SCARLET
“I was thinking,” I told Elliot as he sat on the floor in the bathroom while I showered. Turned out, he wasn’t the “let me wash your hair” type. He was amazing at aftercare. He had brought me all my favorite foods, held me while I drifted off to sleep, and massaged the sore parts of my body that were scratched by the rope. But washing my hair? Big fat no.
“Yes, Scarlet?” he asked.
I looked at him through the frosted glass. He was just sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. He had an iPad in his hands, scrolling through something in his email. It had been a few days since Tristan and Seb left, and the house was eerily quiet without them, especially since Elliot wasn’t the chattiest of the group. He followed me everywhere like a hulking, silent shadow.
“I think we should make them a big dinner for when they get back.”
“Neither of us can cook,” he said in a bored tone.
“We can try,” I told him as I turned off the water and wrung out my hair. It was getting too long, but there was no way in hell any of these oafs were going to cut it. “I think it would be nice!” He handed me a towel through the door, his eyes never leaving his iPad. He was acting more and more like Tristan every day.
“Oi!” I said, plopping my wet self down on his thighs in between him and the tablet. “Pay attention to me.” I grabbed his face in my hands, and he smirked.
“I am paying attention to you. It’s called multitasking.” He leaned forward and kissed me, his mouth dominating mine as I opened to him. “If you want to have a nice family dinner,” he said as he trailed kisses across my face and down my neck, “then we should just order it in.”
“And pretend we cooked it?”
“They’ll never believe that,” he said with a laugh as his hands gripped and kneaded my ass. We were having sex multiple times a day, fucking like teenage kids without their parents around for a long weekend. My pussy was sore and needed a damn break. I pushed his hands away and stood up, wrapping and twisting my hair up into the towel.
“Fine. As long as I get to pick where we order in from.”
“As if you’d let it happen any other way,” he said, picking the tablet back up and scrolling.
“Any news?” I asked hesitantly. I knew he wanted to wait until they were home to go over everything together, but I wanted to be involved when it was my life on the line.
“They’ve seen someone hanging around your dad a lot,” he said, locking the screen and looking up at me. I hopped up on the bathroom vanity and started my skincare routine.
“Okay,” I drawled. “That’s not unusual. He always has people around him, and we knew he would have to find someone eventually to take his place. He’s probably grooming someone.”
“They said he looks like a family member, early twenties. Short black hair, looks a lot like you, supposedly.”
“I mean, I have a few cousins around my age that look like me. Our family genes run strong, believe it or not,” I said with an eye roll. “Romanian blood through and through.”
“Anyone you can think of that would be close enough to him for him to have been grooming him since he was a kid though? Isn’t that how families like yours normally work? It’s what my dad did, training me since I could walk to know my place.”
A little bit of sadness flitted across his face before his mask settled back in place. Poor Elliot, I thought to myself. He was always fighting some internal struggle. He always felt like he needed to look like the tough one.
“I had a cousin I was really close to growing up,” I said, remembering how we used to play together as children. “His name was Motshan. He was just a few years older than me, I think. I’m not sure. My father told me he was taken to Romania to be with family when I was about ten or so. But,” I said, hopping off the counter, “if it is Motshan, we’re in luck.”
“And why’s that?”
“We were close. He was like a brother to me, my best friend. If my father has decided that he should be the one to lead, he’ll be on our side. He’ll leave us, and more specifically me, alone.”
I smiled, thinking back to all the days we had together. I didn’t really have any friends growing up. I wasn’t allowed to attend normal school like all the other kids my age. I was homeschooled by a governess, keeping me locked away and virginal for whoever they decided to marry me off to later in life. That hadn’t really worked in their favor.
But Motshan and I, we got to be kids together. We ran around outside, played hide and seek in my family’s manor home, and went swimming in the lake. I told him all my secrets, and he told me all of his. We were inseparable. After my father told me his family had taken him back to Romania, I was crushed. I was a ten-year-old kid getting her best friend ripped away. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I shoved my toothbrush into my mouth and started scrubbing vigorously.
“That’s assuming your family hasn’t gotten their claws in him.”
I looked at Elliot in the mirror. He was staring up at me with open and honest eyes. He wasn’t saying it to be hurtful; he was just saying it because it was something he was worried about and he wanted to share that with me. It was taking a while to get used to this side of him. The side of him that wanted to tell me things just to talk and volley ideas back and forth, instead of the side that said things to hurt and poke.
“I really don’t think he could be corrupted,” I said after I spat. “Mots and I were best friends, and we both hated the life we had to grow up in. If anything, he’ll be dreading the takeover. But maybe he can actually do some good in the family.”
“Sources say they’re pretty close, acting very friendly with one another.”
I smiled down at his worried face and outstretched my arms. He grabbed my hands and lifted himself off the floor, colliding with my body gently and pulling me into his arms. His hair was pulled up in a messy knot on the top of his head, accentuating all of his sharp features and almond eyes. He was so beautiful when he wasn’t scowling that it almost took my breath away.
“He’ll be an ally,” I told him as he grabbed under my ass and picked me up. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. “And I would actually love to see him, to maybe set up a meeting one day.”
“I’d like to stop talking about other men now,” he said, grinding his hips against my center. My forehead dropped to his shoulder, and I nibbled at his neck.
“I’m sore,” I told him in a whiny voice as he turned around and pressed my back against the wall. “And I just showered.”
He pushed down his sweats, and the hot length of his dick sprang free and pressed against me. I was already wet, and the head of him slipped in easily. I gasped and bit down on the crook of his neck.
“So wet, little one,” he purred, his breath hot on my ear. “I know you’re sore, baby girl,” he said as he took my hair out of the towel and fisted it. He slid in slowly but easily. I felt incredibly stretched by him every single time. He touched nerves inside of me that I didn’t even think existed. I was panting, and my hips were rotating, trying to fit him the rest of the way in. “But you can take it.”
With that, he rammed himself inside of me, sheathing himself to the hilt. My scream was loud and brutal as he pulled my hair back, letting my neck fall open for his mouth. He pumped inside of me with ruthless abandon, grunting and moaning like a man possessed. I loved him this way. I loved seeing him unravel right in front of my eyes.