Page 20 of Hush, Little Baby

It isn’t like a pacifier.

It’s warmer, firmer, and real.

His skin tastes faintly clean, but also distinctly like skin, and my first thought is that I should not do this, that I should bite him or pull away or spit it out because this is wrong and strange and too much.

But then he presses the pad of his thumb lightly against my tongue, and his other hand cups the back of my head, not forcing, only holding.

“There,” he murmurs. “That’s it. Suck.”

My whole face burns.

I don’t want to.

I do it anyway.

At first, it’s barely anything, just a reflex, just my mouth closing around the shape of him because he put it there, and my body doesn’t know what else to do. Then he strokes my hair, slow and steady, and the rhythm of it gives me something to follow.

Suck.

Breathe.

Suck.

Breathe.

The air comes easier through my nose when my mouth is busy.

I hate that it works.

I hate that my body softens almost immediately, that the buzzing in my hands begins to fade, that the hard fist around my whole chest loosens finger by finger until I can pull in a breath that doesn’t hurt as much.

Nikolaus watches my face the entire time.

“Good boy,” he says, the words quiet and pleased. “Just like that. You’re okay.”

My eyes flutter, because “good boy” feels like a blanket around the scared, messy part of me that doesn’t know how to stand up and demand to be let out of the car.

Constantine’s voice reaches me again, clearer now. “Well, that worked.”

Nikolaus doesn’t look away from me. “Of course it did. Poor baby just needed something to keep his mouth busy.”

His thumb stays in my mouth while his other hand drifts down, petting over the back of my head, then my neck, then between my shoulders. Broad, patient strokes. The kind that makes my body forget, little by little, that it was trying to panic.

I’m still scared, but it becomes a quieter kind of scared.

A faraway kind.

Like the fear is still in the car with us, but maybe not sitting directly on my chest anymore.

Nikolaus shifts slightly beneath me, and I feel his hand slide along my hoodie. For a second, I stiffen again, but he only reaches into my pocket, slow enough that I know exactly what he’s doing.

“What’s this?” he murmurs.

My wallet.

My stomach dips, but the panic doesn’t come back full force, not with his thumb still in my mouth and his hand still stroking over my spine.

“Dat’s mine,” I try to say, but it comes out soft and muffled around him.