“I see that.”
But she was out again. I wrapped an arm around her, holding her close to me. Did I feel guilt over what I would do to her, to her sister? I would destroy Guardia Winery to punish her grandfather. I knew it meant I would destroy her in the process. I had no doubt my promise not to leave her on the street didn’t absolve me.
How ironic, how parallel our lives seemed. How strangely the same. Our paths didn’t merely cross. They moved along exactly the same path. What her grandfather had precipitated, the loss that had killed my mother, I would repeat it. I would repeat history knowingly. I would set fire to the Guardia lands. Obliterate the vineyard and the Guardia name.
I fell asleep to these thoughts running through my mind, and the nightmare I’d had a thousand times before was different this time. I knew it by the way it began, knew it as I choked on the smoke, trying in vain to reach her, knowing I’d be too late.
I was always too late.
This time, the house was different.
This time, there were no sirens, only the sound of fire and destruction in an already destroyed house. This time, when I reached the bedroom and pounded on the door and heard her inside, I knew it was too late, knew what I heard was her dying.
And this time, when I broke the door down, it wasn’t my mother’s charred body I found. It wasn’t hers at all.
I shot up in bed, breathing hard, sweat covering me. My eyelids flew open, banishing sleep, leaving only the carcass of this version of the nightmare that had been repeating for six years. I looked over at Sofia beside me, who somehow still slept.
Would she be the Sleeping Beauty who would turn to ash this time?
Would it be me to strike that match and set the fire?
Who else but me who would destroy her?
I told her I wouldn’t be a beast to her, but wasn’t that my intention all along? Wasn’t her destruction central to this plot of vengeance? Wasn’t it in motion now, fully in play, after that change her grandfather had made to the contract?
I was a monster. I knew that. But to destroy her?
Her?
While my mind warred, she lay sleeping, oblivious and unconscious beside me. She held such a strange power over me.
Why couldn’t I hate her? I was supposed to fucking hate her.
I got out of bed, angry and irritated and frustrated as fuck, and went downstairs, through the kitchen, taking old faithful—my favorite bottle of whiskey—with me. I didn’t bother with a glass. Didn’t need one. I knew where I was going. To that hated place.
Still no fucking lock on the door. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t chance not being able to get in there.
I opened the cellar door, the smell already taking me back years and years.
Was this a twisted sanctuary of sorts? A tangled, dark thing, one I couldn’t escape, one I dreaded that drew me back time and time again?
I drank gulps of whiskey as I made my way down the stairs. No lights tonight. I didn’t need them. I knew every inch of the place, and the two small windows at the top of the one wall let in enough moonlight. It fucking highlighted the whipping post, as if it were a spotlight shining on the thing.
I drew back the cover of the first table, letting it fall to the ground. A spider crawled away, its long legs delicate on the worn leather. Whips lay all coiled as if waiting for their turn. They wouldn’t get it, though. Never again. Not on my back.
For a long time, I stood looking at them. I knew the feel of each one and flinched at the remembered pain.
The whippings only took place at night. Always after I’d gone to bed. Maybe I was still conditioned to wake up at the same time as those nights. I think he liked it. Liked knowing I slept with dread, never sure if I’d be shaken awake and dragged to this place to be punished for sins I didn’t even know. I don’t even think it mattered to him whether or not I’d done anything. Whether or not any of us had.
I drank again, swallowing half the bottle this time. My throat burned, but I didn’t care. I needed it. I needed that burn as I reached out and touched the long fine leather of one of the whips, the one he’d used the most. Without thinking, I wrapped my hand around the braided handle. It was worn, the sweat from his exertion a part of the thing now. Lubricating it. Keeping it supple even years later.
When I drew my arm back, I watched, transfixed, as leather slowly uncurled like a snake. I snapped my arm back, cracking it on the floor, flinching with the sound, a thing I could never forget. Memory made my back tense in its attempt to protect itself.
I drank more of the whiskey. Then, keeping the bottle at my side, I turned my attention to the whipping post. It, too, was worn in places. The carvings were softened where flesh had hugged it time and time again. I drew my arm back and struck it, heard the sound of leather wrapping around wood, remembered how the tail would circle back as if each stroke would count for two.
As if the leather itself were greedy. Ruthless.
But what did it feel like for him? To stand here behind me, or behind her, hearing our cries, seeing our pain, watching blood slide down our backs. What did he feel to stand here and hold all that power? To be master of our pain? What?
“Raphael.”
Her voice broke the silence of the room. Disrupted the chaos of my mind.
I knew she’d come.
“I want to know,” I said, looking at the worn wood, as if she’d heard my thoughts, and I was just continuing the conversation. “I want to know what it felt like for him.”
When I did finally shift my gaze to her, I found her standing at the bottom of the stairs barefoot, my T-shirt hanging to midthigh, her arms wrapped around herself. She watched me, her gaze veering to the post, the whip, to my white-knuckled fist around the handle.
“Are you drinking?” she asked.
I realized I still held the bottle in my other hand and brought it to my mouth, draining it, then sent it smashing against the far wall.
Sofia jumped.
I faced her, took a step toward her. Then another.
“Come here,” I said.
“Put the whip down,” she said.
“I like holding it. I like how it feels.”
“No. You don’t.”
“I do. I really do.”
“What happened tonight? Why are you down here? It’s after one in the morning.”
“Come here.”
She eyed the whip and shook her head.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She studied me, her forehead furrowing a little. “No.”
A lie.
“Then come to me.”
It took her twice the steps it should have to cross the space between us.
“Did you undress me? I woke up naked.”
I nodded and touched the curve of her waist, bunched up the T-shirt in my fist, and pulled her to me. “I like you naked.” I snaked my fist around behind her, holding her to me, and leaned down to kiss her.
One of her hands wrapped around my shoulder, the other clutched the wrist that held the whip, keeping my arm at my side.
Her lips trembled a little, betraying her caution.
Drawing her closer, I pressed my face into her hair, inhaling the scent of shampoo. I closed my eyes and breathed deep. “I want to feel it,” I whispered against her ear. “It’s sick, isn’t it?”
The hand that had circled my shoulder now moved to my face. She looked at me with pity in her eyes.
I hated pity. I fucking hated it.
I wanted it gone.
And it was, in the next instant. I felt my face change, my eyes darken, and knew the moment she processed the change because fear replaced that pity.
To be pitiful was to be weak. I would not be weak. I’d decided that the night I’d killed him.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Sofia. I accept myself as I am.”
“No, Raphael. This isn’t how you are. It’s not what you want…you shouldn’t drink...”
I released her and stepped over to the post, laying
my hand on it for the first time in years. I remembered the ridges, knew them intimately.
Sofia reached out to take my hand, the one that held the whip, and walked behind me. When the fingers of her other hand traced the scars on my back, I flinched, tightening every muscle. She stopped moving but didn’t pull away. With an exhale, I bowed my head, my hand turning into a fist on the post.
She followed each line, her touch like a feather. She saw everything. She saw me. And I let her. I stood there, and I let her. And only after she’d acknowledged every scar did she pull away. It was only for a moment, and I remained as I was. When I felt her breath on me, her lips on my back, kissing me softly, kissing scar tissue, I shuddered.
When I turned, she straightened. She stood naked. She’d stripped off the T-shirt. Her nipples tightened in the cool cellar air. I looked at them, at her. And when I took her and turned her so she stood with her back to the post, she let me. Even though her gaze warily skimmed the whip, she let me.
Kissing her, I drew her wrists up over her head and secured them in the shackles.
She made a sound, a breath escaping. It was that sound—that and the look in her eyes—that betrayed her fear. I stood back to take her in, saw how she stood on tiptoe, trying to slide her wrists from the irons. My cock hardened at the sight of her there, bound to the post, naked and mine.
At my mercy.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
She shook her head, but it wasn’t convincing. I smiled and cracked the whip at my side. She jumped and let out a small scream.
“I think you are,” I said.
“You won’t hurt me,” she managed, her voice shaky.
“I don’t know that you believe that.” I walked around the post. She followed me with her eyes. “You’re taking a chance, Sofia.”
“You want to feel what it’s like to whip someone? To hurt someone who is helplessly bound and unable to fight you?”
“Sick, right?”
She didn’t reply. I stood in front of her. Her gaze fell briefly to my briefs, to my cock pressing like a steel bar, before she dragged it back to mine.
“You’re not like him,” she said.
“Isn’t this evidence enough of how sick I am?” I asked, gesturing to my erection.
“I don’t care. You’re not your father, Raphael. Whatever you think, however sick you think you are, you’re not. You need to let the past go.”
“Maybe I need to feel it first. Feel what it’s like.” My voice came out tight, and it was hard to swallow. It took a long time before I said the last part. “Maybe I need to hurt someone first.”
Her eyes searched mine, and tears like two delicate crystal drops slid down her cheeks.
“Turn around and hug the post, Sofia.”
Her teeth began to chatter, and more tears followed. My cock ached. In one step, I was on her, gripping the back of her head, taking a handful of hair, and tugging it back to force her face up. I crushed my mouth over hers. She whimpered, kissing me back, weeping fully now, almost frantically, the kiss desperate as if with her lips alone, she would cling to me.
I slid the whip handle between her legs, and she let out a scream. But when I squeezed her cunt, it was wet, her clit swollen. I looked down at her, exhaling before taking her mouth again.
“You’re wet,” I groaned, grinding myself against her.
“I want you,” she said, leaning her face forward when I pulled back. “Make love to me.”
No. Now wasn’t the time for lovemaking. And I didn’t like her using sex to manipulate me.
I turned her roughly so she faced the pole, then pushed my briefs down and off. She pushed her ass into me.
I groaned with need, burying my face in her hair, imagining her tight pussy around my cock, smelling her scent, her skin so close. “I wasn’t the only one,” I said like it was a confession, pinching her nipple before gripping that handful of hair again and turning her head, kissing her tearstained cheek, finding her mouth.
“Raphael—”
“He whipped my mother too. I don’t know how long he’d been doing it.”
She shook her head.
“How long she kept it a secret.”
I pressed the whip against Sofia’s cunt. I wanted to fuck her. God, I wanted to bury my fucking cock inside her, but I couldn’t. Not yet. “If I’d just let him beat me…if I hadn’t fought back, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt her.”
She craned her neck and looked at me, hearing me. And maybe I heard myself for the first time, because to say it out loud, to hear it, fuck. I knew the guilt I felt. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t something I buried. But to say it out loud? To another human being? To Sofia?
I shook my head, pulling back, gripping the whip hard. “Hug the post, Sofia.”
“It’s not your fault.”
She tugged frantically at her restraints. They’d hold her tight, though. I knew that.
“What he did, Raphael, it’s not your fault.”
“Hug the fucking post!” I roared, raising the whip.
She screamed and turned, wrapping her forearms and legs around the thing as best she could, and she wept and begged and fuck, God knows what she said. What words she muttered, because I couldn’t hear them. Not anymore. All I could do was watch her cling to the post, watch her trembling body as she waited for me to whip her. All I could do was see her.
See myself in her.
See fear.
Feel it.
Feel her terror.
And it reminded me, took me back so many years.
And it made me falter, and I hated that it made me fucking falter.
I couldn’t be weak.
I wouldn’t.
A sound came from me, something foreign and full, like glass breaking into a thousand shards. Shattering. Damaged beyond repair.
That was me. That was what I was. A wrecked monster. A killer. A hateful, vengeful beast.
Sofia craned her neck, her wet eyes meeting mine, the terror inside them slicing me again. As if that were even possible anymore. There wasn’t anything left to hurt.
My throat tight, I went to her, hugging her back, prying her from the post.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning her, holding her. I buried my face in her hair and kept saying it, kept repeating the words, holding her so tight, so fucking tight.
I reached up, my hands fumbling as I undid the restraints. I expected her to pull away. To run from me. It’s what she should have done. But instead, her arms wrapped around my neck and, still weeping, her tears salty on my lips, she kissed me, hugging me with all her strength, clinging to me like she had that post when I’d scared the fuck out of her. When I’d been moments from lashing her back, hurting her like I’d been hurt, scarring her like I was scarred.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Make love to me,” she said against my lips, our bodies never separating, never apart.
I lifted her, using the post at her back as I slid her onto my cock, still fucking hard after all this.
Our eyes locked, our lips touched, and I thrust into her.
She sucked in a breath, and I knew it hurt her. She was too tight. Too small to take me. But I wanted it. I wanted her. Like this. Fuck. I needed it.
“Harder.”
For me? Did she know what I needed? Did she need it too?
I did it again, thrusting again, and again, and my cock swelled and her pussy tightened and she gripped me with all her strength, and when her walls squeezed and pulsed around me, I watched her, watched her eyes close, watched her lip disappear between her teeth, and I emptied inside her, buried deep, leaving something behind, some ancient part of me, almost as if it left me physically.
Chapter Seventeen
Sofia
I woke up in Raphael’s arms. I didn’t move and tried to keep my breathing level. What in hell had happened last night? How close had I come to being whipped? I knew he’d needed that scene—that insane scene—to happen. He coul
dn’t tiptoe around the past any longer. Maybe coming back here, maybe subconsciously, he’d sought the confrontation because without it, there could be no relief. I hoped that last night was his victory over the demons that haunted him. I hoped that last night, he’d banished them to the hell in which they belonged.
What kind of childhood had he had?
What kind of guilt did he carry on his shoulders?
He’d told me he’d protected his brothers from his father, and I understood he took whippings to save them. What he’d said last night, though, had his father—once Raphael was too big to beat—had he turned his rage on Raphael’s mother?
What a beast. What a monster.
I looked up at my husband’s sleeping face. It was the first time I’d seen him like this. The first time I was able to watch him without being watched myself. And for all his hardness, for all those sharp edges, to see him like this, his face quiet, there was a softness to him. An innocence he hid so well in his waking hours.
I knew he was beautiful. That wasn’t a question. Thick dark hair and tanned olive skin, and bones a model would kill for. But even without that, even if he were ugly, that innocence inside him, that damaged little boy still buried there, it made me want to shield him, protect him from his monsters.
He slept holding on to me, and his arm weighed a ton on my side. I shifted a little, unable to resist lightly touching the scruff of hair on his jaw. I wondered if Lina was awake. She had to be and was probably waiting for me.
Raphael blinked, a blue that didn’t fit with his coloring flashing beneath heavy dark lashes. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Almost eleven?”
He turned to me, and his face grew grave. It was like watching him remember.
“Are you…okay?”
I smiled and touched his face again. “Yes.”
We hadn’t showered when we’d come upstairs last night. He hadn’t allowed it, wanting to hold me instead. The room smelled of sex.
“I need a shower,” I said. “My sister is probably waiting, wondering where I am.”
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