Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

I cry until his shirt is dark and wet. These are silent tears. They fall without my consent, while my face is solemn. I can be stoic for him. I won’t beg now. I won’t plead.

Not even when Honor comes in and tells me it’s time to go.

It feels like dying to walk away. Feels like dying to look back and see him watching me go. Feels like dying as I cross the dark lawn.

Honor holds my hand, but doesn’t say anything.

I think she knows. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever felt, to leave him behind. And it’s nothing compared to what he’ll go through.

We’re near the gate when we hear the explosion behind us. Fireworks.

Those are the fireworks that would have celebrated her engagement.

Only fitting that they’ll end it.

It’s not hard to find Gio’s beat-up Pontiac Grand Am parked down the side lane. The radio is broken. The gas tank is full. We drive in silence until the blasts fade to nothing.

There is only empty road in front of us and empty road behind.

I need you to do this for me, Clara. I need you to stay safe.

And so I do.

* * *

That’s the end of the prequel Tough Love! I hope you loved meeting Giovanni and Clara. Turn the page to begin reading Hold You Against Me, the novel-length conclusion to their story…

Hold You Against Me

“I want to be inside your darkest everything.”

—Frida Kahlo

Prologue

Giovanni

The sound of running water pulls me out of the darkness. Soft and pleasant, like a babbling brook. That’s how it seemed the first time I heard it. Only the clench of my gut told me it would be different. And the sight of the black-soot concrete ceiling.

It’s become my sky, that ceiling. Instead of finding shapes in clouds, I see skulls in the dark growth and water stains lining the top of the room. The walls and floor are similar, but I don’t get to see them much.

They only take me down from the table when I pass out.

They only put me back on the table when it’s time for another round.

A faint whoosh is my only warning before ice-cold water lands on my face. I sputter, coughing, feeling a thick liquid in my mouth that isn’t only water. Blood. Old blood. The metallic taste is almost the same as the rancid water they use.

“Time to wake up, you stupid fuck.”

My vision clears to reveal my tormenter, one of them, holding a bucket that used to be blue. Now it has black growth all around it. Unsanitary. I think I said that to him once. It’s dumb to antagonize the men, but sometimes it’s impossible not to. After hours of questioning. Days? I can’t be sure. It feels like an eternity.

“Did you miss me?” I say, my voice thready and rough.

His large nostrils flare. “So it’s going to be a hard day, is it? You stupid fuck.”

That’s always what he calls me. You stupid fuck. Not a very imaginative insult, especially when he says it fifty times a session. I’m pretty sure I told him that once, too. And I lost a tooth for my trouble.

I’d never seen him before I woke up strapped to this table the first time. I nicknamed him Troll in my mind, because I imagine him living down in this torture basement, never seeing the light of day.