I'm on top, but he's still in control, holding my hips where he wants them, pumping up into me. As he does, he licks his way along my neck, bites the sensitive skin right where it meets my shoulder. "I had a feeling you'd be this dirty, Pamona. So hungry for my cock … "
I groan softly in response and tighten my grip on him, arching my back to ride him faster. He thrusts up into me harder, keeping up a steady, building rhythm.
"Remember the first time you watched me come?" he murmurs. "I could tell you wanted me, even then."
I bite my lip. I won't admit it. But it doesn't matter.
He already knows.
His smile widens, and he catches my mouth in a quick, possessive kiss. "Was it worth the wait?" he asks, his breath hot on my face.
"Yes," I gasp, because what else can I say when he's still driving up into me.
"Good." He laughs softly. He searches my gaze again for a moment. "Because I really love watching you come."
That's when he reaches between us and presses his thumb to my clit. Rubs along it in quick, sharp circles as he continues to fuck me. I scream his name when I my orgasm crashes over me, and he just keeps fucking me, deeper and harder with each thrust, until he grips my hips painfully hard in both hands and groans with his own release, a deep, animal sound, low in his throat.
When he finishes, I lean in to kiss him softly, the scent of sex heavy in the air between us. "I like watching you, too," I admit in a whisper, and he laughs softly, but there's something in his eyes when they catch mine. There's a gap in the wall he's raised between us.
We pad from the study into the shower together, and we take turns lathering one another with soap. I'm rubbing his back, and I can see that he's starting to grow hard again, when I remember why I came looking for him in the first place. He turns around to take his turn soaping my back, and I turn away from him, facing the showerhead, watching the water stream down the wall. It's only because I can't see his face that I summon up the courage to ask.
"Why did you frame my sketch?" I ask.
His hands still against my back for a moment. They're still touching me, resting against the blades of my shoulders, but he doesn't move for a long time.
"One of the maids dropped it when I bumped into her this morning," I add. "She seemed like she didn't want me to see it; I felt bad."
"Don't," he says. But that's all the answer I get.
I look over my shoulder at last, and find a distant, lost expression in his eyes. He looks … sad. Extremely so.
I turn fully around and reach up to touch his chest gently. Lean in to kiss his neck softly. "What happened to you?" I ask softly, face buried in the crook of his neck. He shakes his head, but I realize even as I ask it that it's the wrong question. "What happened to your mother?"
He closes his eyes. Leans back against the shower wall. But he doesn't leave. When he opens his eyes again, they're red with the effort of holding in his emotions. "She was the one who taught me how to draw," he says. "She loved art; she loved all beautiful things … She was too good for this world." He shakes his head, lips clamped into a thin line. The hurt in his eyes slowly blossoms into anger. Rage like I've never seen before. "Someone hurt her when I was young. Attacked her. Raped her violently and repeatedly. He ruined her, and she couldn't stand knowing it. She killed herself a few months after."
He.
Suddenly, it all makes sense. Farrow's determination to destroy my father in the most public way possible. The video he wants me to record. The reason he chose this as his form of revenge.
My stomach hardens into a solid knot, and my vision swims before my eyes.
I knew my father was into some shady dealings. I knew he wasn't always a nice person. But business problems were one thing. This?
I come back to myself and realize I'm shaking my head. Whispering no, over and over again. Farrow has his hands around my arms, holding me in place, but I just keep shaking. "No," I say, louder. "He couldn't … " But the words die on my lips. Because deep down, I know he could.
And that's the scariest part.
I'm the daughter of a monster.
Farrow catches my eye, a sympathetic, pained look in his. "Yes, Pamona." He grimaces again. "After she passed … My father followed pretty soon after. Coronary attack, they said, but I knew what it really was. He died of a broken heart. I don't blame him. I nearly did too. I was only thirteen, and suddenly I had more money than I knew what to do with. Their entire fortune was mine, and I didn't give a shit. All I wanted was to make sure no one could get hurt like that again. When I finished school, I went into the security business-bodyguards, guns, cameras, everything. I can't change the past … But I can help protect the future."
He reaches up to cup my cheek gently. "That's why you're here. To make sure your father never hurts anyone again."
I shake away from his touch. I can't face him, not now. Not knowing what my father did, why I'm here paying the price for his evil actions. My father is the reason Farrow has suffered, his entire life. And how many other people did my father put into this position? How many other lives has he ruined while he kept me locked up in that house like a prize of his, as if he was a good person, as if he cared about my safety and not just about what the many people he'd ruined might do to me for the sake of revenge?
No wonder the staff in this house all glare at me. They know what my father did to a woman they all adored, a good woman, an artist like my own mother …
I brush Farrow away when he reaches for me again, push past him and stumble out of the shower. Grab my towel and run, headed somewhere I can be alone to think …
7
It's amazing how drunk you can get within a few hours when you really set your mind to it. I tell that to the fourth-or was this the fifth?-empty glass of whiskey in my hand, and then I pour myself another.
I can't stop picturing it. The night the police came to tell us Mom was gone. The note they showed us. The apology she penned, painstakingly, before she stepped off that bridge and crashed into the river that night.
And then I remember the other night. The night I snuck down to the kitchen, hearing shouting. There was a letter on the table, addressed to my father, but Betsy, our cook, opened it instead. Because she'd seen the name on the return address. She was ranting, throwing pots around, screaming "How dare he!"
My father finally came, tried to calm her down. I hid in the pantry and listened as Betsy explained. Mom and Betsy had been friends, closer than any of the other staff. Mom confided in Betsy a couple of nights before she died. Told her who attacked her, and how. Gave her all the gory details, which Betsy told my father, and I listened too, shaking, hidden in that cupboard.
"And now he has the nerve to send this," Betsy spat, thrusting the card at my father. "Calvin fucking Badiary sent you a condolence card and a check for one thousand dollars. As if that compensate for her life. As if that would make up for his savagery."
Dad wasn't the same after that. He didn't talk, not to Betsy, not to the staff, not to me, not to anyone. His business partners came by the house time and again, concerned, but we had to turn them away.
After he died, I found a journal in his drawer. He started it the night after that conversation with Betsy. Rambled about his many regrets. Memories of the years he worked hand-in-hand with Calvin, never suspecting what the man was really like. Notes about the times he should've realized something was wrong, like the Christmas party he brought Mom to, where Calvin called her a shooting star. Toward the end of the journal, the memories gave way to mad plans instead-notes on revenge, schemes my father never had time to put into place. He died before he could carry any of them out.
But me? I was still alive.
Revenge would be mine. Our revenge, on behalf of my entire family, since I'm the only one of us left.
I decided right from the start that killing Calvin wouldn't be enough. He thought he could send money for my mother like she was his whore? He thought he could take anyone and anything he wanted, and never pay the price?
I needed to make him suffer the way I've suffered. Emotionally ruin him.
I started following Pamona, knowing she was his closest family, the only one he truly cared about in the world. That night in the alley, I thought about letting those other men do the job. Attack her the way he attacked my mother.
But I couldn't bring myself to do what he did. I couldn't stoop to that level. I rescued her, and that night, the way that she gazed at me when I saved her from those men, I came up with a new plan.
I would make her mine.
Take her, make her addicted to me, and leave her broken-hearted. I knew she was a virgin, innocent and sheltered. I knew I could make her want me, love me, need me.