Page 142 of The Monster and the Masochist

The moment was gone in a flash. She blinked twice, and suddenly, the vulnerability was gone and replaced with that lethal smirk of hers that I’d seen her use in the courtroom on TV right before she was about to eat her competition alive.

“Theodora. I just told you I have a homicidal voice in my head that’s as real to me as you are. If you don’t think that makes me fucked up, then I don’t see how anything you can tell me about yourself will even rank on the universal scale of fuckedupery.”

“Fuckedupery is definitely not a word.”

“It’s a word if I say it is.”

I huffed a laugh and rolled my eyes. She smiled at me, and to my surprise, she curled her knees up onto the couch and crawled over me.

Tugging the blanket out of my hands, she slipped under it and snuggled next to me on the couch.

“Cass?”

She plucked the sleeve of my t-shirt and gave me a pouty look.

“Let me in my nook,” she ordered, and I nodded dumbly, lifting my arm so she could tuck herself carefully against my side.

She rested her head on my shoulder and slung her leg over mine under the blanket. Turning her gorgeous face up to look at me with those soft brown eyes of hers, she melted into me… And I couldn’t help but marvel at how perfectly our bodies fit together.

Like two pieces of an unlikely puzzle, having her wrapped around me like this felt like I was finally complete.

She let out a happy little sigh and literally wiggled to fit herself more snuggly against the line of my body, before brushing her lips against the underside of my jaw.

“I just want to help you, baby,” she hummed. Reflexively, I curled her warm body into mine and found myself dropping soft kisses on the top of her head.

Her brown sugar and vanilla scent flooded my nose, and the feel of her curled up in my arms like this was a soothing balm.

She melted away the tight ball of anxiety in my chest better than any prescription drug ever could.

Safe.

She felt safe.

“Let me help you. Tell me what’s hurting you. Tell me why you keep self-destructing on me.”

The thought of telling her was both tempting and terrifying.

If my abuser wasn’t her literal client, I would have had a much easier time with this. She might have actually been the first person I ever really told…

But…

What if she picks her career over you? What if she picks him?

“It’s… complicated.”

“I’m a lawyer, Theo. I thrive on complicated.”

She kissed my throat gently and squeezed me tighter, nuzzling her adorable little button nose into the sensitive spot under my ear, inhaling my scent.

I wanted to tell her.

Maybe I could tell her some version of the truth.

Maybe I could tell her something had happened to me without telling her who it was?

She didn’t need to know that Father Samwell was the reverend.

Then at least she would understand why I was the way I was.