4. Deirdre
Deirdre
“Y ou’re way too good at this,” I mumble. I want to be resentful about it, but the bone-melting pleasure of Elio massaging my scalp makes it impossible.
“I know how to take care of my Songbird.”
“Hmm,” I say noncommittally. His fingers dig and glide along every point of my head, rubbing slow, firm circles in the lather, making my whole neck tingle.
The bubbles in my bath are starting to disintegrate into nothing, putting more of my body on display, but at this point I’m too tired and relaxed from the massage to care.
My skin is warm. The place between my legs stings.
Elio works the lather down the lengths of my hair, tugging ever so gently, which makes my scalp prickle pleasantly.
“How the fuck do you have so much hair?” he asks. A question like that would have made me bristle before. Because I used to get comments and questions about my hair when I was younger and they were almost never nice.
And while I can’t say that Elio is exactly nice , there’s not the undertone of icky judgment that usually accompanies a question like that. He sounds like he’s genuinely asking, like my hair is some new, confusing thing that needs to be explained to him.
“Um. Genetics?”
“No way. I’ve seen your papà.”
“It was thicker when he was younger,” I say, but then bitterness creeps up my throat, and I don’t want to talk about my dad anymore. “My mom had a ton of hair. Different colour, though. It was the most beautiful shade of blonde. I used to want blonde hair so badly. Especially after she died.”
The fact that it’s the anniversary of her death hits me all over again. The events of tonight have distracted me from my grief, but it comes rushing back. So heavy that in normal circumstances it would push my head beneath the water.
But Elio is here. Holding my hair. Anchoring me. Keeping my head above the water.
It occurs to me that it’s probably after midnight by now. The anniversary of her death is technically done. There’s usually a wooden sort of relief that accompanies the days after the anniversary. A numbness different from the sharper pain. Like I have to slowly claw my way back to living.
Strangely, I don’t feel that. At least, not yet.
Maybe it’s because this year was different.
Maybe it’s because I went to see her, even if the night did end in a total shit show.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, honestly wondering if, had I known what I know now about how the night unfolded, would I still have wanted to go?
I assumed my instant answer would be “no,” but I truly don’t know.
And maybe that makes me a terrible person, because people ended up dead tonight.
But still…
It felt right for me to be there. At least at the beginning.
And it felt right with Elio.
In my state of relaxation, I find myself able to slink around the bad parts of the night and remember what happened before.
Remember the heart-achingly beautiful bouquet of blooms Elio picked out just for her.
Remember the way he knelt down, more respectful than I’ve probably ever seen him, painstakingly cleaning the snow from every nook and cranny of her headstone.
Elio is quiet for a while. He twists my hair, squeezing some of the lather out of it, then suddenly says, “Don’t ever dye it.”
“What, you’re in charge of my hair colour now too?”
“Yes.”
Isn’t that what he said to me on the very first night in this house? Every flaming hair on your pretty little head. All. Fucking. Mine.
I almost want to dye it now just to spite him.
Maybe I would. If…
If some twisted part of me didn’t feel immense pleasure at the thought of him liking it. Maybe even loving it.
I pull away, needing to rinse and for this to be done.
In response, Elio’s fist tightens on the rope of my hair, and for a second I think he’s going to snap it back towards him like a leash. But he doesn’t. He brushes his knuckles against the tender place at the base of my skull, running them gently down the back of my neck, before he lets go.
Once he’s released my hair, I’m off like a shot, as if I’ve built up some kind of careening momentum being held in place there.
I skid along the bottom of the bath to the other side so forcefully that a small tidal wave sloshes up against the white wall of the tub.
I clumsily dunk my head backwards, scrubbing viciously at my scalp, trying to get rid of all the good feelings Elio has created there.
But I can’t. Because it’s like his touch has sunk in deep.
Past the surface of my skin, into the muscle and bone.
I give up, and once my hair is rinsed decently enough I sit up again.
“Want me to scrub your back now?” he asks, and there’s a crooked sort of smirk on his mouth. But there’s nothing casual or teasing in his eyes. He looks at me like his gaze can swallow me whole.
“No,” I say. “I’m going to get out now.”
I’m too tired to do the rest, and if I’m too tired then that means Elio is going to take over and wash every single inch of my body, I just know it. I cannot handle that right now. Soaking in the sudsy water is enough for tonight. At this point I just want to dry off and get into bed.
Elio rises from his chair and grabs a clean, fluffy towel from the nearby rack.
He pats his hands dry on it without looking at them, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s specifically avoiding looking at the scars, or if it’s because he’s so unwilling to let me out of his sight.
Even when he bends to retrieve his gloves, sliding them back on one at a time, he’s still watching me.
I wonder if he’s going to just stand there and make me get out of the bath to grab my own towel, soaking and vulnerable under his gaze.
But, somewhat surprisingly, he instead walks around the bath until he’s behind me.
He opens up the towel, letting it hang between us, and I cautiously stand up with my back to him.
The towel immediately envelops me, going around my shoulders in a warm, fluffy hug.
Only, it’s not just the towel hugging me, but Elio.
He’s got his big arms around me from behind, locking at my front in a tight embrace.
He bends down along my right side, the scarred left side of his jaw brushing my cheek as his chin comes to rest on my shoulder.
This isn’t just hugging now, this is holding.
He inhales, his lips moving against the side of my throat, and I’m sure he’s about to say something to me.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he just straightens up and starts rubbing the towel along my shoulders and arms. Then, he lifts me easily out of the bath, setting me down on my dripping feet.
I let out a shaky sigh, because at some point he’s turned on the heated flooring and it feels like pure magic seeping into the soles of my feet.
I still find it so surreal, so surprising, when he does those small things solely for my own comfort.
He controls me, spanks my ass until it burns, won’t let me go anywhere or do anything that he decides isn’t allowed…
But he also makes me tea and washes my hair and ensures that my feet are warm.
I could have a whole lifetime beside him and maybe never figure him the fuck out.
“Hold this,” he instructs me, thrusting the edges of the towel into my hands.
I pull it around myself like a cape while he fetches a second towel and then bends to dry my legs.
I go still, shivery heat pulsing through me as he works his way up from my right foot to my calf, my knee, my inner thigh.
Blood rushes between my legs so fast it almost hurts when the towel grazes my tender skin there.
But Elio is all business. He whisks the towel away from my sensitive places, moving on to my other leg until the only wet things left on me now are my hair and – I hate to admit it – my pussy.
“Alright,” he says, standing and tossing his towel aside. “Let’s go.”
I don’t want to follow him out of the room – I can at least get my pyjamas on my own – so I go ahead of him. But maybe this is even worse, because I can feel him stalking right behind me, his gaze hot on my back.
I flick on the light in my room’s walk-in closet while Elio looms in the closet’s doorway, leaning his good shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed.
Still keeping my towel fastened around myself, I grab a pair of loose, yellow silk pyjamas.
I yank on the pants one-handed, then once they’re on let my damp towel drop and quickly pull on the shirt with my back to Elio.
At the last second, I realize I haven’t put on any underwear, but I don’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore, so fingers crossed it’s alright. And if I get blood on these nice silk pants, does it even matter much? It isn’t like they’re actually mine.
Knowing Elio, he might even like them better that way.
I hang up my towel on an empty hook in the closet, then turn and swiftly head past Elio.
He doesn’t move aside for me, and he’s so broad that I’m forced to turn sideways in the doorway, facing him as I squeeze by.
My breasts brush his arm, my nipples tightening instantly.
It’s like that single brush against him exerts some sort of gravitational pull, because even though I’m more than capable of taking another sideways step out of here, it suddenly becomes a hell of a lot harder.
Part of me wants to stay here, trapped between the wood at my back and the man at my front.
Part of me wants him to touch me.
He doesn’t, just keeps his arms crossed while gazing darkly down at me. Although, there is a slight tightening in his biceps beneath the black fabric of his shirt. As if he’s holding himself back from grabbing me.
“Bed,” he reminds me firmly, and I nod, because he’s right. I really need to get some sleep.
I finish sidling out of the closet, my breasts dragging along his arm as I free myself. He lets out a soft hiss of breath at the contact, the muscles in his arms flexing again.