‘IT’S OKAY, FAWN. JUST BREATHE.’
Like a splash of icy cold water, I’m dragged from my slumber by those words spoken in Benji’s voice. I jerk upright, the gruff tone a distant reverie or conjured up in my own desperate brain—I can’t tell which, but they strangle me to the point I can’t breathe.
Panicked, I concentrate on my surroundings for several long seconds, willing my mind to return to the present, the external information to settle back into order.
‘It’s okay, Fawn. Just breathe.’
Okay, Benji.
I inhale through my nose, steadying my exhale, controlled and unhurried. To my left, I recognise the curtains that blackout the clusters of stars and the bright white moon.
Twisting to gaze at the hemp dreamcatcher hanging on the left post of this bed—my temporary bed—I once again wish my mother had instilled more scientific remedies for my afflictions. Nightmares: dreamcatcher. Not therapy or sleeping pills… No, a fucking dreamcatcher.
‘Baby, the Native Americans used dreamcatchers well before we started using drugs for every problem.’
Thanks, Mum.
I always wanted to point out that many drugs were widely accepted for medicinal and spiritual use by the natives in countries across the world, but never did. There was no point.
Either way, I like the dreamcatcher there, simply because that’s where it has always been. So I’m thankful Henchman Jeeves retrieved my backpack from the motel yesterday. I have all my belongings however sad the compilation may be.
They are mine.
Twisting onto my knees, I shuffle up the mattress to touch the little notepad under my pillow. Pages of nonsensical lines. Unrelated words. That maybe, I hope, combined will create a picture one day.
I grab it and flick it open before sliding the miniature black pen from the plastic ring binding. It is the smallest pen in the world, barely fitting in my palm as I set to write my newest edition to this senseless tale.
I write, ‘It’s okay, Fawn. Just breathe.’
Those words further convince me that we had made love that night. I imagine him saying them right before he took my virginity. It was a sweet moment. And slow. I’m sure of it. I would have enjoyed it… my heart double taps.
I just wish I remembered…
Then I close the notebook, stuffing it under the cushion once more.
Finding Jasmine asleep on the mattress, a little niggling feeling knots in my stomach. Is she really here to help me settle in or to monitor me? I’d monitor me, too.
Sliding from the mattress, I decide to look at the moon and get some fresh air. Another ridiculous remedy my mother instilled in me from a young age. The moon and the stars can cure anything, even insomnia. Fucksake, Mum.
Still, ten years’ worth of bohemian ideologies don’t simply dissolve, and if the alternative is my foster mother’s bitter words and obtuse insights, I’d rather embrace the former.
After wrapping myself in a small robe, I open my bedroom door to find Henchman Jeeves outside on a stool. This is his job. To watch over me. But then, what is Jasmine ultimately here to do?
‘You are very good at your job,’ I say, startling him slightly. I tie my robe in a neat bow at my navel as I step from the bedroom and close the door.
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Watching over teenage girls doesn’t challenge me like it did when I was a teenage boy.’
‘And why are you watching over me?’ I cross my arms over my chest. ‘I’m not going to steal anything.’
He shrugs. ‘I’m just following orders, Fawn. I have no idea what he thinks you might do.’
I hum, not convinced. ‘Well, can I go for a walk? Am I allowed or is it forbidden or something? Ya know, like Belle from Beauty and The Beast? Will I find a magic rose? Enchanted crockery, perhaps?’
‘No enchanted inanimate objects here.’ He nods to the hallway as way of invitation. ‘You can go for a walk. It’s only in your room that there are no cameras. Which is why I’m here. The rest of the house is covered in them. And men watch them around the clock. I’m basically rendered obsolete by the technology in this house. Don’t tell the boss.’
‘I think he knows.’ I walk down the corridor, guessing the direction to the pool, hoping my sense of space and my muscle memory serve me well.
I follow the lights that sporadically light the halls and main rooms.
When the French doors to the pool come into view, I realise this is the first moment I’ve shared alone in this house with just the kid in my stomach. Sighing softly, I press my hand to him, and indulge, while in my solitude, in the idea of this kid growing up in a house like this.
The dimly lit space, so quiet in its night-time state, is incredibly beautiful even if it’s a little staged.
A little soulless.
Through the glass, the pool glows a brilliant blue, darker than Mr Butcher’s eyes, but just as vivid. I shake the comparison from my mind, groaning at myself for allowing the thought in.
Across the glittering pool and into the horizon, the first sign of dawn lights up the gaps between the tree foliage. It must be early morning. Around 4:30 a.m., perhaps.
If I had grown up in a house like this, I think I’d watch the sun rise over the pool every morning. Maybe I would have breakfast outside on the stone balcony. Read a newspaper. Not on that horrid wrought-iron table, though. I’d get an outdoor daybed and sprawl across it like a cat.
I’d also get a cat.
Opening the doors, the balmy air sweeps around me, my hair and robe swaying around my body. My mother was right about the fresh air. It may not be the remedy for everything, but it does seem to carry energy.
As I inhale the breeze, a shadow moves behind me, causing my heart to lurch. My smile to fall. And I press my hand against my chest, feeling the rapid beating beneath.
I spin around to find a man staring at me.
And God…
I do a double-take.
It’s Clay Butcher standing in only jeans, seemingly just thrown on, hanging low around defined hips.
Dark tattoos that I can’t quite distinguish span his chest and dip low beneath his jeans. His perfectly virile physique is cut into trim, defined muscles coated in perspiration, the lingering scent of sweat and something musky surrounding him.
Fuck me.
If my ovaries still operated, they’d be popping eggs out like a tennis ball machine.
In a suit, the man is a powerhouse of intimidation, a handsome mystery, but in very little, he’s… overwhelming, alarmingly breathtaking, masculine, sexy as sin, and if my brain blood wasn’t between my legs right now, I would be able to think of other synonyms.
Butterflies take flight inside me.
I’ve never wanted to lick a man before, but right now, I want more than anything to know what his sweat tastes like. Power probably; if power had a taste, that’s what his sweat would taste like.
My eyes drop to the light dusting of hair on his abdominals, following the trail between the thick V-shaped muscles leading beneath his pants, where I am now staring at the dense bulge between his thighs, a shape hard to hide due to the size and girth. I can’t look away.
Stop looking at his cock, Fawn.
But I don’t.
I press my thighs together.
Bouncing my eyes up from the thick channel of his cock, I meet his searing blue gaze. His eyes are locked on me like he is imagining tasting me the way I am imagining tasting him, which can’t be true because I’m a nobody.
An obligation.
His gaze falls to my bare feet before sliding up, a slow pursual of the entire length of my body. Like, it’s his turn to make a show of checking me out. Being alone with him, in the quiet, surrounded by shadows and darkness, is even more intimate under his attention.
Shuffling, I manage to whisper, ‘Sorry.’ I don’t manage to elaborate, but that’s okay. Sorry will suffice. Sorry for being in the same space as you. For catching you half-naked. For being here. For—
‘Sorry for what?’ he says, his voice unaffected.
I’m trying to work that out. ‘Um, for… being here?’
Staring at me, a soft grin moves across his lips, and it startles me, because he’s calm in our encounter and I’m ready to explode. ‘She doesn’t eat. Hardly sleeps.’ He pauses, and my heart becomes an erratic drum between my ears. ‘If you were my property, I’d bend you over my knee.’
In shock, my lips part.
Then he walks off, and I’m left speechless. Wordless, confused, with a barely functioning body that is uncomfortable and wrapped in burning skin.
‘Sorry,’ I whisper as he disappears.
I head towards my room, dashing around the hallways, hoping I find a direct path while the spindling shame reminds me how inappropriate my arousal is. I’m pregnant. Here for my dad. Here for Benji.
But that man is brutally hot.
Of course, I’m going to look, appreciate even.
I find my door, deciding I’ll stay on the other side of it and forget all about the way his voice was outright erotic when he threatened to take me over his knee—
Yep, I’m going to forget all about that.
