Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Who do you belong to?” he asks again.
“You. Only you.”
“And who decides when you come?”
“You do.”
His thumb strokes my jaw, almost tender, while his eyes burn into mine. “That's my good girl. Now let me hear you beg for it properly.”
Again, he lands the belt across my arse until I feel a strange sort of floating sensation begin to take over.
“Sir,” I say, but my words come out slurred, and I can’t speak right.
“Good girl,” he says, cradling me in his lap. “Oh, that’s my lovely girl. Now, I’d love to have my way with you, but I want you totally sober and awake for that. It’s not right to take advantage when you’re drunk.”
“Not drunk,” I say, but my words are slurred, and I can’t open my eyes.
“You’re a good girl,” he whispers in my ear. “You took that so well, lass.”
“Thank you.”
I try to get to my feet, but I can’t. I’m jello, floating, when the sound of an alarm blaring breaks the silence.
“Fuck,” Cavin says. “Erin, can you stand? Can you walk, love?”
I open my bleary eyes and get to my feet, shaking. “I think… I think so.” But I’m feeling woozy.
“Christ,” he growls. “You stay right here and let me see what’s happened. Don’t come out. Do you hear me? Are you aware of what I’m saying right now?”
“Yes,” I whisper, but the word feels far away, floating somewhere outside my body. Everything’s soft around the edges, warm and distant. I’m cold, but I don’t care. Nothing matters except the sound of his voice anchoring me.
He reaches for a thick, warm blanket and drapes it around my shoulders. The weight of it makes me sink deeper into whatever this floating feeling is.
Safe. I’m safe here.
His phone vibrates with a message. I’m vaguely aware of him scowling at it. I feel like I’m half asleep. My eyes are fluttering closed.
“Well,” he says softly. “We’ll see what she does with this.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cavin
Of fucking course Erin’s tripped out on a scene. The lass is ripe for it, primed and ready, but I need her lucid.
“Tell Declan to wait,” I mutter. “He can send whatever he needs to me. I’ll be sure she sees it.”
Then I wrap her tighter in the blanket while she shivers, holding her close to me. If she wasn’t half asleep, the lass would be asking me a million questions, but she’s practically floating. I kiss the top of her head. She’s half giggling, half asleep, high on what just happened. Christ, but she’s perfect.
I hold her in my arms, pliant and quiet. I’ve heard that if you hold somebody chest-to-chest, after four minutes, your heartbeats sync.
I like to think ours already have.
“What do they need?” she whispers, even as she looks up at me with her eyes blown wide, her cheeks flushed pink—even the top of her chest is pink. She’s naked under the blanket I’ve wrapped around her.
“They’ve got information you asked for,” I say. “We have three more weeks to find out who the fuck is demanding this tribute.”
“Mmm. Been mulling that over,” she says quietly as her head lolls to the side, and I make a decision right then. Whatever information Declan has to send me, he can send us right here at The Craic. It’s not that I don’t want to take her home tonight, but I don’t want to move her.
I want her right here with me until the morning light filters through the windows.
So I draw a bath. I squint at the little bottle next to the tub with pearly green-tinted beads and read “bath salts.” Okay, that’s supposed to be nice, I guess. So I shake some in, and soon the bath is lightly fragranced like eucalyptus and mint, and it makes the whole space feel clean and green.
We’re secure here. Her guards are at the door, as well as mine, and no one gets into the club without permission.
Maybe we’ll spend a few days here.
Maybe we’ll enjoy ourselves, have a little honeymoon. What better place to have a honeymoon than a kink club? I smirk to myself, unwrap her blanket, and lift her.
“I was thinking,” she says. “You know how sometimes thoughts come to you in the middle of the night when you’re turning them over?”
“I’ve heard that happens, but it’s not what happens to me when I dream. Yeah? What were you thinking?”
She swallows as I lower her into the water. “Oh god, you have to make sure I don’t drown.”
I grumble under my breath. That’s not a laughing matter.
“Why would you drown?”
She opens one eye. “Because this is so relaxing, and I feel like I’m going to fall asleep.”
Fair.
“I was thinking about the word ‘tribute.’ That’s not something used here very often, is it? We don’t pay tribute. There was a tradition years ago where one family would pay tribute to the next with a bride, right? My dad told me about it.”