45. Long Rest Achieved
Chapter forty-five
Long Rest Achieved
Micah
Ronan stopped.
I know he did because I heard him say, “Enough.”
I heard the strap hit something that wasn't me when he set it down. I know there isn't another strike coming because Ronan does not say things he doesn't mean, especially in a scene.
My body hasn't figured that out yet.
Every muscle along my back and thighs is still waiting.
The skin across my ass burns hot enough that the air feels cool against it, even through whatever Ronan has wrapped around me.
My pulse seems to live there now, deep beneath the surface, each beat pushing heat outward until I can't tell where one mark ends and another begins.
I should be able to catalogue it better than this.
Broad pain from the strap. Sharper lines from the crop. Heat underneath all of it from everything before.
Instead, all I really know is that I hurt.
And for the first time in almost two weeks, that doesn't feel like a problem I need to solve.
Ronan is behind me—or under me, maybe. It takes a few seconds to sort out the position. I'm half across his lap with one side of my body resting against his chest, his arm around my ribs holding enough of my weight that my own strength barely seems involved.
His other hand moves down my arm.
Shoulder to elbow.
Back again.
Exactly the same speed.
Exactly the same pressure.
The third time I notice it, I realize he's probably been doing it much longer.
My face feels tight and cold where the tears dried. Then another one slips from the corner of my eye and tracks toward my temple.
I don't wipe it away.
That would require moving.
I don't particularly want to move.
“Micah.” His voice lands differently now that there isn't pain behind it.
During the scene, every time he said my name, I had to find my way back far enough to answer him. Now the sound settles over me instead, low and familiar, something my body recognizes before I do.
I manage a noise.
Not a useful one.
His hand stops.
Immediately, something inside me pulls tight.
Ronan notices.
The movement starts again. Shoulder to elbow. Elbow to shoulder.
“Can you give me words?”
I swallow. My throat feels raw even though I barely made a sound.
“Yeah.” The word drags on the way out.
“Good.”
That fucking word.
Usually it hits somewhere lower. Makes my stomach tighten or sends heat straight into my dick because I am apparently far more praise-motivated than I spent most of my adult life believing.
Right now it sinks somewhere behind my ribs.
The tightness there loosens.
My eyes close.
Ronan keeps touching me.
I don't know how long we stay like that.
Time doesn't exactly disappear. I'm aware of it passing because things change. My breathing slows. The tremor in my thighs eases. Somewhere in the house, a pipe knocks inside the wall, and I recognize the sound as the plumbing rather than trying to figure out if something is wrong.
But minutes don't feel like minutes.
They feel like Ronan's hand moving over my arm.
The warmth of his chest through my hair.
The steady rise under my cheek every time he breathes.
The deep ache under my skin that blooms whenever I shift even slightly.
Eventually something cool presses into my palm.
I open my eyes and find the water bottle.
The plastic crackles when my fingers close around it.
“I can hold it.” His voice is close to my ear.
I look at the bottle, then at my hand around it. “I can.”
“Okay.”
No argument. No praise for basic motor function.
He leaves his hand beneath mine for another second anyway, waiting until I have the weight before he lets go.
I get it open and drink.
The water is almost too cold. I feel it all the way down, a clean line through the heat still sitting everywhere else.
I take three swallows before my arm starts to feel strangely heavy.
Ronan takes the bottle when I hold it toward him.
I don't have to ask.
I don't have to decide where it goes.
Something in me goes loose again.
Fuck.
Maybe that's what this is.
Not the pain.
Not exactly.
The absence of all the tiny decisions that normally stack on top of one another until I don't even notice I'm carrying them.
Where to put the bottle.
Whether I should sit up.
Whether Ronan is comfortable with my weight on him.
Whether I am taking too long to come back.
Whether Cami and Griffin can hear us from upstairs.
Whether Dex will worry when he gets home and realizes I'm not in my room.
Whether Mom—
The thought surfaces like something breaking through water.
My chest clamps down around it.
Ronan's hand moves from my arm to the center of my chest.
I breathe against his palm.
Mom crying on the couch.
Dad opening the door.
You're welcome back when you're ready to change your ways.
The pain across my thighs throbs.
My brain grabs that instead.
Not because it hurts more.
Because it is simpler.
I chose this pain.
I know where it came from.
I know who gave it to me.
I know he stopped.
My next breath comes out shaking.
Ronan says nothing.
Doesn't ask what I thought about.
He just keeps his hand against my chest until my heartbeat stops trying to punch through it.
When he moves it again, I miss the pressure enough that my body shifts toward him before I make the decision.
Ronan adjusts his arm around me and lets me.
No commentary.
Thank fuck.
Coming back happens slowly enough that I notice pieces of myself returning.
My left foot starts tingling first. Pins and needles spread from my heel toward my toes, annoying enough that I move my leg and immediately regret it when the motion stretches skin that would prefer not to be stretched.
I hiss.
Ronan's attention sharpens instantly. “Pain from the marks or something wrong?”
“Marks.”
“Sharp?”
“No. Just…”
I shift again more carefully.
The ache spreads over my ass and upper thighs, deep and hot, and a shiver runs through me that has absolutely nothing to do with discomfort.
Ronan watches my face. “Just what?”
I look at him. “Good.”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
Apparently that is sufficient medical information.
The next thing I notice is hunger.
Not vague hunger either. The kind that makes my stomach hollow out and contract hard enough that Ronan probably feels it where I'm leaning against him. But then my stomach growls.
“Food?” he asks.
I look down. “Did my stomach answer for me?”
“Yes.”
“That was rude.”
“Your stomach lacks discretion.”
That sounds enough like Ronan that I smile.
He reaches toward the cabinet beside the table, still keeping one arm loosely around me, and comes back with crackers and one of those protein bars Cami buys by the case because she seems convinced the rest of us will develop scurvy if she doesn't leave food in every room of the house.
Ronan starts opening it.
“I can do that.”
He glances at me.
I glance at the wrapper.
I've apparently been holding it without opening it.
“How long have I been just holding it?”
“Six seconds.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Seven now.”
I take it away from him and tear the package open.
My fingers work fine. They're just slower than usual, and I keep getting distracted by the sensation of the blanket against my skin whenever I breathe.
The first bite tastes mostly like chocolate-flavored drywall.
I eat another.
Ronan waits until I've swallowed before asking, “Name?”
I turn my head and stare at him.
His expression does not change.
“Seriously?”
“Answer the question.”
“Micah.”
“Where are you?”
“In your extremely expensive sex basement.”
“That isn't its official designation.”
“It should be.”
His mouth moves.
Barely.
“Day?”
That takes an embarrassing second longer. “Saturday.”
“Time?”
“No idea.”
“Acceptable.”
I give him a look. “You didn't ask me to memorize a clock before you beat my ass.”
“No, but you know who you are, where you are, and what day it is. That is sufficient.”
The clinical phrasing should annoy me.
Instead, it makes warmth spread through my chest because of course he has a system for this. Of course he is checking how far I came back without making the check feel like panic.
I eat more of the bar.
By the time I finish it, my head feels attached properly again.
My body feels like somebody else's problem.
Not in a bad way.
Heavy. Used. Warm. My skin pulls when I move, and sitting upright sends a slow pulse through the marks that makes my stomach tighten.
Ronan helps me shift without taking over the movement.
When I'm sitting mostly on my own, he pulls the blanket higher around my shoulders and then looks down toward my thighs.
His fingers hover before touching. “Can I check?”
“Yeah.”
He moves the blanket enough to look.
Cool air brushes hot skin, and I suck in a breath before I can stop it.
Ronan's expression changes in assessment.
His fingertips move around the worst areas rather than over them, tracing the borders with almost absurd gentleness compared to the way those same hands held the strap.
“You're definitely going to bruise.”
“I know.”
“Some of it significantly.”
“I know.”
His gaze lifts. “Do you still want that?”
The answer lives in my body before I say it.
The ache is not background anymore now that I'm upright. It pushes against me every time I shift my weight, a physical memory written beneath my skin.
Tomorrow I will feel it when I pull on jeans.
When I sit at my station.
When I bend over a client.
When my phone buzzes.
Something inside me twists at that last thought.
I look back at Ronan.
“Yeah.”
His shoulders ease slightly.
I rub my palm over the blanket gathered across my lap, feeling the texture catch against calluses on my fingers.
“Thank you.”
Ronan looks at me for a second longer than usual. “You're welcome.”
The silence after that doesn't ask anything from me.
Maybe that's why my brain supplies the thing I've been avoiding.
I look down at my hands. “I’m still sad.”
Ronan's eyebrows lift slightly. “I didn't ask.”
“I know.”
His face softens.
Telling him I’m still sad presses something sore behind my sternum.
Mom's hands clasped together in her lap.
Her saying “our only child” like the words themselves had broken something.
I can see her face so clearly that the basement blurs around the edges for a second.