“You two are out to kill me,” I muttered, my voice a mere rumble.
Michelle smacked my ass as she passed me to get to the fridge.
“What are we eating for breakfast?” she asked as she grabbed a bottle of orange juice.
“Egg sandwiches with bacon and cheese,” I told her. I frowned. What in the world was she doing? “You don’t drink orange juice.”
“It’s for Corvus.” I looked over my shoulder at our boy, who had taken a seat at the bar. After twisting off the lid and pouring it into a glass, she set the orange juice in front of him.
“Sit still,” she commanded then left the kitchen.
His brows furrowed. “I suddenly feel like I’m in trouble.”
“Did you do anything wrong this morning?” I asked him. When he shook his head, I dipped my chin. “Then relax,chibi. Michelle will never punish you for no reason, and she always talks about what’s bothering her. She’sveryopen. We both are.”
It was the only way to make a relationship with this kind of dynamic work.
I knew his feeling of always being cornered stemmed from all his trauma, but hopefully, with enough love from us and enough therapy—preferably with a trauma therapist—Corvus would heal and that part of him that was stuck in survival mode might finally rest and let him truly live.
Michelle made her way back into the kitchen just as I put the finishing touches on the breakfast sandwiches. She set a notebook and a pen in front of Corvus, and my lips twitched.
“Remember when I told you that you’d receive your punishment from me this morning?” she questioned.
He slowly nodded.
“Daddy prefers a more hands-on approach. This is my preferred method of punishment.” She tapped her index finger on the cover of the notebook. “This is yours. Once you finish your breakfast, you’ll sit here and write, ‘I will not lash out at Mommy and Daddy’ one hundred times.”
His jaw dropped, and he stared at her incredulously.
“Writinglines?” he asked like the mere idea was horrifying.
“Is that a problem, bub?” she asked, her voice gentle but firm. “I can definitely add to your punishment. Besides, I think you’ll actually like this.”
I set his breakfast beside his new notebook.
“Eat, bub,” she said. “Then, write your lines.”
He huffed, full of attitude.
“This is childish,” he muttered, pushing aside the notebook and grabbing his plate.
“It’s not,” I assured him. “Want to know a secret?”
He looked up at me expectantly. When I arched a brow at him, he flushed and said, “Yes, Daddy.”
“Kip makes me write lines when I’m acting out of sorts. As a switch, it helps me reset my brain and calm down. It’s a release. There’s something soothing about the rhythm of writing something over and over and over again. It puts you into a trance-like state. So, I want you to try it for this punishment,” Michelle told him.
Corvus looked properly chastised. “Sorry, Mommy.”
She rounded the bar and cupped his cheek, leaning in to softly kiss him. “It’s okay, bub. You’re new to this, and you’re not sure what all of your limits are. But remember, you can safeword atanytime, even during a punishment. Your safe words are not limited to just sex.”
“You can use them even if we’re grocery shopping to let us know you’re overwhelmed,” I told him. He blinked at me in surprise. I smiled softly. “Eat,chibi. You have lines to write.”
He eyed the notebook a bit distastefully but grunted and grabbed his sandwich. I bit into my own, still leaning against the kitchen counter as I watched him. He finished his food in record time, gulped down some orange juice, then reluctantly grabbed his notebook and pen and began to write.
And I got to watch as, just like Michelle, his shoulders relaxed and he fell into the rhythm of writing the same line over and over.
Chapter Twenty-Two
