Текст книги "Lights out"

Автор книги: Navessa Allen

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

“Show me,” I said, voice hoarse from lust.

I didn’t think he’d do it at first, but then he tilted his mask up even higher, just enough to reveal his lips. His tongue slid out, licking in a sinful circle as he cleaned every last drop of me off his fingers. I almost came from the sight alone.

With a tug, his mask was back in place, and I had just enough time to register the bulge in his dark jeans before his hands wrapped around my ankles, and he pulled me flat against the bed. My arms strained overhead, the ropes snapping tight as I found the edge of the restraints. He let go with one hand, reaching for something out of sight at the foot of the mattress.

His hand came back into view holding what looked like a smaller-sized anal plug, the dark blue silicone narrow at the tip and then swelling in the middle before tapering off again and ending in a broad base. Then he was moving between my legs, pushing one of my knees up as he came, all the way to my chest. He stroked the blunted tip of the plug down my stomach and then lower, slicking it through my folds.

“You’re so wet, I don’t even need lube,” he rumbled, the words deliciously rough because of the modulator. His black eye sockets were trained between my legs as he slowly pushed the toy into my pussy.

“Always wet for you,” I panted, shifting my other leg to the side to grant him greater access. The plug was narrower than I wanted, but my inner walls, starved for friction, clasped down on it regardless.

He made a low sound of masculine approval, twirling the plug inside me so it was coated in my arousal. Then he slid it out, the tip tracing down to my ass. I was worried that he would be rough after the way he’d fingered me, but he took his time pushing the plug in, allowing me a moment to adjust when I hissed out a breath at the initial discomfort. I thought I was okay until I got to the wider middle, and everything clenched up, my body resistant to take it.

The Faceless Man reached down, the pad of his thumb landing on my clit. My head fell back as he massaged around it in a circle, pausing to gently flick it before circling again.

Oh, fuck, that felt good.

He did it again, pushing the plug deeper as my muscles loosened from the pleasure. Once the widest part of it was in, the rest was easier to take, and before I knew it, the toy was fully seated. He lifted his thumb away, and I was left both too full and too empty at the same time. My pussy was still contracting, longing to be filled, and I could feel the plug every time my inner muscles spasmed.

He lifted something else off the mattress and held it up for me to see. It was a small plastic square, almost like a remote of some ki –

A sharp click was all the warning I had before the plug in my ass started vibrating.

I let out a yelp, feet scrabbling against the covers again, caught off guard by the sudden sensation. Holy shit, I didn’t even know there were anal vibrators.

Two big hands landed on my thighs, pinning them down, forcing me to lay there and feel, and oh, God, did I feel. I’d never been so aware of that part of my body before. Nor had I been aware of how close things were on the inside. Somehow, it felt like the vibration in my ass was happening in my pussy, too, and while I’d found anal play mildly pleasurable in the past, now I was actually enjoying it. More than enjoying it. If he kept this up and gave me literally any other stimulation, I would come so hard I’d probably squirt.

With another click, the vibration cut off, leaving me panting. The hands on my thighs lifted to my hips, and before I realized what was happening, the bedroom spun as he flipped me onto my stomach. A jerk on my waist had me face down, ass up on the mattress, the ropes so tight I couldn’t do much but turn my hands in and cling to them for support. My heart rate, which was already at a steady gallop, skyrocketed.

What was he doing back there? What was coming next?

A hand landed between my shoulder blades, pressing me down harder. I turned my face so I wouldn’t suffocate, trying to look behind me but seeing nothing but a long line of jean-clad thigh as the Faceless Man positioned himself behind me.

Please, fuck me, I wanted to beg, but I had a feeling that he was so antagonistic right now he might refuse just to spite me.

A click hit my ears, and I tried to brace myself, but – oh, fuck – I didn’t think there was any way to prepare for the feeling of something vibrating in my ass. Between the sound of the toy and my ragged breathing, I barely heard the zip of jeans being undone. That meant something, I knew it did, but I was so distracted by what was happening inside my body that I didn’t realize what I was in for until the hand pinning me down lifted free, and my hips were yanked backward, spearing me straight onto the Faceless Man’s cock.

I cried out, my pussy clenching around him, stars dancing behind my closed eyelids as I tried to adjust to the mix of pleasure and discomfort. Yup, I was still sore, but anyone who's been fucked hard understands the delicious sting of being stuffed full again before you’re ready for it. Maybe it wasn’t true for everyone, but for me, it was a good kind of pain. What made it even better was that with the addition of the plug, this was the fullest I’d ever been in my life, and I could tell from where I stretched around him that the Faceless Man was barely halfway in.

“I need to be able to trust you,” he growled.

And then he spanked me hard enough that my entire body clenched up, my ears echoing with the sound of the slap. With a grunt, he pulled all the way out of me, having to shove my hips forward because of how much my pussy had tightened around him.

I froze.

He’d actually spanked me.

I’d never been spanked in my life. And he hadn’t held back either. He’d hit me hard enough that it still stung. I didn’t think it would bruise, but there was no doubt my ass was now as red as the blush stealing up my cheeks, heating my face with an unexpected mixture of shame and embarrassment. And not because my boyfriend was following through on his threat to punish me. But because of how much I liked it.

Behind me, he’d gone completely still, like he was waiting for my reaction. Yes, he was being a domineering bastard right now, but deep down, I knew he was probably trying not to panic, worried that he’d gotten caught up in the moment and gone too far.

The vibrator clicked off, and the hand holding my hip softened. “Say something.”

In answer, I pushed my ass into him. “I don’t think I’ve learned my lesson yet.”

The voice modulator turned his heavy exhale into something more like a growl.

I arched my spine. “Again.”

The fingers on my hips tightened. A low rumble filled the room before he thrust back in, even deeper this time, and between his dick and the plug, I was so stuffed that my toes curled against the sheets. I felt his shift of movement right before his palm slapped my ass again, a little lighter than the first time but still hard enough to burn. Even though I was ready for it, I stiffened up, and he clicked the vibrator on right as he pulled out.

My eyes snapped wide, a deep pulse of lust blasting through me. The sensation of his cock dragging out of me while every muscle in my body clenched tight, paired with the vibration kicking back on, was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The pleasure was unparalleled; if he kept this up for long, I would probably shred the sheets with my nails.

I felt feral, needy.

Desperate.

“Hold onto the ropes,” he said, clicking the vibrator off.

I clung to them for all I was worth as he rammed into me again, spanked my other cheek, and then pulled almost all the way out, clicking on the vibrator as he went. Stars exploded across my vision. I turned my face into the sheets and cried out into them.

He started a rhythm: in, spank, out, vibrate. I lost myself to it, became someone else to it, no longer Aly, but some wild version of her, shoving my hips back, moaning and pleading and apologizing, unselfconscious and fully uninhibited for the first time in my life.

“Fuck,” the Faceless Man growled. “I can feel it vibrating against me.”

He stopped clicking the plug off after that, leaving it on as his hips snapped forward, burying himself balls deep with every brutal thrust.

The longer it continued, the more out of control we both became. I let go of the ropes to claw at the sheets. My masked man wrapped his fingers in my hair and wrenched my head up. Instead of spanking me with every thrust, his strikes became intermittent, and the unreliability of them made each one that much sweeter, that much more painful.

That much more pleasurable.

I felt raw and overexposed, all my layers of humanity stripped away to reveal the animal underneath. She wanted to be fucked, hard, every part of her so full to bursting that the whole world fell away, leaving nothing between her and the man behind her. The next time we did this, I was asking him to gag me. I wanted to scream for him when I came, and I hated that I couldn’t do it because there were neighbors close enough to hear me and probably call the cops, thinking I was getting murdered. At least if something was shoved deep enough into my mouth to muffle the noise, I could give in to that desire.

His dick started to swell inside me, and I nearly sobbed with relief. I’d been holding my orgasm at bay as long as I could, waiting to tumble over the edge with him.

“Come for me, Aly,” he said, tugging my hair hard enough to sting. “Let me feel that perfect pussy choke this cock.”

His other hand left my hip, and a second later, I felt the cold bite of metal against my throat. He’d picked the knife back up.

The spike of fear that stabbed through me was enough to tip me over the edge. My pussy spasmed, inner muscles clenching, trying to draw him deeper. Bare millimeters away, the vibrator buzzed on, stealing the breath from my lungs and making tears streak from my eyes. I’d never felt like this before, and I’d do anything to feel it again. He had officially ruined me for all others.

The Faceless Man groaned behind me, his hips starting to lose the rhythm as his cock swelled and stretched, hitting a spot so deep it stole my breath away. And then I was coming, sobbing, praising him even as I cursed his very existence.

I would never forgive him for doing this to me.

I couldn’t wait until the next time he did it.

“Aly, fuck!” he yelled.

The knife fell from his fingers, and his hands returned to my hips as his thrusts turned furious and desperate. Feeling him come inside me only prolonged my release, black creeping into the edges of my vision, a low buzz filling my ears. Was I about to pass out?

By the time I came out of my daze, my hands were free from the restraints, and I lay boneless on the covers, being petted and stroked and rewarded for how well I’d taken my punishment. His touches were as soft as they’d just been hard, and his words were full of approval as he told me how beautiful I’d been, that none of his fantasies could ever compare to what we’d just done.

I reached up and pulled his mask off, and the Faceless Man became Josh again, his hair mussed and his dark eyes full of wonder as he stared down at me.

“It was the back of the blade I held to your throat,” he said. “You were never in danger.”

“I know,” I told him because, of course, I wasn’t.

“Aly, that was amazing.”

I threaded my fingers through his. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to work through our issues with dialogue like rational adults because if that was meant to prevent me from breaking my word to you again, I gotta tell you, it backfired.”

His chest heaved as he chuckled. “Are you sure? Because you sounded apologetic as fuck about halfway through it.”

I grinned. “I was more sorry that I wasn’t sorry.”

He lifted his free hand and gave the side of my ass a gentle slap. “Bad girl.”

“I think I’m falling for you,” I blurted.

Maybe it was the hormones, or maybe it was how well he’d just brought my fantasies to life. Or maybe it was how he could make me laugh even in the most stressful situations. The way he’d moved himself right into my life like he’d always belonged there. The way he treated my, no, our cat like a human child. The unselfconscious goofiness of the man. The beauty. The intelligence. The way he looked at me like I was his whole world. And yes, even the obsessive way he tracked my every move. Even the way he watched me, stalked me, and hunted me down.

He grinned. “If all it took was a little light spanking to get you to say that, I would have bent you over my knee the first time we met.”

He called that light spanking? God, I’d gotten off easy.

I made a mental note not to piss him off again. At least not until I felt ready to face more pain than that during sex.

I reached up and stroked my thumb over his lips. “I was too jumpy that night in the parking garage to let you anywhere near my ass.”

His eyes darkened. “I’m not talking about then.”

Oh. He meant the first time we saw each other in his apartment, all those months ago. Had his obsession started then?

As I watched, he parted his lips and sucked my thumb into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it before biting the tip. The grin that split his face as I pulled free was wicked. In a flash, he rolled me onto my back, settling his hips between mine so I could feel the way his cock was hardening again.

He leaned down and kissed me, and after not being able to touch him for so long, it felt like the sweetest reward to be able to wrap my arms and legs around him.

His dark eyes crinkled at the corners as he broke the kiss and pulled away enough to look at me. “I think I’m falling for you, too.”

Warmth spread through my core, the heat of pleasure mixed with pure joy. Even though I was sore, I needed him again. Now.

I tightened my arms around his neck and pulled him onto me, plying him with drugging kisses until he gave me what I wanted, pushing inside carefully this time, his thrusts deep and gentle and just as mind-blowing as before.

It was a long time before we emerged from my bedroom, freshly showered and starving after our marathon calorie-burning session.

We pulled up short after opening the door. Fred sat right on the other side of it, looking rattled. His eyes were large and glassy as he stared past our legs toward the rumpled bed like he knew what had just gone on in there.

Josh leaned close. “I think we’ve officially scarred our son.”

I lifted a hand for a high-five. “Parental achievement unlocked.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 26Josh

How do I look?” I asked Aly.

She paused before ringing the doorbell to give me a once-over. “Hot. Want to get out of here and go have naked fun time?”

I clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shush! What if there are cameras out here?”

Her response was only slightly muffled by my palm. “Then it’ll teach my meddling family not to listen in on conversations that don’t concern them.”

Three weeks had passed since the night we’d broken into Brad’s house. The next day, I’d swept my car for trackers, and Aly was still pissed that I’d found one. We’d gone straight to the hardware store afterward and changed her locks.

I removed my hand from her mouth and straightened my dinner jacket, feeling uncomfortable in such formal clothes. “I need to stay on your uncle’s good side. Remember?”

She blew out a breath. “I do. Sorry. I’ll try to keep it PG for your sake.”

“Good girl,” I said, unable to help myself.

Her mouth popped open, a flush creeping into her cheeks that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with arousal.

I tried not to let it go to either of my heads. We’d been having so much sex that we’d started implementing forced breaks to keep from chafing. I worried she might become desensitized to me, but the fact that I could still turn her on like a light switch with just two words made me feel better about what her red dress was doing to me. It wasn’t even that clingy or revealing, but I’d never seen so much of her on display in public, and I was reacting like a kid at his first school dance.

“You look beautiful,” I told her.

She smiled up at me. “So you’ve said. We should do this, just the two of us. Get all dressed up and go out for a nice dinner.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling overheated even though it was freezing out.

Aly saw my discomfort and rushed on. “I’ll find a place with low lighting and a table in the back where no one but our server will see us. And if they start to look squirrely, or you don’t like it, we can leave.”

“I don’t know,” I said, still hesitant.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want it to inflate your already dangerously oversized ego, but you do realize that the people who stop to stare at you aren’t doing it because they think they recognize you, right?”

I frowned. “Then why?”

“Because of how hot you are.”

I blinked. Was she serious? Was that a thing? I knew I was more attractive than the average bear but hot enough to stop people in their tracks?

I refocused on my girlfriend, looking for some sign that she was joking or exaggerating, but her expression was stone-cold. Oh, man. If she was right, I was going to have so much fun with this.

Aly caught sight of my widening grin and huffed out a breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”

I turned my face from left to right. “Which do you think is my better side? I’ll need to know when it comes time to send modeling agents my portfolio.”

She slapped my arm and then rang the bell.

The front door opened so fast that Nico must have been standing right on the other side of it. Listening to our conversation?

Awkwaaard.

Nico threw his arms wide and stepped onto the front porch with us. “There’s my girl.”

Aly shot me a panicked look as her uncle hugged her. His overfamiliarity made her as uncomfortable as going out in public made me, and I knew she only endured it for my sake. I’d have to find a way to thank her for it later. Maybe it was time to finally give in and let her use the plug on me for once.

“Alright, fella,” came a lilting feminine voice. I glanced toward the front door as a petite woman with pale skin and light brown hair appeared inside it. “There’s no need to overdo it and scare the girl off.” Her Irish accent was so thick that the word “there’s” sounded more like “tears”. It must have been the infamous Moira.

Nico released Aly and turned toward his wife. “Who can blame me for being excited to welcome our niece back into the fold?”

“Uh,” Aly said. “That’s not what this is.”

Moira gestured us inside. “Either way, get in. It’s cold as a nun’s twat out here.”

Aly and I exchanged glances and followed the pair into the house. From what Aly had told me about her aunt, I knew that Moira’s family had ties to the IRA, and she and Nico met when they were still in their teens, back when the Italian mob was trying to court the Provos. Their dads had done business together, and theirs had been a Romeo and Juliet-style courtship but with a better outcome.

Aly had only interacted with her aunt a few times and said that was all it took for her to grudgingly like the woman. Moira had a whip-sharp sense of humor and didn’t take shit from anyone, her husband included. I’d just met her and could already see what Aly meant.

Moira held the door open as I passed, doing nothing to mask the appreciative way she eyed me, and I decided that maybe Aly had a point about my looks after all.

Moira’s gaze shifted to her niece next, and she winked. “Well done, you.”

Aly slipped her arm through mine, looking like the Mona Lisa with a smile full of secrets. “If you only knew.”

Moira’s brows lifted, her green eyes sparking with interest as they slowly rose to mine.

Nico chose that moment to clear his throat, and I was so grateful that I could have hugged him. Whatever the reason I drew so much attention, it still made me feel like I was about to break into hives.

Nico shut the door behind us and lifted an arm, indicating we precede him deeper into the house. “There’s wine waiting for us, and Moira put out a nice spread.”

She snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just some fancy cheeses and crackers arranged on a board.”

Her husband rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to compliment you.”

“Then be more obvious about it,” she shot back. “Next time, try saying something about what a nice arse I have.”

Nico looked scandalized. “Not in front of the kids.”

Aly dragged me past the pair, but we didn’t get away fast enough to miss Moira’s rebuttal.

“Calling that man a kid is like calling the David statue a lump of marble. Stop trying to infantilize him because he makes you feel weird in the tummy.”

“Moira! Jesus Christ. He does not.”

Aly wheezed beside me as we sped down a hallway, doing her best to hide her laughter and failing spectacularly. “Weird in the tummy. That woman is a legend.”

I didn’t find it quite as funny. “So much for me staying on his good side.”

She squeezed my arm. “You’ll be fine. I threatened to tell the cops everything if he ever turns on you.”

I stopped mid-step, dragging her to a halt with me. “When did you do that?”

“A week ago. Remember when you went back to your place to grab more stuff?”

I nodded.

“I came here while you were gone and read him the riot act over the tracker and the mass copying of my keys and keeping us out of the loop with everything.”

“How’d it go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “He said he’d fill us in tonight, but we’ll see if he keeps his word.”

“He will,” someone called out. We spun to see Junior rounding the far end of the hall. He gestured behind him. “We’re in here if you want to join us.”

I was about to have dinner with the whole clan. Nico, Moira, their sons, and all their romantic partners. Great. Splendid. I couldn’t wait to get this started.

Why were my hands so clammy all of a sudden?

Aly squeezed my arm. “We’ll just be a second.”

Junior nodded and disappeared back around the bend.

Aly dragged me into a nearby powder room with barely enough space for us. We were pressed so close that I had a clear line of sight straight into her cleavage. Weirdly, it helped calm my racing pulse. Just last night, I’d nestled my head there after she’d made me come so hard I saw God, and I’d spent several minutes with my ear pressed to her skin, listening to the steady rhythm of her heart. I could almost hear the low ba-dump, ba-dump now.

She took my hands, her eyes large and imploring. “You don’t have to do this.”

I would have leaned down and kissed her if not for the risk of smearing her crimson lipstick. “Thank you, but if you’re here, I’m here. I’ll just have to find some way to deal.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” I said.

She looked amazing tonight, her long hair falling around her in loose waves, her natural beauty accented with makeup, and that dress. God, that dress. I couldn’t wait to see it pooled around her feet later. I’d caught a glimpse of the bra and panty set she wore beneath it, all black silk and lace. An image of me slicing them into ribbons filled my head, but the fantasy would probably never come to life. It turned out fancy lingerie was expensive, and Aly had been low-key pissed after I cut a different set off her.

Maybe I could get away with it if I bought her more afterward.

She shook her head at me. “You’re thinking about sex, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “Dirty, dirty sex.”

“Yeah, you’ll be fine.”

With that, she shoved me out of the bathroom, and we joined the rest of her family in a formal sitting room. Everything about this house was formal, I was coming to realize. The ceiling was sky-high, with white-painted beams bisecting each other in a square pattern. A stone fireplace took up most of the far wall, and a roaring fire had been built in it that turned the room toasty. In the center, beneath a crystal chandelier, sat a trio of white couches facing a circular table filled with refreshments and appetizers.

I’d been expecting a crowd, but only three of Aly’s cousins stood with their parents, Greg nowhere to be seen. I was the only significant other in attendance and didn’t know how to feel about it. Were these dinners supposed to be for the family, and I was intruding? Or had the boys’ partners been excluded because there’d be shop talk tonight?

“Red or white?” Nico asked, gesturing to a pair of wine carafes.

“White,” Aly said.

I eyed the pristine couches before seconding her request.

Nico passed us each a glass.

Aly took a sip of hers and then trained her gaze on the family patriarch. “What’s going on with the investigation?”

Her second oldest cousin, Alec, lifted his brows. “What happened to ‘Hello. How are you?’”

Aly didn’t even acknowledge him, still zeroed in on Nico. “You told me you’d fill us in tonight.”

He gave her a reproachful look. “We don’t talk business until after dinner.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Aly said.

Moira interjected. “It does, but it’s also a tradition. Food and booze first. People are nicer when they’re tipsy and full.”

“Yeah,” Alec said. “It’s called hangry for a reason.”

Aly frowned. “So, what do we do until then? Exchange frivolous pleasantries and pretend we’re not all waiting for that conversation to happen?”

Moira clinked her glass against her niece’s. “You catch on fast.”

Aly sent me a frustrated glance.

I took a deep pull of wine to keep from having to say anything. Cowardly? Absolutely, but I knew better than to meddle in other people’s family drama, and I wanted to stay in Nico’s good graces as long as I could. I just hoped no one crossed a line with Aly because my Switzerland status only extended so far.

I also understood my girlfriend’s frustration. Brad was all over the news. A child of mega-rich parents had turned out to be a serial rapist and possible serial killer – so far, only the two bodies in the basement had been found, and you needed three for the “serial” title. He was suspected of killing more, and there were plans to excavate the backyard and search the woods we’d fled through looking for further victims.

Nico had stayed true to his word, and a man who looked an awful lot like Brad had been caught on CCTV withdrawing cash from an ATM close to the Canadian border. The crossings up there were on high alert, and Brad’s passport had been flagged. No additional sightings had been reported, but every night, the local news reminded people there was a killer on the loose, and the entire city was on edge, wondering if he’d really fled or if his family was hiding him somewhere nearby.

His parents were housebound because of the media attention, and their lawyers had been extra busy dodging questions and dragging their feet as they tried to slow the police investigation. It turned out the Bluhm’s initial acquiescence mostly came from shock, and now they were doing everything they could to save face in the public eye and distance themselves from what their spawn had done.

There was so much scrutiny on the case that I hadn’t hacked back into the police system despite how desperate Aly and I were to know what was happening. That left Nico as our only source of information.

He gestured at Aly with his glass. “How’s work been?”

She eyed him. “Has your little mole not been filling you in on my daily life?”

Nico grinned. “Greg’s been preoccupied with his own responsibilities.”

“And what would those be?” Aly asked.

“Janitorial, of course,” Nico answered, looking nonplussed.

Aly glanced around. “Where is he tonight?”

“Busy,” all of her cousins said at once.

Well, that wasn’t suspicious.

Aly honed in on it. “With what?”

Nico’s grin slipped. “Anyone ever tell you you’re not great at small talk?”

“Tell me about the investigation, and I’ll try to improve,” Aly shot back.

I hid my grin behind another sip of wine. She’d lured him right into that trap.

The rest of the pre-dinner conversation didn’t improve much from there. Aly and Nico spent most of it trading barbs. Moira attempted to get them back to safer ground several times with well-placed jokes, but neither was having it; they were too caught up in their battle of wills. Junior tried throwing me a lifeline halfway through by bringing up the latest football game, but I’d never been into sports, so that side conversation fell flat quickly.

As uncomfortable as the situation was, I was proud of Aly. The people pleaser in me would have been nice just to put everyone at ease, but she stood firm. We weren’t here because she actually wanted to spend time with her family; we’d been forced. And as funny as Moira was and as welcoming as her sons were being, these people were all criminals. They’d gotten rid of a body for us so seamlessly that it spoke of years of experience.

It made me wonder how many others they’d disposed of. How many families were out there, broken, searching for a loved one who would never come home? The mob didn’t just “disappear” fellow mobsters and gangsters who pissed them off. They targeted shop owners who didn’t want to pay for the mob’s forced protection. They went after government officials and community organizers who tried to stand up to them. Or they got rid of innocent witnesses to their crimes.

And Nico was the guy who made sure no one ever found them.

The opulence surrounding us had been built on the bones of victims. My father was a monster, but at least he’d never profited from his crimes. He committed them because he was sick, because he’d grown up in a violently abusive household, and had suffered several frontal lobe injuries that altered his brain function. I wasn’t excusing his actions, but there was a reason he was the way he was.

It made me wonder what Nico’s excuse was. Aly’s mom told her they had a strict but stable upbringing. Their parents didn’t hit them. Nico had simply fallen in with a bad crowd. But I wondered if it was more than that. I’d been in therapy so long and researched antisocial personality disorders so much that it was second nature to question charming people like Nico. Was he just naturally magnetic, or did he have sociopathic traits?

“Babe?” Aly asked. “You good?”