AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I meant what I said.
I had never been into the BDSM scene.
Sure, I knew about it. Who didn't?
And, okay, I had used binding and wax and plugs and hair pulling and choking and bare-handed spanking in the bedroom before. But I hadn't ever bound a woman, plugged her, flogged her, then fucked her.
I sure as fuck had never left marks on a woman before.
That was just so far and beyond what I believed was acceptable between men and women. And while I understood there were absolutely women out there who liked to be whipped bloody, who got off by having marks on their skin, I just couldn't seem to convince myself that Autumn was one of them.
When I got home from the store, stomach swirling with an all-too-familiar disgust in myself, I hauled upstairs into my studio, working on a new piece, not knowing what I was going to make, but throwing those feelings into it.
Once I worked through the shame, getting that out of the forefront of my mind, memories of my confrontation with Hunter came about, and I abandoned one canvas for the next, a huge one, one that would likely take up a good portion of one of the walls.
They were my family
Except all the adults had their heads facing down.
And all the kids had no faces.
Even half done, it hurt to look at.
Knife, meet gut.
It was never going to end.
Not until I was off parole at least and could move, not when there was always a chance of running into them.
What the fuck was it going to feel like if I was driving down the street and saw Fee walking with the girls?
I couldn't imagine.
"Damn, that's dark."
"Jesus," I growled, whirling around to where Bobby was standing a few feet behind me.
"What?" he asked, looking innocent. "You didn't bother to lock it!"
"This might be a hard one to accept here, Bobby, but an unlocked door is not an invitation."
"What's got your panties in a bunch?" he asked, moving out into the hall as I walked toward him as well.
"I had a run-in with my brother this afternoon." I chose to leave out then consensually beat the shit out of a girl I had feelings for. Because, well, that one was just not somewhere I was willing to go.
"Which one?"
"Hunter, the tattoo artist."
"Ah, the one with the girls."
"Yeah," I agreed, feeling the grief well up, and forcing that shit right back down. I needed better control. The grief would turn to anger, and I couldn't slip up like that again.
"What'd he say?"
"He was angry," I told him, going into my fridge for the beer Bobby brought me that I wasn't supposed to have in the house. I really needed to get rid of the rest of it. Maybe in my fucking liver. Drown that shit down. That was why guys on parole weren't supposed to have alcohol, I supposed.
"Did you explain anything or just pull an Eli?"
"Pull an Eli?" I repeated.
"Yeah, you know what you do. You shut down or change the subject or shit like that. You never explain."
"There just isn't anything to explain. They need to let go and move on."
"They're your family, man. They're never gonna fucking let go or move on. They love you. They lost six years. They are going to do everything in their power not to lose any more."
The fuck was right.
That was the worst part.
And I didn't know how long my location would stay a secret, what lengths they might go through to get to me. Lord knew they had contacts everywhere. Hell, the only reason they knew I got arrested was because Detective Collings told them. True, he might be retired now, but he still had buddies on the force. If he pulled some strings, he might have been able to have someone bring up my DMV records that I had just needed to update the day before, realizing my license had expired and I had been driving like that. It was the little shit like that, man, that was sure to get you sent back in.
Or, maybe they would reach out to Alex or Jstorm or even Barrett Anderson to find me, hack around until they got what they needed.
If they wanted to, they could find me.
I didn't know what the fuck I would do when that happened.
Not if, when.
It was nice to get out a little early, but parole was making it impossible to be anonymous. If I got out on time served, I could have gone anywhere. I could have fallen off the face of the Earth. I could have truly started over.
"You gotta figure this shit out, man. It's gonna eat you up. You're more down out here than you were on the inside." He wasn't exactly wrong about that. "Seemed to be shaping up with the new fuck-buddy. Maybe you need to go visit her."
