Chapter 65
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Even inside, I don’t feel safe.
I pull Holland back to the bathroom. I saw blood on her hand, and I’m not sure if that’s from me or if that motherfucker cut her. Some of her hair is missing—the light spot has been chopped like poorly cut bangs.
“Wyatt…” She’s pulling against my grip, but I don’t care.
If I can get her cleaned up and taken care of, maybe I can stay present long enough to find Weston.
I should just track Weston down on the cameras right now.
Should take the cart to the villa and unlock my arsenal of weapons.
But that blood on Holland’s hand is nagging at me for some stupid fucking reason.
And her touch is grounding me in a way that makes me feel… okay. And I can’t explain why.
“Wyatt, you’re bleeding.”
That man was after Holland. Either it was random that he was creeping up on the house, or he was working with Weston, trying to scope out where I’ve been hiding.
Or worse, trying to get to the people around me to exploit weakness.
Trying to get inside my head. Like he did with the fox on my bed all those years ago.
Reluctantly, I let Holland go, and she steps back, gesturing at me, her tone frazzled. “You’re hurt.”
As I watch her, something inside me thinks she looks like a mother hen with all its feathers ruffled.
We like chickens. Chickens are nice.
Holland reaches for my groin, and I stiffen, the realization that her hands are right there suddenly making me hyper-aware. And now I’m aware of the pain there, and I see blood darkening my pants.
“Take these off.” She’s pulling at my pants. Instead of stopping her, I just watch.
“Why did you do that?” She sounds exasperated, pulling my pants down until I’m in my boxers, and I can see I must have gotten cut on my inner thigh, right by my groin.
The cloth there is sliced, and blood drips down my thigh.
It’s not worse than some of the injuries I got in my high school fight club, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. But Holland’s face is red.
“Did you not hear me?” she snaps at me, gaze flashing to mine.
I just look down at her with her crazy hair and the anger in her eyes. I’m sure it’s just adrenaline from what that man tried to do to her. And that thought makes me angry.
“Do you have a first aid kit?”
“It’ll be fine,” I grit out. I should have killed that man more slowly. Should have ripped his insides out and strung them around the house as a warning sign.
“Fine? It’ll get infected.” She’s looking under the sink now, and I realize her head is right by my groin. Which has me hardening.
“It’ll be fine,” I say again.
It’s the wrong thing to say. Holland pops her head out from under the sink, blue eyes lit by anger. “Don’t dismiss me.”
My dick hardens at her tone.
Holland glances at it, then back up at me.
The awareness in her gaze just solidifies that she knows exactly what she’s doing.
She’s pulling me into her spiral, and it’s a vortex of control that I’m having a hard time pulling myself out of.
My knees weaken like they want me to bow before her.
To let her take everything else away and replace it with peace.
“I’m going to clean it. Unless you want a scar like this.” Holland pulls her ripped pant leg open to show an angry-looking red welt and grabs the supplies she found under the sink.
What is that? I focus in, but her clothes are already covering it again. Did she get hurt out there?
Holland bats away the hand I reach down. “Hold still.”
“What happened?” That mark looked old.
“Hold fucking still.” Her fingers are on me, and she’s ripping open my boxers. I freeze, all the blood rushing to the places she’s touching me. She’s ripping a hole from the slice, and as she does, her hand brushes my dick.
“Sorry,” she mutters as sensation bolts up my spine. I have to hold my breath to keep back any sound. God, one touch, and I’m already leaking precum.
She keeps working. It’s weird to have someone this focused on something like this. It feels…odd, someone taking care of me.
A memory hits me out of nowhere. It plays in my head like a movie, and I watch it with a sort of detached flatness.
I’m in the bathroom after I buried the fox’s body. My clothes are covered in its blood, and my face is still swollen, dried blood around the corner of my mouth from the fight.
As I stare at the hard, masculine lines of my face, I cock my head, feeling like I’m floating outside my body. The person in the mirror doesn't look like me. I reach my hand up to touch the smattering of whiskers that have started growing.
Ew. I twist my face, and the face in the mirror twists back, which is unsettling.
There are so many cuts and so much blood. I know some of it is mine, but some of it isn’t.
I could get an infection.
Oh god. I sink down to dig around under the sink for first aid supplies, muttering to myself as I clean and bandage the wounds. I touch them gently, even as I Nervous Nellie about all the diseases I could get.
“I think you need stitches, but…”
I’m startled out of the memory to see Holland frowning at my crotch, and for a second, I’m disoriented.
It was a memory of mine, I’m sure—I recognized the person in the mirror—but it doesn’t feel like mine.
And as I stand here, I remember how much that…
mothering instinct or whatever it was came out anytime I was hurt.
I feel that same mothering instinct as I stand here, pulling me away from the anger I usually feel. It wants me to sink into its grip, giving over to it fully.
Holland squirts more disinfectant over my wound, and the burning pain snaps me back into my head.
Fuck. Was that… Who was that? I know for a fact that wasn’t me.
“Stop moving.” Holland plants her hand on my thigh, grounding me again.
“Infect it.” The words come out of my mouth impulsively, and I feel that mothering part in my head cringe away. As it does, I feel a smidge of control slip back.
“Infect it,” I say again with more conviction. I’m not sure what the hell is going on, but I need to stay here. I need to stay to protect us against Weston, and I know for sure that that weak nurturing side will get us killed.
“What?” Holland is looking up at me with an irritated look on her face. That look makes me lean into my conviction. I drop to my knees.
“What are you—”
I grab her shoulders, pulling her to her feet so she’s standing over me. I need her to hurt me. To infect me. To keep me grounded.
“Hit me.” I look up at her, remembering when I was on my knees before Velvet like this. Holland’s gaze pierces mine.
“Please,” I snap.
Her hand is fast, snapping toward my cheek, smacking with an echo in the bathroom. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
I groan, the waves of pain radiating across my face. Holland’s hand is in my hair, yanking back. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that? Scaring me like that?” She pulls so hard that tears spring into my eyes, but she’s not done.
Holland shoves me back so hard I have to catch myself on my hands.
“Fucking asshole!” Her voice is tight with emotion and anger. “Lay the fuck down and let me help you.”
I do, wincing as lying down stretches open the cut on my leg.
I take up most of the floor, lying down like this, and Holland shifts for a second, trying to figure out where to sit.
As she hovers over me, all I can picture is her stepping on me, bruising me, and marking me as hers. Pissing on me to mark her territory.
The idea of her marking me sends all the blood rushing to my dick, making it stand straight up. Holland hovers for a second longer, then turns so she’s straddling my hips, sitting on my stomach, and facing away from me.
I know she can see the tent I’m making in my thin boxers as she shuffles through the kit.
That mothering part is familiar with the kit and slips out, “There’s glue.”
Fuck. No. “Don’t glue it,” I say, wincing at how contradictory I must sound. I need this wound to ground me for when I kill Weston. I need it to still hurt. I need the control.
I watch as Holland ignores me, grabbing the glue.
“No.” I buck, and it sends a delightful rip of pain through me.
“You’ll get infected.” She sounds annoyed.
“Good,” I growl.
Holland pinches the wound together, and I groan.
It must be deep ‘cause it hurts like a bitch, and suddenly, all I want is for it to always hurt. I want to remember the feeling of her hips pinning me down. I want her to carve herself into the cut on my leg so I never forget her. Want her to spit in it and sew it up so she’s always in me.
Want her to piss on me, letting the warm liquid of hers slide down my body, burning around the edges of the cut.
A brand of sorts. The idea grabs hold of me, making me wild, and I mutter, “Piss on me.”
“Hold still.” I can feel the tip of the glue applicator on my skin.
“No.” I buck my hips enough to dislodge her.
There’s a silence where all I can hear is the thump, thump, thump of my heart and that wild need humming through my veins.
“What did you say?” Holland turns around to face me.
“You heard me,” I sneer, a mixture of shame and pure need filling me. I need this.
Holland pinches my cut together, hurting me at the same time as her other hand brushes my dick.
I throw my head back as much as I can on the floor, the pain and pleasure mixing in the perfect heady swirl.
“I want you to repeat that, exactly as you just said it.”
I open my mouth to snark her, and her hand wraps around my dick over my boxers, and squeezes, and my brain short-circuits.
“Exactly like you said it,” Holland says, her tone calm, but I hear the warning in it. My heart races with the thrill of it. I consider snapping at her again, but her hand is stroking me up and down, and I realize how much I need her.
“Please,” I say, feeling myself tremble under her weight.
“Please, what?”
The pain and pleasure are mixing together in an invigorating and calming state. “Piss on me,” I say, stiffening as her hand rounds over the tip of my dick.
“That’s what I thought.” She yanks my boxers, and her bare hand is on me, and my brain shorts out. In that moment, the heat of her hand wraps around me, and all that exists is her and me.
“You,” she jerks me roughly, “scared me.”
I groan.
“And I’m not pissing on your fucking wound.” She’s jerking me hard and fast to the point of pain. “You’re fucking c—” She cuts herself off, and her hand pauses. I jerk my hips up into her grip.
“Crazy? Disgusting?” There’s a deep growl in my chest. “That’s right, talk dirty to me.”
She pinches my wound again.
“I’m gluing this shut, and you’re gonna shut the fuck up and thank me.”
I buck in her hold, and she just grips me tighter, then releases me, grabbing the glue.
I groan at the loss of contact, but it’s quickly followed by pain. She glues me up, and then both her hands are on my dick, jerking me roughly as she cusses me out. Euphoria runs through my veins. Fuck, she’s perfect.
I get to the brink of orgasm, body shaking and muscles locking up tight, when suddenly, Holland gets off me.
I hiss in protest, and she steps to the sink, staring down at me with pupils so big they almost swallow up the blue. “You don’t deserve to come.”
She grabs the door, shuffles it open as much as she can, and steps out. “If you touch yourself, I’ll…” she stops, eyes darting around as she searches for something. “I’ll slice it off myself.”
Then, she’s gone.
I groan, dick pulsing. If it had any sort of contact on it, I would have come from her words. But as it is, I’m left with an aching hard-on. It hurts, and all I want to do is wrap my fist around my dick and finish myself off.
But, I don’t. I stand, and as the aching of my balls and wound settles deep inside me, a clarity washes over me.
Weston has had all this time to plan while I’ve been…incapacitated. I can’t take him on by myself. Even if Oakley helped—I wouldn’t dream of letting Holland anywhere near him—I need backup. Real backup.
Reluctantly, I know who I need to call.