this, Bree. Not a single soul. I feel so damned guilty. Unworthy. They all look at me and think they can count on me …” He looked up at her. “I don’t think I could take it if you stopped looking at me as if I’m your world. I couldn’t, baby. I count on that look.” It was why he took so many photographs of her when they made love. It was there on her face every time, and he needed that just to survive some days. “My brothers believe I’ll be there for them but …” He broke off, unable to hold her gaze.
She bent and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Everyone counts on you Steele, and you always come through. You’re the most protective man I’ve ever met. I know this is bad, but you need to get it out. I will never change the way I feel about you, no matter how bad this is and whatever you tell me, stays between us. You’re mine. I know you share yourself with the others, but I don’t share me with them. You’re just mine, if that makes sense and you can figure out what I mean.”
Her voice trembled, and he immediately responded to that. It helped to pull him a little further from his past. “Baby, never think you’re second, or that Zane is. To Torpedo Ink, you’re family and you always will be. They’ve taken you in and they’ll always hold you close, but make no mistake, Breezy, you’re mine. It’s the two of us.” He sent her a faint smile. “The three of us. If we’re lucky, we’ll add to that number and fill this house with the sound of laughter.”
He needed laughter when his past threatened to consume him. It was still there, surrounding him with the smell and the heat. With Demyan. “You’ve seen Absinthe. He’s a good-looking man. Demyan was that way. When he smiled he could charm the panties off anyone and he did. I should have been thinking. I should have had my brain working that day, but I let the pain get to me. The humiliation. I should have been strong enough to put it aside so my brain could work.”
Her fingers stroked over his temples, and then down his face. He didn’t know if it was wet. He couldn’t feel anything. He’d gone numb, completely numb. He wasn’t certain he was in his own body. His lungs were raw and burning. He felt that. He heard blood pounding in his ears. He knew there was blood because his back was torn open from the whip and the chains Merhi had reveled in wielding. He’d set up cameras in two rooms and filmed the entire session, every detail, getting close-ups. First Demyan and then him.
“He said he had invited some friends to play. That was bad, and I knew it because it had never happened before. Any deviation was always a bad thing.” His heart was pounding. Hard. Coming through his chest. Sweat broke out and trickled off his body. He couldn’t lie there. He couldn’t have anyone touching him.
Steele jumped up and shoved himself away from her, putting distance between them, although he could no longer see her. The fog swirled around him like coils of wire digging into his skin. They pulled tighter and tighter. The blade stabbed deep, a hot piercing that sent agony ripping through his body. He looked across the room into Demyan’s eyes. As long as they could see each other, they could make it through. They gave each other the necessary courage to get through each second of torture.
The sex was nothing. A humiliation. Degradation. But they were used to that. The key was to always have another of them present in order to ensure they survived. This was beyond necessary. There was no survival without the other. They all knew that. Torture of this nature, so severe, was more than endurance of the body. It was strength of mind. Demyan got him through it. More importantly, he got Demyan through it.
He hung in those wires while they bit into his skin, nothing more than a mindless animal in pure agony. Cruel laughter surrounded him as others used his body. He didn’t remember their faces and that was worse than anything they did to him because they took Demyan out of sight. They dragged him to another room. Merhi followed. He was left alone. He had completely disassociated from