Prologue

KAI

His mouth found mine, stealing the questions on the tip of my tongue. Stein's hands were in my hair and on my jaw. He cupped my face like he was afraid I'd disappear if he let go. I didn't care. I kissed him back, and my fingers twisted in his collar to pull him closer. The taste of him flooded my mouth, and I gobbled it.

His palm slid down my chest, dragging over my navel until it reached my belt. He didn't stop there. His fingers found the button of my slacks and worked it open, one-handed, like he'd been practising that motion for a decade. I gasped against his lips when his hand slipped inside. When his fingers wrapped around my dick through the cotton of my boxers, I almost came in his hand.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

He stroked me slowly, his thumb tracing the head through the fabric. My knees buckled, and he caught me. He pressed me backwards and walked me step by step toward the wall. His mouth never left mine. His hand kept moving, stroking and squeezing when necessary. I let him guide me, let him push me, let him take whatever he wanted.

I learned that letting him do whatever he wanted was better than fighting.

My shoulder blades hit the wood, and the door groaned, but I barely registered it, not with his tongue in my mouth and his palm pressing hard against my cock.

Then the door swung open.

I tumbled backwards with Stein's weight still against me. My hands caught at his shirt, trying to steady myself, but it was too late.

I hit the floor on my arse, and he fell on me, both hands braced at my sides so he wouldn't squash me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling up from me.

“Yeah.” Nodding, I looked past him, to the room we'd fallen into. He'd told me, when I asked about the door, that it led to an old closet.

But now, looking up, I realised he never wanted me to find out what was actually in this place.

My face stared back at me from every corner of the wall.

Thousands of photographs were taped, pinned, framed, and layered over each other like wallpaper. There I was at thirty, grinning at someone off-camera. Me talking to a man I'd met at a bar, one I couldn't fuck because he suddenly became sick after going out to take a call. Me on my bed, sleeping. 

And the worst? Some he'd taken with his fucking hands wrapped around my dick while I slept, oblivious to the shutter clicking inches from my face.

I couldn't breathe. The room felt too small, as if the walls were closing in. Everywhere I looked, my face was there, watching me from every angle, frozen in moments I'd forgotten I'd lived.

And in the centre, on the bed, were things I'd thought I'd lost. My favourite mug, the boxers I came in that vanished from the laundry, and the leather jacket I always wore to jog, folded clean. They were laid out like an offering.

“Wa… what—What the fuck is this?” I stammered, turning to look at him, my heart slamming against my ribs.

He'd told me he knew nothing about me when we got married. That I was a stranger. That he'd never met me before until that first night we had dinner. He'd lied.

And I'd thought his obsession, and the way he needed to own every part of me, was the worst. I thought he was just a monster. Boy, was I wrong. He's not a monster. He's the devil himself.