say things like that. Please. Don’t…
“But I will because I can do as I please, and you have no choice but to listen, isn’t that right?”
A fucking sadist.
“Hmm.” That fucking hum vibrates through the air andinto me.Filling my bones with it. My veins. Everything in between. “I don’t consider myself a sadist, but I suppose in your eyes…”
Am I talking out loud? What’s happening?
“Yes, darling. You’re speaking aloud.” He sounds amused, and that makes it worse. Everything’s so hazy and hot. My skinburns.
As I part my lips, Tobias speaks first. “Would you like to be touched?”
Relief floods through me, and I melt into the cushions with a pathetic whimper. My head scrapes against the stained fabric as I nod.
“Ask me.”
“W-what?”
“Ask me, darling.Please.” His hands grasp my bare waist, so large and blistering.
I drag my lids open, buzzed oneverything.Tobias’s eyes are steely, almost clinical, but I see the inferno behind those reflecting lens. The depths of his madness. A void I’ve welcomed with open arms many times before becauseit’s home.
“Please, Tobias,” I plead softly, eyes bouncing between both of his. Letting him see—and getting the same in return.
