If perhaps I was a bit sore for a couple days, I somehow thought the reward was worth it. Kind of like how your legs and ass hurt so much after the gym, but getting a little more muscle tone was well worth the pain.
Flogging as anxiety relief.
Who'd have thunk it?
"Eli," I said softly into his neck when he made no response, just kept stroking my hair.
"Yeah?"
"I would have stopped it if I wanted to stop it. I'm not afraid to speak my mind about sex. I own a sex store," I reminded him. "So you feeling guilt right now for something I don't regret makes no sense."
"See if you feel that way tomorrow, and maybe I won't feel so shitty about it."
Of course he was going to be difficult.
I guess it made sense.
He went to jail for six years for doing something that was right, got punished even though he had been defending a helpless woman. He had guilt about that. He felt like a monster who couldn't be trusted around his own family over that.
So, of course, he was going to make himself feel shitty about this as well.
"Okay. So when I get in touch with you tomorrow and don't hate you or regret this - spoiler alert, I won't - then you will let this go? No more regret or shame or guilt?"
There was a long pause. "If you can come to me tomorrow, sore, and tired because you can't find a comfortable way to sleep, and even then can still tell me that you enjoyed it and would do it again, then, yeah, okay. I will let it go."
"So what time do you get up in the morning?" I asked immediately. "I get up pretty early because, well, Coop demands it. But I don't open the store until around ten. I can bring over coffee."
There was a humorless snort at that. "If you end up bringing me coffee, anytime after seven is fine by me."
"Can I bring Coop? He likes exploring - and destroying - new places."
"Yeah, you can bring Coop if you come. Actually, if your and Peyton's schedules don't link up sometimes and you don't want to leave him alone, I'm pretty much always at home."
I smiled into his neck, pressing a kiss into his pulse point.
We were going to be sharing custody of Coop, I just knew it.
And, well, I was more than okay with that.
"Sounds like a plan," I agreed as the moment seemed to be done, so I carefully unfolded from him, and slid off his lap.
"Wait," he said, hands grabbing me from behind. One of his fingers traced down a spot on my back that felt over-heated, sensitive, a spot I knew had lash marks. He pulled me back slightly, and the next thing I felt was his lips pressing near the marks.
That, well, it did all sorts of fluttery things to my belly.
When I pulled away again, I snatched my pants and panties, dragging them up carefully. There were marks on the backs of my legs, but they just gave me a slight rug burn sensation as the material moved over them. My butt? Well, that definitely was sore. Sitting was going to be interesting.
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Eli said, taking my bra out of my hand.
"I'm at work. I have to wear a bra."
"At a sex store? That you own? I'm pretty sure you can get away with a little nipple action, sweetheart," he said, putting the bra on the table. "Here, let me help with that," he demanded as I started bunching up my shirt to put on. "Arms up."
My arms went up, and he oh-so-carefully pulled the material down them, my head, and then over my torso, holding it outward so it didn't scrape my back.
And, okay, fine.
I totally leaned back into him slightly.
What can I say, his anger might have been molten, but his sweet was like a liquid salve, soothing it all over.
"You should probably get back to work. Someone might need to mull over the cock ring selection like it is a life or death choice again."
I chuckled at that, knowing he was right. I had to get back to work. But also a little annoyed that real life had to get in the way of what was between us.
"Alright. So text me your address when you have a minute," I agreed as we started walking through to the store.
"Will do," he agreed, but the tone in which he said it made me think I was going to have to text him first and demand it.
"Black?" I asked. "For your coffee when I see you tomorrow," I called to him as he unlocked the door.
"Yeah, I take it black. For if I see you tomorrow."
"When," I corrected.
He turned back to me, eyes just completely wrecked.
"If."
With that, he was gone.
And I had the strange sensation of being gutted.
He genuinely did think that badly about himself.
And that was a damn sin for someone who had shown me kindness, humor, intellect, loyalty, and generosity.
Sure, I had seen a bit of the dark side; I could understand how that level of rage was dangerous in the wrong situation. But he had been able to control it, to harness it. If maybe he joined a boxing gym or something like that, he could control it even better.
He wasn't the monster he seemed to view himself as.
And he did.
He had the same resigned unhappiness of Bruce Banner who knew there was no controlling The Hulk.
I took a deep breath, moving back through the door behind the counter, and slipping into the bathroom. I jacked up my shirt, looking over my shoulder at my reflection.
And I had to honestly say, it looked a lot worse than it felt. My skin was pale and thin and sensitive. I got burns if I used anything but ultra-sensitive soap. So it didn't surprise me that the marks were vivid red, raised, and almost bloody-looking at the ends. I knew me. I healed fast. Once I got home, took a cool, soothing shower, and maybe had my sister rub some aloe on it, the swelling would go down, as would some of the redness.
By tomorrow morning, it would look like we just had a light, gentle flogging session.
Then he would see that he was overreacting.
There was no if about it.
TEN
Eli
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I hadn't done enough bad shit in my life, I had to go and mark up the one little bit of good I had going for me? I had to drag her down into my darkness with me?
I meant what I said.
I had never been into the BDSM scene.
Sure, I knew about it. Who didn't?
And, okay, I had used binding and wax and plugs and hair pulling and choking and bare-handed spanking in the bedroom before. But I hadn't ever bound a woman, plugged her, flogged her, then fucked her.
I sure as fuck had never left marks on a woman before.
That was just so far and beyond what I believed was acceptable between men and women. And while I understood there were absolutely women out there who liked to be whipped bloody, who got off by having marks on their skin, I just couldn't seem to convince myself that Autumn was one of them.
When I got home from the store, stomach swirling with an all-too-familiar disgust in myself, I hauled upstairs into my studio, working on a new piece, not knowing what I was going to make, but throwing those feelings into it.
Once I worked through the shame, getting that out of the forefront of my mind, memories of my confrontation with Hunter came about, and I abandoned one canvas for the next, a huge one, one that would likely take up a good portion of one of the walls.
They were my family
Except all the adults had their heads facing down.
And all the kids had no faces.
Even half done, it hurt to look at.
Knife, meet gut.
It was never going to end.
Not until I was off parole at least and could move, not when there was always a chance of running into them.
What the fuck was it going to feel like if I was driving down the street and saw Fee walking with the girls?
I couldn't imagine.
"Damn, that's dark."
"Jesus," I growled, whirling around to where Bobby was standing a few feet beh
ind me.
"What?" he asked, looking innocent. "You didn't bother to lock it!"
"This might be a hard one to accept here, Bobby, but an unlocked door is not an invitation."
"What's got your panties in a bunch?" he asked, moving out into the hall as I walked toward him as well.
"I had a run-in with my brother this afternoon." I chose to leave out then consensually beat the shit out of a girl I had feelings for. Because, well, that one was just not somewhere I was willing to go.
"Which one?"
"Hunter, the tattoo artist."
"Ah, the one with the girls."
"Yeah," I agreed, feeling the grief well up, and forcing that shit right back down. I needed better control. The grief would turn to anger, and I couldn't slip up like that again.
"What'd he say?"
"He was angry," I told him, going into my fridge for the beer Bobby brought me that I wasn't supposed to have in the house. I really needed to get rid of the rest of it. Maybe in my fucking liver. Drown that shit down. That was why guys on parole weren't supposed to have alcohol, I supposed.
"Did you explain anything or just pull an Eli?"
"Pull an Eli?" I repeated.
"Yeah, you know what you do. You shut down or change the subject or shit like that. You never explain."
"There just isn't anything to explain. They need to let go and move on."
"They're your family, man. They're never gonna fucking let go or move on. They love you. They lost six years. They are going to do everything in their power not to lose any more."
The fuck was right.
That was the worst part.
And I didn't know how long my location would stay a secret, what lengths they might go through to get to me. Lord knew they had contacts everywhere. Hell, the only reason they knew I got arrested was because Detective Collings told them. True, he might be retired now, but he still had buddies on the force. If he pulled some strings, he might have been able to have someone bring up my DMV records that I had just needed to update the day before, realizing my license had expired and I had been driving like that. It was the little shit like that, man, that was sure to get you sent back in.
Or, maybe they would reach out to Alex or Jstorm or even Barrett Anderson to find me, hack around until they got what they needed.
If they wanted to, they could find me.
I didn't know what the fuck I would do when that happened.
Not if, when.
It was nice to get out a little early, but parole was making it impossible to be anonymous. If I got out on time served, I could have gone anywhere. I could have fallen off the face of the Earth. I could have truly started over.
"You gotta figure this shit out, man. It's gonna eat you up. You're more down out here than you were on the inside." He wasn't exactly wrong about that. "Seemed to be shaping up with the new fuck-buddy. Maybe you need to go visit her."
I couldn't.
That was the problem.
I did feel better with her.
I felt better.
Flogging her was a release, sure. But it felt even more right to hold her after, to stroke her hair, to just be near her. It was the closest to happy I had been in six goddamn years.
Because I needed the former part of that from her, I might lose the latter.
That shit, yeah, it was proving hard to accept.
It shouldn't have felt that way.
I wasn't supposed to be making any connections, let alone ones that could run deep enough to hurt someday.
Yet here I was.
Fucking moron that I was.
"Yeah, maybe," I agreed, tipping back my beer, finishing it.
"Alright, I can tell when someone wants to be alone with their fucked up thoughts," Bobby declared. That was a bit of a new one. Inside, the man would never leave me the hell alone, even if I told him to. But, I guess, on the outside, he had a house and a woman, and, well, drugs to sell. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow, man. Buck up. You're out. Out is better than in even if out sucks."
With that, he was gone.
He was right, too.
Out was better than in even if out sucked.
For example, I got to have lights on until two AM so I could keep working on my pieces.
That, at least, was an improvement.
After that, too beat to keep my eyes opened, I showered and fell into bed, not bothering to set an alarm.
I saw those lashes.
I had gotten my ass handed to me enough times growing up to know how those were going to feel given a little time.
She wasn't coming.
When I heard the slamming at seven-thirty in the morning, I rolled over to stare at the ceiling, cursing Bobby as viciously as my vocabulary would allow.
Seven?
Fucking seven?
What was wrong with him?
But, knowing Bobby, if I didn't drag my ass down there and open the door, he would climb in through a damn window or some shit.
On that note, I rolled out of bed in my black and white plaid pajama bottoms and made my way downstairs, trying to work the cricks out of my neck as I reached for the locks.
Coulda knocked me over with a gentle fucking breeze when I saw Autumn standing there, Coop's leash in one hand, and a bag and tray wobbling a bit ominously in the other.
Her eyes drifted over me, spending a little extra time on my bare chest and stomach before flying back up a bit guiltily. Once she was looking at my face again, she shook her head. "You shouldn't have said anytime after seven if you like to sleep later than that!" she accused, prompting Coop to bark along with her from his position on his ass, bouncing around though like maybe he had been given a command to sit and stay, and was trying really hard to obey even though he was excited.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, voice sleep-rough even to my own ears.
"We had an agreement. If I didn't hate you or regret what we did, I show up here, and we move on. I don't hate you or regret what we did. Oh, and Peyton would like to know if any of your brothers are single and similarly rough sex inclined."
"Peyton knows?" I asked, feeling that shame shit rear its ugly head again.
"Yeah, I asked her to help me put some aloe on. The marks were mostly gone by the time I got home. My skin is sensitive, but it recovers fast. Relax," she added, giving me an easy smile. "Peyton is into this kinda thing. She certainly doesn't think any less of you for it. But I am under threat of her donning her creepy clown mask again and scaring the shit out of me if I don't get an answer about the brothers."
I felt my lips curve up, shaking my head. "They're all taken."
"Pity. She's not going to like that. Well, anyway. I'm here. I brought coffee and food and this hellbeast who thought that my purse was a good chew toy this morning," she explained, curving her shoulder to show me the half-gnawed leather strap.
"Little shit," I said affectionately, reaching down to unclip his collar. "Go hog wild. There's nothing you can destroy in here," I told him as he bolted.
"See, now that wasn't very smart. He is going to see that as a challenge."
She moved to take a step forward, but I stepped in front of her, raising my arm to rest on the doorjamb, leaning down to catch her gaze. "Seriously, honey, what are you doing here?"
She exhaled hard at that, like something I said was pissing her off, but she was trying to control her frustration.
"Listen," she said, putting her now-free hand on my hip. "I get that you have this shitty, warped opinion of yourself right now, and it's hard for you to see through any other kind of lens. But that isn't how I see you. And short of you telling me to fuck off, I'm not going anywhere. So just buck-up and get used to it, sparky," she demanded, hand moving from my hip to tap into the center of my chest.
"Sparky?" I asked as she pushed past me to move inside.
"Yep. You're doing renovations?" she asked, looking around.
"The place was a wreck. Those cabinets were a yellow from hell," I explained, w
aving my hand at the fresh white coat of paint they had on them. It was a temporary fix. They actually needed to get torn out and replaced. But I wasn't sure how long I was going to be there, and it was stupid to sink a ton of money into a place you might be leaving. It just needed to be livable.
"What are you going to do with the floor?" she asked as she made herself at home, putting the food and coffee down on the pop-up table I was using until I figured out a furniture situation. "And the countertops?"
"Probably some kind of tile. On both."
"No," she said, shaking her head as she took the coffees out of the cupholder.
"No?" I asked, smiling a little at the eye roll she did, likely not thinking I would see it with her head ducked.
"You don't want tile on the counter. The grout gets dirty and looks awful. Something solid."
"Is that an offer to come with me to the home improvement store?" I asked, smiling at the way her head snapped up and her eyes brightened.
I knew that look.
And I knew it meant nothing but trouble for me.
And likely hurt for her.
Hope.
That was the purest look of hope I had seen in a long fucking time.
"Well, I can certainly do no worse than tile," she quipped, likely picking up on her own tells, and wanting to cover them.
"What did you bring me?" I asked, moving closer as she pulled food out of the bags.
And, unlike what Bobby brought me, this wasn't wrapped in parchment paper dripping with grease. Don't get me wrong, that shit was welcome after years of awful food in prison. But I couldn't help but wonder what kind of breakfast foods required fancy brown folded takeaway containers.
"Apple-stuffed brioche French toast with a side of breakfast potatoes annnnnd..." she said, digging through the bag for a fifth container, "fruit to share."
"Apple-stuffed brioche French toast with potatoes and you thought fruit was necessary."
"Balance," she said with a smile. "Like how I'm going to hoover all this, have a sensible salad for lunch, then have something cheesy and fatty for dinner. Balance."
"I'm pretty sure that doesn't exactly..."
"Shut it," she cut me off, small-eyeing me as she sat down to open her biggest container. "No one needs that negativity in their lives."
Eli (Mallick Brothers Book 4) Page 13