The Butcher of the Bay Part II - J. Bree Page 0,29

words of adulation there. He means every word he’s saying, I can taste the truth.

“Where will we keep them when we’re done? Where would we keep such a thing without frightening our guests?”

Illi’s legs part as he pulls me further into his chest so I’m lying completely over him and resting between them. “Our only guests will be people who know the score. You think the kid is going to be worried about some hearts? I’m pretty sure she eats them for breakfast.”

I scoff at him and push at his chest. “Maybe I’ll start eating them for breakfast too. Maybe that’s where she gets her strength from. Speaking of breakfast, I think I’ll go make us some, mon Monstre.”

The easy and open look on his face disappears in an instant, replaced by a frown and a stern voice as he says, “You’re not getting a fucking thing, baby girl. You’re not leaving this goddamn bed.”

I sigh and roll away from him as he shifts to get up. “I’m feeling much better, mon Monstre, and making breakfast isn’t difficult.”

He nods and hikes up his pants as he straightens up. “I know it’s not, that’s why I can handle it. You’re not doing shit until the doc clears you so keep that perfect fucking ass of yours where it is. Let me take good care of you.”

I giggle at him and call out, “How is that any different to what I usually do? Mon Monstre, I’ll go insane if you force me to stay in here.”

He laughs, a sounds I want to hear so much more often, and says, “Baby girl, if you’re here in my bed, in love and of your own free will, you’re already fucking insane and fuck am I glad about it.”

When I finally convince Illi to let me out of the bed and back into the rest of the house he only lets me so far as the couch. It’s frustrating because I want to get back into our usual rhythm, back to the life that was healing and loving and everything I’ve ever needed, but he won’t budge. When I make murmurings of baking some bread, because store bought is never as good as fresh bread straight from the oven and still hot, he has Harbin drop some off to us, straight from the bakery on the edges of downtown.

It’s so damn good I can’t find it in myself to argue.

Mon Monstre doesn’t go out for work, just as he promised. The furthest he goes is downstairs to the gym to workout and let off some steam. I can tell he’s frustrated and ready to hunt down his old friend, but his worry for me wins over.

It’s sweet.

Until it’s not.

“I can paint, mon Monstre. The doctor didn’t say anything about me staying away from canvases and oil paints.” The tone of my voice is colored with my own frustration but he doesn’t move an inch from where he’s standing over me in the living area. I haven’t gotten out my paints yet but there’s a canvas in front of me and I’m using a pencil to stencil on the outline of something… new. Cathartic. Terrifying to put into words but to bleed it out in oils right now, that is something I must do.

“He said to rest. This isn’t resting, it’s working for hours all night and forgetting to eat and drink some fucking water. No. Go back to bed before I tan your ass, baby girl.”

My spine snaps straight. Tan my ass? As in a spanking?

Why does that sound so good?

A slow and lecherous smirk stretches across his lips, and he drawls out, all honeyed seduction but with the undercurrent of whiskey because he’s a real man, “Baby girl, you don’t have to risk that perfect head of yours to get a spanking. I’ll put you over my knee any day of the fucking week if you’re a good girl. I might even let you suck me off too.”

I gulp. Not in terror but because I so desperately want that. The branding heat of his palm, the weight of his cock in my mouth, I want that right now.

My healing time is over. The blood I spilled and the lives I took for daring to touch me, all of them were a trial by fire. I walked through the flames and came out stronger.

I’ve never felt more powerful, more in control, more desperate for a man to own every fiber of my being because I