Chapter 14
Chris shifts me higher on his shoulder, his forearm tensing around the back of my thighs, locking me in place.
“Did you learn nothing?” His voice is deep and commanding, vibrating against my body.
Another spank lands across my ass. “I don’t care what you saw out there,” he growls.
“It’s not worth going alone and dying for. ”
Twisting in his grip, I start to argue, but the moment my mouth opens, another searing handprint burns across my skin. My hips buck involuntarily, a strangled sound slipping past my lips.
He knows. God, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“You don’t get it,” I grit out, breathlessly. “You don’t know—”
Chris’s hand lands again, sharp and unrelenting.
The impact cracks through the stillness like a gunshot, and my body jolts against his shoulder.
My ass is already on fire, but that doesn’t stop him.
I clench my teeth together when he swings again, an uncontrolled groan rattling from me when his hand makes contact.
Oh God…
The way my body is betraying me is humiliating. My ass burns, but there’s a different heat swelling lower and deeper. One I wish I could pretend doesn’t exist. The ache for him I’ve buried for years is awake again. And now it’s fucking ravenous.
His palm presses over the thin material of my pants before another firm smack makes me bite the inside of my cheek. My thighs tense, squeezing together, trying to quell the aching throb between them. But that movement only makes it worse.
Each strike echoes through me, flaring like a live wire across already sensitive skin.
Only, not all of it feels like a punishment—not entirely—and I hate it.
No, I want it. Shame curls in my belly, the hot flush seeping up my neck to my face.
I hate that the burn on my ass has nothing on the ache blooming between my thighs.
I’m not only flushed with shame. I’m aroused.
Another crack of his hand yanks me back from my thoughts.
This time, my breath hitches. Each punishing spank fans the flame growing inside me.
I hate how it feels—how it lights me up from the inside out—dragging back every memory I’ve fought to forget: every night he had me under him, over his knee, whimpering his name, and trusting him to push me past my limits.
He was always good at knowing exactly where that line was and when to cross it.
“I might not be your Daddy,” he bites out, his tone cruel in its intimacy, “but you will fucking listen… at least about this.”
I go still, not limp, not submissive, but still, because those words hurt more than the spanks ever could. They are full of old echoes and bitter truths. Because he once was my Daddy. And I’d have followed his orders without hesitation. At least about this.
Now? Now we’re two ghosts circling the ruins of who we used to be.
He adjusts me in his hold as we reach the tent, and the humiliation spikes all over again when he pulls open the tent and carries me inside. The air shifts, the guys falling quiet. Too quiet. It’s the silence of everyone pretending to ignore what is happening before them.
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I could vanish into the dusty ground, but Chris doesn’t so much as falter.
He carries me straight to my cot like a man on a mission, then drops me onto it.
I land hard, a sharp jolt of pain shooting through me as my sore backside meets the thin mattress.
I can’t stop the hiss that escapes my lips as I shift, trying to sit upright, to preserve what little dignity I have left.
‘You will stay put or I’ll tie you to bed,” he grouses with annoyance and a tiny smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
I don’t know what burns worse—my pride or my ass.
My body still throbs from the walk back. Every step Chris took felt like a warning, ringing through my skin. His hand landed again and again, firm with authority. And each time it did, the humiliation seared deeper. It wasn’t just physical; it was personal.
And now, as I sit stiffly on the edge of my cot, eyes fixed on the seam in the tent wall, all I can think about is the way it felt.
The pain and the sweet burn of his palm through the fabric.
The way his voice dropped low, taut with frustration.
How I felt the tension in his grip, not just from anger, but from his restraint.
The cot beneath me creaks when I shift, trying to find a position that doesn’t make me wince.
My backside throbs, the sting lingering, like the echo of a fight I didn’t win—and didn’t want to lose.
Because the truth is unbearable. As much as I hated the humiliation, part of me welcomed it.
Welcomed him. The anger in his voice, the command in his touch, they brought me back to something I’d locked away.
Not the pain. Not the control. But the closeness.
For one heartbeat, I didn’t feel alone in the world. And that terrifies me more than anything else.
I glance across the tent, not daring to lift my head.
Just enough to see him through my lashes.
Chris hasn’t moved. His arms are crossed tight over his chest, legs stretched long in front of him, one ankle hooked over the other.
A single boot taps rhythmically, probably without him realizing.
His jaw is tense, a tic flaring at the edge as he stares blindly across the tent. He’s brooding.
I still know him. Even now. Even after all the years of silence and time and miles. I press my forehead to the pillow, wishing I had privacy to shriek out my frustration.
My throat aches with the pressure of everything I haven’t said. And want to say. My heart pounds, loud and frantic. I want to scream at him. I want to throw something. I want to demand he actually talk to me. Hell, I want him to look at me instead of spending the day pretending I’m invisible.
The day passes awkwardly. Night falls, and the silence in the tent grows deafening as the others drift to sleep or at least pretend to.
Damon and Gunnar both sleep turned away from us, and Jagger’s light snores rise and fall beside me.
And I lie uncomfortably on my cot with a sore backside and a wildfire burning inside me that I’m wishing Chris would tame.
I shift again, wincing. I should sleep. I need sleep.
But I can’t, not while he’s sitting across from me like a wall I can’t climb.
Finally, I sit up, slow and stiff. The blanket falls from my shoulders, and the cool air brushes against my skin.
I look across the tent in the near-darkness at Chris’s back, wondering if he is still awake.
“You didn’t have to do it like that,” I whisper loudly, trying not to disturb the others. When I don’t get a response, I try again—louder and a little more daring. “Is this how you deal with every woman who doesn’t follow your orders?”
He rolls on his cot and lifts his head—barely—his gaze locking on mine. “You’re not every woman,” he states simply, before lying back on his pillow.
God. Fucking. Damn. Him.
We fall silent again. I bury my head in my pillow, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable enough to finally fall asleep. “I didn’t go out there because I wanted to die,” I whisper after a moment. “I went because what I saw matters.”
He rolls onto his side so that he can look at me without lifting his head. “And I didn’t drag you back here because I wanted to humiliate you.” His voice is deep and raw. “I did it because I’m not burying you because you’re too stubborn to listen.”
That steals the breath from my chest, and I struggle to find a response. “I’m not yours to protect anymore.”
“Maybe not,” he replies. “But that doesn’t mean I ever stopped wanting to.”
The silence between us stretches long and taut. All I can do is look at him. And all he does is stare right back.
We are fire and ruin, and neither of us knows how to put the other out.