“You’d better be.”Fisting her hair, I pulled her even closer to me.“I’ll need your full honesty, please.Otherwise, you know what there’ll be?”I paused for dramatic effect, lips curling as she answered.
“Consequences, Sir?”
I was pleased to hear her tone was wry instead of raw.
“Exactly.”Leaning closer, I stole a kiss.“I’m sorry you haven’t felt you can be yourself around me, little girl.I’ll do better.”
It had been a long time since I’d been accountable to anyone except Ian, and even longer since I’d vowed to improve and actually meant it.
“I appreciate that.”She pressed her lips to mine, moaning when my digits eased through her soft tresses.“And for my part, Sir, I’ll try not to keep losing my shit with you.”
I chuckled at how she made that sound.She’d launched into quite the tantrum and probably deserved another spanking, but we were both too exhausted to indulge.We needed to finish eating and, since it was probably too late for a grocery run, to catch up on our sleep.
“Thank you, and can I ask for one more thing, little girl?”
She tilted her head at me.“What’s that?”
“The next time you do lose your shit, please don’t wallop me around the back of the head and leave me.”
The retort was a poor attempt at humor, referencing the time she’d battered me with my own decanter and fled into the night at the camp.The horrified look on her face, though, told me immediately that I’d overstepped.
“Just a joke,” I assured her, regretting the remark.She had hurt me then, and abandoned me, assuming I was dead, but she’d paid the price for her mistakes.I’d seen to that personally, and nothing she’d undertaken compared to the atrocities I’d overseen.“Probably not the greatest timing.”
“I said I was sorry about that.”The words left her lips in one long rush of air.
“I know.”Taking her face in my hands, I held her steady.“I’ll admit what you did hurt me.”It was the reason she wanted me to have another MRI scan when the logistics allowed.“But I’m sorry, too.I was wrong to bring it up.I can’t keep beating you with your past mistakes.”
“No.”She tried to shake her head between my palms.“I really harmed you, and for all we know, I’ve done lasting damage, Sir.”
“We’ve both hurt each other,” I ceded.Based on her recent overreactions to my concern for Macmillan, I’d probably contributed to her long-term psychological health more than she’d damaged my already pretty fucked-up brain.“And all I can promise is that, from this point on, I’ll do my best to never do so again.”
“We’re a right pair, Sir.”Her lips twisted into a smile.
That was a diplomatic appraisal.
“I’m still worried about you, though.”She reached past my hands and stroked her fingers through my hair.
It was such a small act, but one I would never have permitted before we fled.Women weren’t allowed to so much as even meet a man’s eyes at Fortorus, let alone touch him.Such transgressions would have seen her whipped at dawn, or worse...That stark reality cascaded over me as she went on.
“We should get you to a doctor as soon as we can.Didn’t Armitage say you needed a second opinion?”
“He was just being thorough,” I soothed, recalling the doctor’s last call on theCarla.“Honestly, I haven’t had a headache for a while.I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe Fortorus was the headache all along.”Her tone was dry.
“Yeah, maybe.”Releasing her face, I pulled her against my body, thinking about her words.Fortorus had been nothing but poison right from the start, and I should never have agreed to manage it, but then, paradoxically, if I hadn’t concurred with Ian’s awful plans and established the camp, we would probably never have met.
Not for the first time, I thanked the God I hardly even believed in that I’d been so damn fortunate.
A woman like Caroline.
An intelligent beauty with a proclivity for humiliation and someone who didn’t only have feelings for me, but was even prepared to forgive my terrible transgressions?
She was more than a man like me merited.
