Chapter Six #2
Nick leans over me, chest pressing against my back, his mouth close to my ear. His breath ghosts over my skin. When he speaks, his voice is silk wrapped around a knife.
“If you don’t stop squirming,” he murmurs, “I’ll pull those pants down and spank your bare ass. Is that what you want?”
Heat rushes to my face, equal parts fury and mortification. My body goes still before my brain catches up, breath snagging mid-inhale.
He wouldn’t.
He might.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. I bite my lip until I taste copper and glare at the floorboards. “Fuck you,” I spit, but my muscles lock. I go rigid across his knees.
He takes that as permission.
His palm slams down onto my backside with a sharp crack that echoes in the small cabin. The impact jolts me against his thighs. Fire explodes across the curve of my ass, hot and stinging even through the thin fabric. I suck in a breath through my teeth, refusing to give him more.
He doesn’t hit again. Not immediately. Instead, his hand smooths over the burn he just caused, rubbing slow circles, heat seeping through cotton, the heel of his palm pressing into the sore spot.
Relief and pain mix into something dizzying. A strangled sound claws up my throat; I swallow it back, jaw clenched.
The next smack lands on the opposite cheek, just as hard. My body jerks; a muffled grunt escapes before I can choke it down. Tears sting my eyes. Again he follows it with that infuriating, careful rub, thumb sweeping along the curve, palm cupping and soothing where he just hurt me.
“You want to act like a brat?” he asks over the sound of my labored breathing. “I'll remind you what happens."
Another slap. Harder. The air punches out of me in a choked cry. Pain flares, bright and hot, spreading outward. My thighs clench, an involuntary reaction I can’t control. Shame floods me, thick and choking.
“I’m not your enemy,” he says, his voice low, almost earnest. “I’m the only one who cared enough to come back for you.”
A memory flashes—Nick curled on the bottom bunk, arms wrapped around his ribs after a beating, flinching at every footstep in the hall. Me climbing up next to him, wrapping around his bruised body, lying through my teeth about how it would all get better while his tears soaked my shirt.
Now I’m the one across his lap, paying for defiance in the language we both learned too young.
His palm comes down again, sharp and merciless.
A broken sob rips from my chest. Tears spill hot and fast down my face.
Every nerve in my backside screams. And still, when his hand gentles—when he rubs over the raw sting he created in slow, tender circles—another sound claws free, something dangerously close to a whimper of relief.
No. No.
Heat pools low in my belly, ugly and confusing. My mind recoils, horrified, even as my body melts into the touch for a split second. I bite down on a sob, on whatever else is trying to escape.
His hand finally stills, splayed warm and possessive over my throbbing skin. I can feel his own breathing is uneven, chest lifting and falling against my back.
“Shh,” he whispers, loosening the arm across my spine to card his fingers through my hair. It’s a mockery of comfort and still my traitorous body tilts toward it. “It’s over, Sugarplum.”
The nickname scrapes something raw inside me.
He eases me off his lap, guiding me down onto my knees on the rug between his feet. My legs are water; I would’ve collapsed without his hands. The second my weight settles back on my heels, pain spikes through my ass and I flinch with a hissed breath.
Nick curls his fingers under my chin and tips my face up. My vision blurs with tears, but I can see him clearly—eyes dark, full of some wild mix of anger and adoration.
“Are you ready to listen now?” he asks, voice low, almost a purr. “Will you be a good girl and eat for me?”
Everything in me wants to say no. To spit in his face. To tell him I’ll starve before I let this become normal.
You won’t live long enough to fight if you never play along.
The thought lands cold and steady underneath the chaos. I swallow hard.
“Y-yes,” I manage, my throat raw.
His mouth softens. “There she is.”
He stands and helps me to my feet like I’m fragile, like he didn’t just put me over his knee.
He guides me back to the couch. When I sit, the cushion presses against my sore flesh and I can’t bite back the little sound that escapes.
His eyes flicker with something that looks disturbingly like guilt. Or maybe pride. I can’t tell.
He reaches for a knitted throw and drapes it around my shoulders, tucking it in gently. The gesture feels almost obscene after what just happened.
At the hearth, he ladles stew into a clean bowl, then returns and sits on the low table in front of me. I don’t fight this time. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him. It means I’m not stupid.
“There we go,” he murmurs as I part my lips. The first spoonful is almost painful in its comfort—hot, salty, filling. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until warmth spreads through my chest, prickling all the way to my fingertips.
He feeds me slow, careful bites, watching each swallow like it matters. The only sounds are the pop of the fire and the wind worrying at the eaves. I keep my eyes on the bowl, on the way the broth ripples when he dips the spoon, anything but the man holding it.
“Good girl,” he says under his breath when I don’t hesitate at the next bite.
The words twist in my stomach. Humiliation. Relief. Something darker I shove down hard.
By the time the bowl is half-empty, my tears have dried on my cheeks. My body still throbs, my pride is in tatters, but the edge of panic has dulled into a heavy, exhausted ache.
He reaches out, brushing a stray tear track with his thumb. “See?” Nick whispers, tilting my chin so I’m forced to meet his gaze. The firelight throws gold into the dark of his eyes. “I told you I’d take care of you, Sugarplum.”
For one heartbeat, I see the boy on the back steps again—the one who clung to me and believed every lie I told about cabins and safety and “just us.”
My chest tightens, hard enough to hurt.
Then the moment is gone, swallowed by the unsettling gleam in his eyes. Possessive. Sure.
I look away, curling deeper under the blanket as I swallow the last bite. He takes the bowl from my hands, sets it aside, and slides onto the couch, his arm settling around my shoulders like it belongs there.
“That’s better,” he murmurs into my hair.
A shiver skates down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
Outside, the wind howls through the pines. Inside, the fire crackles and Nick’s fingers trace idle, careful patterns on my arm, gentle like he didn’t just break me down to get what he wanted.
“You’re safe here with me,” he says quietly.
The words should be comforting. They settle over me like a lock clicking into place.
I close my eyes and let my body go still, piece by piece, the way snow settles over a field and hides what’s beneath. It’s not surrender, I tell myself as I ease against his side and let him think I’m softening.
Not yet.
For now, it’s camouflage.