The bed creaks as Carrson rises to his feet. He stands there, staring down at me, his expression unreadable.
“Don’t worry,” he says.
Then he smiles. Like he knows something I don’t.
He leans close, his lips to my ear, as if he’s going to tell me a secret or make me a promise.
“I’ll punish you later.”
Wait.
What?
Chapter thirty-one
Miserable
Becky
The next two days are miserable.
I’m on edge, anxious and jumpy, flinching at every little sound like a house cat gone feral. I keep waiting for my supposed punishment to come at any minute, bracing without even knowing what it is. Torture? Psychological manipulation? Something worse? My mind cycles through possibilities,dragging me back to the handcuffs, the brand, those dark red stains on the floor in the round room downstairs.
None of it helps.
But if I’m being honest, which I’m not, because absolutely not, that’s not even the worst part.
It’s the sexual frustration.
Carrson hasn’t touched me since that night. Not once. Not even accidentally. No brushing past me in the hallway. No fingers grazing mine when I hand him something.
Nothing.
It’s as if I imagined the whole thing.
Except I didn’t.
Because I remember exactly how it felt. How good it was. That orgasm was, honestly, it should come with a warning label. Life-altering. Perspective-shifting. The kind that makes you sit there afterward like,oh. Sothat’swhat people have been talking about this whole time.
And Carrson walks away from that?
Goes to his room every night. Shuts the door. Tells me to sleep well like we—like I didn’t—
Ugh.
It’s infuriating.
To make things even more awful, Carrson doesn’t seem unhappy at all. I’ve never seen him so cheerful. He practically floats around the house, this faint little smile on his face like the fucking Cheshire Cat.
This morning at breakfast, I actually caught him humming under his breath.
Humming!
Carrson Ashford.
I nearly choked on my coffee.
I wanted to smack him and kiss him in equal measure.
