Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Now you’re mine.” I pressed my finger into the mark on his neck, hoping he knew that meant I didn’t know how to walk away even if I wanted to. Even if he wanted me to.
“Yours,” Cyrus echoed.
“No more talking.”
He nodded, knowing what that meant for me. Cyrus picked a movie about someone kidnapping a guy’s family. We set the laptop on the coffee table, and then he knelt, looking up at me with pleading eyes. When I nodded, he took off my pants and underwear, then relaxed between my legs with my cock in his mouth.
The movie was strange and loud. It made my head throb, so I just carded my fingers through his hair and watched him instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cyrus
“Do you have any sixes?” I asked Crow as we sat at the table, him in the old chair and me in the one we’d made weeks and weeks ago. We used the same Go Fish cards my mom and I had played with. It was a silly kids’ game, but it was one my mom and I had always played, so it’s what I’d taught Crow.
He shook his head, as he always did instead of saying Go Fish. Maybe because he still didn’t like to talk too much. He still had times when he was quieter or would tell me no more talking. I tried my hardest not to push him when he was quiet and definitely never did when he specifically told me.
I drew a card, our bowls from the stew we’d had for dinner sitting beside us. It was Christmas Eve, something Crow didn’t mention, so I hadn’t either. Did he celebrate holidays? That was a ridiculous question. He likely hadn’t for at least ten years, unless he’d done it alone. Had Christmas been something his cult believed in? I wasn’t a religious person, and my mom hadn’t been either, but she’d loved Christmas. I wanted to share that with Crow, wanted to find a way to give him a special day, but I didn’t know how to do that or if he would even want it.
The holiday wasn’t something I’d considered when I came up the mountain with Crow, and the sadness beginning to weigh heavily on me was unfortunately all too familiar. I missed her, so much, and playing with her cards the day before Christmas, when there were no decorations and I had absolutely nothing to give Crow, bore down on me.
“I don’t think I want to play anymore.” I collected the cards. Crow cocked his head as he handed his over, and I carefully put them back in the box. Holding it in my hand, I went to the couch, where I sat on the corner cushion and hugged the box to my chest. Crow moved around behind me, washing the dishes. He hated leaving them, and usually I tried to do them for him. He still never let me cook, and I had a feeling he didn’t trust eating something he hadn’t made with his own hands.
When he finished, he came over and sat beside me. “Show?” he asked simply. We watched shows and movies together, but I didn’t think he liked them. He watched them for me, and I wasn’t in the mood tonight anyway, so I shook my head.
Crow’s brows drew together, his forehead wrinkling as he studied me with those intense eyes of his. “Am I making you unhappy?”
“No!” I sat straighter. That was the last thing I ever wanted him to think. “I’m sorry. It’s me, not you.” I was probably making him unhappy. He basically had to take care of me, and worry about me, and watch stupid shows for me. I was going to ruin this, ruin everything. “Do you want to fuck me?” I started to go for my flannel bottoms, but Crow stopped me, the lines in his forehead deepening. “Please…I’ll make you feel so good.” I didn’t know how else to prove to him I wanted to be here, how to give Crow anything because I had absolutely nothing to give him.
I tried to take my bottoms off again, but his hold on me tightened. Crow pulled me onto his lap, his arms around me with so much strength, I couldn’t move. “Little lamb…” he said, his forehead pressed to the middle of my back. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“You’re not. I just…miss my mom. I miss her more around this time of year. She loved Christmas and the snow, and I wish she could be here with us. And I wish I wasn’t so helpless and needy and that I had things I could give you too. I want to give you a happy Christmas, and I don’t even know if you celebrate. And I want to be useful to you so I’m not just a man who interrupted your life. I don’t have anything to give you except my ass. Sometimes my mental illness makes these feelings of worthlessness and sadness feel so much bigger, like they’re breaking me down. It lasts a little while; sometimes days, sometimes more.”