Page 27 of Carrick
And somehow, I already knew I would.
7
Bellamy
I was goingto lose my mind. The thought wasn’t just an idle complaint—it was a slow, simmering truth I’d been holding at bay with sheer stubbornness and caffeine. I was going to unravel, one tight thread at a time, if I didn’t do something. Move. Yell. Cry. Fuck. Anything.
But there was no outlet here. No room for release. Just padded silence and cautious smiles and men with predator’s eyes watching for threats around every corner. I didn’t fit here, not the way they wanted me to. I wasn’t fragile. I wasn’t in need of comforting arms or soft assurances. I didn’t need to be saved.
I needed to feel something that wasn’t panic.
Rayden. I missed him so much it made my teeth ache. Guilt pulsed like a second heartbeat beneath my ribs, every breath borrowed. He was still out there—maybe bleeding, maybe worse—while I lay safe behind reinforced walls and warm blankets.
Two weeks without a word. Every day without his voice pressed heavier against my chest. I dreamed of him nightly. Woke reaching for a phone I no longer had, some fragile part of me still hoping for a message that wouldn’t come.
There was nothing. Just silence and one more thing taken from me.
So I got up—again—because stillness made it worse. I sat on the edge of the bed, fists clenched, body buzzing with too much. I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cry. But God, I needed something to cut through the noise inside me.
I used to have ways to hold it. Rituals built from rope and breath, safewords and structure. Not just kink, not just play—but anchors. I’d learned myself in those rooms: how to let go, how to stay grounded, how to be quiet without disappearing. I’d never had a Dominant of my own—not long-term—but I’d had trusted hands. Partners who understood the language of my silence. And that had always been enough.
Now I was here. Alone in a house full of people who didn’t know me, while the part of me that did was screaming for something steady.
Carrick’s voice came back to me—low, unbothered, honest.
If you ever need a little stress relief… you come find me.
It hadn’t been a tease. No smirk. Just truth. An open door I hadn’t dared to walk through. I’d played it cool, cracked a line and walked away like it hadn’t hit—but it had. It was still hitting. Every time my skin itched with too much energy. Every time I caught myself craving the sound of command in his voice.
He wouldn’t take. Wouldn’t push. He’d wait. And somehow, that was worse.
Because I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to step into the storm and let it hollow me out just enough to feel like myself again. But the part of me that still knew how to survive? That part was terrified of what I might hand over if I let him touch the reins.
I stood abruptly, grabbed the first hoodie I could find—too big, stretched at the wrists—and shoved my arms through the sleeves with more aggression than grace. My movements felt jagged, like my skin didn’t fit. The zipper caught halfway up; I didn’t fix it. Just yanked the bedroom door open so hard itslammed the wall with a sharp crack, echoing down the hall like a warning shot. Let them hear it.
The house was too quiet—not peaceful, not calm, but suffocating. Like someone had turned the world’s volume down and left me alone with nothing but the roar of my pulse. I hated it. Silence wasn’t silence. It was a living thing that crawled into your bones and made every breath feel deafening, every thought impossible to shut off. And underneath it all, Carrick’s offer burned like a lit fuse.
My boots hit the hardwood in sharp, staccato strikes that felt like the only real sound in the house. When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, Maddy was there, perched on the counter like a teenager who’d stopped giving a shit about rules. She didn’t flinch. Just raised her mug like a toast, legs swinging, mismatched socks peeking from under her leggings.
“You’ve got that look,” she said casually, taking a slow sip. “Like you’re one more ‘we’re doing this for your own safety’ away from homicide.”
I didn’t bother denying it. Didn’t have the energy or the patience for polite deflection. My hands were still clenched at my sides, jaw locked so tight my teeth ached.
“I need out,” I ground out.
Maddy slid off the counter in one smooth motion and padded across the kitchen, her sock-clad feet whispering against the floor. She didn’t offer sympathy. Just reached for the coffeepot and filled a second mug with a kind of practiced ease, like she’d done this before. Like she knew the stages of unraveling by heart.
“Same thing happened to me,” she said, voice gentler now. “This place is like a rehab center with guns. They’re good men, but they forget that some of us don’t come here to rest. We come here because we’re surviving. And survival doesn’t always mean stillness.”
I stared at the swirling coffee in her hand, steam rising like a ghost.
“Deacon’s out with the horses,” she continued, setting the mug down on the counter. “He’s usually the one they send when someone’s about to snap.”
I blinked at her. “Horses.”
She smirked. “Yeah. I know. Sounds like a line from some cheesy Hallmark reboot. But they help. Deacon doesn’t talk much, unless he has something worth saying. And sometimes, being around something that breathes but doesn’t judge is… enough.”
