Page 57 of The Shadow Sanctum

When he chuckles, there’s a trace of real humor. “Yes, Luna. It’s really not a weird one. At all.”

Doubtful.

“What would be considered a weird one?”

His eyes lift as he sucks in a long breath through his nostrils. When it rushes out, he finds me again. “Agalmatophilia.”

I blink. Shake my head. “I’m not familiar.”

“Of course you’re not. That’s what makes it weird. If I were to throw a rock at a Sabrina Carpenter concert, I could hit a woman who enjoyed the occasional Daddy dirty talk. Every woman in the building would know what it is.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Then I must repulse you.”

He raises a brow when I can’t find words. There’s a retort here, an argument to be made. I don’t find it quickly enough.

“Really, Luna. If you could see the things I’ve done, you’d throw up. I like it nasty. And weird. The weirder the better.”

“Liar.”

He smiles, his knee tipping against mine once again. I look down my lap and curl my hands into the fleece lining my coat hood.

“Fine,” I say with a tone that shows how little the lie means to me. How inconsequential his words are. “I’ll bite. Tell me about agalmatophilia.”

His smile widens. For a moment, he just stares at me with a look that fights so hard against the firmness of my mouth. I don’t return his smile—what foolishness that would be—but there’s a twitch in one corner of my lips that doesn’t still until Sawyer faces the sky once again.

“It shows up in different ways for different people. But my experience with it involved a woman who liked to role play as a doll.”

“A doll…”

He nods. “She would hold very still while I braided her hair and applied blush to her cheeks. I would dress her, talk to her, and even sit her at a table with cups of tea and other dolls. When I fucked her, she would keep so still with her eyes opened, you could barely tell when she came. She would make the tiniest high-pitched sound. It was sexy in the weirdest way.”

He glimpses me and laughs. “You should see your face.”

“That did not happen.”

“Ah… There she is again. My naive little dove.”

“You made that up.”

“I have watched a grown man put on a diaper and suckle the tits of a woman he called Mommy. There are far worse stories I could tell, let alone make up. I’ve done it all, Luna.”

“Including dress up as a breastfeeding infant.”

His head tips to the side with an amused grin. “That’s more of a male fantasy. I participate in women’s fantasies. But…” he shrugs, “I’m not against it. I’ll try anything once, as long as it doesn’t involve actual children.”

There’s a subtle change of tone at the end of his sentence. Humor weaponized with a message: pedofilia wrong, literally anything else good.

Subtle, Sawyer. Really.

My chin lifts. As if he truly issued a challenge. “Anything?”

He nods with zero shame.

“Ménage à trois, then.”

His head rears back. “Is that a joke?”