Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“And?” I asked.
“And she wasn’t exactly comfortable with my needs. How I communicated them.” He rubbed my thigh.
I got the picture. She didn’t like the Dom/sub stuff. Everyone was entitled to their kink or lack thereof. But how any woman couldn’t like Elliot Shaw telling them what to do was baffling to me.
“Stupid bitch.” It was rather undignified of me, since I was meant to be on the side of women. Though I wasn’t exactly a girl’s girl.
“Wrong for me.” Elliot shook his head.
“You got that right,” I muttered.
“It broke me for a while,” he admitted, rubbing his chest.
My thirst for her blood for causing Elliot pain was unyielding.
“As far as relationships go, it was a lesson,” he continued, eyes bright on me. “My brother and I didn’t get out unscathed, losing our mother at young ages. Coping mechanisms, looking for the wrong things in the wrong women.” He shrugged. “My therapist thought it was a kind of unconscious reenactment, being drawn to someone I knew I’d lose, knowing in my gut that it was wrong for me to use women as a way to relive the loss of my mother, get a different outcome. Likely Beau’s situation too, with some unhealthy attachment styles thrown in.”
“You have a therapist?” I gaped at the easy way he spoke in Freudian psychological terms.
He nodded.
“Must be a good one,” I assumed, considering how easygoing and well-regulated he was in general. Though I knew some of that was just him.
“She is,” he agreed.
“Does she know about me?” I asked, narcissistic as fuck.
He nodded again.
“Well, if she’s a good one, then she’ll recognize that you’re doing the unconscious reenactment all over again with me.” I tried to keep my tone light, but it was weighed down with dread that I’d inevitably cause Elliot harm. Reliving the loss of a woman he couldn’t save.
“That’s not what she thinks at all.” Elliot pressed his lips together. “And if it was, I wouldn’t be seeing her anymore.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything, picking at a loose thread on the sofa.
“I thought I knew what it was to be content and fulfilled in life.” Elliot squeezed my thigh harder to get my attention. “Until you, Calliope. Until I heard I had the power to make you happy.”
My heart swelled at the reverence in his tone. And I had to kill it. I had to. Many years had passed since I was that little girl, uneasy in the calm life offered if you were lucky enough to have good parents and a quiet childhood without turmoil. Yet I was still her, that little girl, gritting her teeth, muscles stiff, unable to trust something as simple as happiness.
“What do you see in your future?” I asked him, realizing how little information I’d actually asked of him. I had immense interest in Elliot, his life and everything about him. But I had very rarely done something as simple as ask him questions.
“My future,” he clicked his tongue. “I don’t spend a whole lot of time there.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of my palm.
“No shit,” I gave him a smirk. Elliot was a true live-in-the-present type of guy. One of the many, many things that I loved about him. “Any rough blueprints?” I relaxed into his arms.
“Rough blueprints.” Elliot drummed his fingers along his chin. “Watching Clara go to prom, watch my brother scare the shit out of some boy, girl, or non-binary person—whomever Clara elects to be her date.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Beau will be equally protective and threatening to someone who dares think they’re good enough for his little girl.” He smiled warmly, and I smiled with him. Not just because I agreed with the gruff Beau who would likely measure up with my brother and Kip in the department of protective girl dads.
But also because that was a pretty wonderful view of the future, Clara growing, healthy, happy, doing normal teenage things. Although I doubted Clara would do anything ‘normal.’ I was excited to see what she grew up to be.
Until I realized that if all went according to plan, I wouldn’t be a part of Elliot’s, and therefore Clara’s, future. I wouldn’t see her. Or him.
I lost the feeling in my fingers.
“Maybe my brother getting out of his own way and getting himself some happiness,” Elliot continued. “My boat. Sunshine. Good hauls. A restaurant with asses in seats.” He paused, his gaze heavy on mine. “A woman I love warming my bed.”
The burn intensified in my throat, so I rummaged through my purse for antacids, even though my heartburn didn’t have a physical cause.
Elliot let me do so in silence, watching me pop the pill with an uptick to his mouth.
I chewed. “Anything else?”
“Think that’s a pretty good blueprint for happiness.”