Chapter 27 #2
My legs moved of their own accord before I could protest further. My inner walls tightened with need I didn’t imagine I’d be feeling for a long time after the events of the previous night. The last thing I expected Elliot to do was demand this of me.
I expected him to treat me gently, softly, as he had last night. As if I were a broken, ruined thing.
But there he was, punishing me, like he believed I was strong enough to take it.
“Robe off,” he ordered as my shins hit the bed.
I obeyed him, the silk pooling at my feet.
“Panties too.” His voice was quickly turning guttural.
My panties joined the robe as I stepped out of them, my pulse racing and my skin no longer ice-cold, my body no longer weighed down by the load of my sins, my responsibilities.
I placed my palms on the bed, presenting my bare ass to him.
Having expected pain, I shivered as leather ran delicately along my skin.
Elliot’s fingers ghosted over my hip before moving between my legs where I was soaking for him. I gasped at the contact, but it wasn’t enough to get me anywhere. No way would he let me come.
I expected him to prepare me, ask me when I was ready, to treat me with care. He didn’t.
The slap of the leather against my skin came first, then the white-hot pain. Not unbearable. It was perfect. Warmth flooded my core, my chest.
I arched up toward him, his hand caressing the throbbing skin.
When the belt came down again, I flinched, and my teeth sank into my lip, drawing blood.
Elliot’s hand was between my legs again, toying with me for longer this time, bringing my pleasure forward where it mingled with the pain.
“Can you handle one more?” His throaty tone wafted over my heated skin.
“Yes,” I hissed, my voice broken.
“Good girl,” he murmured, tweaking my clit once more before his hand was gone and the belt was back.
My body balked at the pain. It was almost too much. Almost. But it was brilliant too. A release of tension. Punishment I felt I deserved.
Elliot’s magical fingers returned, rubbing where I was dripping for him, my body so pent-up it felt like I was going to break into a thousand pieces.
My hips arched upward as I readied myself to combust in rapture.
“No,” Elliot growled, removing his hand. “You’re going to take my cock.”
“Yes.” I was half-mad with the desperation for Elliot to fill me up. I felt so empty.
He didn’t make me wait, didn’t torture me. His hand at my hip was the only preparation I got before he impaled me in one glorious thrust.
My body welcomed him, but he didn’t pump his hips. And that’s all it would’ve taken. One pump, and I would’ve been gone, taken away by a devastating release.
“I’m not going anywhere, Calliope.” His words were filled with tension as he held himself stock-still. “I’m here.” He moved his hips an inch, my body arching into him. “I’m here, and you’re not pushing me away.”
Pressure at my scalp tingled as he used my hair to turn my head to look at him.
I gazed at him with hooded eyes. “Tell me you won’t push me away.”
Although I wanted to give him everything he wanted, was eager to please him, to get my own release, I hesitated. Pushing him away was what needed to happen. Sure, there were no immediate threats but I’d already made him an accomplice to murder. I’d ruin his life. It was what I did.
“Calliope,” he warned. “You’re not going to win this fucking fight. You belong here. I belong here.”
Tears escaped my eyes. I felt trapped. Between the noble choice and the selfish one. I had to be a good person. Elliot deserved that.
“You’re not going to push me away,” he snarled. “Fucking say it.”
“I won’t push you away.” The words fled from me, unable to make a single noble decision, apparently.
I hated myself.
But I couldn’t completely. Not when I saw the way Elliot’s shoulders sagged and the stress lines around his eyes disappeared. “No, you won’t.” He dropped a kiss onto my shoulder. “Not ever.”
Then he pumped his hips and gave me the respite from reality I so sorely needed.
My ass was throbbing as I laid naked, sprawled on Elliot’s chest. I wasn’t ready to test out even the weight of the sheets against my tender skin. I liked the sting, though. It was exactly what I had needed. I hadn’t known that. Elliot had. He’d known what I needed.
“It’s going to be that easy?” I asked Elliot as I propped myself up to look at him. “For you to forgive me? For me to slay the dragon and get the man in the end?”
He chuckled, but it was without a lot of his trademark warmth. I’d caused that too. I hated it.
“It may take a while for me to forgive you, Calliope.” He brushed hair from my face as my muscles stiffened. “For lying to me, yeah. But not for what you did to me. For what you did to yourself. Isolated yourself.” He grasped my face. “I’m not going to let you do that.”
“This is too much for you, Elliot,” I sighed. “I told you, you’re a simple man. That’s a good thing. You don’t deserve to have your life complicated by me.”
His grip tightened. “I decide how complicated my life is, Calliope Derrick. And I consider it a good life if you’re in it. Though I’ll endeavor to ensure that I won’t have to find you covered in blood again.” His nose scrunched at the description.
He didn’t speak for a long while. I played with the blond curls on his chest, letting him gather his thoughts.
“Are you going to tell Beau?” I whispered. “About Naomi?”
I hated to add more to his load, adding a massive burden to his soul.
“I’m not sure yet.” He let out a rough exhale, a heaviness in his words that shouldn’t have been there.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, hating myself.
“No,” he barked out the word. “I’m not letting you blame yourself for this shit. I get what life is with you, Calliope. I’m a grown man. A smart one. Don’t do me the disservice of thinking I can’t make rational decisions. I love you. I’m not running from you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “You should.”
He didn’t speak straightaway. He was waiting until I opened my eyes, likely. I took my time. When I met his gaze, it was unyielding. Reverent. Harsh too.
“Maybe,” he smirked. “But I’m not a coward. Calliope Derrick wouldn’t love a coward. You love me?”
I nodded slowly.
He laid his lips on mine. “Then I’m not running.”
And even though I was pretty sure that made me a terrible person, it sent relief coursing through my body.
It took me longer than I had anticipated to recover from my jaunt into New York City, which included the death of two of the most powerful men on the island, if not the country—one of them whom I used to love and had killed with my bare hands.
I didn’t expect the nightmares. How vivid they would be. The warmth of the blood as it spilled onto my hands, the frozen look in Jasper’s eyes, the weight of his lifeless body.
Every night, I woke covered in sweat that I was sure was blood. Every night, Elliot was there, rubbing my back, murmuring in my ear, telling me where I was and that I was safe.
The gentle rumble of his voice, the light pressure on my back, and his lips against my ear brought me back down to earth. As always, he was my anchor to safety, sanity and a life I didn’t think I deserved.
I’d given up on trying to push him away. After everything that happened, I didn’t have the energy. And I was selfish. I didn’t trust that I’d be able to recover without him. Even with my girlfriends, my family, I feared I’d sink into some martini and benzo hole, never to be seen again.
Elliot made me strong. Not only was he there in the middle of the night, but he got up with me every night when I needed to shower to wash off the blood that only existed in my memories.
Logically, I knew that I wasn’t covered in blood, but there was no way for me to go back to sleep without washing myself clean.
I’d also given up on telling Elliot he didn’t need to get up with me, demanding he sleep somewhere else so I didn’t wake him.
“For the foreseeable future—read, the rest of my life—I’ll be sleeping next to you, Calliope,” he’d told me the last time I’d tried to get him out of the bed and away from my weakness.
“I’ll wake up when you have a nightmare, and I’ll stay with you until I know you’re asleep.
And if you think I’ll go anywhere else, then you obviously don’t know me very well. ”
The determined edge in his tone told me I wasn’t going to win any arguments. Me. And I’d practically argued for a living.
So I was getting used to losing arguments with Elliot.
He was firm when he needed to be, in disagreements over where he slept and when it came to sex—which I had a renewed appetite for. And that was saying something, considering the appetite I had for it beforehand.
I probably needed therapy. No, I definitely needed therapy. I had even before New York. But I didn’t know how much doctor-patient confidentiality extended when admitting to murders of admittedly bad men.
Wasn’t worth risking it.
Rowan and Kip had been keeping their eyes on me, waiting for me to have a breakdown so they could come in to save the day.
Not because they were alpha assholes—okay, they were kind of alpha assholes—but because they felt powerless.
They were used to being the ones to save the day, fix things, clean up the blood if need be.
And I’d done that. Rendered them useless.
I knew it was because they loved me, but their concern, the worried looks when they thought I wasn’t paying attention, was driving me insane.
As was Elliot’s steady presence and the way he acted the same around me. As if nothing had changed. Yet I didn’t miss the concerned looks he gave me when he thought I wasn’t looking either.
He was cleaning up dinner dishes on a rare night when he wasn’t at Shaw Shack or we weren’t eating with one of my friends, my family, or his.
It seemed the agenda was to keep me so busy and surrounded by people that I wouldn’t dwell on what I’d done.
It wasn’t a bad plan, especially when combined with martinis and copious amounts of sex.
“We can’t keep going on like this, you know,” I told him as he sat down on the sofa.
“Like what?” he turned to face me, his gray eyes guarded.
He was bracing, struggling with his own PTSD from the day I’d tried to break up with him then came back covered in blood after he spent hours thinking I was dead.
And although my first instinct was to not feel empathy for a man’s reaction to my traumatic event, this was Elliot.
He was traumatized because he cared about me.
He had asked nothing of me for the two weeks since I came back.
No further explanation, no additional apologies, nothing.
He continued to give. All I did was take.
“You’re a quiet, simple man from a small town,” I whispered.
“And make no mistake, I do not mean simple as an insult. I’ve come to learn that a simple man is rare and precious.
That he is good and kind and means what he says and loves in a way that has no conditions, no thorns.
He loves in a way that will not make you bleed. ”
I squeezed my hands together so my nails punctured the skin.
“Or he shouldn’t.” I spoke quieter that time.
“If you are a simple woman, without thorns of her own. But I’m not.
Therefore, I do not deserve your love, and you deserve much better than what a life with me would entail.
In fact, you would not survive it. Men like you are not made for women like me.
Again, that’s not an insult. It’s a compliment. ”
I didn’t miss how Elliot’s normally warm irises seemed to have frozen over, his perpetually upturned lips now downward.
He didn’t speak for several seconds. And while normally content in silences, I squirmed uncomfortably.
“It is an insult,” he said quietly, an uncharacteristic fury threaded into the words.
My chest constricted, hearing it.
“To you,” he continued. “To my woman. And I won’t hear someone say horrid, untrue things about the woman I love. Even if, especially if, that woman is you, Calliope.”
Still, his words were laced with ire even as he said kind, gentle, loving things. Protective things.
I wasn’t being harsh enough, it seemed. He was going to fight for us. For me. For the version of me that existed in his head and nowhere else.
Oh, how I longed to be there. To Frankenstein myself together into the ideal version of myself that would be worthy of him.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out the apology, shocked and ashamed of the tears that welled up in my eyes.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he snapped, gathering me into his arms.
“I have everything to be sorry for.” I pushed at his chest so I could look at him. “I knew that it was a mistake, sullying your life with mine. But I was greedy and selfish, and I fell in love with you, and now it’s too hard for me to get out. I’m not strong enough.”
The admission at the end of my strangled, halfway-noble speech made my voice break as I fought against the foreign tears blurring my vision.
Elliot’s gaze was heavy, his jaw tense, blue eyes searching my face.
“You don’t have to be strong enough with me.
” He rubbed my arms. “You’ve been plenty strong your whole life, Calliope.
Proved yourself to everyone.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Proved yourself to you, who you’ll never be worthy of.
That drive, that strength is one of the things that made me fall for you, Calliope.
But that’s not what defines you or my feelings for you.
I love you equally, if not more, when you let go.
” He wiped a tear that escaped. “When you’re soft, not proving yourself to anyone, not punishing yourself.
Just being. I’m under no illusions that life with you is going to be simple, but that makes me happy as a pig in shit.
” He smirked, and I let out a choked laugh.
“I understand there’s a long journey ahead, and I’m going against a headstrong woman who has made a habit, an identity, around never needing to rely on anyone.
But I’m patient. Willing to wait to prove to you that you can rely on me. For a lifetime. No less.”
There was no way even a strong bitch like me could hear all of that from the man she loved and not blubber like a baby.
Which was what I did.
I dove into his chest and soaked it with my tears.
I did something that I was ready to practice for a lifetime. I relied on the man I loved to hold me, to weather emotions I considered too heavy, too unattractive, too weak.
And Elliot didn’t let me down.
I doubted he would.
Not in my entire lifetime.