With the Colonel’s Help: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

This time when I carried her into the en suite bathroom in my bedroom, I didn’t do it telling myself lies. There was no trying to front some bullshit line that we were going to forget what happened between us.

There was no turning back.

Boundaries broken.

Toppled into nonexistence.

I kept her against me as I turned the faucet of the bathtub to high and leaned in to plug it. Steam filled the room, and the dim light that burned from the ceiling wound through it to create an effect that appeared like a dream.

A misty sanctuary that could only belong to us.

Wasn’t sure how long it was going to last before everything imploded, so I intended on cherishing it for as long as possible.

When the tub filled halfway, I stepped into the claw-foot tub.

A tub Raven had picked out because she’d teased me and said it reminded her of me.

Her burly bear.

Thought it was ridiculous then, but I got it now.

“You’re going to be sore. You need to soak,” I told her.

The water was just shy of too hot as I settled us into the water. I rested my back against the tub, and Raven sighed as she edged off just to the side, turning toward me and tucking in the safety of my arm. She rested her cheek on my chest, and those fingers started playing along my pecs, tracing the lines of the horrors and hope that I had tattooed on my skin.

She was still breathing hard, her heart still thrumming, though I could feel her begin to relax in my hold.

I pressed my lips to the top of her head. “Was I too rough on you?”

Her cheek smooshed into my chest as she shook her head, her breaths almost cool with the heat of the water. Her scent was all around, though it was distorted, painted with me.

Kind of wanted to keep it that way forever.

“Tell me it wasn’t obvious how much I liked it?”

A chuckle skated my throat, low in the quiet that encapsulated us in a hedge of protection. “Guess the way you were shouting my name made it pretty clear.”

Then I sobered, nudging her chin up so I could study her face. “But I’d never forgive myself if I hurt you.”

“You would never hurt me, Otto.”

“Have though, haven’t I? Ignoring this? Pretending like I didn’t feel it begging between us?”

“You did what you thought was right,” she whispered.

A contrite smile pulled at my lips. “Or maybe I’m just being selfish now. Taking you for myself.”

“If giving into the need you have for someone is selfish, then call me a glutton.”

I ran a palm down the back of her head as amusement rolled at the base of my throat. “Haven’t had your fill yet, darlin’?”

“I think that is going to happen at precisely…” Raven played it up looking at a nonexistent watch on her wrist. “Never.”

“That seems pretty exact.”

“I’m willing to bet on it.” Her voice was quiet and light.

I fiddled with a lock of her hair, breathing in the peace. Silence wrapped around us, a comfort that we both sank into.

I didn’t know how much time had passed before the question finally broached my mouth. “What do you want from this life, Raven?”

I’d asked her before, but that was under the context of us being friends.

A sister.

Should have known anything baked under that guise was nothing but a falsity.

“Other than you?”

My laugh was low. “Yeah, other than me.”

“Well, other than my number one which now belongs to me…” That part was playful before her voice slipped into contemplation. “I want to continue to grow Moonflower. I feel like it’s important, what I do. I believe a bouquet isn’t just some simple decoration, but an expression of love. A sympathy or a well wish. An apology or a promise.”

I hummed, and the silence thickened, and I could almost feel the tension glide through her being. “And someday soon, I think I’d like to have a family.”

She whispered that.

I blew out the strain. “That’s what I’d hoped for you. Might have killed me to think about it, but I’d hoped that you would find some lucky motherfucker to love you. Someone to treasure you. Treat you like a queen. Thought the two of you would move into some cute little house with a slew of flowers growing in pots on the porch. Imagined you’d have two or three kids playing out in the yard, too.”

I hesitated before I forced myself to speak. “Thought you might get away from the life. Away from the danger that comes from being affiliated with Sovereign Sanctum.”

Kept wondering if that’s what this was. This threat that loomed. If some monster had figured out who we were and was using the sister of one of our members as intimidation. A warning for what was coming.

Raven’s brow pinched, and she shifted so she could peer up at me. It sent the water sloshing around us. “How could you think I would ever want to distance myself from you? From my brother? From the rest?”

She made it sound like it’d be a betrayal.

My thumb stroked her cheek. “Because then you’d be safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe if it means being separated from the ones I love. From my family.”

Pain splintered through me. That old grief that had always made me terrified of getting too close. Terrified of loving. Terrified of the idea of losing someone I cared about more than life all over again.

Certain if it happened again, I would never survive it.

“You’ve always said you’d be willing to fight for me. Die for me. For all of us.” Raven’s words filled with urgency.

“Of course.” That went without question.

“Do you know so little about me that you would think I wouldn’t sacrifice the same?”

A swell of protectiveness tumbled through my guts, and my hand twitched where I set it on her face. “I’m not worth that kind of sacrifice.”

Whatever my fate was going to be, I had it coming to me.

I didn’t want her anywhere near it. Fucked up considering I didn’t think there was a chance I could let her go.

Something passed through her features. Something haunted. Ghosts that swept through that ink-stained gaze. “I’ve always been willing to fight for you.”

“But that’s supposed to be my job.”noveldrama

“No, that is supposed to go both ways. Caring and loving and protecting. It can’t be one-sided, or it will never work,” she argued.

The quiet settled around us for a moment, her words weaving and winding, searching for a way to penetrate. To find a way to seep through the cracks whittled in the broken places inside me.

“Do you want that, Otto? A family?” she finally asked through the thick air.

Trepidation hammered through me, spirit clutching in a vise of regret. Part of me wanted to keep it locked inside, but I found myself admitting, “Tried to be that for Haddie and it didn’t turn out so great.”

Sorrow rolled. It’d become a taboo subject between us. Words left unspoken. But I wasn’t sure we could maintain that any longer when we were this close.

Raven barely shook her head on my chest, her words so quiet I could hardly hear them. “She was amazing, Otto. The kindest, most genuine best friend I could have asked for. And so much of that was because of you.”

Grief cut through me. A dull, bitter blade. “She’s gone because of me.”

“She got caught up. Made mistakes like we all do. That doesn’t make someone a bad person. The only bad people are the ones who stole her from us.” A tremor rolled through her, dark and ugly, palpable in our connection.

I wondered if there was a chance that she hated them as badly as I did.

If she’d understand what I had to do.

If she’d accept the resentment I still bore at the fact that I hadn’t been the one to be able to end them all.

“Did it so wrong.” It scraped out of me.

Her fingers drifted over my pecs. “They’re the ones who incited it all. They’re the monsters.”

But she didn’t know it all. My retaliation that had cost everything.

A stupid fucking choice. A bomb dropped, and I hadn’t been able to stop the fallout.

“You were fighting for us all along,” she added.

My eyes squeezed closed on the trust she kept trying to impart on me that I couldn’t receive, and I swallowed some of it back, the agony that kept wanting to rise to the surface, and changed the subject.

“Is that what you did tonight? Fought for me? Drawing that line in the sand?”

She settled her head back on my chest, the words wisps. “I was fighting for us. Fighting for what I deserved. For what you deserved.”

“Can’t say I’m mad that you did.”

“Oh, you’d better not be mad. If you were, you’re not going to get any more of this.” She squirmed against me, her skin slick with water.

I choked over a groan that became a laugh, and I hugged her against me. “That so? Now which of us would be paying the price?”

Could feel the heat race across her flesh. “Okay, fine, you’re going to get all of this. All the time. Whenever you want it. I’ll just have to find a different way to punish you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Definitely.” A tease scampered all over her stunning face.

“Does it make me a masochist that I really want to find out what that means?” I needled, wanting to know how far she might take it. “Time out? A spankin’?”

I wagged my brows at her.

She giggled, and God, I loved the sound of it. Fingertips swept along my jaw as those dark eyes danced. “I think you might like that too much, Otto Hudson.”

“You can rest assured I like it any time that you’re touchin’ me.”

“Like this?” she asked. She slid her hand down my stomach until she was gripping my cock.

A thunderbolt of pleasure struck me.

“Fuck, Raven,” I groaned, caught off guard, taken by surprise, the girl so fuckin’ bold, I had no idea how we hadn’t ended up here years ago.

But I guessed when she’d claimed she was ready to stretch her wings, she meant it.

“That’s a really good start,” I told her, words going jagged as she began to stroke me.

One touch, and she had me so hard it was painful. Dick thickening in a fit of desire.

Seemed now that I’d had her, I was never going to get enough.

Raven shifted, and she tossed a leg over me to straddle me at the waist.

The woman a vision beneath the hazy rays of light that filled the bathroom. Rivulets of water glided down her flesh, that shock of black hair a tangle, the ends dripping wet as she drove me to madness with that wicked little hand.

My hands flew to her waist. “What do you think you’re doing, darlin’?”

There was no timidity in her when she raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “Taking this fantasy. Seducing you.”

My chuckle was a scrape of greed, and I sat up and took a fistful of her hair, words shifting to a deep, guttural awe. “You can go ahead and tick that box, Little Moonflower. Call me seduced. Never gonna break the spell you have me under.”

Then I stood with her in my arms, stepping out of the bathtub, both of us dripping wet, and I carried her to my bed.