Page 86 of His Pretty Little Duet

Still at the door, he says, “A bath is waiting for you. Take your clothes off and I’ll be in shortly.”

When he closes the door, I do as I’m told, skating my fingers along the wood as I make my way into the bathroom. In the centre is a free-standing bath with shiny claw feet.

Breathing in deep, I strip and step into the warm pool of water as steam drifts from the rippling surface and hangs in the surrounding air. Sinking down into its depths, the water rising to just over my breasts, I lean my head back on the lip and close my eyes. The warmth and buoyancy lessen the pain in my abdomen. I hum my enjoyment.

Hazing through my mind are sparring emotions, wanting to both be in awe and love but also curl up in silence until I don’t feel so raw about everything that has transpired.

The baby was Benji’s.

No butterflies at all.

I haven’t felt a single flutter since before writhing in pain on the bathroom floor. Butterflies, dead. Benji, dead. Baby, dead. “You’re a survivor,” I mutter to myself.

It is not long before I hear the wooden door rattle on the hinges as it opens, and footsteps move in that graceful, measured way that only Clay Butcher can pull off with a six-foot-five physique.

“I was going to keep him,” I say, opening my eyes and sitting up to find him pulling a chair over to the bathtub. He is still in his neat pants but has lost the tie and jacket. His shirt unbuttoned and casual, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing cords of veins, curves of muscles, and scratch marks from when I clawed him in the shower.

“I know, sweet girl.” He picks up a loofa and lathers it with soap scented like coconut before brushing it gently down my shoulders and chest.

I shake my head in confusion. “How did you know, Sir? I didn’t even know.”

“You knew.”

He’s right. I did. As he washes me, I can’t stop noticing how I used him as a scratching post and how he has more evidence of my miscarriage than even me. I reach out and grab his forearm, inspecting the gashes that would have wept with blood. He holds still, letting me look. “You look like a feral cat attacked you.”

“A sweet little deer, actually,” he says, his voice deeper, more gravely, while afflicted with fatigue. I presume he hasn’t slept for days. It’s an incredibly sexy sound; sleepy Clay Butcher. Gruff. Husky. Yummy.

“Astraydeer,” I mutter, releasing his forearm.

His hand dips, breaching the warm surface, sinking to cup my abdomen. Even as tiredness moves in waves through his irises, they are no less controlled, no less attentive. “Is that self-deprecating behaviour going to return?” he says. “I thought we were making progress. Do you need a repeat of what I did in the car?”

His hoarse tone, wrapped in sleepy huskiness, reaches deep inside me. I think about the sting as he spanked me. Shook my body. Sent waves of sensation to my already beating clit. Then I remember the way I felt in the wake of that moment. The subtle burn. A feeling of safety. Accountability. The way I trusted him that little bit more... “Do you think I need it, Sir?”

He strokes my empty abdomen as though his tenderness can fix the hollowing of my womb. “Perhaps. Are you cramping?”

“It feels better in the water.”

He lowers his hands and massages my thighs, deep tissue pressure that loosens and comforts. He’s strong, dominant in the way he touches me, but in no way rough or overstimulating.

My eyes bat close, and I melt beneath the meticulous hands of the most intense, dangerous, and beautiful man I have ever met.

While his hands slowly work around my entire body, he talks to me. “When I say you belong to me and that I will take care of you, this is what I mean. You are not a stray. You are owned. I warned you once to tell me to stop. I warned you what it meant to belong to me... True, I didn’t plan on keeping you then. I do now. There will be times when you hate me. For what I have to do. I am sure of it. That will change nothing between us. I want you to know that if you try to leave, I will hunt you down. I want you to find comfort in the fact that you have no choice. You are mine. Because ever since I laid eyes on you, sweet girl, that is the only place they have wanted to be.”

I look at him. Moaning as he palms my breasts gently, I feel my nipples pebbling against his palm. “You will hunt me down, Sir? Why would I want to leave?”

“I am a sinful man.”

“A dangerous man,” I agree, pridefully, without a hint of care for the rest of the world because what did they care for me or Benji? No one cared. The system left me with a foster mother who made me feel worthless. The police didn’t care enough to investigate Benji’s death, to find the recording I now know existed. It must be intoxicating not being the victim. I swallow hard. “I wish I was a dangerous person.”

A grin coasts across his lips. “My affections for you make you the most dangerous girl in the country,” he states seriously, and I exhale, a flitter of contentment moving into my chest, finding comfort in his darkness. It is potent, that flitter, spreading out like stems, curling into each cell.

I remember my mother talking about reincarnation. About how we turn into a vibrant, uninhibited butterfly after this harsh existence as a weak, humble caterpillar. I pretended my mother was a butterfly the day she shot herself.

But I don’t want to wait until I am dead to experience my own reincarnation. I want it right now. In a cocoon of Clay Butcher. I hope that in my second life, I am a monarch butterfly.

They are graceful.

Beautiful.

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