27. Hawthorn
Watching my Princess laugh and be relaxed and happy around my friends is a huge fucking relief. I thought it’d take months, maybe even years, for her to become one of us, but somehow she fits right in, just like Izzy did.
I’ll happily take Penelope any way she comes, I don’t need my friends approval, but it’s a massive fucking relief to know that I won’t have to pick between her and them. Davis is still scowling, but he’ll get over it once he gets a chance to know Penelope and realizes that she’s not the monster they both think she is.
From the look of happiness in Izzy’s eyes, I know she’s ecstatic to have the chance to try to build a relationship with her twin. I just hope that Penelope can try to let her in, at least a little bit.
We spend the next few hours chatting about the party, the guest list, the location, and whether we should leak the Rhodeses’ death to the papers before or after. The girls both feel like it’s important to get into the house, so it makes sense to start the whispers of their parents’ demise first. Plus, it’s probably bad taste for them to throw a party a week after their mom and dad are lost at sea.
“We need to find out where Mom and Dad actually are,” Izzy says, taking a sip from a glass of homemade lemonade Beth just brought out.
“I’d guess at Monaco, Barbados, or Dubai,” Penelope says.
“I’ll get my guy on it, he’ll track their credit cards and passports, it shouldn’t take him more than a couple of days,” Gulliver offers, moving Izzy to sit on the couch while he stands and walks to the other side of the patio, his cell already to his ear.
Beth appears carrying a platter full of delicious-looking sandwiches and an urn full of hot, steaming soup. The moment she sees the food, Penelope tenses, sucking in a shaky breath. Leaning into her, I press my lips to her ear and whisper just loud enough for her to hear, “Do you need me to help? To take over?”
Her nod is barely perceptible, but I feel it, and it takes all of my self-control to bite back the growl that forms on my lips.
“Your mom isn’t in control of you any more, Princess. She doesn’t get to tell you what to eat, or wear, or feel. The only person who can tell you what to do anymore is me. If you hear her voice in your head, I want you to tell me, because she doesn’t own you, I do. You’re mine, Penelope. My Princess, my girl, mine. Now I’m going to go and make you a plate, and then you’re going to sit in my lap and you’re going to try to eat. If you hear her voice, you’re going to squeeze my thigh, and I’m going to make her go away. Do you understand?”
Leaning back into me, I feel her muscles sag, and when she nods, I press a kiss to the fluttering pulse in her throat.
Lifting her from my lap, I cross to the table laden with food and quickly make plates for us, then pull her back onto my thighs and hand hers to her. Her fingers are shaking as she takes it, and I hold my breath, terrified that she’ll lose it again the way she did this morning.
Not bothering to touch my own food, I focus on her, watching as she reaches for a sandwich, then immediately drops her hand to my leg and squeezes.
Curling my arm tightly around her waist, I press my lips to her ear. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Princess. I don’t know everything she did, but you survived, and now you get to thrive and know that it’s all in spite of her ugly, jealous, old ass. She’s insignificant, she doesn’t matter, and neither do any of her rules. You broke free, and you make your own rules now. You do as you please, when you please, and the only person you answer to is me. You’re so fucking brave, Penelope. So you’re going to try to eat, and you’re not going to feel bad about it or think about the calories, you’re just going to enjoy it. And I’m going to watch you, my dick getting impossibly harder just for you, because I’m the luckiest man in the world that you’re mine.”
Slowly lifting her hand off my thigh, she reaches for one of the sandwiches. Her hands are shaking, but she does exactly what I told her to, she tries, bringing it to her lips and taking a small bite.
The world doesn’t stop, but it feels that way as I watch her struggle through every mouthful. She reaches for me three more times, but each time she asks for my control, I take over, telling her over and over that her mom doesn’t have any hold on her anymore, that she’s mine, that I adore her, want her, and need her.
By the time she places her plate back on the table, she’s eaten a sandwich and some soup, and her eyes are haunted but oddly bright. Twisting in my lap, she leans forward and presses her lips to mine. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Always.”
My chest fills with want and need and fucking love, and I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to contain everything I’m feeling so it doesn’t explode from my chest and cover us all in sparkling fucking glee. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I love my family; I love my friends, who are more like brothers, and Izzy, who feels like my sister. But what I feel for my Princess when she looks at me like I’m the only thing that’s saving her from herself is so much more than I ever thought I was capable of feeling.
Until yesterday, I’d thought my desire for her was more of a carnal urge, that her need to have someone take control was simply calling to my need to be in charge. But now I know it’s so much more than that. I like when she denies me just as much as when she complies. She is by far the most complicated woman I’ve ever met, and she’s fucking ensnared me.
When Gulliver said that everything he had was Izzy’s too, I got it, and I feel the same way. I want to share my entire world with the girl in my lap. I want to give her everything, and all I need in return is her.
We stay at Gulliver’s for a few more hours until we have a clear plan in place on how and when to leak the story about the Rhodeses’ deaths. When it’s dinnertime, Beth brings out a steaming pan of lasagna and a huge, brightly colored salad, and we pile around the dining table, eating family style.
Just like at lunch, I make Penelope’s plate and hand it to her. Placing her free hand on my thigh, I whisper in her ear that the rules from earlier still apply, that all she has to do is squeeze my leg and I’ll take over and chase away the monsters in her mind. She eats painfully slow, barely touching the pasta, but after this morning, I consider every mouthful a victory.
No one mentions it, but I know the others have noticed her struggling, but Izzy is the only one who looks stricken, glancing between her sister and the food with sadness glistening in her expressive eyes.
“We should get going,” I announce, once we’ve plotted as much as we can.
“Thank you for welcoming me into your home,” Penelope says to Gulliver. “I know I don’t deserve any help from any of you. You’ve all been so?—”
Rushing forward, Izzy throws herself at Penelope, pulling her in for a tight hug.
For a long moment, my Princess stands frozen, completely unsure what to do with her sister’s affection. Then she slowly brings her arms up and hugs her back. Izzy’s smile is so wide, I swear her face might crack, and when she finally releases her sister, she tumbles into Gulliver’s arms, brimming with so much happiness it’s pouring from her in waves.
“Come on, Princess, let’s go home,” I say, smiling as I hold my hand out to Penelope, entwining our fingers together the moment she places her hand in mine.
“See you guys at school in the morning, ready to make another grand entrance,” I say, rolling my eyes in amusement.
“Yeah, yeah, you love it really,” Kip says dryly.
“Yep, I’m hiring a wind machine and a DJ to play our theme song,” I snark back playfully as I lead my girl from the room.
She’s quiet as we drive toward the marina, but her energy doesn’t feel frenetic or anxious, she’s just still and internalized. I could push her to talk, but I want her to feel free and comfortable to tell me how she’s feeling without being pressured into it. I want her to want to talk to me, to rely on me. Fuck, I sound like a needy fucker, but with her, I feel needy. For the first time, I want something deeper than just a physical connection. I might only be eighteen, but it’s not unusual in our world to marry young, especially if you’re lucky enough to find your person.
When we pull into the parking lot at the marina an hour later, I kill the car’s engine and silently climb out, shutting my door behind me and waiting for Penelope to join me. She takes my hand when I reach for her, and I silently squeeze her fingers, loving how thoughtlessly she connected herself to me.
Turning to look at her, my breath hitches when I take in how fucking beautiful she is. Izzy is gorgeous, but Penelope has a darkness to her that her sister doesn’t. She’s not pure innocence, she lives in the shadows that lurk ominously between good and bad, and something about that makes her immensely more sexy to me. The urge to strip her free of her clothes and gorge myself on her body and naturally submissive sexual nature pushes itself to the surface, taunting me like the devil on my shoulder, to take her, to own her. But I fight it, because even though I want her almost as much as I want to breathe my next breath, I want her permanence in my life even more.
I don’t know how she’s changed my entire life in such a short amount of time, but it feels like all of my thoughts now revolve around her. She’s become my center, my axis.
* * *
Waking up curled around her naked body is absolute perfection. She’s an incredibly peaceful sleeper, hardly ever moving. She fell asleep cradled in my arms, and I woke up curled around her, my back pressed against my front.
A part of me is still expecting her to run, to wake up and find her gone, her scent on the cold sheets the only remnant of her left behind. But she’s still here, her mussed hair spread across my pillow, her round, fucking perfect ass pressed up against my rock-hard dick. Sighing happily, I pull her a little tighter into me and press a kiss to her shoulder.
“Hmm,” she sighs sleepily.
“Good morning, Princess,” I whisper.
“Do we really have to go to school today? We could just stay here,” she says, slowly wiggling her ass against my hard dick.
Laughing, I slide my palm up her ribs and gently cup her breast, pinching her nipple softly between my thumb and forefinger. “I’d love to spend the day naked in bed with you, but not today.”
“Why not?” she moans breathily, arching her back and pushing her breast further into my touch.
“You know why. We have groundwork to do before we leak the story about your egg and sperm donors’ deaths,” I rasp, my dick so hard all it would take is a grind of my hips and I could be inside her.
“I want you,” she begs.
Clenching my eyes tightly shut, I jam my teeth down onto my bottom lip, hoping that the bite of pain will distract me, but it doesn’t.
“Fuck me, Hawthorn. Please,” she begs, parting her legs and rolling forward until the head of my dick slides toward her sex, the wetness of her arousal costing my sensitive tip.
I want to. Fuck, I want to so bad, but I can’t, so instead I slide my hand free of her breast and curl it over the swell of her ass, pushing her leg up, and opening her wider as I part her folds and slide two fingers deep inside of her.
Gasping, her fingers grasp the comforter as I pump slowly in and out of her pussy, loving how her muscles instantly clamp down, trying to keep me inside of her.
“So tight,” I praise, urging her to arch forward a little as I find her G-spot and rub it, my dick twitching when a gush of her arousal slides down my hand.
“I want your dick, I want you to fuck me,” she pants, her chest heaving up and down.
“You get what I give you, and I want to finger fuck you until you scream,” I rasp against her ear, parting her ass cheeks with my free hand and rubbing my thumb over her asshole.
“Hawthorn,” she says shakily.
“Do you trust me, Penelope?”
A breathy moan falls from her parted lips, and she nods. “Yes.”
Sliding my thumb down to her soaked sex, I dip it into her alongside my fingers, coating my skin in her cream before trailing it back up to her ass and pressing it against her tight hole. She tenses on instinct, but I keep the pressure against the ring of muscles as I fuck her pussy with my fingers. When she relaxes, my thumb slips into her ass, and I still, waiting for her reaction.
“It burns,” she whines, moving away from my touch for the very first time.
“Only for a second. Can you take it for me? Can you take my thumb in your ass while I make you come with my fingers?” I purr against her ear, my voice laced with want.
She doesn’t speak, and I freeze. If she tells me to stop, I will. I don’t ever want to trigger her and taint this incredible connection we share by pushing her beyond what she’s comfortable with.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers after a long second.
“Ask me,” I taunt, my controlling nature surging to the surface and demanding compliance.
“Please don’t stop.”
“What do you want me to do, Princess? I want to hear the words.”
She pauses, and I can almost hear her swallowing before she whispers, “I want you to put your thumb in my ass while you make me come with your fingers.”
Curling my fingers, I rub at the spot inside of her that makes her moan wantonly, then I slowly push my thumb all the way inside of her. “Such a good girl. The next time I fuck you, I’m going to bend you over and fill your pussy with my cock while I fuck your ass with my fingers, and you’re going to love it. You’ll beg me to fuck you harder, you’ll beg for more.”
Mewling cries fall from her lips as she moves against my fingers, riding my hand until she’s gasping and shaking. When her orgasm finally hits, she screams my name, and those three little words form silently on my lips once again.