Chapter 27
Ainsley
“ T his was a lot more fun to do on the beach,” Violet pouts, but the twinkle in her eyes tells me she’s just teasing us. As much as she enjoyed her week at the beach, drinking and partying with strangers, we all know she’s even happier to be home and drinking with the two of us.
As soon as we were all settled and unpacked from our vacations, we got together for a girls’ night since we missed it through the week. We threw on a random movie to listen to in the background, but for the most part, we’ve been talking over our glasses of wine.
“Tell us you did something fun instead of hanging around here all week,” Cassie says, directing her statement at me. A blush creeps up my cheeks as I think of all the fun I had, not that I’m going to tell them about that.
I could lie and tell them I was with Ethan, but that feels wrong. Neither of them know about Cain, though they know something happened last semester. They know I met a guy, and that’s why I disappeared for a while.
While I’m terrified to tell them about him, and have them try to convince me to leave him because he’s dangerous, I’m also tired of keeping him a secret. We made too much progress this week. I love him, and I want to shout it from the rooftops.
“I was with someone,” I start, feeling the blush growing warmer on my cheeks and my neck.
Cassie shoots up in her chair, nearly spilling her wine. I swear, she can never keep her wine in her glass. She needs a sippy cup.
“Don’t tell me it was that guy from the club,” she squeals, excitement covering her face. Violet’s eyes switch from looking at Cassie to me, confusion filling her gaze. She was already at the beach when all of that happened, not that anything really happened.
“No, no, not him,” I tell her quickly. Honestly, I never want to think of him again. He was a mistake, even if he was the straw that broke the camel’s back between Cain and I. If I hadn’t done that, who knows how long Cain would have stayed away from me.
“A guy at the club? What? But, it’s someone else?” Violet seems so lost in this conversation, but I don’t really know how to clear it up for her. I can’t just come out and say I brought some guy home and planned to sleep with him so Cain could watch me get laid through the cameras he has in my room, all to make him jealous.
Even if I get that out, how do I explain that Cain is the guy from last semester? I can’t tell them what happened to me. Not just because I don’t want to relive it, but because I don’t want them to judge Cain based on that. I want them to love him as much as I do.
Cassie stands to get another glass of wine after finishing the glass she almost spilled, and I get the perfect idea for introducing them to Cain.
“I have a picture of him, hold on.” I search around my chair for my phone, but can’t find it. “Shit. I left my phone in my room.”
“I’m already up, I’ll get it!” Cassie exclaims before I can even stand up. She rushes into my room, clearly excited to see a picture of our newest subject of gossip.
I expect her to come rushing out of my room with just as much excitement while holding my phone in her hand. Instead, she backs out of my room slowly, confusion and a little fear covering her features.
“Um, Ainsley?” she says without making eye contact. She’s too busy staring into my room to look at me. “There’s a scary but kind of hot guy on your bed.”
With the wine in my system, I take a minute to process that she’s not joking. Someone is in my bed, waiting for me, and I know exactly who it is. Why didn’t he tell me he was here? Maybe he didn’t want to interrupt girls’ night. My face splits into a grin as I jump from my chair and rush to my bedroom.
Only a few hours have passed, but even that was too much time away from him. When I reach my room, I find him lying in my bed with his arms crossed behind his head, staring at my ceiling.
“Cain,” I breathe. Seeing him loosens the knot in my chest I didn’t even know was there.
Except, he doesn’t turn to greet me. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Cain?” My tone is more questioning when he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence in the room. Is he asleep? No, I can see his eyes open while he stares at the dark ceiling.
This time, his head turns slowly to look at me.
If looks could kill, there would be a dagger sticking out of my chest.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I tell the girls as I pull the door shut, giving us some privacy. They squeal in the living room, obviously excited to not only hear about the man I spent spring break with, but also to meet him. Though, with that look, tonight might not be the best time for him to be around them.
With the door closed and the room now bathed in darkness, I can no longer see the angry glare he’s sending my way. Feeling more confident, I close the distance to my bed and climb in before curling against his chest. Even with him angry at me, this is exactly where I want to be.
“Is there anything you would like to tell me?” he asks instead of wrapping me in his arms.
I decide to play dumb to avoid his wrath. There’s no way he knows what I did today. “I missed you,” I tell him. It’s the truth without getting me in more trouble, at least.
His body tenses against mine, but he doesn’t return the sentiment. Instead, he jumps up, knocking me to my back so he can climb on top of me and press his body into mine. My breath hitches as he grabs my cheeks roughly and forces me to look at the outline of his face I can barely see in the dark.
“Don’t tell me you forgot I had cameras in here,” he growls at me. My eyes widen as I realize that I completely forgot about that. When I brought Ethan in here, I didn’t think of Cain being able to see us. That was supposed to be a private conversation, away from prying ears. But he was listening.
“I -” I start, not knowing if I’m going to explain or let him know just how mad I am that he invaded my privacy like that. He squeezes my cheeks tighter to prevent me from speaking.
“What did I say would happen if I found you in bed with him again? You let him touch you while he professed his love to you, Ainsley,” he growls, clearly being ruled by his anger right now. “Shake your head yes or no. Was that a smart choice?”
I shake my head. No, in hindsight, it wasn’t very smart of me. I should have met Ethan at his apartment, where we could have actually been alone.
“Should I punish you, or should I punish him?” he asks, giving me a choice.
It’s an easy one. I can handle whatever he throws at me, because he would never actually hurt me. As for Ethan, if Cain gets his hands on him in the state he’s in I may never see my best friend again.
“Me,” I mumble around his fingers squeezing my cheeks. Praying he heard me right, I wait for his grip to release my face so he can dole out his punishment of choice. A spanking? Another mark to prove I belong to him? He wouldn’t reopen the letters on my back, and he wouldn’t do anything to make me hate him.
“Or, better yet, I could punish you both. I could fuck you right here and send the video to him, so he’s forced to watch you cry out for me. He would watch me claim you and see just how you come undone for me.”
My head whips to the side as much as it can, remembering the girls on the other side of the door, most likely staying as silent as possible so they can hear us. Cain’s head turns to look, too.
Finally, he lets go of my cheeks and jumps off the bed. When he reaches the door, he pulls it open to find both of my friends wide eyed and trying to scramble away from the door. They both look him up and down, their eyes dragging over his tall frame.
“Ladies,” he greets them, sounding much friendlier than he’s been with me over the last minute. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to put an end to tonight's fun so I can spend some time with Ainsley, but I promise to return her to you in the morning.”
They both break into giggles as he shuts the door on them. Before he returns to the bed, he turns the light in the room on so I can see the anger pushing away the friendly mask he was just wearing.
“Cain,” I start, ready to talk him out of his anger now that he’s not preventing me from speaking, but he holds up a finger to silence me.
“Don’t speak, Ainsley,” he growls at me. That’s the second time he’s called me by my actual name instead of one of his nicknames, meaning he’s more angry than I realized. He always calls me his little one. “Don’t fucking speak.”
Doing what I’m told, I stay quiet. But, he said nothing about staying where I am, so I climb out of the bed and close the distance between us. Without a word, I wrap my arms around his middle and rest my head against his chest. He stiffens from my touch and doesn’t move to return the gesture, not that I expected him to. But, my touch always calms him. I was hoping it would have the same effect this time.
At least he doesn’t push me away. I don’t know what I’d do if he rejected me like that, not that I wouldn’t deserve it after how I treated him through the first half of this week.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, deciding to take my chance to speak, even if it makes him angrier. Those words are the only ones I need to speak right now. When he doesn’t reprimand me for speaking, I decide to keep going. “He’s my best friend, Cain. I just needed to talk to him.”
“He’s in love with you, Ainsley! He fucking admitted it, and you let him touch you,” he practically shouts as he pulls my arms from around him, finally rejecting the comfort of my touch. It stings more than I want to admit right now. He’s upset, and I’m the reason for that. I shouldn’t be surprised that a hug isn’t making it all better.
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, pleading with him to understand. My eyes meet his, tears welling in my eyes as he stares at me with what looks like hatred.
“If I had wrapped my arms around Christina while she explained to me why she was trying to take you away from me, just to comfort her, and told you ‘It wasn’t like that,’ would you believe me?”
This time, I choose to stay silent. It’s not fair of him to throw that at me. Ethan is my best friend, and we’ve been comforting each other like that since we were children. We’ve even shared a bed more times than I can count. Christina meant nothing to him. The situations are not the same.
He’s not being rational right now. He wants to hurt me as much as I hurt him, just so I know how it feels. Instead of responding to him, I walk around him toward the door. I don’t know where I plan to go, since this is my apartment and going to Ethan would only make this worse, but I don’t have to make that decision.
Before I can even get the door open, Cain is behind me, holding it shut. My teeth grind together painfully as I try to bite back my huff of anger.
“Are you getting angry, Ainsley?” Cain asks as he leans close enough for me to feel his breath on my ear. At this point, I think he’s using my name to make me mad. It’s working. “Good.”
With the last word, I can feel the movement of his lips brushing against my ear. His scent fills my nose, desperately trying to calm me down, but he’s been working to agitate me since I walked in here.
Not even a day has gone by since he brought me back to my normal life. If I’m not his prisoner, is this going to work? It’s all we’ve ever known. This is the first time he’s willingly let me go off on my own while trying to keep me.
“I’m not doing this,” I spit at him, still holding the doorknob in my hand. The second he lets go, I’m walking out of this room. “I was having a good night with my friends, after you took me away from them. I’d like to go back to that. Feel free to spend the night at your house.”
My words are meant to hurt him, but the thought of him actually walking out and leaving me alone for the night leaves a hole where my heart is supposed to be. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. Even if we’re fighting, I’d still rather spend the night wrapped in his arms, listening to his heavy breathing beside me.
To my luck, or maybe misfortune, depending on how this turns out, Cain doesn’t leave me. Instead, he wraps his fingers tightly around my arm and pulls me until I’ve turned around to face him. Once he has me there, he pushes my back into the door and traps me against his body.
“I was having a shit day,” he informs me as he gently wraps his fingers around my chin and lifts it until I’m looking into his eyes. The gentle touch contradicts his harsh tone, leaving me unsure how to proceed. “First, I had to drop off my girl and trust someone else with her protection because she wants to be away from me. Then, I have to watch through the cameras while she lets another man touch her. After that, I couldn’t even punish her because I have a job to do, and men that rely on me, which was a shit show today. And here I am, finally able to punish her, and she’s acting like I’m the one in the wrong.”
He’s opening up to me, showing me that even he has bad days. I should ask him what went wrong today, at least to distract him. Maybe even to attempt to comfort him, but that’s not why he just told me that. He told me to make me feel bad, which I still don’t. I won’t regret the decision I made earlier. If it hadn’t happened today, it would have happened eventually.
“On second thought,” he muses as he releases my chin and takes a step back. “Maybe that’s exactly what I should do. Go home, sleep in my bed, and leave you here. You can sleep in your bed all alone, just like you want.”
His expression is dead serious, without a hint of a joke in his features.
He means it. He’ll leave me here and spend the entire night away from me.
“Cain -” I start, but he’s not done.
“Oh, and good luck with those pesky nightmares. I hope, for your sake, that they’re not too bad tonight.”
He turns away from me, ready to collect his belongings and probably climb out of the window. I’m sure that’s how he got in here without anyone noticing.
“Cain!” I practically shout. He doesn’t stop or acknowledge my outburst as he shoves his wallet into his back pocket and reaches for his phone. “Please don’t leave me.”
Panic is setting in at the thought of spending the night alone. No matter how mad I am at him, I need him. He keeps the nightmares from creeping in. He’s the only one that can keep me safe from my own memories, and even if they do creep into my mind at night, he’s the only one that knows how to comfort me.
Cain can’t leave me alone.
Finally, he pauses. He stops with his hand on his phone and doesn’t move to lift it off the nightstand. Slowly, he turns to face me. The first thing I notice is the small smirk lifting his lips on one side.
It was a test.
He wasn’t actually going to leave me.
Relief floods my system as I realize I won’t have to spend the night alone. He’s not leaving me, and the nightmares won’t win tonight. In the same breath, anger consumes me. How could he threaten that, knowing how scared it would make me?
“Was that my punishment? To scare me into realizing I don’t want to be apart from you?”
Angry tears fill my eyes as his smirk falls. With two quick steps, he closes the distance between us and grips my chin between his fingers again. I try to blink the tears away before they can fall, but that only causes them to slide down my cheeks while he watches my weakness.
“Don’t cry, little one,” he says, using my nickname for the first time tonight. It instantly melts me and makes me think everything is going to be okay. At least, until he speaks again. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t your punishment. Your punishment will be much worse.”
By the wicked gleam in his eye, I can tell he’s going to enjoy whatever the punishment is going to be. The memory of his last punishment invades my mind, reminding me just how much I enjoyed it, too. The way his hand felt when it landed against my skin. How wet it made me.
“If I stay, you will accept your punishment, understand?” I nod without even thinking it through. Whatever punishment he gives me won’t be worse than enduring a night alone. “Then tell me you want me to stay.”
“Please stay,” I beg him. Arousal is already pooling between my legs in anticipation of having his hands on me, even if he chooses to be rough with me. “Punish me so I can be yours again.”
My words cause a genuine smile to grace his lips. I can’t look away as thoughts of kissing him overpower my mind.
“Such a good girl,” he praises me as he releases my chin and uses his newly freed hand to pet my hair. “Now strip and get on the bed.”