My pulse jumps. “Are you threatening me? You just said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I'm promising you.” His thumb traces my jaw again, and I hate that my skin tingles where he touches me. “You scared me tonight, Bianca. Scared me badly. And I do not like being scared.” A beat passes. “And you need to learn a lesson about running away.”
I swallow hard. “Lesson?” My heart beats madly. Is this when I get to see who he really is? What he's truly capable of?
He releases my chin and reaches for something on the side table—a bottle of pain relievers. He opens it in front of me, deliberately showing me the sealed cap before shaking a few pills into his palm. Then he hands me a glass of water.
“You're going to take these,” he says. “I'm going to cook us some dinner. And then, once the pain has settled, I'll deal with you.”
I twist my hair nervously, staring at him. Why does my heartbeat flutter in my chest? “What's that supposed to mean?”
“You'll see.”
I stare at his retreating form as he heads to the kitchen, then look down at the pills in my hand. They were sealed. He took them right out of that bottle…
I take them because I am in pain, and because he showed me they were sealed. He's not trying to drug me, which somehow makes everything more confusing.
In a short while, there's food sizzling in the kitchen, and my stomach growls traitorously. The smell of garlic and butter fills the cabin, and despite everything, my mouth waters.
I sigh.
I feel like a child who's lost every ounce of control, and I hate it.
The heavy sound of a pot lid clanging echoes from the kitchen, and then he's back, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“How's the pain?”
“Better,” I admit truthfully, before I remember he told me he’d deal with me after my pain improved.
“Good.” He studies me for a long moment. “Dinner's almost ready. But we have something to deal with first, don't we?”
Protesting seems fruitless, but… “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“I'm going to make damn sure you understand that running isn't an option.” He pushes off the doorframe and stalks toward me. “And that you will not hurt yourself again.”
Before I can ask what he means, he's sitting down on the couch and pulling me across his lap.
Across. His. Lap.
“Ashland!” I say, because I'm as terrified of being punished by him as I am mortified by him putting my curvy body over his knee. “Put me down. I'm too big. I don't fit. You can't?—”
“Stop that,” he says sharply. “I told youwhat would happen if you made self-deprecating comments. You'll be punished for that as well.”
“What? What are you?—”
My words cut off in a gasp as his hand comes down hard across my arse. The sound cracks through the quiet cabin. Heat blooms where he struck—not just pain, but something else. Something that makes my breath catch and my core clench.
“That,” he says, low and stern, “is for breaking my window.”
His hand comes down again on the same spot, and the sting intensifies, spreading through me like wildfire.
“That's for running into the woods without proper clothing.”
Again.
“That's for twisting your ankle and scaring ten years off my fucking life.”
Again.
