Tabula Rasa(50)

Even though I knew it was wrong, I’d briefly fantasized that he would go kill that bastard. And a part of me liked that fantasy. I very much doubted Shannon would let me leave to go finish my degree, but Stevens should f*cking pay either way. And I knew there was no way he’d end up paying through the criminal justice system. I wanted him to have to pay through Shannon’s justice system because I imagined it was far more satisfying and that it was a system that wouldn’t victimize me yet again in the quest for a fair trial. Fuck a fair trial. I knew what that monster had done, and that was all that mattered to me. Why should I have to prove it to a bunch of random strangers who weren’t there? Why couldn’t this be my business? Mine and Shannon’s.

It was unnerving to fully realize I felt this way because I’d told myself that I didn’t want Shannon to do anything. And yet... with his reaction so minimal, I found I really did want him to do something. I was tempted to flat out ask him to do it. Hell, I had money; I could pay his fees. I mean, he had access to my money, so he could just steal it, I guess. But I could be a paying customer, no problem. It didn’t have to be some personal favor or lover’s vendetta.

“Elodie,” Shannon said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Hmmm?”

“Get in the shower. I don’t have time for this.”

By this point, I was past flinching and cringing. I mean, realistically, I shouldn’t be. But I was so caught up in this revenge fantasy that I couldn’t be bothered with the supposed trauma of Shannon touching me.

I can say one thing with certainty. If Shannon were a normal man handling me like something breakable, trying to soothe all my damage and trauma, trying not to trigger me, I would never have been able to let a man touch me again. I would have built it up too far in my head. I wanted to believe Shannon knew this, but I’m not sure he did. I’m not sure he cared. And I’m not sure I cared because the fact that he wasn’t coddling me and treating me like a fragile piece of china was likely the only thing that made his touch okay.

He took my hands and pressed my palms flat against the shower tile.

“Do not move your hands. Do you understand?” he growled against my ear.

“Y-yes, Sir.”

I lowered my head to let the hot water hit my neck and roll down my back as Shannon ran his soapy hands over me. I tensed, waiting for something dramatic. A panic attack. A sobbing fit. Begging and pleading.

But instead of crying or begging, what came out of my mouth was a low, throaty moan. My body reacted to him just as it had before without even the slightest hint that there was any reason for it to behave differently. My body and mind stubbornly clung to and affirmed Shannon’s possession of me.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and to the side out of the way of the spray. “You are mine. My filthy little whore. Say it.”

Those words shouldn’t have had positive results, but when Shannon said it, he wasn’t judging me. There was no hatred or disgust in his voice. It reflected nothing more than a sexual kink that helped him get nearer to feeling something more human.

My body happily skipped along to his beat, the warmth and tingling already starting between my legs. My nerve endings didn’t give a shit what Professor Stevens had done and refused to let my conscious brain f*ck up whatever this thing with Shannon was. Good. Because before that incident at school, I’d secretly and maybe not-so-secretly longed for a relationship like this one. Private kinky parties at the frat house and a little bit of play at a few clubs here and there just hadn’t been enough. I’d wanted something more stable and lasting.

“I’m your filthy little whore, Sir.”

“No one else will ever touch you again, do you understand?”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

Shannon released my hair and detached the shower head. It was the massaging kind that could easily be maneuvered to ease sore muscles in hard to reach places, but every woman in the world knew what that kind of shower head was really for.

Shannon knew, too. He held the pulsing spray between my legs, a few inches away so that the pressure of the water beat down against the swollen, aroused flesh between my thighs. After the first orgasm, he took the shower head away for a moment to let me semi-recover, then he started in on me again. He repeated this several times until I barely knew my own name and wasn’t sure I could hold myself up any longer.

But that wasn’t a problem. After reattaching the shower head, Shannon held me strongly against him while he f*cked me, finally seeking his own release. When he pulled out of me, he shut the water off and I slid to the floor of the shower, no longer trusting my legs, or even my voice.

Shannon got, toweled off, and went back into the bedroom to change. I stayed where I was like this for several minutes—leaning my head against the tile, willing my legs to support me when I stood.

He’d left a second towel for me next to the sink, and I secured it around myself. It was an extra large fluffy towel probably meant for someone much larger than me. I loved the quiet luxury of Shannon’s towels, the way they wrapped me up like a cloud on a warm sunny day.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, the towel wrapped firmly around me, both Shannon and his bags were gone. I went out into the hallway to find the white cat bitching at me because she always blamed me for everything as if every aspect of her little furry existence had gone horribly wrong the second I crossed the threshold into Shannon’s life.