Punishing Me (Shaft on Tour #6)

by Cat Mason

  Looking around the room, I groan when I realize I have more than likely left my lyric book in the den. It isn’t safe for me to run into anyone right now so going to get it is out of the question. I don’t want to lash out on someone else in the house when I should be saving my rage for the person who deserves it all.

  “Dammit,” I mutter, throwing the brush to the chair. Grabbing the remote, I flip through the channels, hoping for something to grab me. Anything to get my attention off him.

  My toes tap on the footboard in time with the annoyingly loud clock on the wall. The tempo steady and unchanging as I count every minute, every single second of time that passes. Now is one of those times when I would sell my left tit to just enjoy a little solitude without it making me bat shit crazy. Nope. Instead, the room feels like it’s closing in around me and everything is so loud in my head that I am seconds away from screaming the walls down.

  The door flies open, slamming hard into the drywall behind it before bouncing off. “What in the hell?” I shriek, jumping from the bed and grabbing the arm of the chair to steady myself.

  Dominick strides into the room and flops on the bed like he owns the place. Adjusting the pillows behind him, he gets comfy before leaning back and propping an arm behind his head. His chest is still bare, the lines and ridges of his body silently demanding my focus.

  No, Ireland. You are mad at him, remember? He is a bastard. Look away from the V. Look away!

  “I didn’t invite you into my room,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Or my bed.”

  His eyebrow arches, “I’m not a vampire. I don’t have to get permission before I come in and…” Crossing his ankles, he grins. “Take what I want.”

  “Shirt’s on the bed,” I inform him, hoping he will just leave.

  “Not what I came here for,” he replies, his voice washes over me, sending a jolt of heat straight to my clit.

  Jesus fuck! My vagina is going to spontaneously combust because this asshole is feeling chatty. Does his tone of voice have to be set to orgasmic?

  “And what is it that you want, Dominick?” I ask, arching my brow right back and ignoring the urge to grab the headboard and ride his face. “I don’t have time for twenty questions.”

  “You,” he mouths, patting the spot on the bed beside him. “Come here.”

  My heart stutters in my chest. My eyes travel up his bare chest, stopping on his mouth before finally meeting his eyes. The blue dark and intense as they rake over me. I know what will happen if I do what he asked. I’ll get all those the things he gave me outside and then some. Heat floods my entire body at the thought of all he would do to me. Of what I would do to him.

  “I, uh,” I murmur, unable to make my legs move.

  “Ireland,” he says, sitting up in the bed and reaching out his hand for me to take. “Alone time isn’t something you take for granted in this house. Get your ass over here.”

  He waggles his finger, gesturing me to come to him. I can’t. The replay in my head goes from our very heated moments outside, to my conversation with the girls. Then, I see him bumping Hunter’s fist. The look on his face is smug, so full of fucking arrogance that it has my fists balling at my sides. The hurt and anger bubble over and suddenly I am staring into the tear stained eyes of that seventeen-year-old girl, crying on my basement floor.

  No. That isn’t me anymore. I am so much stronger than that.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait for everyone?” I ask through gritted teeth. “Isn’t showing better than telling? Hell,” I say, throwing up my hands as I take a step toward the bed. “We could fuck on the floor of the den. I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than whatever movie Aiden has picked out.”

  “What the hell’s got in to you?” he asks, swinging his feet off the bed and pushing to stand.

  “You,” I say, jabbing him in the chest with my finger. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake believing I could do this.”

  Clamping his hand around my wrist, he pulls me tightly against him. His jaw tips down and his eyes bore into mine. “I don’t believe I heard any complaints. When exactly was that, baby? Was it when my tongue was buried in your pussy, or when you were riding my cock and clawing up my fucking back like a wolverine?” he shrugs, his face hardening. “Guess I couldn’t hear your regret over you screaming my name and begging me never to stop.”

  “The fucker’s remorse came later,” I snap, unable to hide my hurt any longer. “Right about the time I found out I fucked manwhore Mack and became just another irrelevant piece of ass for your brag book.”

  Dominick’s nostrils flare, a roar rumbling up from deep inside him. “Don’t kid yourself, and don’t lie to me. You feel this between us just as much as I do. It’s always been here, Ireland. And clue the fuck in, there’s nothing irrelevant about what you do to me. There’s also no denying that you feel something for me. I see it in your eyes when I catch you watching me. It’s in your voice when you say my name.” His eyes study me carefully, as if searching for something deep within me. Or maybe within himself. Bringing his free hand up, he slips it into my hair, pulling me to him so that our mouths are just a breath apart. “You can honestly look back on any time I have touched you since you walked back in my life and feel regret?”

  “I’m sorry,” I reply, pushing the tears back that threaten. His thumb brushes over my jaw, sending a tingle down my spine. I could easily let myself fall into his embrace and get lost in the sweet words and empty promises I know won’t matter tomorrow. I could bury the hurt, bottle it up and refuse to face any of it, but where would that get me? I can’t choose who I love, but I do have the ability to affect the damage they can do to what is left of my heart. This is about self-preservation. “I can’t do this,” I say honestly, forcing out my words. “It hurts too much.”

  “You have no idea what pain is.” His lips take mine in a searing kiss. The heat barrels throughout my entire body, lighting every single nerve ending I have on fire. Releasing my wrist, he slips his arm around my waist, anchoring me to him as he commands the kiss. His tongue thrusts into my mouth, not asking for permission, but taking what he wants without any apology. Possessing me with every breath. He growls, his teeth clashing with mine as he devours me.

  Ripping his mouth free of mine, his chest heaves. His eyes meet mine, burning with determination. “I have spent the last seven years of my life trying to forget you. Trying to forget this. But, I can’t.”

  “Guilty conscience will do that to you,” I return, shoving his hands away. “What do you want from me, Dominick?” I ask, pacing around the bed and throwing up my hands in frustration. I need distance from him, enough, at least, so that he can’t touch me. I can’t think straight. “Want me to admit that I fell in love with you? That I still do?” Pressing a hand to my chest, I try to force back the tears, but they spill over my eyelids and down my cheeks. Everything I have bottled up for the last eight years is swarming around in my head at once. All the things that have been left unsaid come pouring out and I am helpless to stop it. “Or how about the fact that I have spent the last eight years throwing myself into booze and drug filled encounters with random strangers? Men, women, both, it didn’t fucking matter. Who they were or where they went once I was done with them didn’t make a difference to me. All that mattered was not feeling this!” I scream, pounding my fist against my chest. “Do you want to hear how unbearable the ache gets when I’m alone and remember how it felt to be in your arms and to see how your smile widened when our eyes met? This hole you carved into my chest gets so big sometimes that I could drown in it. Goddamn, I’d sell my soul for amnesia. I just want to forget how much it hurts to be in love with you for one day, but I can’t.” Sagging to the mattress, I swipe at the tears with the tips of my fingers, but it’s useless. I have opened the flood gates and now there is no turning back. I laugh, shaking my head at how I must look to him right now. “Funny how they say the heart breaks. It never even missed a beat, the blood still pumps as if
nothing ever happened. My mind, that’s where the damage should be. Then maybe those memories wouldn’t be able to pop up and cripple me without warning. So don’t tell me I don’t know pain, Dominick. I know all too well what it feels like to have your feelings stepped on by the people you love and their hidden agendas.”

  “Baby,” he whispers, the tone in his voice only breaking me further.

  “Don’t call me that!” I scream, grabbing his shirt from the bed and throwing it at his chest. “Get out!”

  Rolling to my side, I turn my back to him and bury my face in one of the pillows. What little that was left of the dam holding back my emotions breaks and I fall apart. I cry, but not only for us. This emotional break down is twenty-five years’ worth of loneliness, hurt, heartache, shitty neglectful parents, all mixing with what I feel for Dominick combined into one giant emotional ticking time bomb, and I don’t see the waterworks stopping anytime soon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shit Storm Tornado

  Mack

  This day has officially become the hell that won’t fucking quit.

  The unbelievable shit storm that has torn through this house today, like a relentless tornado, has just circled around for round seventy-three. I am on point today for making every woman within a mile radius cry. Sounds like it’s time to visit my mom… Though I am fully aware that something I did caused the current apocalyptic style meltdown Ireland is having, I have no fucking clue how the hell it got kicked into motion.

  I have never claimed to understand women, but I feel as if I should have seen something like this coming. Because, had I, I would have tried to prepare. Somehow.

  I take a step toward her then take two back quickly when her body jolts. Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch her body shudder as she sobs. I don’t know what to fucking do here! There’s no manual for this. How do you even begin to console a woman who more than likely wants to castrate you and bury you out back? Is there a way to hug her while restraining her limbs from inflicting any sort of bodily harm on me?

  Stepping closer, I defensively widen my stance and size her up like I am about to diffuse a thermonuclear bomb in the middle of a children’s hospital.

  Fear not, hormonal weeping woman, Super Mack is here to save the fucking day!

  Her crying slows, sobs dulling down to something that sounds more like a whimper. Yanking the pillow away, I toss it to the bed and hoist her into my arms. She starts to struggle, and I brace for impact.

  Super Mack’s kryptonite is blunt force trauma to the junk.

  She knows this.

  “Don’t fight me,” I plead. “Just let me hold you. That’s all. I promise.”

  “I hate you,” she breathes, but her body relaxes. “Put me down. I told you to go.”

  “No,” I say, settling in the chair and tucking her body tightly into mine. “Hate me all you want, Baby. I’ve earned that.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she whispers, her face pressed into my neck.

  Leaning down, I kiss her hair and inhale her scent. I can’t help myself. It feels so right to have her here, in my arms. “Because, one day, I’ll earn your forgiveness.”

  ***

  Two days later, I have learned there is one thing I hate more than seeing a woman cry. Indifference.

  Ireland has gone from being full of fire to the point of having me fear for my life and the safety of appendages, to this new version where she only answers me when spoken to. The smart-ass comments that usually make me hard as a rail, are replaced by one-word monotone sentences.

  Most men would be totally okay with the new way of things. Not me. I know Ireland is bottling everything up. As much as I could be enjoying the lack of confrontation, I miss the fire that clashing with her ignites in me. I long for the spark in those beautiful eyes and the sexy up to no good smile that grips me by the dick.

  Who knew I could fuck things up so much without even really doing anything…

  Going through my mental checklist, I do my seventeenth walk through of the bus before sending a text to Henry, letting him know we’re set. All the bags are loaded, the cabinets and fridge stocked full, and I am more than ready to get this show on the road.

  “Anything change in the ten minutes since your last walk through?” Hunter asks from the driveway where Jazzie and Brannon are driving around battery powered motorcycles.

  “Nope,” I reply. “Your big, ugly ass recliner and all three packs of your bacon are accounted for.”

  “Three?” he asks, staring at me. “Either you bitches are putting me on a diet or someone is playing a sick as fuck joke.”

  “Cholesterol is an issue in the over thirty crowd, Hunter. Plus,” I say, walking over and slapping him on the chest. “No one wants a frontman with love handles.”

  "Wow,” he groans, looking down at Jazz. “He’s callin’ me old and fat. Did you call Ireland fat, too? Is that why she would rather slaughter furry bunnies and bathe in their blood than be anywhere near you?”

  “Very funny,” I bite out, my eyes finding her, sitting on the far corner of the porch.

  Sitting sideways on the black and white glider, she has her bare feet propped up on the edge, ankles crossed as she writes in a notebook. Instead of veiled around her face, her hair is pulled up off her neck in some haphazard looking ball. Some of the brown and purple strands have worked themselves loose and are blowing in the light afternoon breeze.

  I have caught myself watching her a lot the last few days. How do you miss something so bad that isn’t even yours to begin with? I had my chance to lay claim to this woman eight years ago and I didn’t. It was better that way. Or so I thought.

  Our fight, and her admission, was a rude awakening. I held her as she cried herself to sleep. It was a moment I never thought I would enjoy, but I find myself willing to do anything to just hold her in my arms like that and breathe her in.

  Yes, I am fully aware I am being turned into a pussy by a woman who won’t even look at me.

  However, when sleeping beauty woke up, I no longer existed in her world. When she does address me in any way, it’s as Mack. Dominick no longer exists to her. The munchkins and the girls get her smiles, the laughs on occasion, but they aren’t the same as before. Something is fractured there and I know, without a doubt, I am the one to blame for the loss of her shine.

  This is what loving me does to someone, ladies and gentlemen.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Daisy asks, patting my arm. “When you give your heart to someone, and they throw it back at you; the damage done makes it impossible to ever fit back inside your chest the same way again.” Reluctantly, I take my eyes off Ireland and look at Daisy. Her blue eyes are soft, her smile sad. “Did you know, at the end of the day, it wasn’t Landon being in love with Tad that hurt so much?” I blink and focus on her face. Daisy has talked very little about everything that happened between her ex-fiancé, and coincidently Grayson’s half-brother, but I know it was one fucked up situation. “I loved Landon very much. Nothing, of course, that could ever be compared to the way I love Gray. When you feel betrayed by the one who you have fallen for, it makes you question everything. I could’ve easily driven myself insane with second guessing of every single moment we spent together. Do you know what got me about the entire thing, Dominick?” she asks, shocking me by using my real name.

  “No,” I say, forcing out my answer.

  “Finding out that the entire time they were laughing at me behind my back. I was a joke. Knowing that, you can understand why seeing that type of thing would be hard for someone who has been in love with a man for a large portion of her life, and finally think they are getting somewhere, to have others see them doing their orgasm touchdown dance out of a window, while still wearing his shirt over her torn bikini.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say, stopping her. Thinking back, I kick myself. “You all saw us?”

  “Bingo,” Daisy informs me, then pushes up on her toes to slap me in the back of the head.

  “O
w!” I yell, shielding my head. Running my fingers through the now much shorter strands, thanks to Jazzie and a little help from the barbershop by the elementary school, I wince. “Would you stop with the abuse?”

  “Consider this your wake up call, Dummy.” Arching her brow, she jerks a chin in Ireland’s direction. “I am cluing you in on a huge woman secret here, so pay attention. Women lash out when hurt by those we love. We scream, cry, even get drunk and say what shitheads all men are when they fuck up, because yes, you do and you are.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Taking my hand, she shakes her head. “What I’m trying to say is: you know when a woman has been truly hurt when she chooses to ignore you. Since there is nothing left hanging between you now but silence, you see clearly enough what you have to lose.”

  “She was never mine,” I reply, my eyes going back to the porch and finding the glider empty.

  “Of course she was,” Daisy huffs, knowingly. “You know why Hunter trying to turn you into the next generation pussy plunderer never worked?” I don’t answer. I’m stuck on her referring to me as a pussy plunderer, wondering where the hell she comes up with this shit. Am I a pirate now? A ginger pirate, with a peg leg, and a brightly colored cock, instead of a parrot? She slaps me again, this time in the chest. “Because, Dummy, a cheap imitation only dulls in comparison to the real thing. Sex is nothing but an act, Dominick. Connecting hearts, entwining souls, and building something that no one can tear down; that’s where true satisfaction comes from. In making love.”

  “Okay,” Henry says, stepping out the garage and interrupting Daisy’s deep insight. Tapping his watch, he jerks his chin toward the bus. “Time to load up. Can’t have you behind schedule before you even get on the road.”

  While everyone says their goodbyes to those staying behind, and load onto the bus, my mind lingers on the mostly one sided conversation Daisy and I just had. Some of what she said sounds crazy, a lot of it I already knew, but there isn’t one thing I can say isn’t true.