Beauty in the Broken

Lifting her, I pull my cock free and gather some of her arousal before easing her back onto me. She moans as I spread her wetness over her clit and up her crack. She rises on her knees and sinks down over my cock while I rub her little button the way she likes. She cries out when I sink a finger into her ass, and squirms when I start to pump.

“Damian.”

“Come.”

I took her only a few hours ago, but we both explode as if we’ve been abstaining for months. Her ass and pussy clench with sporadic aftershocks as I empty myself, making sure every drop is spilled inside her. Spent, I lean back in the chair, bringing her with me. She wraps her arms around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder. I revel in the power of holding her like this, of rubbing my hands over her arms and not feeling her shiver with repulsion. I would’ve liked to stay like this forever, but our conversation isn’t over. I need to warn her of my intention with Dalton. She knows I’m going after him, but she deserves to know what I plan. She needs to be prepared.

I start carefully. “There’s no love lost between you and your father.”

“He’s not my father.”

I freeze. What? This is news.

“I’m a result of my mother’s affair.”

Well, hell. That explains a lot. It certainly explains Dalton’s animosity toward her. “Who’s your father?”

“I don’t know. My mother never said.”

To protect her lover, no doubt. “I thought Dalton doted on you.”

“He hates me, almost as much as I hate him.”

Fuck. If she didn’t accept my marriage proposal to save Dalton, then why did she? “If he’s not your father, and you don’t care for him, why try to get him the evidence? What hold does he have on you?”

She pulls away to look at me. The sight of her face, cheeks pale and eyes hollow, stills me. It not only scares me. It terrifies me. I’ve never seen her like this, not even when I tied her up, gagged, and caned her.

“I did something terrible, Damian.” She exhales on a tremulous breath. “I killed a man.” Her hands lie calmly on my shoulders, but it’s in her twisted expression that the storm prevails. With my cock still inside her body, she makes her confession. “I shot Jack, and I’m not sorry.”

I start at the divulgence. Holy damn. It’s the last thing I expected. I try to picture Lina with a shotgun in her hand but fail to conjure the image.

“My arms,” she continues, “Jack did this to me.” A tremor runs over her body. “He locked me up and starved me until I agreed to give him my body. I gave him sex for food.”

My shock explodes into a fury from hell, but I bottle it up and twist the lid on my anger to keep her talking.

“Every scar is a notch of victory, a reminder of what he won.”

That son of a dead bitch. I’ll have his gravestone flattened to the ground and crushed. It’s a good thing Lina killed him, or I would’ve given him the slow death he deserved.

“I fell pregnant,” she says, her voice so soft I have to strain my ears to hear.

She what? Sweet Mother of Jesus. Her baby. This is the baby she mentioned before I whipped her unconscious. I can’t formulate a question. My brain won’t function. It’s stuck on her words. I fell pregnant.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen. He was upset, angry enough to throw me through a window.”

The self-mutilation, hunger strike, locking herself in, jumping through a window, all of it was Clarke. Her dead husband imprisoned and tortured her. I was wrong. Clarke didn’t come to her with kindness. He came to her with cruelty. Dalton must’ve known about Clarke’s sadistic tendencies. They were too close for ignorance. I can’t speak for the fear of losing it.

A single tear drips from her eye and runs over her cheek. “The fall… The placenta ruptured. I lost the baby.” Her lips start to quiver even as she bravely meets my gaze. “I came back from the clinic, took a gun, and shot Jack. When I came to my senses, the housekeeper was already calling Harold.”

The bastard used it to his advantage to control her. “Dalton covered it up to look like a suicide and sent you to Willowbrook while taking over the management of your inheritance.”

Her answer is a broken sob. “Yes.”

That’s what he’s holding over her head. “He’s threatening to tell the truth if you don’t give him the evidence.”

“He won’t tell me what he did with my baby’s body. That’s what he’ll give me in exchange for the evidence.”

She’s breaking down on the outside, trying bravely to conceal her shivering and hold in her tears. Me, I’m falling to pieces for her on the inside.