by Coralee June
Godfrey got up from the floor, probably because he saw that I was going to run. “Don’t go,” he said, but his voice lacked enthusiasm, like it was killing him to beg. It made me nauseous to hear him so weak. I’d done this to him. I didn’t want to be anything like Pick.
“I want to go home,” I replied. I wanted out of his orbit. Letting my anger out had been a mistake, and looking at Godfrey was like looking in a mirror. Every inch of damage was nothing more than a reflection of what I felt on the inside, and it was killing me. What was wrong with me that I had done that to him and enjoyed it?
“Fine,” he answered before shoving his dick in his pants and standing up. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me for ending things before he got off or for being interrupted.
He stalked over to the door and yanked it open in anger, cursing when he saw the line of people outside waiting to use the bathroom. I adjusted my shirt. “What are you looking at?” Godfrey growled at the gaping girl who was taking in the sight of my cut hair on the floor and his bleeding lip.
“Scarlett Livingston was right,” the girl whispered to her friend while shrinking away. “Godfrey Taylor is a kinky motherfucker.”
Chapter Twenty
Godfrey
My balls felt like they were going to burst. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone said, blue balls weren’t an urban legend that assholes just used to screw a girl. It was a real, painful thing, and if I didn’t come soon, I was going to strangle someone, preferably the bastard that stopped us.
She ran out of the house while I was still zipping up my pants, disappearing into one of her dad’s cars and leaving without so much as a backwards glance. I just stood there on the porch looking like a sappy bastard while drunks walked in and out of Rogue’s house. Seemed the only thing getting fucked tonight was my brain, and maybe even my heart. This whole thing had gone to shit.
Plus, I’d never had such an intense blow job in my life. Seeing her anger and feeling it were two completely different things, and I wanted nothing more than to have her nails scraping down my skin once more.
I felt like shit though. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something triggered her. At first, I thought it was the dick that stopped us, but then I realized it was me. She took one look at my battered body and got spooked. And I was too caught up to realize that I should have reassured her that it was okay. By the time I realized that was what she needed, she’d already run off. We started this game knowing that there would be casualties, and I was more than willing to be her punching bag if it meant I got to feel her wrath, but she obviously didn’t understand.
I went back inside to grab another drink. The only thing that would ease this massive fucking hard-on I had would be a long night of whiskey and wet dreams.
“Where’s Rachel?” Beau’s pussy voice asked, just as his heavy hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around.
I hadn’t even gotten to the cooler yet. Beau was really starting to annoy the fuck out of me. He looked buzzed to hell, and there was a sway in his stance. He gave me a sneer that said just what he thought of me.
The feeling was mutual, buddy.
“She went home, not that it’s any of your fucking business,” I answered coolly before shrugging his hand off. Shit with my dad had taught me how to sense a fight. I could feel the shift in the air, smell the violence seeping from his drunk, sweaty pores. “Maybe if you didn’t have your dick deep in Savannah pussy, you’d know.”
His hair was ruffled, and there were telling bite marks on his neck. I put two and two together and assumed Stephanie sunk her claws into him. I just wished that Rachel could have seen her dear friend acting like an animal in heat.
“What the fuck did you say to me, boy?”
Boy. Boy?
With that one word, my brain flipped a switch, and I felt every damn ounce of my confidence sink down the drain. Suddenly, it wasn’t Rogue’s house we were at anymore, it was my childhood bedroom. And it wasn’t Beau, the poser MC wannabe, standing in front of me, it was my father.
The music cut, or maybe it was my mind, and I looked down at the floor. I fucking hated that I got this way. Fucking hated that I was like a match—one strike and I was burning up with all the bullshit my father drove into me with his iron fists. He taught me early on how he wanted me to submit. Eyes on the floor, shoulders hunched, yes sirs and no sirs, and always taking the fucking hits.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Beau screamed. Or maybe it was my father. Or maybe it was my shitty brain that wanted to relive every worthless interaction I’d ever had.
I lifted my chin just in time to see his fist forming. I flinched right before it hit my jaw, and screams of approval ricocheted throughout the crowd. One hit. Two hits. Three. I didn’t even fight back. Couldn’t bring myself to block him, because if I did that, my father would just hit me more. It was better to just take it. Each blow landed on my face, and I felt my teeth rattle. His fist smashed into my lip, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Blood gushed from my mouth.
I knew it was only a few minutes, but the hits felt like they went on for an eternity. It always felt like eternity. Every last beat down had me wondering if this was it. If this was when he’d finally hit me hard enough to crack my skull, and I’d finally be free of the toxic cycle.
“You just gonna fucking stand there, boy?” he said before landing another punch.
I could feel myself staggering. I wouldn’t be able to stand much longer. Once I was knocked out, it would be over.
“Yes, sir,” I uttered out of pure habit.
I knew the right things to say to my father when he got like this, “I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered.
The hits paused. “What the fuck did you just call me?”
Before I could answer, I was yanked back as the sound of a shrill scream filled the room. “Rachel?” I asked while fighting to come to. I felt like such a pussy.
“It’s Scarlett, Godfrey,” the voice murmured in my ear as I felt small hands on me. “Shit, why didn’t you defend yourself?”
More screams sounded, and I tried to feel like myself, tried to wear the mask of confidence that was the only thing keeping me alive most days, but I couldn’t. Scar started crying, and I felt one of her tears land on my cheek. Everything was blurry, impairing my vision, my face swelling up from the hits.
“Rogue’s kicking his ass. Want me to tell him to stop?” she asked on a sob before pushing my hair out of my face.
“No,” I finally answered. “Make him bleed.”
Luis clapped me on the back with a grin, making me sway on my feet. “That’s the spirit.”
My mind was still in a fog, and Luis must’ve noticed, because I saw him nod over his shoulder, and then someone—probably Bonham—tossed him a set of keys. “Let’s go, pretty boy,” he said, steering me away. “I think you’ve riled up the party enough.”
Phones followed us as Luis pulled me through the crowd. He cussed a few of them out in both Spanish and English, and even in my fucked up state, I appreciated his colorful vocabulary. I was fairly certain that he threatened to shove a pepper so far up someone’s ass, they’d have spicy anal for the rest of their lives.
Luis practically tossed me onto the passenger seat of his Porsche, and I slumped against the leather, putting the seat all the way back. I tentatively touched my lip, not to feel what that bastard Beau had done, but to see if I could still feel where Rachel had bitten me first. Just remembering the way she’d sucked my bottom lip between her teeth—that look of power and lust—that look could rule a man.
“Where we going, G?” Luis asked as he drove.
“I’ve been crashing at Rogue’s, but I need clothes from my house,” I mumbled.
I saw him glance over at me, one hand at the top of his steering wheel while his other hand rested out of his rolled down window. “What if he’s home?”
I shook my head. “He’s not. His office manager sends me his schedule. He’s in the Caribbean with his red-heade
d mistress. Or maybe it was Brunette Barb?” I frowned in thought. “Either way, it’s one of them. He took blonde Margie somewhere last month, so it can’t be her.”
Luis snorted under his breath. “Fucker keeps a variety of chicks like Neapolitan ice cream.”
The light from the lamp posts along the street sent a needle right into my already pounding head, so I closed my eyes. Luis filled the silence with hip-hop and a story about how he fucked some emo chick against the gym lockers before spring break. I wasn’t even sure if it was true. With Luis, you could never really tell. He could be sarcastic, and he could be serious, and sometimes, he’d fill the silence just because he knew it was needed.
“Dude, the lights are on,” he said, and I forced my eyes open.
I put my seat up and looked out the window just as he parked the car in front of my house. The place wasn’t as massive as Rogue’s, but it was still garishly large. Big gate, big white pillars, big house with big rooms. So big, and it all felt fucking empty inside.
Sure enough, lights were burning through the windows, spilling out from at least a half a dozen rooms. I frowned. “He must’ve come back early. Let’s just go,” I said.
He started to pull away when my eyes caught on something. “Wait. Fuck.”
Luis didn’t even have the car stopped fully before I’d thrown open my door and started sprinting towards the front door. It was ajar, and only when Luis had started to pull out of the circular driveway had I been able to see inside.
All it took was one glimpse of my father’s raised hand and a flash of blonde hair to figure out what was happening inside. I ran up the front steps and shoved the door all the way open, letting it bang open against the wall. Someone was screaming, but all I could focus on was my father’s fist as I caught it before he could land his next blow down on my mother.
I caught his hand, shoving my body between them, and my mother fell to the floor behind me. My father’s eyes were cold and dead. He wasn’t even worked up. That was what always freaked me out the most. My father didn’t hit out of passion or rage. He didn’t become overcome with emotion and lash out. Nope, every blow he rained down was calm and calculated. He didn’t give a shit at all. He was too much of a monster to have feelings that fueled him.
The second he saw that it was me who stood in front of his target, his blue eyes turned even icier. Out of everyone in the family, he had the most apathy for me. I took the brunt of the beatings. When I was younger, he’d tell my mom or my sister to go stand in the hall facing the wall like they were disobedient toddlers. They had to wait in there, sometimes for an hour, until he deigned to go in there and hit them. Even though I was the youngest, as soon as I was seven years old, I started standing in front of them and taking the hits for them. My father didn’t much care either way. As long as punishment was meted out, that’s all he cared about.
So this position I found myself in wasn’t foreign. I’d stepped between him and my mother or sister many times before. But what was different was that this time, I hit the fucker back.
It sounds stupid—fuck, it sounded downright cowardly—but I’d never hit the son of a bitch back. I’d never retaliated before. I’d stepped in so that he didn’t hurt my mom or older sister, sure, but I’d never crossed that line and dished out what he frequently gave. I didn’t even try to go into all the reasons why. Maybe he’d just always fucked with me enough that I was like a beat dog, too scared shitless into forced submission that I didn’t remember I had fangs. It was why, like tonight with Beau, I’d just taken the hits. It was what I’d done my whole goddamn life. My body went into numb mode, like it was gearing up for survival, and I took it.
I wasn’t sure what it was about tonight that made me snap. Maybe it was because I’d already taken enough fists for the night. Maybe it was Scarlett’s voice asking why I hadn’t fought back. Or maybe it was all the rage and fear I felt about my father and Eddie wanting Rachel dead. Whatever it was, the next thing I knew, my fist was connecting with his face, snapping his head to the side and making him stagger back.
I think it was my father’s look of shock that made me falter. He hunched over, touching his cheekbone, feeling the spot that was already turning red. His cold eyes looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that I was eighteen years old, went to the school gym every morning with the guys, and could easily beat the ever loving shit out of him. To be fair, I’d never made him notice. I’d been a doormat my entire life, and he’d dragged the soles of his shoes over me until I was scraped raw.
“Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Her.”
I was breathing hard, my finger raised to his face, my whole body shaking. He didn’t look the least bit impressed. He just straightened up, fixed his fucking collar, and then backhanded me across the face.
My head snapped to the side, but before I could launch myself at him, my sister was there, pulling me away. “No, Godfrey! Don’t!”
Royal was six years older than me, but she was a good four inches shorter and petite like our mom. Still, when she latched onto my arm, begging me to stop, I listened. Her eyes dripped with fear, splashing teardrops onto my sleeve where she held me. With my attention on her, I caught sight of Luis helping my mom to prop herself up against the wall, her lip bloody and her eye swollen. My sister too had an obvious handprint on her arm from where my father must’ve grabbed her. It looked like no one in the Taylor family was going to be left unmarked tonight.
With my eyes back on my father, who still stood in front of me like he didn’t have a care in the world, I said, “Luis, take my mom and sister to your car.”
Luis didn’t ask questions or hesitate. He was up, leading my sobbing mother outside before she could even begin to protest. “I’m staying,” Royal said stubbornly, and even though she did it to support me, I needed to protect her, and that meant getting her out of this house.
Careful not to hurt her bruised arm, I grabbed her and pulled her out of the foyer and through the front door. “I’m not leaving you here with him alone,” she hissed at me, even as I dragged her down the steps.
“Yes, you are. I can handle him,” I said.
“It looks like he already fucking handled you,” she snapped, motioning at my face.
“This isn’t from him,” I said as I sat her in the front passenger side of Luis’s car. He was getting my mother settled in the back, talking about God knows what to try to distract her enough to get her to stop crying. “Luis will get you guys somewhere to stay for the night. I’ll deal with Dad. Don’t fucking come back here. I mean it, Royal. Stay away from him.”
My sister snorted and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks. “Yeah, right. We can never stay away from him, no matter how far we try to get out of Savannah,” she said bitterly. “We’ll never be rid of him, Godfrey.”
No. I guess we wouldn’t.
Not unless I did something about it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Godfrey
“We’ll never be rid of him, Godfrey.”
My sister’s words spun like a cyclone that sucked the life out of me and blew me off my feet. Not because I was surprised at what she’d said, but because she was right.
I watched Luis drive away with my sister and mom, waiting until they were safely on the road before turning back to look at the mansion I hated, housing the man I loathed.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out, seeing a text from Rogue flash across the screen.
Rogue: Luis told me. I’m on my way.
I didn’t fucking deserve my friends.
Slipping it back into my pocket, I walked back to the front door, determined to get my shit and be out of there by the time Rogue got there. My father headed me off before I could even make it over the threshold.
“So. Gerald Godfrey Taylor the Fourth finally grew some balls, hmm?” he taunted, standing at the foot of the stairs and itching to put me back in my place. “I’ve been wondering if you’d ever fight back,” he said, his c
alculating eyes taking in my beat up face. “Looks like you didn’t fight back very well earlier,” he added with a sneer. I wasn’t sure if he liked seeing me bloodied and bruised, or if he was mad he didn’t get to do it himself.
“Why are you home?” I asked. I never asked. Never questioned his motives or tried to call him out on his shit. It felt damn good to hold my own and not bend. Maybe Beau was the last straw. Maybe I was borrowing a bit of the fire from Rachel’s eyes to finally stop letting him keep me under his heel.
“Your sister got kicked out of her nursing stint for Doctors Without Borders. Your mother brought her here without consulting me first or informing me of what happened, and I canceled my trip to show them what happens when you tarnish the Taylor family name. She got caught fucking a married doctor and didn’t show up to work when she was supposed to.”
I had to bite back a sigh because I wasn’t surprised. Royal was always a free spirit, going wherever her heart and—as disgusting as it is to say it—her libido called her. When she first graduated high school, she’d wanted to travel through Europe and take photography classes. My father shot that down with a slap across her face. She definitely hadn’t wanted to join a nursing program and then be shipped off to a third world country to stick vaccines into people, but my father had forced her to do that too, because he said we needed someone to appear altruistic in the family.
The only thing Royal liked about being in Ecuador was being far away from our father. If my mom would’ve had any choice, she would’ve run along with her. The most my mom could get was visits a few times a year. But if Royal was coming back to Savannah, that meant that I would need to handle things with my father much more quickly.
“So now you’re worried about our family sleeping around with married people?” I shot back at him. “Last I checked, you have a certain taste for women with rings on their left hand.”
He had more notches in his bedpost than I could count. I didn’t think he’d ever been faithful to my mother, even before they were married. But talking back to him was a dangerous game. I was pressing too hard. The only reason he hadn’t lunged for me and rammed my skull into the marble floors yet was because he was probably curious to see how far I’d go. That, and our maid was off for the weekend. He hated cleaning up blood. Ironic, since he usually spilled it. No wonder he always sent me and the other Heirs to clean up his messes when blackmailing witnesses went bad.
