Chapter 16 #2
We weren’t huggers, as a rule. The rest of my family were, to my distaste.
Never missed the chance to show some kind of affection.
I’d weathered it with moderately good spirits throughout my life, and Rowan was no longer as averted to it as when he first got back from deployment changed and distant.
The only people he truly let his shields down with were his wife and daughter. Now his son, I supposed. I thought I could count on one hand the amount of times we’d embraced as adults.
I initially stiffened at the contact since the hug itself was much too tight, bone squeezing. But when I realized it was bursting with both worry and relief, I relaxed into it.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, patting his back awkwardly.
Rowan let me go then, pushing back to glare at me. “What the fuck, Calliope?” he asked much louder this time.
“Watch your tone,” a deep and menacing voice said.
It took me a second to recognize that it was coming from Elliot, who was currently glowering at my brother, looking like he was ready to fight him.
Rowan, who was likely trained in five different ways to kill a guy in as many seconds.
Most people were appropriately scared of him and smart enough to not pick a fight with him.
Not Elliot.
“Excuse me?” Rowan snarled.
Elliot didn’t show an ounce of fear at my brother’s trademark sneer. In fact, he stepped forward, gently grabbing a hold of me and pushing me behind him.
I rolled my eyes, even though I found it a teeny bit hot.
“I said watch your tone with your sister who was fucking shot a couple of hours ago.” Elliot’s murmur was lower but no less threatening.
“Yeah, she was shot.” Rowan sized him up. “Something that I should’ve found out from her, not the fucking sheriff at the grocery store .”
“He shouldn’t be talking about shootings in the grocery store,” I rubbed my forehead.
“He thought I already fucking knew, given you’re my goddamn sister!” he yelled.
I rolled my shoulders, ready to yell back. The thought of sinking into a defensive identity was welcome at that stage, when I felt so unhinged.
“If you can’t watch your tone with her, you’re out of this house,” Elliot told him, unflinching.
Rowan’s glance flicked to him once more. It was slightly menacing but also … amused? Surely not.
“You know, speaking for my sister, let alone thinking it’s your job to protect her, is tantamount to a death sentence in her eyes,” Rowan remarked dryly.
“I know that she doesn’t let anyone protect her, but I’ll do it anyway because if I hadn’t tried, that bullet would’ve hit her heart,” Elliot seethed back.
Rowan’s mouth fell open, all amusement—however small—leaving his expression, his dark brows furrowing as he once again looked at my bandage.
“Fuck,” he grumbled under his breath, running his hand through his hair. “Who did this?”
“Don’t know,” I shrugged. “Cops are looking into it.” I tried my best to make it sound like I was going to let them do their job and not go digging the second I didn’t have a set of male eyes on me.
Rowan’s measured gaze stayed on me. “You don’t know who shot at you in the middle of nowhere.” It wasn’t a question. More of an accusation since he was making it clear he thought I knew exactly who was responsible.
I shrugged again. “Bad luck. Hunters with bad aim and an even worse sense of direction?”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth thinned with irritation and knowing.
Our conversation from the day before I met Elliot lingered at the forefront of my mind and likely in his.
He was content to let me keep him in the dark—barely—when I wasn’t getting shot at, but I knew I was currently shit out of luck.
The walls were closing in around me. The back of my neck started to feel uncomfortably hot.
There was a long silence, Rowan staring me down. “We’re going to be talking about this further,” he promised. “And you’re going to actually say something. This shit ends now.”
I folded my arms, hiding my wince as I forgot about the wound in my bicep. “Well, sure it does, Rowan, because you’ve just said so, and so it will be,” I retorted sarcastically.
Rowan let out a long sigh. He didn’t respond, instead he looked to Elliot. “Look after her. You don’t, I kill you.”
“How about I look after myself, and I kill any men who need killing with my own two hands?” I offered, not joking.
Again, Rowan ignored me, waiting for Elliot to nod.
“She’s capable of looking after herself.” Elliot proved once again that he did not defer to the alpha male status quo, which I found remarkably hot.
“Bullet wound in her arm would beg to differ,” Rowan replied before turning his back and leaving.
He slammed the door on his way out.
Rude. Disrespectful. Like a teenager having a tantrum. Though I knew it came only from his concern and frustration with me.
It seemed I was surrounded by frustrated men who wanted to protect me from monsters I’d summoned.
Monsters I’d created. They couldn’t slay them for me, but I’d never let them.
Monsters were only defeated by heroes in fairy tales.
The real monsters of this world needed a similar creature to bring them down.
And as much as I tried to masquerade otherwise, I was closer to a monster than I was any kind of hero.
My breathing was shallow as I stared at the door and then Elliot.
I waited. For the inevitable.
For the questions. Especially after that scene with Rowan, he’d be bursting with them. I’d been poised to tell him my entire life story before, he was perceptive enough to know that. And he was perceptive enough to understand that there was tension with Rowan, things to be learned.
Elliot looked at me, and I held my breath. “What do you want your punishment to be?”
He asked the one question I didn’t expect.
“W-what?” I stuttered, taken aback.
“For disobeying me.” He stepped forward like a predator, not the protector he was mere moments ago. I was amazed by the man’s ability to slip into different personas within the same skin.
My skin heated at his approach, his tone, the darkness in his gaze.
“I told you to stay where you were. When your brother knocked at the door. And I told you to get in the closet earlier. You didn’t listen to me.
” He gripped my chin firmly between his fingers.
“So what do you want your punishment to be? You can take my belt, or you won’t be able to come for the rest of the night. ”
Hearing the options, my breathing became shallow, my core throbbing. “I wasn’t aware we were within the parameters of me following orders.” I should’ve sounded a lot more pissed off, and I was, somewhere. Underneath all the pent-up desire.
“Yes, you were,” he leaned in. “When it comes to your safety or your orgasms, you listen to me.”
“You get one of those. You better know it’s not the former.” I was dead serious despite my body responding to him viscerally.
“We’ll see.” He stepped forward. “In that case, do you not want to be punished?”
I licked my lips. “I didn’t say that.”
A wicked grin spread across his face.
It was a breath of fresh air, having been assaulted by his concern and turmoil the past few hours. I hadn’t realized what a port in the storm I’d considered Elliot’s easygoing personality to be. How I’d come to rely on its stability in the short time I’d been around him.
“What will your punishment be, Calliope?” With featherlight steps, he moved forward to take the wine glass from my hands.
The brush of his fingers against mine was electric, and suddenly, I was overcome with need. To drown out everything from that day, lose myself in the act of following his orders.
Even the simple choice between two punishments seemed overwhelming.
Both of them sounded uniquely enticing; I wanted both.
But I didn’t want any more responsibility.
I could’ve died. And there was a good chance it was because of my own choices.
The decision fatigue from that alone was almost unbearable.
Elliot watched me with lowered lids, as if he were reading all of those thoughts.
His fingers brushed my jaw with a gentle touch that made my knees wobble.
“How about I decide?” he murmured softly.
“One day, one day soon, I’ll take my belt to you.
” His hands skimmed down the sides of my body to knead my ass.
“I’ll see this skin raised and red and ensure that you won’t be able to sit without remembering your punishment for a week.
But I don’t relish inflicting any more pain on you tonight, even the kind of pain you’ll like.
The kind of pain that’ll make that lovely little cunt absolutely sopping wet for me. ”
At his words, my breathing had lowered to a pant, my mouth moist and my panties soaked. They were true, all of them. I yearned for that. For the strike of leather against my skin, for the ability to carry the evidence around with me when Elliot wasn’t there.
One day, he’d said. Like we had more days ahead of us.
“You’re so sure the occasion will arise when I’ll need to be punished again?”
He smiled wickedly. “Oh, Calliope. One of the things I love most about you is that you’ll always need to be punished because you don’t fucking listen to me .
” His voice was peppered with the rage from earlier.
“It frustrates me beyond measure.” His nostrils twitched as he drew in a long inhale. “But I fucking love it.”
My skin tingled at the knowledge of what I was doing to him, how I’d wormed my way under his skin. It was a relief, since I felt Elliot in my marrow.
“No belt,” Elliot decided, clicking his tongue.
The other punishment, then. Not letting me come for the entire evening. A quick glance at the clock told me it was only 7:00. How long would the evening last? Until 10:00? Midnight? Surely, I’d be able to handle that.
Elliot reached inside the waistband of my leggings, cradling me where I was craving him, parting me so he could run his fingers along my clit.