Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
ETHAN
"The day you found me, I was running from someone.”
Ollie’s words land like a shot in the quiet of the living room.
He’s leaning against me on the couch, his smooth, bare legs draped over my thighs while my fingers run through his soft, freshly dry curls.
The fire burns bright in the fireplace, but Ollie’s words suck all warmth out of the room.
His statement makes every muscle in my body tense and lock, something cold and hard coiling in my gut.
I keep my reaction neutral, leashing every instinct I have, focusing on my sweet Ollie instead, letting his scent calm me, allowing the softness of his hair ground me, feeling the warmth of his body center me.
His hands fidget with the flannel he’s wearing, and I brush my lips against his temple as a silent sign of comfort, a reminder that I’m here, and that he’s safe.
“I’ve been on my own ever since I can remember,” he says in a quiet but steady voice.
“Once I reached an age when I could get a job, I did anything anyone would hire me for and eventually I saved enough to move out of the community home I was in and move into a small, crappy studio that one of the employers I had was kind enough to let me stay in for cheap rent.”
To have him confirm my suspicions that he’s never had anyone look after him feels like someone has reached into my chest and twisted my heart in a vicious grip.
“A community home?”
He nods against me, the motion travelling through my fingers still tangled in his hair.
“I was told that I was left there by my omega parent when I was three years old and that no one else came looking for me. I don’t remember anything before that.”
My mind conjures up the image of a little Oliver, with his dark hair and green eyes, left alone at the doorstep of an unfamiliar place, abandoned by those who were supposed to love him and care for him, and white-hot anger almost robs me of breath.
“I stayed there until I was sixteen. The home didn’t receive sufficient funding for all of us, but at least they kept us fed and we had a bed to sleep, until I finally moved out.”
He lets out a weak, humorless laugh that raises the hair on my neck.
“For the first time, I had a roof over my head that was mine, so it made me happy. It was enough to even make me forget sometimes how empty it felt, how lonely I was. But I worked almost all day long so at least I could fall asleep exhausted and pretend that things would be different when I woke up.”
Bile chokes me at the monotonous, matter-of-fact way he’s using, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have to keep threading my fingers through his hair, when all I want to do while I listen to him is erase every trace of sadness from his voice, every instance of struggle from his life.
Suddenly, his hesitant smiles and rusty laughs make painful sense.
He takes a deep breath against me as if bracing himself, and I know that I’m going to like what he says next even less.
“After I turned 21, I got a job serving drinks at a bar. It was pretty good there, I got tons of tips and sometimes people would flirt with me or offer to buy me a drink, which for a shy guy like me equaled to disaster,” he chuckles with an air of wistfulness that breaks my heart.
“One day, this guy came in. He was very polished and good-looking, a bit older than me, and he was really friendly and funny. He was just charming, you know?” he says, and even though I know he’s not actually looking for an answer, I nod against him just in case, a pit of dread forming in my stomach.
“He came in every night for at least a week, said he wouldn’t stop until I agreed to go on a date with him, and, I don’t know, I guess I felt kind of flattered that he was that interested in me, so I said okay.
” Ollie pauses, and I don’t know if he realizes the way he subtly burrows deeper under my arm.
“We went out, but I felt it almost immediately—how wrong he felt. Something in the way he looked at me made my skin crawl, so at the end of the date, I thanked him but told him it wasn’t working out. ”
A faint shiver goes through him and I pull him in tighter.
“He acted like it was fine but as it turned out, it wasn’t.
He kept coming where I worked, kept showing up at places where I was, supposedly by accident, and then it only got worse,” he whispers, his voice breaking on the last word.
“I started finding messages outside my place that became progressively more violent and threatening, and when my first heat was approaching, I got a message that said that he knew that I was close, that he had scented me somewhere I hadn’t even noticed him and that he was going to take me and lock me somewhere until I went into heat, and that there would be nothing I could do then because I would be mindless with need, helpless and desperate. ”
His gaze lifts to meet mine and his beautiful, green eyes, these eyes that I have watched shine with happiness, sparkle with mischief, widen with curiosity, are now steeped in fear. Haunted.
“Come here, sweetheart,” I whisper harshly as I pull him onto my lap, and he nestles his head in my throat, his body heaving, racked by silent sobs.
“I panicked, Ethan,” he croaks. “I was so scared. I grabbed a couple of things and ran. I don’t know what I was thinking, I just wanted to get out of there, go somewhere he couldn’t find me, and hoped that maybe, just maybe, my heat would stall a bit and I would be able to find a place to go through with it.
” His voice grows so quiet, I can barely hear it.
“It was stupid, I know. And I also know that I could have died that day, from the cold, from exhaustion, from the heat itself, but I didn’t know what to do.
” He lifts his head slowly and his eyes are wet when they meet mine. “I had nowhere to go.”
Cold fury battles aching tenderness as I watch Ollie’s eyelashes heavy with unshed tears, the need to tear limb from limb whoever caused this beautiful soul so much pain and suffering only overridden by the urgency to soothe his agitation, to make sure he understands that no one is ever going to hurt him.
Cupping his nape, I slowly lean in until I’m brushing a soft kiss on each of his wet eyelids, before I move on to his delicate cheekbones, and finally his trembling lips.
A sigh escapes him that I feel in my own chest.
“Look at me, Oliver.”
Green eyes lock with mine.
“You’ve been so brave and so strong and you shouldn’t have had to. You did everything you could and none of what happened is your fault.”
I feel the way the blood pumps through my veins in a way I thought I’d forgotten.
The way the switch inside me flips and cold determination sets in, just as it always happened in my assignments, only worse. So much worse because this is about Ollie.
But even as something hard and ruthless takes root, there’s nothing but bottomless tenderness for this sweet man in my arms.
“No one is going to hurt you, Ollie. Do you believe me?”