June
There are more guards around the house.
Men I don’t know lurking among the trees. They ke ep their distance from me and
Hattie. Nothing really changed, exc ept 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 st eps 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 es cape. I should’ve thought about how difficult it would be with Hattie.
And the effect the es cape 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 st eps, 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 st eps from his underwear. He stands
before me, completely naked, skin covered in blood where it se eped 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 st eps 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 ke ep me
in—they’re to ke ep 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 st ep 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
de ep 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.