Uncharted Territory (The Compass Series Book 3) (12 page)

“Hey, Rapunzel.”

“What?”

“You’re done for the day, right? Time to let down your hair?”

I roll my eyes but laugh, too. Calling Rey was a good idea. Maybe better than calling Hunter would’ve been. “Yeah.”

“That yeah isn’t fooling me. What’s going on?”

*

My boots tromp
heavily down the carpeted hallway. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’d tossed and turned, rubbed my wrist where it was swollen and red. It hadn’t been that big of a deal, but thinking of it now, the shakiness remains.

My wrist still hurts, so I use my other hand to turn the knob of my dorm room. When I step over the threshold, I stop in my tracks.

“Baby.”

Hunter is standing by my desk, elegant fingers tracing the spine of my
Complete Works of Shakespeare
.

I close the door quickly and try to figure out what to do. Hunter never comes to school, though he’s had a key to my room since we signed our contract. If I forget something at his house, Ben drops it off. Ben is the one who comes to pick me up. Hunter’s never been in my room before, and the collision of my worlds sends my brain sloshing around my skull as if there’s been a physical impact. It’s that uncertainty that makes me drop to my knees. I need him to give me direction.

“Is this what you look like when you’re not with me?”

Though my eyes are focused on the ground, I can imagine the look on his face: the arch of his brow, the slight disapproving purse of his lips. Shame burns in my chest.

“Yes, sir.”

There’s a low noise of displeasure in his throat. “Perhaps we should do something about that.”

I close my eyes tight and try to wish that vaguely nauseated feeling away. “Yes, sir.”

I’ll miss my jeans and hoodies, but not more than I’ll feel good anytime I slip into a pretty dress or tug a skirt up my legs. It will remind me that I’m pleasing Hunter, and that’s the best feeling in the world. Maybe he’ll order me to send him pictures of what I’m wearing every day. The thought makes blood pool in my core, making my breasts feel confined in my bra and my pelvis heavy.

Maybe he’s thinking about it, too, because he’s silent for a couple of minutes, leaving me uncertain and grasping at straws.
Tell me how to please you and I’ll do it.
But finally he clears his throat.

“That’s not why I came here.”

I hadn’t thought so.

“Come here, sweetheart. On your feet.”

I spend so much time on my knees with Hunter that I’m like a baby giraffe when I walk to him. I want to be back on my knees where I know how to move sinuously, provocatively, in a way that pleases him, but that’s not what he’s asked for. When I reach him, I stand with my hands clasped behind my back and my gaze still cast down.

“Give me your hand.”

I hold one out to him, and he takes it, turning it over so my palm faces up. Before I can react, the wooden ruler I keep on my desk is coming down across my palm. The sensation startles me, but it doesn’t hurt. Much. Not compared to other things I’ve become intimately familiar with over the past two years.

“The other one. Stop thwarting me.”

Thwarting him? Not on purpose. I would never—

My dropped hand stings from the strike of the ruler, but he’s cradling the other like a baby bird with a broken wing.

“Look what he did to you,” he murmurs, stroking thumbs along the pale bruises Jamie left. I know I shouldn’t because I don’t have permission, but I can’t help looking up. Hunter’s expression is two parts pained, one part livid. The ferocious protectiveness slays me. Never mind he leaves worse marks almost every time I see him. Disregard the fact that I suspect that ruler is going to be landing somewhere other than my palm before this is over.

“I’m okay, sir.”

“You’re not.” Hunter’s eyes meet mine and they shine with wrath. “He hurt you and he’ll be dealt with accordingly. In the meantime, you’re coming with me.”

He glances at my outfit again, his expression dulled by censure. “We’ll get you dressed in something acceptable first, and then we’ll go. Ben’s waiting with the car.”

“But—”

“There aren’t any buts about this, India. Do as you’re told.”

Part of me takes affront.
Back it up, yo.
But sass and stubbornness aren’t the way to handle this. They never are with Hunter.

“I have class, sir.”

“Then make your excuses to your professor. You’ll have a doctor’s note.”

Now that is just too far. “Hunter—”

“Don’t you dare ‘Hunter’ me right now. That little shit hurt you. Your wrist could be sprained or broken, and I know you haven’t done anything about it. You’re coming with me. I take care of what’s mine. I protect what’s mine.
You
are mine. So unless you’re prepared to safe out, you’re getting changed into something that reflects that and you’re coming with me.
I
will be the judge of whether you’re fine.”

I could argue with him or say the word, but there’s a part of me clawing at my rational mind, begging to please let Hunter take care of me. He was the first person I’d wanted when I was hurt, and now he’s here, a wish come true. I want to surrender to his overprotective impulses, let him coddle me, and revel in his indulgence.
Please.
So I give in.

“Yes, sir. But I have a midterm due tomorrow.”

“You’ll dictate it to Ben when we get home.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and lays an open-mouthed kiss on the underside of my wrist, his tongue stroking the bruises. “Now let’s get you dressed.”

He strips me, careful to hold my sweatshirt’s elastic wristband open as he guides my sleeve off. When I’m completely naked, he orders me to bend over the bed.

I’m not surprised by the first crack of the ruler and the subsequent strikes that set fire to my ass. “In the future, you will tell me immediately if you’re injured or if someone is harassing you. I shouldn’t find out from Rey. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

I will. I want him to punish me for being vulnerable, for making him worry. Beat the imperfection out of me. Make me smooth, strong, and fierce. Impenetrable to anything but him.

But I don’t just want him to hit me, make me hurt. I deserve it and I’ll take it, but I also want him to promise I can be better, that he’ll help make me better. That he won’t make demands and leave me alone to figure out how to please him. I want his hands to guide me, and I pledge to be malleable like clay. For him. Only for him. Otherwise, I’ll be untouchable and face the world as he does: like I own the damn place and whatever I want is my due. Like I’m not a mere mortal.

Teach me how, Hunter.

He continues to berate me and beat me, the wood of the ruler making contact with every inch of my behind. When it’s red hot and glowing and he’s still not satisfied, he starts on my thighs. Those blows hurt more and my eyes water with tears of pain at the same time my heart swells. This is how upset he is. Someone hurting me made him this crazy. I can’t say I’m wild about the form his protectiveness is taking, but the sentiment is making me gooey and supple inside. I would do anything for him.

So when he orders me onto my back on the bed with my knees bent and my feet spread as wide as the twin mattress will allow, I don’t hesitate. I only whimper and clench my hands in my duvet when he takes the ruler to the inside of my thighs. When my whole bottom half is throbbing, he touches me. The contact of his skin with mine makes my back arch and I sigh. He presses my knees further out from where they’d drifted together and holds up the ruler. “This will stop when you come.”

And then he hits me—a sharp, stinging swat right over my clit. I barely have time to react when he hits me again. And again. I want to tell him to stop, that it hurts, that I’m never going to be able to get off from this. But the gathering heat inside swamps the thought. How does he
know
?

It’s half a dozen more spanks before I’m begging and pleading to please, please, be allowed to come. But he says no and keeps at me, knowing I can’t hold out forever. Inevitably, my body betrays me. All my muscles contract and my orgasm rips through me on next contact.

My head is flooded by emotion: shame at disappointing him, lightness from my climax, pleasure from how focused he’s been on me, guilt that he must have left work for this. He’s scattered me like leaves in the wind, a swirl of brightly colored feelings I need him to take a rake to. Scrape and sort them into piles and then shove them into bags to be hauled away, leaving my head orderly.

But before he does, I know there’s more for me to take.

“Where do you keep your condoms and lube?”

“Top drawer of the nightstand, sir.”

Not that I’ve needed them before now, but I’ve been instructed to be prepared. He retrieves them before flipping me onto my stomach. “Brace your hand on the headboard and open your mouth.”

He presses the ruler he just beat me to orgasm with between my teeth and I close my lips around it, the vague taste of my climax tangy against my tongue. Holding it will help muffle the sounds I make as he works his way into my ass. Once he’s in, he fucks me fast and hard, and his fingers dig into the sore flesh of my butt as he comes.

When he’s through, he cleans up and helps me dress: a loose-sleeved sweater dress, a bra but no underwear or tights, and socks to go under my knee-high boots. He watches me put on my makeup. When I wince while pulling my hairbrush through the tangles, he takes it from me and brushes my hair himself before making me pull up my dress so he can paddle me.

Ben is indeed waiting for us downstairs, and my cheeks redden when Hunter tells me to ruck up my dress so my bare ass will be on the fine leather of the seats. I do as I’m told, face flaming when I catch Ben’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

Six hours later finds me naked and wrapped in a blanket, curled up on Hunter’s lap in front of the fireplace in the library. He’s holding an icepack to my wrist and petting my hair. The doctor he took me to said it was only a minor sprain, though Hunter had made him take X-rays to be sure. When we got home, Hunter had bundled me upstairs with Ben to finish my midterm before requesting my presence at dinner and then in the library. There was a nightcap for him, and for me, being tethered to the ottoman with a vibe strapped to my clit, forced to orgasm over and over for coming without permission earlier. That had ended with him forcing me to my knees for a quick and filthy blowjob, me gasping for breath as he held my hair and fucked my face.

After everything that’s happened today, I’m exhausted and ready to fall asleep in his arms. Unlike last night, I’ll sleep well. Hunter’s made sure of it. But there’s a pinprick of curious light in the darkening cavern of my head. I don’t think I’ll be able to fully give in to rest until it’s extinguished.

“What did you mean when you said Jamie would be dealt with accordingly?”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”

I want to let his soft words and firm touch be enough to snuff out the glow, but they’re not quite.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

Hunter’s chest expands under my head before he exhales through his nose. “If you must know, he’s going to be expelled.”

“Expelled?”

“Yes. I spoke with the dean this evening, and Mr. Nolan should be gathering his belongings to head back to Oak Park as we speak.”

How did
… No, I don’t want to know.

“That seems kind of harsh. I mean—”

“He assaulted you, India. That kind of violence has no place on a college campus. You should be able to learn and express your opinions without fear. He’s lucky no charges are being pressed. He’ll be gone by the morning, and then you may resume your classes.”

Too many thoughts overwhelm me. Gratitude, incredulousness, anger, guilt, and delight. It’s all wrapped up into this tight, inseparable ball. Like if I tug on one string I don’t want, the whole thing will come apart in my hands and I can’t have that. Not at all.

Hunter clasps fingers around my chin and tips up my head to look me in the eyes. “What’s bothering you?”

“It just doesn’t seem fair, that’s all. For him to get kicked out over this.”

My wrist will be healed fully in a couple of weeks, it should stop hurting in a few days, but Jamie’s future could be ruined. Hunter gazes at me for a long moment, and I start to feel uneasy under his scrutiny. Am I going to get in trouble for questioning him?

“Is it okay for someone to hurt you without your consent?”

“No, sir. But—”

“Just answer my questions.” His tone is sharp, verging on impatient. I won’t be punished if I behave, but I’m wandering into not.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s start over. Is it ever okay for someone to hurt you without your consent?”

“No, sir.”

“Did this boy hurt you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you think he should be taught there are consequences for his actions?”

“Yes, sir.” Hunter is big on consequences. Negative and positive. I’m well-familiar with both by now.

“Would you have been afraid the next time you saw him?”

I don’t like to admit it, but yes, I would’ve been. And probably the time after that. And the one after that. I don’t know if I ever would’ve seen Jamie Nolan again without wondering what he would do. “Yes, sir.”