Chapter Seventeen #2
“Only ever seen you in a braid,” he goes on. “Didn’t know your hair was this long. Or this thick.”
“My hair’s always been this long and uh, thick,” I say lamely.
He fists the ends, tugging at it, making me gasp. Before wrapping it around his wrist, once, then twice, making me whimper and clutch my dress harder. Licking his lips, he rasps, “Long enough to use it as a leash and thick enough to pull that leash hard.”
He accompanies that with a hard tug of my hair that almost makes me lose my balance, but his thighs around me keep me safe. Still, I whisper, “Please.”
Which makes him look up and find the result of his ministrations.
My neck is stretched back, and my spine is bowed.
I’m clenching my thighs, and even though he can’t see that, I still think he knows.
He also knows how wet I am and how close to exploding.
Something like satisfaction passes through his features before he lets go.
I’m just about to draw in a relieved breath when he produces his knife from somewhere, probably his pocket, and my heart thuds. Flicking it open in his hand, he orders, “Hands up.”
I look at the knife for a second. “What?”
“Can’t do this with tied hands, can you?”
I blink. “Y-you… You’re going to untie me?”
His eyes narrow a bit. “You gonna run out on me?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“So then,” he repeats with a dip of his chin, “hands up.”
I open my mouth to tell him that it’s okay.
The rope has enough give to allow me to work on him with my hands tied, but then I realize how crazy it sounds.
Nothing has changed, remember? I’m still his captive.
If he wants to untie me, I should jump at the chance, not politely decline.
So I curl my fingers into a fist and put them up in front of him.
And without taking his eyes off me, he cuts the rope in the middle, all deftly and quickly.
But before I can go free, his fingers wrap around my wrist, just under where the rope left its mark. “It worked.”
His touch makes me flinch and raises chill bumps up and down my arm. “What worked?”
His dark eyes rove over my features. “Lettin’ you ride my mouth last night.”
I gasp. “That… You… What?”
His fingers squeeze my wrist slightly. “The wild little filly ain’t so wild anymore.”
My cheeks burn. “I don’t…”
“Shoulda done it sooner.”
“You shouldn’t have done it at all,” I retort finally.
“If you say so.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Not from where I was lookin’.”
“And where were you looking from?”
“From between your juicy thighs.”
“You’re such a—”
“While gulping down your orgasm number four,” he finishes.
“You…” My cheeks burn harder as I correct, “Three. It was only t-three times.”
He leans forward, and I try to ignore how his abs contract with the motion.
“I’d believe you, if drinking from your cunt didn’t feel like shooting tequila.
And trust me when I say, I know how many shots I had.
By the time you were done squirting into my mouth, my jaw was drippin’ and my chest was drenched.
I was so drunk on your ripe little pussy that you could’ve stabbed me with the knife I gave you and I wouldn’t feel it. ”
“I-I forgot I had it,” I confess like an idiot.
His eyes flash with heat. “I forgot the whole fuckin’ world and everyone in it while eatin’ your pussy, darlin’, so I guess we’re even.”
“Please don’t,” I hiccup, “call me darling.”
“You tell me what to call you and I’ll call you that.”
“My n-name.”
“Yeah, what’s your name?”
I almost tell him then. I even open my mouth, sound out the syllables in my head, before I realize what I was going to do. Then, whispering, I say, “You know what my name is.”
His eyes grow intense and so does his hold on my wrist. “Tell me again anyway.”
With a pounding heart, I lie, “Peyton.”
“Peyton,” he repeats.
I don’t know why, but again, for a second I think he knows. Somehow he’s figured it out, my lie, and he wants me to admit it. But I remind myself that’s impossible. Still, it scares me so much that I blurt out, “Can I please just… dress your wounds?”
He runs his eyes over my features for one last time before letting my hand go, and I breathe out in relief.
I finally break eye contact and focus on the task.
I pick up the kit and fish out the rest of the things I need to clean and bandage his cut.
Then, I try to switch off everything. The fact that he smells like the woods, the water, and clean and crisp leaves; his skin is all damp and bronzed, and there are still droplets clinging to his tight muscles.
Or how small I look on my knees before him.
How his body seems mountainous and towering, giving me shade under the sun.
My hands tremble when I reach up and dab his cut with the swab.
I go about it lightly because I know it must sting.
I also mutter a quiet sorry, but if it does hurt him, he doesn’t show it.
He sits there, still as a rock or as the mountain I just compared him to.
Still and staring. And honestly, why not, because he’s had a lot worse with that brand on his back.
The first letter of revenge, Rawhide, and Reverie.
I wonder if the Turners did that to him and if that’s why he’s so hell-bent on revenge.
“The land you talked about buying,” I say, surprising myself.
In the light of day, the moment when he shared that with me seems to have been very raw and vulnerable.
And maybe I should just let it lie. I shouldn’t get myself involved.
It’s none of my business. And by his reaction, it definitely seems so.
He goes all alert, his tanned muscles going taut.
Still, I keep going: “Is that… Do you still want that?”
It’s hard to maintain matching his gaze, so I look down to where I’m almost done rubbing in the antiseptic when I hear “No.”
I so want to look at him, but I can’t or I’ll lose my courage. “Is it because some time has passed?”
“Eight years,” he clips, and even though I’m looking at his cut rather than at his face, I still know he said that with a clenched jaw.
“Of course, I-I know that.” I swallow, keeping my eyes on the task. “But it sounded like a… a good plan. A goal. A dream. And I… I was just wondering if you could maybe still do that.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
A few seconds go by, and I’m finishing up with putting the last tape on a fresh bandage while losing hope. But then he says, with a voice so tight and low that I have to strain to hear it, “Because I don’t get to.”
“What?”
“Because I don’t get to buy land and be done with the Grayson-Turner bullshit. Not when the reason I wanted to do it is gone.”
I snap my eyes up then. And good thing I’m done with dressing his wound, because there was no way I could’ve continued with a steady hand after getting a look at his face.
It’s harsh and tight, dangerous, but that’s not the reason why I’m afraid or why there’s a deep clench in my belly.
It’s the fact that his eyes look… desolate.
They look vacant.
They’re dark as always, but there’s an emptiness to them that I’ve never seen before.
It’s like all the fire inside of him has leached out and he’s gone cold.
I have this bizarre feeling that if I looked now, the brand would have disappeared from his body.
That nothing hot and scalding ever touched him to begin with.
Which is ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous. But I can’t help it. I can’t help the thoughts running through my mind and how my entire body shakes with the urge to get closer to him. I stay put, though, and ask, “A girl?”
That seems to jerk him awake from whatever place he’d gone off to. And thank God—thank fucking God—his eyes don’t seem empty anymore. They glitter, and even if I can see it’s anger at my question, I don’t mind it. “That’s enough of your questions.”
“I was just”—I go to take my hands away from him, but he stops me by wrapping his fingers around my wrist again—“wondering.”
“How about,” he goes, squeezing my wrist, “you answer some of my questions for a change?”
Unease washes through me, and I struggle to get away. “What questions?”
He only tightens his hold on me. “Your father.”
My heart jumps in my throat. Why are we talking about him?
I don’t think we’ve ever talked about him.
As in, specifically. Where he’s staring at me like I’m under a spotlight, a lens that he’s peeking through.
And I’m good at lying—of course I am—but I don’t think I’d be good at it under this kind of scrutiny.
So I try to break out of his hold. Even though I know I won’t be able to.
His grip isn’t bruising but it’s firm, and I’m not getting out of it until he allows me to.
Still, I keep trying as I ask, “W-what about him?”
“You know this, about dressin’ wounds and shit, because of him,” he declares. “Because of what he did to your mother.”
I swallow, my unease still not going away. In fact, for some reason, it’s growing by the passing second. Not only because of my deception, but also because there are certain things I don’t like to talk about. Or to be asked about.
“I don’t know why we’re talking about this,” I say, looking anywhere but in his eyes. “You already know that. And you already know everything there is to know about my father, because you almost k-killed him eight years ago and you’re hell-bent on destroying him, so I don’t—”
“And you,” he cuts me off.
“Me what?”
“He did this to you.”
I was in the process of twisting my hand in his grip when he spoke, and I go still. Did he just… How did he know?
“Didn’t he?” he prods when I don’t give him the answer.
I wince and resume my struggle to get away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His features darken. “He did.”
“Why would you even think—”
“Because a man fucked up enough to beat his wife is not gonna take mercy on his daughter.”
“Can you please let me go?”
“How often?”
“I just want you to let me go.”