Page 196 of Somno Slave

He looks like violence taught itself how to be beautiful.

And tomorrow, he’ll be dead.

“I don’t want them to kill you.” It comes out too fast, too raw, stripped clean of pride.

I try to swallow the lump in my throat down.

My bottom lip wobbles. “You shouldn’t die because you fought to live.”

He still doesn’t speak.

My hands move before I decide. One against his wrist, the other against his thigh, like touching him might help me survive saying it.

“I need you,” I whisper.

“I need you because when you leave, everything gets louder.” My voice shakes. “Because I can’t think when you’re gone. Because I keep trying to hate you and I can’t. Because I should be terrified of you and instead—”

I stop. My chest seizes.

His thumb brushes once over my mouth. “And instead?”

I close my eyes. “Instead, I want more.”

The silence after it is unbearable. When I open my eyes again, there is something in his expression that makes mystomach drop. Satisfaction, like he has been waiting for me to ruin myself properly.

He pulls back. I slide from the bed to the floor. I need to be closer to him, because some broken part of me thinks lowering myself might make this feel less like falling. My knees hit the carpet.

“Why can’t I get you out of my head?” I whisper.

My hands grip his legs just to have something to hold. He touches my hair once, almost gentle, and that nearly destroys me more than cruelty would have.

“You stopped resisting me a long time ago,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to my lips before returning to my eyes.

The words hit somewhere so deep it feels like injury. He leans down, close enough that his mouth brushes my temple. His fingers find the back of my neck and close there, warm and firm, his thumb brushing once over the sensitive skin just below my ear. The touch is almost sweet, slow enough to make my body betray me. His fingers move lower, stroking the line of my throat, tracing the pulse beating there like he put it there himself.

“I haven’t told you the whole truth, Doctor.” He murmurs.

My heart slams against my ribcage. “I’ve seen this reaction before.”

“What?”

His eyes search mine. “You think this started in the interrogation room?”

Blood drains from my face. “What do you mean?”

“Your mind always makes this difficult.”

His hand slides higher again, into my hair this time, fingers threading through it with a patience that feels intimate enough to be dangerous. For one humiliating second, I lean into it. My eyes half-close. I let myself have the lie of gentleness.

Then his fist closes. Hard. The sharp snap of my hairband breaking cracks through the room.

I gasp.

My hair falls loose around my shoulders as he drags my head back just enough to force my face upward, the sting immediate, my scalp burning where he holds me.

“There,” he says softly, like he’s fixing something. “That’s better.”

My breath comes thinner now. His other hand moves, calm and unhurried, to the button of his trousers, and something cold drops through me when I realise what he’s doing. His grip in my hair tightens.