28
“What are we watching?” Alec asks, dropping onto the couch beside me with a bounce, placing my feet across his lap as I lie on my side with my head resting against the arm rest.
“A show called Yellowstone, I started it when I got out of the hospital. It’s pretty good.”
I didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone back then. I just wanted to be by myself, and having nothing better to do all day, I binged a shit-ton of TV shows, the latest being Yellowstone, and this is the first time I’ve managed to continue watching it. I wasn’t sure about it for the first few episodes, but season two has me hooked, Especially my two favourite characters; Rip and Beth. Swoon.
They’re currently sat on the roof of the house, and I think Rip’s about to tell her he loves her.
“Tell me… Tell me when it saves me,” Beth says.
My heart melts.
For the rest of the episode, Alec watches it with me, rubbing lazy circles on my ankle with his thumb. I have to fill him in on a few details so he understands what’s happening, but I love how normal this feels. The two of us comfortable with just sitting in silence watching a TV show. It’s so mundane, but it’s perfect.
The tension ramps up on screen as Beth is attacked in her office by masked men, and as the action unfolds, I can feel a tightness in my chest.
Memories flood back to me watching Beth get beaten to within an inch of her life, almost being sexually assaulted. I never knew what a trigger felt like until everything happened to me. How the subconscious mind reacts to certain words or situations that hit a little closer to home than others.
My heart thunders in my chest as I grip the cushion under my head. I flinch with every punch and slap she’s delivered, cringing at the disgusting words they spew while they try to break her.
A tear drips down my cheek and I try to swipe it away before Alec notices, but it’s too late.
He pauses the screen and tugs me onto his lap so that I’m sitting sideways. His arm wraps around my back, the other holding my face so that I have nowhere else to look than into his molten metal eyes. “Are you alright, princess?”
I nod, rolling my eyes. “I’m just being stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. You can’t help the things that trigger you, the things that remind you of what happened. It’s still raw and fresh in your mind and nobody could blame you for getting upset, but with time, it should get easier.”
His voice soothes me and I rest my head on his chest and his arms tighten around me as his lips find my forehead.
“They didn’t just take it in turns,” I blurt out and his body tenses against me, bracing himself.
Alec is the only one I’ve told the full extent of what they did to me. He’s the only one I trust with that knowledge, even though I know it must kill him to hear.
“Sometimes they’d do it at the same time… t—together.”
Look at her body breaking to fit us all in… That’s it, bitch, cry for us! Fuck, I love it when she bleeds…
The man’s laughter echoes in my mind, my throat closing up as an onslaught of memories hit me and I do my best to force them back.
Alec’s arms around my body ground me, keeping me in the present as the memories try to drag me into the darkness.
As if sensing it, his lips press softly against mine. “There’s nothing that I can say that will make it any better, nothing that will take the memories away, just know that I’m always here. I will always be here for you, princess.”
Curiosity grips me. “Why do you always call me that?”
“You’re only just asking me now? After I’ve been calling you princess since we met over a year ago?”
I giggle. “Yes, but… I dunno, I guess since we started… sleeping together, I just wondered if the meaning behind it changed at all.”
His face goes from playful to serious in a split-second as his smile fades. “Why do you think I call you princess?”
“Because I’m spoilt and rich and on a bad day a raging bitch?”
“Never that. I call you princess because that’s what you are to me, what you’ve always been to me. Special. Precious. Priceless. I was put on this earth to serve you, to protect you, and I will spend the rest of my life worshipping at your feet if you’ll let me.”
His words stun me and mine fail me. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say when I asked the question, but it definitely wasn’t that. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “You don’t have to say anything, princess. You’re my entire world and I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t in it.”
I choke back a cry. “You’re mine, too. Being here with you, I’ve felt like myself again for the first time since all of this happened. Every time you touch me, I feel a part of myself healing, the wounds of my body closing up from your kisses, the wounds of my mind healing from your words. I hope you know how important you are to me.”
I can see his own tears swimming in his eyes as I speak, and as if to back up my words, I lean in and kiss him, pouring all of my love for him into it.
“I hope you know just how important you are to me, too,” he says against my lips.
We don’t have to say those three little words, but they hang unspoken in the air that crackles around us. I know deep down we both feel it. We live with it every day, at least I know I have since the moment I met him and being with him here… It’s everything.
We turn back to the TV with Alec stretched out on the couch and my back up against his chest. He hits play on the controller and the screen unfreezes. Alec caresses my body when the things on screen get harder to watch, just the slightest touch of his fingers or his mouth on my neck and it settles some of the unease inside my body.
We watch as Rip smashes his way into Beth’s office, literally, and saves his girl, holding her broken, bloodied body in his arms before whispering, ‘I love you’ against her hair. For the first time, Beth’s seemingly impenetrable exterior, the wall she’s built around herself comes crumbling down, and Rip is there to catch her. He’s where her heart belongs.
He’s her home.
One of the reasons I agreed for Alec to take me away was because home didn’t feel like home anymore. I felt out of place, uneasy in my surroundings, like I didn’t fit anymore.
But with Alec, in his arms…
I’m home.
∞∞∞
“So, how are you?” Della asks, the video feed through my phone turning pixelated for a moment before the image of my two best friends sharpens. The signal out here in the middle of nowhere isn’t great.
“Really good actually.” It’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that but it’s true. I’ve never felt better.
“Oh yeah? Does that mean you’ve finally had a taste of that hot bodyguard of yours?” Reese quizzes.
A smile tugs at my mouth involuntarily as the image of what Alec and I did earlier flashes through my mind. “Maybe.”
Reese gasps. “Oh my God! Tell us everything! Have you had sex with him yet?”
Oh Jesus, I knew this was coming.
“Do not repeat this. My brothers can’t find out. Promise me.”
“We won’t say anything will we, babe?” Reese asks, turning to Della.
“No, of course not.”
“Then… Yes. I slept with him.”
Reese squeals excitedly, clapping her hands together. “Oh my gosh, this is so exciting! How was it? Was it good? Was he good? Is it big? I bet it’s big. It’s big isn’t it?”
“Will you stop!” I laugh. “It was amazing, he was amazing and… yes, he’s big.” My cheeks flame.
“I fucking knew it! Get it girl! I’m so happy for you,” Reese cheers.
“Were you okay? I mean, after everything…” Della asks.
“Honestly? Yes. I was terrified at first, but the way he looked at me put all my fears at ease. Everything was on my terms and at the risk of sounding cringe and cliché, it was the best night of my life.”
Della smiles. “I’m glad. You deserve some happiness, Si. Gosh, I wish I could hug you right now.”
Reese clears her throat. “Um, babe, you might wanna look over your shoulder.”
I spin around in my chair to see Alec leaning up against the door frame, arms folded wearing a shit-eating grin. “Don’t mind me, pretend I’m not here.”
“Not likely,” I reply.
“We’ll leave you to it, babe. Love you,” Reese says.
“Okay, well, I’ll talk soon, give Ivy and Theo a big hug for me? I love you guys.”
“Love you too.” Della blows me a kiss before the video feed ends.
I rise from the chair as Alec steps further into the room.
“So, I’m big am I? Which part? My… heart? My… feet? Or my cock?” His smirk widens.
“Your head judging where this conversation is going.”
He chuckles. “Well, with you gushing over how big I am with your friends, it’s no wonder my head is double it’s usual size.”
“Not to mention your ego,” I shoot back.
“And with talk like that, you’re lucky I don’t have you over my knee. You’re asking for a punishment, princess.”
“Not really a punishment if it ends with me having a toe-curling orgasm.”
As he takes a step closer, I take one back as he closes in and suddenly, the sideboard is digging into my ass. There’s not an inch of space between us and I have to crane my neck up to meet his eye.
“Maybe I need to up my game,” he says, gripping my waist and seating me on the sideboard as he steps between my legs. His fingertips skim up my arms, breaking me out in goose bumps as the come to rest on my hips. “Maybe I need to take you all the way to the edge,” his warm breath fans my face as he leans in, “to that split-second before you let go…” his lips graze mine ever so gently, “and take it away from you, leaving you aching and needy for me, before doing it over and over again. Slowly driving you crazy.”
“Still not sounding like much of a punishment,” I point out.
He pulls back, the corner of his mouth curving up. “You willing to test it out, princess?”
My clit is throbbing, and I’m half-tempted to say yes.