My others plonked themselves down in front of the screen and started chatting, but before I could join them, Damon stepped forward and took my hand.
"Come on Carrie-girl, we need to put some more arnica gel on you."
Buoyed by all the laughter at us pranking Rocco just a few minutes ago, I didn't want to go with him. I wanted to go and see my brothers, catch up with Nick and Alex.
"Funny how you care about my bruised butt now," I muttered, only partly under my breath.
Damon glared down at me and raised an eyebrow in warning, but I didn't heed it. Instead, I bravely met his gaze.
"Well you didn't care about it when you were spanking me, did you?"
Damon squeezed my hand, telling me in no uncertain terms that it really would be in my best interests to shut up now. I tried to pull away but he wouldn't let me.
"It's true! If you didn't want to bruise me, you wouldn't have spanked me so hard!" I insisted fiercely, my voice low. I didn't want my other brothers to hear me arguing with Damon. For some reason, I didn't think they would approve. They were weird like that. It was like they thought they were my parents or something, and not my brothers.
"Watch yourself little girl," he growled.
"I am not a little girl," I whispered furiously, trying to tug my hand out of his firm grip. A shiver went down my spine as I remembered how Damon had reacted the last time I'd said that to him.
He didn't react the same way this time, though. Now, instead of up-ending me over his thigh and nearly smacking me into next week, he tightened his grip on my hand and basically dragged me from the room. I had to just about run to keep up with his long strides as he led me away from our brothers, upstairs, and into his bedroom.
His voice was icy cold as he stood me in front of him and pressed a finger under my chin, tilting my face up, forcing me to look at him. He lectured me sternly, but I successfully tuned most of it out. I'd been through enough; a lecture was the last thing I needed.
After a couple of minutes of tuning out the lecture, Damon pushed me gently towards his bed. "Lie down on your tummy," he ordered gruffly. "I'll get the arnica."
I obeyed, lying on Damon's bed and facing the wall. I didn't want to look at him. I knew what he was going to do, and it was embarrassing.
It wasn't long before I heard Damon's footsteps coming closer and I felt the bed dip as he sat down beside me. Neither of us spoke as he slowly tugged my clothing down, baring my bruised butt, and gently rubbed in the arnica gel. Even though his touch was gentle, and the cool gel was soothing, my bottom was still aching and tender and I winced just a little bit. He ignored me though, and rubbed the gel in thoroughly. As soon as he got up to put it away I fixed my pants and sat up.
Damon sat down beside me. "How are you feeling, Carrie?"
I shrugged. What sort of question was that?
"How do you think I'm feeling, Damon?" I asked him, my voice quavering. As much as I wanted to be brave and unafraid around my oldest brother, there was no doubt that he terrified me at times.
Damon put his arm around me. "I think you're frightened," he said. "And that's understandable. I'm not sure of the best way to help you yet, so if there's anything you need that will help you feel better, you let me know. I have arranged a counsellor to work with you next week, but until then it's just me and your other brothers."
I shrugged his arm off me and turned to face him. "I don't want a stupid counsellor," I snarled.
Damon smirked. "That's good, because she's not stupid. She's very good at her job, and I think you will like her."
"No," I snapped. "I'm not seeing her."
"You will," Damon told me sternly. "The first session is compulsory. After that, you can choose."
"You can't make me," I insisted, but even as I said the words, I knew they weren't entirely true. So far, Damon had proven he could make me do precisely whatever he wanted.
He raised one very scary eyebrow at me. "I think you'll find I can," he told me. Then he changed his tone and body language completely and gave me a warm smile. "How has your day been, so far?"
I shook my head and looked down. "It feels like I'm always in trouble," I told him. "Like I can't do anything right. I breathe, and I'm doing it wrong. I feel like a burden. I mean, I know you all love me, I don't even doubt that, but I can't help feeling that my being here with you all makes everything bad and all I do is cause problems. I mean Nick killed somebody because I wore a bikini that you'd all told me not to wear. And that is a problem in itself. Why are my brothers telling me what to wear? You're my brothers, not my father. Why are boys who are barely even any older than me allowed to punish me? Is Logan allowed to punish me?"
I looked at the tiny wrinkles in the black duvet and waited for Damon to answer me. I'd spoken quickly, saying everything I wanted to say in the one breath before he interrupted me, but I knew he would object to at least some of it.
"No, Logan is not allowed to punish you," Damon told me. "Did he try to?"
I shook my head. "No. I just wanted to know, for future reference. How about Rocco? Is he allowed to? Because look." I stood up and slid down my pants, showing him the handprint that Rocco had left on my thigh. "I don't think Rocco should be allowed to punish me," I grumbled. "It's not fair."
Damon exhaled loudly, like he was frustrated with me, before he put his arm back around my shoulder and pulled me in close and answered me.
"Yes, Rocco is allowed to punish you if he happens to be in charge of you at the time. But if one of your older brothers are there, then no. Mostly, it will be Alex, Jack and myself in charge of your discipline, and Nick and Rocco only if there is nobody else there. Okay? Tell me what happened to make him slap you."
I took a deep breath and told Damon about the events of that afternoon, smiling when he chuckled at the punishment Rocco had set.
"I think you got off pretty lightly, my girl," Damon said. "Losing your phone for the day and having to shadow Rocco isn't much of a hardship, is it?"
"He slapped me hard!" I insisted, and Damon chuckled again.
"I can see that," he agreed. "But that's what you get when you kick your brothers. I got you boxing bags to take your anger out on, you've got no excuse for being violent to your brothers. If you do, expect to get smacked."
I grumbled, and he smirked at me, then his expression softened and he bent down and kissed my forehead tenderly. I loved it when he did that, it made me feel special. Cherished.
"I need to correct your thinking on something though, Carrie-girl," Damon said. "First of all, you are not a burden and you don't cause problems. I think we've had this conversation before, haven't we? You are our sister, and we all love you and would do anything for you. Since you came back into our lives we've been so much happier. You ask Paul, if you don't believe me. He will tell you."
I nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Secondly, Nick didn't kill anybody because you wore a bikini. He killed a man who tried to rape you - to hurt you. We will kill anyone who hurts you, sweet girl. You wearing a bikini had been taken care of long before Nick enacted our revenge. And finally, we tell you what to wear sometimes because we're your over-protective big brothers, and that's what big brothers do. I'll have a chat to the boys about backing off a bit, but I'm not making any promises. Okay?"
I nodded. "Okay."
"Good." Damon stood up, then took my hand and pulled me up too. "We're going to go back downstairs and finish watching Titanic, then we're going to spend the rest of the day together as a family. Nobody is going anywhere, we're all yours for the rest of the day. And if you want to, I can order us all finger food for dinner and we can eat it in the movie room, as a treat. How does that sound?"
My mouth widened into a smile all by itself and I turned to Damon and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.
"Yes please, thank you!" I said, happily. Just like he always did, my big brother took care of everything and made everything all right in my world once again.
"Will you slide down the banister with me?" I asked Damon, grinning.
He glared at me for a moment and I thought he was going to tell me off, but then he grinned. "Sure, why not." He balanced on the banister, then pointed to the one on the other side of the stairs. "Race you down!"
We took off together, both of us flying down the slippery wooden railing at full speed. I squealed in excitement, laughing at my big brother in his immaculate suit, sliding down the banister just for me.
My toes touched the ground a fraction of a second before his did.
"I won!" I screamed, throwing my hands in the air triumphantly.
"You did, Carrie-girl. Well done."
With that, he picked me up around the waist, spun me around, and then hung me upside down, carrying me dangling like that, squealing with laughter and clinging to his pants legs, into the movie room where he dumped me on the big couch between Alex and Nick.
"Put the movie on brother," Damon said, looking at Rocco. Then he sat down like there was nothing wrong at all. My brothers shook their heads briefly, like they couldn't quite believe what had just happened, and then we finished watching the movie.
Curled up between my brothers, I was content.