Chapter 19 Marla
MARLA
We just… laid there. The room tilted around me, and I laid there in his arms, trying to catch my breath. Trying to get my bearings. Trying to take stock of my body. I felt something hard and stiff poking me in the back. Was that Ranger? Did I need to be worried?
I didn’t feel anything other than pleasure rushing through my veins.
Did I ever feel this safe before?
It was like my brain was disconnected, though. Short-circuited. How long had it been since I had a genuine orgasm? I thought about the night I spent in that janitorial closet with him. Then. That was the last time I had a genuine orgasm. The night I was taken.
I braced myself, waiting for the memories to bombard my mind.
But none came.
“Huh,” I said softly.
I felt myself being turned around until Ranger and I faced one another.
“You okay?” he asked as he tucked a rogue strand of hair behind my ear.
I smiled softly at him as we shared the same pillow. “Yeah. You?”
He smiled back. “Of course. Just wanted to check in on you. You ready for some food?”
I just nodded softly before a yawn dropped my jaw.
“Here, I’ve got it,” he said as he flopped onto his back and reached toward the bedside table.
He rolled back over, balancing the bowl of still-warm cheesy grits.
He mixed it up a bit, releasing more steam, and the smell was phenomenal.
My mouth instantly watered as he sat him, perching himself on the edge of the bed.
He smiled at me, and it tugged another smile across my face before he scooped up some of the cheesy goodness with the spoon and held it up to my lips.
“Open wide,” he said.
I giggled softly before I parted my lips, and the cheesy grits that hit my tongue were heaven.
This had to be what heaven tasted like.
“Mmmm,” I hummed as I closed my mouth around the spoon.
Spoonful by spoonful, he fed me. We worked our way through the grits before we came to the pancakes.
He dipped the bacon in a bit of syrup, and I knew then and there I’d never eat my bacon the same way again.
The sweet and salty was divine, and coupled with the fact that he slathered butter onto the pancakes first, I was practically in heaven.
Buzzing with nothing but good.
Eventually, the cutting and scooping up of food turned into silverware tinkering softly against the plates as we both scraped up the last of the meal. My belly was paunched out from all of the food, but I didn’t care. It made my stomach look a little more normal, and that was what I wanted.
A new normal.
One that made me feel as safe as I felt whenever Ranger was around.
“Scoot over,” he said as his hand found the dip in my waist.
I shuffled over until he climbed into bed with me.
I smiled at the way his arm naturally fell to the groove of my waist. He cupped my belly and tugged me back against him with that growing girth of his pressed up against the small of my back.
His hands tucked themselves around me, cocooning me away from the world, and not once did he grind it against me.
Not once did he make any sort of insinuation that he was going to use it.
“Don’t mind the little man,” he muttered against the shell of my ear. His beard tickled my skin a bit. “He’s always got a mind of his own, but he’s staying inside.”
His words melted my heart. “Thank you.”
He kissed my shoulder, and his beard sent a trail of goosebumps down my arm. “No thanks needed. It’s your body, and I’m so fucking proud of you for taking ownership of it back. I can’t imagine how hard that was, trusting me like that after what you’ve been through. Thank you, Marla.”
It’s my body.
It’s my body.
Those three words hung heavily in my head as I relished what he said. He was so good with words. I remembered back to the beginning of my time at the clubhouse, when all I’d do was listen to him talk because it was the only thing that reminded me that I was elsewhere.
“I like your voice,” I said softly.
He chuckled. “I like yours, too.”
Silence fell between us for a little bit. It was comfortable, with the sounds of the clubhouse rattling around outside his closed bedroom door. It was like we made our own little world in his bedroom. Our own little universe that sat apart from everything else going on.
The question was out of my mouth before my brain filter could catch it. “Will that happen again?”
His breathing paused. “Do you want it to happen again?”
I could touch him next time. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just… thought I’d ask.”
Where the hell did that question come from?
Hell, where did that thought come from!?
“If that’s what you want,” he said as he tightened his grip around my waist and pulled me back closer against him, “then it’s what I want.”
“Yeah?”
He nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
His hand stroked mindlessly along my full belly. “But for now, let’s get some rest.”
My body answered him with a yawn. “That sounds good.”
“Good.”
Before I knew it, my eyes grew heavy. His mindless ministrations against my full stomach coaxed my eyes closed.
I didn’t always like sleep. The nightmares came chasing after me whenever I was asleep.
But I knew I needed the rest. As much as I wanted to pretend that I was all right, I wasn’t.
I could admit that to myself. I was still in recovery mode, and would be for months in order to dig myself out of the mess my brain and body had become.
But at that moment, I didn’t care about any of it.
All I cared about was the fact that when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see those men.
I didn’t see the beds. I didn’t see the torture shed, or the poisoned food that looked so damn good.
I didn’t even see the whips and chains. All I saw was Ranger’s face while my mind relived the pleasure his fingers had brought me.
Maybe I could get used to the darkness again.
Especially if there were memories like those to remember.