19. June
JUNE
There are more guards around the house.
Men I don’t know lurking among the trees. They keep their distance from me and Hattie. Nothing really changed, except I feel more eyes.
Not that Rafe needed to increase security.
I got the picture last night.
Hattie makes big ponies on the driveway. She chalks them in pinks and purples while I sit on the steps and text with Marnie. It’s nice going back and forth. Just knowing Marnie’s okay. I’m tempted to try Beth’s number, but after last night, it’s probably not a smart move.
Instead, I content myself with thinking about Rafe.
Down on his knees.
Between my legs.
Getting me off.
And the way he cut me to ribbons.
You were going to scar our daughter, and for what?
The worst part is, he’s right. I didn’t think it through. I should have been more thorough in trying to find out how far of a hike it would be to get somewhere safe enough to escape. I should’ve thought about how difficult it would be with Hattie. And the effect the escape might have on her.
Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Running through the woods with my five-year-old isn’t an option. Rafe will notice before I can make it to help and he’ll drag both of us back. Then how do I explain it to my daughter? What will she think?
No, I need to wait.
I focus on Hattie for a while. I help her draw a massive spaceship. Some of the guards are watching and I notice more than a few of them smiling at how animated Hattie gets when she’s trying to explain to me what she wants me to draw.
“I’m the boss now!” She waves her little arms. “I’m the Pony Queen!”
“Yes, Pony Queen, I hear you. But I don’t know what you mean by draw him with biggest. Biggest what?”
“Biggest!”
A car comes toward us before I can figure out what she’s talking about. I pause and look up. It’s a dark sedan and going slow. It parks at the edge of the main circle out front where Hattie and I are working.
Rafe climbs out, moving gingerly.
At first I think he’s playing a trick. He walks with a slight limp and his face looks odd. I can’t tell what’s going on until he gets closer.
There are cuts. Bruises. Slicing across his cheeks.
His jacket is bloody. Streaks of blood in his hair.
“Oh my god.” I get to my feet, chalk dropping from my hand. “Hattie, go inside.”
“What’s wrong? Is that Rafey?”
“Sweetie, inside, right now.”
“Mom—“
“Get inside, Harriet.”
She pouts but does as she’s told. Rafe moves toward me, his expression hard. I meet him halfway, reaching out to touch his face, my chest pulsing wildly. “What… what happened? Are you…”
“I’m fine.” He touches the back of my hand. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?! Come on, I need to clean you up.”
“No, June. I have work.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.” I take him by the arm and tug. He grunts and I can tell it hurts, but I don’t care. I drag him up the steps, in through the front, and force him to climb to the top. I tell Hattie to go to her room to watch her TV for a bit while I help Rafe get cleaned up.
“He had an accident,” she says gravely, nodding like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I have those all the time.”
Rafe pauses in the door to our room. “What do you mean by that, Hattie?”
“Potty is hard to get to. And I trip and fall. Accidents.”
He must be in pain. There’s no other explanation. Because he smiles at her, a real, genuine smile, cutting through his discomfort. “I’m usually good about making it to the bathroom, love.”
“It’s okay, I understand.”
I nudge Rafe onward. “Hattie, TV now, please. I’ll check on you in a few minutes.”
She shrugs and disappears to her bed.
Rafe lets me sit him down beside the tub. I busy myself gathering supplies. There’s a First Aid kit under the sink with bandages and alcohol swabs. I use those to clean out the worst of the cuts.
“The medics did this already,” he complains.
“Then they did a shitty job. You didn’t go to the hospital?”
“Not worth it.”
“Rafe—“
“I’m okay, June. I promise.”
I hesitate, touching his cheek. There’s so much blood all over him, but there’s no way it came from these cuts. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“Just tell me.” I start the shower and toss his towel over the glass. “You need to clean yourself up.”
He grunts as he stands and begins to undress. I open my mouth to complain, to tell him to wait until I’m out of the room, but he starts talking too.
He tells me about the meeting with Theodora and the scared lawyer, about coming home, about the truck, the attack. He talks about his driver getting killed with the same tone he’d use to describe the temperature of a drink. He looks at his hands, at the ink on his knuckles.
“I’ll find who did it.” He says this last as he steps from his underwear.
He stands before me, completely naked, skin covered in blood where it seeped through his shirt, his chest sticky with it, tacky over his dark tattoos.
Over the ravens and the flaming hearts, the scars in his skin, stretched tight over gorgeous muscles.
My mouth goes dry as I look down at him, at his thighs, at his cock?—
He steps into the shower.
And at the same moment, understanding hits me. It’s overwhelming at first. Dizzying, heady, bizarre, and terrifying.
This is real.
The danger is real. The guards are real. The cameras aren’t only to keep me in—they’re to keep me safe.
Someone wants my husband dead. And I think they want to hurt me, too.
I strip off my clothes in a rush. I’m not sure why I do it. Pure lust comes over his face as I pull open the door to the shower and step in. The rainwater head pours down his back and blood turns the floor tiles pink.
I drop to my knees in the watery blood and pull him to me. I kiss his belly, gripping his ass, holding him. His fingers dig into my shoulders. “June?—“
I kiss again, down his cock, down the length of him.
I lick his tip as more blood runs in red rivers down his chest and arms. I lick and suck and he turns stiff and hard in my mouth.
I whimper, not sure what the hell I’m doing, and not caring.
I take him deep and he moans as I do it, his back leaning against the wall, his hips thrust out, one hand fisting into my hair.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispers with a slight moan. “The paramedics said to take it easy.”
I don’t bother answering. I suck faster, stroking him, both hands working his massive shaft as I take as much of his tip into my mouth as I can.
Spit rolls down, dripping, mixing with the blood.
He groans and tilts toward the water, spraying more red around us.
I suck harder, wanting him so badly it hurts, terrified of what might happen if I had lost him today.
If Hattie had lost her father.
I slip one hand between my legs and stroke myself. I’m shocked at how wet I am. I glide a finger inside then focus on my clit, grinding my fingers around it desperately.
“Fuck, look at you, all needy and wet for me. God, you’re so pretty with my cock in your mouth.
You can barely take it. You’re struggling to suck me, baby, and you’re trying so fucking hard, I love it.
You love being a slut for me, don’t you?
Down on your knees like that, touching yourself?
Oh fuck, I want you to come as you swallow me. ”
I whimper, moaning, pleasure mounting as I stroke myself faster. I want him, want him, need him, I suck him sloppy and sticky, pausing only to pull back and gasp for breath. He bends down and kisses me, tongue wet between my lips, and I go back to working his dick. I’m spitty, stroking faster?—
“Baby, fuck, please,” he groans, the quavering edge in his tone like heaven and hell all in one. “I can’t last much longer with you doing that.”
I go faster, sucking wildly, rubbing my pussy, and feel it peaking.
“All the way, you dirty fucking girl.” He grips my hair and thrusts his cock into my throat. “Oh fuck, that’s it, that’s fucking it?—“
I come as he comes, the shattering like a shotgun blast, and I can’t breathe as he fills my mouth, and I don’t care as I stroke my pussy through it all.
I pull back, gasping, swallowing, and he hauls me to my feet.
I feel boneless, spineless, like I can barely stand, but he holds me and kisses me, running his hands over my body, whispering how good I am, how I did such a perfect job, how I’m so beautiful and he doesn’t deserve it and he’ll burn the world to make sure I’m safe.
I collapse into his arms. We stand like that, the blood rinsed clean, the water raining around us. His taste in my mouth, down my throat. His dick still hard, the orgasm ringing in my ears.
“Don’t do that to me again,” I say, closing my eyes as I lean against his chest. “Don’t show up all bruised and beaten like that.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“You’re the boss. You have people to do the fighting for you.”
“That’s the problem with being in charge. All the responsibility is mine. I can’t ask people to do things I wouldn’t do myself.” He tilts my chin up and kisses me gently. “But it’s easier with you here.”
I wash him slowly, exploring his skin. He talks about some of his tattoos: how he got a strip of solid black to cover burn scars, the crow to signify his family, the dove with the broken branch for his lost baby sister.
He tells me there was a fire a long time ago, but he doesn’t go into the details and I don’t ask him more.
But I notice the scars. The burn marks. They’re especially bad on his hands. The tattoos do a good job masking them, but now that I know, they’re easy to find.
And the word on his knuckles, the same word his brothers have.
Ashes.
We get out and dress together. He’s tender with me, toweling me off, even making a couple of lighthearted jokes. When we’re set, he kisses me. “You should check on Hattie.”
“You’re right, but are you going to be okay?”
“I’m fine. I promise. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
“I won’t tell Hattie that. She’ll never leave you alone.”
He smiles and it’s strange. It’s almost pained. “I’d hate it if she did.”
I linger in the quiet of the room after he’s gone, wondering what’s happening to me and why I feel like a piece of my body’s been ripped from my chest but inserted backwards, upside-down, somehow wrong, and somehow that makes me whole again.