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.”