Page 186 of Pucking Them
Olivia does deserve it. I’m saving my brother from her too. As his psychiatrist, she preyed on him.
But won’t this break him? Destroy his family for a second time?
Do his kids deserve it?
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Shay cuddles closer to me, laying his hand over my heart, as if he needs to reassure himself that my heart is still beating.
“I’m just thinking about Bruno.” I remember the way that my brother treated me at the recital. He acted like he hated me. Yet Olivia told me that Bruno still loved me. But it’s not healthy, unconditional love. It’s toxic. He blames me for what happened because he can’t face the fact that he and my parents hold the true blame. He can’t face that his prejudiced ass fucked up our lives. “He has three kids.”
“And I hope for their sakes that he’s able to accept them just as they are,” Robyn says. “In a way that he can’t you.”
I jolt, clenching my hands. “One thing that I did learn from Olivia is I can’t control everything.”
“Well, she’ll have to do her therapy from a prison cell. No one is touching you again.” Shay drags the blanket up me, tucking it around me.
I wrinkle my nose. “You don’t need to fuss.”
“I do.” Shay rearranges the blanket again. “Robyn only sweet-talked Mike into letting you back from the hospital a couple of hours ago, and you’ve been sleeping all the time. So, let us fuss, spoil, and pamper you, yeah?”
I squirm, as he adjusts the blankets again. “Cucciolo, they’re fine.”
“Do you need anything?” He asks. “Dee could make you chicken soup or?—”
“A new body because apparently this one has gone on strike.”
Robyn chuckles. “Outrageous, considering how much it’s paid. I don’t know what you can remember because you were pretty out of it. But you had a lot of tests at the hospital, however,and Mike said that it was only a mild seizure. There is no long-term damage, but you need to rest now. We’re allowed to care about you, as much as you do about us. We tried to tell you this before. Just because you’re the dom in the relationship doesn’t mean that your subs don’t need to show their care, especially when we watched you collapse.”
“Twice.” Shay glances at me through his long lashes. “We’ve had to watch ittwicenow.”
I shift, uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t say it to force an apology.” Shay kisses my collarbone. “We need to feel connected to you again, that’s all.”
You could have died, is what he’s not saying.
You could have left melike everybody else in his fucking life.
I intend to fix my will. I won’t have any of these three seen as less than true partners in my life.
“Is that why you’re clinging to me like a limpet?” I tease.
“I’m always a limpet in bed.”
True.
Olivia attempted to strip away my control. The sensation of helplessness that she left with me is still shuddering through me.
I don’t need soup or tucking in, although the three most important people in my life being this close to me is perfect.
Instead, I need to take control again.
Suddenly, my eyes gleam with a dominance that makes me feel like myself again, despite the weakness in my muscles.
“What if I want to takecareof you?” I say, silky and sultry. “We haven’t celebrated with the reward that we won yet.”
Robyn sits up.
“How about only when you can raise those hands to catch me?” She dances back on the bed with a mischievous smile.
