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And when I did, I forgot all about the shirt and the shower and my state of undress And the fact that I’d told

The dreaded tears began to flow as I dropped to hn in my head

“Ignore it,” I whispered to myself

Jesus, it should be such an easy thing – to ignore it, get up, shower, and leave this place

But I couldn’t et up, not even to curl into a ball on the floor like I wanted

All I could do was stare in confusion as a little spark of unexpected hope began to curl through littered like gold against the stark, dingy tiles beneath me

The jerk had brought out the big guns… and he probably didn’t even know it

Da butterscotch

Chapter 5

Vaughn

My shirt looked huge on hiuy, Aleks was just so…

Beautiful

I sighed silently at ical The reasonable side of me was fully aware that the noenty-year-old Aleks had lost soh Marcus had used food as a means to control Aleks, he’d also prized Aleks’s beauty and had made sure he was physically healthy, so he hadn’t starved hi-term But that didn’t mean he hadn’t withheld food to punish Aleks And while I’d never seen Marcus strike Aleks firsthand, there was no denying that the man had physically abused him at one point because I’d seen the scars on Aleks’s back

His back

Where admirers were less likely to see the marks when Marcus paraded his pet in front of them

I feltup of all the things Marcus had done to Aleks, and it took all of my power to focus on the road in front of lances Aleks’s way,the he the hell out of me, but I knew Aleks wasn’t even aware of it He was clearly nervous and I couldn’t really bla with hio ho me to take him home

Which I would