Free Boy (The Training House #2) by Eden Bradley Page A

There’s always been this awful, glaring hole, and I’m constantly trying to fill it. I feel as if I’ve come close a few times—close, but never quite enough. Never quite right. And then you come along and…you feel right. Forgive me, but I can’t not tell you. You rip me too wide open, and I can’t allow that to happen and still have anything left to fight it with. No, that’s not right. I couldn’t fight it to begin with. Not with you. I have no desire to do anything but give myself to you, no matter what it does to me. It scares me to tell you, but I have to. I have to.”
    I don’t know what to say, my tongue frozen in my mouth. Emotion builds, knotting my chest, my gut, threating to burst in some spectacular explosion. And when it does, that shattering sensation tearing into my skin, all I can do is fist my hand in her soft hair, push her down into the hay and kiss her and kiss her, as if my life depended on it. Maybe it does.
    Her body is so damn soft, her mouth even softer, and the way this woman yields to me is powerful. Intense. She makes me want to own her—something I’ve never done before, never wanted. Sure as fuck never needed, the way I do right now, with her.
    I pull back. It almost hurts to do it. “Aimée, I need to take you out of here,” I tell her in a rush, and maybe I’m not even certain of what I’m saying.
    “Take me out of here?”
    “Yeah.” I nod, the plan formulating as I talk to her. “I can get to some clothes, and I have cash stashed here. We’re going away together. I don’t know where we’re going, not yet, but I’ll figure it out by the time I have you dressed.”
    She’s staring up at me, her eyes wide.
    Laying my palm on her cheek, which is burning with a hot, lovely blush, I tell her, “I need your consent. You know that’s the only way I can do this. Fuck, I shouldn’t be doing this at all, violating your contract, as well as mine. I do it all the time, but I know this isn’t something you’d do without my bad influence. Still…” I have to pause, chewing the inside of my lip, trying to ground myself. It’s not working. All I know is a sharp-edged desperation that’s going to make my guts spill all over the damn floor if I can’t do this. “I need you to come with me. I can’t stay here anymore, and I’m not leaving without you. But if you can’t do it, I get it. I do. Just fucking tell me…”
    She raises her hand and strokes my face, her gaze locked on mine, her pale little brows drawn. So serious, and so damn pretty, I can’t stand it.
    “Christopher. Please promise me you won’t leave without me. Please. I’ll go anywhere with you. I have to.”
    I nod, turn to kiss her sweet palm. “Wait here. I’ll be back within an hour.”
    She nods, smiles. Her eyes are shining, brilliant.
    Getting to my feet, I flex my fingers, then ball them up into fists. And there I am, naked and unchained, when I hear the stall door swing wide behind me, and the high-pitched chuckle of fucking Jonathon as the handlers grab me and throw me to the floor.
    “God fucking shitting damn it!”
    There are four of them on me—big, beefy guys—and they overpower me too easily, pissing me off. I kick one of them, manage to bite a hand, but there are too many of them. In seconds they have me bound in rope and gagged with the damn stuff—the spiky jute I usually love and hate simultaneously, but which I only hate right now. Not as much as I hate Jonathon.
    My vision is blurred with red—the unadulterated color of raw anger—and through it I see my beautiful Aimée, hands over her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. And fuck, I will hate myself if she’s punished on my account. I will hate them . I will burn the goddamn place to the fucking ground!
    But they hustle me out so damn fast, I hardly have time to think, to tell Aimée I will get out of this and come back for her. I’m still struggling as they drag me down the center aisle of the slave barn, but my arms