Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Landon
You know what it takes to slay a man who was going to be officially over the age of thirty in just a few weeks, stood three inches over six feet, tipped the scales at 185 pounds, and could bench press time-and-a-half that weight? Forget a herd of elephants. All it took was the sight of the woman I’d loved since I was a snot-nosed kid looking as she had that night when we were eighteen. The tightness of her arms around me wasn’t that of a hug of a friend or even a lover. It was the grip of someone hanging on for dear life.
Fuck!
So much for my vow to keep her safe, my promise that no one was going to hurt her again. Hell, I might as well have been the stalker we were supposed to keep away from her. At this point I wasn’t any better for her than some stranger.
Then do something about it, dipshit!
Reaching down, I slid my hands under her and pulled her up. At least I attempted to. Instead of releasing me to allow herself to slide up my body, she dug her nails into my back.
“Let go, Fee.”
“No.”
“Come on, baby, I’ve got you.”
“No!”
Was I physically stronger, definitely. But when she tightened her grip, the bite of pain had me imagining how deep those nail tips would have gone if she hadn’t chewed them to little nubs.
“Fee, we can play tug-of-war or you can let me hold you like I want to… like I really, really need to.”
Her hold didn’t loosen much, but her head bobbing against my chest told me she was less resistant to the idea. Slowly, but steadily, I gave an experimental tug and when her hands dropped away, managed to pull her up, but when I attempted to arrange her to sit curled in my lap, she shook her head again and straddled it instead.
“Are you sure you don’t want to get closer?” I teased.
Turned out she did because she scooched up until there was absolutely no space between us and once again wrapped her arms around me. When she continued to squirm, I knew she still didn’t feel close enough. I dropped my arms around her and enfolded her in them. I bent to press first my lips against the top of her head and then to lay my cheek against her damp hair and said what I’d so badly wanted to say so long ago.
“I love you, Fee.”
When her shoulders began to shake, her entire body trembling, I prayed that I’d finally be able to merge the different paths we’d taken into one we’d travel side by side for the rest of our lives.
I opened my eyes when I felt Fiona stirring. I had no clue how long we’d sat there, not speaking, simply being close. She’d soaked my shirt with her tears as I ran my hand up and down her back. Eventually, she’d given a soft sigh and fallen asleep and I’d evidently followed her into dreamland.
“Owww,” she moaned softly, pulling one of her arms free and shaking it out before placing her hand on the back of her neck.
“Let me.” I gently pushed her hand away in order to wrap my fingers around the nape of her neck. I massaged gently, then increased the pressure as she groaned in pleasure. When she rolled her head from side to side, I let my hand slip down her back, digging into each vertebra of her spine loosening muscles and joints that had been tense for hours. Her groans turned into little mewls that made me smile.
“Better?”
“Much, but what about you? You’ve got to be stiff as a board.”
I chuckled. “Let’s just say if you keep squirming, I’m sure I’ll get there sooner rather than later.” I instantly regretted the teasing as she stiffened. “Don’t. I’m teasing and I’m fine. It’s my job to make sure you are good.”
Fiona relaxed but didn’t lean against me again. Instead, she scooted back.
“And that is why we are in this position now,” she said. “Come to think of it. I believe the reason women have two X chromosomes and men have only one X is because they needed to have a Y one so females would be constantly wondering why they do the things they do.”
“I rather doubt that?—”
“Really? Then tell me this. Why is it that men think they have to pretend everything is peachy-keen when they aren’t? Why do they state they don’t need extra care when they do? Why do they think they need to beat their chests and go all Tarzan when there are times when what they really need is to let Jane hold them and tell them it is going to be okay? Hmmm? Can you explain that, Mr.—Mr. Man?”
“And she’s back,” I said with a grin, loving her squeal and the way she grabbed my neck as I stood in one motion.
“I’m serious! I feel like shit for treating you so horribly.”
“Babygirl, you might have played some pranks on me, or blamed me for some of those silent but deadly gas attacks, but you have never once treated me badly.”
“Yes I did. Believe me, I cursed you and plotted so many different ways to get even after you left town. I even treated Finn pretty awful when he wouldn’t give me any information or tell me why he thought you’d left. My folks were either very good at pretending to be totally ignorant or they bald-face lied to me when I kept hounding them about it.”
“Fee, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to give anyone a chance to try to stop me because I was afraid if I did, they would. I needed you to take that scholarship. I needed to know you’d continue down the path you’d staked out ever since you got your first report card.” By this time, I’d reached the bathroom and set her down on top of the counter, keeping my arms caged around her. “And, to be honest, I needed to get away and find out who I was. I’d based my self-worth on my abilities to throw a football instead of thinking about a future beyond high school. We can talk it to death and ask all the why and what if questions you want, but that’s not going to change anything. What I’d much rather do is know you forgive me and move on to what we can change. Do you think you could or would even want to do that? Want to start over?”
She stared up at me, the emerald of her eyes shining in the light. “That depends.”
“On?”
“On if you’ll forgive me, and do not tell me there’s nothing to forgive. You may not want a litany of all I need forgiveness for, and I’m not sure my ass could withstand that many strokes of your hand, but before we can move forward, which, by the way, I very, very much want to do, I’m afraid I’m going to need forgiveness from my friend, and complete clemency from my Dom.” She cocked her head to one side and twirled her finger around a red strand of her hair. “Do you think you could or would even want to do that? Start fresh?”
Lifting my hands, I cupped her face between them. “More than I want my next breath.”
Her smile was radiant, but her eyes weren’t twinkling in a way that told me she was fully satisfied.
“I, Landon Augustus Westerly, do hereby extend a full pardon to Fionnuala Méabh Flanagan, absolving her of all her misdoings. How’s that?”
Her lips twisted a bit and her nose crinkled as if she were truly considering the worth of the pardon so freely offered.
“Did I miss something, babygirl?”
“No, you were extremely magnanimous, Landon, but I realized I missed something.”
My heart skipped a beat as her words hit me. I couldn’t blame her. After all, not a single bit of this was her fault regardless of what she might think. Too much time had passed. Too many miles had been taken down two separate paths for them to converge again.
“I understand.” I let my hands drop from her face and stepped back to allow her the space she obviously craved because she instantly hopped off the counter. She’d taken two steps toward the door when she turned back to look at me from over her shoulder.
“You coming?”
What?
“Where?”
Making a full turn, she placed her hands on her hips. “I thought you said you understood?”
“I did–”
“Then where do you want me?”
She could have been speaking Latin for all I understood. At a complete loss, I shrugged. “Where do you want to be?”
Her smile only served to confuse me more.
“Well, I’d like to be in your bed with you doing deliciously naughty things to my naked body, but I know I wouldn’t be able to enjoy those things until you do your Dommy thing.”
“Dommy thing?”
Her eyes rolled and she didn’t even bother to hide it. Instead, she actually walked back to stand in front of me, lifted one hand from her hip and snapped her fingers as if getting my attention. “Must I spell it out?”
It wasn’t the snap nor the sass that had me pretty sure I was finally on the same page. It was the drop of her eyes to my hand that had the bell dinging. But what the hell. This could be fun. “I believe you do.”
The way her eyes widened and her mouth formed that precious little “O” instantly had my cock hardening but I’d learned a great many things in the past dozen years. Patience was only one of them. I almost laughed when her eyes tracked the movement of my hands as I slid both into the pockets of my jeans. “Do I need to break out the Scrabble game so you can find the correct letters?”
Her head lifted and her eyes cleared. “No, what you need to do is pull your hands out of your pockets and S.P.A.N.K. my ass, Sir, Major Daddy Dom, Sir.”
Well, fuck me. Seemed Fee had learned some things as well. How to get from Point A to Point Z at the speed of light was apparently one of them. I instantly knew what she needed and that need wasn’t a simple spanking from her boyfriend for wrongs she thought needed to be righted. She needed the type of spanking only her Dom could deliver. The “Daddy” part was new, but I’d be lying if it didn’t fill a niche in my psyche I hadn’t even truly acknowledged.