“You want to walk or you want me to carry you?” Charlie asked.
I looked down at my legs, confused. I could see them and they looked like mine, but I couldn’t seem to get them to move and I also couldn’t find any words.
“I’m going to carry you. You good with that?”
I nodded and Charlie lifted me from Aaron’s lap, pulling me tight to his chest, whispering words that I couldn’t make out but soothed my broken soul.
“Thank you,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes and sank into his warmth.
Charlie
“Okay, Princess. You wanna tell me why your douche of an ex is threatening you and you didn’t think to tell me?” I tried to hide the anger and fear from my voice as I climbed into the back of the waiting car.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” she whispered.
“Well, that was a big fat fail.”
She burst out crying, tears spilling down her already blotchy cheeks.
“Shhhh.” I wrapped my arm around her and pressed a kiss to her temple as we started moving through the rush hour traffic of central London. “Don’t cry, but also don’t shut me out. I want to help and I can’t if you don’t talk to me.”
“He might hurt you though… I can’t have him hurt you.”
“I’m a big boy, Princess. I can fight my own battles. I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to lean on me. Okay?”
She stared up at me, her green eyes looking glassy and tired. “I’m scared. I hate how scared I am.”
“You want to hide, like Thomas suggested when this all started? No one would blame you,” I whispered, not really wanting to hear the answer I thought was coming.
She shook her head defiantly. “No, no way am I running. If he wants me, he’s going to have to come and get me. I’m not letting him take my life from me.”
“There she is. My warrior.”
“Thank you. I think I needed a reminder. I’ve spent way too much time in my head recently.” And with that, she wiped away her tears and let out a long sigh before nuzzling into my neck.
“That was fast. Are you okay, Princess?” We’d eaten, and I’d run Fern a bath. Expecting her to be in there for a while, I was in my music room, playing around with a new song on my piano, when she appeared in the doorway.
Wrapped in a towel, her hair piled up on her head in a messy silver bun, water droplets dripping from her as if she’d not bothered to get dry, she walked toward me.
“I couldn’t relax… my head is spinning.”
“I remember that feeling. It’s the worst. Come with me.”
Wrapping her fingers in mine, I guided her to the living room, sitting her on the sofa.
“You want to pretend we’re in the lighthouse? I’ll light the fire, turn down the lights, and we can cuddle.”
Chewing her bottom lip, she shook her head. “I don’t think I can. I need to move, to run… something to burn off this energy. What do you do when you feel like this? How do you calm that buzzing energy?”
The fire was already set up, the wood and kindling stacked perfectly, so I lit it before I moved to sit next to Fern.
“Honestly, I know we’ve talked about it a bit, but my cage. You sending it to me changed everything. That thing is like a mute button for my brain.”
“I don’t think a cock cage is my solution,” she laughed, her body relaxing. I turned to face her, pushing some loose strands of hair from her face. “Anything else.”
“Well, without sounding too cheesy, being around you calms me. Touching you, being inside you… it all seems to silence the madness in my head. Don’t get me wrong, that crazy is part of me and I don’t want to erase it for good, but I like having more control over when I let it run free. I’ve never had that before. You gave me that.”
She smiled, pressing her head to my shoulder. “I’m glad, and seeing you in that cage is the ultimate turn on.”