Page 107 of Hollow

But he does try to fight it. He tries to move from my grasp, and he doesn’t have the stupor of opium slowing him down and giving me the upper hand like had happened before.

I do my best to hold on. “Stay still, pretty boy. You don’t want to reopen that wound.”

He freezes at that. Just as the Hessian did in the library.

I can reach him.

I know I can.

“Brom,” Kat says, coming in closer, her body against his, sandwiching him between us. “Don’t fight it.”

He lets out a snort of indignation.

I lean in and run the tip of my nose down the rim of his ear, and he rips his head away in disgust, but I’m nothing if not persistent.

“Do you remember how we first met?” I whisper to him, my breath on his neck. I pull back enough to notice the goose bumps on his flesh, and I smile in triumph. “It was just like this,” I continue. “We were in the opium joint in Chinatown. Manhattan. You were in the darkened corner of the room, smoking the pipe, and you were watching, always watching, a man who was being hunted. And of course, I was watching you. I suppose I was the one doing the hunting.”

“I don’t remember,” Brom protests, his voice raspy, his body stiff.

“I’ll make you remember if you let me,” I say, bringing my mouth to the soft spot behind his ear. I don’t press my lips there, just let them hover like hummingbirds, and I know how much he loved it when I would do just that.

He swallows audibly, and I run a hand down over his chest, slowly, taking my time. “I went to you. I wanted you. You said your name was Abe. You were so very high and scared. So very scared. And I knew I would do anything to save you, protect you, help you.” I bring my mouth to the crook of his neck and press my lips there, and he shudders. “I invited you to my place. I told you I had a private bath. I made it very clear what I intended to do with you.”

My hands go down to his hips now, gripping him there and pulling him back against my erection, and he gasps. My gaze goes to Kat now, who is staring at me with her big blue eyes. She’s in awe. She’s in lust. She’s mesmerized. I want to kiss her deeply, then have her kiss Brom, but I know that’s not the plan for tonight. I have to be the one to reach him. It’s the memories of me that are locked away in him.

It’s his own desires that he’s too afraid to face.

“You tried to fight me,” I whisper to him. “You told me to fuck off. So I left, and I didn’t think you’d come—I didn’t think you would be into me. But you did. You came after me like a stray dog on the street, and I took you in. I bathed you. I gave you a home for weeks.”

I fell in love with you, I think, but I don’t dare say it. I’m already putting so much on the line, my soul laid bare with each sentence I speak.

“You’re lying,” he says gruffly, but I can hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Am I?” I ask, sliding my hands from his hips, down over the V of his sharp bones and over his cock. It’s hard as a rock, stiff against his pants. I chuckle, feeling another stab of triumph. “Then that means your body is lying too.”

His breath hitches, and the tiniest of moans escapes.

“Your body isn’t lying, Brom,” I tell him. “It remembers me when you don’t.”

I give his cock a squeeze.

“Oh God,” he whispers, trembling in my arms now.

“That is what you’d call me,” I say, kissing his neck, sucking in his sweet skin. He tastes like heaven. He melts back against me, and I grip him tighter. “Give in to me, pretty boy.”

I reach up with my other hand and press my fingers at his jaw, pushing his head to the side, where I lean and capture his mouth with mine. My lips envelop his, my tongue parting his mouth for me.

He moans, the feeling vibrating through me, making me unbearably stiff, and I take advantage. With my lips never leaving his, I move around his body, Kat stepping out of the way, until I’m right in front of him, my hands in his hair, on his face. I kiss him deeply, a year of wanting him, missing him, mourning him, all coming out in my tongue as it lashes the inside of his mouth, licking him.

He lets out another groan and kisses me back, his hands at my coat, making fists in the collar.

And it’s in this moment that I decide to take my shot.

I gather the energy up inside of me, and I push it into Brom, feeling it travel through my mouth and into his head. I feel myself move through him, in the planes, and then I’m in the void, the black space between the veils, and while the door from earlier is there, still shut, still a war raging beside it, there’s another one that’s open a crack, light shining from the other side.

I go toward it, pushing open the door, and suddenly, I’m flooded with a million images.

I see Brom as a child, crying, his parents cold and indifferent to him.

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