Текст книги "Pretty When You Cry "

Автор книги: Skye Warren

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Chapter Seventeen

I wake up back in my bedroom to the sound of knocking. I only vaguely remember leaving his room and wandering through the third floor. There were so many of them. I actually got lost again, confused about which floor I was on—expecting to circle back to where I started only to discover new rooms. Ivan was nowhere to be seen, so when I found my bedroom again, I took a shower, fingers careful against tender skin, and then climbed into bed.

Voices drift up the stairs, and I force myself to sit. The room spins for only a few minutes, and then I gingerly place my bare feet on the cool wood floor. I find my clothes in the dresser, along with some new things I know I didn’t buy—a pink dress with a white pinafore. I finger the silky-smooth fabric, a strange pang of longing in my chest. He must have ordered Luca or someone else to get my clothes from my apartment. That means I won’t be returning for a while—probably never.

I’m limping by the time I make it down the stairs. Ivan fucked me with the intent of hurting me, and he succeeded. Through the open door, Blue’s low voice confers with Ivan, while Lola shoots questions at them both. Why didn’t you call me when you found her? Was she okay? She might have needed me.

Bless her.

Somehow she took it into her head that we were friends, years ago. She started caring about me, and then I couldn’t help but care back. I tried to be like Ivan, cold and ruthless. At sixteen, cast out and alone, it had seemed like a romantic ideal I could try to reach.

Try and fail, anyway.

I care about Lola. I care about the rest of the girls. I even care about the Grand, which is a building.

And most of all I care about Ivan.

Luca is standing in the hallway a few feet away from the entryway. A respectful distance, but one where he can still hear everything. He watches me approach in silence, taking in my limp.

“What a good guard dog,” I purr when I get close.

His eyes are hooded. “Did he hurt you?”

He already knows the answer to that. “Why, are you going to defend my honor?”

That earns me a dire look before he stares straight ahead.

The room falls silent as I step into the doorway. I straighten, hoping to hide my soreness. Ivan’s gaze finds me first, snapping to me as if he knew I’d been there. He looks like he usually does, rough but well crafted, his tailored suit caressing his powerful body. I would never have imagined those scars underneath, such a smooth veneer covering a rough underground. It mirrors the flash bang of Tanglewood itself, covering up a gritty underworld. Ivan stares at me, and I stare back—both of us reeling, I think, from what we did last night. What we shared. I gave him my virginity and he gave me honesty, but I think his gift was greater.

Lola breaks the silence, rushing across the room and flinging her arms around me. “Oh my God, we were so worried about you. Ivan called us when you went missing.”

I aim for a smile. “You know me. I always land on my feet.”

The worry in her wide brown eyes doesn’t fade in the slightest. “What happened last night?”

My stomach flips. I’m guessing she doesn’t know I tried to leave for good. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so happy to see me now. Something tells me I won’t be able to evade these questions for long. They want answers. Ivan will want answers.

I need to be seated for this. I’m already swaying on my feet.

Lola notices immediately and guides me to the sofa. “Candy. What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

I feel a little sick, thinking of telling them the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. The lingering soreness between my legs doesn’t even register in the face of this.

Blue is watching me with a hawklike expression, not missing a thing. I’m guessing he can see how I’m moving stiffly too. And Ivan…is Ivan. Stone-faced. Unreadable.

It’s like being in love with a statue.

Blue clears his throat. “Candy, I’m taking this threat against the Grand very seriously. We all are. We’re working closely with the police department, but we’re also conducting our own investigation.” His expression turns wry. “As you can imagine, it would be helpful if we could find him first.”

First? If they found whoever did this, the police department never would. They’d just find an anonymous body in the river six months later.

“The blood?” I whisper.

“Sheep’s blood,” Blue answers grimly.

I should feel relief. At least it wasn’t a person who had to die for that. But all I feel is dread, because there are sheep on Harmony Hills. He’d have easy access to it…

Blue comes to sit in the chair near the sofa. Lola is on my side, probably for support. I feel caged in, tensed. There’s nowhere to run. I don’t imagine Luca would let me leave anyway. “Ivan says you have a guess as to who’s doing this,” Blue says.

Ivan remains standing, leaning against a hutch, arms crossed. He doesn’t move in any way to acknowledge Blue’s words. He doesn’t even acknowledge me—just stares into my eyes.

I look down. Shit.

“Little one,” he says softly. I’d know that voice anywhere. I hear it in my dreams.

His cold facade cracks for just a second, letting me see inside. To how much he needs me to do this. To how much he cares about the Grand and the girls who work there. To how much he trusted me, that he called Blue to get this information from me—even though Ivan doesn’t want to believe it’s connected to my past. He doesn’t love me, and after what I saw of his body last night and how hard he fucked me, I think he even resents me. But he trusted me enough for this.

I take a deep breath. “I think the person doing this…might be from my past. From where I was before I got to the Grand. It’s a place called Harmony Hills. From the outside, it’s a farming community.”

“And from the inside?” Blue prods gently.

Lola hugs my arm tighter, a silent and strong witness.

I close my eyes. “From the inside, it’s a religion. Everything, from where you sleep and how much you eat is determined by how…by how sinful you are.”

The room has grown deathly quiet, almost as if the house itself is listening. It’s that stillness that allows me to go on. “People don’t get to leave. It’s not a choice. If someone thinks about leaving and people find out, they’ll disappear. Not take their stuff and leave, they’ll just…disappear.”

Lola’s face is solemn. “Why didn’t they get caught?”

“It’s really isolated. Far away from any city and they’re mistrusting of outsiders to an extreme. We’re told the world is a bed of sin, that the only salvation can be found by turning our backs to it.”

Blue raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on that. “You think someone from there is doing this?”

“Someone in particular. I mean, I don’t know if he’s doing it by hand, but nothing happens from the church without Leader Allen ordering it to be done. He’s the voice of God.”

The silence that follows is thick, and I realize that I didn’t qualify my statement. I didn’t say he’s the voice of God for those people. I just said he’s the voice of God. My face heats in a blush. “Sixteen years of indoctrination is hard to lose,” I say weakly.

Ivan’s voice is soft but unmistakable. “How did you get out?”

“My mother. She was—” This will be the hardest part. I can already feel my throat closing up. I clench my hands together. Lola puts her hand on top, warm reassurance. “She was his whore. She had been a prostitute on the outside. When she got pregnant with me, she went to Harmony Hills so that Leader Allen could…could save her soul.”

“Why did she send you away?” Blue asks. “Did she grow disillusioned with the teachings?”

“No. I don’t think so.” I shiver against the ancient shame. Thousands of men have seen my naked body, have lusted after me, but all of that can’t erase the filth of Leader Allen’s dark lusts. “I think she saw the way he was looking at me.”

Lola makes a strangled sound of outrage.

“She didn’t even try to go with me. Maybe she believed what Leader Allen said about women being…evil. About leading men to temptation.” My laugh is hollow. “Maybe she wanted to save Leader Allen’s soul.”

Blue’s eyes are shrewd. “Why do you think they’re responsible for the messages?”

I meet Ivan’s gaze from across the room, and the fury there lends me strength. “That’s the stuff he’d always talk about in his sermons, how God had sent down shepherds to guide us. How he had to handle the stray sheep so they wouldn’t lead the rest of us to sin. I know it’s a common enough theme in religion. It might not be connected to them, but…”

This is where my voice cracks, and I stare at my lap, unable to go on. I’ve already told them more than I’ve told anyone. This last part, it will break me.

The sofa cushions shift, and Lola moves away from me. They’re leaving, I realize distantly. But then Ivan’s hands are lifting me, his arms around me. He pulls me onto his lap, the way I was the night in the dining room. Except I had crawled into his lap that time. This time he put me here—and in front of Lola and Blue too.

I look up at him, and I know the questions are plain in my eyes. His expression is severe but not unkind. “Finish it,” he says softly.

He might only be giving me this comfort to get the information out of me. A man like him could be that ruthless. I don’t care. I soak up his warmth and his strength, curling myself into a tight ball and pressing harder into him.

“A week before my mother sent me away, Leader Allen called me into his room for private prayers. He had done that before. Usually he talked about my mother, told me she was a sinner, that there was a demon inside her, that we should both pray for her soul so she didn’t wind up burning for eternity.”

Ivan strokes my hair, almost absently. I’m not sure he knows he’s doing it.

“This time…this time was different. He asked me if I was serious about shaking off the shackles of sin, if I was willing to do what it took to fight evil. He said it would be hard and scary, that only a true disciple could survive it.”

He did more than just talk to me that day. He touched me, only outside my robes. It was enough. Enough to change the look in his eyes from a suggestion to a promise. And it would have escalated quickly if my mother hadn’t sent me away. I always wondered how she knew that it had gotten worse, if somehow she saw him with me that day. That she might have seen us is more shameful to me than the act itself—and for that reason I don’t tell Blue and Lola. I don’t tell Ivan. They don’t need to know about that detail. It would only enrage them, and it wouldn’t bring us any closer to finding the culprit.

I open my eyes, startled to meet Blue’s gaze. Of the three people in this room, I’m the least close to him. Lola is my best friend, and Ivan is my lover. Even Luca, standing outside the door, is like a brother to me. Though Blue worked at the Grand, we were never close.

I still see murder in his eyes as I describe something I now understand to be a form of grooming. It sickens me, because back then I hadn’t seen anything wrong.

All I had wanted to do was please Leader Allen.

The very worst thing is that even though part of me understood the look in his eyes, part of me knew what he would ask of me, I had been willing to give that too. Anything to please him.

Just like my mother had been.

“He said that other people wouldn’t understand, that they were not adhering to the word of God. So we could…we could never tell them what we did. I hadn’t talked much during these sessions, but I had asked him then, why didn’t the sinners outside Harmony Hills read the Bible. He told me that some of them didn’t care, that they were disciples of the devil. But he said that some of them, they did care, but they were following false prophets, misinterpreting the scriptures.”

My hands curl into the soft fabric of Ivan’s shirt, needing that anchor. He tightens his hold around me.

“He told me that one day, with my help, the people would find their path to God. He said that’s why he needed me so much. He said…he said, ‘So there will be one flock, one shepherd.’”

Lola sucks in a breath. “John 10:16.”

“And the other one, he didn’t quote it exactly, but it would be hard to think of a member of his flock who went more astray than I have.” I manage a wry smile. “I kind of made it my life’s mission for a while there.”

“Find out everything you can,” Ivan says to Blue. “I want any information the police have on disappearances or criminal activity. I want financial records. Everything.”

Blue nods. “I’ll find out if any of his flock have been taking trips recently.”

“They won’t leave a paper trail. If they’ve evaded the cops this long, they know how to be careful. Besides, we already know that whoever’s fucking with the Grand is good. That’s why we haven’t found any trace of him.”

“What should we do?” Luca asks. “A preemptive strike? Hit them and then they’ll know not to fuck with us.”

“I have no desire to harm innocent people. And I have no desire to hit a hornet’s nest when I have my own snake to deal with at home. No, we find out if they are involved before we move on them.”

Luca narrows his eyes. “But if they’ve covered their tracks that well…”

Ivan’s eyes glitter. “I’ll find out if they were involved, even if I have to go there myself to do it. And if they are, I’ll rip them apart.”

Chapter Eighteen

For most of my life I’ve been torn by guilt. Guilt over the demons inside me. Guilt over my gender, my body, my desire. Being born a girl marked me as evil, according to the teachings of Harmony Hills. Even though I’ve been gone for years, I’ve never been able to shake the sense of shame.

I find Ivan in his study. His desk in the Grand is carved wood, contrasting with the stark concrete basement. His desk at home is just the opposite, an industrial construct of slate and steel set in a wood-shelved library. He sits behind the desk, facing the windows behind him.

Dusk creeps over the city, pushing yellow rays through textured windows. From inside you can’t see the bulletproof glass that protects you from the outside.

Ivan doesn’t look up from the photograph he holds. He doesn’t stir when I put a hand on his shoulder. “May I?”

Wordlessly, he holds out the picture. Blurry shapes form a black-and-white panorama. The silhouette of a man is hidden partially by a hood. He’s raising something up. A paintbrush? The brick wall behind him glistens with blood.

“Is it him?” Ivan asks.

I study the man, but he’s only a shadow here. A suggestion. “I can’t tell. I’m sorry.”

Ivan just stares at the windows, chin cupped loosely in his hand. “He never looked at the cameras. Never paused or stumbled, even though it was pitch-black in that alley.”

A knot forms in my throat as I stare at the shadow. “Leader Allen would have called that divine intervention.”

The suggestion of a smile ghosts over Ivan’s lips. “I was thinking inside job.”

“Oh.” Embarrassment washes over me. Of course. That’s how ingrained those teachings are, how unshakable their hold. Dismay tightens its band around my chest as I think about what he said. I don’t want to imagine anyone at the Grand could have betrayed it. “Who are you thinking of?”

“West is new.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

One eyebrow rises. “Do you know that for sure?”

I look down. The floor is made of thin wooden planks that form diamond shapes. “Blue trusts him.”

“Blue could be involved too.”

Worry claws at my throat. “He’s with Lola.”

A soft laugh. “That doesn’t make him innocent.”

I can’t bear to think Blue is involved, because it would mean Lola isn’t safe. As the owner of the security company, he has complete access to the club. None of the girls would be safe. “Don’t you trust anyone?”

“No,” he says gently. “No one.”

And I know he isn’t talking about West or Blue. He’s telling me that he can’t trust me. That he can’t be with me, not how I want him to, and my heart gives a hard pang.

“There’s something else,” he adds. “Bianca never came back to work after her sudden day off.”

Dread is a deep well inside me, swallowing me whole. “No. I mean it. No. One of the girls would never do this, would never help someone like this.”

“Money is a powerful motivator,” Ivan says, emotionless. “Especially to a woman in trouble. Or she might not have known she was helping him until it was too late.”

I think back to everything I knew about Bianca—and all the girls. I can’t believe they would turn against us this way. Not for anything. Leaving is one thing, but putting the rest of us in danger? “She wouldn’t have.”

“Actually…” Ivan turns his chair to face me. “I don’t suspect her. Not that way. I am considering that she might have been the target of this person all along.”

Fear makes my heart beat faster. “That would mean she’s in trouble.”

“It’s been over forty-eight hours since she was last seen, Candy. Trouble isn’t the word.”

The photograph slips from my fingers and floats to the floor. “Stop it. She’s not dead.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?”

“Yes. No! I want you to stop being this cold, emotionless…” I trail off, not sure what I was going to say.

“Monster?” he asks softly, and I flinch. It’s the first reference either of us has made to what happened last night. “What I am can’t be changed. Not even for you. But it has its uses. I can consider all the possible suspects without emotion. Whereas you…”

“What about me?”

“You’re just a little girl,” he says softly.

I lift my chin. “I’m not innocent and I’m not stupid. I know exactly how the world works. I’m a stripper, for crying out loud. A slut. A whore. A demon, just like my mother—”

“Quiet,” he says, so soft I almost don’t hear him. I fall silent immediately, but the tears that stream down my face, they tell the whole story.

The fact that my mother sent me away…I can’t help but feel grateful. I know I couldn’t have escaped any other way. I can’t help but feel angry either, for not coming with me.

For choosing him over me.

“Kneel,” Ivan says, and I know then I wasn’t wrong. I am like my mother, because Leader Allen told her to kneel and she did. I’m the same, obedient until the end.

At least for one man.

I can feel the wooden slats against my shins. I lower my head, ashamed and somehow aroused. God, was this why my mother did it? Some kind of sick lust? Maybe we do have demons inside us.

The toe of his Italian leather shoe nudges my knee. “Wider,” he says.

I spread my knees wider and he leans down to cup my pussy through the jeans. “You’re my little girl,” he says, more seriously than I’ve seen him say anything. His eyes are piercing, sending some message I can’t decipher. It eases something inside me, sloughing off some of the shame, leaving me more naked than before.

“Why?” I whisper.

“Why what?” he asks, his tone patient as he opens the button of my jeans with one hand. His other hand is on my shoulder, brushing his thumb against the pulse in my neck.

“Why do you like me to call you Daddy?”

“Because it makes my cock hard.”

That’s not the real answer. It might be true, but there’s more. “And?”

His hand is warm against my sex, but his gaze—it burns. “Is it so wrong to want to take care of you?”

“No,” I say, dropping my gaze. His hand looks large between my legs, claiming ownership, protective and possessive. “But that doesn’t mean I have to call you Daddy.”

“What should you call me instead? Your boyfriend?”

The word sounds silly when I’m still sore from the way he treated me, my sex throbbing against his palm. It would be far too tame a word to describe him no matter where he touched me. I shake my head.

“Because I want you to trust me,” he says softly. “Trust me to take care of you.”

“The way I never trusted… him.” Leader Allen. I was once a devoted follower. I would have done anything he asked. But I was always afraid of him.

I’m not afraid of Ivan—not as much as I should be. He’s dangerous. Lethal.

“Daddy,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I like to hear you say it. That’s enough reason for me to make you.” He pauses before slipping his hand inside my panties.

I flinch, already expecting the worst. My skin is tender where his fingers are, on the outside, but I know it will be worse inside.

“Shh,” he soothes. “I was hard on you yesterday. This won’t hurt.”

It does hurt when he finds my clit, but it feels good too. I spread my legs wider so he can reach me better, and he nods in approval. His fingers toy with my clit, sliding along either side, dipping into my slit to gather wetness.

“Do you know the story of the minotaur?” he asks, his voice conversational.

It’s a struggle to focus with his hands playing with my sex. The schoolroom at Harmony Hills had taught us almost nothing. We learned about the Bible, as interpreted by Leader Allen, and how to be good, obedient disciples. Only the boys were taught to read and do math. Girls quit school early, and me even earlier. Everyone knew that my mother was Leader Allen’s whore, even if no one said the words out loud. I think everyone knew that I would take her place, too.

I struggle to remember from tutors and textbooks.

“He was…” A gasp interrupts my words as his forefinger slips inside me. “He was half-man. Half-bull. He lived—” Another gasp. “In a maze.”

“That’s right. And every year the cities would send their young men and women—virgins, naturally—as a feast for the minotaur.”

“Until one of the men killed him.”

A strange smile twists his lips. “Well, every story needs a hero.”

“You’re not a monster.”

He ignores me, fingering me deeper. “The thing about the minotaur is that he knows what he is. He can’t pretend to be a human. He can’t pretend to be a bull. He’s trapped in that maze, not by the walls outside it, but by what he is.”

I grab his forearm, feeling the muscles flex. “You’re not a monster, Ivan.”

He adds a second finger, and I squirm. His arm on my shoulder holds me down. “There’s no use pretending he’s something different. He doesn’t even want to. But can you imagine how it would feel to find a sacrifice you wanted to be there? Who begged to stay?”

His fingers speed up, and I rock my hips against them, unable to slow down, unable to stop. “You’re not—You’re not a—”

He pinches my clit, and I soar over the edge, the climax like fierce wind against my face. I close my eyes against the blur and feel tears streak down my cheeks. I fuck his finger, seeking the last breathless rush before I crash at the bottom.

He does up my jeans with deft hands, efficient now.

Wet fingers press into my mouth, and I can only let him in. Only suck to clean him.

“No more questions,” he says softly. “I want you to call me Daddy because I want you to know that when we’re together, I’m the only one who can tell you what to do. And I will always do what’s best for you, even if you don’t like it. I will always give you what you need.”

I shudder, my insides clenching around nothing as my orgasm gives one final pulse. My eyes are wide, lips stretched around his fingers. I nod yes.

“And you’re my little one, because you want to be so good for me, don’t you? You want to be taken care of, cherished and punished. Isn’t that right?”

He removes his fingers from my mouth and leans back, studying me.

“Why didn’t you—”

“What is it?”

I bite my lip. “Why didn’t you want me to call you Daddy last night?”

He had put his hand over my mouth and fucked me into the bed.

He’s watching me from beneath heavy lids. “I didn’t deserve the name last night. I was angry, and I didn’t take care of you.”

We’ve been circling each other for years, teasing each other with bad behavior and punishments. The first time he did it, I had already been living in my own apartment and working at the Grand. I’d shown up for work late, and he’d swatted me over my panties. We’d dared a little further each time, but never going all the way—never actual sex until last night. It had left me unfulfilled and a little afraid, for exactly the reason he said.

I dare to put my hand on his leg, right below his knee. “Please, Daddy. Show me what it would be like with you. When you take care of me.”

Icy lust flashes through his eyes. “I am taking care of you, little one. That little pussy needs time to heal. I’m sure you’re sore today, aren’t you?”

A flush heats my cheeks. Very sore. “I don’t care about that.”

Two hands lift my chin, and I meet his eyes. “I care,” he says softly. “I’m not going to fuck you again until you’re ready to take me. But if you want to please me…”

My body tightens. “Please.”

He cups my cheek. “So pretty. So eager. And such a fuckable little mouth.”

The thing I can never tell anyone—not even Ivan—is that I would have done this no matter what. If I had stayed at Harmony Hills, Leader Allen would have used me this way. He’d groomed me for this purpose my entire life, not just at the end, and that grooming made me who I am. A disciple. A victim. I’d have been on my knees for him. I’d have been a good girl.

The difference is that I chose this. I chose Ivan. He may be a monster, but he’s my monster.

“Take me out,” my monster says.

I fumble with his pants. The button and the zipper are like foreign technology, my fingers suddenly clumsy. He is already hard, but I feel him grow thicker as I work him free. It makes me blush, feeling the effects of my awkward obedience.

The suit pants give way to a soft, stretchy boxer material. I glance up to find him staring right at my face. He isn’t looking at what I’m doing with my hands. He’s studying my reactions, and it makes my heart beat double time. What will he see? Nerves? Excitement?

I don’t know what he wants to see.

The skin of his stomach is hot as I slip my fingers under the waistband of his boxers. His abs are hard, and they ripple at my touch. I pull gently, but the fabric is caught against his erection. I’m afraid to pull very hard, afraid of how much pressure is okay. I have some experience with cocks, touching them, rubbing my ass against them in the club, but that knowledge is limited—and it slides away under the role I’m in. The innocent little girl.

He makes no move to help me or to free himself. He just watches me with an intent curiosity to see what I’ll do next. What I do is use my other hand to grasp his shaft and carefully pull the fabric over his cock. He feels impossibly hard against my palm, silk smoothed over a steel rod. His cock flexes in my hand, and I jerk back, letting him go with a sound of surprise.

“I’m sorry,” I whimper. “It scared me.”

“You’re doing great, little one,” he says soothingly. “You did exactly what I asked you to. Daddy will never get mad at you for that.”

Men like to teach you things. That’s what gets them off.

“What should I do next?”

The amused light in his eyes says he knows exactly what I’m doing. And that he likes it. “Lift up your shirt. I want to see your pretty nipples.”

Instead of obeying him, I cross my hands over my breasts. “What if you don’t like them?”

“Why would you think that?” He seems genuinely curious.

He’s seen them a hundred times already. And the insecurity is completely real because of it. He’s seen them a hundred times and never been overtaken with lust to the point that he had to have me. He’s seen me and rejected me. We’re playing a game where all of this is new—and it is, in a certain way. But in another way it’s the inevitable conclusion to years of foreplay. Both a beginning and an end.

“Because you’ve seen a lot of girls.” It’s a form of torture to be this open, this honest, like needles pressing under my nails. These words are everything I’ve ever feared. “How can I be special?”

He could ruin me with his answer.

He leans forward. “Candace, I’m sure your nipples are as pretty as the rest of you. But they aren’t what make you special.”

I look down, still cupping my breasts, shielding them. “Why then?”

He reaches out and taps my arms, and I let them fall. He cups my breast gently, his thumb fanning over my nipple. It stands up beneath the tank top. He keeps rubbing back and forth until the twinge between my legs grows sharp.

“Because of how sweet you are,” he says softly. “How hard you try to be good for me. Do you know how rare that is? How special? There is no other girl like you, Candace.”

“I’m not,” I say, and it comes out almost on a sob. “I’m not good. I’m always talking back and not listening and—”

“It’s normal for little girls to test their boundaries, to push them. That doesn’t make you bad. But you always come back to me, don’t you? And you always take your punishment so well. That’s what makes you good. That’s what makes you special.”

But can you imagine how it would feel to find a sacrifice you wanted to be there? Who begged to stay?

I reach inside me to find the strength—and grasp the hem of my tank top. It’s a completely different experience than stripping onstage, because I’m a different person. Onstage I’m Candy, the sexy, fearless, powerful woman who knows how to use her sexuality to get everything she wants. In this house, under Ivan’s pale gaze, I’m his little one, helpless and hopeful, afraid but eager to try.

He moves back just enough to let me pull off the tank top. My skin pebbles under the cool air. His eyes roam over me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Perfect,” he says, and relief washes through me. My Daddy wouldn’t lie to me.

He touches me again, cupping my breast as if I’m precious. It makes me push my shoulders back and thrust my breasts into his touch.

He makes a sound low in his throat. “That’s right. And I’m going to look at these while you lick my cock.”

I eye the erection jutting up from his pants. “Lick your c-c—”

“My cock,” he says patiently. “You see that drop right there on the tip? That means it’s ready for you to taste.”

“It does?”

“You’re going to drink a lot of it,” he says, a hint of wryness in his tone. “Good girls always swallow.”

“Oh.” I lean forward and breathe in the salty musk of him. Both of my hands grasp his cock, as if I’m preparing for something huge—and well, I am. He’s a lot bigger than I expected when he’s close to my face. The prospect of fitting him in my mouth is daunting. And this is a big step, maybe bigger than when he fucked me into the bed last night. Because this isn’t something he’s doing to me. It’s something we’re doing together.