I stir, but I don’t change position.

It feels too good to move. His warm skin against mine, the flutter of his breath at the top of my scalp. The cocoon of his strong arms.

After what I learnt about Adam, I’m not in the mood to think about the outside world.

Being here feels right.

It brings back memories from a long time ago when it was only him and I in that basement. When I laid my head on his shoulder and pretended we were in a different place.

His fingers tangle into my hair, massaging my scalp, and awakening tingles at the bottom of my stomach. The touch is so gentle, I’m tempted to close my eyes and go back to sleep.

My self-preservation is the only thing that stops me. Being close to Aiden is never that simple.

Lowering my guard is about the worst disservice I can do for myself.

He’s manipulative and unpredictable and those facts drag me to the edge every time I want to relax.

Yes, my heart and body are itching and breaking to be with him. They’re sending all the right signals, too: flutters, tingles, pheromones.

Those play for the loser team, though and the strategist, aka my brain, wouldn’t let them have their way.

Aiden’s fingers pause on my scalp as if he can feel my next move before I make it.

I roll to my side and sit up, inching to the other half of the sofa. Pretending to push my hair back, I compose myself.

The urge to throw myself into his arms overwhelms me. It’s like an animal clawing and screeching to be set free.

It takes every ounce of willpower to keep my distance.

“Don’t.” The harshness in his voice startles me from my thoughts.

I peek at him. The sombre expression on his handsome face takes me aback.

“Don’t what?” I’m genuinely confused.

“Don’t pull away from me.”

“I’m not pulling away.”

“I call bullshit. You’re going Frozen on me again.”

“Don’t you think you deserve it?” I glare at him.

“The only thing I deserve is you.”

“Newsflash, Aiden. You barely gave me a reason to be all warm and cosy with you. Now that my head is in the game, it’s hard to see you in a positive light.”

“Is that so?”

No. It’s a lie. No matter how much it’d be logical to stay away from him, I know deep down, in the dark corners of my soul, being with Aiden is the only thing that makes me whole.

He completes me.

And not in a Disney kind of way. His darkness speaks to me on levels that scare the bejesus out of me.

So, yeah, I might be playing my last running away card. What? A girl has to look out for herself.

“You said you’ll take me home later.” I smother my skirt. “It’s later now.”

“Fuck that.” He grabs my hands in his. A jolt of electricity shoots down my spine.

No, no, no.

He needs to stop touching me if any of this will work.

Before I can pull my hand away, he places my palm on his chest. My eyes widen at his wild heartbeat. I always forget how erratic Aiden’s heartbeat can go.

Like thunderstorms.

Deadly, but also alive.

So, so alive.

“You owe me from the past, Elsa.”

A different type of flutter snakes into my heart. This one is painful and destructive. I stare at my lap. “T-that was my mother, not me.”

“She’s dead. You’re alive.” He tilts his head. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“That’s a low blow, dickhead,” I mutter under my breath.

He knows how guilty I feel about what Ma did, but like a first-class sociopath, he’s using it against me.

Aiden lifts a shoulder. “I’ll use whatever I can to get you. I have no boundaries when it comes to you, Elsa.”

“Aiden…”

“The scar on my ankle is because she had me cuffed with metal to heavy chains. The scars on my back are because she hit me with a horsewhip over and over again until I passed out. I don’t think she stopped even when I lay lifeless on the floor.”

“Aiden. Stop.”

He doesn’t. He digs the shard harder and deeper into my skin with every word out of his mouth.

“She gave me nothing to eat and barely anything to drink. I had to piss and shit where I slept. She treated me worse than a dog, and the funny part was, she never really saw me. She saw someone else when she looked at me. When I finally came back home, the only person who could’ve made it better was also gone.”

Tears stream down my cheeks by the time he’s done. My lips tremble and my jaw aches with the need to hold in the sobs.

Aiden speaks so nonchalantly, it’s more terrifying than if he spoke with emotions. Now, I see why he doesn’t hold feelings in high regard. They were purged out of him a long time ago.

They were whipped, starved, and burned into the fire.

“Do you know how it feels to be hit with a horsewhip until the skin breaks? Until blood drips to the ground?” His jaw tightens, the tiniest bit, before it goes back to normal. “It hurt like a bitch especially for an eight-year-old who didn’t know real pain.”

The word stop lingers on my tongue, but I swallow it.

Aiden lived those horrors, the least I could do is listen. Even if he’s using my guilt factor against me.

It’s even more tragic he’s using his pain to keep me by his side. I would’ve felt special if my chest wasn’t slowly dissolving into a bloodied mess.

“Does it pain you to hear this?” He wipes the tear under my eye with the pad of his thumb. “I can stop if you like.”

“You don’t have to,” the words come out strangled, dying, weird.

“I will if you kiss me and make it better.”

A tremor shoots through me. Did he do all that just so I would kiss him?

No. Aiden can be an unemotional monster, but I know that Alicia’s death affected him more than anything else.

It was the last straw that changed him for good.

“No?” He lifts a shoulder. “Worth a try.”

I grab his cheeks and slam my lips to his. Aiden is stunned for a moment, but I don’t stop. I nibble and bite on his lower lip like a madwoman.

I want to kiss it and make it better.

No. I want to kiss it and make it go the fuck away.

This shadow that haunted our lives for ten years needs to fucking go.

Aiden opens with a grunt. His kiss is rough, rougher than any other time I remember. He claims me, devouring me whole.

The intensity of his passion ignites and we burn in a perfectly imperfect harmony.

For a moment, it’s only him and I in this atrocious world. A world that turned him into a monster and robbed me of my life.

For a moment, he’s the most important person in the world. I want to engrave myself under his skin so nothing can separate us again.

I want to be one with him.

The thought of living apart destroys me like nothing else. The thought is torture like being held underwater.

I’ve been drowning and I’m finally coming up for air.

We pull away for much-needed breath, but Aiden doesn’t allow me to leave his orbit. It’s like I’m the centre of said orbit.

He rests his forehead against mine. The tips of his fingers stroke my cheek, the curve of my lip, the hollow of my neck, the line of my collarbone.