No. Nope.
“Or doing things I don’t want to.”
“No one will do anything you don’t want,” Kellan told her with a scowl.
“That’s not the way BDSM works. It’s all about consent. You tell us your likes and dislikes. And you always have a safeword. So, really, you’re in charge,” Eli explained. “But you don’t have to think about this right now. It’s not a deal breaker.”
“And you don’t have to be a sub to get spanked in Haven,” Kellan said.
“Um, what do you mean?”
Eli raised his eyebrows. “You know that every woman in Haven has a guardian, right?”
“Yes, I know that. Jake is acting as mine. But he’s not going to spank me.”
“Well, no. Jake doesn’t spank anyone but Molly.”
“He spanks his wife?”
“If she broke the rules, he would,” Eli told her. “How do you think other women in Haven are punished by their guardians if they disobey the rules?”
“In fairness, they’re not all spanked,” Kellan said.
“True. There are other punishments. Especially if your guardian is a relative rather than your husband,” Eli said. “There’re lots of punishments that can be used if you use your imagination. So if spanking is a hard limit we can look at that.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know what is a limit and I don’t have to talk about them because Jake is my guardian.”
“For the moment,” Eli replied with a grin.
“What does that mean?” A wave of exhaustion hit her. This was too much for her to deal with right now.
What did ‘for the moment’ mean?
And why did they want to take care of her? She’d kicked them out of her house after that kiss with Eli while Kellan watched on and gave orders.
The memory of that made her body heat.
However, she knew she still likely owed them an apology.
“I think we’ve talked enough for right now,” Eli said. “You need to rest.”
“And let us take care of you,” Kellan added.
“Nobody ever takes care of me.”
Shoot. She hadn’t meant to say that. It had slipped past her lowered shields.
“Well, now you have us,” Eli replied as he gently ran his fingers through her hair. Her eyes drifted shut and she felt herself starting to slip into sleep.
“That’s it, go to sleep, baby. I know that things have been rocky. We weren’t sure that we could do this, either. But these past few days apart . . . then seeing you collapse like that. It cemented things in our minds. You’re going to be ours . . . we just have to work on getting you to trust us. To know that we mean it. But we will . . . and then we’re going to spend our lives taking care of you.”
22
Arabella stared in relief at her small house as they pulled up in front of it at five that night.
Despite the fact that she’d slept a lot today she was still feeling tired. And weirdly anxious.
It felt good to be home. Even if Horse was still with Cole. Who hadn’t been at all happy to see her.
