21
“I hate you!”
Conor’s husky scream echoes across the sunny meadow, spooking the livestock and hardening my cock.
She doesn’t hate me.
She never stopped loving me.
It’s been three days since her groundbreaking declaration. Three days of trauma-focused therapy, which has proven more difficult than I expected.
The therapy is straightforward. Conor is the difficult part. But fuck me, I can’t get enough of her fire.
“Someone’s going to see me, you perverted prick!”
She’ll calm down, eventually. In the meantime, I have a killer view of her flexing ass.
I cinched a saddle on the fence at the far end of the east pasture. No one’s working near here this afternoon, and the fencing in this section is newer, sturdier, with thick wooden rails that hold her restrained body beautifully.
Heavy straps buckle the saddle in place and prevent slipping. More straps cross her back and bind her legs to the fence.
It took some wrestling to get her into position—face down and bent sideways over the saddle. Her pretty tattooed arms dangle on one side, her legs tied down on the other.
I stand behind her, torturing myself with the sight of her backside in frayed cutoff shorts. Every time she squirms, the denim inches higher on her creamy white legs.
I didn’t tie her arms. Not because she’s not ready. God knows my cock is ready. But she needs her hands free for the pencil and leather-bound journal I gave her. To be honest, I’m surprised she hasn’t hurled them at me.
“I’ll write down the damn words.” She pitches a glare over her shoulder. “Stop staring at my ass and unstrap me!”
“You said you’d rather hang your saddle on the fence and throw dirt at it.”
“You’re so fucking sick.”
“Write that down.”
I spent the last three days ordering her to keep a journal of every feeling and memory that surfaces.
Words, pictures, prompts, details, anything that comes to mind.
I touch her wrists constantly, and her flashbacks are growing fewer and farther between.
But she needs to learn how to parse her distressing thoughts.
She carries a lot of blame—for the ravine, her dad’s abuse, and Lorne’s incarceration. By changing how she perceives the past, she can change how she feels.
Problem is she refuses to write anything down. Just getting her to vocalize the memories is like pulling teeth. She needs some motivation.
So I strapped her to a saddle with the journal.
She still hasn’t written a single word.
It’s time to coax some memories out of her.
From my pocket, I remove my phone and select a Chris Stapleton song to play on repeat. The thrumming chords of Whiskey and You draw her attention. As I begin to softly sing along, she goes still, lulled by my voice.
A dreamy look settles over her face. She rests her cheek on her arms, where they fold on the saddle beneath her, the journal forgotten in her hand.
Jesus, her expression, the waves of fiery red hair around her graceful shoulders, the gentle curve of her spine… My heart clenches.
She’s the kind of beautiful that brings a man to his knees, and for whatever reason, she loves when I sing. So I spend the next few minutes serenading her with all the soul and emotion she deserves.
Once she’s soothed into listlessness, I shift out of her line of sight and slip a flask from my pocket. A few hearty swigs saturate my breath and heat my throat. Then I return the flask and continue to sing.
The taste of whiskey warms my blood, but I don’t make a habit of drinking. It would be too easy to numb my troubles with a bottle. I’m afraid it’ll consume me, and that’s the last thing Conor needs.
“You were singing to her.” She lifts her head and finds my eyes behind her. “When you were with Sara Gilly, you were singing—”
“Beautiful War.” I climb onto the fence beside her, and the wood rail groans beneath my weight. “I knew you were outside the door. I was singing to you , Conor.”
Her face pinches with pain, and her shoulders shudder.
“I read and reread your letters every day.” I stroke the leather cuff on my wrist, tracing the scratches and dents. “I never take this off.”
“You wore it when you fucked other women?”
I nod, and her eyes lose focus, dulling beneath a sheen of tears.
A bone-weakening coldness spreads through my body. Sorrow. Shame. Heavy, inconsolable regret.
“Whatever you’re feeling,” I say quietly, “write it down.”
She turns her gaze to the journal and hovers the pencil over the page. Then she writes one word.
Death.
That’s how I made her feel when I broke her heart. I knew it while it was happening, but to see the brutal truth written so clearly in five letters… It hurts on a whole new level.
I guess that’s the point.
Conor isn’t the only one grieving the crimes that were committed against her.
Straddling the thick fence rail, I lean back against the post and work my throat against a searing lump.
“Don’t stop singing,” she whispers.
I clear my voice and give her what she needs. As I sing, the pencil moves beneath the curtain of her hair.
The journal will serve as an outline later, when we step away and decompress. We’ll be able to evaluate her thoughts and talk through them. Right now, she just needs to let it out.
The song loops twice before she stops writing. “I’m finished. You can untie me now.”
I decide when she’s finished. That’s a concept she seems to have forgotten.
She needs to yield to me as much as I need to take care of her. Our natures thrive in the roles we established long ago—the leader and follower, the top and bottom, the alpha and omega.
We both crave that pecking order. We find harmony in it. If I have any hope of making us work in the long haul, I need to maintain our dynamic.
This is the other reason I strapped her to the saddle.
I slide off the fence, lowering on the side she faces. Behind her, the sun makes its decent toward the hillside, taking some of the heat with it.
After a quick check on the straps against her back, I stand before her, a couple of feet away.
“Obey me.” I tilt my head, studying her face. “And I’ll tell you what happened when I went to Chicago.”
“You went to Chicago?” She inhales sharply. “When?”
“The day after you rode away on your motorcycle.”
“Why did you…?” Her eyes flick nervously between mine. “Oh my God. You saw the bruises that day. You knew he…” Her mouth closes and opens. “What did you do?”
“The journal,” I say firmly, nodding at the book in her hand.
“Okay, I’ll write.” She wags the pencil. “Just tell me.”
“The day after I saw your bruises, I hopped on a plane, went directly to his apartment, and beat his face in.”
Her throat bobs. “He died three weeks later.”
“I didn’t kill him.” I toss off my hat and stab my fingers through my hair. “I wanted to, Conor. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to end his life for what he did to you. But he was your father. Your only living parent. I couldn’t do that to you.”
Her breathing falters, and her shoulders tighten. She glances down at the journal, blinks a few times, and jots down some words.
Good girl.
I pace along the fence as she writes. A few minutes later, her hollow voice stops me.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.” I go to her and bend my knees, putting us at eye level. “I told him I saw the abuse he inflicted. He didn’t deny it.”
“Was he drinking?”
“Yeah.” Fucking wasted. “I demanded answers about the threats on your life, but he refused to give me anything beyond what I already knew. He wanted you back in Chicago, away from the ranch. He was belligerent on that point.”
I inspected the apartment while I was there and found food, clothes, everything a girl her age needed to live comfortably. He provided for her well enough, but in his attempt to numb his pain, he didn’t give her the security and love she needed.
So I beat him into unconsciousness and left his bleeding, drunk ass on the floor.
She stares at the journal, the pencil pressed to the paper, unmoving. A bullet-point list of single words lines the page beneath her hand. Lonely, hurts, scared, hopeless, and so on.
Then there’s my name, in caps and underlined, with a slew of adjectives beneath it. Arrogant. Manipulative. Revengeful. Kinky… I like that last one.
But she didn’t write any specific memories about Chicago. She needs to address what happened with her dad.
I stroke the backs of my fingers along her delicate face. “Tell me what he did.”
“No. Please, Jake. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Write it down.”
She shakes her head briskly, adamantly, and directs her gaze to my phone on the fence. “Turn off that song.”
I’ll have to trigger her memories of the abuse. I expected that, but I want her in my arms when I do it.
“Hold onto the journal.” I move around her, releasing the straps on her back and hopping over the fence to untie her legs.
She slides off the saddle and turns in my arms.
My muscles tense, bracing. Then I direct her face to mine and exhale.
She sucks in a breath and freezes.
“You smell like…” She gasps, and her entire body locks up. “Why do you smell like whiskey?”
“Breathe. Deep, slow breaths.”
Her chest heaves, and sudden, convulsive intakes of air pull more of my whiskey-scented breath into her nose. She chokes and tries to push me away.
The pencil and journal drop to the ground, and I follow them down, arranging her to sit sideways on my lap with her shoulder against my chest.
By the time I position her, she’s in full panic mode, thrashing and sobbing and ripping my heart out.
“I’m with you, Conor.” I hold her tight against me, breathing against the side of her face. “Don’t fight it. Let it out. Purge it. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
She sobs and struggles in my arms for an agonizing eternity. Then her battle wanes into low, keening cries, soaking her cheeks and trembling her body.
I curl her fingers around the pencil and set the journal on her lap, silently urging her.
A stretch of reluctance lingers before her walls break, and her grief explodes in a brutal flood.