Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,124

they were serving oatmeal with raisins, and I stayed away from the oatmeal there since one time last month when one of my raisins turned out to be a fly.

I ate the sandwich hungrily. I wondered if Colt had made it himself. The sandwich was surprisingly good – the bacon was salty and warm, the lettuce crisp and fresh.

When I was done eating, I brushed my teeth with a fresh toothbrush I found under the sink, then dried my hair with the hair drying hanging on the wall.

I changed into the clothes he’d left for me and then slid under the sheets.

They were silky and smooth and felt foreign against my skin.

I was sure I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. The bed was foreign, the place strange, not to mention that Colt was downstairs.

But a second after I closed my eyes, I was in a dream.

I was back in my foster home, the one at the Dalys, the one where I met Liam. Mr. Daly, or Frank as he liked us to call him, was making me put birthday candles into this huge cake that was made out of dirt and grass. I started putting them in one by one, but every time I’d put in a new candle, one of the other candles would fall. Mr. Daly stood in the corner with a belt, his eyes looking sad as he shook his head back and forth. “You’re not doing it right, Olivia,” he said sadly. “You’re not doing it right.”

Then Declan was there, reaching out, holding my hand, guiding me to put the candles in right. I was happy. But then, out of nowhere, the belt came down over Declan’s hand, smashing into the cake.

“No!” I screamed.

My eyes flew open.

My heart was pounding, my face flushed. I sat up in bed, panicked, not sure where I was. Then I remembered. The strip club. Colt. His apartment.

I laid back down and tried to calm myself. But it wasn’t going to work. I knew it wasn’t going to work.

There was only one thing to do.

I got up and headed for the bathroom, grabbing my purse as I went. Once I was there, I pulled out my compact, then reached under the mirror and pulled out my razor blade.

It glinted in the light, and I put the edge up to my skin. I liked to cut my arms. I knew it was a risk, that I should try for something on my thigh, or even further up my arm. But nothing calmed me more than cutting my arms.

The first cut didn’t go deep. It was superficial, just a tiny little nick, one that hardly even drew any blood. It was a tease of the release that was to come, like ordering an appetizer before your main meal so you could take the edge off.

I was just about to make a second, bigger cut when the door to the bathroom went flying open.

Colt was standing there, wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of dark blue sweatpants. His hair was wet and a little messy, like he’d just gotten out of the shower. He looked at me, his face dark.

“I heard you yell,” he said. “I needed to make sure you were okay.”

“I was having a dream.”

He looked down at the razor in my hand, then at the cut on my arm. His gaze slid back up and met mine, and something passed between us. I could tell he knew exactly what I was doing. He knew I was cutting, he knew I was doing it for a release. It made me wonder how he knew– if he was a cutter, too. But one glance at the smooth skin of his forearms and I knew he wasn’t. I wondered if he was going to ask me to stop.

I froze, the razor still pressed against my arm. It was an exquisite torture, thinking you were about to get a release and then being caught.

Colt crossed the room in two long strides, reached out and gently took the razor out of my hand. He set it on the sink and then turned my arm over in his hand.

He studied my cut. A thin line of dark red blood had appeared on my skin. But instead of chastising me or asking me why I was doing this to myself, he pulled a band-aid and Neosporin out of the medicine cabinet.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can do it.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, like he couldn’t