The women soon join us. Elsa slides beside Aiden, and her blue eyes sparkle. She’s just like Ethan; they seem demure, but deep down yearn for challenges and wars. Her father is way worse, though.
Astrid sits close to Levi and points at a chess piece. Even though he’s concentrating, he answers each of her questions.
There’s a moment of hesitation before Aurora stands beside my chair. She’s far enough away that her apple scent is barely noticeable. That scent, which I’ve never paid attention to before, has become a fucking addiction. Smelling it means she’s there, close, and all mine for the taking. Having it all over my bed means she’s beside me, holding on to me with her dainty hands as if she needs me.
I grab her by the waist and pull her close. She gasps as she falls at the edge of my chair. She attempts to wiggle away, because in her politically correct mind, she doesn’t like the kids to see us close. She feels like she’s taking a role that’s not hers.
If they have an issue with her, that’s their problem, not mine. Aurora is here to stay. I don’t fucking care what anyone says or thinks.
My fingers dig into the flesh of her waist, and she must realise that there’s no escaping me, because she releases a long sigh and remains still.
Soon, she’ll stop fighting or trying to run away from me.
Soon, she’ll be safe from both the world and herself.
But to make that happen, I might have to take a measure that she won’t like.
17
Aurora
Something is wrong.
This feeling has been a constant over the last couple of days. It could be because Jonathan didn’t spank me hard enough and has disappeared from my side when I wake up in the morning. He’s usually there the entire night, sometimes holding me through the aftermath of my nightmares, and other times staring at me as if he’s making sure of something. What, I don’t know.
Needless to say, after that night at Aiden’s house, I’ve been sleeping in Jonathan’s bed. My room was cleaned up and appears as good as new. However, each time I end up there, even to grab my things, Jonathan grabs me by my hand and leads me back to his room.
Not that I’ve wanted to spend any nights alone after those voices I dreamt about.
He still spanks me as ‘punishment’, but we both know it’s so much more than that.
It’s our connection.
It’s something that fills his eyes with possessiveness and mine with raw lust.
Sometimes, I wake up with his face buried between my legs. Other times, he fucks me into the mattress with his hand around my throat. He then sleeps with his cock deep inside me just so he can pick up where he left off in the middle of the night.
He exhausts me, but at the same time, he completes me in the strangest way possible.
There’s no getting enough of Jonathan. The harder he takes it out on me, the more I meet him head-on. If he’s a hurricane, I’m the wind that gets off on the damage he causes.
But it’s not always damage, and that’s what throws me for a loop. After he marks my arse with his handprint and wrenches one orgasm after the other out of me, Jonathan doesn’t stand up and leave like when I first came into his life.
He doesn’t look at me as if I’m an annoyance or something he’s bent on breaking. There’s ac
ceptance in his steel eyes now, the sort that both frightens and intrigues me. Being on the receiving end of Jonathan’s attention is like living in a high-alert mode twenty-four-seven.
Then he does things that make me pause.
Every day, he either makes us shower together, or he runs me a bath and takes special care with washing my hair. It’s become so much of a habit that I get infuriated when I have to do it myself.
He also gets frustratingly protective whenever I hurt myself in any way.
Over time, he’s eventually stopped being a blank board in front of his children. Jonathan will always be Jonathan; however, he sometimes follows my lead and doesn’t purposefully act like a bastard.
I might be addicted to his harshness, but his tenderness strikes a completely different chord inside me. A part of me is slowly leaving my body and creeping to his side, and although I’m aware of it, there’s no way I can stop it.
He’s a steep cliff, and I keep rolling down, enjoying every bump and hit.