Page 41 of Crushing Clover

Saint held the bite of food between his fingers, brows raised with impatience. I’d watched him work on the meal with Rush, and had seen everything they’d put into it. I’d obediently tasted it but still had no desire to eat it.

“You can’t tell me you don’t want this, bootlicker,” Saint grumbled. “We could be feeding you garbage, but we’re feeding you foie gras. You should be thankful you’re not locked in the basement or something.”

I shifted, my knees protesting at the unforgiving bite of the stone floor.

“She doesn’t want it,” Lucky muttered. “Leave her alone. I’ll make her a grilled cheese or something.”

“She’s not a fucking child. She should be eating what we eat.”

“All of us have things we don’t like, Saint,” Rush said quietly. “She tried the salsa we made the other day, even though it burned her mouth. Let it go. There’s no point in fighting every time we eat.”

“There’s no point in fighting every time we eat, but we wouldn’t be fighting if she was reasonable.”

“She can’t handle certain flavors.”

“I’ll give her a fucking flavor to worry about.”

What the hell did that even mean?

Worried, I accepted the second morsel from his fingers and chewed, eyes watering. The consistency made me ill, but he was right. There was no point in fighting about it. Obviously, it was something they enjoyed, and it wasn’t poison.

I swallowed, then shuddered in revulsion, clenching my teeth so it wouldn’t come back up. Before I had even recovered, another bite of it was being shoved at me. Lucky was already clearing dishes, and I should be helping him, but I couldn’t get through the plate of food I was expected to eat.

“Come on, you little heathen. Eat your fucking food. We need to get to work.” He tapped his fingers against my lips, trying to rush me, but I was still trying not to throw up.

Even though all three of them had eaten their portions with what sounded like ecstasy, to me, it was too unfamiliar.

Too gross. As much as I appreciated not having to worry about the bills, or being run off my feet, or having creepy patrons follow me to my car, this was one thing I physically couldn’t seem to get past.

Saint’s glare bored into me. “Eat the fucking food.” Each word sounded like it had its own period, and his frustration rolled over me in a dark wave.

I parted my lips to protest, and he shoved the food into my mouth. I gagged and bit my lips together, needing to spit it back out, but not wanting to puke all over him. The texture—I couldn’t fucking do it.

“She swallows cum like a champ. Can’t you cut her a break with food once in a while?” Lucky grumbled, always my staunchest defender.

I heaved, then jumped to my feet and ran across the room and up the stairs. There was a commotion behind me, but I didn’t dare stop. All I could think of was how badly I needed to get to a toilet before I puked up my eyeballs.

“Get the fuck back here!”

I should have gone toward Saint’s room, but Lucky’s always felt safer, even though it was further away.

I hit the bathroom, slid across the tiles on my knees, and got my face over the toilet a second before I spewed up everything I’d eaten in this life and possibly in my previous incarnation.

So disgusting. How the hell did they eat that shit?

I didn’t care if it was a delicacy, it was fucking gross.

They were arguing mere feet away, but I was too busy vomiting to care what was happening with them.

“You’re too hard on her!” Lucky was shouting.

“And you’re too soft on her! If she’s living under our roof, she’s going to eat what we tell her to eat!”

“Why is this a hill you want to die on?”

“It’s not a hill to die on. It’s plain common sense. If she’s going to be difficult about every little thing—”

“Oh, come on,” Rush said gruffly. “You treat her worse than I would treat a dog, and she takes all of it without a single word of complaint. She tries hard to be a good girl.”

Tears squeezed from my eyes, and not all of them were vomit related. Rush was sticking up for me again?

“Oh, not you, too. You’re the last man I ever thought would be charmed by a little pussy.”

“She’s a nice girl, for fuck’s sake. Maybe we need to get over the way she looks and treat her like a human being.”

“Fuck that. If she hated what I did so much, she would use her safeword—which, might I add, she’s never used.”

“She’s also terrified we’re going to send her away to something worse, you clueless asshole.”

“Lucky, you better watch your fucking mouth.” Saint’s voice was low and deadly. “And as for being sent somewhere worse, she’d better get used to the idea. As soon as we’re paid up, she’s going back to Warren.”

“Man, you can’t mean that.” Rush sounded shocked.

“Did you really think we were going to keep her forever? Do you want to sign up to babysit her for the next sixty years? Eighty?”

“It’s the only decent thing to do,” Lucky said. “Besides, I care about her even if you don’t. I don’t want to send her away at all, let alone knowing that something terrible will happen to her. I don’t believe you’d sentence anyone to that, even if she really was Arabella.”

I got to my feet and flushed the toilet, then moved to the sink to wash my face. Someone stepped into the room and handed me a face cloth. I peeked in the mirror over the sink to flash Lucky a grateful smile but caught Rush’s concerned expression instead, as he turned away and blocked the door.

“Rush? What the fuck.”

“Leave her be. From now on she sits at the table with us and chooses what she does and doesn’t want to eat.”

“Why are you being such an asshole?”

“I think if you take a step back and look at the situation, I’m not the one being an asshole.”

“Fuck you.”

Footsteps left the room.

“I don’t want to damage our life together, but I can’t stand by and let him bully her all the time. I know she’s here to be what we need her to be, but she’s also a human being.”

“And what about keeping her?”

Rush blew out a breath. “Saint’s right. Forever is a long fucking time. I feel the same way you do, but I don’t know how it’s going to work. We’re not Like Warren. We can’t treat her like a captive indefinitely. We don’t have the time or the resources to keep her locked away forever.”

“But we don’t have to!” Lucky objected. “She’s not trying to get away.”

Rush held up a staying hand. “One step at a time, Luck. I don’t know where things are going, but for now that’s going to have to do.” He turned back to look at me. “You okay?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The last thing I wanted to do was say the wrong thing.

“You’re not sick or pregnant or something?”

Pregnant? No. Lucky had helped me get a shot before my last one ran out. Bringing a kid into this house would be bad enough; doing it when they still planned to send me back was plain stupid.

“No, no, absolutely nothing like that. I couldn’t handle the texture. I don’t mean to be difficult.”

“Difficult?” He laughed. “You’re one of the least difficult people I’ve met.” Rush drew me out of the bathroom and put his hands on my shoulders. “Do you think you can handle sitting at the table like a human?” he asked teasingly.

“I’ll do my best.”

He chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Let’s find something you can eat.” With that, he steered me back toward the stairs, Lucky following close behind.