Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

“Honest?” he asks softly. “While you’re so busy being honest, why don’t you tell me why you freaked out when I had you on your stomach?”

My stomach turns over. Flashes of memory assault me—the plush carpet underneath me, the faint smell of cigars and ink. All that’s missing is hot breath and groping hands. It’s too similar, too much. I stumble backward, almost falling against the shelves.

Giovanni reaches up to steady me, but it feels like an attack.

His touch burns me, and I twist away, knocking over a small si

de table. “No!”

“Tell me,” he says, eyes dark and determined. “Someone hurt you, bella, and I’m not going to rest until you tell me who.”

Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision. I trip over the edge of the rug, skidding on the hardwood floors. Pain shoots up my knees at the harsh impact burn. “You’re hurting me.”

Giovanni lifts me as if I weigh nothing, turning me in the air until we’re back at the desk. We’re on the other side, now facing the stained glass mirror at the back, but it’s still too close. He turns me onto my stomach, facedown, palms pushing at the smooth surface. I’m gasping for breath, begging and pleading and threatening. The wood grain with the knot that looks like a scary face, the one shaped like an acorn. My memories slide down to a dark place. No.

He bends over me from behind, his breath warm against my cheek. “Who are you thinking about?”

“You, you,” I cry out, ragged and breathless. “Let me go.”

His hold on me is merciless. I can’t lever away, can’t move a single muscle. “Who hurt you? Was it someone at the university? That fucker I punched in the alley?”

“No no no.” The words are small, almost a breath.

He presses his body against mine, erection hard and hot and familiar. “The one who married your sister? Someone touched you, bella. Tell me and I’ll let you go. Who was it?”

“My father,” I scream with a hard sob against the cool, unfeeling wood. How many times was I bent over this desk? How many times did I press my lips together not to make a sound?

Cold air washes over my back, and I realize I’m free. Giovanni stands a few feet away from me, looking shell-shocked. “Your father?”

I stand and wrap my hands around my stomach, shaking. “I never wanted you to know.”

“I don’t understand. I thought for sure it was someone after you left here. He was hurting you?”

“Just stop,” I say, my voice dull.

He takes a step closer, his hand reaching out, and I flinch away.

He freezes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t tell you or anyone. He told me he’d have anyone killed if I told them.”

“Honor?” he asks between clenched teeth.

“I don’t think he hurt her. Only me because I wasn’t his real daughter. He told me I couldn’t tell her or I’d be sent away. And I didn’t want to leave her, even if that meant putting up with him.”

“He…” A hard swallow. “He raped you.”

“No,” I say bitterly. “I was telling the truth when I said I was a virgin. He liked to call me into his office because I’d done something wrong. Maybe I had been sketching instead of doing my history homework. So he’d tell me to bend over the desk for punishment.”

Giovanni’s hands are clenched into fists, his large body trembling with rage. “Why?”

I know what he’s asking. Not why did it happen, but why didn’t I tell him. “What would you have done, Gio? If I told you my father would spank me without my panties on, that he would feel me up while he did it?”

“I would have killed him,” he says, his voice rough with venom.

“I know,” I say, suddenly weary. “I know you would have. I didn’t doubt that. That’s why I could never tell you. You would have killed him, but he had an entire army at his disposal. You would have been killed first—or if not first, definitely after.”

“Who the fuck cares?” he asks roughly. “I was nobody. I was nothing. It didn’t matter what happened to me. You should have told me so I could protect you.”