Chapter 41

FORTY-ONE

AELLA

I snort myself awake, and my body revolts in pain. I'm still on the spanking bench, tied down like a damned prisoner, bathed in red lights. I groan. My body is beyond done with being in this position. All night, I wondered what he'd do when he returned. I'd wondered where Miles was. Were both of them alright? I'd moved between anger and sadness and worry. I'd exhausted myself to the point I'd fallen into a deep sleep, one that allowed me to dream past the pain of being tied to this infernal fucking bench.

I freeze. Footsteps make the stairs to the basement creak, and I try my best to turn around to see who's coming. Any of the Cobras have access to this house, and whichever has come down here looking for the boys is going to get a clear shot of my bare ass. Brax had ripped my leggings clean open to spank me and then left me here, exposed.

But who I see stalk down the last step is Braxton. Even though I'm exhausted and stiff, my body thrums. I keep silent, knowing he's probably still pissed. But when he gets closer and removes the straps, I see the extent of his bone-deep depletion. His eyes are vacant, his body moving like a robot. There's blood on his neck, and as soon as I'm free, I reach up and try to inspect if it's his own.

"Are you okay?" I ask, my voice hoarse from trying to get anyone I could to let me loose last night. "Is this yours? Is Miles alright?" I assault him with questions, but he doesn't reply.

He removes my clothes bit by bit, exposing my heavy breasts, lifting one in his palm and testing its weight.

I have to bite back a moan. "Brax…"

He gives a slight shake of his head.

He tugs down my destroyed leggings and panties to the floor, crouching before me and resting his head on my sex. My hand slinks into his hair, and my pulse picks up from his proximity. I used to hate what they did to me. I hated how my body responded to the slightest touch. But now, I know better. Leaning into it is more accessible for all of us.

When he leans forward, his tongue slips between my pussy lips, grazing my clit, only slightly because of the angle. I'm apt to open for him like a flower denied rain for too long.

"Brax, tell me what happened." I breathe, but he doesn't.

He dives into my center like it's the one thing he needs. The only thing he needs.

I lean back, letting one hand grab for a bedpost to hold me up as I open as far as I can, knees bent. His tongue assaults me, and I forget the urgent need to know if Miles is okay. A sinking feeling tells me he's not, and that's why Braxton is in this non-verbal condition.

He's past the breakdown stage, and that's not fucking good.

When two fingers shove inside me, my knees almost buckle, but I fight to control them. I'm still in so much fucking pain, but the way he's slowly licking me, shoving fingers inside me even slower, has me begging him for more.

"Braxton, please!" I'm shamelessly grinding on his face. "Fuck, please!"

Forgotten is the need to know a thing. I'm putty in his hand. Maybe that's what he needs today.

When his fingers slide out, he sinks his teeth into my clit, and my eyes roll back.

He stands from his crouched position, picking me up and carrying me to the bed. When he lays me down, it's gentle. More gentle than I've known from any man, even him.

He removes his clothes and leather MC jacket first, and his eyes never leave mine.

Lying here, exposed under his stare, makes me feel like the most precious thing in the world, and I let the feeling linger as his nude body climbs into the bed, it shifting under his weight before he comes between my thighs and presses them open with the sheer size of his frame.

He drops on his elbows, grinding his cock against my aching pussy until it naturally finds its way home and slides inside me. His mouth takes mine, hot and greedy, but it's slow and sensual. It's almost as if he's starving for touch, starving for me.

His strokes are deep and punishing, but he keeps a nearly mind-numbing pace. I feel raw and ripped open, like he's looking at all the bits I always try to hide away from the world.

The way he makes love to me in the silence, covered in red lights for the next hour, makes me feel branded. There'll never be another who makes me feel this way again. When we both come, the silence is broken in the room.

Then, I'm tucked in beside him, pulled tight as he drifts off to sleep with me as his lifeline.

Miles isn't alright. That's what his silence tells me, and my heart is breaking as I shed the first tears when I hear him drift off, trying to cry as silently as I can so I don't wake him.

But there's no way I'll sleep tonight. Not while all is wrong in the world.

As my lashes flutter open, I stretch. My body is so sore, used beyond its limits. Brax is still wrapped around me. It took me hours to fall asleep, but I finally did. Now, it's dark outside, nightfall having returned for Twin Pines. We'd slept all day together, hiding away from whatever was happening. Sometimes, that's the best feeling in the world, knowing you're comfortable while whatever horrors lay beyond your doors .

But it didn't this time. I want to know what happened. But I don't want to push him too far.

"Good morning," he rasps, voice filled with the gravel of sleep.

"Morning," I tell him, turning and curling into his naked body. He's warm and smells of rain and the slightest hint of cologne and blood.

"You need to tell Miles about our mother," he says, and I lift my head off his shoulder instantly, worry filling me.

"What do you mean? He's alright?" I ask, forgetting the state of his morning erection and moving to straddle him. I need to look at him head-on.

"Alright is a relative term. He'll live, but there will be scars. He needs to know, and with everything that happened, I didn't have the energy to… I'm sorry. If this morning was too much, or I was too rough… I just needed…"

"Something good," I finish for him, finally getting it. "It was…" Fuck, are there even words for this morning? Probably not. "You were fine. Don't worry about it."

"He needs to know, and I don't know that I'm done processing it enough to tell him. The doctor says big life changes will do this to me. I mean, they always have, but now I know I need time to digest them before I can discuss them."

I smile at him, glad he's starting to learn and understand himself enough to know his limits and set boundaries.

"That's fine. I can tell him. But where is he? What happened? "

He scrubs his hand down his face. "The Jackals had him. He's in really rough shape. I've got a doctor tending him upstairs, but it will take time for things to heal and for him to return to his old self if either of us will. I would've told him everything, but I'm just too…exhausted, Bambi." He lets out the last breath he can, closes his eyes, and throws an arm over his face.

I lean down and kiss his lips softly, testing. His answering kiss makes me swim with overwhelming feelings. I think I even need to digest some. "It's ok. Rest. I'll go see Miles, alright?"

"Mmm, come back to me, though; it's cold without you," he says teasingly, thrusting his hips and letting his erection slip through my pussy.

"Greedy man," I moan, kissing him again before sliding off him and heading for the shower.

I move through the motions like a robot, getting out and dressing in one of Braxton's shirts and a pair of boxers before brushing my hair and heading upstairs.

Just as Braxton said, there's a doctor with a laptop outside Miles's door, a cell phone perched against his shoulder.

He sees me and smiles. "Go ahead in. He's awake, and he's just had his pain medicines."

Pain medicine.

Before pushing inside, I take a moment to steel myself for what I'm about to see. The television ambles on low at the end of the bed, and I stop when I see Miles in the bed. He's sitting straight up, awkwardly, as if he can't move .

Tears barrel down my cheeks, and I can't stop them. He's alive. He's okay.

"Aww, are those for me, princess?" He lifts his arms towards me, wincing against pain as I rush for him.

I crawl into his lap, straddling and letting him wrap his arms around me. Because even if it's selfish, when he's in pain, I need it. I need to be his princess. I need him to hold me because he's alive to do so.

"I'm alright," he says, trying to calm my sobs. But he's not moving, I notice.

"Where are you hurt? God, am I hurting you?"

I move to get off him, and his arms hold me steady. "Don't you dare, not when this is the best thing I've felt in days!"

I feel him hardening beneath me, and I shake my head with a smile. "Even on death's door?"

"I'd fuck you as death ushered us inside and asked us if we wanted tea, princess," he jokes, and amidst my answering laugh is when my eyes see a corner of a bandage on the back of his shoulder.

I push up onto my knees over him, grabbing onto the headboard behind him as leverage to look over his shoulder. His back is covered in bandages. Tears form anew at the sight.

"Miles," I sniffle. "What did they do to you?"

His hands come down to rest on my thighs, urging me to sit back down. "Nothing a hundred other people haven't wanted to do to me before."

I sit back on his lap and look him over for a moment before hesitantly leaning into him. Our lips hover and dance around the idea of kissing, the pulsing electricity between us almost too overwhelming.

When I finally close the distance, he groans into my mouth. I capture it. It's not long before the kiss turns heated and out of control too quickly, and I rein myself in for the both of us and pull back.

"You're hurt. We need to behave," I pant.

He smirks. "Never. As long as I'm alive, I'll do as I fucking please. I earned it."

I smile and shake my head at him, astonished that he's joking even with his back in as much pain as it has to be. Braxton's words about their mother hit my cortex again. I drop my face.

"Hey, what was that? What just happened?" Miles asks, reaching for my face and hissing in pain.

I lift it back up. "I have something to tell you. It's why I came here, but you love to distract me…"

He shifts his eyes between mine, searching for something within them. "Tell me."

I bite my lip, knowing this is going to shift everything. If only I could keep it to myself for longer…

"Now, Aella. You're making me worry…"

"Your mother is alive. I met her."

It feels as though invisible walls crumble surrounding us, ones he built for safety. Ones he built because she hurt him all those years ago by leaving.

"Excuse me?" His hands grip my thighs a little tighter, but not to the point of pain. Only to center himself.

"Dad pulled me into his office. I was sure it was because he found out I'd been rummaging in his files, but a woman was sitting in front of his desk. She looks so much like you, Miles." A flash of pain crosses his face. "She said that my father helped her escape your father. That if she'd have stayed, he would've killed her. He's been helping her hide all these years, and you two weren't a threat until I gained access inside the company."

"Until we had you," he murmurs.

I nod. "Did your…." I pause, not knowing how to go forward with my question. "Was your father abusive?"

He licks his lips as if needing a moment to gather the answer. But he only nods in confirmation.

"After she was gone?" I ask, not knowing if I'm genuinely ready for the answer.

"He found new targets," he says, and my heart shatters.

"Oh, Miles…" I lean forward and rest my head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his neck.

"She left us behind. She left us with him." Neither spoken truth nor a question. It's more his brain working through the betrayal laid out before him.

"She did," I answer.

"She's lucky I'm confined to this fucking bed," he says, an edge to his tone that even sends a shiver through my center.

I keep silent, letting my presence be enough as his brain works over what his mother did.

The newscaster relaying recent events in town is the only thing breaking the silence as we sit on his bed. Neither of us is moving; we are both just breathing.