THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

tempting my cock to turn to stone again. “Inner thigh. Don’t forget half the butterfly is blue. Like her eyes. Don’t fuck it up.”

Eve kept her legs apart, but by the red scorching her cheeks, I could feel the discomfort climb into my throat before Grimm shifted his eyes up to mine with clear annoyance.

“Why do I always end up putting these tattoos in some fucked up places I shouldn’t be, Bo? Riddle me that. Between you, Vic, and now Eve, I’m feeling a sense of closeness I don’t want to be familiar with.” Taking a cleansing cloth, he looked at Eve like he felt sorry for her before waiting for permission to touch her.

I watched his fingers swipe over the area, cleaning her already pure skin. Eve still looked uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t place when her throat bobbed on a hard swallow. She was dropping clues, and I couldn’t figure out what they meant.

“His Clave tattoo is in an odd place?” Eve knew better than to ask me when I gave her ambiguous answers instead of ones that were actually responses.

Grimm laid the stencil down over her skin and smoothed out the design with his fingers. I wanted to be the asshole who told her to soak up the last time she’ll be touched just to drive home how much she should give up on me fulfilling that need. I didn’t as I rounded the island, watching from a distance.

“It’s about the same area… Why the butterfly?” Grimm never makes an effort to encourage small talk. He must truly feel bad for her soul being bound to mine.

Crossing my arms, I watched her try to make sense of it—the butterfly that haunted my existence in things around me during her absence.

“It’s personal,” she muttered quietly while Grimm kick started the gun. I didn’t need to hover over them like a jealous boyfriend, albeit I did feel a sting of jealousy hit my chest knowing her legs were open for another man. It didn’t matter how unavailable he was.

Wandering around his open concept house, I managed to find a back set of stairs and decided to waste time by impeding on his personal space that same way he did to others when he was pissed off. Upstairs, I looked into doorways and around corners before taking any more steps. Abigail was sitting on the edge of their bed, where I pronounced them married and she gave birth simultaneously, with a robe covering her chest, but I could tell there was nothing underneath. The same way I saw her in the kitchen, only now all the torture devices were absent.

Standing in the doorway, I examined her for clues to see if she liked it or simply did it for Grimm’s sake.

Startling her, I watched her jump, catching a glimpse into the mirror and tying her robe shut. “Jesus. You scared me.”

“Not sure I’ve ever been called Jesus. Normally, I’m further south.” Still not taking any liberties with stepping any closer, I waited for her nerves to flatten before I asked, “That shit downstairs, you like that?”

I could tell I was creeping into territory that wasn’t for me to question when she blushed and her gaze dropped to the floor. “Grimm is a flavor I can’t get enough of… I didn’t think I’d like it at first.”

Dragging the joint from my lips, I offered her the stub of it when to my shock she pinched the end and inhaled expertly before coughing, showing how inexperienced she truly was. I pondered her use of the word flavor without the suppressed memories of the taste of a guy’s come causing my mouth to salivate.

Grimm probably tasted sweeter than he looks; spiked with a kind of contempt that makes all the effort seem worth it to see him unravel.

Crossing my arms, she took another inhale before speaking, “We’ve never talked about it, you know. Our pasts… how similar they are…”

Shifting from one foot to the other, I leaned into my other arm, clearly uncomfortable. I wanted to forget, not trot down memory lane with Abigail. “I would rather not talk about it. Eve doesn’t even know the details. Not that they matter… We got thrown into the deep end a little early, doesn’t change that it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“But Grimm said you haven’t dated or tried to be with anyone… You can’t suppress it without it growing into little invisible monsters, Bowen.”

Sympathy was one of the worst emotions in the array of insignificant ones. Her eyebrows wrinkled, and her eyes filled with sorrow as she looked to me to pour out every fucking wound right there on her bedroom floor while sharing a joint.

“Invisible monsters? No, I have full grown, very much there, demons. Far worse, sweetheart.”

“I’m sure I didn’t experience all that you did, but I can relate to feeling so vulnerable that it physically hurts. Hurt people, hurt people and maybe you should figure it out before that girl downstairs gets hurt too.”

Turning away, I glanced over my shoulder, “She hurt me first, it’s only fair.”

I wasn’t being serious but Abigail bought it enough to not respond.

I wasn’t that childish to create a hurt-war solely based on her being ripped from my life. Neither of us had control over our youth, but it doesn’t change that I’m not the person she left behind.

I was protecting her from me.

Downstairs, Grimm was smearing some liquid over her leg where the tattoo was fresh when I walked into the kitchen again. “Did she tell you what it means?”

Grimm chuckled. “She’s tougher to crack now than before, Bo. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I’m waiting for the bomb to go off.”

The butterfly was all I could offer her as this person shaped by fear, torment, trauma, and shrouded